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"Kian, when did you manage to accumulate all of these things?" Akuti huffed out her words with her chin propped on a large box. He hadn't filled it with much, just clothing and perhaps some of his tapes filled with journal entries of previous years. The slim satyr still bowed under the faint weight of it, her fingers tight. "You have boxes upon boxes of nothing."

The dark alien paused, head turning towards his eldest sister when she walked into the condo. Jo stood gracefully in front of him, perched on the living room windowsill, stretched out in the sun. He abandoned her to take the box from Akuti, lifting it to his shoulder with ease.

"I can not walk about nude," he said and frowned at her pointed, disbelieving Look. "-Outside. One needs clothing."

"One needs clothing. Kian, you - alright." Akuti, too kind to mock Kian save for a rare three words and an instantly remorse tone, leaned in to dot a kiss on his cheek. Kian looked up at her, unimpressed. "What is lighter than that box in that moving truck?"

"... Bedsheets." A one-armed shrug, Kian left his sister to sigh once more and went to what they had designated as the bedroom. While the landlord had called the other room the 'master bedroom', Kian felt uncomfortable with the title of the larger room and Autsu agreed the area was best used to store their large collection of weaponry and equipment. A mattress would be shoved in the middle of the room to fit them both. The size Kian didn't know the name of except it would fit the two of them and allow the sex to not have one or the other tumbling off in the midst of something important.

The box of clothing? Tossed into the open closet and promptly ignored, Kian twisting back outside to the humid air. Moving time was fun.

Sort of.

Kian didn't turn to face Autsu at first. He touched back, fingers brushed along Autsu's knuckles and to his wrist. Kian enjoyed physical contact with his lover and, finally, let his head roll to the side. Autsu moved away, grabbed a box, and Kian followed in suit.

"Yes," he said, shifting the box for a better grip. After lifting so many boxes, Kian didn't bother to try and figure out what was in them, just that they were somewhat heavy and had to be moved. The particular one he held had been titled 'kitchen' in Iamel's large and flowing script. Probably some sort of perverted device Kian did not want to think about.

A blast of air conditioning and Kian, perhaps accidentally, bumped his shoulder against his lovers. A brush of his tail to one of Autsu's leg, another tap of the shoulder, and the box put down with a heavy thump.

He looked to Autsu, all eyes at attention. "And you?"

Autsu did not have to say the words - they both heard them. Kian chose to ignore the finality to the statement, indulge himself only in the agreement his comrade put forth in that moment. Autsu would make those comments and if Kian allowed himself to think on them, he knew he would get angry and the anger would lead to some sort of destructive behavior he avoided.

Throwing things and yelling and hitting never did much to disturb Autsu. No point in getting emotional and so - not him over it.

Instead, he touched the small of Autsu's back. First, only a brush of fingertips, then a palm, and little pressure to speak of. Nails, just a kittenish pinprick against sun-warm skin, and a brief pressure of Kian pressed closer than before. Too hot to lean overly much but there all the same.

"It will be fine." He said, and meant 'I will be fine in this home, when you are gone', and lied. He lied for Autsu because he never said anything but his truth to Autsu and if there were ever a time to do so, it would be at that moment, with the unspoken words and the new beginning of something that would end. A cold comfort, to let him know (to think, anyway) that Kian would be alright in this place made for them when 'them' became 'him' and 'Autsu' transformed to 'no longer here'.

Somewhere in the distance - the kitchen - the clamor of pots and pans and Bennu's shriek of delight rang out. Akuti had proven to be a good mother but when confronted by a child of whirlwind emotions and a stubborn set to his baby-chin, she could do nothing to curve it.

"Color!" He said, loud, ringing through the home. Kian paused, sighed, and leaned away. The sound of toddler hands on the back of rounded metal things soon came to be. Kian's third eye rolled.

"And it begins, 'Tsu."

Bennu liked birds in him! Or he would, if the toddler had any concept of what she meant b y that and he didn't expect for the words 'more pots' and they were aimed at him.

"Yes!" said Bennu, hands in the air. Small fingers flexed, demanding, and his small body squirmed. "More!"

"Bennu."

"Please!" The child spoke not in words but too loud cries, his face bright and smile wide. He'd said please. Kian stared hard at his little nephew (who had by the age of toddler, managed to completely not give a flying crap about that uncles glare) and slid past Autsu to reach over and pluck up that box in question.

Akuti's neat print marred the box in large letters, labelled "Pots and Pants - DO NOT GIVE TO BENNU, IAMEL'. Kian, not being Iamel, cut it open with his thumb nail, slit the tape with little effort although it left the red nail a bit sticky (not an altogether unfamiliar sensation, if he had to be honest with himself). The pots were handed to Autsu without further ado and the box pushed back against the kitchen wall, onto the counter.

