[Can’t Opt Out]

For the first time in a while—in about a decade, give or take a year—Baylor felt… happy. It wasn’t yet an all encompassing happiness; instead, it was a small, lingering thing—something that threatened at the edge of his mind to grow and grow until it filled him full with the possibility that the future might not be as bleak as it had seemed only hours before.

It was more than the momentary happiness he found with his brothers or when he was slicing into someone. It was less than the joy he had felt when, in the latter years of the war, he and his brother had found Emilia in their bed once again, those moments of joy nothing compared to those last few years of compulsory schooling, when she had been theirs.

Being with Emilia had always been the happiest times of his life. Even before she had let herself be drawn into their bed—had let herself be filled with them and their unending adoration for her—Emilia had always held their hearts and happiness in her hands.

She was their light.

She was their love.

She was their everything—at least, Baylor thought she was? Every so often, there would be this flicker of something else within his heart—an echo of something gone that he couldn’t quite place. Mostly, he’d grown used to ignoring it the same way he ignored the misery that Emilia’s absence dug up within him—the way he ignored how much his memories were a mangle of threads, each pulled taut until he was both himself and very much not himself.

“Stop touching them,” he could remember Taelor telling him, after yet another session of his memories being tied up. “Some are fine to remove as needed, but you keep pulling at the ones that you shouldn’t.”

Baylor had no idea what that meant. A couple thoughts was all it took to realize what was hidden behind some of those memory locks—seriously, the fact that some people seemed to have no inkling of the truth of a few things was highly concerning. This, of course, brought up the possibility that he was also an idiot and was forgetting something important and infinitely obvious. Taelor said that wasn’t it—insisted that some of the things hidden within his mind had been so well hidden that even his brothers hadn’t realized the reality of them until they had come crashing down around them. Ominous, to say the least, and for the moment Baylor was choosing to trust that keeping certain parts of his memories locked was for the best. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time his brother—brothers and Emilia, really—had kept things from him, after all, and they always they had their reasons.

They weren’t always good reasons, but they were reasons he could appreciate.

Mostly, he assumed that whatever was behind those memory locks were the sorts of things liable to drag him into a fury. It had been a while since he had killed anyone, so maybe if he pulled on his memories…

“Do not,” a soft voice said into his mind, his lips almost immediately quirking at the reprimand from the much younger person.

“That’s so cool,” he laughed back, pulling his hood a little tighter around him.

So far, he had resisted activating any temperature-management skill to heat himself up, but the cold air of Nur’tha was getting to him. It was nice, though—a cool reminder of what it was to live and be human. They could do so much with their cores and Censors, but sometimes, it was nice to just exist without so much manipulation of their bodies and the world. There was also that fact that, in his ongoing conversation with Hyr, he had learned that this weather was considered mild. While the kyrfa’Nur’tha certainly used their cores to heat themselves up, they rarely did so when it was only this cold.

Was he being a child and refusing to give in and use a skill to heat himself up now? Definitely. Hyr just seemed to find it amusing. They’d been chatting for the last few minutes, since his message to Emilia had been forwarded to the syn, and they had told him that he just needed a little more patience. Baylor had always been good at making friends—well, not friends, as he really didn’t need more than he already had. It was more that he was good at meeting people.

While plenty of people eventually noticed that there was something off about him, if they either spent enough time with him or had the instincts to peg him as a predator, for short interactions he was personable and charming, his cheerful nature leading people to inherently trust him, even when he was wearing his normal face.

A clone who could be trusted~

It was ironic that his seeming trustworthiness had led more than a few people into his torture rooms, scattered throughout the continent. Sometimes, people were terrible and needed to be tortured, okay? He always gave them an opportunity to spill their guts without the torture, too! Really, it was quite shocking how many people refused to fess up the location of the slaves they were transporting to Chinsata or where they’d gotten the contaminated drugs from. What stupid things to be tortured over, especially when he would get the truth out of them eventually!

Idiots—although, the fact that so many of the people who found themselves within his grasp were criminals who willingly let themselves be befriended by a clone was perhaps sign enough of their stupidity.

