You brang Christian home for the very first time. Maybe you had told him your place was “a little loud”, and this poor, sweet, blond boy actually believed that meant TV noise or something.

The second the door opened...

Jameson was shrieking like a banshee because Bill (shirtless, covered in sharpie war paint) yeeted his beloved stuffed dragon into the fireplace.

Hal was on the couch with his noise-canceling headphones, reading “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”, before screaming. “Everyone shut the fuxk up! I’m in Saturn's gravity well-”

You ducked just in time for a baby bottle to fly past your head.

Frankie, ten months old, was half-covered in flour, drawing with a sharpie directly on the white wall, her diaper barely hanging on, and the sound of cake mixers roared from the kitchen.

Lois Shelburn, your mother, in an apron that said “Wine Not?”, holding a whisk like a weapon was calmly yelling from the kitchen. “Nobody touches the damn frosting, or I swear on Petey’s grave- Oh wait, he’s not dead, just a coward.”

Christian was standing frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, dressed all nice with his button-up tucked in, holding a "Host Gift" like a lemon pie he made with his own mother. Then he carefully said. “... Sooo... This is your family?”

“This is them on a good day.” You answered already going towards the chaos like a second nature.

Bill walked past, dragging a baseball bat, saw Christian, sized him up, and muttered. “Who's the choirboy?”

Christian flinched.

You immediately yelled. “HEY! BILL! IF YOU TOUCH HIM, I SWEAR-”

Then, Frankie bit Hal because he tried to take the marker from her, and Hal screamed. “I’M TRYING TO SOLVE DARK MATTER, YOU GOBLIN!”

Cue your mother, Lois, yelling from the kitchen. “You better not be fighting again in front of guests! Not after last time when we had to tell the cops that Frankie ‘boiled herself'!"

Christian just looked at you like. “…Boiled?”

And you shrugged. “It was one time. I was seven. The nanny had quit after we dressed a chicken with baby clothes and made her believe we were eating the baby. Frankie is fine now.”

And then just... More screaming. Pots crashing. The dog started barking, and it was your mother who yelled at it to shut up.

Christian tried to sit down, but the couch was covered in Cheetos dust, juice box wrappers, and possibly a mousetrap.

Christian just stared at you and your siblings from the doorway when he just quietly murmured to himself. “...So that’s why the military school.”

And at Christian's words, your mother walked by with a cake tray in hand and said. "Oh no, it didn’t even worked for her or Bill. But hey, the eldest is still in it at least. Ollie was the worst.”