Work Text:
Gideon had dealt with worse. After ten years a slave running a hobgoblin train, he could handle a few missing hours of sleep to get shit done. Besides, if he couldn’t work, what good was he? So when Kremy, stressed out and overextended already, shook him awake and asked him if he could cut down a few trees to clear out some space for the new tilt-a-whirl, he yawned, stretched and said,
“Sure, man, no problem!”
It was early morning, the sun barely peaking over the horizon and Gideon was dog-tired. Hell, he’d been dog-tired for what felt like years, but there was work to do.
He grabbed a cup of coffee and gulped some of it down before Cindy, one of their gymnasts, asked if he could help her warm up.
Grinning, he set his mug down and nodded.
“Sure, darlin’, no problem!” What he hadn’t expected, however, was her version of ‘warming up’ to involve less pulling off clothes and spreading her legs wide and more him picking her up and tossing her in the air as she leaped and twirled. His abs and thighs worked hard to keep him upright as she slung her full bodyweight around on his arm, hopping up onto his shoulders and then leaping down with a flourish.
“Lookin’ good, girl, keep up the good work.”
“You too, Gideon,” she said as she reached down to touch her toes and readjusted her outfit.
Alright, time to deal with them trees.
Gideon made his way to the tool cart, finding one of the lanky bugbear workers already rummaging through things.
“Hey man, can I get past ya? Gotta grab an ax.”
“Oh, um, Mr. Gideon, do you know where Torbek can find a left-handed wrench?”
Gideon stared at him for a moment, blinked. Torbek’s spindly fingers were already grasping a large wrench.
“You already got a wrench there, man, the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“No, no, no, Mr. Chuckles told Torbek that Torbek had to get a left-handed wrench,” the bugbear said stubbornly, still raking his free hand through the toolbox, undoing all the organization Gideon had done yesterday so he could find shit when he needed it. Gideon sighed.
“He’s fuckin’ with ya, man. Look.” Gideon grabbed the tool from Torbek with his left hand and mimicked loosening a bolt with it. Torbek stared at the tool with a slack-jawed expression and shook his head once.
“But that’s a right-handed wrench, Mr. Gideon, you can’t use it left-handed.”
“Look, Torbek, I got things to get done. What are you workin’ on? I’ll hand ya the right, er, correct tool for it.”
“Mr. Chuckles said it’s for braining.”
“‘Braining’?”
“Yeah, braining. He said it was something important he had to do to Torbek.”
Gideon resisted the urge to do it himself.
“Don’t take that wrench to him, Torbek. In fact, man, why don’t you go wake Gricko up and help him feed the critters this morning so I don’t have to?”
“But Mr. Chuckles,” Torbek began as Gideon reached past him, grabbing the ax and the whetstone to sharpen it.
“Dumber than a box of rocks and twice as ugly,” Gideon muttered once he was out of earshot.
There were five trees that needed felling. He realized he had left his coffee back at the tool cart, but it was fine. Really. It was fine.
He stretched and made his mark in the first tree after sharpening the ax. It was a good-sized oak, but it looked like it had rot in the middle. He worked his way around it, steadily weakening the trunk until the whole thing creaked and finally fell with a mighty thud. One down. Four more to go. Then he’d have to burn the stumps.
He had just finished cutting through the last tree when the daughter of one of the carnival hands scampered past. Gideon felt his asshole clench when he realized how close he’d come to hitting her with the ax as he’d raised it, and he realized she was in danger of getting squashed by the tree as it came down. With a mighty heave, he put himself in the way of the tree, holding it up with effort, his muscles shaking.
What was her name? Petunia, he was pretty sure?
“Hey, kid, uh, Petunia, watch out, it ain’t safe here. Where’s yer mom, anyway?”
“Mama went into town for some supplies,” said the tiny halfling child, barely six and only halfway to Gideon’s knee height.
Gideon struggled with the tree, grunting as it tried to fall.
“Well, go on over to, shit, I don’t know, just, git! Go on!”
Petunia started crying.
“Oh goddammit,” Gideon muttered through gritted teeth. He let the tree lean, forcing it to the side with a hard push, feeling something pop in his shoulder when he did so. It landed with another loud thump and Petunia took off running, officially someone else’s problem.
