[Can’t Opt Out]

“I won’t go,” Leerin growled, crossing her arms like the petulant child she was being.

“Alright,” Halen replied, not even bothering to look up as he adjusted his climbing gear. While he could always summon more equipment from the aether, for multiple reasons, he’d already summoned plenty, various anchors and belays now hanging from his harness. “You have a map for the way back and the skills needed to return through the cave system and then along the aetherstream. We’ll see you back in Baalphoria.”

Beside him, Simeon’s shoulder’s shook in silent laughter as he stripped off his shirt. While they had all worn their combat clothes from school under their normal clothing, Simeon’s had been specially designed to also act as a binder. Considering the boy had known he wasn’t a girl since he was a child and never once wavered in his hatred for the body he was born into, Halen thought it insane that his parents had refused to allow him to receive any sort of gender-affirming care. Instead, all he had was Emilia smuggling him pills to stop his period—something she had done since they were teenagers, said pills likely procured by Meerik’za.

Halen knew this because she had been flagged by the slidelines system one time for potentially being in possession of illegal substances—and it was insane that all of the other drugs the girl brought in and out of the nation weren’t flagged and yet pills to make Simeon hate his body a little less were. While he’d never brought it up with Emilia herself—it would have been difficult to explain why he had received the notification about the flag—he had notified Loren Hyrat about it, leaving it to the clone to handle. Loren had admitted many of them knew about the drugs, a clone who shifted between Seer’ik’tine and the Penns usually being responsible for transporting them as well as other random items Emilia’s Seerish friends sent her. This particular clone had been delayed in Seer’ik’tine, however, so Emilia had gone to get the pills herself. None of them, it seemed, had known the slidelines’ security system would trigger the alert—Black Knot agents were omitted from such scans of their person, as long as they were acting in an official capacity.

He had no idea what had happened after that, but as Simeon had continued on as normal and Emilia had never said anything to him about it, Halen assumed the situation had been settled.

Regardless, it was ridiculous that Simeon’s parents wouldn’t even do that much for him, instead leaving their child who already struggled with so much of the world to struggle with his body as well.

“Do you want help?” he signed as Simeon began reaching a skill around himself, intent to change the configuration of his binder.

The boy’s aether shuddered slightly—hesitated—before he nodded and signed a small thanks.

There were times when he and Emilia cooperated, usually when it came to things that were important. Making sure Coral’s previous school was destroyed, the legacy of everything they’d done to her—the things they’d failed to protect her from—falling to ash under their hands was one such time, proud and violent within their memories. Other times, it was helping Mikhail with his Censor disconnect. In the case of Simeon, there were plenty of times where they had teamed up, sometimes in the sort of passive way their class was good at—a collective goal that they all shared but never spoke of, especially when it came to their terrible teachers.

In the case of Simeon’s protective gear and the binder that made it form his body into something he hated a little less, Emilia had actually come to him for help. Perhaps this wasn’t surprising—he was the one who was better with physical objects and hardware, after all, Emilia the one who handled skills based on the manipulation of the aether alone better. Both the combat suit itself as well as the skill that Simeon could use to adjust it—as well as the more general-use binder they had later designed for their now-former classmate—were designed by both of them, a gift to this boy who was sweet and kind and a terrifying bitch all at once.

Of course, Simeon could activate the skill that would pull the binder into the perfect configuration for whatever activity he was doing himself, each specific form meant for something else. For everyday life. For stretching and flexing. For needing to breathe deep and strong. For needing support here and there or a completely flat chest—or, as flat as they could make it without risking his health.

In this case, however, Simeon needed to let it out some—something the boy, for obvious reasons, hated. He needed support, yet, but he also needed more reach than he usually did. He needed to be absolutely certain nothing would dig oddly into his waist as he stretched and reached for the next part of his climb. So, the configuration needed to be something he would never willingly choose for everyday life.

So, Simeon could do it himself; it was easier to let Halen do it, his Censor connecting to the seams of special fabric that helped monitor Simeon’s suit while the skill was in use, and then activating the skill. For a moment, the skill let everything out—let the suit completely relax—and Halen felt the other boy flinch at the sudden reality that his body didn’t match the image he held within his mind. It was only a few seconds, but it was enough of a reminder of his terrible body and his horrible parents who wouldn’t let him change it—perhaps even a reminder of the reality that, with his thirtieth birthday only months away, his parents might choose to hold him hostage within their home for the rest of his life… or until his friends kidnapped him back.

There was no world in which they would allow Simeon to be held by his parents for more than a few sparse hours. Of course, there was also a chance his parents would do what another of their Dyad classmate’s parents had done: kick him out.

