Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gideon tromped through the back door and kicked off her muddy boots with a huff. She crossed the short distance from the door to the fireplace and sat the wood in the firebox. The house was a squat cottage, living room and kitchen on the bottom floor with a creaky old staircase that led up to the small bedroom, with the more luxurious bathroom adjoining. The floors sang when she walked, the glass of the windows permanently dirty and bubbled with age, and the stone foundation needed some work after a recent rain spell. She walked into the kitchen, separated from the living room by nothing but a stone floor, and wrapped her arms around the waist of her wife, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, as she cooked a simple breakfast of eggs and nearly-burnt bacon. Harrow had never been much of a cook, but Gideon didn’t mind, because she knew Harrow didn’t like cooking and that she only did it for Gideon.

Gideon hummed and rubbed her head on Harrow’s shoulder before kissing her once on the acromion—a word Harrow had taught her—and released Harrow from her grasp, still watching her move from over her shoulder, perched and bird-like.

“Whatcha cookin’, good lookin’?” Gideon smiled.

The cast iron pan sizzled with oil too hot, and Harrow jumped briefly as it jumped to touch her finger, putting her pinkened ring finger into her mouth briefly before turning the fire down.

“I got the firewood,” Gideon said simply.

“Mm, good, it’s supposed to be chilly tonight again. Weathervane says we’re getting the North wind.”

“I felt it, the dew is cold out there.”

The season had just passed false Spring into the last pinch of Winter, and any work Gideon was going to do on the home restoration was going to have to wait for the wet to subside. Harrowhark and Gideon had moved into the little house just nine months prior, buying an old house away from the lights and loud of the city. Harrow could never sleep in their old apartment, sirens blaring past their windows and the sound of their neighbors, who were irresponsible with their children and let them run about at all hours of the night. Gideon had saved up enough from contract work, though Harrow was still a little broke from her yearly applications for professorships leaving her once again in post-doc blues.

Harrow’s career had moved fast. She was always a talented researcher, having made great strides in osteo-anthropology, but professorships were few and… difficult in between. Her last dig had yielded an amazing discovery of tūpāpaku buried in a shallow, watery cave—potentially the oldest found to date. The bones had been well-preserved since the Māori tended to bury their dead in or around water. Harrow had often talked to Abigail about her ethical concerns with unearthing the long-dead bones of a people still living, and Abigail told her that as long as she continued to rebury and repatriate the remains to the wishes of the tribe that everything would be fine, though they both questioned how this worked spiritually. At the age of 31, Harrow was on her second post-doc and second bid for a permanent position.

The university was now much further from their home, though Harrow didn’t mind Gideon driving her to the office from their little escape from the world. It was a nice drive—passing fields of flowers, sheep, and barley. The South Island was always so full of life, despite being quiet of people. Harrow, though, wouldn’t have noticed—spending most of the drive sleeping.

“Breakfast is ready.”

“Thanks baby.”

Gideon produced plates from one of their two wooden cabinets sturdily attached to the dark stone walls of the kitchen. She had reinforced them the week prior, nervous about their wobbling whenever Harrow or her reached for a drinking glass, but had insisted on keeping the original cabinetry instead of replacing it with something that would’ve had—at least for a time—more structural integrity. Both Gideon and Harrow agreed on keeping the “charm” of the old house, and Gideon knew that the old wood would last longer than any of that new shit could ever hope to.

Harrow plated up their breakfast and they sat at the modest kitchen table next to the window out to the back garden, Gideon placing her tan and orange work jacket on the back of her chair. Gideon had started making them a larger kitchen table as an extra project to keep her occupied between contracts, knowing that eventually Harrow would like to host their friends for dinner. It would rather be a potluck, since Harrow would insist on doing absolutely none of the cooking, but the people would have to have a central seating location, and they had just enough room behind the couch for a bigger table.

The light of the progressing morning beamed through the windows, shining down on Harrow in a way that made her pull her shawl up over her head, which had been quickly turned into a heater. Harrow and Gideon had recently abandoned the idea of church, but Harrow still counted her beads at night and “veiled” (mostly just the shawl) when she felt like it as a familiar comfort. The two normally rose early, though on Sundays they slept in. Gideon had become used to early mornings and late nights while working in construction; since most of the traffic of life took place during ordinary human hours, and so she became a creature of the night, coming alive between the hours of 10pm and 6am. She would come home, shower, drive Harrow to work, and then crash into their plush bed until it was time to pick Harrow up.

Gideon, realizing she had forgotten the tea, ungracefully pushed her chair into the wall and flicked the tab of the kettle on to boil before sitting back down. Harrow was picking at her eggs slowly.

“What’s your plan today, tau?”

Harrow and Gideon often spoke in a series of knowing hums rather than proper words. They had been together for so long that most words were unnecessary, unless they were rowing about something. When they rowed, it was usually something brief and stupid: “Griddle, I am begging you to pick your towel up off the bathroom floor, I can’t keep slipping like this every morning,” or “Nonagesimus, I’m really in a hurry, do you need to do your makeup right now? You’re not even getting out of the car.”

