AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Just as I was about to click upload for a new chapter on Monday, I was inspired to head in a different direction first. I speed-wrote this chapter in two days so that I could post it before the one I had already written! Enjoy!

Chapter 8: Girl Talk

ARTIE

As soon as the boys pulled into the parking lot of William McKinley High School and their younger sister came into view, they began their most embarrassing 'big brothers' act.

"There she is!" Sebastian called out the window after he rolled it down, while Artie was obnoxiously honking the horn as they pulled up to the curb. "The newest member of the Cheerios!"

Ella ducked and shielded her face, completely mortified in front of her new teammates who were also standing around waiting for their rides. The two senior boys in the sedan picking up the incoming freshman Cheerio had commanded everyone's attention, whether Ella liked it or not.

As Seb and Artie laughed at their antics and high-fived one another, Ella forcefully pulled open the back door and tossed her bag inside before quickly climbing in and shutting the door behind her.

"I seriously hate you both," she said, placing a hand on each of the front seats' headrests as she leaned forward and stuck her face between the two of them.

"Why?" Sebastian feigned innocence. "We just wanted to show our support. We wanted everyone to know how proud of you we are!"

"Yeah," Artie agreed. "We're just excited, that's all!"

He had to bite his lower lip to keep the grin from spreading across his face. Griffin was usually the brother who took on all of the teasing and pranking– Artie was usually the one everyone went to for moral support and sage advice. But even he had to admit that embarrassing his siblings was kind of fun to do every now and then.

"Just drive," Ella told him, rolling her eyes. "Especially if you're so concerned about Coach Sylvester finding out we're related. What do you think will happen if she wants to know who was causing all that noise outside of the gym, comes out here, and sees you behind the wheel?"

"Fair point," Artie acknowledged, putting the car in drive and starting off toward home.

"Here, we grabbed this for you," Sebastian told Ella, handing her the to-go box that the boys had filled before leaving lunch with their friends. "The full slice of cheese is yours. The half-eaten one is mine."

"And mine is the piece with pepperoni, so don't touch that one!" Artie warned. As they were sitting in the restaurant and he'd realized that his friends had been making plans to hang out without him, the queasiness in his stomach had caused his appetite to forsake him. Now that it had been a little while since that conversation, however, he was getting kind of hungry again and looking forward to polishing off his slice when they got home.

Artie's phone rang just then– it actually rang. Unlike most teenagers, Artie always kept his ringer on. He knew that most of his friends opted for the silent vibrate feature instead (mostly so that they were able to stealthily hide their phone in their lap underneath their desk and text during class), but the vibrate option didn't really do him much good, since he usually carried his phone in the pocket of his pants. Artie didn't make it a habit to text during school anyway, since he was always so focused on note-taking and question-asking, so ringer it was.

"It's Quinn," Sebastian said as he picked up the phone that had been sitting in the cupholder and glanced at the contact name displayed on the screen as soon as it had started to ring.

"I'll bet she's calling to ask about Ella. We hustled out of Salazar's so quick to go pick her up that I haven't had the chance to fill Quinn in yet. You can answer it," Artie told him. "Put it on speaker."

Sebastian did as he was told.

"Hey!" He greeted the girl on the other end of the line. "This is Seb. Artie's driving. But you're on speaker. Ella's here, too!"

"Oh! Hey everyone!" Quinn giggled with surprise at receiving all three of them at once when she'd only meant to catch Artie. "I was just calling to see how Ella's tryout went. I saw on Instagram that a couple of girls who were on the team last year had posted that they'd made it again, and when I didn't hear anything from anyone, I figured I'd give you a call…"

"I made it!" Ella exclaimed, cheerfully telling Quinn her good news. "I'm one of the only two freshmen. Me and Natalie Myers. Do you know her? She was on the cheer team at the middle school with me."

Artie rolled his eyes at the mention of the other girl. He hadn't gotten the chance to get all of the details yet himself, and he didn't know that the other incoming freshman was Natalie. She'd been one of Ella's friends until about a year ago when she and a couple of other girls had started to ditch Ella in favor of hanging out with a bunch of boys. Artie, for one, was glad that Ella wasn't one of those boy-crazy teen girls (he still thought she was kind of young for that kind of stuff anyway). He was proud of her for staying true to her values, but it had really irked him that Ella had lost a whole bunch of friends when they'd decided to start chasing after boys.

