Lily had already picked the movie by the time Leo finished dragging the air mattress into the sitting room, dropping the deflated shape onto the rug like a wrestling opponent she’d already beaten. The pump whirred to life, and the mattress inflated in fits and starts while Leo directed its shape with both hands, adjusting corners that didn’t need adjusting.
Franz sat on the couch with Lexx cradled against one arm, bottle tipped at the angle Lexx preferred lately, watching the mattress take shape without offering to help. Nobody had asked him to. Somewhere in the last year, the twins had decided movie night setup belonged to them exclusively, and Franz had learned the difference between helping and interfering.
"Almost done," Leo announced, giving the mattress a final, unnecessary pat.
Arianne arrived a few minutes later carrying a tray with both hands, a bowl of popcorn wedged securely in the middle and three cups lined up beside it, each one fitted with a lid and a straw.
"Why only three?" Lily asked, counting heads. "There’s four of us. Five if Lexx gets thirsty."
"Uncle Franz and I are sharing." Arianne set the tray down on the low table. "Lexx gets milk. You and Leo get your own."
Lily had already moved on to more pressing concerns, snatching her cup before Leo could claim the better straw. The opening logo of the movie flashed across the screen, and Lily abandoned the tray entirely to hit the light switch, plunging the room into the kind of dark that made every movie night feel like an event instead of just a Tuesday.
She dropped onto the mattress beside Leo, both of them arranging blankets with the seriousness of professionals. "Can Lexx watch with us?"
"Once he’s done and burped," Franz said. "Give him a few minutes."
Lily accepted the terms and turned her full attention to the screen, popcorn migrating steadily from bowl to mouth. Arianne settled onto the couch beside Franz, took one of the two remaining cups, and held it out to him.
Franz took it one-handed, careful not to jostle Lexx, and drank before he asked, "You’re not having anything to snack on?"
"I’m still full from dinner." She watched the twins, the blue light of the screen shifting across both their faces. "Have you started packing yet?"
Franz’s silence answered before he did. "I haven’t."
"Franz."
"I got distracted." He glanced down at Lexx, who’d finally lost interest in the bottle and was blinking heavily instead. "The twins wanted to practice their lines for the play, and then Leo wanted help building the mattress fort, and somewhere in there packing stopped being today’s problem."
Arianne raised one slender brow, said nothing else about it, and reached over to take Lexx from him instead. "Go rinse the bottle. I’ll get him burped."
Franz went, and by the time he returned from the kitchen, Lexx had already been passed onto the mattress, rolled onto his stomach between the twins, gnawing happily on the corner of a blanket like he’d been granted access to something exclusive. Lily was narrating the movie to him in a running commentary he couldn’t possibly follow, pointing at the screen every time something happened that she considered important. Leo kept one hand near Lexx’s blanket at all times, watching for any sign his arms or legs might tangle in it, adjusting the fabric in small corrections whenever Lexx shifted.
"Careful," Leo said, when Lexx rolled an inch too close to the edge of the mattress. "He doesn’t know how mattresses work yet."
"He’s fine, Leo."
"I’m just saying." Leo repositioned Lexx anyway, apparently unconvinced that fine was a permanent condition.
Franz lowered himself back onto the couch beside Arianne and let the two of them argue it out. Lexx watched the whole production without a trace of concern, entirely unaware he was the subject of it. Halfway through the movie, Lily sat up so fast she nearly upended the popcorn bowl.
"That’s the line," she announced, pointing at the screen like she’d caught the movie doing something wrong. "That’s almost exactly what I have to say in the play."
"You have three lines," Leo said. "None of them are that."
"The feeling is the same." Lily stood up on the mattress, wobbling a little, and delivered her line to the room with both arms extended. "’I am not afraid of the dark, for I carry my own light.’"
"You’re supposed to say that to the dragon. Not to Uncle Franz."
"Uncle Franz can be the dragon."
"I don’t have a costume," Franz said.
"You don’t need one. Just growl a little."
Franz obliged with a growl unconvincing enough that Lily collapsed into giggles instead of finishing the scene, and Leo used the distraction to reclaim the spot beside Lexx that Lily had abandoned mid-performance, resettling the blanket around him without a word.
Arianne watched all three of them from the couch, something in her expression settling the longer she looked.
"You’ll manage them fine while I’m gone," Franz said, sitting back down beside her, though it came out more like a question than he’d meant it to.
"We’ll be fine. I’m not the only one looking after them, and you know that better than anyone." She glanced at him. "Don’t forget the school play, though. That one matters more than the usual."
"I already scheduled the flight back a day before it." Franz’s eyes stayed on Leo, who had just repositioned Lexx’s foot half an inch for no reason anyone but Leo understood. "I’ve been running their lines with them every night this week. It’s the first time either of them performs in front of an actual audience. I’m not missing that for a script reading."
"Good." Arianne leaned into him, the movie continuing without either of them watching more than half of it. "Then go pack tomorrow morning, and enjoy tonight before you have to."
Franz didn’t argue with that, and for a while, the only sound in the room was the movie, Lily’s ongoing commentary to a baby who understood none of it and loved all of it anyway, and Leo’s steady, constant watch over a brother he’d apparently decided was now his responsibility to protect from gravity itself.
Arianne was the first to catch that the commentary had stopped. She glanced over expecting Lily mid-sentence and got a slumped shape against a pillow instead, mouth slightly open, one hand resting on Lexx’s blanket out of habit even in sleep. Leo had gone down not long after, curled toward his siblings with his knees pulled up, the movie’s climax playing to an audience that had given up on it twenty minutes early.
Lexx lay between them exactly where he’d been set down, on his back now instead of his stomach, one small fist flung out to the side and the other curled against his chest, breathing the slow, even rhythm of a baby who had no idea he’d just won the argument about bedtime without saying a word.
"They didn’t even make it to the ending," Franz said, keeping his voice low. "Again."
"They never do." Arianne reached for the remote and let the screen fade to black instead of finishing the movie either of them had stopped watching an hour ago. "I think half the appeal of movie night is falling asleep before it’s over. They’d probably be disappointed if they actually stayed awake for the whole thing."
Franz crossed the room and crouched beside the mattress, tugging the blanket up over all three of them, tucking the edge in around Lexx first the way he always did. Then he picked up the remote, scrolling past the movie’s frozen final act to something neither of them had seen before, the volume already dropping to a level that wouldn’t disturb three children who’d earned every minute of that sleep.
"Since we’re staying anyway," he said, settling back onto the couch, "we might as well watch something we’ll actually finish."
"Good idea." Arianne curled into the space beside him, close enough that her side pressed against his. "Nobody’s arguing with you over the remote for once."
Franz pulled her into his arms and held her close, one hand settling at her waist, her head finding its usual place against his shoulder. On the mattress a few feet away, Lexx shifted once between the twins and settled again, and neither of them moved from the couch for the rest of the night, content to let the new movie run unwatched half the time while the three small shapes across the room slept on.