[Can’t Opt Out]

There were plenty of things Simeon struggled with.

Skin sticking to skin. Fabrics holding to his skin in a way that was too sticky, too scratchy. The brush of a leaf against him, blown askew by the wind. His feet, bare and free and crackling over twigs and the cracking leaves of fall. Sand between his toes. Chapped lips. The snag of a broken finger nail—the simple knowledge that one of his nails had a snag, a hangnail, was too long, too short. His teeth digging into his nails, trying to fix them before Halen had shown up with a skill to file them smooth and perfect for him.

The memory remained, however, of his nails chewed down to the quick—of nerves exposed to the open air, blood seeping out of them, his eyes blown wide as he watched red leak out of him.

Simeon had never asked how Halen had known he was aggravated by his nails and even the smallest issue with them. Emilia had known and attempted to create a skill for him to deal with such issues, but she hadn’t quite managed to do it in a way that didn’t aggravate his senses.

The back and forth, back and forth of a phantom file, fixing his nails back up for him. The scrape of an illusionary stick under his nails, removing dirt; the sensation of his cuticles being pushed back.

It wasn’t bad, the skill she had designed for him. Halen’s was better—more seamless in its execution because Halen was, in many ways, as finicky as Simeon himself was.

Always perfect hair—Halen had given him the skill he himself used to keep his hair perfect as well. Simeon’s hair had been the same since he was a child: pin straight blonde hair, cut to hover just above his shoulders. It wasn’t the worst when it was a little long, a little short. He preferred it this exact length; so, Halen had programmed his skill to make it perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a centimetre too long, for those times when Baylor couldn’t take his blades to it.

Perfect.

Later, when Simeon had begun occasionally pulling his hair back with more than the hair clip Lux had given him, back when they were small, Halen had reappeared with another skill, this one designed to pull his hair into the perfect configuration for being out of his face, the pull of his hair perfect and even. Never too tight. Never too loose. The skill even included the clip in it, holding his hair back from ever getting in his way at times like this, when a single strand could catch on his long blonde eyelashes and interfere with his trek, a single strand over his cheek an ache of wrongness in a body that already felt everything wrong, even when his binder was pulling his chest as perfect as his flawed body would allow.

Out of all the people on their side of the class, Simeon was aware that a few of them had never truly hated Halen—had never really believed he had intended to say something cruel about Malcolm and accidentally cement himself as Emilia’s enemy. Most of the others—people like Taelor and Darrian, and who ever really knew what Janie thought—simply went along with the prank war with less malice. They would always choose Emilia’s side, but neither had they possessed the cruelty of Baylor or the chaos of Levi in their own contributions to the prank war.

Simeon, on his part, had rarely taken part in the prank war, but when he had, it had been something born more of enjoyment. Emilia and Halen, for all that it was a war, loved it. They wouldn’t say as much—although a quick question to Halen as he took a moment to hang from the anchor he had just secured to shake his arms out confirmed that the pair had admitted to one another that they missed their prank war when they had seen each other in Seer’ik’tine the day before.

Perhaps, if they all survived this, they could find a balance within their prank war—could find a way to more truly enjoy it, the way he had when he contributed. The pranks he had taken part in were always smaller—softer. They were prompting Emilia to create little paper men who chased Halen for days, their side of the class cutting out hundreds of them and hiding them throughout not just their school but the entire town. A few were still missing, either blown off into the world or still tucked under objects, waiting for Halen to happen across them again and be left yelping as they smushed onto his face.

He should visit Halen’s office one day, Simeon thought as he let water wash over his hands, followed by a small blast of drying air and then chalk to help his grip. When Halen wasn’t there, he should drop in and leave behind more paper men. The other boy would like that, he thought. Perhaps, if Simeon gave him permission, Halen would return the prank with just as much softness—there was a rule that the prank war wasn’t to purposefully aim itself at him, and to a large extent, Coral.

It was a kindness, to not target him. It would have been easy to do so, a thousand things able to aggravate him and leave him hating the world and his body more than he already did. Sometimes, he had been caught up in pranks. For the most part, whoever had caught him apologized, although it was rarely necessary. Some of the pranks had been unpleasant, that unpleasantness ramped up for him compared to everyone else. Others had been enjoyable.

One time, on a school trip, someone had switched all their luggage around. It was minor, but they had been in rooms of two, leaving few clothing options for finding something to wear. As they had been returning from an activity, all of them had been showering. Paired up with their friends, all of them having seen each other naked a thousand times before, none of them had cared to wait to shower after the other—although Darrian had offered to shower after Simeon, he had refused.

