AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This chapter plays off of Chapter 3 of my first story in this series, "Sibling Rivalry", so be sure to read that (if you haven't already) before reading this chapter!

Chapter 13: A House Is Not a Home

SEBASTIAN

"Home at last," Sebastian said as he entered the living room, flopping on his back onto the couch.

The siblings had just returned to the house moments earlier after spending their day hitting baseballs, playing mini golf, and getting frozen yogurt. On the drive home, they'd swung by Panda Express and had themselves a cheap, greasy dinner (that they'd all probably regret later on).

Now, though it was still early, all Sebastian wanted to do was relax. Once he'd deposited himself in the living room, the other three had followed close behind.

The living room was pretty sizable, which was why Sebastian guessed it wasn't that big of a deal when the Abramses decided to turn the second sitting room into Artie's bedroom after the accident. There was a big flatscreen television set, a large sectional, two sort of stiff armchairs across from it, and a coffee table between them all. Sebastian always preferred the couch.

Upon following Sebastian into the living room, Ella sat down on the other side of the sofa and Seb bent his legs to give her some more room. Griffin took a seat in one of the chairs, and Artie set his brake before transferring onto the other. After the glare that Artie had given him that morning, Sebastian had been more conscious about not staring as Artie moved to and from his chair. He wasn't sure if Artie had noticed or not, but he hoped he had.

"Wanna do the movie night we didn't get to do last night?" Griffin suggested, leaning forward and reaching for the television remote that sat on the coffee table. "Art, you're the movie expert here. Got any good recs for us?"

"Something feel-good or rom-com?" Ella asked hopefully, looking to her older brothers as Griff passed Artie the remote. Sebastian guessed that she was used to being outnumbered in a setting like this, being the only girl and all, but he wasn't about to protest Ella's request since he had a guilty pleasure soft spot for those genres as well.

Artie, the most cinematically-informed sibling of the bunch, took a moment to think before a wicked grin spread across his face– an expression that Sebastian was very well-versed in himself, but had never seen Artie wear before.

"I've got just the thing."

Artie transferred back into his chair and went over to the built-in cabinets below the TV, where Sebastian knew the family's extensive collection of DVDs was located. Artie ran the tip of his index finger along the spines of several cases before pulling out the perfect one and slipping the disc into the DVD player. A few clicks on the remote later, the opening title sequence of the 2005 comedy Yours, Mine & Ours began to play on the screen.

"Ooh, nice one, Art!" Griffin praised Artie, reaching to clap him on the shoulder as he moved back onto the chair next to him, and Artie looked perfectly smug at his choice as well.

Sebastian had to give this one to Artie; the movie choice was incredibly fitting. It's about a widowed Coast Guard Admiral, Frank, with eight kids who reconnects with his high school flame Helen– who is also widowed and has ten kids of her own. The parents surprise their kids with a spontaneous engagement– before any of the kids have even met their parent's new significant other– and they move into a huge house where the children of the two families continue to fight like cats and dogs throughout the film.

During the first ten minutes of the movie, Sebastian found himself relating to it more and more. He understood the shock and subsequent outrage that William and Christina– Frank's eldest kids– expressed during the family's sit-down meeting where Frank tells them that he's engaged to a woman they've never met and that they're going to have to pack up all of their things and move into a new house. The movie selection paralleled his present life quite a bit, and though Sebastian had seen the movie a million times, he'd never watched it with the perspective he had now.

And he had a feeling that that was Artie's plan all along, to evoke these kinds of thoughts from him.

Artie was incredibly smart– Sebastian hadn't needed to live with him to notice that, he picked that up right away– so it didn't take a genius to figure out that Artie had chosen this movie for a reason. He was using the art of cinematic storytelling to say what he wanted Sebastian and the others to hear without having to say the words himself.

Either that, or he just wanted to be an ironic asshole. Both were real and definite possibilities.

