up against these things I can't see

[undonewithout]

It isn't every night that Harrow crosses their narrow hallway in the middle of the night, slipping quietly into Gideon's room--but it's most of them. The solidity of her cavalier's presence, even deep asleep, is a greater reassurance since last month's disappearances, the inexplicable vanishing and subsequent return that still triggered an alarm response at the back of her brain.

Most things in and out of Darrow did, as Gideon was annoyingly apt to point out, but that didn't change the truth of it.

Tonight, Harrow wakes with a jolt to the sound of passing sirens, the tone close enough to the panicked klaxon of the Mithraeum bells that she scrabbles her way into a sitting position before she's even fully aware, fumbling for the sword that should be at her side in its protective coffin of bone. It's not here; it never was, but as the blue and red flash of lights filters into her room she tears the sheets towards the end of the bed in a half-awake and desperate search. Reality catches her after only a minute, less than that, but her pulse still pounds in her ears, her breath coming in jagged, helpless gasps. Execrable flesh magician though she is, she knows enough to slow the beat of her heart and purge the remaining adrenaline from her system. It helps, just enough.

She's fully awake now, though, alone in the ruin of her bed, and falling back to sleep here seems all at once impossible. Quickly, she slips out of bed and goes across the hall, listening at Gideon's closed bedroom door for a moment before she turns the knob and pushes it ajar. She can only just see the shape of Gideon curled under the blankets, warm and solid and deep asleep; she stays in the doorway for another moment, watching her, before she takes the last few steps to the edge of the bed and curls in at her side.

Comments

[undonewithout]

Gideon's hands slide higher, and higher still, and as she passes each furrowed line of bone Harrow counts back from twelve. She makes a shaky sound after nine, her fingers twitching against Gideon's belly, her hips shifting slowly to one side, then the other. "Definitely thought I'd need to remind you which one that was," she says, a faint smirk at the corner of her mouth. "You were paying attention."

[wedobones]

"Only to Aiglemene," admits Gideon, suitably sheepish. "Good place to stab." She presses lightly between Harrow's ribs. Harrow shifts her hips on top of her and Gideon makes an undignified noise.

[undonewithout]

"Aiglamene was the only one you ever listened to," says Harrow, another low shiver rippling through her when Gideon's fingers press inwards. "And I definitely think you tried to stab me there once. At least."

The sound Gideon makes cuts right to the center of her, making everything clench in a way she can't ignore and wishes she found more unpleasant. It takes her a moment, but she turns her hand, rotating her wrist until she can press her palm to the flat muscle of Gideon's belly. She keeps it there, still but for the minute tremble of her fingers, letting the close, living feeling of it settle over her.

[wedobones]

Once again, Gideon goes very, very still, her hands under Harrow's shirt, and she aches to move her hands, to touch more of the girl in get lap. Instead, she shifts her hips, pressing her thighs more firmly together. It's too easy to imagine Harrow's pale hand other places.

[undonewithout]

Harrow moves with the shift of Gideon's hips, rides out the action from her perch in her lap. Her hand doesn't move any further than Gideon's do, and they stay just like that for one breath, then another, and another after that. The beat of her heart is strong and rapid, loud in her ears.

"I don't think I can move," she says. "Not more than this. But if you kiss me...I might be able to manage that. If I stay like this, and you kiss me." She reminds herself with a sharp internal lash of thought that this is enough, more than she'd thought possible. It doesn't divert the humiliation, the disgust with herself, but it tempers it enough to let her breathe under the weight of it.

[wedobones]

"Okay," says Gideon, nodding. She keeps her hands where they are and leans up to kiss Harrow, harder and hungrier than she'd dares before. She can feel the muscles of her belly trembling. She moans.

[undonewithout]

It's on the edge of too much, but she wants it, her head swept clean of any other thought but that. Gideon moans into her mouth and Harrow trembles, returning the kiss with nipping teeth and a low, helpless sound of her own. Her hand twitches against Gideon's belly, her fingertips pressing in for the briefest of seconds.

[wedobones]

She kisses Harrow and Harrow kisses her back, moans and bites at her mouth, and it's more than Gideon can comprehend, more than she ever thought she'd deserve.

"Harrow," she breathes, her hands trembling with the effort of not moving them, not touching Harrow anywhere she hasn't said she wants to be touched.

[undonewithout]

Gideon's never said her name like that. She's heard it in anger and sorrow, fear and the mocking smugness of their childhood debates. Once, at the very end, with a kind of peaceful certainty--the first fissure in the network of cracks that further obligated Harrow to the decision she made and the work she'd set forth afterwards. None of it ever sounded like the Harrow Gideon breathes out now. Head spinning, she kisses her hard, then pulls back with a filthy, shuddering noise.

"That's it," she says, taking her hand out from under Gideon's shirt. "I can't...no more, Nav. Not tonight."

[wedobones]

The breath that shivers out of Gideon is shaky and she leans her head forward, her hair slipping over her forehead as she swallows and nods. She gives Harrow one last squeeze and then takes her hands out from under her shirt.

"This is it," she says. "This is how you're going to finally manage to kill me." She looks up and smiles. "I love you."

[undonewithout]

Harrow manages a laugh at that, short and surprising in its delight despite the twisting reminder at the back of her head, the quiet voice that tells her Gideon's death at her hand wasn't as pleasant a thing as this. She can't ignore it, not fully, but it's far enough away that she can slip from its grasp for now.

Gideon's eyes meet hers, her red hair spilling over her forehead, and Harrow's heart stutters in her chest. "I love you," she echoes.

[wedobones]

Gideon's smile at that is bright and open and she risks one more kiss, this one pressed just to Harrow's cheek. "Is that what you're sleeping in or do you want me to go and get something for you?"

[undonewithout]

She rolls her eyes at the kiss but only moves once it's done, slipping out of Gideon's lap and onto her usual side of the bed. It's their bed now, she supposes; the thought is still a strange one, something she can't focus on too strongly tonight after everything.

"I'll sleep in this," she says, though she shucks off the hoodie and lets it fall in a heap at the side of the bed. "It's late enough, and...it's comfortable."

[wedobones]

Gideon already knows that she's not going to get to sleep until she can slip off to the bathroom and spend some quality time with herself but, for now, she rolls onto her side and studies Harrow's pointed profile.

"We can do some rearranging tomorrow," she says. "Move your stuff in here if you like?"

[undonewithout]

Harrow curls under the covers, watching Gideon move and settle. Every other time she's been here, Gideon's already been asleep; she's never had the chance to see this. Even the nest she'd made for herself at Canaan House was a different thing entirely, and that nowhere near the thin cot in her old Drearburh cell. They've fallen asleep near one another, separated by a corridor or the space of a wall, but never together.

She thinks about the offer, watching Gideon watching her. "Not everything yet," she says, but it feels less like a rejection than it does a promise. "But...enough to start with. Clothes, books, other things." She smiles, half-sleepily. "Bones. Obviously. For the ambiance."

[wedobones]

"Enough to start with works for me," says Gideon, with a smile. "Go to sleep, Nonagesimus."

[undonewithout]

"Who says you get to tell me what to do now, Griddle?" Harrow mutters, and it's almost fond, the question punctuated by a yawn. She reaches out, wrapping her fingers around Gideon's and squeezing once before letting go again. Bundling herself in the covers, she closes her eyes. It only takes a few minutes, listening to the quiet sound of Gideon breathing only inches away, before she falls asleep.