Gideon rubbed his shoulder with a wince, taking a deep breath before he began cutting the wood into pieces, trying to ignore the aching burn in his shoulder. Then, wood chopped and stacked and the sun fully up now, he started a fire between his hands, concentrating the heat until he had burned out the stumps.
“Gid, I need you to run off some creditors, they’re over near my office and I’m about to fuckin’ lose it,” Kremy told him as he approached. “Oh, ain’t there any way to get it more flat?” he asked, gesturing to the sunken pits where there had been five tree stumps.
“I mean, I guess I can shovel some dirt in there–”
“Good, get on that, then deal with those creditors. Dead, alive, I don’t care, just get rid of ‘em.”
“Sure, man. No problem,” Gideon sighed, really wishing he could have finished his coffee or had breakfast.
He filled the holes and approached the creditors.
“Where is Mr. Lecroux?” one of them asked.
“No idea,” Gideon lied. “Can I help you?”
“No, sir, we need to speak to Mr. Lecroux.”
“He’s busy. Gonna need you fellas to leave.”
“Or what?”
“Or else,” Gideon growled, letting the flames in his hair and beard flicker down his shoulders and along his arms.
“I dunno, gents,” said one of the men, tapping a crowbar into the open palm of his other hand. “I think we can take him.”
They were wrong.
Gideon flung the last corpse into the river and bent down, wiping blood from his face and hands and scooping some water up to get a long drink before he staggered back into camp, bearing a black eye and at least one cracked rib. It was fine. There was work to get done.
“Gideon,” said Gricko with a wide grin, “I heard a rumor that you, ehehe,” he laughed lecherously, “had quite a time with one of the waitresses back in town. Want to tell me about it and help me load up the hay?”
Truthfully, Gideon hadn’t fucked the waitress. He’d wanted to, badly, but the instant he’d climbed in her bed, he’d conked the fuck out, exhausted from setting up half the carnival two days before.
But, he had a reputation to uphold and a friend to entertain.
“Sure, man, no problem,” he said, following Gricko to the stockpile of hay for the elephants, recounting an entirely fictional event that Gricko seemed greatly pleased with.
“Gideon,” came Frost’s voice as he finally managed to get time to grab some lunch from the chuckwagon. He was wolfing down chili between jolts of whiskey from his flask, but he acknowledged Frost with a nod.
“Yeah, what’s up, man?”
“Could I enlist your assistance with the teleportation platform? It appears one of the wheels has broken and while I suppose I could reasonably use a mind hand to address the problem, I’d prefer brawn to go with my brains. So I don’t get crushed attempting to adjust the spoke.”
“Sure, man,” Gideon sighed, setting down his chili. “No problem.”
He helped Frost lift the large painted platform the Tabaxi floated above for his carnival performance and reached down to hold the spoke in place as Frost used his psychic magic to tighten the bolts.
Then, Gideon decided he was taking a nap.
“Oh Gideon,” came Chuckles’ voice.
“Oh goddammit, what now?” Gideon muttered.
“A little birdy told me you were helping move the tilt-a-whirl. You know what else is tilting and whirling?”
“Not now, man, would you just fuck off?!”
They were interrupted by the one of the gymnasts, Patricia, who was holding an elaborate wig and loudly smacking her gum.
“Gideon! Gideon, Esmerelda said that yesterday Gricko told her that you would be building a new set of high bars, but I told her that the high bars were my specialty and she didn’t need high bars, so I was wondering, if you’re going to build her a set of high bars, can you build me a set of high-er bars so I can still be center stage?” asked Patricia.
“Yeah, yeah, sure, darlin’, that’s fine,” he mumbled, adding it to the list. He pulled out his notebook and jotted a note only he would be able to read in his chicken scratch. “Fuck!” he barked, realizing he had forgotten to go back and fix the–
“Stampede! Watch out, stampede!”
Gideon’s pupils constricted as the sound of hoof beats thundered through the camp, the zebras braying and one of the elephants trumpeting.
He’d forgotten to fix the gate latch. There was just so much stuff to get done, he hadn’t meant to forget and now the animals were everywhere.
“Gid, help me catch ‘em,” called Gricko.
