[Can’t Opt Out]

Thirty Drinarna officers later, their drop group had thirty-seven xpherns, none of which were working. Three of the extra seven, they suspected, had originally been working, but in their scuffles with the Drinarna who had been in possession of the extras, the officers had made a point of destroying the things.

This obvious destruction of the devices had, perhaps most of all, been what convinced a handful of the captive Drinarna they had put into the category of probably not corrupt that something strange was, in fact, going on in the city. Did this mean they were going to untie them? Not currently, no. Some of them had been rather annoyed by this—but really, they would have to be idiots to untie them. The Drinarna could easily have been lying about being oh so shocked that there was corruption seeping through their organization.

Several of the Drinarna had thought this logic sound and not put up a fuss—in fact, a few had praised them for having better instincts than many of their fellow officers had. A number had been rather rude about it—had called them children and olvënk, and then begun calling the triplets olvënk’vrinķ. At this point, Darrian had gagged a bunch of them. It was one thing to call their group as a whole a word that seemed to imply their were evil foreigners—although, from what his Censor was saying, olvënk had some sort of meaning of transparency, the implication that olvënk were foreigners whose motives were transparent, no matter what they claimed their motivations to be. Those real and transparent motives, from what he could tell, seemed to be that they were intending to create conflict in the city or take it over.

As this wasn’t the case—really, they would all rather get Emilia and her new friends, find the missing Olivier de la Rue, and get out of there without getting more involved in this situation—the use of the word wasn’t accurate, but Darrian couldn’t tell if the meaning and connotations were simply outdated and no longer relevant to modern usage, or if the officers who had used it were convinced they were there to cause problems. Alternatively, it was equally possible they were simply trying to stir up paranoia in the other officers. It was somewhat unclear.

What was clear was that olvënk’vrinķ was very much a slur against the clones. It wasn’t nice or rooted in ancient animosity between Lüshan and outsiders; instead, it was mean and crude, and therefore, they were silenced.

Baylor gave him a hug, and a little kiss on the cheek for his services in shutting them up. Darrian didn’t even think it was part of his act of insanity; instead, it seemed that Baylor almost accidentally killing him had made them friends? Darrian wasn’t complaining. Despite how psychotic Baylor could be, he was a sucker for that sort of energy. Levi had it, as did Emilia. He loved both, and the only thing that had been holding him back from loving Baylor as well was the reality that…

Darrian wouldn’t say it was the reality that Baylor wouldn’t love him back, exactly? It was more complicated than that because black knots were complicated. Baylor might not have been able to feel guilty for not returning his feelings of friendship, but he would have been aware something between them wasn’t quite right—aware of this social obligation that he couldn’t meet, which therefore created an imbalance in their relationship. Such things weren’t bad—relationships were never perfectly balanced, after all—but it would have been a thing regardless.

It would have been a strain on their relationship, and Darrian was good at holding his heart in his hands and not letting it change.

Levi, he knew, wouldn’t risk their friendship trying for something more; therefore, Darrian wouldn’t let the love he felt for his friend become something romantic.

Emilia needed someone that he wasn’t; so, he wouldn’t let his mind linger on thoughts of them as anything more than friends.

Leerin was a disaster, and really, if he let his heart slip from his fingers, he knew what would happen: it wouldn’t fly to her, but fall to the ground and shatter.

Was it strange, to logically know he should be giving up on his cousin, the only thing holding their relationship together that firm grip he had on his heart? Yes. Still, he kept his grip firm. If, by the time they got to university, he still felt the ache in his heart and hand—the strain of not snapping and forcing her from their group—he would let her go and hope they would both be happier for it.

“You need to be a bit more like a black knot,” Levi had once laughed, his bare back pressed to Darrian’s bare chest after his friend had broken into his bathroom to join him in the bath. “Be a bit more selfish, you know? I mean, if someone invaded my bath, I’d kick them the fuck out!” As though to demonstrate this fact, Levi had kicked one long, tan leg out of the water, sending droplets flying.

