Chapter 7: Trio

SEBASTIAN

After finishing three-quarters of a bottle of wine by himself the night before, Sebastian was awfully slow-moving the next morning. But, lucky for him, that was the best part about summer. It may be a Wednesday morning, but he didn't have any obligations and therefore got to stay in bed for as long as he pleased.

Around eleven o'clock, however, he did surface, and after getting dressed and completing his elaborate ten-step skincare routine, he came down to the kitchen for breakfast just as Ella was getting some last-minute tryout prep from Artie.

"Don't rush anything, even if you get nervous," Artie warned her. "There's no prize for being the fastest tumbler on the mat, but it will pay off if you're the one with the best technique."

"I know, I know," Ella rolled her eyes. "You've told me that a million times."

"And yet, it still hasn't sunk in, has it?" Artie replied, looking at her pointedly and raising an eyebrow.

Sebastian almost had to do a double-take when he first saw Ella, sitting at the kitchen island munching on a granola bar. Wearing a red Nike athletic tank top and black Nike Pro spandex shorts, with her hair fastened up in a trademark Cheerios curly ponytail, she looked so much older than just her going-on-fourteen years. In that instant, Sebastian understood why Artie had initially been so against her trying out. She already looked like a completely different person, and she hadn't even made the team yet.

"Lookin' good, El!" Sebastian complimented her as he entered the kitchen, pouring himself a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. "I like the hair," he added, taking a bite of his breakfast.

"Thanks," she said. "Quinn says that Coach Sylvester is very particular when it comes to the way that everyone's hair is. She says that if she sees any flyaways, the whole team will have to run a lap around the school!"

"Well, you're welcome to help yourself to my hair gel in the bathroom," Seb offered. "At Dalton, they're pretty particular about it, too."

"That explains why Blaine's hair is always so gelled down that it looks like a helmet," Artie commented. "That thing is as hard as a rock."

Sebastian shrugged. "If it's not coiffed, it has to be gelled," he said. "Personally, I prefer the coif, but sometimes when I'm running late and have to get on the road so I that don't hit rush hour traffic on the way toward the city, I'll settle for the gel to save time."

Sebastian shoveled the last spoonful of Frosted Flakes into his mouth, then held the bowl up to his lips and tipped his head back, downing what remained of the sugary milk. He placed his bowl in the sink to be dealt with later, presumably by Artie, who always tended to be cleaning up after everyone.

This is how mornings typically were in their house; it was pretty quiet with just their little trio home, and they didn't see that changing any time soon. Nancy and Harrison typically left for the office before the sun had fully risen, and now that Griff had an internship there, he got a ride from them in the mornings. Artie was always awake next, followed lastly by Sebastian and Ella, who liked to sleep in and get their beauty rest.

"Quinn texted and said to tell you to make sure your motions are sharp in your jumps," Artie told her, reading his girlfriend's message off of his phone. "She said that stuff like that will really set you apart from the other girls, especially as an incoming freshman. See? Technique matters."

"Alright, alright, she gets it," Sebastian cut in, coming to Ella's rescue, as he was sick of hearing Artie overload her with tips and critiques. She looked spooked– not at all like the carefree girl she usually was– and Sebastian guessed that Artie's words were starting to do her more harm than good.

It was then that Sebastian noticed the half-eaten plate of eggs that sat in front of Artie on the lowered countertop. He wasn't quite sure if Artie was having himself a super late breakfast or an early lunch, but he supposed that it didn't really matter. All Seb cared about was the half a plate of eggs that needed to be eaten, and he wasn't prepared to let them go to waste. "You gonna finish those?"

Artie shook his head and nudged the plate toward Seb, who smiled greedily and accepted it. Artie liked to put hot sauce on his eggs, and while that typically would have turned Sebastian away, he just ate around it. He wasn't planning on complaining, though, since he didn't have to make the food himself.

A few years ago, he would have gagged at just the thought of the eggs' texture in his mouth, but he'd finally made some small progress in that department. While he still preferred them in the form of a bagel sandwich or something of that nature, he'd take what he could get when it came to extra breakfast food.

