Chapter 517: A Gideon sized problem in an Edgar shaped world

Edgar had been mulling over a lot since before the dungeon, during, and after.

He didn’t tell the others, but he had truly been thinking about what his role in this party even was?

Sure, he was a magic user, and that was important, he wouldn’t deny that, but Cass was better. Not only that, Cass was the hero. He fit two roles that two members of the party had filled prior to this, and he was getting a lot of benefits from the gods because he was doing that. Before this moment, or the several long moments that Edgar had been taking since he’d realised what he felt towards Fiona had been false in the sense that he loved her, but not the way he thought, Edgar had thought that he was the more useful one.

The last dungeon, and honestly, the dungeon before this one, had proven to Edgar that just wasn’t the case. Cass could one man a dungeon on his own.

There. He said it.

He knew that Lucy would have his damn head if he put that thought into Cass’ head, because he knew that Cass was reckless enough that he would attempt to do it. It was a strange thought, to think the elusive, pragmatic Lord Blackburn could be reckless, but that was who the new Cass was. A fusion of two men, as the gods had intended.

There were several times where it felt like Lord Blackburn was speaking through Cass in his actions, while with a special Cass flare.

The smiling certainly helped make it clear that Cass was the one in control, with Cass using the memories of Lord Blackburn as a way to navigate this strange place. Or, that was what Edgar assumed. Cass would also throw in a few hand gestures that were so foreign to Edgar and the others that it was clear he was not of this world.

Edgar would not trade the man for anything else.

He’d gotten over his possessiveness with the help of Lucy, and having to deal with the complicated feelings he had for Gideon and Cass. While Edgar thought Lucy was, well, rather attractive, he knew that he didn’t have a glimmer of a romantic chance with the man. At least, he was fairly certain.

The dragon might have two hearts, but he was fairly certain one beat entirely for Cass, and Cass took up a majority of the second heart as well. Edgar got along well with the dragon. He could kiss him. Edgar was fairly certain he could do that. Plus, what was a little uh, dick touching between friends? Family, even? They could share Cass. That was something that they had come to agree on awhile ago.

Things just got complicated when it came to Gideon and what that meant for Cass…and Edgar.

Edgar had always had a big, stupid crush on the idiot knight. Who couldn’t? When Gideon wasn’t hellbent on ruining every relationship he’d ever had over a foolish loyalty to an organisation that didn’t care if he died, he was a good man.

Lost, but a good man.

They had been forced together as friends because they were practically the same age. Since they had first met, Edgar had been having bad thoughts about the man, the boy at the time, that he knew he shouldn’t be having. While his family, the ones who followed the true doctrine and the true writings of the word of the gods, didn’t specifically say no to homosexual relations, Edgar knew better.

His family cared too much about public appearances to let anything like that happen, and there was the connection that the Ridgewood family had as well to the temple that would make that even more frowned upon. It was not lost on Edgar in his teen years how the family that profited off of those who were too poor to make money through normal means, was fine with people selling their body and giving them a portion of that money, but gods forbid their son liked men.

How many times had Edgar been beaten with the excuse it was ’for his own good’ but there was no other clarifier?

Edgar would have cursed the gods for being indifferent if he didn’t have first had experience in knowing that they were not, and could not be indifferent. He just didn’t realise how much they cared about their heroes in comparison to those who championed the gods on the soil that they created.

That they had lied about creating.

That stung. A lot. Since one of the whole reasons that Edgar even existed was related to them being the ’true’ gods of this place and how good couldn’t exist without evil blah, blah, blah. Stuff he had heard his whole life. The excuses he had been fed so that he could be sacrificed at the altar of his family’s greed and then watch as his own family picked the wrong son.

Edgar knew.

Edgar knew that his brother was supposed to be the one who was forced to take on the role that he did. His Mom, the one who birthed him, just didn’t have enough power to push back against his father. His father had a favourite wife, and it had not been his Mom. The rule was the second son became the vessel. The second son was supposed to bear the weight of becoming a demon so that the gods never lost their foothold on this world.

It was a secret, a truth that could not be known to the common folk, or even those lower in the temple. A closely guarded secret that the Vespertine family were tasked to protect.

If the demons lost their complete hold on the world, as in, they were completely wiped out off the face of the planet, the gods would also be wiped out. So, there would have to always be one demon, one who was a negative enough force to keep the gods on the planet.