"I don't know her," Quinn replied. "But the last couple of years of cheerleading have been kind of a blur, to be honest. She may have come to one of our Cheerios stunt and tumble clinics and is slipping my mind. You'll have to show me a picture of her."

"Sorry for not filling you in about the results sooner," Artie apologized to his girlfriend through the phone as he continued to drive. "We met up with Sam, Tina, and Blaine for a fun little lunch while she was at the school…"

He wasn't sure why he'd felt the need to lie to Quinn by saying that the lunch had been 'fun'. It hadn't been. It had been just the opposite, actually. He didn't know why he continued to put up this façade that everything in his life was going so perfectly, especially when he was talking to her.

"Anyways, then we dropped everything to go pick her up when she called to tell us the good news. Sorry that you're the last to know."

"Ah, that's okay," she replied, and he knew that she meant it. "I was just curious, is all. That's great, Ella! I'm so excited for you."

"Hey, Q, what do you have going on?" Artie called from the driver's seat, as Sebastian still held the phone. "Want to come over and celebrate?"

…

An hour and a half later, Quinn had been over for quite some time and the quartet had spread themselves out around the living room, much like they had for Sebastian's 'spa night' the night before.

Quinn had eagerly accepted Artie's invitation to come over and celebrate, as she knew better than anyone what an accomplishment this was for Ella since she'd also been one of the lucky few to make the team as a freshman. Quinn had even brought Ella a couple of hand-me-downs– some old Cheerios hoodies and shirts that she'd saved– which made Artie smile. As for Sebastian, he just seemed excited to finally pop open the bottle of sparkling cider he'd stashed in the fridge. Artie guessed that it probably tasted even better now– with the excitement of sweet victory – than it would have if they'd consumed it the night before when Seb had originally offered it.

"How many girls tried out this year?" Quinn wondered.

Quinn and Artie were seated side-by-side on the couch, and Quinn rested her legs across Artie's lap. Ella had settled herself on the carpet by their feet, with Sebastian sitting in one of the adjacent armchairs.

"I don't know," Ella shrugged. "Thirty? Forty, maybe? But only twenty made the team. And only fifteen of those girls will make the competition team in the fall after all of the summer practices are done."

"I remember what my first day of high school was like," Quinn said wistfully. "The way that people part like the Red Sea when you walk down the hallway wearing that uniform. It would be amusing if it wasn't so awkward. When people react that way toward you, it's hard not to try to measure up to their expectations. I wish I didn't have to learn the hard way that I was no better than anyone else."

Quinn sighed at the memory.

"I know I keep saying it, but I'm really proud of you, Ella," Quinn told the younger girl.

Ella got uncharacteristically bashful at her compliment. Usually, Artie was the Abrams kid whose cheeks burned whenever he felt flattered by something. He was pleased to see that the trait ran in the family.

"I mean it. I know how hard you've been working to get to this point," Quinn continued. "But I don't want you to lose yourself. I'm hopeful that the next generation of Cheerios will be a lot like you– nicer girls who aren't only on the team to improve their social status."

"Well, I don't know about that," Ella told her. "The captain is pretty… intimidating. McKenna, I think her name was. She was kind of scary, barking orders at everyone. There were a couple of new underclassmen who tried out too– one was a short blonde girl. She wore this very serious expression on her face the whole time and was already talking about how making the team would 'solidify her spot in the hierarchy', whatever that means."

Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Okay, those girls will always be around, I assume. Just promise me you won't become one of them," Quinn told her, holding out her pinky finger for Ella to shake and solidify their deal. "Having graduated, I can assure you that none of that matters in the long run. Take it from me, being the most popular girl in the school and chasing after the guys on the football team is not all that it's cracked up to be. I've been there, remember?"

Ella shyly nodded, appearing to not know whether or not Quinn's teenage pregnancy was a taboo topic. Artie knew that it wasn't. Quinn hadn't always been proud of her choice to sleep with Noah Puckerman, but she was proud of the way she'd carried Beth and brought her into the world at such a young age.

"When you're so young– fourteen, fifteen– you hardly know who you are or who you're destined to be. Don't change yourself to please anyone else, okay? Plus, you're already so much better than whatever football player you're hoping will ask you to the prom, trust me."

