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Arc F1.9 | Chapter 27: We Don’t Fight For Ourselves

A fizzle of shuddered through Mikhail and it took everything he had to pull it inwards—to bury it back within himself. Mikhail wasn’t sure why, but somehow he he had to keep it within himself. It was something… not or . It felt dangerous. It felt like something he wasn’t ready for. It also felt like, as annoying as these men with their judgy, biting eyes were, they didn’t deserve to be bitten by the slithering around within him.Was it a slithering thing? It felt sharp and smooth all at once—strange but… right.

It took a moment of breathing before Mikhail realized he wasn’t going to be able to calm himself, anger that he rarely felt breaking through him.

Mikhail could count the number of times he had felt such pure rage, each of those times for someone else. He wasn’t the sort of person to become angry on his own behalf. It was why he liked Emilia a lot. There were a lot of reasons to like Emilia, but the fact that they were the same in that they would fight for their friends and let most things said and thought about they themselves slide? It created a sort of bond between them, Mikhail liked to think. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure if Emilia liked him back; sometimes, he thought her one of his best friends.

Emilia was always nice—and yes, Mikhail thought that even when she was being blunt, that was Emilia being nice. Emilia would never say anything to him unless she thought it true, and there was a kindness in that.

So, many of the times Mikhail had felt true rage had been for his friend. He had broken several boys’ noses once, and dislocated the shoulder of another. They had been on a school trip with several other schools from around the Penns, and he had overheard the boy talking about Emilia as though she were only good for sex. The boys had been placing bets about how many of them could fuck her before the trip was up. A few of the boys had been quite gross, not showering nearly enough. The one boy had been trying to convince a few of the grossest boys to let themselves get grosser, in order to

It had not been nice. Later, a clone had plucked the boys’ memories of Mikhail hurting them from their minds—Mikhail had only activated an instance of {A Private Moment} in order to keep their mouths shut about who had beaten them up. According to the clone, since they would have been able to remember what they were talking about before being attacked, someone might have been able to guess someone from their school was responsible.

Baylor had asked later, from where he was seated beside Mikhail on a bench, Valor dabbing a disinfectant onto the broken skin of both their knuckles as Taelor spoke with the clone who had been called to deal with the situation.

When it came to things involving Emilia, it was sometime difficult to figure out whom to call. Halen would always come help, but while Mikhail could get away with beating people up for talking about Emilia that way, Halen…

Halen could as well, but back then, when Emilia and Rafe had still been , Mikhail knew his friend hadn’t wanted Emilia to find out about his feelings. So, Mikhail had called the triplets instead—Rafe had only recently killed Warren, and Mikhail hadn’t been sure whether he would kill the other boys. They weren’t talking nicely about Emilia, but they also didn’t deserve to die.

Baylor was the only triplet who had joined him in terrorizing the boys, Taelor demanding that he , while Valor kept watch in case someone stumbled across them.

Sometimes, Mikhail wondered if they were actually the bad guys. They were beating up terrible boys who had been saying terrible things about their friend, yes, but they were beating them up. Every member of their class was capable of taking on clones. It probably wasn’t fair to gang up on those boys or the handful of other students and adults their class had bullied and terrorized and sent to clinics over the decades.

At the same time, it was so normal that it didn’t really bother Mikhail. They protected their own, no matter what.

Mikhail had told Baylor, telling the middle triplet that he had switched the function from it’s combat-class mode to the mode meant for real-world conflicts.

Baylor had sighed. Valor had suggested he ask Emilia about it; Baylor had refused. the middle triplet had demanded, horrified that he might have to admit Halen had a good idea if it turned out to be his suggestion.

Later that evening, Mikhail had asked Halen. It was both Halen’s contribution to the function not his idea. Halen had admitted in one of the few times any of them verbally acknowledged either Rafe’s killing of Warren or Halen’s easy acceptance of it. It was definitely the only time Mikhail had heard Halen admit that, had Rafe needed help, he would have helped him in a more palpable way.

Together with Codeth, the three of them had been tucked into a huge, enclosed lounger. Their feet had been tangled together as they took some time away from everyone else because everyone else was annoying. Mikhail generally wasn't sure what to think of their other —those people who were solidly part of of their class and were never even vaguely friendly with Emilia’s side. The thing was, Mikhail had such a difficult time making friends that it felt like those he had he should keep, even when they weren’t the best of people.

A few weeks ago, Codeth had said something about how his own for their was waning. Mikhail… could understand that. Generally, he liked everyone, but some of the things their school friends did and didn’t do were… frustrating.

Even something as small as the situation with Codeth and his family: Mikhail had yelled at his friend’s mother once, when he saw her out on a date when Codeth was at home with a grandfather who didn’t want him there. All the while, their other friends had stood by, then asked Mikhail why Codeth’s terrible home life bothered him so much. That wasn’t very nice of them. Mikhail couldn’t imagine a world where he wouldn’t be upset that one of his friends was suffering. According to their other friends, Codeth’s grandfather didn’t hit him, so it wasn’t worth thinking about.