Halen had seen Bryce Runsh wandering around Roasalia only a few weeks after they graduated, clearly confused and unsure of how to get on in the world. Part of him had wanted to help her, despite not knowing much about her other than that her parents had attempted to weaponize her friendship with Emilia and her friends for their own gain. It hadn’t worked, and instead, the poor girl had wound up isolated from their entire class.

At the time, he’d been inside a bakery when he’d seen her, snacking on a cookie and wondering if it would be weird for him to send Emilia—who was already staying at the clones’ dorms at the time—a box. She and her friends were obsessed with a local bakery’s cookies, after all. By the time he had gotten onto the street, Bryce Runsh had been gone, presumably vanished through a nearby slideline exit. Neither he nor any of his friends had her contact information, nor had any of Polianna’s—and wasn’t that horrible, considering Polianna had been in the same class as her.

Despite his reputation for being a little cold and cruel, due to his prank war with Emilia, Halen was something of a bleeding heart. As a result, he’d even gone to visit Bryce Runsh’s parents, asking after her. They hadn’t known where she was. They’d slammed the door in his face. She had failed to gain them connections within their community—if anything, Halen had the impression their plans to use their daughter had been so transparent that it had resulted in them being further ostracized—and as a result, it seemed that they had abandoned her to the world.

It was ironic that, even in the brief moments Halen had seen his former classmate wandering confused through the streets of the capital, that image of her combining with the often uncertain and overwhelmed girl he had seen during their compulsory schooling years, he had known that she might actually benefit from being held under the Dyad Containment Laws.

The Dyad Containment Laws were horrific and abusive, their horrors hidden under the guise of helping Dyads who couldn’t function out in the world and public disinterest in Dyads; yet, were they something designed to actually help Dyads, rather than hide them, someone like Bryce Runsh would have benefited from them. The poor girl needed help, and neither the government nor her parents were there to offer her any, any friendship she might have otherwise found in compulsory schooling snuffed out nearly two decades ago.

Simeon would be perfectly fine out in the world, Halen knew. For decades, his friends had made sure he would have help where he needed it and support in learning what he didn’t quite understand. They had never wanted to make him feel helpless or like he couldn’t get on in the world, and when he did need help figuring something out, his friends would be there to help him figure it out. Yet, while his parents could kick him to the curb and leave him to fate the way Bryce Runsh’s parents seemingly had, it was more likely they would tell the government their daughter wasn’t suited for living on her own and she should therefore be denied her freedom.

The government wouldn’t question. The government wouldn’t push for proof. Instead, they had accepted Bryce Runsh’s parents’ claims she was fine out in the world; therefore, no help would come for her, even if she begged. Instead, the government would accept the Drydens at their word and strip Simeon of his freedoms, locking him under the care of people who wanted him to be a good little girl—one who spoke and never signed, one who didn’t mute out her hearing, one who was never overwhelmed by her Dyadism.

The government would trap Simeon with his abusers and never bother checking in on him—fuck, they probably wouldn’t even question it if he one day popped out a child, as though a Dyad who supposedly couldn’t be trusted out in the world shouldn’t also have their capacity to consent questioned.

The government would leave Bryce Runsh to suffer and die alone, never bothering to check up on her wellbeing—actually, force than that, Halen wasn’t even sure the Baalphorian government would help her if she begged them for aid.

So yeah, as Halen let his Censor pull Simeon’s binder into the perfect position for both the trek he was going to be making and for reminding him of the body he hated, he thought it quite likely the other boy would be reminded of the uncertainty of his future—of the abusive home the government would happily trap him within forever, of the friends who would do anything to keep him safe, of the reality that soon, perhaps, he would be able to carve fat away from his chest and never have to think of his body as something that wasn’t him again.

“Thank you,” Simeon signed once more as Halen’s skill ran a final check of the configuration, Simeon shifting his body into a thousand long reaches in order to make sure nothing but breasts he didn’t want and his own mind would be getting in his way as he lead the way.

The two of them had discussed who would go first, between them. Taking lead meant laying out their path across the ceiling—meant suspending themself by the grip of one arm while reaching to attach various protection gear into cracks in the cavern’s ceiling so the rest of them could be pulled across the gap via ropes set into pulley lines. This was all so they could eventually climb and pull their way to the spire, rather than attempt to wind their way through the unending paths of the residential area they’d ended up in.

They’d tried—they really had—to avoid this. The thing was, they weren’t getting any closer to the spire, the paths too winding and nonsensical. One path would look as though it were heading towards the spire, then suddenly, it would swerve and take them in an entirely different direction. There weren’t even directional signs that anyone could see, pointing them in the correct path; there were street names, odd and numerical as most were, but nothing saying spire this way, or anything else so easy to follow.

