Work Text:
At first, Kremy wasn't sure what woke him up. But the longer he lay there in his bedroll, trapped in the space between wakefulness and dreaming, he smelled the familiar scent of smoke. Not campfire smoke, not burning-corpse smoke, but tobacco smoke.
Blearily, he rolled over onto his back and eventually forced his way into a sitting position, his bones and muscles protesting, his aches and pains making themselves known, and he glanced over to where Gideon was supposed to be keeping watch but was lying flat on his back, reclining against his pack of belongings, his hands crossed behind his head, a lit cigar trapped between his teeth, staring upwards at the sky.
As he glanced around, he noticed that apparently Frost and Gricko were spared from this sporadic moment of sleeplessness. Frost was curled up in his bedroll, so still, that Kremy could almost believe that he was dead, and Gricko was sleeping against Hootsie's side, his face buried in her feathers, snoring loudly. He was exhausted, he just wanted to fall back asleep and be spared the gruelling experience of being awake after such a long and eventful day, but for some strange, otherworldly reason, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he sighed to himself and struggled out of his bedroll and to his feet.
"What the hell are you doing, Gid?" He asked as he stepped over Hootsie's outstretched legs and maneuvered around the campfire, still ignited and blessedly warm for the middle of the night. "It doesn't look like you're keeping watch to me."
Gideon tilted his head to glance up at him, and a slow smile pulled across his face. His grin was infectious, and Kremy felt himself smiling against his will as he sat down beside Gideon on their little patch of grass. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. I am keeping watch, but nothing's been happening. It's quiet."
"Good," Kremy said. "Quiet is good. It's supposed to be quiet. We don't want any sort of action while we're supposed to be sleeping."
"I guess," Gideon yawned, a wide, jaw-cracking yawn. "I wouldn't mind a little bit of trouble if you catch my drift."
"Yeah, but that's because you're usually the cause of a lot of the trouble, and you never know how to say no to a good fight," Kremy said affectionately, clapping Gideon on the shoulder. Gideon chuckled but didn't try to deny it.
As Gideon stared up at the stars, Kremy stared at the horizon, at his friends, and at Gideon. He didn't look any different than he had during the day. Maybe a little more withdrawn and tired, but that was to be expected for someone on watch in the middle of the night. He hadn't been injured during the day at all, and he hadn't said anything to indicate that he was feeling unwell, so maybe Kremy was just being overbearing. But Kremy liked to think that he knew his friends pretty well, Gideon best of all, and he knew when something was wrong. But the longer Kremy looked at the side of Gideon's face, he soon came to the realization that he was just... lost in thought.
"What're you looking at, Gid?" He asked. His voice was very loud in the still silence of the night broken only by the crackling of their campfire and the sound of Gricko, Frost and Hootsie breathing in their sleep.
"I dunno. Nothin'," Gideon said. "Just, the stars, you know? There are just so damn many of the things."
Kremy craned his head and followed Gideon's gaze upwards. Admittedly, Gideon was right. There were a lot of stars in the sky tonight, tiny white pin-pricks of light in the inky black expanse of the night sky. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said. "It's real pretty, don't you think?"
"Yeah," Gideon hummed. "I used to try and count them when I was younger, you know? But I always lost count, or forget which stars I'd already counted, so it's safe to say that I never got very far."
"I can't say that I ever used to do that," Kremy said. "I used to find shapes in clouds though. That's sort of the same thing."
"Sorta the same, yeah," Gideon said. "I guess all kids have that same instinct, to make things out of the sky."
Once again, Gideon didn't look sad at all. Maybe contemplative, if anything. But still, Kremy knew his friend better than anybody else in the world and knew that something was... well. Maybe not wrong, but off, perhaps. "Oi," Kremy nudged Gideon in the side with his cane, and Gideon finally dragged his eyes away from the stars to look at him. "What's on your mind, Gid?"
"I don't know," Gideon mused, returning his attention skyward. "I guess I was just wondering what my life would have been like if that hobgoblin warhorse hadn't rolled through the town and taken me, you know?"
Kremy frowned. "I didn't know that you still thought about that."
"Of course, I still think about it. It ruined my childhood, and altered the course of my whole life," Gideon said. "It just doesn't bother me so much anymore. It's just a thing that happened to me. Nothing I can do about it now."
For once, Kremy didn't know what to say to that. He wished that he did. Gideon was his best friend, they were partners in crime. He should know what to say, but he didn't. Instead, he said. "You know, there's nothing keeping you here."
The look that Gideon fixed him with was confused and disapproving. "The fuck are you on about?"
"You know, if this isn't what you want to do with your life, the conning and the crimes, and the carnival and the 'manslaughter'," Kremy gestured wildly as he spoke. "Then nobody is keeping you here. You're free to go. I mean, I'd miss you like hell, but if you want to actually do something good with your life, then you can leave anytime you please."
Slowly, oh so slowly, Gideon heaved himself up into a sitting position, all pretence of relaxation and nonchalance forgotten. His attention was solely on Kremy. Once again, Kremy was stuck by just how large and intimidating Gideon was, and how much that was exacerbated when he really wanted to be. "Did you hit your head on something? Where is this coming from?"
"Look, you were just talking about how your life was different," Kremy said. "I just don't want you to be the hero and do something you don't want to do no more because you're worried about hurting my feelings."
"Don't you think I know that? You really think that you could stop me if I really wanted to leave?" Gideon scoffed. "Of course, I don't want to go! You're like family to me, a brother. You've all I've got left. These past few years travelling Avantris and conning unsuspecting fools have been the best years of my life. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm just being a bit, uh, introspective, is all. Unless you're kicking me out, I ain't going anywhere."
A breath that Kremy hadn't realized that he was holding left him in a rush. "Oh. Well, alright, then. If that's what you want."
"Of course, it's what I want," Gideon clapped Kremy so hard in the back that he surged forward with the force of it. It didn't hurt, but Kremy was also used to Gideon and his boisterous comradery, so maybe his body had adjusted to take it. Who knew? He'd have to ask Frost about it in the morning. "You can't get rid of me that easily."
"Alright," Kremy said, but his words came out thin. He cleared his throat and said, with all the confidence that he could muster (which was a lot of confidence), "Alright, then. How about you get some sleep, huh? I'll take over from here."
"Sure," Gideon said as he moved away from Kremy as if the whole exchange never happened. He laid back down, curled up in his bedroll, took one last puff of his cigar, and closed his eyes. "'Night."
He was snoring before long, almost as soon as he was horizontal, and Kremy spent the remainder of the night keeping watch, with a strange warmth in his chest, counting the stars until morning came.