"Imagine living somewhere like that! It's like a lighthouse!" Ella commented, mesmerized by the booming white fixer-upper mansion beside the sea that somehow was able to fit both parents and all eighteen kids.

Artie wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "Too many stairs."

While Ella was focused on how cool the family's new house was, all Sebastian could do was watch as the kids lugged all of their boxes inside. He watched as the teenagers on the screen were told that they were going to have to share intimate spaces with those who knew nothing about them, and who they knew nothing about. It was reminiscent for him of what it had been like to be the outsider moving into the Abrams' house. Luckily, he didn't have to share a room with anybody, but regardless, Artie's movie choice was still bringing up some memories that Sebastian hadn't been expecting.

Seb must have subconsciously been wearing some sort of very-focused face while his eyes were glued to the screen, because it didn't go unnoticed by Griffin.

"Hey man, you good?"

Sebastian snapped out of his thoughts and nodded. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"Anything you want to talk about?" Griff asked. "You look distant. Like you're on some other planet."

Artie and Ella's attention was on Sebastian now too, and so he just shrugged.

"I was just thinking about… About when I moved in here. And what that was like. Having to just pack up and- and leave like that to move in with some kids I didn't even know. No offense."

The Abrams kids looked around at one another. Clearly, none of them had ever considered how it must have felt to find out your dad is engaged to a woman you've only met a handful of times, have to pack up everything you own and move an hour away, and end up sharing a bathroom with kids you've never met before. They'd gotten to stay in their house, after all. The only thing that was new in their lives was having to adjust to having a few more bodies around.

"What… what was that like?" Artie asked hesitantly, being the one out of the three of them to speak up and ask what they were all surely thinking.

Sebastian raised his eyebrows and shook his head slightly as he let out a sigh. Where could he even begin? And could he pour himself a glass of red wine first?

Lima, Ohio

December 2011

"You liked Artie and Ella the other night, right?" Sebastian's father asked as he drove their rented U-Haul from their old house in Marion to where the Abrams family lived in Lima.

"Yeah, sure," Sebastian replied with a nonchalant shrug. He didn't want to clue his father in as to why he was dreading this move. He and Artie were determined to keep their issues between themselves, and he wouldn't be the one to ruin that for them both.

"They're good kids. I've heard Nancy say that her eldest son, Griffin, played football and basketball in high school. Maybe he's a Browns fan and you guys can bond over that."

"Maybe."

Harrison pulled up to a grey two-story house, and Sebastian gazed at it out the window. It wasn't terribly big– probably close to the same size as the house that Sebastian and Harrison had just moved out of. Only then, there had been just two of them living there. He wasn't sure how they'd manage with six.

"Here we are," Harrison said, parking the truck in the driveway and shutting off the ignition.

Sebastian's father was far more eager than he was, and he'd already exited the vehicle and opened the back hatch before Sebastian had even mustered the will to unbuckle his seatbelt.

"Hey! Welcome to Lima!" Sebastian heard an unfamiliar voice say as soon as he'd finally exited the vehicle.

Sebastian turned around and was met with who he assumed was Griffin Abrams, jogging down the driveway from the house's three-car garage. He was wearing grey sweatpants and a red t-shirt that showed off his muscular arms. Sebastian noticed his curly dark hair that showed from under the Ohio State baseball hat he was wearing. When he came closer and Sebastian was able to see his bright blue eyes, Seb was able to recognize the clear resemblance between him and Artie.

"Griffin Abrams," He confirmed, sticking his hand out to Harrison first before doing the same to Sebastian. "It's nice to finally meet you both."

He turned only to Sebastian as he said the next part, though.

"Artie's told me a lot about you."

Griffin's handshake was strong, and the way he was unwavering in his intense eye contact told Sebastian that Artie had filled Griffin in on the situation completely and that very few good things (if any at all) were said.

