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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"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.

Reaching for the remote, Gideon glances across at Harrow, her eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

"Too much?" she asks. "I can move."

"Don't," Harrow says, trying to speak without thinking too much, limiting the opportunity to talk herself out of--or into--another answer. "Move, I mean. It's fine." When Gideon holds out her hand for the remote, she gives it to her, looking over just briefly before turning her attention back to the show.

Gideon takes the remote and starts the episode, reaching for her mug once the theme tune starts.

"Did last episode end with it being a bit... Sex with his sistery or was that the one before?"

"It's already playing, you ninny," Harrow says when Gideon starts the episode again, directing an eyeroll at the back of her cavalier's head when she leans forward for her mug. "I know it took me a myriad to learn how this worked, but I do know what I'm doing now."

Her cheeks flush at the question, and she draws the blanket up a little further against her. "The one before. They focused on that witch woman across the sea in the last episode. The one you inaccurately said took decorating tips from the Ninth."

"She does like skulls though," says Gideon, blowing across the surface of her tea and draping one arm along the back of the sofa behind Harrow.

"I should be horrified that the one thing you gleaned from your years on Drearburh was that we liked skulls, but considering it's you, it's barely a surprise." Harrow stays still as Gideon changes position, her hands wrapped stiffly around her mug as she raises it to her lips and takes a sip. It takes her a minute, maybe two, before she shifts another half-inch, leaning towards the warm and inviting stretch of Gideon's side.

"She does like skulls, though," she says. "I will give you that."

"We do bones, motherfucker," says Gideon, a grin twitching the corner of his mouth. Harrow settles in against her side and Gideon lets out a little contented breath. "She wishes she was as creepy as you at your best," she says.

The smug satisfaction that turns the corner of Harrow's lips up is familiar; less so the flip her stomach does at the warm sound of Gideon's voice, but she accepts both reactions. Even welcomes them, if hesitantly. "I am the greatest necromancer of my generation," she says. "Surpassing my father. My grandmother. Every adept that's ever touched a skeleton for the last myriad and all the myriads to come."

She turns her head, letting her cheek rest more fully against the soft cotton of Gideon's shirt. Slowly, she lets out a breath. "My best is glorious. Better than whatever they can dream up for this, and I am gratified you've noticed, Griddle."

Harrow rests her cheek against her chest and sighs happily and Gideon has to ride out a wave of arousal and love so strong that it makes her dizzy.

"I always noticed," she says, quietly.

Gideon's quiet certainty is one of those things hindsight's showed her has always been there, but hearing it said so plainly still manages to make it sound like something new. "I know," she says, after a long pause and a quick flicker of unguarded emotions across her face. "Even when I wasn't paying attention to you, you were paying attention to me."

"Had to keep you where I could see you, didn't I?" says Gideon, resting her cheek against Harrow's hair for a moment, her fingers stroking lightly against the fabric of her sleeve. On screen, two characters start aggressively making out and her cheeks flush reflexively.

"Often literally," says Harrow, warmth spreading across her face again when Gideon's cheek brushes her hair and her fingers run along the fabric of her sleeve. "Those seven months where you didn't turn your back on me once. I was almost impressed at how long you managed to keep it going. And the lengths you took."

A particularly embarrassing noise from the couple onscreen has her stomach doing another of those disconcerting flips--and again, when she turns her head just enough to see the blush on Gideon's face. "I don't think they were this...enthusiastic, last episode."

"In all fairness, you'd given me a fucking good reason to figure it out," says Gideon, fondly. Harrow turns her face a little, and Gideon catches the pinkish tip of her nose, the dead petal blush of her lips. "Yeah. They're definitely figuring something out."

"At no point did I think that figuring it out would encompass you scuttling crabwise along the sanctuary wall at the end of services," Harrow replies, raising one dark eyebrow. Their eyes meet a moment later, and while she's not sure if Gideon's blush deepens, hers definitely does. "I think that's a different kind of figuring out, Nav. One you'd say is more pleasant, I'm sure."

"I absolutely did not skuttle," says Gideon with as much dignity as she can muster with her face flushed like it is. "And yeah, I think I probably would. It's like you know me or something."

"I know what I saw," she says, with all the foreboding she can manage. Under the circumstances, pressed close to Gideon's side and with Gideon's fingers still stroking lightly over her arm, hot even through the protective layer of her sleeve, it isn't much. Harrow takes a sip of her tea, her teeth making a light sound on the porcelain as she keeps the mug against her mouth for a beat longer than necessary.

"If you're going to ask me something, just say it."

It's not quite permission, but it is a tell; not an open door, but a chink of light. Gideon swallows.

"Can I kiss you?"

Harrow leans forward and sets her mug on the table, moving unhesitantly back to her prior place at Gideon's side; not an answer in words, but the start of a reply all the same. She takes another breath, her face burning, a twist low in the center of her that's something other than disgust or discomfort at its heart.

"You can kiss me."

Blindly reaching back to set her mug on the side table, Gideon shifts, her free hand coming up to brush Harrow's jaw as she leans in and ghosts her lips against the other girl's.

Her stomach flips, and it's not at all unpleasant.

Someone as strong as Gideon shouldn't kiss with this much care, the gentleness in it at odds with everything Harrow always expected the other girl to be--everything she'd been until they were forced together at Canaan House, until the layers of themselves started to fall away. Harrow's breath shivers in the wake of that soft, hesitant touch of Gideon's lips to hers, her eyes still tightly closed.

They stay that way even as she presses forward, kissing Gideon again more firmly, with just a little more purpose.

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