Quinn glanced over at Artie after she said that, reaching for his hand and squeezing it in hers. If that was Quinn's way of assuring him that he was better than Finn, Puck, Sam, and whatever other football players she had dated in the past, he'd take it.

"Also, all those football guys are idiots," Artie added to Quinn's point, making everyone laugh.

While all the girl talk seemed to be boring Sebastian, Artie's heart was soaring. Witnessing the two girls he loved most interact with one another was something he hadn't known he'd needed. His siblings meant the world to him, and seeing that Quinn– who didn't have any younger siblings of her own– cared for his sister so much made his heart swell. She fit so effortlessly into their dynamic and embraced all of the craziness that came along with his newly-blended family. Artie was more sure than ever that everything between him and Quinn was going the way it was supposed to.

"Crap," Quinn said just then, glancing down at her phone and reading the text message she'd just received.

"What is it?"

"My mom." She rolled her eyes. "She and Robert want to have a date night and want me to babysit Leo and Sasha. I don't know why they're going out on a Wednesday, but I've gotta go."

She pulled her legs back from Artie's lap and leaned over to kiss his cheek before standing up and gathering her belongings. "See you tomorrow?"

Her action was so seamless, so casual, that Artie almost didn't recover from the shock in time to respond to her question. Artie felt his face heat up and he knew he was turning a darker shade of pink by the moment.

"Ye-yeah. Yes. I have something in the morning, but my afternoon is open."

Why had he said it like that? As if this was a formal business meeting or something? Come on, Artie.

"Good," she responded, able to overlook the way he'd turned into a stuttering mess, for which Artie was grateful. Quinn squeezed his shoulder before showing herself out. "Looking forward to it. See ya!"

…

SEBASTIAN

After Quinn left, Sebastian acted quickly so that he wouldn't lose his chance to talk to Artie. What had happened at the pizza place had been on his mind all afternoon, and he was nosy. He could tell that Artie had been upset when he found out that his friends had been hanging out without him. Why hadn't Artie wanted to tell the others how they'd made him feel?

"Hey, Art, can we talk for a minute?" Sebastian asked, following Artie down the hallway toward his bedroom after he had transferred from the couch into his chair.

"We're talking now, aren't we?"

"Well, yeah, but I just wanted to pick your brain on something real quick."

"And what's that?"

They were in Artie's room now, and Artie had pivoted his chair to face him, glancing up at him expectantly. Sebastian figured he might as well just come out and say it.

"Why didn't you say anything to your friends about the way they'd excluded you earlier?"

"What do you mean?"

Artie had chosen to play dumb. Sebastian wasn't going to fall for that.

"I mean, if you hadn't called Tina in the first place, she and those guys wouldn't have even invited you at all. Why did you pretend it didn't bother you? I know it really did. I was watching you. Your face did that twisty thing you always do when you're disappointed."

Artie rolled his eyes. "Drop it, okay? I'm fine."

Sebastian didn't drop it. "Why didn't you tell Quinn about it when she came over? Why did you just describe the lunch as 'fun' and move on?

"What was there to tell?"

"Artie!"

"Sebastian."

Seb sighed. So did Artie.

"Listen," Artie began, locking his wheels in place beside his bed and moving onto the other surface. "It's just not something we always need to bring attention to, okay? People are going to do stuff, and I'm always going to be left behind. It's happened for the last nine-and-a-half years, and it's going to happen in the future. It's inevitable. Making it a whole thing isn't going to help anything."

"Well, maybe things would change if you actually spoke up and told your friends how much it bothers you when they do that," Sebastian reasoned, taking a seat on the other side of the bed so that he could join Artie on his level and force him to make eye contact with him. "But, instead, you essentially just give them permission to go off and have fun without you, and they're under the impression that you're always going to be here, waiting for them. Whatever happened to advocating for yourself?"

"It tends to backfire when I speak up about that kind of stuff," Artie replied, glancing down at where his hands rested in his lap, busying himself by picking at a hangnail and unable to meet Sebastian's gaze.

"Huh?"

Artie heaved another audible sigh. "My freshman year, the first year of the New Directions, we were going to our first Sectionals, and the school refused to pay to get an accessible bus with a lift."

Sebastian had a sinking feeling he knew where this story was headed already.