"Hey, we should leave soon," Artie warned Ella, checking the watch he wore on his wrist. "You said tryouts start at noon?"

Ella nodded, standing up and slinging her bag over one shoulder.

"Okay, cool," Artie told her before pivoting and preparing to push off toward his bedroom. "I'm gonna go get my gloves and my keys and we can hit the road. You coming, Seb?"

Seb shrugged and nodded. "Sure, why not? I'll come to see Miss Ella off."

Ella had begun filling up her water bottle from the dispenser on the front of the fridge as Sebastian whispered, "Psst!"

Ella looked over her shoulder at him quizzically. "What?"

"Don't listen to Artie," Sebastian told her, keeping his voice down so that Artie couldn't hear from his bedroom. "Well, you can listen to him, but don't let him stress you out. You know how he is. You can be great without being perfect. Just go out there and do your best."

His words elicited a smile from Ella and appeared to soothe her nerves. She screwed the cap onto her water bottle before walking over to give Seb a hug.

"Thanks. I needed to hear that."

Their moment was cut short, however, by Artie calling from the other room.

"Hey, have either of you seen my yellow gloves? I can't find them anywhere."

Sebastian's eyes widened as he gave the remaining eggs on his plate a forceful stab and tried not to look guilty. He knew exactly where Artie's ugly gloves were… upstairs on the very top shelf of his closet where Artie could never reach them. Seb was choosing to look at his sneaky actions as an act of charity. He had done it for Artie's own good!

"Nope, just grab a different pair!" Sebastian called back as he placed his second plate in the sink alongside his first one, relieved to have Ella's tryout as an excuse to distract from his thievery. "Now, come on! We've gotta get our cheerleader to her tryout!"

Artie settled for the black pair without too much of a fuss (however, he did mumble something about these ones being much stiffer than the ugly yellow pair), and the three siblings piled into Artie's car and headed toward McKinley.

"It's a closed tryout," Ella reminded them as they pulled up to the school and Artie parked in his usual accessible spot (Sebastian thought they ought to go ahead and put 'Reserved for Artie Abrams' on it by now, as he was the only one who ever parks there). "You guys can't come in, you know that right?"

"I know, I know," Artie told her. "I just wanted to park so that I could dispense some wisdom on you in the eleventh hour." Ella rolled her eyes again and opened her mouth to protest, but Artie wouldn't let her cut in. "Just humor me, okay?"

Ella relented, sitting back in her seat beside the dismantled parts of Artie's chair as her brother turned around to face her.

"Remember what I said about your ankles in your handsprings, okay? Keep 'em together," Artie repeated for probably the billionth time (Sebastian feared for Ella's life if she forgot this apparently incredibly important detail). "Use your legs to get power for your handsprings. None of that 'taking a step back first' crap. Don't forget to smile, too. That's important, of course. And…"

Artie's words trailed off as he twisted his mouth to the side, seemingly debating whether or not to share what was on his mind before doing it anyway.

"And maybe… don't mention to Coach Sylvester that I'm your brother."

"Huh? Why not?" Ella cocked her head to the side with confusion, as Sebastian did the same from the passenger seat.

He could understand why Ella probably should refrain from going around bragging about being related to him, as he had a less-than-stellar reputation at McKinley, but Sebastian couldn't understand why she shouldn't be proud about being related to Artie. He was a good egg.

"Oh, you know, just with the Glee Club stuff and all that…" Artie told her. "She's never liked me very much. Especially after prom my sophomore year, when I was so upset about Brittany not wanting to go to the dance with me that I let Puck convince me to do his dirty work by spiking the punch bowl and she caught me…"

"You did what?!" Sebastian asked, his eyebrows shooting up with surprise. He didn't know Artie had it in him to do something so rebellious. Up until now, he'd always thought of Artie as the lame, dweeby, teacher's pet type. He was kind of impressed.

"Wait, like, spiked it with alcohol?" Ella asked, equally as surprised to hear about her big brother's past antics.