Hence, they were going to make their own path across the ceiling.

It was, perhaps, a terrible idea, and Doctor Vickers was only allowing them to do so because they had mapped out a route that would take them to a path that was physically closer to the spire to stop for a moment, their doctor pulling up the rear after having watched over them in case any of the anchors slipped and he needed to yank them back to the starting location. They would crisscross the ceiling like this, climbing and pulling themselves from one path to another, Doctor Vickers always waiting to catch them if they threatened to plummet into the city.

Realistically, Halen doubted this was much of a risk. He had supported Simeon while the other boy stuck a cam into a nearby crack—something that may have required they remove a sheet of glass that edged along the path they were currently standing on. The pair of them had put all their weight onto the rope they’d looped through the quickdraw to confirm there was no give, nor any signs it might slip. It seemed fine.

Plus, the point of all the anchor points was so if one slipped, while the experience would likely scare the shit out of all of them, no one would fall.

Unfortunately, the amount of support the ceiling seemed capable of—and really, considering it had literal buildings hanging off it, of course it was capable of holding a lot of weight—had convinced Leerin that they could create a bridge across their set path, rather than climb it. This, in Halen’s estimation, was impossible and far more dangerous. For one thing, a bridge required far more planning than having to stick anchors into the ceiling and make sure they were secure mostly for the lead. A bridge would also be far more weight than all of them combined, while creating it would also create a huge blast through the aether that someone, tucked away in one of the nearby buildings, could conceivably feel.

While they had so far avoided anyone seeing them, in part due to everyone wearing dark clothing and seemingly no one being around, the sudden appearance of a bridge would be rather suspicious. There was a good chance that it would bring someone out, wondering what in the world was happening. Worse, a Drinarna might decide to blow the thing up, no questions asked.

Hanging from the ceiling as they made their way across was also something of a risk, but Halen was going to keep defensive skills wrapped around Simeon while he worked his way across. Once he was across, everyone else would simply need to pull themself across by the rope thrown back across the gap by Simeon. In theory, it would take a little longer than creating random bridges, and Simeon was likely to be worn out by the time they were all the way to the spire—assuming he and Halen didn’t switch positions at some point—but it was overall safer and Leerin needed to suck it up or go back!

“I’m not going back by myself,” Leerin replied, glaring daggers at him, her eyes skimming over him. “Why do you even have all that shit? It’s not like you’re the one who’s climbing across.”

“True,” Halen replied, planting a hand in his cocked hip, the gear he had summoned for himself clinking against itself, “but as you were saying before you said you weren’t going across like this, accidents happen. I, for one, don’t want to suddenly be caught in a situation where we can’t use skills, and yet, need to get to Simeon.” Such a situation was unlikely, but not impossible, and only an idiot wouldn’t plan ahead for such a situation.

The girl’s eyes further narrowed into shards of ice, and for a moment, Halen thought her about to say something that was moderately reasonable—claim that, if he was planning for such a thing to happen, perhaps they should reconsider the plan. It wasn’t a big concern, was the thing, but for all they knew, a lavender code could happen across them and cause issues—blast an attack at Simeon while taking over the aether and leaving the rest of them with only their willbrands to defend themselves and no way to summon more gear to help a stuck and injured Simeon.

Halen’s brain was, in the end, always good at catastrophizing, and he’d rather plan for such a thing to happen than regret that he’d forgone doing the bare minimum of gathering the gear and winding up watching Simeon die.

Thinking that Leerin would think of anything like this, however, was too optimistic of him. No, instead, she just claimed losing access to their skills wouldn't happen, and wandered off. The girl didn’t go far—unfortunate; it would have been quite nice if she started heading back to Baalphoria without them—and Halen had to take a moment to wonder, as Simeon stripped out of his pants as well, leaving him in his dark purple combat suit alone, whether Leerin had ever contributed anything to their class’s prank war or combat classes, or if she had simply been pulled along by her friends’ abilities and minds.

“Don’t let me fall,” Simeon signed to him, pulling his attention back to the other boy.

“Never,” Halen assured him, the pair of them looping ropes through their respective gear, although they had already anchored the rope several times on this side, using both traditional climbing methods and a skill. “Good luck,” he added as Rafe stepped forward, creating a step with his hands to heave Simeon up so he didn’t need to waste any aether lifting himself into a pseudo-flight to reach the ceiling—and really, they needed to design a sustained flight skill so they’d never have to do this again.

The other boy’s hands caught on the ceiling’s rough rocks, and he pulled himself from Rafe’s hold, his weight suspended by his strength alone. Then, he reached, out over the city, far below, and began to make his way across the chasm of glittering lights.