The Edge

Gideon: Part Six

"Should I be worried about whatever happened back there?"

At least Helen had pulled him aside before asking. If he was going to be scolded, he'd rather it not happen in front of his siblings. "Just on edge," Gideon said. "I don't want a repeat of the last place."

"I get that, but you being aggro isn't going to help. Don't start anything. Understand?"

I'm not trying to. I promise. I wouldn't do that. Not on purpose...

But he knew better than anyone how easy it was to slip up. To give in to something that was a ground-in instinct more than a conscious choice. No matter how much he'd pushed back against it, no matter how much he'd tried to scrub it free, the urge was still there.

Maybe it always would be.

"Copy that," Gideon said. He winced internally at the wording, but it was too late to take it back. Besides, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I went back to being a good little soldier. Life was so much easier when someone was just telling you what to do...

His skin crawled with revulsion as the thought really sank in. He was so busy banishing the thought that he almost missed Helen's next question: "Have you seen Arian?"

"He's in the kitchen," Gideon said immediately. He felt a little guilty that he knew; after how he'd acted, being hyper-aware of Arian felt wrong, invasive. What right did he have, after how he'd acted? "Or at least he was last I checked..."

"Actually, he's out of the kitchen," said a new voice. Gideon jumped back, hands clenching into fists. They relaxed when he saw it was just Arian. They were the only part of him that relaxed. "Sorry, wasn't eavesdropping. Just getting to my room. Didn't want to spook the big guy."

He said it like he was teasing, but Gideon couldn't help reading between the lines: I wasn't looking to get put into another choke hold. It was fair enough, and most of them knew to let Gideon know they were there. He was still jumpy, to put it generously.

But he'd never threatened any of them before Arian. He never would have dreamed of it. He'd only become comfortable making joke threats in the past few years, after almost two decades of living with his family. There was no way he'd be able to go back to those days, and especially not with Arian. That incident on Midgard had cast all his interactions with his brother in a different light.

You have to do better. You have to. Someone could get killed.

"Quick sidebar, what's with twenty-two from the bar?" Arian asked suddenly. He may have been trying to smooth things over, or maybe he'd just been holding onto that question for a while. It could be hard to tell. "He give anyone else a weird vibe?"

Gideon's brain took a moment to drag itself out of the mire of self-loathing and register the question. "Matthias, you mean?" he said.

"Yeah, that guy."

"Oh. He's..." Gideon struggled to think of the right words. "...little too calm about this situation. Way too calm about that asshole who kidnapped you."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking! Like, dude, that...merc, bounty hunter, whatever definitely had more than one knife and knew how to use it. He went up against you without dying, so I assume he's stronger than the average stabby weirdo."

Helen cut in: "You sure he's a gun for hire? Knife for hire, I guess?"

"Pretty sure. That's what he told me. Could've been lying, but that seems like a weird thing to lie about. Anyway, are we taking the fact that so many people are trying to grant this dude as proof that he's legit, or that everyone else is crazy and we should be worried about losing it, too?"