Sebastian couldn't stop himself from looking over Griffin's shoulder at Artie– who had followed Griffin outside but hung back at a distance. He had his hands clasped in his lap, wearing the ugliest yellow fingerless gloves Sebastian had ever seen. Seb could see the way the skin between Artie's eyebrows was pinched together as he narrowed his eyes behind his black-framed glasses.

"He has, has he?" Sebastian replied, not moving his gaze from Artie.

Sebastian subconsciously shivered as he pulled his hand back from Griffin's grip, and crossed his arms to retain his body heat. There was a December chill in the air, and even though he was in a long-sleeve shirt, Sebastian found himself wishing he'd thought to wear a coat or hoodie over it. It was then that Sebastian noticed that Artie was wearing a McKinley High letterman jacket. He assumed it was Griffin's at first until he noticed that it had 'A. Abrams #34' embroidered on the sleeve. Sebastian wondered what team's mascot Artie'd been recruited to be, to have received a jacket like that.

"Let us know how we can help you guys out," Griffin addressed Harrison and Sebastian. "Mom and Ella are inside, but they'll be more helpful when it comes to unpacking and organizing anyway. Us guys are the strong ones."

Sebastian successfully kept his facial expression neutral and managed not to laugh at that as his father showed Griffin the inside of the U-Haul.

"We've got a couple of big pieces of furniture in the back there, but we'll have to move these boxes out of the way first," Harrison said, pointing.

Griffin nodded before hopping into the back of the truck and picking up two cardboard boxes at a time and handing them to Artie who promptly turned and brought them inside before returning for more. Sebastian followed Griffin's lead, unloading a bunch of boxes filled with clothing and small belongings and setting them on the driveway.

"We've cleared most of the smaller boxes out of the way now, so I think we can start carrying in the bigger pieces of furniture," Griffin commented about ten minutes later. "Here, Sebastian, come help your dad and me move this dresser. Artie can handle the boxes."

Sebastian nodded and glanced down at the box he was holding. He turned to Artie– who looked just as displeased with Griffin's suggestion as he was– and set it on the other guy's lap. They held uncomfortable eye contact for a moment too long before Artie adjusted the box on his lap and unlocked his wheels, doing a sharp pivot and heading back up the driveway in the direction of the house.

Sebastian did as he was told, helping Griffin and his father bring the heavy pieces of furniture inside. When the U-Haul was completely unloaded, the home's entryway and living room were a complete and total mess. In addition to the furniture and garment bags of hanging clothes containing Harrison's dress clothes and Sebastian's pressed Dalton Academy uniforms that had been brought inside, cardboard moving boxes had piled up, because even though he could manage the task of getting the boxes from the driveway into the house, Artie couldn't very well get them upstairs where they belonged.

"Hi, honey," Nancy greeted her fiancé as she entered the foyer from the kitchen, wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing. "Hello to you too, Sebastian. Easy drive from Marion?"

"Couldn't have been smoother," Harrison confirmed, putting an arm around his bride-to-be's waist as he kissed her.

"Good, I'm glad. I've got a pot roast that's almost ready. Griff and Ella, why don't you help Sebastian bring his stuff upstairs?" Nancy suggested, gesturing to the mess before them. "Your room is the first one on the left, sweetie," She warmly told Sebastian before turning her attention to her own teenage son. "Artie, I could use your help finishing up dinner."

"So then I went upstairs and, you know, Artie and I spent the rest of the day actively avoiding one another," Sebastian said, unable to stop himself from smirking at the ridiculousness of that as he pointedly looked in Artie's direction. "I'm not really sure how we managed to do that without the parents noticing, since this house isn't that big, but we did."

Artie smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. It was funny, the way that even though Sebastian didn't know Artie all that well, he could still tell the differences between the two.

He didn't have time to dwell on that realization, though, because the movie grabbed their attention just then as all of the children in the movie became involved in an incredibly loud and messy brawl while completing their household chores, causing a huge (and very entertaining) ruckus to unfold.

