we_bring_hell | This is Halloween!

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This is Halloween!

The Bar loves her holidays, but she is also capable of respecting religious strictures. That's why she put a lot of thought into finding a Halloween costume for Harrow that works with her face paint and general insistence on the monochromatic.

Harrow, for her part, is baffled by the white-pinstriped black suit and the oversized bow, but the gloves are very cool, and the buckled shoes suit as well. She has no idea what's going on but she can live with this.

The Bar seems even more unusually populated than usual, and there are a lot of gourds around. Hm.

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"No way!"

She's genuinely surprised, and interested. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, related to a flesh magician? This is the kind of scandal that truly drives the Ninth House gossip mill. "Who?"

"Korenna Saba. It was four thousand years ago, on my mother's side."

She asks the bar for a glass of water, and parsimoniously stirs in sugar. "She had a short and ill-fated marriage to Pelles Novena, who was Reverend Father briefly. She was an artisan of the Seventh House, the usual whirlwind pilgrimage romance."

"Wow."

She pulls a barstool out and sits beside Harrow, allowing her knee to nudge Harrow's leg as she does. "That is...surprisingly romantic for the Ninth."

But it ended badly, and that seems a lot more on-brand.

She squeezes a lemon into the glass as well. "It does happen." Ortus's mother being a more recent example.

"Well, he died in the first six months, and she returned to Cypris even before their offspring were decanted, so of course the Ninth historians have never forgiven her. But she did present a proper weregild before she left, and laid no claim to the heirs, so she was perfectly respectable by her own standards, I suppose."

"The flute she made of his femur lay in storage among our lesser heirlooms for generations."

"That's...nice."

Creepy as shit, maudlin as all get out, 100% Ninth all the way down. "Please don't make a flute out of my femur, Harrow."

Although admittedly it seems like a better fate than to hoe the rows of snow leeks until her bones finally dissolve to dust.

"I would not," she assures her. "It was well-meant, I'm sure, but lost on the Ninth. I retrieved it on our recent visit and gave it to Wei Wuxian for his birthday; no one will miss it."

"But if I become a Lyctor, your bones will surely lie in the Mithraeum someday."

And if not, their bones will either be left on the First or be shipped back to the Anastasian Monument.

This is getting a little too maudlin for her: she's not afraid to die, but she hates the idea of Harrow navigating all those thousands of years alone.

"At least that way you'll always have me nearby," she says, with a slightly forced smile.

"I do not intend to be separated from you," Harrow says calmly. "But never mind, Griddle. I only meant to tell you some dry Ninth history, not start worrying about your bones again."

"I am pleased Crux was able to find the flute; it is astounding the kind of relics you can collect in ten thousand years."

"There's gotta be some weird-ass stuff down there," Gideon agrees. The Ninth was low on funds but high on ancient, shitty treasures.

"Bet Wei Wuxian liked it, though. It seems like it hits just the right...note."

(Magnus isn't around, so she doubts she'll get even a pity laugh, but it had to be done.)

Harrow looks at her blankly. "Pardon?"

She huffs a long sigh. Harrow has many fine qualities, but a sense of humor isn't really among them.

At least, not for dad or sex jokes, which are pretty much the only kind Gideon knows. "Never mind."

"I told him it was from both of us," she says. "That was appropriate, wasn't it?"

"He seemed to draw conclusions from it--accurate conclusions, but I don't want to encroach on your privacy."

"Yeah," she says, feeling warmly pleased for no particular reason she can decipher. "That's fine. Good thinking, Harrow: I didn't know it was his birthday or that I shoulda gotten him a present."

"I had gotten the flute simply because I remembered it was lying around in a vault forgotten, but when Lan Wangji said his birthday was near it seemed like fortunate timing."

She studies Gideon's face. "You don't mind? Because, ah, some other people might have figured it out as well."

"Why would I mind?"

She wracks her brain trying to think of someone who she would rather didn't know they were...a thing, and draws a blank.

"I don't know," she says. (She does, though.) "But your privacy matters, and we did not discuss it."

That's...thoughtful. Is she really so used to Harrow brushing her aside that she wouldn't even think her privacy would matter enough to be a factor?

Apparently. Which is probably not great. "I appreciate it," she says, squeezing Harrow's hand, "but if you want to discuss it – with mutual friends, please, maybe not strangers – go for broke, Harrow."

Her grin now is just as smug as it has ever been. "Especially if you feel the need to tell someone how I blew your mind. I would be okay with that."

Even through the paint, Harrow blushes badly enough to show; her ears are brick-red.

"Griddle. I do not intend to discuss... technique."

"Besides, Ingress has already promised me a text on the subject."

"If you want to do research, my comics are plenty informative."

Gideon might be sorely disappointed to learn that Our Bodies, Ourselves is not, in fact, a collection of pornography.

"Your comics defy basic anatomical physics," Harrow says snappishly.

"Maybe, but they're fun to look at."

It's hard to quantify why she enjoys poking at Harrow until she gets a reaction, because she grew up without the concept of pulling someone's pigtails because you like them.

She just knows that when Harrow snaps at her, it sets something alight deep in her stomach, and she wants to coax it even further until their restraint breaks and she can just kiss that annoyance right off Harrow's face. She grins. "But I'm sure your text will be a good time, too."

"I will explain the long words for you," Harrow says, which is a bad promise to make about a sex manual.

"Oooh," says Gideon, lounging against the Bar and leaning a little closer. "Yeah. Talk dirty to me."

"Griddle," she says repressively. Then she leans over the bar and whispers something extremely clinical and specific.

Extremely clinical and specific doesn't really do it for her, but you know what does?

Harrow's warm breath and warmer lips close to her ear.

Harrow's quiet, confidential voice whispering something only for her to hear.

Harrow taking up the slack of a joke and hauling on it for all she's worth.

Harrow.

It all but shoves Gideon off the barstool, even as she reaches for Harrow's wrist to pull her up too. "You really know how to rev my engines," she says, and drags Harrow close enough nearly to kiss.

"How about we go upstairs and you put your money where your mouth is?"

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we_bring_hell - 2020-11-03 17:36 (UTC) - Expand

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