[Can’t Opt Out]

So this was… a bit of a mess. It could be worse, Darrian knew. Had Baylor pushed him over the ledge and then not immediately jumped over after him, he could be dead.

Darrian was… trying not to think about that too much—that being how close he had come to dying. Of course, he would have tried to stop himself from splattering over the ground of Falmíer, but he wasn’t particularly confident he would have succeeded in doing more than slowing his descent to maybe non-lethal speeds. At the most, he might have been able to spare himself from immediate death, but spatting over the group at whatever speed he managed to slow himself to likely still would have resulted in the sort of injuries a person didn’t want to survive.

That was probably rude to think, he supposed. Tons of people lived with serious and debilitating injuries and learned how to have fulfilling lives. Still, as he leaned against Baylor’s shoulder—not exactly the most comfortable position, given he was the taller of the two—he couldn’t shake thoughts of what life would be like if he were confined to a wheelchair, or even bedridden.

Missing limbs.

Scars.

Mental trauma that couldn’t be escaped.

Mostly, he just wanted comfort at the moment, and Baylor’s fingers dragging through his hair were nice, each scratch against his scalp pulling his mind down to earth and reality a bit more. It wasn’t common that the two of them had this much physical contact, despite the middle triplet often being the more tactile of his siblings. Baylor touched his brothers and Emilia. He placed hands on shoulders and easily joined group hugs, but he didn’t offer this sort of closeness to anyone besides those few people he loved.

Darrian thought it was easy for people to forget what Baylor was—what sort of desires he held tucked inside him—due to how friendly he came off. The other boy was terrifying, however, and he had no need for anyone but the people he loved. All of their black knot friends would protect their entire group, but only if the people they most loved were safe. For most of them, that was Emilia. Really, Darrian was lucky, in a way, to have Levi standing behind him as someone who would do anything to protect him.

Except… Levi had run off after a rock—a not-a-rock, his brain reminded him, as though that fact were important—of all things. Darrian didn’t know what to do with that fact, although as crazy as his friend was, it wasn’t exactly surprising.

Nothing was surprising when it came to Levi—fuck, the other boy could show up and proclaim that he had somehow hooked up with the most dangerous person on the continent during his few hours away from them, and Darrian would simply blink and accept it… and then ask questions because how would that even happen? And how would Levi know the man actually was the most dangerous person on the continent?

“Yeah… I could see that,” Baylor commented as Darrian babbled to him about this—really, he thought they both needed something to fill the silence, now that their nerves from the fall had settled a bit. “Levi is just… Levi. He’s like Emmie is in some ways, I guess? This person who is chaos and power and just sort of made to be hanging off the arm of someone powerful. It doesn’t matter that both of them are powerful on their own. They just… need someone who will both love them and be able to protect them? Probably, they mostly need someone to protect them from their own insanity.”

Darrian gave a hum of acknowledgment. He had thought similar things in the past, especially in the last few years, as he had slowly begun to realize what sort of things he was into in bed—not that he had any practical experience yet. The things he wanted from the person he was with—the things he wanted to do with them…

It had been an unfortunate thing to realize that both Emilia and Levi fit the type of person he would love to fill his life and bed with; yet, Baylor was right: both of them were monsters who needed monsters beside them, and he was not a monster. Don’t get him wrong! He was acceptably skilled, but the fact that he fit somewhere in the middle of the pack, when it came to the power their group was capable of was part of the reason why he wasn’t supposed to be there—wasn’t supposed to be one of the people who had jumped. He hadn’t jumped but fallen; still, they had needed to reassess who would be coming down and who staying above.

Originally, they had intended for the triplets to lead the group that was jumping, while Halen and Simeon lead the group who stayed above. That still stood, as did the fact that they didn’t want all of their remaining black knots in one group, leaving Rafe to stay above as well.

This was where things got more messy. Three people solidly in each group, and seven people left to split up: Darrian, Leerin, Janie, BJ, Codeth, and the Vickers brothers. As his cousin was, well, being completely intolerable at the moment, no one had been considering splitting them up—it had been accepted long ago that he would be the one to deal with her, as long as she stuck around them… or wasn’t forcibly ejected from the group.

Currently, Darrian would eject her from the group himself, were they not in the middle of a foreign nation and an ever-growing crisis.

That amounted to it being decided that he, Leerin, Codeth, and Doctor Vickers would be staying above, while Janie, BJ, and Sorvell jumped.

There was some method to this line of thinking. For one, BJ and Doctor Vickers were their main sources of medical training, but obviously, as an actual doctor, Doctor Vickers was significantly more skilled. He, along with Sorvell, were also the only two members of their group actually certified to freefall, while Doctor Vickers was extremely skilled with microsparking, thanks to all the testing he had helped with. Sorvell was a little less practiced, but had been learning while they travelled, and everyone was confident that after a few more minutes of practicing once he landed in the city, he would be acceptably skilled. Him being capable of microsparking was a requirement, as while both groups would potentially be in danger, the drop group would likely be in more danger. Circling back to their two medical personnel, keeping Doctor Vickers above, leaving him in a safer position in case his services became needed by either group, had been determined to be the best option.

In addition, as he and Sorvell were the only actual adults in their group, they had decided to split them up. The fact that the brothers didn’t seem to like one another and seemed perfectly happy to be split up may have also been a factor, albeit a much smaller one. More important was the fact that, if they ran into adults who refused to communicate or listen to not just children but foreign children, it would be good to have an adult around. So, splitting them up.