"You're just going to have to pretend to like each other until you actually do!" Dennis Quaid's character– a put-together father who kept his fleet of children on a strict military-like schedule– advised the kids on the television, exasperated by their actions and the mess they'd created.

Sebastian caught Artie's eye just then for only a moment before Artie turned his head back towards the TV. Even with just a quick glance that lasted only a split second, Sebastian knew what Artie was thinking. Would that be what they had to do too? Pretend to get along for the rest of eternity, just for the sake of their parents? Seb sure hoped not.

Beside Sebastian, Ella had stretched out on the couch, promptly setting her legs in his lap. He was surprised to realize that he didn't mind at all, even if she was encroaching upon his personal space a little bit. He supposed that was some sort of growth.

"So… What happened once you went upstairs?" Ella asked.

Griffin and Ella had done as their mother asked and helped Sebastian to bring up the seemingly never-ending string of cardboard boxes and hanging clothes into his new room.

The room was close to empty, with just a twin-sized trundle bed against the far wall and a simple wooden bedside table. Nancy had made up the bed before they'd arrived, putting on new sheets, a comforter, and fluffy new pillows. Sebastian's dresser and desk from the old house in Marion had made the trip to Lima, and his father and Griffin had helped carry those upstairs for him before dinner. He supposed the space was beginning to feel a bit homier.

Now, after the meal, it was time to begin unpacking everything and give each thing its rightful spot in the new space. Sebastian didn't pride himself on being the most organized person in the world– he was a teenage boy, after all– but he did appreciate a little bit of order here and there.

As Sebastian went to set a stack of neatly folded hoodies onto one of the shelves in his closet, something on the door frame caught his eye. He bent down on one knee, squinting his eyes at all of the pencil markings leading halfway up the closet door frame.

'Artie– 4 years old'. 'Artie– 6 ½ years old'. 'Artie– 8 years old'.

Then they stopped.

"Hey."

Sebastian jerked up and spun around, coming face-to-face with Griffin. His heart was racing, as if he'd been caught looking at things that he shouldn't be seeing.

"Uh. Hi."

"I found another box downstairs that we forgot to bring up earlier," Griffin said, by way of explanation. "Here."

Sebastian wiped his suddenly clammy hands on his pants before taking the box from Griffin's hands.

"Thanks."

Then it was Griffin who took a few steps forward, leaning down to inspect the same markings that Sebastian had just been focused on a minute before. He ran his thumb gently over the fading words carved into the frame.

"We all have these on our door frames," He explained. "It was Mom's idea. She started when I was really little, and we stopped after… well, after everything." Griffin looked at the markings one more time before straightening up. "I made sure to keep up with El's though. Hers is up-to-date."

Sebastian was quiet. He didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure what Griffin meant by 'everything', but he didn't want to ask. Not now.

The older boy went to leave the room before stopping abruptly and turning back around. Sebastian watched as Griffin stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and glanced around the room.

"Artie is… He's taking all of this pretty hard," Griffin shared, taking his baseball hat off and running his hand through his hair before replacing it.

Griffin had a cautious, almost guilty, expression on his face, as if he was betraying Artie by simply being in the room alone with Sebastian. He looked like he wasn't sure how much he was allowed to share.

"You know, having a step-dad and step-brother, and having someone move in here… Our parents' divorce is still hard for him, I think. Harder than he'd like to admit, anyway. And this room has been empty since… well, since it was his." Griffin gestured to the markings on the door frame. "Forgive him if he seems a little cold. He tends to be that way at first. But he's the best of us. You'll see. Just takes him a little longer to warm up, is all."

Sebastian's face softened at that. So much so that he'd momentarily forgotten about the jerky façade that he was supposed to be putting up.

Wordlessly, he nodded. Griffin gave him a tight-lipped smile and an almost imperceptible nod in return before exiting the room, leaving Sebastian standing in the room alone, the final cardboard box still in his hands.

