[Can't Opt Out]

Arc X.1 | Chapter 24: Interlude | Project Piketown Infiltration 24

Xavier sucked in a broken lungful of air, his heart a pound of pain within his chest. Cool fingers were brushing through his hair, and he reached for them, haphazard and uncoordinated and trying to remember where he was, his Censor flickering in and out of awareness as he tried and failed to stop panicking.Nails scratched into his scalp—not home in the Penns, then. None of the women in his family kept their nails sharp enough to give such glorious head scratches.

the girl—woman now, he supposed, even if just like their parents and older relatives, they also struggled to think of themself as anything more than children—whispered to the shape in the doorway.

Furki’za bobbed—swayed with the flow of the aether, one of the majenstra who helped mind them appearing to gently coerce them back to bed. It was a true art given how quickly the Yu child could fall into a meltdown, but the majenstra were excellent at it—were so skilled at minding the Dyad that Meerik’za and Lan’za had left their sibling in the care of Meridian’burat even after the war ended.

A few more eyes danced in the softly lit hallway—those ones were his adoptive cousins, come to visit for a few days after they’d all run an intervention with the pair’s now-adoptive father. Louis’burat was too soft and had almost gotten back together with his terrible wife, following their spectacularly public fallout. It had been so idiotic that every member of their —which was more —had gotten together to beat some sense into the man.

It hadn’t taken long, thankfully, and had ended rather nicely, with his cousins accepting Louis’burat as their proper father, rather than simply their guardian—they were his now-ex-wife’s cousins and she had never wanted them, and therefore refused to formally adopt them. Louis’burat had always loved them like a father should, though, regardless of titles. Adoption paperwork dealt with—although it couldn’t be filed until the divorce was finalized, lest things wind up even more complicated than they were already likely to be—they’d all decided to fuck off and have an impromptu vacation in Crishar to celebrate. As only a handful of them were still young enough to be in any sort of compulsory schooling, or old enough to have figured out what sort of advanced education they wanted, it wasn’t exactly hard for all them to up and leave whatever place they called home these days, but—

More majenstra shifted through the hallway, and that was weird?

he asked, pushing himself up, ‘dian’ie shifting to let him sit. It was a little sad—no more head scritchies.

she replied, gazing off into the hallway, her purple eyes glowing softly with some skill or another—{Starlit Eyes} maybe, although he knew she’d been spending more time with Porsq recently, learning to code her own skills. He was almost positive she wasn’t actually that interested in it, but her sister was. Probably more of a bonding thing? With some of their other sibling groups, it might have been a one upping—which would be ridiculous, given ‘dian’ie was sixteen years older than her little sister—but not with these two.

With ‘dian’ie and her sister, it would never be anything other than love and a desire to connect with someone who they largely hadn’t been allowed to grow up alongside, nor publicly acknowledge the existence of.

So it goes, sometimes.

Xavier stared at his friend and kinda-cousin—it was complicated as anything could be, and while he privately thought of both sisters as his cousins, he doubted several of their relatives would appreciate the sentiment. A few would, but not all of them.

At least one, he suspected, would be downright hostile, which was weird. Adults were weird—yet another reason why he definitely didn’t want to be one! Much better to remain a child at heart!

he eventually asked, head tilting when more members of their group—which wasn’t a coren’taz but was close enough, hence their self-assigned group name of coren’taz’k, which was a simple addition of the Brylish negation onto coren’taz.

They all thought it was funny. Emmie’gusht thought it was hilarious, as did a handful of her friends. Many of the more members of their parent and relative and guardian’s coren'taz and Division 30 didn’t think it funny. They could all go be miserable by themselves—seriously, no one would miss Leerin or Antoine, neither of whom got the gushan or burat honorifics they should have, cause they sucked. A few other members sucked, but Xavier rarely saw or heard of them, so they weren’t worth thinking about.

A video slotted itself into Xavier’s Censor, and oh, shit.

he laughed, watching Emmie’gusht decimate her now-ex-boyfriend’s doorway.

‘dian’ie replied, continuing her strange stare into the hallway, where— Just how many majenstra were out there?

‘dian’ie was, annoyingly, doing in her Censor—a temporary one, because despite being half Baalphorian, half Crisharian, she hadn’t been so stupid as to having a proper Censor installed. This may have mostly been because Xavier, who was a few years older and had therefore had several years to regret his decision to have a permanent one installed before her own Censor was set to be installed, had told her to just not.

Regardless, currently she was doing something on her Censor and getting answers out of her was so painful that, after several minutes of struggles to communicate with her and having little information to show for it, he rolled out of bed, grabbed a sleep shirt—it was far too hot to sleep in anything but boxers—and went to go find someone who would actually answer his questions. With everyone up and about—seriously, had he been the only one asleep?—this should have been easy.

It was not.

Somehow, was in a state, which seemed rather ridiculous, as he was the one who had just caused enough of a fuss with his nightmare that ‘dian’ie had needed to come and wake him up! Yet, he was almost positive he was the calmest of the people hustling about the estate, and really, this was far too much hustling for this late at night. Was it actually not actually late, and instead, they’d all been worn out from a party the night before and decided to go to bed early—something no one but he had apparently done? Yes. Still, too late for hustling about. Where was the calm!? The relaxing at the lake house!?

Something in one of the rooms he passed exploded, a collection of majenstra hurrying in to see if anything was on fire or if it Given whose room it was that was now smouldering—and again, it was far too late for this amount of nonsense—it would be odd if it a self-inflicted explosion.

