Chapter Text
“Alright!” Asher rubbed at his temple with one hand. The basement hardly fell in volume. “Everyone, quiet down!”
Asher, as the second oldest, had taken this responsibility completely unwillingly but gravely. Now, standing at a patch of the wall with a large patch of paper pinned to the wall (a camp map, flipped to the blank side) covered in quick notes and talking points, he was regretting not fighting harder. They’d been filling the paper for almost two hours; Asher’s headache had arrived within the first twenty minutes.
“That’s it. Discussion over. We’re voting.” He made two quick columns, a Y and a N section. Under the Y, he made one tally. He looked to the nearest sibling, Lacey and Sophia standing to the side clenching hands. “I vote yes. Lacey, what’s yours?”
Lacey, so excited she was trembling, let out an astonished, “Of course!”
Asher made the tally. Sophia was next, nodding quite cheerfully.
They were going in a circle. Sabrina, wrapped up in a blanket cocoon with Stefan, let out a very predictable. “Yes!”
Stefan snorted. “It basically changes nothing anyway. Sure.”
Valentina laughed at that, in clear agreement. “Yes.”
Next, it was Sebastian, thrown back across the couch lazy and bored. He sighed. “Whatever. Sure.”
Micah, sitting on the floor next to the couch, peeked up from his Game Boy. “Yeah.”
Scarlett, last. She was perched on the arm of the couch like a throne, one leg crossed over the other as she filed her nails. She glanced up at them casually. “No.”
A very long pause. Shock.
“What?” Sebastian sat up after a beat of processing. “No?”
Scarlett cut a look at him, uninterested. “That’s my answer. Do you require a definition?”
Sebastian blinked at her, completely bewildered. “Why not?”
“Maybe I think Mitchell can do better than Connor Stoll.” Scarlett shrugged with one shoulder. “Or vice versa. Who knows. My vote is no.”
Asher narrowed his eyes at her, stepping in closer. “Try that again.”
Scarlett seemed unmoved. “I’m not changing my vote. Why do you even care? It’s not unanimous.”
“But,” Lacey spoke up, big liquid eyes. “You don’t like Connor?” Sabrina looked near tears, Stefan frantically tending to her.
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Connor’s fine, whatever. But I want it on record that I voted against this.”
Asher's expression cleared a bare second before there was a quick rhythmic knock at the door at the top of the stairs. Moments later, footfalls above them as someone descended. Connor poked his head around the corner a moment later, already grinning.
“Dinner’s gonna be ready in about five, we’ve got Caesar salad, triple cheese lasagna, and enough garlic bread to put us all in comas. And yes,” he glanced at Stefan, already opening his mouth. “PBJs will be available to anyone who would rather choke than eat that. How’s the secret meeting going?”
Sebastian cut a glare over at Scarlett, who looked in no way affected by it. “Swimmingly,” he replied, cold.
“Nice!” Connor flashed them another grin as he leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms. “You guys want to hear about what Mitchell said to an asshole customer today? The dude got so red, I thought we were gonna have to call an ambulance.”
Sebastian let out a breath, extremely annoyed. He leaned back into the couch cushion. “Fine. Continue.”