[Can’t Opt Out]

[Valor:Levi found the tunnel entrance.]

[Valor:He might need medical attention, as he quite literally stumbled into it.]

[Valor:The hole doesn’t seem that deep, and he’s yelling that he’s okay, but…]

“But Levi is known to lie about being okay,” Valor didn’t add to his messages.

Taelor wasn’t particularly concerned with the state of Levi. While the boy was known for lying about his injuries—although Coral had once claimed it wasn’t that he was lying so much as he was generally unaware of what was happening inside his body—he generally noticed when he was seriously injured… usually, anyways.

Still, those of them who were more equipped to deal with medical situations were already moving, microsparking their way towards the tunnel entrance. He was close behind them, more concerned with getting to Emilia than to his distant cousin. Levi would be fine. Emilia… Emilia had to be fine, but Taelor didn’t think his heart would stop clenching until he was able to drag her into his arms and check every inch of her.

Until then… until then, he would just have to suppress his worries, just as he always did.

It would be fine.

It would be fine.

It had to be fine.

Of course, nothing was ever fine. Everything was a mess. Taelor didn’t let himself dwell on that mess often, however. There was nothing to be done about the mess of their lives because there was nothing to be done to help Baylor other than what they were already doing: working towards getting him a position within The Black Knot that would be satisfying enough to his urges that he would never give in to the darkness that lived under his skin.

If Taelor allowed himself to dwell on how much he hated their lives—hated that they couldn’t have easy lives without serial killer urges or murder charges or Valor’s inability to every truly be happy with the life they had—it would all crush him. It was his job to keep everyone safe—to make sure they were happy. All in all, he did an acceptable job of it. He helped and cared where he could, gently guiding each of them towards what he deemed to be the best they could manage when there was no way to fix all the things wrong with their lives.

Everyone’s hopes and expectations, failed and impossible to achieve as they were, weighed on him. One day, he knew he would collapse under them all. It wouldn’t be today. It wouldn’t even be in the next few decades, he thought. One day, however, the weight of everything would bring him to his knees, sobbing and breaking. Still, occasionally, a crack would appear, his shoulders shaking in the rare shower he took by himself as he let the water rinse away the tears he could never let anyone see.

Not Loren.

Not Emilia.

Not his brothers.

No one would see them; he was the strong one—the one who was supposed to hold them all up, be their foundation. It was what he had been born for. It was the position he had filled for Baylor since they were children, Valor pulled into their orbit because he didn’t hate it and saw no reason to say no—that’s what he claimed, anyways. Taelor suspected that, if Valor decided he didn’t actually need what he got from their relationship and tried to leave their triad, their youngest brother would quickly realize he actually did enjoy being cared for more than he realized. It was more that he… wanted to be normal, and what the three of them had was normal for them, abnormal for the rest of Baalphoria… mostly. The fact that Taelor could name off a handful of people who were definitely curious about what, precisely, the three of them did behind closed doors told him that at least some small percentage of Baalphoria was more than okay with what they were doing.

Not that any of them cared; neither Emilia nor anyone else they actually liked—or more tolerated being around for reasons other than that Emilia liked them—cared. If Emilia didn’t care, they wouldn’t care.

Thank the aether, though, for having blessed them with someone like her. Taelor wasn’t sure what would have happened, that first time she had realized exactly how close they were, if she had cringed and turned away from them. He had had faith, as he pushed Baylor down, that she wouldn’t flinch at what she saw. Baylor had struggled, concerned with the effect revealing themselves would have on the girl they all loved, but eventually given in, while Valor pulled her sleeping body closer, each of them waiting for her to wake and realize they weren’t just okay with sharing her between them.

Luckily, Emilia had been more than okay with what they were to one another, and the little part of himself who had been worried she would reject their love had settled, then immediately panicked because how were they supposed to love her when they couldn’t bring her with them as they worked their way through The Black Knot’s unending missions?

Emilia was meant to shine, and she couldn’t do that with them.

So, they would all give her up. So, she would give them up, and it hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt so much that if he let himself dwell on it, it would eat him alive—devour his body from the inside out until he gave in and just said fuck it. They could find another way for Baylor to satisfy his needs. It would be messy and bloody, but there had to be ways they could do it and be together—ways they could satisfy all of their needs, even a little bit more.

It was, in the end, a useless dream, he knew.

So, for the moment, he would help the four of them live as well as they could, just waiting for the day reality would crash down and destroy him. First, however, they had to find Emilia. If something happened to Emilia, there would be nothing left because Baylor would destroy it all, because Valor would turn on himself until he was nothing more than ribbons of flesh and blood, because he would…

Taelor wasn’t sure what he would do, his mind never allowing itself to move beyond the despondent scene that had played over in his head since he was a young teenager, first realizing that even if they managed to get Emilia into their bed—to accept them for what they were—only pain and suffering awaited them.

The shine of a white shower, tiles stacked atop tiles to create an intricate pattern that didn’t seem to fit the white. Why create a pattern of white? The titles weren’t even slightly different in their shades. Just white, white, white and the pitter-patter of water falling across his head and shoulders as they shook. Tears flowing freely down his cheeks while his chest rose in too fast breaths, panic coming for him too fast, too brutal. His fingers curled into fists against the tile, his head resting against that smooth white, cooling the burn of the water against his skin, leaving him a patchy red that was too much—there weren’t skills that could heal those burns, the heat seeping deeper and deeper, damaging skin and muscle, and still, it wasn’t enough to ease the aching panic running through this older version of himself, so real, and yet, a figment of his imagination.