Words could hit worse than fists, and Codeth’s grandfather knew how to throw words and make them hurt.

That old man would happily let his daughter-in-law take her son and never see either of them again; instead, she worked and dated and rarely ever thought of her son.

Codeth had said before. He had said it when they were little, the two of them sitting in the shade of the forest that edged the beach. In the distance, a few clones had been fighting one of the creatures that occasionally slipped out of the sea to terrorize the shore. A little closer, Emilia, then new to the Penns and their school, had sat with a few of her new friends. Some of them had been giggling. Leerin had tucked herself in behind Emilia, already the groups’ strength and heart.

Back then, it had been difficult for a few of them to see how much her parents loved her and her siblings. All of the Starrberg children had , even if at six, few of them had understood the implications of Emilia’s pretty silver hair and the stars shooting through her eyes. Here were these kids, so immediately loved and cherished despite—perhaps even because—of the things that made them different. Here were a handful of them—Codeth, Mikhail himself, Leerin, Simeon, BJ—whose parents hated them, abused them, didn’t want them around.

Mikhail knew he was lucky: his mom tried; she failed, but she tried.

Codeth’s mom didn’t try, while his grandfather preferred to forget he existed.

That first time Codeth had admitted that his mother would gladly never see him again, all because he looked a bit too much like the father who had cheated on her and then been killed in a murder-suicide by his jealous lover, the other boy had been sad, his eyes overfilling with tears. They had sat there for so long that the sun had hit the ocean.

They were so forgotten that no adult came to look for them; instead, Emilia had come back, Malcolm holding her hand. She had pointed and told the eldest Laprise brother that they were still there. A little crinkle had appeared between the teenager’s eyes as he asked why their parents hadn’t found them, nor even asked the clones who populated the area to go look for them.

Even Malcolm with his black knot couldn’t understand Mikhail’s mother and Codeth’s grandfather had left them to linger out in the darkness without a single care.

It was the first time either he or Codeth had spoken to Emilia—they were in a different class from the one Emilia and her siblings had ended up in. Sometimes Mikhail wondered if they would have become part of Emilia’s friend group if they had been in her class, that first year she was in the Penns.

They had their friends in their class. Emilia had her friends in hers. Emilia would talk to them when they ran into one another, but she had never come and grabbed them by the hand and them come play the way she had many of the kids in her own class. By the time they shared a class, their friend groups were more set—Mikhail understood that, despite how much he had refused to accept that they existed. It was stupid when they were younger, it was even stupider when the lines existed because Halen had said something stupid on his first day at their school and earned himself Emilia’s ire.

Emilia had forgiven him. Yes, it was complicated by all their pranks, but obviously, if Halen had confessed his feelings to her and Emilia , they could have erased the lines a long time ago!?

Mikhail, for one, was glad he had decided to pretend he didn’t realize the lines existed—one of the few times he had ever lied to his friends, letting them believe he had no idea he was constantly crossing that stupid line. All his friends were stupid and their line was stupider.

In his arms, Porsq shifted, peering up at him. The boy’s eyes were still watery—a consequence of feeling the terrible thoughts of these men who should be thanking him, not fearing him.

Was fear even a strong enough word? Mikhail thought the younger man to be leaking hatred at the sweet little boy. Another wave of anger flooded through him, and while Porsq had briefly seemed amused by whatever he had been feeling of his thoughts about his stupid friends, now, the boy frowned.

Mikhail knew what the boy wanted to say even before he said it; it was the sort of thing both he and Emilia were always saying.

It was funny, in a strange way, to suddenly realize that all those times he and Emilia had attempted to brush aside the concerns of their friends for things said and thought about them must have been quite frustrating for the people who loved them.

He was going to protect Porsq, no matter what, because making sure the little boy knew that nothing was wrong with him worth it.

The mouth that the little boy had been opening, intent to tell Mikhail that wasn’t worth fighting with these people over, snapped shut. Good. Porsq frowned, blinked back tears, then buried his nose back into Mikhail’s neck. Not for the first time, Mikhail felt the gentle vibrations of the boy’s abilities. It wasn’t as obvious as what Coral, Simeon, and to a lesser extent, Halen and Emilia, had felt when Porsq had helped his original group escape , but it was there.

Sending off a message to Olivier, asking if he had also felt Porsq’s abilities being used, especially since the boy had been right in his lap, Mikhail turned his attention fully back to the two men.

Beside him, Zavriel shifted closer, backing him up in whatever he decided to do. It was a solid support, as fearless and dependable as any of Mikhail’s other friends, he thought. With a sweet child in his arms and his new friend supporting him, Mikhail prepared himself to lay down the law.

If they were going to cooperate with one another, they were going to need some rules. Mikhail might not be able to police the pair’s thoughts and keep Porsq safe from whatever terrible things they were thinking about him, but he would make sure they kept their vitriol inside themselves—and if their thoughts alone became too much for Porsq?

Then, they would split up. The little boy didn’t deserve to be tortured by negative thoughts, all because he was keeping his abilities active in order to keep them safe.