Chapter Text
Gideon wasn't sleeping very well, not that that was unusual. These days the night terrors with all the screamin’ and the thrashin’ didn't raise their ugly heads too often. Besides, drink quieted those. This was different. Laid out on his back in the grassy clearing they'd opted to use for camp, he just stared up at the stars, letting the silence of the night wash over him. He knew their names, once. His father had taught him the big ones, how to read the sky. Back when he gave a shit. It wasn't really a good memory, just reminded him of when his father liked him at some point, or at least acted it.
Frost was on watch, meditating at the edge of the camp. Gricko, Kremy and Hootsie asleep on their bedrolls. Gideon didn't need to sit up to find his flask, fumbling a little through his bag with one hand til his fingers touched cool metal. The burn in his throat was grounding, a welcome relief as it warmed his stomach.
‘Gideon. It's not your turn yet, you should be sleeping.’
The voice in his mind made him jump, but it was just Frost, eyes reflecting as solid disks of yellow. He should've predicted that the tabaxi would hear his rooting around, his senses were sharper than any other here. The eyes did not look away, challenging Gideon to either speak his mind or reattempt sleep, and he knew sleep wouldn't come easy for a little while. Why not. With a low groan, he sat himself up and crossed his legs, heavy manacles dragging over the ground and clanking against each other. He wasn't too accustomed to using telepathy, but since a channel was open, he might as well use it.
’Nightmare. One of the…flame and fire and big rocky cliffs ones. I’m alright.’
Gideon was reasonably comfortable telling Frost things he might not say out loud to the others. He always gave good advice, even if it wasn't the most desirable, and whenever he showed concern it was never in that sickly, simpering way that he hated. If Frost judged him, he usually deserved it. Across the long dead campfire, Frost turned away from him, attempting to resume his meditation while they communed.
’Nothing new? It's happened a few times now. It could be a premonition, though I doubt if any of us were to start having visions it would be you.’
Ouch, Frosty. But he was right. Gideon didn't really have dreams unless they were bad, and connected to something in his past. As a kid, he dreamed of work, of his father, of what he now knew as mistreatment. Then later, it was the hobgoblins. The years after he gained his freedom were restless and plagued by vicious night terrors. He'd relied on liquor a little too much back then, in the days before Kremy. But this was new, and he couldn't tie it to anything bad. He had never feared fire; it was a friend, an ally. He was in his element, literally, when the flames engulfed him. His other side. Gideon rolled over onto his side, away from the centre, his back to Frost. He didn't want him looking at him again. It was a bit intense in the dark, with how them eyes of his seemed to glow.
’Long time ago you said all my fire powers and such came from some ‘djinn’. I don't actually know what that means, or anythin’ about them. Did you ever read much about ‘em, in your books?’
Frost was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts and trying to remember all that he could, and it gave his friend time to think, too. Genasi was a word he had first heard once he ran from his home as a teen, going from town to town, stealing and scraping to get by. One time early on, he'd been caught, and the burly farmer’s wife who found him trying to sleep in her stables had called him that. Seemed pretty surprised, too. She'd been nice, fed him and given him a bed. He'd almost regretted taking what little she had that looked valuable before the sun broke. Even now, after years of travelling, he had never seen another like him, and he wondered what he'd do if he found one. When they first began travelling with Gricko and Frost, the tabaxi had seemed quite interested, and had used the phrase ‘of the djinn’. He had never asked about it, some small shame creeping around his gut at the fact that he was a grown ass man, and he didn't know anything about what he was.
’Yes. They're not from here. They come from the elemental planes; Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. I think you know where your other half comes from.’
His mother. Gideon never knew her. His father refused to speak of her, and became incensed if Gideon asked. Once he was old enough to guess that she had simply left after his birth, abandoning him to the whims of his violent father, nothing but resentment grew in his heart for that woman. But Frost wasn't done, and so Gideon stewed in those painful memories while he listened.