It was true that Artie had never been one for underage drinking, and Sebastian guessed that came with the territory of having been in an accident like his. As far as Sebastian knew, he'd always been a very cautious rule follower. It just didn't make sense that Artie would knowingly put other people in the position to potentially drive under the influence, even if it had been Puck's idea in the first place. Sebastian leaned over the center console, on the edge of his seat as he waited to hear how this had gone down.

"No, no," Artie quickly assured them, confirming his siblings' suspicions that he wouldn't be that careless, no matter how upset he was over a girl. "Well, Puck wanted me to, but I couldn't go through with it. I filled a flask with lemonade and poured in that instead. But it didn't matter, because Sue still caught me and locked me in her office for an interrogation, and I still almost lost my molars over it."

Regardless of the fact that it was lemonade and not vodka, now that Sebastian knew that Artie had at least a hint of rebellion in him, he was intrigued. This would turn out to be helpful information in the future, he was sure of it.

"So, with all that said, trust me. If you want to have even the smallest chance of making this team as a freshman, that's the best advice I can give. Don't tell her we're related."

"Noted," Ella replied, opening the back door and stepping out of the car. "Well… this is it."

Artie rolled down Sebastian's passenger side window. "Good luck, El. Call us when you're done and we'll come pick you up, okay?"

She nodded, adjusting the way that her bag was slung over her shoulder.

"We love you!" Seb told her, exaggeratedly blowing her a kiss that caused her to roll her eyes. Sebastian grinned. He liked to think that he'd transitioned into the role of embarrassing older brother seamlessly. With a wave over her shoulder, Ella turned and headed inside, leaving Artie and Sebastian behind.

"Where to now?" Sebastian asked, as he had no plans for the rest of the day. He watched as Artie picked up his cell phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. "Hey, who are you calling?"

Artie held up his hand to silence him and put the phone on speaker just as whoever he'd called picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

Great.

"Hey, T!" Artie exclaimed with more enthusiasm than Sebastian had heard him muster all morning. "I've been thinking about you since you called the other day. What's up?"

"Not too much," she replied nonchalantly. Sebastian was growing increasingly bored by this conversation.

"Want to, I don't know, come over to swim or something?" Artie asked her. "I haven't seen you in person since Rachel left."

"Well, that's because you seem to be pretty busy," Tina reminded him, in a way that Sebastian thought was unnecessary. Had Artie been spending more time with Quinn lately? Sure. But Sebastian had never heard Artie make a snarky comment that Tina was spending too much time with her dancing Asian boyfriend. He didn't think anything Artie had done recently warranted that tone from her. "I'm just about to go to lunch with Blaine and Sam. You should come! We're going to Salazar's for pizza."

From his spot in the passenger seat, Seb couldn't hide his shock at what he was hearing. He began silently mouthing to Artie, "What?! They're hanging out without you?!"

"Uh… sure, why not? Okay," Artie told her, ignoring Sebastian's dumbfounded expression. "Hey, uh, I have Seb with me. Do you mind if he tags along?"

"Yeah, sure. Bring him," was Tina's response. "Okay, Artie, Blaine just got here to pick me up. We'll see you soon, okay?"

"Sounds good," Artie replied, his voice now noticeably void of all of the excitement he'd had at the beginning of the call. "See ya."

Sebastian couldn't help but be kind of appalled by how submissive Artie was. He could see that Artie was upset– even though he was trying to hide it– and yet, he still let others walk all over him. Sebastian made a mental note to teach Artie a lesson or two about standing up for himself (and he already knew that Artie would have some self-deprecating joke to crack about the verbiage Sebastian had just used, but they would cross that bridge when they got to it). This was getting kind of hard to watch. Artie deserved better, but Sebastian needed to make sure that he knew that too.

…

ARTIE

Twenty minutes later, the five of them met up in the parking lot of Salazar's, the pizza place in town that was owned by Reggie 'The Sauce' Salazar, the third candidate who'd run against Sue Sylvester and Burt Hummel the year before for a seat in the House of Representatives. Artie kind of thought they should have, like, boycotted this place, after Mr. Salazar's campaign ad had outed Santana to everyone in western Ohio with cable, but he hadn't been included in the selection of this particular lunch spot. He was just an afterthought.