Sebastian watched as Artie and Griffin exchanged a glance. Clearly, this was the first that Artie was hearing about this conversation between Griffin and Sebastian. Oops.

To Sebastian's surprise, Artie was the first to clear his throat and speak.

"Honestly? I was pissed when you moved in. And into my old room, at that, which is complicated in and of itself," Artie shared, using his hands to cross his legs before shifting in his seat. "But the first time I felt that maybe– just maybe– you were sort-of-kind-of okay and maybe even… fun… was the Harry Potter movie marathon."

The memory elicited a smirk from Sebastian. Truthfully, he'd forgotten all about it until Artie brought it up. That had been a pretty good time.

"You dorks had a Harry Potter marathon?!" Griffin asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"All eight movies, all weekend long," Sebastian confirmed.

"Yeah, except you talked through the whole sixth movie," Artie reminded him, rolling his eyes to emphasize his annoyance. "You're lucky I've seen it a million times and read the whole series as a kid, or else I would have no recollection of what happened– just of you blabbing your head off!"

Sebastian knew he had a bit of a bad habit of talking through movies– his brain just worked so quickly that he always had lots to say and he wanted to share his thoughts as soon as they came to him. He quickly learned that Artie-the-film-feen was not the same way and that he did not appreciate the constant interruptions, or whenever people's attention was not solely dedicated to the art form on the screen. The fact that Artie was letting them talk through Yours, Mine & Ours right now was some kind of miracle in itself.

Luckily, nobody seemed to mind that Sebastian had been talking over the majority of the movie. It was a classic from their childhoods, but that meant that all four of the siblings had seen it dozens of times and didn't mind missing out on the middle stuff in order to listen as Sebastian recalled what it had been like for him when he was the one moving all of his belongings into the home that the other kids had lived in all their lives.

They were nearing the movie's climax now, when the soon-to-be step-siblings in the movie aren't able to find common ground with one another, and their grand idea is to cause their parents to fight so that they'll call off their engagement and break up. Sebastian– while not entirely thrilled about their current arrangement– was at least mature enough to recognize that that wasn't a suitable solution. With Nancy, his father was the happiest Sebastian had seen him in years. Since before his mom passed away, probably. He would never want to take that happiness away from him for anything, especially not over something as decidedly juvenile as whatever conflict was going on between himself and Artie.

In the movie, the North and Beardsley kids' plan is successful, but by the time their parents want to call it quits on their relationship, the kids regret what they've done because they have all come to actually enjoy one another's company more than any of them would care to admit.

"Does this mean you're not going to be my brother anymore?" Aldo– the youngest North kid– asked one of the younger Beardsley boys, and Sebastian's heart just about broke.

Because whether he realized it until this moment or not, he already loved each of the Abrams kids in their own way. And he had no idea what he'd do without them.

Sebastian knew that he didn't know Griffin and Ella all that well yet and that he and Artie were both sort of still on thin ice, but even if they weren't getting along perfectly just yet, they were about to be family. And family are the people you love regardless of everything else going on in your life. Sebastian had made some mistakes in the Artie department already, he knew that, and he really was sorry (well, sorry about most of it, anyway). But he already loved Artie despite it all, and Ella and Griff too.

He'd only lived here for four months, but Sebastian was sure that he had never had a house that felt so much like a home to him. When Seb had lived with only his father, he'd often return home after school to a dark, empty house. Now, he was grateful for the noise, for the fighting and camaraderie that came along with having siblings. A house may not make a home, but the people who live inside of it sure do.

So whether it was four kids or eighteen, step-siblings could take some getting used to– Seb knew that now. But if Phoebe and Christina– the teenage step-sisters from the movie who were complete opposites of one another– could put aside their differences for the sake of coming together as siblings… Sebastian wondered why it would be so difficult for himself and Artie to do the same. Was there some hope out there for them, too?