His laughter, warm and bright and echoing through the steam surrounding them, had made the cleanup worth it, as had his warmth as the two of them relaxed and chatted, Levi running a skill to keep the water from cooling. By the time they had escaped the warmth, hours later, and showered the odd sensation of bathwater from their skin, they had been wrinkled, Darrian’s legs numb from Levi’s weight against him.

Two weeks later, Darrian had joined Levi in his bath. Contrary to his friend’s claims, Levi hadn’t kicked him out; instead, they had ended up in the exact same positions and spent more hours chatting and laughing and basking in one another’s presence.

That was the thing: being a black knot did mean being selfish, but it meant being selfish with the people they loved most of all. Darrian had seen their black knot friends give up the entirety of themselves for those they loved over and over again. They were selfish, yes, but they would never put themselves above their loved ones. So, Levi was wrong: when it came to Leerin, Darrian was being selfish, sacrificing his own happiness in an attempt to help her find joy once again. It was, in the end, a very black knot thing to do.

“How long has the xphern network been down for?” Taelor asked the few Drinarna hostages who were cooperating with them. A number of the thirty had been knocked out during their sneak attacks, while several who had clearly part of the corrupt faction had been outright killed. Most were now silenced by Darrian in a mixture of normal gagging and cruel gagging—the difference was simply that at some point, someone had analyzed a smelly sock for their fabrication library. As molecules causes smell, and these could be replicated with the fabrication skill, it and several other smelly objects had been utilized over the years to great—if also disgusting—effect. In this case, a replica of that smelly sock was now stuffed into the mouths of those officers who had started spewing insults at the clones.

“A couple hours?” one of the officers, a young woman who was still an intern, based on the light-grey and red of her uniform. “It was interns only at first, right?” she asked, turning to look at another intern.

Each of them had been teamed up with officers their group had deemed definitely corrupt. It was interesting that neither of the interns seemed corrupt, but Darrian had a feeling that, if they questioned the pair enough, they would learn that they were both relatively young interns and that their older, corrupt supervisors had likely been poking around, trying to see if they were the sorts of people who could be dragged into the corruption.

It wasn’t a given, of course, but it seemed a reasonable option, if also a more concerning one—concerning enough that they were going to need to ask them some questions, even if Baylor in particular was bouncing with impatience.

The problem with having so little information about the situation was that any information could be useful, and turning down on opportunity to learn more might end up fucking them over.

“I think we should bring these two with us,” Darrian interjected as he looped an arm around Baylor’s waist in an attempt to keep the other boy still for even a minute. Normally, Taelor was the one responsible for wrangling his brother—and often Emilia as well—but as he was busy, Darrian had ended up with the role. It wasn’t an assigned role, but it fit—he was the designated Levi wrangler, after all, and while previously, the idea of grabbing Baylor like this would have terrified him…

Well, the affection of a black knot was immediate and unbending. Baylor had decided they would be actual friends—rather than people who shared Emilia as a friend—and therefore, Darrian was now safe from his volatile temper. It wasn’t that he thought Baylor likely to attack him before this, but the clone’s glare could be dread inducing, and under the current circumstances of stress and Emilia being in danger, Baylor definitely would have left him to die.

Now… Darrian suspected Baylor would still prioritize Emilia and his brothers, but he doubted he would be left to die unless absolutely necessary, and the chances of the other boy turning his ire and frustration onto him seemed unlikely. Indeed, when he grabbed the middle triplet, Baylor simply melted back into him, his legs going out and leaving Darrian to carry his weight as he whined about wanting to get going.

Darrian couldn’t disagree with him: he also wanted to get going, and while information was important, they could chat with two interns while moving. It wasn’t like they could microspark through the winding roads of the city often anyways. So, what did it matter if they brought the pair along with them?

“You really gonna trust a couple Drini?” Westrial asked, popping up beside Darrian and looping her arm through his—apparently, her affection for Baylor meant she also liked him.

