Chapter 10 Burned Evidence #2
For the first time that evening, his shoulders relaxed.
They sat together on the couch.
Nico looked at him.
“You’re thinking.”
“I usually am.”
“About the case?”
Gideon shook his head.
“You.”
Nico smiled.
“That sounds better.”
Gideon looked down at his hands.
“I keep wondering if tonight is a mistake.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Nico waited.
Gideon took a slow breath.
“Everything changed after that message.”
“It did.”
“I don’t want fear to be the reason we’re together tonight.”
Nico nodded.
“Then don’t let it be.”
Gideon looked at him.
“You make everything sound simple.”
“No. I make it sound like a choice.”
Gideon considered that.
Then he turned toward Nico.
“I want you here.”
Nico smiled.
“That’s a choice.”
“I want to kiss you.”
“That’s another one.”
Gideon reached for him.
Their lips met slowly.
There was no urgency.
No attempt to forget the danger outside.
The kiss was simply theirs.
Gideon pulled back.
Nico didn’t follow.
He waited.
Gideon smiled faintly.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Wait.”
“I told you I would.”
Gideon touched Nico’s cheek.
“I like it.”
“Good.”
Gideon kissed him again.
This time, the kiss lasted longer.
He let himself settle into it.
Nico’s hand rested against his shoulder, warm and steady. Gideon could feel the difference between being touched because someone wanted access to him and being touched because someone was willing to stay within the boundaries he chose.
That distinction had changed everything.
When they separated, Gideon looked at Nico.
“I want you to see something.”
Nico nodded.
Gideon stood.
For several seconds, he simply remained there.
Then he reached for the hem of his shirt.
He pulled it over his head.
Nico’s gaze moved across his body.
Gideon had shown him parts of his scars before, but never like this.
Never without a reason.
Never without hiding the rest.
The scars covered his torso in uneven patterns. Some were pale and smooth. Others were darker, raised, or tightened the skin around them. They crossed his side and disappeared beneath the waistband of his clothes.
Gideon waited for the reaction he had spent years expecting.
Nico didn’t stare.
He looked.
There was a difference.
“You’re beautiful,” Nico said.
Gideon’s breath caught.
He almost laughed.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I know.”
Nico stood.
He remained a short distance away.
“Can I touch you?”
Gideon nodded.
Nico placed his palm against Gideon’s chest.
The touch was gentle.
Gideon covered Nico’s hand with his own.
“I used to hate being looked at.”
“I know.”
“I still do sometimes.”
“You’re allowed.”
Gideon looked at him.
“But tonight?”
“Tonight I want you to see me.”
Nico’s expression softened.
“I do.”
Gideon swallowed.
“I don’t just mean the scars.”
“I know.”
That answer made something inside him break open.
Nico moved his hand slowly over Gideon’s chest and toward his shoulder.
Gideon remained still.
There was no need to endure the contact.
He wanted it.
That realization was becoming easier now.
Nico touched the edge of one scar.
Gideon breathed out.
“You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Gideon looked down.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“You don’t have to stop hiding everything.”
Nico’s thumb moved gently.
“You can choose what you show me.”
Gideon smiled faintly.
“That sounds like you.”
“What does?”
“Giving me permission to have boundaries while asking me to trust you.”
Nico looked into his eyes.
“I want both.”
Gideon leaned down and kissed him.
Nico’s hands settled against his waist.
Gideon pulled him closer.
The kiss deepened naturally, but it never became hurried.
Every movement felt deliberate.
Gideon wasn’t trying to prove anything.
He wasn’t trying to forget the warehouse.
He wasn’t trying to silence the fear.
He was simply allowing himself to want another person.
When they finally moved apart, Nico rested his forehead against Gideon’s.
“You’re shaking.”
“I know.”
“Do you want to stop?”
Gideon shook his head.
“No.”
He smiled.
“I want to stay.”
Nico kissed him again.
The rest of the evening unfolded slowly.
They talked.
They kissed.
They laughed quietly when Gideon admitted that he had no idea what to do with his hands when he wasn’t carrying equipment or fixing something.
Nico teased him until Gideon laughed again.
Then the laughter faded into a quieter kind of closeness.
Gideon told him things he had never thought he would say aloud.
He admitted that he sometimes woke before dawn because he thought he smelled smoke.
He admitted that he avoided mirrors when the memories were bad.
He admitted that he had stopped taking photographs of himself after the fire.
He told Nico that there were days when he looked at his scars and couldn’t remember the man he had been before them.
Nico listened.
He didn’t offer a solution.
He didn’t tell Gideon to forget.
He simply stayed.
In return, Gideon asked questions about Nico.
Not about the tattoo studio.
About him.
Nico told him about growing up around people who believed art was something you did only when you couldn’t find a real job.
He told Gideon about the first tattoo he ever designed and how terrible it had been.
He told him about the moment he realized tattooing wasn’t simply decoration but a way people could reclaim parts of themselves.
Gideon listened carefully.
He realized he wanted to know everything.
That frightened him.
But he didn’t run from it.
Later, they lay together on the couch, Nico’s head resting against Gideon’s chest.
The room was quiet.
Gideon stared at the ceiling.
“I thought being vulnerable meant giving someone a way to hurt me.”
Nico looked up.
“It can.”
Gideon looked down at him.
“But?”
“But that’s not the whole story.”
Gideon waited.
“Being vulnerable also gives someone a chance to know you.”
Gideon looked at Nico.
“I want you to know me.”
Nico smiled.
“I already do.”
“No.”
Gideon touched his face.
“Not enough.”
Nico’s eyes softened.
“Then let me.”
Gideon kissed his forehead.
“I will.”
Outside, a car passed on the street.
For a moment, Gideon’s body tensed automatically.
Nico felt it.
Gideon closed his eyes.
Then he deliberately relaxed.
He didn’t reach for his phone.
He didn’t check the window.
He didn’t stand up and scan the room.
He stayed.
The threat was still real.
The investigation was still dangerous.
The past was still waiting for answers.
But none of those things had to own this moment.
Gideon looked at Nico.
“I think I’ve been confusing control with safety.”
Nico raised his head.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought if I controlled everything, nothing could surprise me.”
“And now?”
“Now I think control kept me alive.”
Gideon paused.
“But it also kept me alone.”
Nico reached for his hand.
Gideon intertwined their fingers.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
Nico smiled.
“Good.”
Gideon looked at their joined hands.
The simplicity of it struck him.
He had spent years believing survival meant making himself harder to reach.
Now he understood that surviving wasn’t the same as living.
He had survived the warehouse.
He had survived the scars.
He had survived the guilt.
But tonight, sitting beside Nico, he was doing something different.
He was choosing.
Choosing to stay.
Choosing to trust.
Choosing to be seen.
Choosing Nico.
The realization didn’t erase his fear.
It made the fear worth facing.
Nico settled against him again.
Gideon wrapped an arm around him.
He felt the warmth of Nico’s body against his scarred skin.
For once, he didn’t think about what had been taken from him.
He thought about what was still possible.
And as the night grew quieter around them, Gideon finally understood something he had been too afraid to learn.
Vulnerability didn’t make him weak.
It meant there was finally someone close enough to see the man beneath the armor.
And for the first time, Gideon didn’t want to hide.
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