Bennu never looked so pleased.

Kian leaned back against the counter, tail tucked comfortably just under it. He gazed at the floor, face smooth as usual. A few of Autsu's meanings rang through, the most clear being the actual concern. Kian never doubted their translations of one anothers movements, looks, or words.

And in that, he knew Autsu lied just as Kian himself. When Autsu left (Not if, he wouldn't think of it as 'if'), Kian saw himself simply melting down. Perhaps Autsu was worried, maybe about Kian being broken and alone once he was gone.

Kian had an inkling of what would happen, even though he did not think Autsu knew the true extent of his lovers innate violence and temper. Too easy to see the result, even before the true event happened.

He would rip the doors open on the rifridgerator partially full of food, alternating between sugar filled and extremely healthy, and once all the shelves were out, tear the appliance from the wall and onto its face. Bennu's pots, thrown at the wall or at the windows. Plates smashed to the ground, holes the size of fists in the plaster.

Torn mattress, on its side in a random direction, sheets in shreds and scattered like so much confetti. Hurled drawrs, destroyed dresser, broken mirrors.

Locked training room. Untouched living area. He'd sleep on the ground and stay there until someone found him, if they looked for him. Akuti, maybe, or Sibling. Still, he saw it as clearly as he did the two children before him and Autsu still so near.

Jo and Jii would be there but he would put them in the yard during the rampage. Probably.

"Nor am I." He said, he lied, and looked over to his for-now lover. For-now was better than nothing (although he had a sneaking suspicion that the opinion would change once the deed done). One dark eyebrow flicked, enough. Maybe they should talk about it.

But Autsu would shy away (Kniene told him not to assume about Autsu.) and Kian would damage his friend further (they were both already so broken, why try for more).

Kian hesitated and nodded. He looked back to the children.

"Yes." he said and left it at that.

Kian looked to the children. Bennu banged and squealed and threw a large spoon across the room. Had he been older, he imagined it would've dented the wall it clattered against. As the child was just that, a child, it fell useless to the floor but, never the less - good aim. And Otessa, she drew, she laughed, she made merry and something in that hurt.

"I was." he found himself saying. Eyes hooded and arms crossed again over his chest, tight. His tail did not move. "For a while. As was my sister but - she smiled. Often. When she was small."

But Kian did not know what his little sister was like once she grew up and went from her to it. Children were encouraged to be happy and not think about the future, adults to be calm and gentle and too much like Kniene for comfort. (Was that why he liked Kniene? The man reminded him of how his Parentals had been?) Kian resisted the urge to shrug, to think about why he had brought up his little sibling or even remember if he had spoken to Autsu about her, ever. Or if it mattered.

He'd never see her again, after all. Not unless she was delivered to him in the same manner of their mother. If that happened, Kian did not want to know of it. He would pretend she was grown, pleasent and contented in a community with two little ones of her own and a second who treated her with respect and kindness. He would think of her as happy as one could be there.

So he said, mild, monotone, "I do not think it a good thing, to have been like that and have ended up like this. It is a hard thing to lose."

A dismissal of Autsu's statement, maybe, but more of a quiet admittance on Kian's part. He hadn't been the one Autsu knew and wanted the whole of his lives, after all which, in itself, was a hard thing to acknowledge. Kian liked how he was in this life, for the most part. He did not look forward to the anger that would follow being alone.

"What were you?" Well, look at that. Conversation. He was trying.

Bennu stared up at the oncoming leafy girl with wide eyes, hands still on the top of the pot he'd discovered. She had markers in her hands! They were colorful. So was she, in a different way and not nearly as brightly flavored as the little sticks she had in her hand. The Ghost launched upwards on small, thick legs, straight at the little girl.

Down they went in a tumble of colors, Bennu's not quite attached wings fluttering as the two of them flopped about. He somehow managed to grab hold of one of the markers before Kian (bothered) to say anything.

"Bennu."

"Color!" said the little bird with an absurd amount of glee. Then, beaming at Otessa, Bennu drew a sun onto his own leg. The lines wobbled but it managed to have the typical circular shape and the little stick-rays coming from it. "S'pretty sun."

Good at being good at things. An eyebrow flicked and Kian glanced again to his lover. When Autsu finished speaking, the triclops pressed his lips together in a small pinch to quell any urge to actually smile.

" 'Tsu," said Kian, voice level and grave. "I am sorry to inform you that you are still often angry."

Kian reached out to give the taller mans shoulder a brief pat, all thee eyes on his comrade. The children played together and the house, still in the shambles of moving, and here they spoke of how they were carved into the person they had been. Still, there were worse things to speak of. It wasn't as if they had any reason to speak of any children of their own, how they would be shaped.

That in itself was a slightly disturbing thought.

"Did you have a sibling?"