“Why the fuck are the animals out?! Oh god!” Kremy yelped, barely avoiding getting trampled.
“Kremy!” Gideon shouted, darting between his boss and one of the donkeys, who reared and kicked, narrowly missing Gideon’s shin. “I gotcha, man, hang on.” He lifted Kremy, his shoulder screaming in agony as he did so, but he ignored it. “Here,” he set him up on Frost’s platform before taking off at a dead run after one of the ostriches. “Come here, you dumb fuckin’ bird!”
Gideon had expected that jumping onto its back would stop it, but the bird just staggered and kept running, albeit at a much slower pace. He grabbed it by the neck and turned it, wrangling it back toward the pens.
It took the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening to catch all the animals, and Gideon had to use his flames to heat the metal of the latch, welding two pieces together to repair it so the incident wouldn’t be repeated.
He sighed, absolutely exhausted, almost too exhausted to eat, but he forced down a sandwich and a bottle of cold beer.
Fleeing to Kremy’s wagon before anyone else could ask for anything, he climbed inside and flopped onto the bed next to where Kremy was reading.
“Thought maybe you could…help me relax tonight, Gid. Just, ironically, you know,” Kremy said, unbuckling his belt suggestively.
Gideon perked up, forcing an enthusiasm he did not entirely feel.
“Sure, man, no problem. Just a coupla guys relaxin’ after a hard day’s work.”
“Mmm, you said it,” Kremy agreed as Gideon’s hands slid over his scales. “Today was exhausting. All this fuckin’ paperwork. Them creditors. And then I had to go over payroll, damn near killed me. The paper to write the IOU’s on is gettin’ expensive. You think they’d take verbal IOU’s?”
“Yeah, man, sure,” Gideon told him, only half-listening, his hips moving at a steady pace as he pleasured his boss, friend. Whatever he was.
Gods, Gideon was so fucking tired.
Kremy was snoring a few minutes later, fully satisfied, and Gideon had pretended he’d gotten what he needed too, but he hadn’t. Didn’t matter. He was too tired to jerk himself to completion anyway.
Gideon was awakened by a knock at the door.
“The fuck do you want?” he heard Kremy ask. “Bandits? Nearby? Shit. Gid?”
“Yeah, Kremy,” Gideon said, every muscle feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. He sat up.
“Smithers says there’s bandits about. Can I get you to do a patrol?” Kremy asked.
“Sure, man. No problem.”
Gideon pulled on his pants, his boots thudding heavily against the wagon floor. He tugged his suspenders up, fighting back a cry of pain when he touched his injured shoulder. It was fine. He could maybe take a nap later.
Stepping out into the cool night, he yawned, doing laps around the camp. He heard rustling in the bushes and flared his flames high and dangerous.
“I don’t know who you are or what the hell you want, but you better go on if you don’t wanna get torn limb from limb,” he warned. More rustling, headed away from the camp with a quickness. Thankfully, that was all that was required, and after a few more laps, he roused Campak, another bugbear, to take the next watch.
The next day was full of more of the same.
Gideon at least got to finish his coffee before a crisis appeared, one of the zebras limping from yesterday’s escape.
He helped Gricko hold it down as he healed its injured leg and then wolfed down a few eggs and some bacon before he finished moving the tilt-a-whirl and servicing the Harris wheel.
Kremy caught him just as he was wiping sweat and dust off his face, hands still trembling faintly from tightening what must have been a hundred bolts. His ribs seared with pain every time he breathed, and the shoulder he’d popped moving the tree earlier that week pounded with a dull ache.
“Gid. I need you to do somethin’ for me.”
“Sure, man, no problem,” Gideon said automatically, because it was Kremy and because what else was he gonna say?
“I ain’t even told you what it is yet.”
Gideon gave him a tired grin, wiping at the grease matting the side of his beard.
“Ain’t like you’re gonna ask me to do needlepoint or somethin’ stupid.”
That got the smallest huff out of Kremy, though his tail still twitched sharp with nerves.
“Funds are low. Real low. I got some… arrangements I need to call in, but I can’t leave the grounds right now with everything goin’ on. I need you to run deliveries for me, pick up some coin. Just for today, I swear.”
