Arc 8 | Chapter 291: Fidgeting Freedom

Emilia fidgeted, shifting her weight from side to side as she tried to resist the urge to tug at the ribbons winding around her body. She and nervous energy had a complicated relationship; it was both something that pushed her forward—something she’d figured out how to harness through innovation and creativity and a thousand hobbies because otherwise she was liable to drive everyone up the wall—as well as something that virtually always made her fidget.

When she’d been a preteen, not yet able to distract herself with her Censor—or better yet, program a function to help her stay in the moment and not become a menace—she’d taken up running. While she still ran, it wasn’t quite the intense

burst out of the house to run off energy

thing it had been when she was younger.

At one point her running had been so consistently in line with stress that she would arrive home to find her favourite meals waiting for her—she’d always been tiny, even if her ass and thighs had eventually expanded, and the risk of her running off

too much energy

had been a worry, apparently; that’s what her parents said, anyways, and in hindsight, it did explain why they were always perfectly happy to buy her snacks.

Too bad those snacks also tended to go straight to her energy levels. ADHD-friendly snacks just weren’t as delicious.

Would Taelor let her have dessert? She’d drive him and the other boys up the fucking wall, but they would have no issues dealing with her being a hyperactive brat high on dopamine…

Olivier’s hand caught hers as she tugged on one of her ribbons a little too hard, the knot coming undone and leaving the complicated pattern Valor had instructed Taelor in tying loose and, well…

“Uh… oops?” Emilia breathed out, each of them staring at the ribbons as they fell further into disarray.

“Did you do these yourself?” her teacher and so-totally-soon-to-be lawyer asked.

Awkwardly, Emilia told him that no, she hadn’t. “I know men’s clothing is often way more… convenient, but even you must see that there’s no way I could get this on by myself—not without a skill, which I was thinking about when it was being put on. A few brands sell clothing with companion skills to help put complicated clothing on— I think there are a few brands that do that for apparel targeted at people with disabilities as well?”

Olivier hummed softly as Emilia continued talking about the skills she had considered creating—something more targeted at ease of use and expansion; something that could be easily modified for different items because she was pretty sure the current skills were all designed from the bottom up. “So not efficient!” she complained, wondering if her teacher would let her rant about how inefficient so many skills were—he definitely had the vibe of someone who like efficiency, so even if he wasn’t really interested in skills, perhaps he would listen just on the grounds that the general theme was a shared interest?

But also, what was he doing?

While she’d been talking, Emilia had been vaguely aware of Olivier doing something, of the way he held the arm she’d accidentally pulled free of the ribbons, holding it still from gesticulation. At some point, he’d switched arms, carefully grabbing her other flailing arm and leaving the other to wave around in its place.

It said a lot about her that, for one, she hadn’t really stopped to consider what the older man was doing, and that, for another, she was so comfortable with him touching her body. Honestly, the way he was touching her was much less sexual than she’d like, but while she’d probably come on a tad too strong when she’d, you know, offered to open her legs for him within seconds of meeting, she wasn’t going to continue hitting on him and risking making him uncomfortable.

Not in a bathroom stall, anyways.

“I was unsure how to create the exact pattern, but I believe this is suitable?” Olivier asked, pulling each of her arms between them, now that she’d stopped complaining and waving her arms about as though they weren’t trapped—if one could even consider this

trapped

—in a little stall together.

The ribbons had been wrapped around her arms again, but yes, the pattern of them was different, as evidenced by the soft red of her flesh—Taelor had tied them a little tight at Valor’s insistence; kinky bastard. Olivier’s thumb brushed over the reddened flesh, a shiver running through her.

Was this the first time they’d really touched, other than when he was forcing her out of his classroom? The man was usually so private, a bubble of protection around him that made it difficult for even her to work up the courage to invade his space. To some extent, she was surprised he was even standing here with her. Had someone asked her just hours earlier what she imagined the great Olivier de la Rue would do, were she to manhandle him into a bathroom stall, she would have been split between claiming he’d push her back out or kill her for daring to get so close.

Evidently not.

“I like to program,” she blurted out, answering his earlier question about what she had been distracted by during class, rather than tell him that the ribbons looked good, that comment leading the way to an inappropriate question about whether he was as into bondage as Valor. “The triplets asked if I could make something for them, and it was on my mind.” Smiling sadly, she looked up from the complicated pattern pressed over her arms—more complicated than Taelor’s because Valor could only offer his controlling, finicky, loving older brother so much instruction—to meet Olivier’s beautiful, heterochromatic eyes. “I’m sorry. I was looking forward to that class, and then I just couldn’t get out of my head.”

One pale-blue, one bright-green eye blinked at her. “Do you want to make whatever it is for them?”

This was way too complicated a conversation to have in a fucking bathroom stall. Still, Emilia couldn’t stop herself from blurting out her jumbled thoughts to the man, something about his soft tone and touches, the way he barely seemed to look away from her when she was all wild energy and flickering eyes, making her feel safe—like no matter what she said, he would keep it private for her. As much as he wasn’t her lawyer, it felt like he was a vault. Part of her thought it might just be that he didn’t seem to have many people he could tell, another part—probably the part that had been so forthcoming about their potential killing of the Drydens—said it wouldn’t matter if he did. It would take something a lot more serious than vague contemplations on murder to make him tattle on her.

“Yes. No. Yes—I know they need what they asked for, and I know I can do it better than anyone else. No—they’re gonna be in danger where they’re going. I’ve always known they’ll end up on Black Knot jobs, but it’s just… it just sucks, and I hate it.”