’They are incredibly powerful beings. Akin to gods. They can grant wishes to mortals, but rarely come here. I recall a mentor of mine mentioning that they love finery, gold and jewels and fine fabrics, for whatever reason. Oddly materialistic. They are tall, strong, but often allow mortals to confine them into magical items as a form of servitude. I never understood why.’
Gideon did not move from his side, flask on the ground beside his head. Gods, huh? He sure didn't feel like someone with celestial blood. If his mother had been so powerful and strong and whatever else, she could have taken him, could've whisked him away to a better life than what he endured. But Frost was not yet done, pouring out every piece of information he could recall now that he had been asked, and for once Gideon hung onto every word.
’Efreet, I think, is the name for the fire elementals. I know little about them specifically. They are…cruel. Intelligent, but use it to enforce others into servitude. I was instructed to avoid them at all costs should I ever be unfortunate enough to encounter one, lest it hunt me for the rest of my days over some small disrespect.’
Frost did not sugarcoat things, and Gideon appreciated it. At least now that pit in his stomach could fade a little. She could never, would never have ‘saved’ him, it had been stupid to even imagine for a moment. If anything, she would have been worse than his father. Maybe that was why they'd been drawn to each other, both cruel and heartless. There was no doubt in his heart now that he had been a mistake, and his father had blamed his very existence for a powerful being that could've made him wealthy vanishing from their plane entirely. He couldn't imagine any good reason for his treatment, but to a person like his Pa, that was good enough. There was nobody out there for him. It was stupid to have even a tiny glimmer of hope. His crew was his family now, and he was grateful for that. Not that he'd tell them.
’I’m sorry, Gideon.’
The words echoed around his head. The pit in his stomach only grew with the slight pity in Frost’s tone, curling up on himself. He shouldn't have asked, now all he wanted was to punch something, but instead he might just lie here and hope Frosty thought he'd fallen asleep while he talked. Eventually, sleep did take him, wrapping around his mind like a soft, dark cloth, dragging him down and down into slumber.
His second bout of sleep was no more restful than the first. Once again, he was thrust into a scene of destruction and chaos, but not like he was used to. Not chaos he caused or could control, no. His eyes burned and itched with smoke, skin popping and sizzling at the extreme temperature. He couldn't even see where he was or what was happening, vision blurred as his eyes watered, desperately trying to clear themselves. After a few minutes of coughing and rubbing at his eyes, he could see, trying to protect his eyes with his hands.
Gideon was perched atop an outcrop of rock on a mountain- no, it was a hot mountain, what did Gricko say those were? A volcano. He knew that. Boiling rivers of lava flowed thick and slow down the rocky mountain, narrowly avoiding the sliver of rock he was stuck on. Below, the landscape seemed to just stretch on, and it was all the same, rivers of lava and barren rock, raging fires in a surprising variety of colours burning up anything that might be on it. If he squinted he could make out a shape in the distance that could be a city, but he wasn't all too concerned with that. Was this a premonition, like Frosty had said? A vision? It better not be. He was pretty strong, but he doubted that they could stop a volcano or dragon or whatever the hell had happened to turn Avantris into this wasteland of flame. For the first time in his life, it was a bit too warm for his liking.
But something else was here. He had felt it before, a presence he was unable to pinpoint. He couldn't move his feet, and twisting around did nothing. Thankfully this was just a ‘burning in maybe-hell’ dream and not an also naked dream, since everything else was fine. He had his trousers, as singed as they were. The sensation of someone else being there distracted him from looking down at himself, again trying to look back and forth, but to no avail. Just rock, lava, more rocks, a terrifying red sky that looked unsettlingly ominous-
A hand gripped his arm, and Gideon near about jumped out of his skin, finding himself now unable to move at all, frozen in place by an outside force. This wasn't the fun kind, either. A vague shape began to form in front of him, made of smoke and glowing embers, towering above him. Few things towered over Gideon Coal. He stared up, the unfamiliar feeling of cold fear gripping his heart as it attempted to make a more solid form, only managing a pair of jet black eyes and a mouth that seemed to be filled to the brim with flickering tongues of flame. His heart pounded in his chest, wishing for nothing more than to roar back at it, to attempt to swing a fist no matter how futile that might be, but he was completely immobilised and silenced.