Salazar's was one of those places where you order at the counter, then go select a table and the employees bring your food to you when it's ready. After ordering a round of sodas and a large half-cheese-half-pepperoni pizza to share between the five friends, they'd settled down at a table set for four, with Artie parking his chair at one end, between Sebastian and Tina.

"It's nice to be in Lima for the summer," Sam was saying as he fidgeted with a paper straw wrapper. "Last summer, when we moved to Kentucky, I missed you guys so much. I like heading into senior year and not having to worry about that anymore."

"Artie, you have to see his parents' new place! We were there yesterday, it's this perfect little blue house," Tina gushed, causing a pang to hit Artie's heart.

Sam's parents had stayed in Kentucky with his siblings while Sam had returned to McKinley just before Sectionals, staying with the Hudson-Hummels so that he could come back to the New Directions. Artie had guessed that Sam's folks would move back to Lima at some point, but he didn't know that it had already happened. Nor did he know that Blaine and Tina had been in the loop all along.

Artie realized then that today wasn't the first time Blaine, Tina, and Sam had been planning to hang out without him. He couldn't help but be kind of shocked, wondering when and why their trio had been formed. He knew that he had been kind of preoccupied with Quinn lately, but they were only on day five of their school break. Just because he was making time for Quinn didn't mean that he was planning on ditching his other friends for the whole summer.

"So… how long ago was it that you three really started hanging out?" Artie wondered out loud, unable to stop himself.

The question just happened to come out of his mouth before he could put a stop to it, or even figure out how to word it in a way that sounded better out loud than it did in his head. But he'd said it already, so he figured that he might as well double down on it.

"I mean, Blaine and Sam, you two have never been super close– not after the great body-roll-versus-boyband-spin debate of 2011…"

By the time Sam had returned to McKinley in the fall, Blaine had transferred from Dalton and had essentially stepped into the spot that Sam had left vacant. They'd had a major disagreement about how the team should present themselves at Sectionals that had resulted in Blaine hurling some hurtful words Sam's way.

"… and, Blaine and Tina, I would have thought that maybe you'd be soaking up all of the final days you can get with Kurt and Mike before they leave."

"We were just really wanting to get closer, you know, now that we're all seniors," Blaine said pleasantly, per usual, apparently not fazed by the comments that Artie had coolly made. "And Kurt's not leaving anytime soon– not until second semester at the earliest, if he applies to NYADA again and gets in– so I have lots of time this summer to spend with him."

"Well, Artie's a senior, too," Sebastian cut in matter-of-factly, and Artie flashed him a glare that failed to stop him. "If you're going to hang out as a group, you should be including him, too. Not to mention that statistically speaking, a quartet is twenty-five percent stronger than a trio anyway."

"We-we know that. It wasn't our intention to exclude him," Blaine quickly stammered, clearly squirming under Seb's hypercritical gaze.

Artie continued to frown at Seb, willing the other guy to leave it alone, but he didn't seem to be catching on. Or he just didn't care. Either way, Artie didn't need his step-brother to fight his battles for him. He was perfectly capable of handling them himself.

Plus, why would he want to be invited anyway, if they clearly hadn't thought to invite him in the first place? When it came to Glee Club, there had never really been a moment where he felt excluded (aside from the bus incident that one time). It was the first time since he was a kid that he'd felt like his peers genuinely wanted him around. To find out that Blaine, Sam, and Tina had been hanging out without him stung.

The pizza was delivered to their table just then, a welcomed momentary reprieve from the tension that hung in the air. Artie was relieved by the change in subject. He hadn't meant to sound that accusatory in the first place, but sometimes his inner emotions won out in the end. Truthfully, he didn't necessarily want to process the newly-established trio in front of everyone right here anyway. He was gonna wait until he got home to overthink it.

Until then, pizza.