“Sure, man. No problem.”
Kremy’s eyes lingered on him a second too long, catching the tight way Gideon held his side, the wince he didn’t quite manage to swallow.
“You hurtin’? Need healin’?”
The truth was ‘yes’ to both those things, but Kremy had enough on his plate.
“Nah,” Gideon said easily, too easily. He straightened up despite the stab of pain that shot through his ribs like a hot knife. “Just stiff. I’ll walk it off.”
“Gid…”
“It’s fine,” Gideon cut in, flashing a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Really. Just for today.”
Kremy didn’t look convinced, but he shoved a folded scrap of paper into Gideon’s hand anyway. Gideon didn’t even glance at the names scrawled there before tucking it into his pocket.
By the second delivery he’d stopped feeling the cracked rib every time he climbed into the cart he’d borrowed. By the fourth, he’d stopped feeling much of anything at all.
When he was finished, he grabbed some lunch, but he was caught by a group of dwarves who put on an illusory mining show that needed help moving the decorative rocks for their performance that afternoon. Then Kremy needed Gideon to work security at the ticket booth as visitors poured in and more poured out, demanding refunds.
Gideon cracked his knuckles and backed up the “no refund” policy with the threat of violence.
He barely got a ten minute nap behind the house of mirrors before he was roused by the fortune teller.
“What do you need, Madame Leera?” he asked, wishing he could just disappear somewhere everyone didn’t need him for something.
“I’ve been accused of being a charlatan. A fake.”
“Well, you are one,” Gideon told her reasonably. She clutched at her fake pearls with a gasp.
“How dare you, Mr. Coal? I speak to the BEYOND! To the SPIRITS of the SPIRIT REALM!”
“Well, can you talk to them about whatever the problem is?” he mumbled.
“Hooligans have threatened me with violence, Mr. Coal! Torches and pitchforks for us all!”
“And you didn’t see that comin’?”
“Gid, just beat some sense into the folks who were chasin’ her,” Kremy said, not pausing in his movements. His tail was flicking in obvious irritation.
“Sure, man. No problem,” Gideon sighed.
That evening, Gideon built a small fire in camp, intending to sit and drink himself into oblivion, but one of the tightrope walkers was upset that her boyfriend broke up with her and left.
“Wait, Carl left?” Gideon asked. Damn. Carl was a good dude. And a good mechanic too, he’d been helping Gideon keep things running. Dammit.
“Yes, he left me,” she wailed. “And he didn’t even think about how it would impact my career. My performance.”
“Did he at least finish workin’ on the merry-go-round motor a’fore he took off?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t know,” she cried, mascara streaming down her face in dark blue-black lines.
“Right, well, I better go check.”
“Well, aren’t you gonna fuck me to make me feel better?” she called after him. He stumbled, paused.
“Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure, I guess when I’m done fixin’ the motor.”
Gideon fell asleep next to the gearbox, a wrench still in hand, oil coating his fingers. He snored loudly, dead to the world until the next morning, when Frost roused him from sleep.
“Are you quite alright, Gideon?”
“Hmm? Mmm, I’m fine, man. Just fine. Gotta finish fixin’ this.”
“You should eat some breakfast. It’s–”
“–the most important meal of the day, I know, man, I know,” Gideon told him.
Task after task, day after day. The carnival was busy, Kremy was busy, Gideon was busy and there seemed no end in sight to the things that needed to be done. Gideon didn’t ask for help with his shoulder because Gricko was too busy offering banañas to guests injured by the various rides and activities in the carnival.
It was fine, it would heal on its own anyway.
Gideon was about to go work on the rotating elephant platform Gricko used for his performance when one of the stagehands waved him over. A young half-elf with soot streaked across his face, he looked frazzled enough to catch Gideon’s sympathy despite the weight dragging on his bones.
“Mr. Coal? Sorry, I know you’re busy, but we need you to light the stoves and lanterns before sundown. The new batch of oil won’t take a spark and we’re out of other ideas.”
Gideon rubbed at his eyes, feeling the heat under his skin flare reflexively. Fire genasi, he reminded himself, not a miracle worker. But the kid was looking at him like he was the only one who could fix it.
