undonewithout | oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me

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gideon

oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me

They find their way into the new shape of things over the next month. The barriers and boundaries, walking the tension between what Gideon desires and what Harrow can allow, all of it kept secret and safe within the walls of their apartment. It doesn't always work; there are fights and frigid silences, Gideon throwing herself into workouts as an act of aggression and Harrow immersing herself in a book or Sextus' latest draft of theories and theorems with as much pointed intensity. When it's successful, though, when all the fractured pieces of themselves come together into some temporary whole...

Harrow does not find it unpleasant. Not entirely.

She insists that they act no different than usual in public, still necromancer and cavalier, still as Ninth as they can be in a pre-Resurrection backwater. It's the only way it can work, and though Gideon makes no secret of her opinion, grumbling at home and out, trying to catch Harrow's hand or stand a little closer than ordinary, she bears it with an aggrieved stoicism that sets Harrow's teeth on edge and almost amuses her all at once. She harbors no illusion that Gideon's patience will last forever; this new change will soon find itself brayed to the world--or merely to the Sixth (bad enough, and Harrow already suspects the Warden and his Hand know some scrap of it anyway) and Maeve (even worse)--but for now something close enough to privacy reigns between them.

The one topic Gideon can't let go, refuses to let go despite arguments and at least three battles with constructs, is the idea of a date. The term isn't unfamiliar, nor the concept, but both strike Harrow as wholly unnecessary. They know what they are, what they've become to one another; that should suffice, and yet for her cavalier, it's only the beginning. She wheedles and pleads, starts dropping it into conversations at points both ludicrous and logical, and while Harrow will never admit to being worn down, she's intelligent enough to see that getting this out of Gideon's system may be the only way of shutting her up.

The one least liable to result in questions or a disapproving look from Sextus, that is.

Gideon picks the day, and Harrow the place. At the appointed hour, they set off for Petros Park, Harrow casting furtive looks at anyone they pass and keeping her hands tightly folded, her arms rigid to discourage any soft touch or brief tangle of fingers. "I forbid you from enjoying this," she mutters as they walk, when everyone else is out of earshot. "So wipe that smile off your face. You look like a loon."

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"Still thinking," she admits. Keeping it short, a close-cropped cap of black, has been both a tie to the Ninth as well as the best way of dealing with the mischief Ianthe wrought on her follicles. Changing seems impossible, but she's allowed herself to consider the possibility anyway; it could be another step forward, another marker of the kind of effort Gideon wants her to put in to make their time in Darrow a new beginning for them both. A smile flickers at the corner of her mouth, watching something similar blossom on Gideon's lips.

"And don't worry, I know what your vote is, Griddle."

"I just think it suits you a little softer," says Gideon, who's honestly been shocked to realise how much she enjoys a Harrow who shows hints of feminity. Gideon's own hair remains the unruly mop it always was, though she does put more effort into her undercut these days.

"Because you are a soft-hearted weenie who mistakes me for one of the swooning damsels in your magazines," Harrow says, something warm backing the tart snap of her voice. Her smile turns into a smirk, and she rolls her eyes. The fingers of her free hand return to Gideon's hair, combing almost idly from her temple and up, following the curve of her skull. "I have started picturing it longer. Not by much, but...enough."

"I am a total weenie for you," says Gideon, and it's the first time she's admitted something like it, even though they both know it's true. Her eyes drift close as Harrow's fingers comb through her hair. She lifts one hand and brushes the back of her fingers against Harrow's jaw. "Maybe just this length?"

She feels her face heat up further when Gideon touches her, but she doesn't flinch and she doesn't pull away. They've been tangled up like this--and more--before, but always behind closed doors. Small as it is, it feels like something new, doing this in the light and the open air. "Maybe," she agrees. "I think I could try that."

"It'd look good."

Harrow has started to put on weight in Darrow. In Drearburh, she'd been all sharp angles and straight lines. Now, there's the slightly hint of softness under her clothes. Sometimes, Harrow even lets her touch it.

"We'll see," she says, the closest thing to an argument Harrow finds she can come to right now. Her fingers keep combing through Gideon's hair, her other hand still resting on the other girl's chest. She watches the light and shadow play over Gideon's face, taking note of each soft, reflexive flutter of her eyelids as she lies with her head in Harrow's lap. They don't deserve this peace, this softness--neither of them were raised to it, neither of them taught how to extend it to each other--but they have it now.

It's a gift Harrow can't make herself reject, and the greediness of that shames her.

Harrow's fingers in her hair have a soporific effect; Gideon feels herself start to drift a little. She idly scrapes the side of her thumbnail against Harrow's skin, still holding her hand tight.

"That's not a no."

"Nor is it a yes, though it is gratifying to see you have some grasp of the nuances of conversation, Griddle."

Harrow's nerve endings fire at the rough scrape of Gideon's nail over her skin, even though the scratch is barely there, barely enough to hurt at all. She shivers a little, letting the low, tight feeling in her gut settle--but not subside. Gideon's face grows softer, slacker, as she drifts, and Harrow's struck by the beauty of it; she knows what a sleeping Gideon looks like, knows the slowing of her breath as she hovers at the edge of full consciousness, but this feels different.

"Do you want to stay, or should we go?" she asks, almost regretting the way it breaks the spell of the last few minutes.

