undonewithout | the last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war

Whatever balance they might have had early on is lost in bits and pieces over the next week or so, replaced by chilly silences and sheer avoidance, each attempt at conversation--usually Gideon's--turning all too quickly into yet another argument. They keep it to a minimum around the Sixth, at least, but Harrow doesn't fail to note the looks traded between Sextus and his cavalier when some tense exchange inevitably occurs between Gideon and her necromancer. Slowly, both of them spend more of their days apart than they do together, retreating into their respective rooms and treating the common spaces as contested territory. Gideon goes on more runs than usual. Harrow even ventures out to the library a time or two, excursions that leave her miserably unnerved by Darrow's noise and bustle, half-blinded by the glare of the light from a star that's not yet Dominicus and may never be.

There's nothing surprising about the conflict; they'd been arguing since they both could speak, fighting well before Gideon could hold a sword or Harrow could craft a construct. Nothing could change that for either of them, not Gideon's miraculous return or the restoration of some little shred of Harrow's sanity, because it's as much part of them as anything else. They fight, because it's what they've always done. Anything else is an aberration destined only for a swift correction.

Knowing that doesn't keep Harrow from replaying lines from Gideon's letter in her head, doesn't stop her from watching her out of the corner of her eye when they can bear to be in the same room as one another, doesn't make her wonder what if in the middle of the night with a foolish and misplaced hope.

By now Harrow knows Gideon's schedule, more or less, the points during the day she'll have the whole apartment to herself and when she'll make a considered retreat to her room until having some meal forced on her yet again. They've not yet reached the stage of a tray left in front of a closed door, but she suspects it's only a matter of time. For now, the place is quiet, and Harrow slinks out of her room and heads for the lounge, a book in hand. Curling up in her hoodie, on the absurdly soft cushions of the couch, she starts to read.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wedobones

"Okay," says Gideon, calling up the app on her phone. "I'll get the same pizza as I did last time and those twisty things that I liked and you didn't."

She finishes their order and lies back, her head on her pillow, looking up at Harrow.

"Are you my girlfriend now?" she says.

From:

undonewithout

"Deal."

Harrow watches Gideon tap at her phone, taking in the minute furrowing of her brow as she enters everything in the app and checks it over, verifies whatever payment needs to occur and sends it off. When she starts to look up again, Harrow has to remind herself she's not obligated to look away. Her face burns as much at the question as the sight of Gideon stretched out like that, tall and lean and comfortable, that strip of skin like a beacon at her waist.

"I already told you," she says. "I don't know what this is. What to call it. We need time to determine structure before we decide on terminology."

From:

wedobones

Gideon tilts her head against the pillow, looking up at Harrow with her eyebrows raised.

"What do you mean structure?" she asks. "I...I've done this before, but this doesn't feel like that."

From:

undonewithout

Jealousy wells up, hearing that, along with the question of who and when and for how long. Immediately, she suspects the mysterious Octavia from before, and makes a mental note to dig into Gideon's phone when it's next left unattended. "Then forgive me for lacking your wealth of experience."

Her jaw works, testily, her thin mouth turned down into a scowl for a moment before it passes. "I merely think that if we don't know what this is, what this will be, we should decide that before we do anything like say we're one another's girlfriends."

From:

wedobones

"I didn't mean it like that," says Gideon, but she doesn't really rise to it, her expression staying open and placid. "I know I want to be with you. Does that count?"

From:

undonewithout

That Gideon doesn't fire back irritates her all the more, but it's a brief flash, worthless without a justifiable target. She leans forward, folding in on herself more, her chin resting on the top of one of her knees as she looks at her cavalier. "That counts," she says, her voice soft but unwavering. "Obviously that counts."

From:

wedobones

"I don't think anything is obvious with us," says Gideon, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she looks up at Harrow. She looks younger than ever and, with a flash, Gideon remembers the shock of the exposed skin at her throat when Pal had taken her pulse.

"You're going to say you don't know, but...fuck it. What about you? What do you want?"

From:

undonewithout

"Point taken, although pedantry doesn't flatter you," says Harrow, and for a moment there's almost something fond in it. Gideon smiles that small, crooked smile, and it lights another warm and flickering something in her chest. She chews at her lip, silent for a minute or two after the question.

"I don't know, Griddle, and that's a perfectly reasonable answer. But, were I to think about it..." Harrow's dark eyes linger on Gideon's face, on the easy, relaxed posture of her body, on the frightening look of trust and hope she can see in the golden depths of her eyes. The last time she looked like that, the last time before Darrow, had been another of the things Harrow had written over and shut away; she can't do that now, and more than that, she doesn't want to. When she breathes out again, it shivers a little.

"I want the time to understand what else it is I want. And to be assured that you won't...that whatever you have now, or did before, isn't going to influence that. I refuse to be rushed in this."

From:

wedobones

"Deal," says Gideon. She lifts one hand like she'll touch Harrow and then, on reflection, lets her hand drop again, fingers idly flexing against the bed sheets. "I guess I've had longer to think about this than you."

