Chapter 128: Refuel Rotation

By noon the barn had turned the news into work.

Sable was rebuilding her timeline on the steel bench. Mara was drawing arrows between two circles. Eren sat with Devian’s brown paper pinned under his mug, reading it the way other men read letters.

[Flux: 24%]

Damian carried a crate to the north wall and set it down. The floor tilted a little under him. He stood still until it stopped.

Kira was across the barn, sorting her perimeter sheet. She didn’t turn her head. “Shoulders,” she said.

He lowered them. “I’m fine.”

“You were fine at the farmhouse too.” She pinned the sheet to the beam and finally looked at him, flat and unhurried. “Sable’s window is open. Elena’s is too.” Her ears pinked. “Choose before the light goes.”

“Is that an order?”

“It’s weather.” She walked off toward the yard, boots loud on the boards.

_ _

He chose Sable.

She was behind the drop-cloth curtain in the partitioned corner, sitting on the edge of her cot with her tablet on her knees. The grey cardigan still sat crooked, one button off from the top. She glanced up as the cloth swung aside, and she read the number from his face before he opened his mouth.

“Twenty-four,” she said.

“Close enough.”

She set the tablet on the blanket and slid the curtain closed behind him. The drop cloth blocked the light but not the sound. Beyond it the generator stuttered and Elena’s spoon clinked against a tin.

“Thin walls,” Damian murmured.

“Cloth.” Sable undid the cardigan one button at a time, starting with the wrong one. “Cloth is not a wall.” She peeled it off her shoulders, and her mouth quirked. “Be quiet if you can.”

“Can you?”.Damisn asked.

“No.” She said it without shame and lifted the hem of her blouse over her head.

Her bra was black and full-cupped, doing real structural work. She unhooked it in one practised motion and let it fall onto the cardigan. Her breasts came free, heavy and round, the nipples already tight in the cold air. The lamp on the crate caught her waist and the swell of her hips. He could smell her skin, warm and faintly sweet.

[Grade Scan: Sable Wren — Grade A. Flux restoration available: 65%]

She pulled him down beside her.

This time she took the lead. She cupped her right breast in both hands and offered it, her eyes holding his. “Slowly,” she murmured. “I want to feel it.”

He took her nipple between his lips and drew gently. The milk arrived at once, rich and warm, the ×2.0 ceiling full in the first pull. She exhaled through her nose, a long unsteady breath, and her spine bowed toward him.

He drew again, deeper. Her fingers curled into the blanket on either side of her thighs.

“Damian.” His name came out low and rough. She pressed her lips together, but the next sound escaped anyway, a small broken moan that the cloth did nothing to hide. “Oh. Slowly, I said.”

He shifted to her left side and took her more firmly. Her head tipped back until her throat was bare. She hooked one hand around his shoulder and dragged him closer, nails biting through his shirt.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. Then, almost angry at herself, “I can’t keep quiet.”

“Nobody’s asking you to.” Damian said.

“Everyone can hear.”

“They already know.” He spoke against her skin. She laughed, breathless, and the laugh turned into another moan halfway through.

He stayed until the system confirmed.

[Flux: 24% + 65% = 89%]

He sat back. Her nipples were flushed and wet, milk beading at one tip. She sagged against the cot frame, hair coming loose, her blouse clutched against her stomach. The flush climbed from her chest to her cheekbones.

“Eighty-nine,” he said.

“Good.” She dragged a hand through her hair and tried to look composed. She failed. “Don’t say anything clever.”

He said nothing. He smiled.

Ding!

[Milk Memory: Refreshed. A-grade bonus reapplied. Duration: 24 hours.]

[Bonus compounding: ×2.0. Ceiling maintained.]

_ _

Damian came out through the curtain buttoning his shirt.

He sat on his pile of blankets under the loft window, whittling a pencil with a pocketknife. He didn’t look up. “Eleven minutes.”

Damian stopped. “What?”

“The cloth dampens sound by roughly thirty percent.” Devian blew a curl of wood off the point. “I measured it this morning. It wasn’t enough.”

Damian said nothing. He walked to the kettle.

At the stove Elena was stirring something over the camping burner with great concentration. Her ears had turned a deep, interesting pink. “I didn’t hear anything,” she said to the pot.

“You were standing four feet from the curtain,” Devian said.

“I was making soup.”

“Categorised soup.”

Elena set down the spoon and turned, arms folded, her braid falling over one shoulder. “Is there something you’d like to add, Devian?”

He considered. He tested the pencil point against his thumb. “Target practice,” he said. “Again.”

Sable’s voice came from behind the cloth, very calm. “I can still hear you.”

Across the barn Kira’s boots stopped scuffing. She didn’t turn around. Her neck had gone red to the collar.

Elena pressed her lips together and lost the fight. Her shoulders shook. She bent over the burner and laughed into her sleeve.

Damian poured his tea and drank it. It was strong enough to clear his head, and it didn’t help his face.

_ _

Elena found him later at the end of the bench, when the light through the high windows had turned the colour of weak tea.

She wiped her hands on a rag and sat on the crate across from him. The flush had faded. The researcher’s focus had come back into her eyes, with something warmer underneath it.

“My cycle’s due tomorrow morning,” she said. “If we hold the streak, natural production should establish in a day or two.” She tapped two fingers against her knee. “You’d only gain a little tonight. Your reserves are nearly full.”

“I know.”

“I thought I should say it before you worked it out for yourself and felt obliged.”

He looked at her. “Obliged isn’t the word I’d use.”

She studied him for a moment, and her mouth softened. “Good.” She stood and took the rag with her. “Tomorrow, then.”

He watched her walk back to the stove.

[Flux: 85%]

Passive drain had already taken four points. He noted it.

A shadow fell across the bench.

Mara stood at the edge of the tarp with her arms folded and a pencil still through her hair. She’d been listening. He could see it in the straightness of her back, in how carefully she kept her face blank.

“I’m not coming to you tonight,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t going to ask?”

“I was going to say my turn.” She let the pencil slip from her hair and turned it in her fingers. “Then I did the arithmetic.” She nodded at his chest. “You’re at eighty-five. I’m S-grade. A hundred percent per cycle.” Her mouth twitched. “I won’t waste any of it on a man who’s already full.”

“That’s very responsible.”

“It’s very efficient.” Her gaze held his for a beat longer than efficiency needed. “Burn through it tomorrow. Train hard. Let Kira run you into the ground.” She pushed the pencil back into her hair. “Then come and find me.”

She walked away without waiting for an answer, her stride a little too even.

Damian looked at his hands.

At the far end of the barn the generator stuttered, and he counted nine seconds in his head. Short, short, long.