“Perhaps they wished to use you for something?” Hyr asked when Baylor spent a moment rambling about this—he was pretty sure the syn had sight enough to realize what sort of person they were talking to, but Baylor hadn’t wanted to leave any doubt in the syn’s head that he was a soft and polite clone or anything. Hyr hadn’t been surprised—actually, they had even assured Baylor that while they had told him not to pull his memories loose all because he quite wanted to kill someone, he would be able to kill a few people soon.

That was nice, if odd—not because Hyr was telling him he’d have someone to kill soon! Baylor was used to hearing from The Black Knot or his brothers that he would be allowed to let blood soak over him soon; more, it was odd because there was a question in the syn’s voice. A few questions later, and Hyr had revealed that something seemed to be interfering with their ability to clearly see the near future.

The moments directly around them and those they chose to focus on—or to whom the aether dragged their attention—they could see. Currently, the syn saw flashes of Darrian and Emilia’s new Free Colonier friend training together in the Virtuosi System, their hearts slowly entwining. They hadn’t actually entered it yet, but Hyr could still see bits of the days they would spend together within it because, eventually, they would enter it and what the syn saw would come to be.

Hyr could see bits and pieces of the next few days—could see a few key moments playing out, including several that made Baylor laugh because of course that was how Emilia’s trip would go. Another few things Hyr could see weren’t things they were willing to share, but they still knew they would happen.

Then, things became blurry. Some things were a normal blur—or so they said. For instance, while they could see moments of Emilia and her friends together—could see paths that Darrian and Emilia’s Free Colonier friend might take to become something more—there were so many people who could make a thousand small decisions that would affect the future. As a result, nothing was set.

“I cannot even see what will happen on my birthday in several days. In some iterations of the day, there is a celebration, in others, only Emilia gives me a gift,” the syn had admitted, and Baylor had been left wondering if Hyr could see him then—could see the way he had redirected his meandering steps through the settlement that had accidentally become the de facto Nur’tha capital and instead aimed himself towards the house of someone he knew.

It was late, but when he woke the owner of the home up, seeking to know what sort of gift he could get his new friend—and it really was amazing how quickly the syn had cemented themself as a friend within Baylor’s heart—he knew their old teammate would help. While he hoped the syn wasn’t aware of what he was doing—birthday gifts should be a surprise, after all!—it didn’t much matter if they did know.

If there was a chance none of Emilia’s new friends would celebrate the day Hyr appeared in the world, Baylor would make sure to shower them with gifts!

The reality that in some futures, none of Emilia’s new friends would do something Hyr was unacceptable, laying yet another reason at Baylor’s feet of why he should dislike them—although, Hyr did insist that whenever the Free Colonier Darrian was interested in actually learned about their birthday, he would insist on doing something. On the other hand, Samina somehow never found out about Hyr’s birthday. Another point to the random, if slightly terrifying and oddly familiar looking, Free Colonier. Another point in the random pile of points Samina had for never knowing anyone’s birthday—seriously, she relied on people to tell her when her own was, someone dragging her off to get a present for Levi because he had all the birthday-love genes and would throw a tantrum if his twin didn’t give him a gift. No points to Emilia’s other new friends. Baylor didn’t like that Emilia had new friends, but Darrian deserved to be happy—that was another point in the Free Colonier’s favour.

That was the thing: for all that Darrian had fucked up by not giving up on Leerin long ago, Baylor couldn’t completely blame him for it. Fuck knew he would fight as hard as he could to bring his brothers back to their happy selves, so how could he blame Darrian for trying his hardest as well? They all had blind spots when it came to members of their friend group, and while their new Leerin-less group relay was definitely filled with people who were frustrated with his lack of even letting everyone know how bad his family situation had become, Baylor actually thought they were being a little harsh.

Leerin had lost the support and affection of many of them long ago, but Darrian had continued holding out hope. He was stupid for doing so, yes, but if it hadn’t been Leerin in this situation? If it had been someone else, who the rest of them hadn’t seen as a lost cause long ago? Well, then Baylor was sure there would be less pushback. It wasn’t fair to either look at the situation with Leerin within the vacuum of all she had and hadn’t done over the years, nor was it fair to exclude everything either.