“Sure, man, no problem.”
The half-elf beamed, handing him a box of mismatched lanterns like it was no trouble at all. Gideon trudged from stall to stall, show to show, cupping his hands and coaxing flame until each wick caught. His skin prickled with every spark, the slow bleed of energy leaving him nearly out of fuel himself.
By the last stove, his hands were trembling faintly. He fed the flame into the cold iron belly of the thing and watched it catch, the light flaring warm across his scorched sleeves.
“Bless you, Mr. Coal,” one of the showhands said, clapping him on the back.
“Sure, man,” Gideon muttered, voice flat now, “no problem.”
By the time the last lantern flared to life, the smell of food drifting from the chuckwagon had already gone cold. He ducked into the mess tent anyway, stomach aching, but the pots were scraped bare and the benches empty.
He thought about hunting down something quick, bread, jerky, anything, but someone shouted his name from across the grounds, and he straightened up automatically. Maybe he could get Kremy to cook him something later.
Stomach growling, Gideon ran the heel of his hand over his burning shoulder as he stepped back into the lantern light and trudged to the wagon where he found Kremy already asleep. So much for dinner. He slept like the dead that night, but morning came far too soon and he was roused awake by the roosters Kremy’d had painted to look like cockatrice.
“Mr. Gideon,” came Torbek’s pathetic voice and Gideon wanted to tell him to fuck off, wanted to tell everyone to fuck off, to tell everyone that there was too much responsibility stacked on his shoulders and he’d had enough. Instead, he said,
“Yeah, Torbek, what’s up, man?”
“Can you help Torbek move these crates? Torbek was supposed to get help, but Mr. Chuckles is missing and Mr. Frost is busy and Mr. Gricko is–”
“Yeah, man, yeah, come on.”
Torbek stood beside a cart stacked high with crates.
“Torbek is supposed to move these to the storage tent.”
Gideon adjusted his suspenders, legs aching and wobbling under him like wet rope. He forced a friendly grin anyway. It wasn’t like it was Torbek’s fault that no one noticed that Gideon helped everyone else and rarely got help himself.
“Sure, man, no problem.”
Gideon hooked his arms under the nearest crate, muscles screaming in protest as he lifted. Torbek chattered on beside him about the weight, the weather, something about the wood warping in the humidity. Gideon just nodded along, focusing on keeping his knees from buckling until the last box hit the dirt.
“Thaaaaanks, Mr. Gideon,” Torbek said, sad bulldog-like eyes down-turned. Gideon slapped him on the shoulder with a friendly pat.
“Sure, man,” Gideon muttered, straightening up slow. “No problem.”
Task after task, day after day, visitor after visitor, Gideon kept the carnival running without much complaint.
People meandered through the shows on offer and Gideon served as both entertainment and security until it was time for the big show under the large red-and-white striped tent.
Loud calliope music poured from the big top as Gideon pulled on the strongman costume he was tasked to wear for his own show.
The music cut out with a horrible skree of metal on metal. The crowd murmured as Gricko waved his arms, calling,
“A minor setback, folks! A planned inter-miss-ion! Hah!” His eyes found Gideon’s over the stage lights, wide and desperate.
“Oi, Gideon!”
Gideon was already moving, vaulting the side rail and dropping into the pit where the machine that spun the elephants in a slow circle as they balanced the acrobats on their noses was shuddering. Heat blasted him in the face when he yanked the hatch open.
“Shit, man, what’d you do, cook a roast in here?” he called over his shoulder, ducking into the cramped space.
“It wasn’t dis hot before it jammed!” Gricko wailed.
“Yeah, well, it is now. Move.”
“The fuck is going on?” Kremy hissed as he appeared from the sidelines, his fancy outfit glittering with sequins, making Gideon have to squint to look at him. “Can you fix it?”
“Sure, man, no problem,” Gideon said, the line rehearsed at this point. “Just, distract ‘em somehow, I got it.”
Kremy’s voice boomed loud above him as he crawled into the machine.
The compartment was barely big enough for him to wriggle inside. His palms met metal hot enough to sear as he reached for the stuck gear. He hissed through his teeth and forced it to turn with a grunt, muscles screaming as the mechanism screeched and then spun free.
