[Can’t Opt Out]

[Halen:so… theoretical ?]

[Halen:wd u hv a 3som w/Emilia n me?]

The messages had come through to Codeth a few minutes ago, and since then, he’d mostly just been staring at them, wondering how his life had come to this point. At some point, over the course of the day, he had gone from relaxing at home, wondering when his grandfather would be back and whether the old man’s mood would good or shitty when he did—his grandfather, who had largely been responsible for raising him, had always been prone to emotional deregulation, his emotions more volatile than even Baylor’s—and whether he should ask Emilia if he could live at the treehouse in order to get away from his grandfather—his moods had somehow become more volatile since they’d graduated, and Codeth was beginning to suspect the man was trying to scare him into leaving—to whatever this situation was.

Learning that Halen had decided to shoot his shot with Emilia while they were offaether within the cave system had been… interesting. Part of him had wanted to tell his friend that he was an idiot, to be letting the stress of the situation force his hand like that. It didn’t help that Halen had also admitted to needing to backtrack and apologize for a bunch of what he said, due to his first few messages being so overtly sexual that he really should have asked permission before sending them.

Codeth hadn’t asked for exact details, but having hooked up with Emilia so many times over the years, as well as seen—and partaken in—what she had gotten up to with Rafe, he had rather doubted she would be too offended. If anything, he thought that his friend’s honesty was likely to endear him to her.

Having seen Emilia grow up, Codeth had seen her struggle with trusting the people around her in this strange, painful way. Emilia was almost always too trusting of the people she met, except in one way: she didn’t trust that people loved her, didn’t trust that they wouldn’t become so annoyed and overwhelmed by her that they wouldn’t eventually be done with her. He didn’t think it helped that Leerin was almost always done with her nonsense, Emilia forcing herself smaller in order to not outshine everyone else, nor did he think Rafe breaking things off with her when she had finally be able to trust that he really loved—that he would never leave her—her had helped.

The worst thing, Codeth thought, was that at least from his perspective of something of an outsider to that side of their class, always watching them from the edges of their friend group, he was pretty sure Rafe still loved Emilia. So now, Rafe looked at her with adoration and Emilia just saw a boy who didn’t love her back and wouldn’t even explain what she had done wrong—although, Codeth was also pretty sure she’d done nothing wrong, and Rafe’s issue was more a him thing.

Emilia, he thought, would struggle to see even the most obvious of love aimed her way; instead, she would need to have it sprayed over her in honest words in order to truly believe it—and even then, it might not be enough.

So, yeah, Codeth thought Halen and Emilia poking around at a potential relationship and their feelings for one another through their messages might be for the best. Halen could shower the girl with love all he wanted, but unless he told her exactly how he felt about her, she wouldn’t see it, and even if she did—if someone pointed it out to her—she wouldn’t believe it.

Did this also open up the possibility that Halen would say something stupid—again—and burn it into Emilia’s brain? Yes—Codeth had seen it happen before. Emilia put so much weight on what people said, a single negative comment laying over her opinion of them. That was what had ruined Emilia and Halen’s relationship from the start, after all—Halen, saying one stupid thing, and suffering the consequences of it for over a decade.

Codeth didn’t want to see Halen fuck things up again due to him saying some random thing that Emilia wouldn’t be able to get over—or, would take a decade to get over because she had eventually forgiven him for those things he said on his first day of school. Hence, he was a little concerned that the two of them were flirting—was this theoretical threesome discussion flirting?—in the midst of all this chaos.

For one thing, all of them should probably be paying attention to what was happening around them!

For Codeth, this wasn’t the biggest concern, as the triplets were much more well-equipped to handle any defence of their group than he was, while Sorvell had also proven himself more competent than they’d originally thought him to be.

Emilia seemed to be in some sort of horrible building—she’d been very clear that no one was to come and try to reach her, as she didn’t want anyone down there and wanted to get her own group out the moment they found what they had gone down there for. Reading between the lines, Codeth thought she somewhat wanted to just up and leave—forget about the people, who may or may not be alive, that her companions were looking for and get the fuck out of there. Mostly, it seemed that she didn’t think at least one of her companions would leave with her—not unless he found some proof of something down there—so she was choosing to stay.

Halen, at the very least, had been thinking about some of this and messaging him while injured. Still, Codeth had the feeling that, were he to reply to his friend’s query about his openness to sandwiching Emilia between them, Halen would be messaging him back immediately. Hence, he wasn’t replying and instead that threesome query sat there, taunting him because honestly? Codeth was down. Emilia might be too much chaos for him—he certainly understood her concerns about being too annoying because he could only tolerate her in small doses—but she was adorable and loved sex. There was a reason Codeth had never turned down her offers to hookup when they were bored, and the silly danger of being caught by their friends—most of whom had no idea they’d ever had sex, let alone that they’d hooked up numerous times over the years—had only been a small part of it. Plus… seeing his friend with her…

Well, that spur of the moment threesome with Rafe and Emilia had accidentally given him an obnoxiously specific kink that was very difficult to scratch. Being able to see Halen with the girl he liked, though? Yeah… that would probably do it for him.

Regardless of all that, there was also the reality that messaging wasn’t the same as talking. Halen had admitted that he and Emilia had switched their relays to audio mode at one point, but it wasn’t the same as talking in person, and Halen should know that! One of their friends had spent weeks chatting with a girl from another school, whom he’d briefly met during the summer. They’d exchanged contact information and made plans to meet up during the next break. They had met up, but there had been no spark between them, once they were in person.

Mentally, they were in love. Physically, they didn’t mesh.

No one was at fault, but they both left with broken hearts, nonetheless.

