The Edge

Arian: Part Three

Eventually, his curiosity and the nagging sense that he should try to be mature abut this won out over his annoyance. It was still a mental struggle, but he was able to force himself out of his room to talk to the others. Or, that was the plan. When he poked his head into the dining room, though, Helen looked exhausted, Gideon was brooding in that scary way that felt like an unexploded bomb, and Luca looked like he'd been stress crying within the past hour.

Nope, not touching that. Right back into his room he went.

That was probably for the best, as Arian wasn't even sure what to say. He was pretty sure the others were still hyperfocused on him hanging around gangs, and wouldn't hear him when he said it wasn't been deliberate. He'd gone to Midgard for perfectly legitimate reasons; the gang had only been incidental. People always focused on the wrong detail with him.

Like, shit, you accumulate a bit of a criminal record on a few planets and suddenly you can't do anything right.

The others must not have noticed him poking his head in, because no one brought it up. The only communication from the others was Luca sending him a text, asking if he was okay. Arian just replied with peachy keen, my bro. It was a lie. Luca probably knew it. He didn't push the matter though; his anxiety must've won out over his desire to play the family peacekeeper. He'd never been good at that anyway. Bless him, he tried, but he still cried in stressful conversations.

They did eventually speak face-to-face, though. Arian had to leave his room when they were prepping to land, and caught sight of Luca leaving the cockpit as he did. "How does it look down there?" Arian asked. "Desolate as every other moon we've been to?"

"Uhm. Yeah, more or less." Luca wasn't quite making eye contact. Between that and his naturally occurring eye bags starting to look like eye suitcases, Arian had a feeling he hadn't been sleeping well. "Helen's having a family meeting before we land."

"Awesome," Arian sighed. He didn't like family meetings on a good day, forget when literally everyone was mad at him. "Does Gideon still want to rip my head off?"

"Does he...no?! He doesn't want to rip your head off."

"Good. I'm not looking to get murdered over one screw-up."

"Gideon wouldn't..." Luca tried to cover for the flustered look on his face by crossing his arms and going for stern. He was garbage at it, but the effort was a good sign. Always good to see him trying to be assertive. "You shouldn't say that. He feels bad. And you know he wouldn't have hurt you. He doesn't like hurting people."

"Well, I eagerly await his apology, because it sure felt like he was gonna kill me." Arian said bluntly. That wasn't him being an asshole, either; he had been shit-your-pants terrified when Gideon had picked him up. He knew what his brother was capable of. They all did. Even objectively knowing that those days were behind him and that he (apparently) hadn't actively really hurt anyone since leaving the hell planet they'd found him on didn't stop Arian from being scared.

Besides, thought the petty little gremlin in the dark parts of his head, if they can hold my shitty past against me all the time, doesn't that mean I get to do the same thing with him?

That probably wasn't fair, but y'know what, life's a bitch and people are judgey. Especially him when he was in a bad mood.

"Listen, I'll apologize when he does," Arian continued. "He knows where to find me. Shouldn't we be buckling up?"

Luca didn't push it. He looked like he wanted to, but he didn't, and Arian was relieved. He didn't want to have this discussion.

Everyone else was still giving him the silent treatment when he joined them to buckle in. To be fair, Adoette looked more like she was giving him the silent treatment to avoid throwing up...okay, and neither Tola nor Matteo looked like they wanted to strangle him. Tola had looked kind of happy to see him, actually, as if she were worried he'd died when she wasn't looking. Gideon still looked...unreadable. He glanced Arian's way once, then looked away, towards the front of the ship.