"No," Barry gives her a tight smile, "I do think you knew what you were saying." Barry flees the room after he said his piece.

"Barry!" Sebastian calls after his brother in the deserted hall, "Barry!"

"What?" Barry sneers, pulling Sebastian with him into an empty room. Barry slides down to the floor and Sebastian follows suit. "What do you want? To tell me something horrible too?"

"No. Never." Sebastian gently promises. Barry angrily wipes at the tears running down his cheeks and curls deeper into himself on the floor. Sebastian slides closer to his brother and wraps an arm around him. "What she said was out of line."

"She didn't really mean it." Barry pathetically defends Iris.

"It still doesn't give her the right to throw that in your face, even if she didn't mean it." Sebastian corrects, "And you shouldn't feel obligated to protect her or even forgive her until she has seen what she's done wrong and apologized."

"But-"

"No." Sebastian firmly states, "She needs to be in a rational state of mind when she apologizes so she knows what she did."

Barry deflates against Sebastian's side. "It's just so easy to cave and defend her; brush off what she did."

"And that's not good for your health. You can't be a push-over to her or she might start abusing that. She might already abuse that and that's not any good for your mental health." Sebastian tries to pull Barry closer to his side, "Actually, I think it's excellent that you're at Dalton with me. It gets you away from all the bad connotations of Central."

"But Central is home…"

"I didn't say it wasn't." Sebastian gently agrees, "But I'm just saying that it's probably good for you to be away from this place for most of the year. At least until after you graduate college."

"I know that you're right…" Barry trails off.

Sebastian shrugs, "I know it can be hard to leave a place. I grew up mostly in Paris with my mother's family. That man who claims to be my father drug me away from there and brought us here to America because of his precious company. Though I am glad that it brought me you."

"Sap." Barry smiles at his brother, "You're a big sap."

"Oh shut up." He says without heat.

Barry curls into his brother and gives him a proper hug, "Thank you."

"That's what I'm here for." Sebastian shrugs off his thanks. "Now come on, let's go back to the room and tell them that we're heading home for the evening. Iris can stay or go with us."

"I don't know if…"

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, "You can face Iris at the moment?"

"Yeah…"

"You're gonna have to at some point." Sebastian points out.

"I guess." Barry concedes. "Let's go then."

Sebastian pulls Barry up after himself and gently leads them back to Joe's room. Iris tries to hug-attack Barry as soon as he enters the room, but backs off after a glare from his twin. Barry shrugs at Iris and proceeds to ignore the room in favor of his phone. "Barry and I are heading back to the house." Sebastian informs the Wests.

"I should be able to get out tomorrow afternoon." Joe informs the twins, "So I think you should go back to the house with the boys, Iris. Order in a pizza and watch a movie or something." Joe gently nudges his daughter, "I'll be fine."

Iris looks torn, but finally caves to her father's wishes. "But I'll be back tomorrow bright and early."

"You have school." Joe threatens, "I won't have you missing out on a day of classes just because some guy got a cheap shot on my arm."

"But-"

"No." Joe lays down the law, "I'll still be here- or at home on the couch- when you get released for Thanksgiving break."

"Fine." Iris mumbles before giving her father another hug.

Barry darts in to give Joe a hug while Sebastian gives the older man a kind smile from his position in front of the doorway. "Better get going or the nurses will kick us out." Sebastian jokes, earning weak chuckles from the others.

The twins and Iris give Joe a final farewell and head out of the hospital and climb into Sebastian's vehicle. On the way back to the West house, Iris calls in for a couple pizzas so they make a pit stop at the pizza place before they finally pull into the house's drive. Barry creeps out of the car and into the house, hiding himself upstairs in his bedroom before Iris has a chance to say anything else to him. Sebastian shrugs at Iris and takes their pizzas up to the room with him.

"Hey." Sebastian calls as he steps into the room. "What's up?"