"Mr. Schue wanted the club to hold a bake sale to raise the extra money, but everyone was, um, very vocal about their opposition to that idea. Somebody suggested that my dad just drive me there separately, and everyone else agreed. It was our first competition! I didn't want to take away time from rehearsal debating this or burden everyone else by causing a scene. So I didn't say anything."

"They really did that?" Sebastian wondered. "They went without you?"

"No," Artie replied. "Because the next day Mr. Schue brought it up again and said that he was really disappointed in the way everyone reacted, and somebody was like, 'well, Artie doesn't mind', and I was like, 'no, actually, I do. I'm a part of this team too'."

"Good for you!" Sebastian told him. Artie was just proving his point. He needed to grow a pair and stand up for himself sometimes or else everyone will just continue to walk all over him.

"No, not good for me," Artie insisted, not finished with his story just yet. "Because then Mr. Schue made everyone spend the week in wheelchairs to show them what life is like for me– which, don't even get me started– and between that and the bake sale, it was a big inconvenience for everyone. I pretty much avoided them all week because I was so uncomfortable and embarrassed. I hadn't asked for any of that."

Oh, Sebastian realized.

"So, you see, it's the same thing here," Artie continued. "That's why, when I find out that people have made plans without me, I just choose to assume that they're doing activities that are just easier without having to handle my disability in the middle of it all."

Sebastian sat in silence. Before now, he hadn't realized how difficult it could be for Artie to have to pick and choose which situations he advocated for himself in, and which ones he'd sooner bow out and deal with whatever consequences came along.

"In a sense, they're right. I have been hanging out with Quinn a lot. It was fair for them to assume we were together when they made those initial plans," Artie said. "But I figure that by not telling me, Blaine, Tina, and Sam think they're protecting my feelings. In which case, they're actually being good friends. See how that works?"

"They wouldn't have to worry about protecting your feelings at all if they'd just include you," Sebastian reminded him. "See how that works?"

"And when the plan is to go to someone's new house– which probably isn't all that accessible in the first place, but definitely isn't when there are a million moving boxes lying around– then what?" Artie countered. "I'm pretty good at accommodating myself, but nobody else should be forced to do that on my behalf. They didn't sign up for that, just because they're friends with me."

"It's nothing anyone needed to sign up for!" Sebastian argued, exasperated. "You're my brother! You're their friend! We don't mind that kind of stuff because we want you around. Got it?"

Artie looked at him with wide eyes, surprised by Sebastian's sudden outburst. But Sebastian wasn't finished yet.

"And don't give me any of that 'I don't want to burden them' crap. You're not a burden, Artie. I know you know that. Whether they realize it or not, what your friends did back there was mean. They should care to invite you places, even if it takes a little more effort on their end to plan ahead."

"Maybe they don't," he said simply in a dismissive tone that told Sebastian that he'd thought about this a lot over the years. "Maybe they don't care."

"Well, they should. And you should, too," Sebastian huffed.

"It happens all the time."

Sebastian softened a bit at that. Artie had clearly spent a lot of time thinking about all of this, weighing the pros and cons of his options. From where Seb stood, it was easy for him to say that Artie was being too submissive or that he too easily forgave his friends after they wronged him, but he also couldn't even begin to imagine what this had always been like for Artie. If he was in Artie's position, how would he react? Would he actually be as forward as he's telling Artie to be? It was hard to know for sure.

"You shouldn't be expecting that, Artie," Sebastian told him, changing to a bit more of a compassionate approach. "I remember you telling me that you're used to acting like being left out doesn't bother you as much as it actually does. But I want you to know that you don't have to pretend like that all the time."

Artie sat with what Sebastian said and absorbed it for a moment before crafting a response of his own.

"Look, I'm grateful that you're starting to care so much about seeing that the disabled guy is included– this is much better than when you were making my life a living hell, by the way– but making my friends feel bad about it all won't help anything," Artie told him. "It's just gonna make things worse or even more awkward. I don't need that. Not right now, when they're already thinking that I'm choosing my girlfriend over them, okay? I just want this to all blow over. Can you please try to understand that?"

Something about Artie's honest plea resonated with him, and Sebastian knew that he had to hold his fire and respect Artie's wishes.

"Fine." Sebastian nodded, holding his hands up in surrender.

This was a promise that Seb intended to keep– or try to keep, at least– for as long as he was able to. If what Artie needed from him now was for him to back off, then that was what he'd do. But he still planned on keeping a watchful eye on the situation from afar, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.