Halen might already be in more-or-less love with Emilia, but them chatting without confirming they enjoyed being together physically wasn’t awkward—without knowing that they wanted to hold hands and brush fingers through each other's hair and do all those other ooey-gooey romantic things—was potentially setting them both up for heartbreak.

For another thing! How had the topic of a threesome even come up? And so quickly in their conversations? Were Emilia and Halen really talking so much that they’d already come to the topic of sex with other people? Shouldn’t that be something that comes up after a few proper dates, at the very least?

Annoyed with all three of them—and how had he become an active participant of this nonsense, rather than a concerned observer!?—Codeth brushed aside his resolve to not reply to Halen’s question and instead asked how, exactly, this theoretical threesome had come up.

He needed to know!

Annoyingly, his friend didn’t immediately respond. Annoying, but also, at least it showed that Codeth’s first concern—that his friend was being distracted from the situation by his romantic drama—was likely overblown. Still, he needed to know! He’d been dragged into this, and he demanded answers!

So yeah, he had concerns about whatever the fuck his friend was doing and whether it was motivated by stress or the threat of death—and this was on top of his growing concern that Halen, who had never expressed any interest in anyone but Emilia, might end up being dragged into a polyamorous relationship or outright group sex he didn’t actually want.

These, of course, weren’t serious concerns compared to the reality of their current situation. They were slightly concerned, slightly amused musings as they moved through the cramped alleyways of the city, distracting Codeth from the more serious things that had occurred over the course of the last few hours.

Realizing the Halen and Emilia were creating skills that were further pushing existing knowledge of what was possible and what impossible when it came to the limitations of the aether and humans. Running around Lüshan. The risk to all their lives. Learning that Baylor was the one who cut a bunch of people’s hair—his own and his brothers’, Emilia’s, and Simeon’s, at the very least. Realizing that he himself had no qualms about killing people who endangered his friends—not only had Codeth felt little for the people they had killed within the cave system, but he had ruthlessly cut down a few Drinarna officers who had gotten in their way soon after they had started moving again, following the impromptu haircut. Could the clones have killed the officers? Sure, although they all knew the plan: Valor was to seem timid, Baylor deranged, Taelor something more cold and even. The rest of them had parts to play as well, and Codeth had been fine to be the other designated killer of their group.

It was an odd thing to realize about himself so suddenly, that he was fine killing people. Granted, the group in the cave system had attacked them first, while the Drinarna officers had been so obviously part of the corrupt faction of the nation’s police force they had also attacked them first, no questions asked. Codeth didn’t even know what to do with that level of corruption. In all the stories, both the fictional and ancient records of real events, corruption was often a more subtle thing.

It was taking people into custody and then killing them. It was manipulating things in the background. It wasn’t this overt let’s kill anyone who looks like they might be here to get in our way.

“It’s always been pretty bad,” their new teenage companion explained after Baylor had destroyed the officer’s bodies, covering up evidence of their deaths. Maybe they’d tell Wander Fulbrun about their attackers later. Maybe not. Depended on the man’s mood, once someone managed to make contact with him. “This is a lot more than usual.”

“Yeah?” Baylor asked, bouncing along beside the teenager who was… odd. Much of what she had said to them in the beginning had involved calling them stupid for thinking they would be able to trust anyone in the city, even her. Now, however, she had cozied up to Baylor, one of the least trustworthy clones on a good day—and certainly, the least trustworthy of his siblings. Today wasn’t a good day, the stress of Emilia being in danger leaving him on a permanent edge. On top of that! He was purposefully overexaggerating how chaotic he could be!

In just the few minutes since they had met the girl, his personality had been nothing but inconsistent. His anger had flared and calmed at random. He had laughed with his head thrown back, eyes crinkling with mirth. He had dragged a fake-sulking Valor off to piss in an alleyway—something that had been followed by Valor rushing back and tucking himself behind Taelor once more, muttering about how Baylor had tried to pee on him.

It was deranged, but that was the point—to make Valor seem the weak link in strength and personality, to make Baylor seem downright psychotic.

It was working, even Codeth uneasy with how strange Baylor was acting despite knowing it was—mostly—a fabrication.

So yeah, the teenager, who had introduced herself as Westrial, was odd for the fact that she had linked her arm through Baylor’s whenever he was near. Apparently, cutting her hair had endeared him to her? Or maybe the fact that he’d been able to fight her off?

Unknown, but Codeth wasn’t sure they should be trusting someone so strange—wasn’t sure they should be trusting that she actually trusted them, or liked Baylor. Thankfully, no one else was particularly trusting of her either, their group relay filled with everyone agreeing that the biggest red flag was that she liked Baylor.

On his part, Baylor mostly thought it odd that someone who lived on the streets didn’t have the sense to know he was a predator. According to what training he had, homeless and transient people tended to have better instincts than more normal people—those instincts were what kept them alive, after all. There was some leeway for addiction and mental health issues affecting their instincts, of course, but aside from being filthy and malnourished, Westrial seemed to otherwise be okay, aside from seemingly liking Baylor.

Regardless, as the teenager explained that, for as corrupt as the Drinarna could be, they rarely outright attacked anyone—more, they kidnapped them for one of the criminal organizations in the city or had them moved into the city’s dungeons, which were notoriously difficult to get out of.

“Last few hours, though? They’ve been being weird. More fights breaking out between themselves and the groups of the city. News has been spreading of it, so people can get off the street as the violence spreads, but it’s slow, since the xphern network went down”—and that wasn’t right?

Emilia had literally just been communicating with that Crisharian man Prince Meridian had sent them through their xpherns.

So, why the fuck was the network down for residents of the city, but not them? And also… maybe that was why, as far as anyone could tell, neither the top officers of the Drinarna, like Wander Fulbrun, nor anyone outside the city who they hadn’t connected had yet learned about the situation?