It was a weirdly vivid image of his future self, and Taelor was never really sure what to do with it. Mostly, he didn’t think of it, and on the occasions he couldn’t push the tide of it back, he focused instead on the end—on the tiny tilt of his head as the door to the bathroom open, a familiar and yet unknown presence filling the room as someone stepped inside. It was imaginary, of course, but Taelor liked to think the images were simply his brain connecting what he had often done when stressed—hidden to cry in the shower—with the reality that, eventually, everything would get to him. Then, in order to lessen the ache of that reality, it added in the fact that he was loved. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel✦fire.net

“Don’t worry, someone will come for you,” that last bit seemed to say. “You won’t be alone. Someone will be there to pick up the pieces.”

That was nice, at least. Still, Taelor didn’t want to experience that terrible reality anytime soon, and not finding Emilia would definitely bring it tumbling over him sooner or later. With those thoughts lingering in his mind, Taelor peered into the hole Levi had fallen into. Valor and Simeon were already inside, as were another half of their group, the remainder pulling up behind him… mostly. Leerin was taking her time, Darrian tapping his fingers anxiously against his bicep as he stared off in her direction.

Collectively, their group had decided not to push the Leerin Problem, but Taelor wouldn’t be surprised if this situation would snap the few members of their friend group who had hope the girl would stop being so insufferable out of their delusions.

Not his problem. Taelor would happily leave Leerin behind—then again, he would happily leave almost everyone behind. Such things weren’t necessary quite yet—Emilia was still travelling and seemed mostly just annoyed with her travel companions—but if suddenly it felt like they needed to get to her immediately—and yes, he realized it was odd that, currently, it didn’t feel like they needed to rush to the point of potentially being unsafe—he wouldn’t hesitate.

For the people he loved, of course, he wouldn’t hesitate.

“You think this is the actual entrance?” he asked as he let a skill soften his landing, the hole not quite deep enough to require they use equipment to get down, although a few of them would need someone else to soften the jump for them, their own skills in such things leaning more into in case of emergency only. Already, Valor was moving to help Lux down, while Taelor suspected he had also helped BJ, who was now kneeling beside Levi and demanding he stop trying to stand up and stay still.

Levi was, unsurprisingly, not a good patient. He twisted and turned and moaned—not about anywhere hurting, of course. No, Levi was complaining about the tragedy of needing to sit still. Both he and Emilia were terrible at sitting still. Emilia, however, could stay still with the right incentive. By herself, the girl he loved was able to pull herself taut for willbrandsmithing and other passion projects. With Valor, she was able to allow him to force her still on his lap. Sometimes ropes were involved. Sometimes it was simply Valor’s demand that she stay still, his obstinate personality allowing him the control to deny both of them the tip into an orgasm unless she behaved.

Levi, on the other hand, had once escaped from the clinic after puncturing a lung. While he had let the hole be patched up by Valor and BJ, it hadn’t been nearly enough. Not only had the way he’d punctured a lung been ridiculous—the sort of story that would forever haunt him as one of the stupidest things he’d ever do, were he capable of being haunted by his mistakes and not just laughing whenever they were brought up—but the running away from the clinic just made it so much worse. It had taken Darrian—who they all insisted was Levi’s best friend, even if neither of them every used such words to describe the other—pouting and threatening to throw himself into the sea if Levi didn’t come back to receive proper care for the little shit to actually come back.

Then Doctor Vickers had knocked him out and kept him that way for several days while he underwent surgery and recovered. Taelor didn’t think that sort of tactic would work here—for one thing, it wasn’t like knocking him out and leaving him there was a good option. It wasn’t not an option, just not a good one.

Still, Levi was good for being the sort of idiot who would willingly allow themself to be used as bait, so Taelor was disinclined to leave him behind unless necessary. Emilia would be upset if he were injured and went without treatment, only to be pushed into more danger as they made use of his death wish—she’d be upset even if Levi was uninjured, of course. In either case, at least Levi would have made himself useful.

Several threats in what Levi deemed Taelor’s very bedroom daddy voice later, and Levi was sitting in Darrian’s lap, pouting but allowing a medical scan. As for the rest of them, they were heading into the tunnels. Those staying behind while Levi was scanned would catch up. They had a tunnel system to explore. Hopefully, it would be more straight tunnel with proper markings to guide their way than a maze of a system. None of them wanted to get lost, especially not while Emilia was waiting for them.

Still, every one of them pulled up mapping functions on their Censors. Worse than the tunnel potentially being a maze, worse than the reality that they could run into other people traversing it, was the reality that if it was a maze and they ran into people they might be separated and find themself lost within.

“Fuck that’s nightmare material,” Lux shuddered, tucking her arms around herself as they worked their way through the so far straight tunnel. “Getting lost down here? All alone, with no way to find your way out? Fucking nightmare. No thanks.”

No thanks indeed. The last thing they needed was to be forced to choose between searching for lost group members and continuing to search for a way into Falmíer.

Of course, more often than not, reality is far worse than the imagination can be.