novelraw Chapter 139: Movie Night
Chapter 139: Movie Night
Lachlan whooped, already halfway to the small stack of DVDs they’d pulled from a dark electronics store weeks ago. "Bless you, Captain Doom. Hot salty noise plus mindless explosions. We live like kings." He flipped cases until he found the right kind of numb. "Action or more action?"
Sera’s creature hummed. Noise calms pups. Good noise. Loud teeth on a leash. She didn’t tell it that men weren’t pups. The creature didn’t seem to care.
Lachlan tossed the disc in and flopped to the floor with the bowl balanced on his knees. He shovelled a handful into his mouth, then, without looking, offered the bowl up over his shoulder toward Sera. She didn’t need it. She took it. The sound he made in his chest, satisfied and stupid-happy, matched the purr in hers enough to be embarrassing.
Alexei’s arm along the back of the couch lowered a fraction. She didn’t move toward it. Not noticeably. The creature nudged anyway, pleased to be bracketed like this—guard to the right, clown on the floor, commander at the edge, medic fussing in the periphery. Balance kept.
The TV found a picture. Flicker, then a man running, a car exploding on a loop that required no attention. The light from the screen climbed their faces and laid different versions of them on their skin: Alexei amused, eyes half-lidded; Elias intent on the kettle even though nothing needed tending; Lachlan vibrating with leftover adrenaline; Zubair scanning the window reflection more than the plot.
"Fish jar," Lachlan said around a mouthful, lifting his mug again. "Still bad."
"Shocking," Elias murmured.
"Is good," Alexei said, content. "Tastes like not dying."
"That isn’t a flavor," Elias said on reflex.
Alexei made a show of thinking, then brightened. "Smoky, with notes of survival and bad plumbing."
"Notes of survival," Lachlan repeated, delighted. "Put that on a label. Vintage end of world."
Sera took another swallow and let the foul taste sit. The creature didn’t complain; it didn’t care about flavor. It cared about firsts. Drink first. Eat first. Accept offerings. Law holds.
Popcorn hit her shoulder. She didn’t look down. She didn’t have to. She sighed through her nose and flicked it back. It bounced off Lachlan’s head and landed in the bowl. He made a wounded sound and beamed at her like she’d thrown him a bone.
Elias drifted over with a small jar and held it out to her. "Sea salt," he said, awkward, like he was offering contraband. "For the popcorn. If you want."
She took it. It was unnecessary. It was right. She salted her palm and let Lachlan steal half of what she’d shaken.
"Thank you," she said, because it cost nothing and made Elias stand a fraction taller.
The storm hit again, harder. Ding-ding-ding climbed to a harsher buzz. The frame thunked once. Zubair’s head turned. He didn’t move.
"She holds," he said, exact same cadence as before.
"Captain Doom says we live," Lachlan translated cheerfully.
"Don’t call me that," Zubair said, without a hint of heat.
Alexei laughed into his sleeve. Elias smiled without meaning to.
They ate and drank and pretended the movie mattered. When the hero crawled through a vent, Lachlan sniffed like a critic. "That duct isn’t rated for a toddler."
"Stiffeners every forty-eight inches," Elias said, then snapped his mouth shut like he’d betrayed a secret about himself.
"Translation," Alexei said, eyes still on the screen. "Doc thinks man is too fat to fit in shiny tube."
"Not what I said," Elias started.
Sera bumped her knee lightly into Lachlan’s shoulder to shut him up before he could make it worse. He subsided with a grin and put the bowl in her lap as payment.
Alexei shifted closer by the width of a breath. His fingers brushed the couch behind her, and stopped there like a gentleman with very ungentlemanly thoughts. He pretended to watch the hero jump from one ridiculous thing to another. She pretended to believe him.
Zubair didn’t pretend. He walked to the window and stood there, arms folded, watching the storm use the building as a drum. After a minute, he came back, put his palm flat to the wall, and listened with his bones. He nodded to himself when whatever he heard matched whatever he’d expected to hear.
"Tomorrow," Elias said, too brightly. "We reinforce the hinge on the landing door."
Zubair grunted approval. "Cut straps tonight. Plates in the morning."
Lachlan groaned. "Homework."
"You like knives," Zubair said.
"True." Lachlan perked up at once. "I call the good scissors."
"There are no good scissors," Elias said. "There are only knives you’re not supposed to use on fabric."
"Then we use knife," Alexei said, content again with the shape of the argument. "Everything solved."
Sera let their noise fill the room. The movie threw orange light across the ceiling. The greenhouse whispered behind the door: water dripping back into pans, a leaf ticking glass, the half-sweet smell of tomatoes and lemon leaves warmed by grow lights.
She didn’t need any of it.
But she liked all of it.
Her creature nudged again when Alexei’s knuckles grazed the back of her shoulder as he laughed.
Accept. She did, without moving more than the width of a breath.
Feed first. Lachlan offered her the bowl again before he took more himself.
Law holds. Zubair took the last swallow of his mug and set it down only when hers was empty.
Edge watching center. Elias hovered and then—quiet victory—sat down on the other end of the couch, shoulders finally dropping one click.
The building creaked deep, a slow settle. The storm answered with a hiss and a handful of hard dings. The TV hero yelled something brave and stupid that got lost under the weather.
Sera took another drink of the brackish water and let it burn cold in her chest. The creature was satisfied. She was... not unhappy. It was a precise feeling, unexpected and easy to ruin, and she didn’t examine it.
"Popcorn," Lachlan demanded without looking, and she dropped a handful over his shoulder. He caught two in his mouth and missed a third on purpose so he could whine for sympathy and get none.
"Tomorrow," Zubair said again, not like a promise, just a label for a box he intended to open and empty. He didn’t follow it with orders this time. He didn’t need to. The list was already written.
The storm clawed. The movie blared. The generator hummed. The greenhouse breathed. The horde held.
Sera slid the salt back to Elias, leaned her shoulder a fraction into Alexei’s easy claim of space, and reached into the bowl again.