As the couch flung backwards in a way that seemed natural, it felt like there had been no time and space between my younger (ha, hear that you little shit?) brother and I. When he had chosen to find his mother, Finn's words had sounded like dire excuses instead of a simple intent without much thought. His presence was like the shadow you consistently acknowledge, but the day it isn't there? Your existence is questionable and uncertain at best. Elenore had been outraged, feeling as if she had been thwarted and put off by his disappearance. And me? I would simply have liked honesty and a heads up that he wasn't planning on taking Ellie with him. Our sister absolutely loathed feeling left behind, and in my fashionable rage I had likely made it seem as if he had walked off on her and I in particular. In retrospect, my explanation to her had been purely fueled by anger that Finn hadn't asked my opinion or for my help and resources. I would have loved nothing more than to help him by setting him up in an apartment in a new city, helping him find a job... I would have loved nothing more. I don't really know why it had offended me as much as it had, but the behavior clearly cut deeper than he thought it would. And now? Months later, I had swallowed the agitation and hurt I had harbored originally, left only with a familiar irritation that Finn would probably brush off.

" You were drinking shitty beer anyway."

I flicked a look to the bottle spinning away from him, and allowed the glass to melt into the sand that had created it before, shrugging it off.

" You weren't using it and my cat peed on it. Lighting it on fire seemed like the most appropriate action."

Wasn't arson always the answer? Many times before had my brothers and sisters and I used arson as an answer. Car? Well, use some gasoline. House? Why not?! The figurative and literal lighting of a fire had always excited all of us, and clearly it was no different now as I caught the enthusiastic gleam in his eyes. He seems to catch my drift mentally, moving to answer my description about what I had done to the car as he righted himself from my overturned couch. Carefully, I returned the couch to its proper position on the carpet before situating myself on it, sprawling gracelessly on an end with two beers in my hands as if taunting the scrap of a human being looking relatively beer-drenched.

"Borrowing and owning are fairly similar, but now I feel less bad and more like I should have done something more significant. Thank you for the idea," I stated thoughtfully, taking a swing of my beer before putting the bottle in between the cushions of the couch so I could hit the cigar I'd lit. Nearly instantaneously though, would I half-spit my drink out with a chortle of laughter. " That boss was the one taking you forever? Lore beat it in about a minute," I taunted, finding a smug grin winding its way over my features. "Stay away from my PS4. If you touch it I'm going to pull out your toenails while you sleep on my couch because you're too broke to buy a new bed," I started, finding a good humored, shit eating grin on my face. "Now I'm going to have to go terrify the employees where I buy cigarettes. All because you had to go snooping for me. Didn't you like... pee on my doorstep or something to mark your way home before you left?" I cocked a brow, drinking from the beer I had brought for him over until he asked for it.

It had been a strange void, the lack of my little brother. Having someone who understood every single syllable uttered from my mouth be it in English, Afrikaans, jumble, curses... Whatever it was, he knew because he had been there. It made me feel a sort of satisfaction I had forgotten.

"... Did Ellie tell you she's moving into an apartment in the city...?"