It was therefore exceptionally odd for the majenstra to be worried it might be

In what was a truly horrific turn of events, it took almost fifteen minutes for Xavier to finally figure out what was happening, and this was only after he gave up getting answers out of anyone who was actually residing in their summer home! The majenstra were distracted, brushing aside questions while trying to put out the small fire caused by the explosion and tidy up the damage. Half of his cousins and friends were either immersed in virtual raids—seriously, had that early night plan been a complete lie?—or binge-watching Above the Clouds, trying to determine what sort of would be happening in that night’s episode, Henri’burat having warned all of them that had happened.

Given there were exactly two things Helix’buran could reveal about himself that would be worth warning everyone to be prepared for, Xavier wasn’t sure why anyone was bothering to place bets—and really, if it had been the one thing, he was sure that they already would have heard about it, rather than Henri’burat giving them such a vague warning.

‘dian’ie was still doing something with her Censor, so entranced that he could only assume she was messaging her sister. An attempted message from himself to said sister, asking what she knew, yielded no results either.

Two little silverstrains, messaging from afar~

Two little silverstrains, so obsessed with one another that everyone else might as well vanish into the aether~

Could both spark and just go to one another and live in a little cuddle puddle and chat? Yes. With how odd the majenstra were behaving—their effective guardians since they’d all been herded to Crishar at the start of the war, although they’d spent time in Norvel and the Ridge Rind as well, and they’d picked up more members over the years—Xavier wasn’t sure how much they would appreciate their charges vanishing into the wind, but really, what other choice did he have if he wanted answers!

Was he easy to ignore? How could that many people brush aside his attempts to get answers!? Xavier knew he was generally one of the quieter and less assuming of their coren’taz’k, but this was more than a little ridiculous!

Sorvell’buran squawked when Xavier sparked into the strange building he and Olivier’burat were sitting in. It was a… weird building.

“Where’s this? And why is it so… bare?” he asked, peering around the space, which appeared to be in the midst of being unpacked—or packed up, he supposed.

Looked more , though. Something about the way things were placed and the giant pile of paper in the corner—packing protection, he assumed, the pile located next to a room that appeared to be a kitchen. From within, someone hummed and another piece of paper flew through the doorway, missing the pile. Without looking, Olivier’burat used a skill to move it into the pile. Several more pieces of paper followed the first piece, all of which missed the pile and were summarily moved by Olivier’burat.

“Why don’t you just move the pile? They seem to be throwing all the pieces into the same place?” he asked, plopping down and letting Olivier’burat swing an arm around his shoulders and pull him close.

“Because it is right in front of the doorway, and Yujao has already walked into it once and thrown a fit.”

“I heard that!” Yujao’buran yelled from the kitchen, his head poking around the corner a moment later. “Hello, Xavie. Been awhile,” he said before vanishing in a gust that sent several pieces of the paper pile fluttering away. They were retrieved and returned to the pile by Olivier’burat. Xavier wasn’t sure how Yujao’buran had managed to create that gust of wind, but he was almost positive the man was trying to annoy Olivier’burat. It wasn’t working—likely wouldn’t work unless the Dionese man did something truly egregious, given how sleepy Olivier’burat looked.

“Xavie!” Sorvell’buran cheered, now that his heart rate had returned to normal—should they be concerned it had gone up that much just because he’d sparked in unexpectedly?

“No,” Olivier’burat cut in.

“But—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

Sorvell’buran threw up his hands, muttering about how and about how

“Why is Miles’burazat upset?” Xavier asked, tucking his legs up and over Olivier’burat’s lap, the man tugging him so close he felt liable to melt into the older man’s warmth and protection.

“I thought Meridian was supposed to tell ya’ll?” someone asked from another room, their voice muffled because, when Axelle’gusht rounded the corner, she was in the middle of brushing her teeth.

“Maybe?” Xavier said, humming happily when his attempts to melt further into Olivier’burat were met with the man pulling him closer—the older man had always been so good at giving him snuggles. Seriously, little him had chosen well when he’d decided he wanted Olivier’burat to be the one to carry him about. A second later, lips pressed to the top of his head, just as soft and sweetly affectionate as such kisses had always been.

Best. Decision. Ever.

After Axelle’gusht had sparked off to tell the majenstra where he had gone—only a handful of them wore temporary Censors, and while a few of their minders generally did, they were so distracted they were ignoring even her messages. As she didn’t return for a while, there was a chance she was now yelling at them for being idiots or had been coerced by their coren’taz’k into doing something—it was a bit of a toss up. Axelle’gusht might be one of the more members of Division 30, but she could be fun and generally let herself be bullied into doing things with them, and as much as they all loved the other of Division 30, there was something to be said for being able to get the to go along with their chaos.

As Olivier’burat and Sorvell’buran—with occasional commentary from Yujao’buran as he continued unpacking the kitchen—explained the situation to him, however… Well, Axelle’gusht was likely yelling at the majenstra for not having taken a few minutes to explain things to him… and then sticking around to make sure everyone was actually safe because they hadn’t noticed him leaving.

Considering kidnapping was currently a pretty big risk for basically anyone associated with Division 30… Yeah, it wasn’t great that no one had noticed him leave, nor even told him he shouldn’t be leaving because, ya know, kidnapping risk!

While Xavier—and he was sure everyone else as well—appreciated Axelle’gusht wanting to keep them safe, it would make things harder, if she were intent to linger—after all, despite how quiet he was, Xavier had still been exposed to Emmie’gusht and her chaos for the majority of his life.

[Xavie:]

There was absolutely no way they weren’t joining in on the fun because as much as they still thought themselves to be children, and the adults in their lives still treated most of them like they were toddlers in need of constant minding, most of them were adults, and they were definitely all products of the insanity their elders had long been known for.