The entity stared back down at him, the heat in the thick air starting to become unbearable, that raw fear tightening around his ribs. It felt like the heat of the Magitech engine, blasting onto his face as this demonic creature opened its mouth, making the most thunderous, ear-shattering bellow. It gripped him with both searing hot hands, around the manacles on his wrists, trembling and growing and looming over him, trapping him where he stood under it.
Instantly, he was a child again, his father grabbing him by the arms and shaking him, snapping in his face for some small disobedience or mistake, that furious anger boiling in his face as he reached for his belt once again and swore that this time, his rotten son would listen, would remember, would behave.
The heat became too much, thick metal of his gauntlets starting to melt into his skin, the skin beneath burning. The smell of sulphur and cooking flesh invaded his senses, making him open his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. He couldn't even pull away, forced to stand there and suffer, though the pain was far less than what he would expect for being cooked alive. For a moment, he wondered if this was the kind of thing that could actually kill you, but it didn't matter either way. Locked in place, Gideon was unable to do anything but stand and wait for this monster to consume him.
But it was not real.
Same as the last time, and the time before that and so on for the past two weeks, Gideon awoke in a cold sweat, coughing and clawing at his eyes if they were still blinded by smoke. He tried to remind himself that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the hobgoblin dreams, as a cool pair of hands pulled his own from clawing at his skin. The cold, scaly skin of his partner helped bring him back to reality, as both of those hands held his head to stop him whipping it around and hurting himself. Kremy Lecroux sat knelt on the ground beside him, pinning his hands with only a light pressure to his chest and away from his eyes. As Gideon swam back toward consciousness, Kremy’s words rang through his brain as a muffled noise before he could process anything.
“Gid, Gid! Calm down, you’re here, alright? Listen to me, hear my voice, it ain't real!”
Kremy’s voice cut through everything else, like a splash of cool water on his face, and he immediately went to grab at him, feeling out for that comfort and security that his old friend brought. It was strange, seeing a man so powerful become so small and scared over something that wasn't real, but Kremy mused that perhaps someone who didn't fear the living might fear the phantoms of his mind more. He couldn't take a swing at a ghost.
Blinking and trying to will away the multicoloured splotches floating in his vision from rubbing at his eyes, Gideon’s breathing slowed gradually from rapid and short huffs to deep, steady inhales as Kremy sat with him, just lightly stroking through his dark brown hair with his claws. After many, many years of night terrors and nightmares, Kremy had learned what worked, what only made it worse, and how to tell the difference between the two. Getting a fist to the teeth at full, wild strength after attempting to be too rough was not something he'd ever repeat. Everyone knew that this kind of comfort was exclusively reserved for Gideon, but the man needed it more often than anyone else. Particularly from Kremy.
The group sat back as Gideon slowly regained full awareness, Frost packing up their camp and Gricko checking that his young daughter was alright, despite the countless times she'd woken up to her uncle screaming. Just in case.
“M’sorry. I’m fine, Kremy, don't you look at me like that.”
“That hellfire dream again? You got awful hot there for a bit, Gid, started burnin’ up. You're gonna need a new bedroll next time we stop into town.”
The large man twisted to look down at said bedroll, but it was cinders, the grass around him torched in a circle. Right. He did sometimes do that if it got extra bad, but not for a few years. Had it really been that scary? Not compared to other shit that haunted his dreams. He just sighed, took his melted, deformed flask that had thankfully been empty and dumped it into his scorched knapsack, swinging it over his shoulder. They had ground to cover that if they wanted to reach civilisation by nightfall, sleeping on hard dirt made his back ache like nothing else.
As they set off once more, eating leftovers from the previous night for breakfast, his eye caught Frost’s. The tabaxi regarded him with an oddly suspicious look in his eyes for a brief moment before turning back to his own breakfast. Before long, Gideon could push that freaky shadow monster to the back of his mind in an attempt to dampen the memory. Perhaps he should try and talk to Kremy about it, especially if this really was some kind of vision like Frost had suggested.