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Alonzo remembers the first thing they broke.
There was a horrible noise from the other room, something between a thud and a shatter, and two kittens ran for his side faster than he had ever seen anything move. Once he finally got them to stop shaking, they looked up at him, still all fluff and watery kitten eyes.
“‘Zo,” his little sister started.
“We broke somefink…” his little brother finished.
Well, how about that? Alonzo gave them each a gentle lick on the top of the head and smiled.
“Let’s go see the damage done, huh?” Alonzo knew that they were just being kittens, seeing what they could do, what boundaries they could push. He walked into the kitchen and heard them patter along behind him. A tiny clay pot lay in shards next to the table. Thankfully, it had been devoid of any plants or soil. Alonzo turned around to face the culprits, who were huddled together and taking turns at staring at their elder brother and the evidence of their crime.
“Teazer, Mungo, are either of you hurt?” They weren’t and he knew it, he had checked them over himself.
They both shook their heads before trundling up to him and shoving their heads as far as they could into his side. “Love you, Lozzo…” they said in perfect unison, asking for forgiveness that they had yet to learn he could never withhold from them.
“That’s good, I’m glad you’re both safe,” he purred, wrapping himself around them. “I love you too.”
~~~
Alonzo also remembers the next time they broke something.
Again, a noise from the next room over, although this noise was decidedly more upsetting. No thud, just the incredibly distinct sound of something very large, very fragile, and very much made of fine, fine crystal shattering and scattering across tiled floor. The sort of large, fragile something that was a two-cat job. The sort of fine crystal thing that most certainly took two older kittens a very large amount of determination to break.
This time, there were no tiny bodies racing to his side.
He moseyed on over to the counter they were sitting on, and saw the twins transfixed on the glittering carnage they had created, eyes wide as the Jellicle moon. They only noticed their brother when he let out an impatient cough, and instantly their heads snapped to face him. Their eyes were still wide, but it wasn’t hard to notice that the both of them were fighting back grins.
“And what, exactly, happened here?” Alonzo asked, gesturing to the crystalline remnants of whatever the two of them had destroyed.
It was his brother who spoke up. “It was, uh, an accident?” Rumpleteazer couldn’t help snorting at that, and Alonzo rolled his eyes.
“Wrong. I know for a fact that centerpiece weighed more than the two of you combined. The humans had to use two hands to move it. Care to try again?”
Mungojerrie was slowly losing the fight with his grin, which turned what was an owly stare from above into one that strayed a bit more towards Cheshire territory. He answered his brother after a few moments of deliberation. “...We wanted to see what would happen.”
Alonzo jumped up on the counter to join his siblings, and to show them his disdain for their shenanigans a bit more closely. He looked down at the remains and then rather pointedly back to the twins. “And what ended up happening?”
“It broke!” Teazer couldn’t disguise her squeal of delight at the announcement. The glee in her eyes was unmistakable, the image of the centerpiece shattering into brilliant, radiant pieces forever burned into her mind.
Alonzo let out a sigh that was not yet long-suffering, but would soon come to be so. “Yes, Teazer. It broke. And that’s bad.”
All delight was drained from her face- her big brother was mad at her! “I’m sorry, Zo! I won’t do it again, promise!” Whether or not she meant it at that moment, the promise wouldn’t last. Her big, teary eyes she got when scolded wouldn’t last her forever.
Mungojerrie snorted. “And why is it bad? Give me one good reason we shouldn’t have broken it. It’s not like the humans used it for anything, anyway…”
Teazer nestled up to her twin and started nibbling on his ear in an attempt to keep him calm. She had never seen her siblings fight, not really, and she certainly didn’t want to see them do so now.
Alonzo rose up to his unimpressive full height, himself still not full-grown. “Well, for one, you could have gotten hurt!” He was fully indignant, not used to having his authority as eldest challenged. “What if you had slipped and fallen on your face? What if you had stepped on a shard and gotten poked in the paw?”
Both twins winced, not only from the imagery but also the tone from their brother who had never been more than mildly annoyed at them before.
Alonzo’s tail was lashing in irritation now. “And for two, I wanna be the Jellicle protector when I grow up! What if they find out I couldn’t even protect my own house from my siblings? They’ll laugh me out of the junkyard…” The eldest sibling’s steam seemed to have gone, and he hung his head low.
This, more so than the verbal lashing, caught the twins’ attention. They looked at each other, silently making a pact to cheer up their sibling. They would not stand for a sad Alonzo, not now and not ever. They slunk up to him and pressed themselves into his side.
“We’re sorry, ‘Zo,” Teazer told him, rubbing his cheek with her cheek.
“We promise to never ever ever let them find out about this.” Jerrie chimed in, and began licking the back of his brother's head in an attempt to comfort him.
Alonzo looked up slowly.
“You promise?”
“We promise.”
~~~
The only other broken thing Alonzo remembers came much later.
The twins were fairly grown up, with just a hint of kitten fluff, and Alonzo himself was a full-grown adult, training to help protect the junkyard.
It was dark, deep into the night, or perhaps into the morning. The rain had let up less than an hour before, leaving everything damp outside. Alonzo was simply lazing about the house, sitting contentedly on a blanket on the floor, when he heard the cat flap open -- someone came through, letting it close behind them before someone else came in at a much more measured pace. This was unusual, since the twins were usually so close together the flap didn’t have time to close between the two. Still, Alonzo didn’t bother turning around.
What Alonzo missed was the irregular pawsteps of one of his siblings.
Mungojerrie ran up to him first. “Big bro-”
“‘Zo… I think I broke something…” his sister cut off her brother to make her own announcement.
Under normal circumstances, Alonzo would respond with a snort and a curt ‘Well leave me out of it!’ But this wasn’t normal circumstances. He could hear the sorrow in his sister’s voice, a voice smaller than it had ever been. He whipped around to see her trembling, holding her paw so it wouldn’t touch the ground. He saw her eyes, big and watery like they were when she was small. She had been crying, possibly even the whole way home. Her breath was ragged.
She was a kitten who had gotten her first reality check and she couldn’t handle it, not without her big brother by her side.
Alonzo was terrified, but refused to let it show.
He walked over to his baby sister and nuzzled her neck. “Hey, don’t worry, I’m here now. I’ll protect you.” He licked her neck and nibbled her ear, doing his best to feel like a strong but gentle presence.
Finally feeling safe, her crying started up again. She let it all out. Mungojerrie quickly joined in, sniveling a bit and rubbing Teazer's sides with his head. They stayed like that for some time, all three of them together in the early hours of the morning.
Finally, Teazer’s eyes had mostly run dry and her sobbing subsided. Alonzo gave her one final lick on the bridge of her nose and looked at her. “Do you want me to go get the human?”
She shook her head. “No… please... just stay here tonight. Please?”
Alonzo knew he could never deny her, especially when she was hurt. “Of course. Goodnight, Teazer. Goodnight, Mungo. I love you.”
The reply was simultaneous:
“Goodnight, Lozzo. We love you too.”