After The Dinner Horn and Off-screen: a CotC oneshot collection

What it Means to be Siblings

Originally posted: sometime in 2022

A/N Marie is the horse girl who doesn't particularly like horses, just in case anyone forgot her lol
Also!! Ben is Secret Kid. I needed to give him a name and yeah, explanation for the name at the end lol

Marie and Ben had only known each other for two years, and they had been siblings for even less than that.

The first time they met was when their parents went out for dinner. Marie's mom had told her to wear something nice so she put on the light blue dress that never felt quite right and wondered why she was getting dressed up if it was her mom going out for dinner. Was the babysitter bringing her someplace? Was she going too? Then the doorbell rang and all of a sudden there was a strange man with a strange kid in the living room.

"Marie, I want you to meet Ben O'Shaunessey and his father. Ben is eight, just like you!" Oh. "I've called the normal babysitter, he should be here soon." Marie's mom grabbed Mr. O'Shaunessey's arm and took him to a different room leaving Marie and Ben alone together.

Ben fidgeted with the collar of his button-down shirt and Marie could feel the air grow heavier by the second. She had to say something to break the tension.

"Do you like basketball?"

"What?"

"Do you like to play basketball?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. I play with my friend Isaiah sometimes. He's really good at it." Ben smiled softly at the mention of Isaiah and Marie took that as a good sign.

"Well, can we play basketball then?"

"Sure."

It took a bit of sneaking but they managed to get to the driveway without either of their parents noticing. Marie threw her worn basketball to Ben and he made a half-decent free throw.

"Not bad," she caught the ball, "but you're not bending your elbows right."

"What?"

"You have to bend them like this, more to the rim of the basket."

"What are you talking about?" Marie positioned herself to demonstrate.

"Like this." She shot the ball, and it went in.

"Yes! Score!" Marie pumped her fist.

"You Basketball nerds." He grabbed the ball. "How about a game of HORSE?"

They played HORSE until Marie was a giggling mess and Ben had lost twice. They wanted to keep playing, but Marcus, the babysitter, drove into the driveway.

"Marie? It's almost eight— What happened to your dress?!" She looked down and saw that the front of her nice dress was covered in dirt from the basketball. Ben's dress shirt wasn't looking much better.

"Uhh, oops?" A futile attempt on her part, but she had to try something.

Marcus dragged a hand down his face. "Oh, your mom is going to hate this."

The grounding she got for staining her best dress was expected, but the fact that Ben and his dad kept coming over was not. Eventually, every Friday Ben would visit and their parents would go out for dinner or something.

"Hey, Marie?" Ben said, sitting on the floor of her room.

"Yeah?" Marie sat up on her bed and put the book she had been reading down.

"Do you think our parents are dating?" The sentence took a moment to set in.

"What?"

"Like, they keep going out to dinner and stuff, like dates. And I think they kiss each other? I'm not sure about that but that's what it looks like they're doing." Marie's eyes widened.

"Oh my gosh, our parents are dating."

Their parents told them they were dating a few days later.

Then, about seven months later Mr. O'Shaunessey pulled Marie and Ben aside and asked them if he could ask Marie's mom to marry him. They both said yes, and the wedding was set. A new house for the two families was bought and clothing was shopped for.

That's how, about a year after they first met, Ben and Marie became siblings.

Now it was a year later and Ben had just saved Marie from having her deepest, darkest fear revealed to all her friends and she wanted to know why.

It wasn't hard to find the old willow tree where Ben stayed, she had been there before after all. Flowers filled the air and water seeped into her shoes. Annoying, but she had more important things to focus on. Ben was reorganizing the bottles, again, and almost dropped the bottle he was holding when she grabbed his shoulder.

"Marie! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Why did you do it?"

"What?"

"Why did you say that was your secret?" Ben put the bottle back on the shelf.

"Can we talk about this at home?"

"Nope, you're going to your mom's house after this so we won't be able to talk at home." She sat on the table. "C'mon, why?"

"Because I'm your older brother?"

"Nope, you only pull the 'four months older than you' card when you have something to hide." Ben sighed and sat in his floaty chair thing.

"Because it would have ruined your friendship. You know that."

"I do, but you could have just let it go unclaimed. You didn't have to say it was yours."

"You're not going to let this go, huh."

"Nope."

"Okay." Ben took a deep breath and brought his knees to his chest, wobbling the floaty a bit. "Because even if you don't claim the secret, people will figure out that it's yours. No matter how much you try and make it go away they figure it out eventually and you lose your best friend. And you shouldn't have other people decide if your secret gets told. You're the only one who gets to tell your secret." Tears were falling down his face now. He wiped them away. "Sorry, sorry."

"Ben, did something happen?" He froze a bit before nodding slowly.

"It was about a year ago, before the wedding," he began, "Somehow, rumor got around that someone had a crush on my friend Isaiah. No one ever came forward about the crush, but they figured out that it was mine, I had a crush on him, and then things got weird between us because didn't feel the same way. And then he stopped talking to me and I lost my best friend." Marie sat there for a moment before tackling Ben in a hug.

"I'm sorry that happened."

"Careful! Your getting water in the floaty!"

"I'm trying to have a heartfelt moment with you!"

"Well do it later, you're going to—" They fell out of the floaty before Ben could finish his sentence.

A/N
Secret Kid was actually originally going to be named Ben, but they struck the name from his character sheet. Either way, that's the name I went with for this story lol. I'll change it if his name does get revealed!
I know Ben seems a lot less nosy and gossipy in this, and is thusly ooc, but it's because he's not really like that with friends? Knowing everything is more of a defense mechanism so he can see things coming and protect kids from their secrets being spread and stuff, though he's not above using the secrets to his benefit lol. He's a nice kid, he just guards himself because he's afraid to get hurt. Unlike the Tea-Timers who are just jerks. (I love them but they are.)
Anyways this is just me rambling now