A cheer went up above him as the music blared back to life. Gideon coughed once, the air tasting like scorched oil and smoke, and crawled out into the blinding stage lights, sleeves blackened and the faint smell of burned fabric clinging to him.
Gricko grabbed his shoulders, laughing with relief.
“You did it, Gideon! Good work, now we can get da show going again.”
“Sure, man,” Gideon rasped, voice hoarse from the smoke. He clapped Gricko on the back and forced a grin. “No problem.”
It was his turn next.
The crowd roared as the calliope music swelled again. Gideon rolled his shoulders once, biting back a groan as the costume’s straps dug into the bruised flesh underneath.
Just one act. One show. Then maybe he could sit down.
He stepped into the center ring and wrapped his hands around the first of the massive painted weights. They weren’t as heavy as they looked, but his cracked rib didn’t know the difference. Every breath was fire under his skin, and not the usual kind he always burned with.
“Strongman Gideon!” Kremy called, voice booming through magical amplification, and the crowd clapped in time as Gideon hoisted the weight over his head.
Sure, man. No problem.
The second weight was worse. His shoulder screamed the moment he shifted it into place. His knees wobbled as he forced a grin at the crowd, biceps trembling.
“Show ’em what ya got, Gideon!” someone hollered from the stands.
Sure, man. No problem.
By the time the last weight hit his hands, his vision was swimming. He felt something in his shoulder twinge and go hot, like a rope about to snap, but the roar of the crowd drowned out the warning in his own body. He locked his arms, teeth gritted, and lifted.
The cheer that followed sounded far away. He lowered the weight carefully, almost delicately, and gave a little bow as the calliope music hit its triumphant note. He made it offstage before his legs gave, bracing himself against a tent pole and sucking in shallow breaths so his ribs wouldn’t grind against each other.
Just fix things, cut things, grease things, lift things, then perform and fuck everybody that wanted a ride on his fat hog, but don’t worry about ol’ Gid, he can take it, right? He doesn’t need any help, does he?
“Sure, man,” he muttered to the empty backstage, voice shaking now. “No problem.”
“WATCH OUT!”
Gideon’s head snapped up to see that the platform above the net had broken. One of the acrobats was dangling, scrabbling for purchase as boards fell. It swung wide, slinging them out to dangle over nothing. No safety net, no padding, just a long drop to a quick death.
Fuck.
He’d forgotten to fix the platform. Just hadn’t had time or energy.
The acrobat plummeted and the crowd shrieked as Gideon ran, powered solely by adrenaline and the guilt of having caused this by forgetting to deal with it.
He caught her, barely, but he let out a loud scream of agony as whatever it was in his shoulder that had popped earlier in the week tore.
“Oh my gods,” cried the acrobat, a thin elven woman named Cara. “You saved me.”
“No problem,” Gideon forced out, eyes watering with pain. He set her down and stalked out of the big top, his left arm dangling unnaturally. He’d ask Gricko to take a look at it later. Right now he just wanted to drink and sleep and never be asked to do anything ever again.
But he didn’t drink. Didn’t even make it to his and Kremy’s shared wagon. Instead, he sat on an overturned crate behind the main tent, head tipped back against the canvas, sucking in shallow breaths through clenched teeth. His left arm hung useless, every pulse of blood through the joint making his vision spark white.
Gideon dozed fitfully through the pain, hearing the loud clapping and cheering of the crowd finally die down, hearing people leaving the carnival after Kremy’s big end-of-the-night speech.
He didn’t even hear Kremy approaching until the gatorfolk spoke.
“There you are,” Kremy said, voice low and worn thin. He rubbed his arms once, tail flicking. “Cold tonight.”
Gideon swallowed hard and tried to sit up straighter.
He flared his flames out automatically, setting himself alight to warm Kremy, the familiar heat rolling off his skin, except it wasn’t familiar. It wasn’t gentle. It was a rushing inferno, uncontrolled, born of exhaustion and the need to give something, anything, of himself. The crate under him blackened. Kremy hissed and stepped back as the air between them shimmered.
“Gid!”