In no world could Darrian ever make Simeon feel uncomfortable, and it weren’t as though those giant showers had been squishy, nor were it as though Darrian would ever look at Simeon’s body as something other than the torturous container it was. Simeon knew, logically, that his body was nice, despite his hatred for it. None of his friends would ever look at it as anything other than the horrible, perfect thing it was—a sentiment from Emilia. According to her, it was his body, and nothing about his could ever not be perfect; yet, it was a horrible perfection.

It was a strange sentiment, but Simeon appreciated it—appreciated that his friend loved him and his body and would do everything she could to make sure that, in a few months time, it matched the image he held of himself within his head. No more breasts. Fat sucked away from his thighs and hips. Skin grown and moulded to make him a cock. He wasn’t sure yet what he would do with his insides—if he wanted his ovaries carved out of him, eggs potentially frozen away for him to do with as he pleased later in life, if he would get himself an implant to stop his periods, or if he wanted to remain on the pills Emilia had been securing for him since shortly after the first time he had bled, panic overtaking him at the reminder that his body was that of a girl.

Emilia had held his hand and taken him to the bathroom, squatted between his legs and helped clean him up when he hadn’t wanted to touch—hadn’t wanted blood on his hands. For months, she had helped him. For months, he had assumed she knew what she was doing—she hadn’t; it hadn’t been until years later that his friend’s body, always showing up late to the puberty party, finally bled as well. Still, she had helped clean him up, had showered with him, had him over for dozens of sleepovers so his parents wouldn’t realize his period had started, all so she could show up one day with pills for him.

“A different sort of birth control, from Seer’ik’tine,” she had explained, offering them to him. “You don’t have to, but they’ll stop your period completely. More annoying than an implant—I mean, obviously. Those you don’t have to think about after they’re in, and I’ll have to keep getting you these—or, well, I’ve already asked one of the clones who works at the embassy to deal with that. You also don’t have to—or, wait. Did I already say that?” Emilia had scratched at her head, eyes shifting in that way of hers, when her mouth—or in this case, her hands—got away from her brain.

Ten thousand thoughts and sentiments were always winding through his friend’s brain, her mouth never quite able to keep up, her brain sometimes unable to remember what she’d actually said in their pre-Censor days.

“You did,” he had signed back, fingers shaking as he reached out to accept the bottle—several months of pills that he knew she would get in trouble for giving him, even if the clones were involved.

It was an odd thing, he knew, for the clones to so happily break the law, if only she were asking. Emilia would ask for any of her friends—would beg and plead. In a few months, she would steal him away from his parents when they inevitably tried to lock him away in their home. That girl would break the world apart for him, Simeon knew, just as she had threatened, back during that luggage prank.

The clothing Darrian had emerged from the bathroom to had been too small—Levi’s. Small and tight, and why had Levi been travelling with sex toys? It was unclear, but Darrian had later pranked his friend by pretending they weren’t in his luggage when he gave it back, then decorated Levi and Valor’s room with them—Valor was actually staying in Baylor and Taelor’s room—as well as a couple dozen he had snuck away to buy at a local sex store. Levi had loved it. Darrian had regretted it, once the pictures of his friend doing questionable things with the toys had started rolling in—he had found a number of phallic-shaped objects and items with holes to demonstrate the use of the toys with.

In the end, despite the war aspect of their prank war, pranks were largely their friend group’s love language—this promise that each of them were worth the effort such pranks took, that the logistics of his own removal from those pranks was just as worth it.

The clothing Simeon had been left with, on the other hand, had been Emilia’s—Levi was far skinnier than he would ever be, the other boy practically skin and bones. Emilia’s clothes had fit—while Simeon was taller than his friend, his chest larger than her nearly flat one, their hips were similarly wide—but this had been summer. As a result, all of her clothing had been short and girly. Skirts and rompers, a few short dresses, everything designed to leave the entirety of her legs on display.

They weren’t clothes Simeon would choose for himself, although he had to admit, that looking at himself wearing one of her rompers—a pink and silver number with flowery lace running up the sides to leave a significant amount of skin on display—he had looked good. Not something for out and about, but perhaps if he one day found someone he was willing to have a relationship with, he could imagine wearing something like that for them in the bedroom. Not until after his body aligned more with what he wanted it to look like—there had been far too much side boob visible through all that lace, while the low cut had left more cleavage on display than seemed reasonable. Not a problem for Emilia, but certainly one for his body when left to its own devices.