They had all messed up tons over the years. Sometimes, they managed to make amends. Sometimes, they didn’t. They were friends—or, at least friend-ish, in the case of some of them—and that meant giving grace and leeway sometimes, especially since so many of them had been fucked up by the war and all their losses.

Everyone knew how much Emilia leaving had affected him—there was a reason he was rarely invited to do anything with people anymore.

He was a ball of misery without her, and yes, he had managed to find pleasure occasionally over the years—including with Darrian, one of the rare people he actually considered to be a friend, which yes, may have been affecting his opinion of the other boy where Leerin was concerned—but his joy was always a fleeting thing. Baylor didn’t hold those lack of invitations against anyone—half the time, he wouldn’t invite himself anywhere, either. Sure, he could pull up smiles and laughter, but while it might be enough to fool people who didn’t know him, everyone who did knew he was miserable and there was nothing they could do to help him—his brothers either, each of them unhappy in their own way as well. Rafe couldn’t be helped either, even if his own misery had been present since the day he had broken things off with Emilia, almost five decades ago.

“I should consider myself lucky, eh?” he laughed into his and Hyr’s relay, half actual amusement, half self-hatred. “I only had to miss Emilia for a decade. I can’t imagine how Rafe does it, especially since I don’t think he believes having Emilia again is a possibility?”

That was the only thing that kept him going—the reality that despite how angry he was with Emilia, he still knew that she would be back. In his mind, he could even see her—a little older, a little broken, but there. Her eyes would be downcast as she whispered some mixture of apologies and explanations that he wouldn’t care to hear.

Emilia could make excuses until she had nothing left to give and it wouldn’t matter because all he wanted was her back in his arms. He didn’t need words—he needed her back, the itch of it tearing his body apart because he knew exactly where Hyr was and knew that Emilia was in their arms right now, her breath soft with sleep as she dreamed of decades past, assuming Hyr wasn’t fucking with him.

Baylor didn’t think the syn was lying or messing with him.

The reality remained, however, that all it would take was a spark, and he’d be there, falling to his knees to bury himself into her warmth and feel like he was finally back where he belonged… almost. His brothers would need to be there as well, for it to truly feel right again. Valor would come with him, he knew. His baby brother, always so inside his head and yet so transparent in the fact that he would give himself to Emilia to do with as she would every second he drew breath. Taelor was a bigger question mark because he didn’t talk about Emilia.

Instead, Taelor worked and worked and questioned why Baylor was taking fewer jobs that involved killing and torturing people. Probably, his older brother was a little worried that he’d taken to killing random people, rather than people who the continent’s governments had deemed needed to be erased from the world. Baylor was doing no such thing, but he didn’t discuss his belief that the aether might actually be able to communicate with people with anyone; so, how could he explain that the aether had seemed to tell him he needed to stop killing almost a year ago?

It wasn’t something his brothers would understand, he thought. So, he’d kept it to himself, and while he was pretty sure both Taelor and Loren were keeping an eye out for people going missing or bodies popping up, neither had ever actively brought up his sudden removal of himself from murder missions.

“There is a reason for everything,” Hyr replied when Baylor explained this to him, the syn seemingly unsurprised that he hadn’t found his hands covered in blood and gore in months—there had been a few missions that ended with killing someone, but that was the risk of any job and not the actual point of the jobs he had taken this last year. “You just have to trust.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Trusting that there’s a reason you can’t see anything of the last few days of your trip?”

Hyr was silent after that—contemplating their answer or being distracted by something around them, Baylor had no idea. By the time he had gotten to his former teammate’s house, the syn still hadn’t replied. That was okay. The syn’s presence was still there, somehow—this energy that seemed to be reaching towards him, telling him they would be back.

Sending off a message that they would be busy for a little bit, Baylor knocked on the door, unsurprised when their former teammate opened the door on the second knock, hand already up and catching Baylor’s fist.

“Do not knock so loudly this late,” they said in a halting Baalphorian—really, Baylor doubted they’d spoken the language since the war ended—before stepping aside and ushering him inside.