Large, soft hands caught hers again as she tried to go for the ribbons yet again—she really needed something less destructive to fiddle with, her fingers naturally reaching for the next closest thing: Olivier’s sleeves. They were just so… wrong. Never once had he come to class with the cuffs not rolled up, and the fact that they were politely rolled down now just rubbed her the wrong way.

The man’s breath seemed to catch as she pulled one of his hands towards her, fingers slipping under the cuff to judge if it would need to be unbuttoned to be folded up—it did.

If Olivier had any complaints about her fussing with his totally unacceptable lack of style, he said nothing of it, instead commenting that it must be hard to be friends with several Hyrat clones.

“No, several,” she corrected absently, activating an ironing skill to force Olivier’s sleeves into submission. If the skill also made it virtually impossible for him—or any fussy, non-consensually controlling mothers—to fold down the sleeves without the shirt hitting the wash first, well, Judith de la Rue seemed the type to exert her own preferences onto her kids. “I know most of them. I

like

most of them. The Laprise boys and several of the Baxters as well.”

Nose wrinkling, she switched arms and told her teacher that while there were a few older clones who didn’t really seem to like her, the only person in the whole of The Black Knot’s extended family system she didn’t like—hated, really—was one of the few born without a black knot.

“Is it… standard to be friends with so many black knots, when you’re from The Penns?” Olivier asked, his words chosen so carefully Emilia wondered if her ire over his words about Simeon had made him nervous to upset her again.

Final fold pressed into his second sleeve, another burst of ironing skills left her. Much better! Olivier had lovely forearms—actually, he probably had a lovely body, but the rest of it was hidden under his generally conservative business attire—and they deserved to be seen and adored by everyone lucky enough to pass him in the street.

Then again, his mother was probably the sort to order a private bubble straight to the restaurant, even if everyone hated when they left the lines. Stars forbid the woman get on a slide or bubble line like a normal fucking person!

“In my year, a little. There was a huge group of us who were friends, but it's a bit uncommon. Mostly everyone is just… more used to black knots, I guess? Other kids were friendly enough even to the clones—like, in comparison to the absolute fear they experience even around their dorms here in the city? I think I got banned from the place Baylie bought this dress because

oh no, we can’t have people learning they might run into a clone here!

Or some shit like that.”

Rolling her eyes, Emilia was surprised to find Olivier almost smiling down at her. It wasn’t much—just a slight tilt of his eyes that implied he was amused—yet her heart still stuttered.

He truly was a beautiful specimen, one Emilia could spend the rest of eternity looking at and—

“Well…” she breathed out, suddenly feeling too hot, the stall squeezing in around them. “We should get back. Or, I should. If you want to hide in here longer, I won’t judge you. Actually, I might judge you more for going back to… that.”

More amusement seemed to swim in the lawyer’s eyes—the ones that still had yet to leave her—as he sighed. “Unfortunately, I really don’t want my mother coming to find me. She may call SecOps, claiming I am a lost child.”

“I’ve been a lost child,” Emilia replied, nodding sincerely as she smacked the panel to let them out of the stall and told Olivier a highly abridged version of being lost in the desert south of the Grey Sands, one of the many times her parents had been forced to call for help in finding her.

“You are lucky you did not accidentally end up in Chinsata,” Olivier concluded as they slowly made their way back to the dining area. “That would not have ended well for you.”

Humming, Emilia admitted that she probably wouldn’t do well as a slave, even if she really liked sex—she was just too obstinate and difficult to control. A sputtering sound drew her attention as they rounded the corner, Olivier's baby brother leaning against the wall and looking a mixture of horrified and indignant.

“I knew you were in there!” the younger man hissed, looking between his brother and her, his eyes narrowing as he catalogued the dress he had seen on the woman who told him off, but with otherwise different features and colouring.

“I see you didn’t manage to find your courage to tell your mommy off?” Emilia asked, enjoying the way Antoine de la Rue bristled.

“It isn’t that easy!”

“No?”

“No!”

“Then why do you expect your brother to deal with her, even if it’s just

managing her

? He might be older, but I imagine it's difficult for him as well?”

The man, who had been poised to continue growling at her, froze, and Emilia wondered if anyone had ever told him his brother might find certain things difficult before. There was so much assumption that everything came easy to non-devs, and to be fair, most things did come easier. Not everything; some things were still hard, some things all the more difficult due to all the pressure placed on them by themselves and the world to be

perfect.

“Look, I’m not gonna assume I know the exact details of your family, or what you two have going on in your sibling relationship, but the way you yelled and demanded Olivier do something that

neither of you

should be expected to do isn’t acceptable. Just… be nicer. Go to therapy. Find your courage and tell the bitch to fuck off. Just do something better than whatever that was.”

Antoine de la Rue watched her, some mixture of confused, shocked, and unsure what to do with her and her words. It was a look Emilia saw often, and unfortunately for both de la Rue boys, she was a brat who liked causing trouble.

Turning back to her not-quite teacher, she smiled, cheeks spreading wider when she saw the exact moment he realized she was coming for him. “Thanks for helping me do my dress back up,” she sighed, reaching up to brush a strand of his dark hair back into place. “I had a really good time in that stall. Perhaps we can do it again sometime?”

The best thing was it was all the truth; Olivier had helped with her dress, and she had enjoyed their conversations, her heart feeling lighter just for having released her worries into the world.

That didn’t stop Olivier from looking shocked as she bounced away, his cheeks an adorable shade of red. Better yet? The look on his brother’s face when she chanced a glance back, Olivier watching her go—his eyes trained on her ass, no less—while Antoine de la Rue watched him in turn, definitely told her that the younger man had probably assumed his brother was a virgin until this moment.

Would the baby brother assume she’d popped Olivier’s cherry in that bathroom stall?

Maybe, one day, she’d get the chance to ask.