Darrian, despite having given up on wearing any of Levi’s clothes—Levi apparently only wore thongs, which definitely wouldn’t have fit what even a twenty-three-year-old Darrian was packing—had pulled on one of the few pairs of underwear Emilia had—her hips were actually larger than Darrian’s—and stormed out of the room, demanding someone hand over clothing for Simeon to wear, all so he wouldn’t have to come out in Emilia’s romper.

Emilia, wearing one of Darrian’s sweaters and nothing else, had stormed out to find the boys who had switched around their luggage.

It was all good and fine until he was made to feel bad, regardless of whether it was a sensory wrongness or a wrongness with his body. Simeon had tried to tell her it was fine as he pulled on another of Darrian’s sweaters and hurried after her. Emilia had ignored his messages—and really, it was at this point that had Simeon realized they definitely needed a way to sign at someone’s back in a way that was more screaming than messages ever could be, although Emilia had repeatedly rejected his request on the basis that doing so would potentially allow the OIC to translate their sign language as well.

Halen’s new signing function also translated the emotions that signing could contain into the words it showed everyone, and sometimes, Simeon was amazed at how the other boy’s brain worked. Emilia’s brain was thorough, but she tended towards a I’ll fix it later approach. Halen always seemed to want things to be perfect on the first go, and while life was rarely so smooth, he often came quite close to that perfection he strove for on the first try.

Eventually, Emilia had tracked the boys who had switched all their clothes around to the pool. In the end, however, she hadn’t really managed to enact her fury on them—Halen had pushed them into the pool first, yelling at them that if they were going to do something like that, they didn’t to be more aware of not going too far.

They had often gone too far, especially when it came to pranks between Halen, Emilia, and Baylor—who always seemed to be earning himself the outright ire of Halen due to his insane contributions to the prank war, a number of which had been outright dangerous. As a result, Simeon felt both loved and slightly misunderstood.

It was kind of his friends and classmates to not want to trigger his sensory issues or gender dysphoria; yet, at the same time, it meant he was inherently excluded from their joy and play and freedom.

It was a silly thing to be thinking of, as he recentred himself before returning to his climb across the city, yet it was where his mind went. Emilia was so important to him, and all he wanted was her safe and happy. Perhaps Halen would bring her that happiness, perhaps he wouldn’t. Regardless of how the pair landed in terms of romance, he thought them liable to restart their prank war, and likely without the crueller members of Halen’s side of the class—although, often their cruelty had seemed more the result of not thinking through their actions.

Perhaps, with softer, less hateful pranks, Simeon could find a way to contribute more—a way to be the aim of pranks as well. He knew his exclusion was a kindness, but he wanted to play too, sometimes.

Reaching for the next hold, the cold stone digging into his palm as his fingers found purchase, and he was once again left to hang from his own strength, rather than the ropes and anchors, Simeon though that perhaps this wasn’t the oddest thing he could be thinking of, as he forged a way forward for them—after all, this trip was something of a reminder to all of them of each of their strengths and weaknesses. They were each capable of contributing to getting to Emilia and making sure everyone she had with her got to safety.

It would be easy to have left him behind—quite a few of their other friends as well. Yet, over the years, they had proven they were capable. Simeon had insisted, back when the clones had first offered to train them, that he wouldn’t allow himself to be excluded, despite knowing that training would be a constant trigger.

Mud over his body. Hair in his face. Sweat slick skin. Broken nails and skin and blood vessels blossoming into bruises. Needing to allowing sound into his mind to keep himself and those he loved safe. Needing to ignore a trigger because silence was required and scratching would attract attention.

It had been terrible, each session with the clones another day added to days he hated and wanted to die. Simeon wouldn’t go back and remove himself from that training in order to avoid those triggers, and instead, a small part of him regretted not insisting he not be excluded from their prank war the way he had insisted he be included in their combat classes—within the semi-controlled chaos of them.

So, yes, if—when—Emilia and Halen restarted their prank war, he was going to insist he be included. Chances were he would suffer for that inclusion at times, when he was spattered with mystery substances or ended up with viruses running through his Censor; the joy, he was sure, would make it worth it, just as the ache in his hand as he let his one arm fall to grab another cam to activate within the next crack, was worth it.

Emilia was waiting, and the pain of getting to her even a little faster than that maze of paths was allowing them to was worth it.