The Edge

Gideon: Part Two

"Did you really throw someone in a gutter?"

Damn it. He was hoping she wouldn't ask about that. "Lightly. I lightly threw someone into a gutter." Gideon didn't turn to face Tola. He could picture the look on her face anyway: concerned, slightly scandalized, the way she usually looked when he did anything excessively violent. "No one died." He couldn't promise the guy wouldn't need his shoulder relocated, but no one had died.

"Oh." Tola was silent for a moment before continuing: "Did you think they were going to hurt us?"

"I wasn't sure at first," Gideon said, loading up the coffee machine as he broke. "My original plan was to just...scare them a little. You know, yell, look all..." He gestured vaguely, as if encompassing what he looked like when he got like that. "But when I got outside, some of them had machetes. I wasn't going to take the risk that they wouldn't.

Tola immediately looked scandalized. "They had machetes?"

"Very improvised machetes, but yeah." They weren't professionally made, that was sure; they'd been chunks of metal carved into the rough shape of a machete, if the weapon had been designed by an edgelord. Jagged edges, crude eyes etched into the "blades", that kind of thing. Gideon would've found it funny if Tola and an innocent family hadn't been there. "Not sure how much damage they would've done, but like I said. Not taking a chance."

Tola nodded. Her scandalized look bled away, slowly replaced by a familiar, I want to ask, but I'm not sure how to look. She was radiating concern, too. He could feel it. "I'm okay," Gideon said, going for the answer to her most likely question. He reached for a mug to avoid looking her in the eyes. HE wasn't sure what time it was–probably too late for coffee, but his brain still felt foggy, and he desperately needed something to beat the exhaustion back. "Just trying to focus on finding Cassandra."

"Oh." Tola hesitated, then added, "I'm just worried...after what happened with Arian and that man..."

Gideons' jaw clenched. Right, the other time he'd almost lost it. Though, in hindsight, maybe he should have lost it. He'd been holding back, and the guy had been running circles around him. Alistair Black had been so good that Gideon wondered if they were alike. He might have finally kicked it up a notch from frustration if security hadn't broken him up.

He hadn't accidentally hurt any of the security guards. That was some reassurance to him. But with Arian? No, he'd let his anger get the better of him then. That was inexcusable.

"I lost my cool with Arian. It won't happen again." He turned the machine on and had to raise his voice to be heard. "That redhead...I had it under control, but trust me, he was holding his one pretty sure.

Tola didn't respond verbally, but he saw her carefully reach out, only resting a hand on his forearm when he didn't flinch away. "Are you really okay?" she asked. "I know you wouldn't hurt Arian, but I know you don't like it when you get angry. Even a little angry."

"I'm fine, Tola." He was lying and they both knew it. She probably would've been able to guess even without the proximity and physical contact; with those things, he was sure she could feel the repressed scream stuck in his ribs. "There's a lot happening, but I'll figure it out."

"Okay. You don't have to figure it out alone, though. You know that, right?"

Gideon smiled weakly. "Yeah."

It was a nice sentiment, and even mostly true. He knew that reaching out would be a good thing to do, but...people could only help him so much. Some stuff was so stuff in his head that he was, at the end of the day, fighting it alone.