“Shit, sorry, sorry,” Gideon clamped down on it fast, trying to drag the fire back into his skin until it was nothing but faint embers licking his collarbones, but that didn’t happen. His breath came ragged, teeth gritted as the tremor in his good arm wouldn’t stop, and the flames didn’t stop either. They were out of his control. The grass beneath him caught, the flames licking their way toward crates and tents and displays.
He would have to fix all of it if it was damaged. Oh gods, all that machinery, all those platforms in the big top. If it caught, if it burned…
“Please,” he murmured. He just needed a break. He just needed help. He stumbled forward, away from the massive tent, staggering and falling to the grass, flames whooshing around him madly.
Kremy stomped at the flames in the grass, golden eyes wide with panic.
“Gricko, Frost, get your asses over here right now! You! Get a bucket. You, go get the others!”
Buckets were grabbed and water was drawn from troughs for the animals. He’d have to help refill them, have to carry water and haul hay and… his fires grew hotter and hotter, a wildfire centered on a broken man.
“Gideon, calm your mind,” came Frost’s reasonable voice.
“I can’t, man, I’m so fuckin’ tired. I’m so…I’m so tired…”
“Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you, there’s nothing dat a hundred men or more could eva do,” came Gricko’s voice and rain began to fall above Gideon.
The flames died down and Gideon panted, so tired he wanted to cry, but he’d be goddamned before he’d cry in front of anyone but Kremy. He held it together, barely.
“’m sorry, I just…I’m so damn tired.”
The fires were under control, put out by dozens of carnival employees, and by Gricko’s magic.
“Take a banaña, Gideon,” he said, “actually, take three. Or four. Or five. That shoulder looks pretty bad,” he said, patting Gideon’s knee.
“Sure, man,” Gideon mumbled, chewing through another banaña. He wasn’t sure if he would eat the rest or just hold onto them for a minute so he didn’t have to stand up yet.
“You alright, Gid?”
“I’m fine, Kremy,” Gideon mumbled around a mouthful of banaña.
Kremy plopped down next to him on the ground where he had collapsed. He was surrounded by wet, charred grass. It stank and it would definitely stain Kremy’s pants, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
“You plainly ain’t, Gid. Would ya kindly go take a nice, long nap in our wagon? I’ll handle the rest of this.”
Gideon gave into the magic, but he stumbled, too tired to get back to this feet.
In moments, there were a half-dozen sets of hands on him, Gricko’s warm and clumsy, Frost’s precise, Torbek’s not really helpful, but steadying. Kremy slung Gideon’s good arm across his shoulders, though Gideon knew full-well there was no way his boss could bear his whole weight.
Gideon blinked through the haze of smoke and exhaustion, heart thudding as the world tilted sideways. For once, nobody was asking him to fix anything. Nobody was asking him to lift, carry, fight, or burn. They were just… there. For him.
“You’ve done enough, Gid,” Kremy assured him.
“More than enough,” Frost added, his tone bland, but gentle.
“I shoulda stopped you sooner.”
“It’s no problem,” Gideon mumbled, single-mindedly wobbling toward their wagon with the help of the others.
They got him inside and Kremy prestidigitationed him clean before he touched their bed.
The others filed out as Kremy climbed into bed beside him, tail curling over Gideon’s legs protectively.
The spell that had motivated Gideon to get to the wagon dropped and he let out a long sigh. Blankly, he stared at the bunch of banañas still clenched in his hand.
“Ain’t ever seen a man nearly burn down a carnival and get rewarded with fruit,” Kremy teased, voice a soft rasp.
“Perks of the job,” Gideon muttered, letting his head thump against Kremy’s shoulder. “You gonna fire me if I say I’m takin’ tomorrow off?”
“I’d fire ya if you didn’t,” Kremy told him, though there was a smile in his voice. He sounded tired too.
Gideon chuckled, the sound breaking halfway into a sigh.
Kremy stroked his hair gently, rare affection he would never show outside this wagon.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see how tired you were, Gid. I ain’t the only one with problems. Didn’t even think to ask.”
“We can talk about it later,” Gideon murmured, and for the first time in days, he let his eyes close without thinking about what still needed fixing.
“Alright. Get some sleep, Gid.”
“Sure, man,” Gideon said, the words soft this time, not bitter. “No problem.”