"I don't think I really mind," says Gideon, her smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she opens one eye and squints up at Harrow. "Did you make your mind up about a movie? We could always just say fuck it and make out on the couch."

She's joking. Mostly.

"Nav," says Harrow, her cheeks flushing dark before she can get control of the bloodflow and purge it. She takes her fingers from Gideon's hair and flicks her hard on the temple. It's childish, exactly the kind of thing both of them had done countless times to the other growing up; the startled flash in Gideon's eye is still as gratifying now as it had been then.

"The movie was your idea, first thing," she says. "Not that I have much hope in the merit of whatever kind you're interested in watching."

"Yeah, but I'm not married to it," says Gideon, rubbing her temple with the heel of her hand. Her smirk broadens into a grin. "I can see you blushing, you know."

"And when I manipulate your orbital sockets to send needles of bone through your eyeballs, you won't be able to see anything at all," Harrow mutters, but the ominous weight of the threat isn't quite there. Gideon's smile is too bright and too delighted for that. Harrow looks upwards, squinting despite herself, and sighs.

"Home," she says. "We can start the next one in that absurd series you found the other day." Whether they finish it or not is the open question, Harrow knows--but the answer to that isn't quite clear yet.

"So absurd that you sat and watched four episode with me the other day," says Gideon, sitting up to start putting away the picnic stuff. "Sounds good to me."

Harrow actually laughs, a short but delighted sound. "Only because I had to see if you were finally going to have an aneurysm over the swordfighting," she says. "You came close."

Gideon starts to sit up, and Harrow finally unlaces her other hand from the firm grip of Gideon's fingers. She watches her pack the plates and containers and everything else away, standing up again once the blanket is clear. As Gideon rolls it up, Harrow breaks the bone platform underneath into a fine, gritty dust, letting it blow away with the next breeze.

"He's pretty and shit but he definitely can't hold a sword," says Gideon with an eloquent roll of her eyes. Impulsively, she offers Harrow her hand. She's fully ready to be rebuffed.

"Yes, yes, Nav," she says dryly. "You are the world's most adept swordswoman, woefully cursed with the burden of overwhelming attractiveness. All shall fall at your feet and despair." Harrow watches her shoulder the bag again and hold out her hand--and, for a moment that feels like a myriad, she considers taking it. Instead, she keeps her arms at her sides, her fingers curled into loose fists.

The look she gives her, at least, is apologetic. "When we're home," she says, and tries to make it sound like a promise.

Gideon shrugs her shoulders and finds that she at least mostly means it.

"Okay," she says. She wants to believe it. They walk home, rehashing the events of the last episode they'd watched, a particularly nonsensical plot twist.

They walk and talk, and even if it's not everything she knows Gideon wants it to be, Harrow still finds herself contented with the compromise. Once they're home, Harrow takes her shoes off and leaves them by the door, looking over at Gideon.

"I can set the next episode up while you unpack that?" she offers, nodding towards the bag slung over Gideon's shoulder. After a beat, she raises one dark eyebrow. "Since you won't let me raise a skeleton to do it for you."

She's offered. They've fought. It's an ongoing argument.

"I just think doing our own dishes isn't that much of an imposition," says Gideon, rolling her eyes but smiling fondly too. "It's not like you ever do them, so I don't know why you're so bothered." She grins. "Set it up. I'll sort this out. Do you want anything to drink, love of my life, light in my darkness?"

"It is the simplest bit of necromancy, and then neither of us are obliged to the chore," says Harrow, and the low stakes and well-trodden ground of the argument make it easy to match Gideon's fond if exasperated tone. "A bone adept in the infancy of her power could do it without breaking a blood sweat. With my access to the Lyctoral well, I'd barely have to think."

Gideon grins, and Harrow sighs, shaking her head. "Fine. No skeletons. This time." She considers the question, rolling her eyes at the gloomy yet saccharine endearments even as they settle warm and not wholly unpleasantly in her chest. "Tea. No lemon, this time."

"Yes, boss," says Gideon, whistling cheerfully as she heads in the direction of the kitchen. There's a few minutes marked by the musical clink of plates in the sink and then the sound of the kettle and then Gideon emerges, barefoot, a mug of tea in each hand.

"Ready?"

By the time Gideon enters the lounge, Harrow's curled up beneath her favorite of the blankets they keep there, the next episode of their show--and it is theirs, much as she'd prefer to deny it--ready and waiting on the TV screen. "Fully prepared, Griddle," she says, smirking as she reaches for one of the mugs. "If any of the invective you spout at the screen sounds particularly inventive, I'll make note of it so you can appreciate it later."

After a moment, she moves the blanket aside, giving Gideon the space to sit next to her.

Gideon sets both the mugs down on the table in front of them and then folds herself onto the couch, pulling the blanket over her knees. She doesn't touch Harrow, not yet, but she does sit close enough that there's barely any space between their shoulders, close enough that she can feel the heat of her skin throuh her shirt.

Harrow dislikes the immediate flash of panic that comes when Gideon crowds next to her, likewise the sharp twist of her stomach as the warm and living proximity of her becomes apparent. She does what she can to push it down, close it off so she can enjoy this--or at the least not ruin it for Gideon, a new and disconcerting consideration--but even as it fades, the humiliation lingers.

Worrying her lower lip in her teeth, she picks up the remote and starts the show, keeping her eyes trained on the screen for now.

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