"Artie, you know we didn't do that on purpose, right?" Tina asked, her voice full of concern, apparently not wanting to let the subject drop. "I mean, we just thought you'd be busy hanging out with Quinn and all."

As expected, Artie-the-passive nodded and plastered on a smile, hoping to hide whatever disappointment he harbored to make those around him more comfortable.

"Oh, yeah. I understand," he said, shrugging. "And, I mean, I have been kind of busy lately." He caught Sebastian's eye for a moment before giving the excuse his friends seemed to be wanting him to give. "You know, hanging with Quinn… and also Ella's trying out for the Cheerios today, so I've been coaching her."

"Well, you seem to have come a long way since that day you found out about her plans to join the team," Tina replied, taking a bite of her pizza slice.

"Thanks, Tina," Artie said through gritted teeth, embarrassed to be reminded of how he'd acted a few months back. It wasn't his proudest moment, and he wished she hadn't been there to witness it. "Yeah… I kinda figured I owed it to her, to help her prepare for tryouts, after that."

"Hey, Sebastian, what are you up to this summer?" Blaine asked him. "I know that, for the most part, The Warblers get the season off until Warbler Camp starts. Got any big plans until then?"

The taller guy just shrugged.

Artie knew that this had to be about the millionth time Sebastian's been asked that question and that he shrugs it off each time. Artie respected his commitment to taking the summer off to relax, but he was also kind of beginning to think that Seb's lounging would be kind of detrimental. If he was honest, he'd started to get a little worried about him.

"Maybe you can get a job," Sam suggested. "I just started working at the ice cream place on Main Street on weekdays. It's easy, and it's kind of slow during the day. Just parents who take their little kids to play mini golf and look at the cows out back. But at night, it can get pretty busy. And whatever tips you make, you get to keep yourself!"

Artie had to consciously keep himself from laughing at that. Sebastian was not the working type. He was more… meant to make a living in a way that didn't involve manual labor. Imagining Sam teaching Sebastian how to scoop ice cream? That sounded like a sitcom that could write itself.

"Yeah, you know what? I feel like it could be good for you," Artie agreed, receiving a horrified look from his prissy brother. "A little character building, you know? You need some work experience."

If Seb could be all up in his business, the way he had been with telling the three of them to remember to include Artie the next time they hung out, then he was going to be the same way. If there was anyone who deserved a taste of his own medicine every now and then, it was Sebastian.

Without missing a beat, Sebastian nodded to the Diet Coke that Artie was drinking. "Has all of the aspartame in that crap finally started seeping into your brain?! I am not doing that."

Artie smirked at the reaction he'd gotten out of Seb as his phone rang. Seeing Ella's contact name displayed on the screen, he immediately picked up.

"Hey, El, how'd it go?"

"I kept my ankles together, and I didn't step out, and I made the team!" Ella exclaimed. "Me and one other girl were the only incoming freshmen to make it!"

"Ella, that's amazing! I'm so proud of you," Artie told her before pulling the phone away from his ear and covering the receiver with his hand to inform the others of her good news. "She's a Cheerio!"

The four of them cheered, and Sebastian let out a loud whoop, causing other patrons in the restaurant to glance their way.

"You're still over by the school gym, right?" Artie asked his sister. "Seb and I are out with Tina, Sam, and Blaine, but we can come pick you up if you're ready."

"Yeah, I'm ready."

"Alright. We'll see you soon," he told her before hanging up and turning his attention back to the friends.

"Okay, we're gonna take these to go," Artie said, gesturing to his and Seb's half-eaten slices on their paper plates. Since they'd already paid at the counter, it really wasn't that big of a deal if they didn't finish the meal with their friends. Sebastian retrieved a to-go box and put their slices of pizza inside, as well as grabbing one to bring to Ella. "We've got a new Cheerio to go pick up. See you guys later!"

As Artie and Sebastian left the other three inside, Artie was surprised to find that he was kind of relieved to have an excuse to leave. It was strange, to feel like an outsider when he was among his own friends, especially Tina, who he'd known for years. He hoped that these feelings wouldn't last for the whole summer.