Natural Disaster

Chapter 56

They fell into something of a rhythm, living their days in and out. Doing what they could to improve the house and make it more homey, creating a schedule where some would go and do volunteer work to bring home extra rations for them all to share, come home, have dinner and talk for a long while and turn in for the night. This lasted about a half a week until Kirstie made the off-hand comment, one night, "I really miss singing together."

There'd been a long pause until, one by one, the musical five of their group glanced around at each other. "Kevin," Scott started, "Didn't you say you'd been busking with your cello-boxing?"

"Yeah."

"And it got good feedback?"

"Yeah, man," Kevin responded, "Whenever we went out to sing and stuff, people always told us how happy it made them. We always came home with a good haul."

A wide grin stretched across the blonde's face. "Guys, why don't we just do that?"

Mitch leaned forward on his elbows onto the table. "What, busk?" He considered it for a moment, "Yeah, okay, I'm down for that." He turned to look expectantly at the other three.

"Of course!" Kirstie replied.

Kevin added, "I'm in."

Avi nodded, grinning wide. "Do you even need to ask?"

An excited energy rose around the table as Esther and Launa sat back to watch them discuss and plan what they were going to do, slowly migrating to the chairs and mustard couch. The two women glanced to one another, smiling at the excitement and chatter as the other five started to lay out the plans of what they would do. "What about Telephone?" Mitch suggested as he sat on the couch, Kirstie settling in beside him with their hips pressed against each other.

"Yeah, let's just go over it," she agreed, "It's been awhile since we've done it, and I know I'm pretty rusty, so..."

They fumbled quietly for a moment, the trio glancing amongst each other for a moment, laughing nervously and grasping at the straws of memory. "Oh my God, I start," Scott exclaimed, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle his laugh, "Oh, wow, I almost forgot."

"It's not like you've not been focused on other things," Launa said, folding herself on the floor and leaning against the chair Avi had sat himself in. The blonde just grinned wide and waved her away, trying to shush everyone so he could jog his own memory. He fumbled at a note, starting to remember.

And just like that, the song went off like clockwork, rolling almost effortlessly between the five of them, some of them pausing to cough the cobwebs from their vocal cords and clear their throats of dust the lack of use had collected. Esther sat back and grinned as she listened, glancing over at Launa to gauge her reaction. The redhead's jaw slowly dropped as she listened to the song, not quite able to comprehend what she was hearing. There's no instruments, she reminded herself, there's nothing but human voices here. What the actual fuck.

Her mouth slowly stretched into a grin, watching as Avi and Kevin leaned forward in their seats, trading excited smiles as they went quiet, the trio continuing on with perfect harmonies, throwing in a drop of bass and percussion and a shiver slid up her spine. Holy shit, the amount of talent in this room is ridiculous.

They closed out the song, giggling as Kirstie did a phone operator impression, "We're sorry, the number you've called is currently out of service," she bit back a laugh as Mitch and Scott snorted on either side of her, "Please check the number and try your call again."

"Not bad, considering we're horribly out of practice," Avi said, leaning his elbows onto his knees.

Launa felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. 'Not bad'? 'Horribly out of practice'?! I've never heard anyone sing like that, ever.