From:

undonewithout

One part of Harrow tenses, seeing Gideon lift her hand--and another, quieter part hopes with a foolishness that borders on something humiliating and shameful. It's a relief, she tells herself, when the other girl puts her hand back down again. "Seven months longer," she says. "Maybe."

From:

wedobones

"I think I realised before I got here," she says. "I've been thinking about... trying to pinpoint when I realised what was happening." She lifts one hand and pushes it back into her coppery hair. "It was in the pool. That first time in saltwater. I think I knew then."

From:

undonewithout

"I remember the pool," she says, then frowns, her cheeks flushing hot and red. "Now," she adds, because she has to. It hurts as much as she expects, and not anywhere close to what she knows she deserves. "I remember it now."

From:

wedobones

"Not fair to ask you when you knew, then, is it?" says Gideon, ignoring the sting, once again, of the fact that Harrow utterly ignored the one thing she'd ever really chosen to do in her entire life. "It's like you've only known me for a couple of weeks."

From:

undonewithout

There's an undercurrent to that, something between hurt and anger, that Harrow knows she deserves. Gideon's allowed to be upset, allowed to feel the pain Harrow denied herself for months, but hearing it still stings. She looks down.

"That's not what it's like for me, but...certainly, Gideon. We'll say that. It's a question without an answer right now."

From:

wedobones

Gideon's stomach swoops in a way that's not entirely unpleasant, and she closes her eyes for a second.

"Still getting used to that," she admits. "What does it feel like? For you?"

From:

undonewithout

The comment utterly confuses her, the walled-off look on Harrow's face opening back up and slamming even tighter in quick succession. She keeps her head down, her eyes on the tight twist of her hands as they rest against her shins. The question that follows isn't an improvement, but it's at least halfway comprehensible.

"It's fractured," she admits after a moment. "Still. Everything is...new and old, all at once. I dislike the lack of precision."

From:

wedobones

"Yeah, I bet," says Gideon, trying to think about it in a charitable way. "For months when I first got here all I dreamt about was the way you looked the last time I see you." It feels like admitting her deepest, darkest secret. "Can I...I really want to touch you."

From:

undonewithout

"The last time you saw me was the stuff of nightmares," Harrow says, though she can't sustain the force she needs to make it sound contrary. Not when she's thinking about it too, how she'd been woozy with effort and exhaustion, bleeding and feeling the edges of her necromancy beginning to fray. There's no distance to the memory to make it easier to bear, and for a moment her arms tighten around her bent knees, her back hunching.

She unwinds one hand then, slowly, and holds it out. Her stomach twists, her face burns, but she waits for whatever happens next.

From:

wedobones

Gideon takes Harrow's hand, threading their fingers together. It's a small contact; it's enough.

"The last time I saw you, you were fucking amazing," she says, and means it.

From:

undonewithout

Harrow can't say anything to that, whether to argue or agree. Her silences have always been calculated, acts of choice rather than the dumb fact of being lost for words; not so, now. Her fingers grip Gideon's tightly, trembling a little.

"You were the best of us all." She remembers saying it, or something like it, so long ago--and only a few days prior. Her breath hitches once, before she forces it to smooth.

From:

wedobones

"I was a piss poor cavalier, and we both know it," says Gideon, the corner of her mouth twitching when Harrow squeezes her hand. "But I would have done anything for you by the end. Still would." Her thumb grazes along the length of Harrow's. "Never gave a shit about the Ninth. Still don't. But you, Harrow...fuck. It took me so fucking long to work it out..."

From:

undonewithout

"We're not in the water, so I can't admonish you for lying, but you are."

Keeping hold of her hand, Harrow slides a little further up the bed, away from the edge and closer to where Gideon's lounging in the center. It's a matter of inches, a foot or two at most, but it's still closer than she'd been. When Gideon's thumb runs over hers, she feels her nerves firing without reason, sparking with an electricity that embarrasses her. "It took too long," she agrees. "Too long for you to realize, for me to do the same. For us to understand it. It took...we know what it took. And damn us both for that."

From:

wedobones

"Yeah, you're right."

Her cheeks heat slightly when Harrow slides closer, even though there's still blanket between them, their joined hands the only point of contact between them. "But we're here now and we get to decide what we want it to be."

From:

undonewithout

"And we will," she says, and finds that she believes it. She watches Gideon's face, some part of her still fearing a stab of pain in her head or a torrent of blood as a punishment for her daring, but there's nothing like that now. "It will take time, but we've been granted that. I do not love this place as much as you, but I am grateful to it for that particular gift."

From:

wedobones

Tentatively, like she barely trusts herself, Gideon lifts their joined hands and barely brushes her lips against Harrow's knuckles.

"It's never going to be home," she says. The fact of that means different things to them, and she knows it. "But we can make something here, Nonagesimus. Something that doesn't belong to anyone but us."