This had left himself, Leerin, Janie, and Codeth to put into groups. As Codeth and Halen had more experience together, it was decided he would stay up, and combined with Baylor having all the energy of someone who might just give in and kill Leerin…

Well, it had left Janie as the odd one out who would need to join the drop group. While the girl was the quietest and perhaps weakest member of their group, she had taken it in stride, just as she did most things. Janie didn’t do anything unless she wanted to, but when she’d joined this mission, she had accepted that Taelor and Halen were in charge and she would do what was needed.

In the end, despite how quiet and unassuming she was, Janie could be just as brutal and dangerous as the rest of them. Really, Darrian thought that Sorvell had been the only one truly concerned about the girl joining what was effectively their attack squad—after all, they would likely be the first group to catch up to Emilia and be dragged in to whatever nonsense she was up to.

This plan, of course, had largely gone up in smoke the moment Baylor’s hand had landed on his shoulder, that small push sending him tumbling backwards. The problem was mostly that, despite him now being in the drop group, the reasons to keep Leerin out of it were still substantial—Baylor really might kill her, and none of them thought any of the triplets liable to protect her given she was being more difficult than usual. As a result, they were going to be split up. This didn’t bother Darrian much—if anything, he would likely be of more use without being expected to manage his cousin—but Leerin had thrown a virtual tantrum above them.

Both he and Baylor were glad to have missed it, and eventually, after sending a message to Leerin that her incessant messages were potentially distracting him from the threats around him, Darrian had been forced to mute their private relay, where Leerin had turned her complaints once someone had wrapped a silencing skill around her. He would unmute their relay eventually and deal with the consequences of doing so, but for the moment… well, he was down there, and he doubted Leerin would be stupid enough to jump and hope to either catch herself or that someone would attempt to save her.

Hence, she was stuck up there and no one wanted to deal with her anymore. Once again, this resulted in Janie effectively being given the worst role: Leerin babysitter. The girl was, once again, taking it in stride, although Darrian wasn’t completely convinced Janie hadn’t been the one to mute Leerin—he’d seen her do it before, although no one else seemed to realize that the person who occasionally silenced a few of their friends was Janie. With her small stature and tiny body, her somewhat bland looks and soft voice, Janie was easy to forget about. It was something that she had made work for her, especially in their prank war and combat classes. Even when their groups tried to remember she was dangerous and stealthy, she was constantly able to slip into the peripheries.

Hopefully, if she ran into any problems during this trip, she would be able to pull herself and Leerin into the darkness of being forgotten, and slip away. Unfortunately, her being forgotten also meant that Leerin might forget Janie was there to manage her—although, maybe that was a good thing? It probably depended on how his cousin chose to manage their separation: silent pouting or inflicting her misery on their friends.

Regardless of all that, he and Janie switching places didn’t change much else—or, it shouldn’t have. Somehow, however, the group above them had decided that Codeth should also jump. Darrian… could somewhat follow their logic, although he was sure he had missed parts due to most of the conversation being signed, only the highlights sent off in their group relay. Mostly, he was under the impression that Halen and Taelor had figured that the way the groups were originally supposed to be split had lent themselves to the attack squad largely needing to stay in one group.

This wasn’t something he could argue with. As much as everyone thought the triplets a bit of a flight risk, if they were with their original group of Janie, BJ, and Sorvell, those three wouldn’t be super effective on their own. The triplets still might abandon them, but as the risk of the other three running into problems they couldn’t hope to handle would have been high, they probably wouldn’t have ditched them without good reason. Were the good reasons that existed inside the triplets’ heads sometimes questionable at best? Yes, but that was why Janie, BJ, and Sorvell had been privately told to head to the embassy if the clones ditched them.

In comparison, their above group could have been split up. Halen and Codeth were powerful and experienced in fighting together, as were Rafe and Simeon, while he and his cousin could also be relatively effective supporting either group—and really, they could even have split off on their own, if required—and Doctor Vickers would also be helpful, no matter where he went. So, despite being the assault group, the drop group had actually been the weaker—if likely more brutal—of the two.

This was no longer the case, as Leerin was in a state while Janie was something of a question mark. BJ and Sorvell were in something of a similar position: they were skilled enough, but BJ was on the weaker side, while no one had experience fighting with Sorvell.

All this amounted to the reality that, given their group was likely to face more trouble anyways, the upper group should leave themselves in a position where they could split into two, while also giving the drop group a similar ability. So, Codeth was going to drop. This would leave him and Darrian to team up and lead half of their group, if required. They would in no way be as powerful or cohesive as Halen and Codeth would have been, but Darrian had no doubt they would be able to keep themselves and anyone left travelling with them safe enough—definitely safer than if he had been forced to depend on BJ or Sorvell for support.

So yeah, it was all a bit messy, but really, no matter what happened—no matter where each of them ended up—it was always going to be messy. At this point, all he could really hope for as he gazed upwards, watching as Valor jumped with BJ, Sorvell following quickly behind him as Taelor waited for Codeth and Halen to say their goodbyes—it was a cute goodbye, the pair squeezing each other close as they whispered to one another, Taelor dropping a video into their group relay, presumably for Coral and Mikhail to enjoy—was that no one above them snapped and killed his cousin… or left her behind.

Unfortunately, Darrian was sure that if the group found themselves anywhere near the Baalphorian Embassy, they would be pushing his cousin into it and telling her she had to get herself back to Baalphoria on her own. Given she had yet to give even the smallest indication that she felt bad for the way she had been encouraging them to leave Levi and Lux behind without even leaving someone to search for them…

No, Darrian couldn’t really blame everyone for being rather done with her—he was rather done with her as well, after all.