Everyone else was rather wary of the teenager and didn’t think her trustworthy, thinking her too fast to trust them and having bad taste in people, as she really seemed to enjoy Baylor’s crazy. Darrian wasn’t quite convinced the girl wasn’t just being, well, a teenager, and if they were being honest, teenagers were inherently weird and inconsistent. Was the girl being honest with them about why she was interested in coming with them on their mission—her reason being that, if she helped them, they would have to help her get out of the city? No, Darrian thought the girl hiding something in that regard. At the same time, he didn’t think her some criminal mastermind either, and given what they knew about how this Fräthk person worked… Well, if he had to guess, Darrian would say that perhaps she had lost someone to them and was hoping to either have her revenge or find the person.

As for her taste in people, Darrian was no one to judge—Baylor was acting crazier than usual, but Darrian still enjoyed him.

“We’ll keep them tied up, and keep junk skills loaded in case we need to cut off their abilities,” he said, glaring between the two Drinarna interns and nudging Baylor to threaten them as he added that, if they didn’t behave, they would just leave them behind, the implication clear: they might be leaving behind corpses.

With Baylor’s back pressed to his chest, Darrian couldn’t see the smile the clone gave the pair. What he could see, however, were the faces of everyone else.

Fear, pure and cracking, split through the energy of the entire group of Drinarna, even Codeth shifting a little nervously, his eyes flicking to Darrian in what seemed to be concern that Baylor might turn on him.

Darrian wasn’t worried, and instead of pushing the other boy away, he pulled him a little closer and pressed a kiss to the top of Baylor’s head. The middle triplet seemed to bloom under the contact—and really, that wasn’t surprising. Baylor had always been rather tactile, but generally only with people he liked. Emilia was also tactile, her entire soul touch-deprived in a way that would likely never be soothed due to the torment of the orphanage she had grown up within. It wasn’t uncommon for Darrian to wake up to her sneaking into his bed, the girl shifting between the beds of the boys she loved and trusted so she didn’t wear out their hospitality, as though any of them would ever turn her away.

It was easy to touch Baylor, now that he was given permission—as easy as it was to touch Levi or Emilia, as easy as it was to offer his friends hugs whenever they seemed to need one.

“You know you’re friends now, right?” Valor asked into their private relay as they organized for both hiding all the Drinarna officers—not where they would die, but where they wouldn’t be getting free for a while.

Pulling from Halen’s suggestion to their groups about using a near-permanent sticky skill, they moved the officers into a small alleyway that seemed to be meant for throwing garbage out for collection. A little manoeuvring, and they were situated in a place where, unless residents of two of the homes on the block took out their garbage, it was unlikely anyone would find them.

“Are you and Halen friends now as well?” Darrian asked in return, having been sent the video of Valor holding Halen back from jumping after him by Codeth, who had both wanted Darrian to know that other people had been intent to jump after him and had been asking for his opinion on Valor’s behaviour. Considering that Valor was the least tactile of the brothers, generally only allowing small touches from everyone but Emilia, who would happily curl into him whenever she could, Darrian thought Valor’s lingering connection with Halen the odder of the hugs that had happened today.

“I don’t know,” Valor eventually responded after using a modified version of the sticky skill to lock the Drinarna to the alleyway until later that evening, by which time they would hopefully be gone. Would they be killed if a criminal or another corrupt officer happened across them? Probably, but Darrian wasn’t going to be thinking about that.

Valor said no more on the topic, likely because none of them were talking about what they knew and didn’t know about Halen’s feelings for Emilia. Valor, he imagined, knew that Halen and Emilia becoming a thing was all but inevitable—had been inevitable for years, only their lack of communication holding them back. That meant that, unless the triplets and Halen could learn to get along, things were going to become tense.

Considering how much Baylor had freaked out after telling Halen he was pretty—although Darrian thought there had likely been more happening within the other boy’s head than that alone—Darrian had concerns about how that getting along was going to end up.

It didn’t stop him from being happy for Emilia. She needed people who loved her, and Valor, at the very least, seemed to be trying to figure out how they could all love her together.

It was sweet.

It also made his heart ache for a love he wanted, but wasn’t sure how to find because he was boring, the sort of person he liked someone vibrant—someone who wouldn’t be content with someone like him.