"I can't deal with Iris' puppy dog eyes anymore. She's been giving them to me since we stepped back into Joe's room."

Sebastian glares angrily at the door, "She really has no room to be guilting you."

"Seb…" Barry sighs, tired. "Can we just eat the pizza and go to sleep?"

"Yeah, sure, that sounds good." Sebastian easily agrees, pulling the greasy pizza boxes up to the desk and handing a slice to his brother. "Looks like she knows your favorite."

Barry rolls his eyes, "I'm sure she's trying to make up for what she said."

"Well, it's a start." Sebastian snaps.

"She was just upset…"

"We're not going there again." Sebastian tells his brother, "We've been over this and I'm standing strong by what I've said and it seems like you've already taken some of it to heart."

Barry sighs again, "I'm a push-over by nature."

"Then we'll just have to get you thicker skin when it comes to family. I just don't want to see you hurt is all."

"Thank you, Seb."

"Like I've said before, it's what brothers are for." Sebastian smiles over at Barry before shoving his slice of pizza in his mouth. "Now c'mon, what do you have in your Netflix que? I need to watch something or else I think I'll go crazy!"

Barry laughs at his brother's dramatics. "Well I have this nature documentary that I've been wanting to watch…" He pleads hopefully.

"Fine, you nerd, we'll watch your nature documentary."

Barry gives Sebastian a beaming smile, "Awesome!"

Barry drags his laptop up to the bed and the twins settle in for a couple hours of a bland narrator voice describing the wonders of the Amazon.

Early the next morning the twins wake up with bits of pizza in their hair, the laptop dead at their feet and the two of them smushed together in a huge pile of boy. Barry tries to dislodge Sebastian from his arm, but ends up sending his brother to the floor. Barry peeks over the edge to look at a grumpy Sebastian. "Was that really necessary?" He grumbles.

"Sorry!" Barry sends doe eyes towards the other boy, "My arm was asleep and I was just trying to get it out from under you!"

Sebastian huffs and picks himself up off the floor, "I guess I can forgive you."

"Oh thank you Sebby, you don't know how much that means to me!" Barry simpers, a smirk firm on his face. Barry promptly stands up from the bed and makes his way towards the hall bathroom.

"Shut up you little brat!" Sebastian throws at his brother's retreating back, causing Barry to giggle in amusement as he dodges the projectile. Sebastian groans and smothers his smile with another pillow before he gets up and starts to get dressed. A few minutes later the two tramp down to the kitchen and Sebastian pulls out some food to make them both breakfast with the sounds of the light rain that had just begun to fall making for rather soothing background noise.

Barry smashes his head down on the counter and watches as Sebastian moves around the room. "I still feel terrible about the Iris thing."

"You really shouldn't, it's her fault."

"I know." Barry sighs, "And I think that's why I feel even worse."

Sebastian turns around to give his brother a look, "That's not healthy for you Barr."

Barry groans, "I knoooooow!"

Sebastian sighs and puts down the egg carton. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"Just keep telling me that I shouldn't feel guilty because it's not my fault."

"That," Sebastian cracks a smile as he says, "I can do."

The boys share a quiet breakfast and an equally quiet dish duty. "So are we going to visit Joe?" Sebastian asks his brother, ignoring the loud crash of thunder.

Barry shrugs, "That sounds good. He can tell us when he gets out and we can go from there."

Sebastian nods, "Alright. Go get your shoes on and I'll find my keys."

As the two are walking out the door, Sebastian following his brother with an umbrella that Barry had forgotten, the storm slightly picks up from when they had woke up. Sebastian turns around to lock the house door and Barry stands just off the porch in his drenched hoodie. Another crack of thunder causes Sebastian to jump and drop the keys before he could get the door to lock and then laugh at himself for being so silly. Another crack sounded only a minute after the last. This one was deafening, like it was right over them.

When his ears stopped ringing, Sebastian turned around to check on his brother. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.