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

[undonewithout]

She doesn't dignify that observation with a response, but something about it warms her as deeply and fully as that sleepy smile from only a few minutes before. Her cheeks flush a delicate pink, and she doesn't will it away. Taking another sip of her tea, she rolls her eyes as Gideon keeps talking.

"You will be shocked to discover it's a choice that predates even the marshal," Harrow says, a faint smirk on her lips. "And yes, there was such a time. Crux is ancient, but he is not immortal." Unlike me, she thinks, though who can say if that's true? Here, Gideon is whole; here, she is still a Lyctor, in some new fullness of her power. Anything and nothing could happen. "The cells were designed from the start to be places of contemplation and prayer, not comfort."

[wedobones]

Gideon notices that blush. She doesn't comment on it, but she does look a little bit smug as she sips her tea.

"Not sure I ever did much contemplating or praying in mine, boo."

[undonewithout]

"Am I expected to be shocked by that?" Harrow says, the thin smirk on her face developing into an equally thin but steady smile. "I know my great-aunts were disabused of the notion fairly early on, but it's laughable to think there was ever a time anyone thought you might become a nun of the Tomb." It's distant enough that Harrow can only barely remember it herself, Gideon beside her learning the same devotions, the blind and ancient sisters leading them in prayer.

"You were always meant for the sword, Griddle."

[wedobones]

"I think there's a while when they just weren't sure what I was going to be," she says, rolling her shoulder in a shrug. "Although, you'd think that the fact that I screamed the place down going through those bloody doors might have been a clue." She shifts her position, resting her mug on her chest. "It's still the only thing I've ever known."

[undonewithout]

Harrow nods, unable to argue with any of that. Gideon had hated the Ninth, the gloom of Drearburh and the ceaseless, torturous grind of her days; Harrow hadn't understood it, chose not to understand it while exploiting that hate to her own ends at the same time, but she'd been just as much witness to it as anyone else.

"You do it well."

[wedobones]

"Not much use here, though, is it?" says Gideon, sipping her tea again. Her fingers twitch against the bedsheets and she reaches out, brushing her fingers against the fine bones of Harrow's wrist.

[undonewithout]

"No," she concedes, simultaneously startled and relieved by the way it hurts faintly to acknowledge that. To remember that both of them have lost, and gained, in coming here. "As we and the Sixth continually remind one another, this world is different from our own."

Gideon's hand shifts towards her, fingertips grazing the delicate curve of her pisiform. The flush on her cheeks deepens, just slightly. A muscle twitches, finely, in her hand, but she doesn't pull away.

[wedobones]

Harrow doesn't protest, doesn't pull away, so Gideon keeps up the slow, careful touch, tracing the bones of Harrow's hand, one finger at a time. "I guess we'll figure out what we're for, here," she says. "Just like we're figuring out everything else."

[undonewithout]

Gideon keeps going, her fingertips moving from her wrist to the thin back of Harrow's hand, up her little finger and down, over to her ring--and so on. She keeps her other hand holding tight to the mug, her eyes on the liquid inside. It's easier, right now, not to look at her cavalier.

"Quite a bit to make sense of, in that case."

[wedobones]

"Yeah," she says. Harrow doesn't snap at her, does't pull away, so Gideon keeps up the soft, gentle, searching touch. "Do you want to go out later? I was thinking we could try a date."

[undonewithout]

Everything in her halts and stutters, her hand freezing beneath Gideon's touch, her chest growing tight with the sudden catch of her breath. It's the simplest question, but everything about it makes her want to hold still until the threat of it passes. It takes all her effort to drink from her mug, to turn her wrist away from the soft pressure of Gideon's fingertips and curl her hand safely in her lap.

"We go out plenty, Nav. How many times have you dragged me to the beach, or that...park in the center of the city?"

[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.