and if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones

[undonewithout]

She's never been a truly deep sleeper, but her time on the Mithraeum forced Harrow into an even shallower cycle, forever anticipating footsteps in the corridor and the feeling of her wards being tripped, alerts over the comm at any hour. Even, occasionally, the cool gaze of the Body from the corner of her room, a presence both soothing and portentous--and with little way of telling one from the other. The habit carried over into Darrow; the deepest sleep she'd had only came that first day, exhaustion and stress sinking her like a stone, leaving her to rise hours later better rested than she'd felt in months.

Tonight, she wakes up in the blackest part of the early morning, the space that's too late and too early all at once. It'll do not good to toss and turn, no good to lie awake and wait for dawn either. Instead, Harrow slips from her room, barefoot and small in her nightgown, and pads across the hall to Gideon's bedroom. Her cavalier doesn't even wake at the creak of her door as it opens, and Harrow lets out a quiet, half-relieved breath. Tiptoeing to the empty side of the bed, she hesitates a moment before sliding beneath the covers.

To touch her is too much, but she moves as close as she dares, pulling the sheets up and turning away, the soft curve of her back only an inch away from Gideon's. Just her presence is enough to soothe, and after only a minute, Harrow slides back into sleep until the morning.

Comments

[wedobones]

Harrow retracts, recoils and something in Gideon's belly twists. She takes her own hand away, curling them both around her mug.

"Yeah, you're right," she says. "Stupid idea."

[undonewithout]

Gideon pulls away, curls in on herself, and Harrow lets her. Underneath the relief she feels when she drops the entire idea without a fight, there's something sharper and more stinging, strangely so, that she looks at once and then pushes away. Back straight, her movements careful, she finishes her tea and puts the mug on Gideon's bedside table.

"I should get dressed."

[wedobones]

"Yeah, me too," says Gideon, making a concerted effort to pull herself together. "I've got to be at work in..." She glances at her phone. "Like an hour."

[undonewithout]

Harrow nods, already starting to get up from the bed. Gideon's sighs and murmurs, the small unconscious sounds she's always made, strike a slightly different note for a moment, holding a meaning Harrow's not sure she's imagining. She looks back at her.

"You're home after four again, right?"

[wedobones]

"Something like that, yeah," says Gideon, draining the last of her own tea and setting down her mug. "I'll grab stuff for dinner on the way home."

[undonewithout]

"I think I might go to the library," Harrow says, "but I'll return before four."

She ignores the plan for dinner; the subject of her diet had been raised embarrassingly often since her arrival here, negotiations made and small experiments undertaken. She's better about it than she used to be, but that doesn't mean she's required to enjoy it. She starts towards the bedroom door, towards the hallway and freedom.

[wedobones]

"Roger that, Gloom Maiden," says Gideon. Harrow scuttles away and Gideon stays sprawled on her bed for a long few minutes, staring at the ceiling, a muscle ticking in her jaw.