That was what Edgar was, what his brother was supposed to be, but instead, his father and siblings had forced a five year old to sign a contract, damn his soul for all eternity, force him to die without him knowing the consequences of such an action, and thus, lose all humanity he had.

Oh, and they also ’accidentally’ let his Mom die, but Edgar didn’t find that part out until years later. After Ava had entered the house because all of his father’s plans had slipped through his fingers.

Had Edgar been sad that his elder brothers had passed? Oh, he put on a good show on making it seem so, so much so that he got back into his father’s good graces, but Edgar never forgot.

He never forgot the moment where his body was twisting into something beastly, monstrous, and his brothers had stood over him and mocked him, calling a child a failure and a mistake. He’d barely had time to mess up, so he had no idea where that animosity came from.

It was only Gideon, faithful, foolish Gideon who had stayed by his side while he was in pain. A boy only a few months older than him, holding him in his arms as Edgar convulsed.

No other adults, no other caregivers. His brothers had promised their father that they would take care of their little brother. Now all of the siblings had lost their humanity and only one remained ’of the living’. The irony was not lost on Edgar.

Edgar didn’t know if this reality that he was living was the gods trying to correct his path and that of his father’s, but after speaking to Cass and getting to know how he interacted with the gods versus how his father did, he was giddy with thinking that the gods had played a role in course-correcting his father.

The idiot just hadn’t listened.

Not only hadn’t he listened, he had tried to ruin Gideon with his dirty, grimy hands, and Edgar had been so preoccupied with Ava and what he thought was the love of his life, to notice. Was it foolish for Edgar to blame himself? No. Not in Edgar’s opinion.

Gideon had always noticed the smallest details about Edgar. Had always noticed when something wasn’t quite right. He had even spoken to Edgar about his love for Fiona without judgement, without complaint. It was only now that he knew the man had loved him, had always loved him, and had chosen that being married to the same woman was better than not being involved in his life at all.

Edgar had dropped the ball on not only his friend, but the man who he had always thought was the smartest man in the room, he just never made others feel smaller for it. He was a quiet man, a careful man, and his own father, the man who had looked him in the eye and told him that he wasn’t part of the Vespertine family even after all he had done, had tried to corrupt him.

And he had succeeded, even if it hadn’t lasted for long. He had turned Gideon against everyone that he cared about, everyone who could care for him.

Edgar wanted to suck the blood out of him himself. Watch the light fade from his eyes as he realised that his legacy was well and truly dead. No more Vespertines would walk this world if he had a choice.

Sitting with this anger and rage made him feel justified in his feelings and his anger, but it didn’t help deal with the true problem.

Where did Gideon fit into his new life? What did Gideon want? He had been left to the wayside by his family, by Edgar’s family, and by the hero party itself because they had thought he was okay, and then they had thought he was a traitor.

Edgar had wanted to ask him what he wanted to do. He had meant to, and instead every damn second the two had alone Gideon was reaching for him and kissing him. He wasn’t even good at it, but it was about as bad as Cass grabbing him and kissing him. Edgar had no ability to refuse.

Who could when the person you liked kissed you?

It was also surprising that Gideon was the one doing it, like he was a man starved for physical affection. Edgar wasn’t sure what was going to happen moving forward. Lucian was absent for the moment, and Cass was going to need more food than he could provide. It felt wrong to outsource this kind of thing to others.

He knew people, of course he did, and they would be delighted to help Cass out, but Edgar didn’t like it, and he knew Lucy would tear him in half if he could out Edgar had done that to Cass. There was also the fact that he was going to have to handle two of Cass’ heats alone without Lucy.

Edgar couldn’t even begin to imagine how that was going to go. Lucy had asked for no penetration, but if Cass was like that and he had no one around him to hold him accountable? Edgar would not be able to resist. Especially when Cass got that heated look in his eyes like he was going to eat him whole.

Edgar knew he was going to have to speak to Gideon about it, probably alone before he spoke to Cass about it, but was now the time? He didn’t mind speaking about this with Sam around. It was honestly probably better for him to speak about it around Sam, since Sam knew more about being a demon then Edgar himself did. He also knew more about Cass’ type of demon.

And…Edgar wasn’t sure he wanted to be alone as he found out more about how Gideon thought of Cass. Not that it was a bad thing if he also liked Cass. Cass was sexy, adorable, hot. He was everything, and smart, but…it just made his stomach twist into a few knots whenever he thought about it.

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