we_bring_hell | (no subject)

You would need an advanced degree in Nonagesamics to realize that Harrowhark is ecstatically happy this morning, but even the layman can tell that her usual spikes are retracted somewhat. Not the spikes on her boots--Gideon liked these boots, and she has no intention of wearing anything else for a while. But the metaphorical spikes.

Aside from her boots she is back in her standard habit--black trousers, black long-sleeve shirt with the high collar. No gloves. Her hair is freshly cropped back to her scalp. Her face is painted with exceptional care, in what Harrow considers the sexiest pattern, because Harrowhark has opinions about things like that. This one is called The Chain and has considerable, immodest flourishes. She has edged the perimeter of the painted skull with midnight purples and deep blood reds, an even greater departure from propriety.

She is writing in her journal, and since she writes in code there is no way anyone can tell she has doodled One Flesh One End approximately one hundred times. She has been eating oatmeal, and by God she even ate the raisins.

Things are good. For now, for once, things are good.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fortunately for Harrow, this isn't an anime.

"...How? Wait, no, never mind, I'm not sure I want you to answer that."

Admittedly, if anyone were going to express affection via laying claim to her skeleton, that person would be Harrow. "Besides, I'm not the type of girl to give someone her skeleton all willy-nilly on the first date."

"Gideon Nav, I formally swear I will not take control of your living skeleton without your consent," she says, with the weird formality and tension that marks Harrow in the grip of some strong and incomprehensible emotion.

Dead skeletons are fair game.

"Is that something I should have been worried about?" she says, astonished. She feels certain that she's missed something, maybe something important, but has no idea what it might be.

"No," she says. "But I have never given you assurances in that direction."

"This is absolute nonsense," she says dismayed. "I have no idea what I'm talking about any longer."

"I believe Lady Ingress was struggling to understand the... nature of our relationship, whether it was friendship or chivalric or sororal, or, or," She has climbed all the way up to the top of the diving board, looked down into the shimmering waters of the word 'romantic,' and is now trying to figure out if she can climb down.

"--otherwise."

That otherwise is like a landmine between them; Gideon stares at Harrow and thinks she sees the reflection of her own panic there under the layers of paint, and is that color she sees? Has she lost her mind? Is Harrow trying to look extra nice, and if so, why?

"Uh," she says, eloquently. It's just as well that she has no words, because her heart is in her fucking throat and she's pretty sure she's about to choke to death on it and then it'll be a moot point! And Harrow can have her bones just like she always planned.

She wants to run and she wants to move towards Harrow and that otherwise is lying there, just waiting to trip her whichever way she goes. There's a flush building into her cheeks, and she doesn't even have her sunglasses to hide behind, and Harrow – Harrow –

...She has never made Harrow look at her the way Harrow looked when she talked about that freezer-burnt dead girlfriend of hers. "I'm your sworn sword," she says, finally. "You're my necro. Everything else... whatever people want to think... it's just noise, Harrow. It's just words. We don't need them. It's always been you and me."

Harrow's shoulders stop their slow progression into her scarlet ears, and breathing becomes easier.

"That is what I said," she says. "That you are my cavalier, and that you are the most important person in my life. That I cannot imagine how you could ever not be. But that we are not... that I could never be..."

She exhales.

There are absolutely no words. Zero! – that can accurately describe Gideon's feelings towards her adept. She doesn't even know how to begin to try to find one, let alone a whole sentence full of them. At the same time, they seem to be hurtling towards some cliff she hadn't been aware they were even standing near only a few minutes ago, and she is extremely worried that she may have just drop-kicked them both off it.

"You're my adept," she says, firmly, because I could never be shouldn't ever apply to Harrow, unless it's I could never be as funny as you, Gideon. She's not sure what she should be saying; she's only sure she should head whatever this is off at the pass. "You're everything I need you to be and more. And I –"

I've spent my life breaking myself on the rocks just to get your attention seems wrong, so she doesn't say it. "I'm better when you're there. We both are. We... I don't know! I'm not good with words, Harrow. I just want to be with you. I want you to want me with you."

She smiles; the heart-bursting terrifying warmth she woke up with today is back, and it scatters her confusion like ashes.

"It's all right, Griddle. It's all right. You were right. It's just noise."

She puts her hand on Gideon's arm. Squeezes it, and runs the eyes of her necromantic senses over her bones, the thanergetic reservoirs and the busy cells producing marrow and white blood cells and at the ends still busily pushing back the frontier; she's not even done growing. Good God!

Every one of us has a skeleton, and yours is mine, she thinks, with dreamy satisfaction. "Never mind any of it."

That smile of hers is absolutely heartbreaking; Gideon would swallow her own tongue before she said anything that would wreck that beautiful curve. She huffs a relieved breath, dimly aware of having barely avoided running face-first into this thing that is suddenly lurking in the room with them, just as big and just as terrifying as the thing in the bowels of Canaan House.

But it doesn't matter. It's just noise.

"I know that look. Stop lusting over my bones, you freak, I'm not dead yet."

Caught red-handed, so to speak, Harrow lifts her hand and sniffs haughtily. "Don't forget to paint your face, Griddle. Properly. The black isn't meant to go directly onto your skin."

She reaches up and taps the hollow of Gideon's cheek.

"Primer, all white, then fill in the black. I'll know if you take shortcuts."

She stalks out of the room.