“Hmm. Maybe some gardening. I think I killed the irises again.” Harrow wasn’t any good at gardening, but she liked to try and create life with her hands.

Gideon smiled sweetly, “Then maybe I’ll work out back too. I want to bring the wood into the shed to strip before it gets wet again.”

The kettle tab quietly tipped up, and Gideon went to the counter to make up their mugs. Harrow preferred keeping the tea bag in her mug while she drank, and so Gideon drank it just the same, but with a splash of milk for added decadence. She sat them each a mug at their place on the table, and Harrow scooped the last of her eggs into her mouth and swallowed without chewing. Gideon ate her cooling “bacon” (Meat crisps, Gideon thought) and sloshed her tea bag around in her mug.

“Did you sleep any last night?”

“Not much,” Said Harrow.

This exchange could’ve happened in either direction, as Harrow hardly slept well, and Gideon’s schedule simply didn’t allow it. Since the move, Harrow had slept better, which meant three hours instead of zero, but Gideon’s new schedule meant that she slept with her work clothes right next to the bed so that she would actually put them on and walk out the door.

“I thought I heard you wandering around. What were you up to this time?”

“Mm,” Harrow swirled the tea in her mug, “Painting.”

“Visions bothering you again?” Harrow always painted when she had been hallucinating. It was a way for her to remind herself that the hallucinations were just that, and weren’t real. Plus, psychosis art was interesting enough to decorate their walls with, and Gideon felt proud when she saw it in their living room.

Harrow’s mental health had never been great. She experienced the first pangs of something she referred to as “growing in my brain” in childhood; she swore she could feel herself become progressively more insane every year, even when she was only eight years old. One year she would feel watched, the next the shadows crept into her vision, the next she thought she was God. Losing her parents made her spiral. When Harrowhark arrived at the Drearburh Home for Orphaned Youths, Gideon thought she should’ve been committed somewhere rather than homed in Drearburh, but that’s when Gideon learned that Drearburh had an on-staff psychiatrist (that Gideon didn’t trust as far as she could throw her, which was probably pretty far). Harrow had grown up in one of those suicide cults, her parents leading the flock. As much as Harrow genuinely believed she was like the other congregants, she was not. She was smarter, learning the secrets of the Tomb early on; and she was hard to kill. Regardless, her previous indoctrination made her the perfect candidate for Drearburh Home’s religious inclinations, and so she fell into their practice, which was actually not so dissimilar from her own.

Harrow did as well as she could now: high doses of lithium and anti-psychotics, but sometimes she still “glitched,” as she called it—a single day in Hell, a short bout of insanity—before going back to totally normal the next morning.

“Mm, always,” Harrow sighed, staring into her cooling tea.

“Who was it this time?” Gideon always looked at Harrow when she spoke to her, even if Harrow didn’t. She liked looking at her. Harrow could feel Gideon’s eyes on her, and it was comforting.

“The tall woman in the ice,” She said, still staring into her tea.

One of Harrow’s nearly award-winning discoveries had been a woman with shockingly blonde long hair holding a sword, chained, trapped in an icey prison. She had been buried with Māori traditions, though she was clearly Pākehā, and the cold of the cave had preserved her still position and her body perfectly, though her skin had iced over blue. But what disturbed Harrow most was her eyes: they were shocked open, bright as sunlight and severe, despite her mouth curled gently upwards at the sides, showing what almost looked like love. Abigail, Harrow, and Palamedes had worked to figure out what had happened to her, but so far had only come up with that she must’ve been a companion of someone Māori.

“Show me your work?”

Harrow stood from her place at the table, walking to the far corner of the living room which held stacks of canvases, some stuck together with paint; Harrow had always been a little impatient, and didn’t like waiting for the paint to dry before she wandered back to bed to stare at the darkness of their bedroom for a few more miserable hours.

The painting was half-finished, with flowing waves of gradient yellow down the middle, blacks and greys in the background, and the bottom of the canvas holding a streak of bright grey intermingling with pale blues. The right side of the canvas was blank.

“Oh, abstract, I like this one.”

Harrow turned the canvas back to herself to examine it, “But I haven’t figured out what I want to do on the right side yet.”

“You think you’ll finish this one?”

“If the visions continue, yes. If not…” She looked to the pile of discarded canvases.

“Well I hope you finish it. Not that I want you to- well, you know, I just think it’d look nice in the bedroom.” Gideon chuckled awkwardly as she rose from her spot and collected the empty plates and placed them in the sink. Neither of them liked washing dishes, so they piled up until Harrow noticed a smell Gideon could never detect.

“Okay, I’m a bit full from breakfast, so I’m gonna sit on the couch for a bit before going out back. Wanna join?”

Harrow nodded and shuffled over to the couch (Harrow rarely picked up her feet when she walked if she could avoid it), and set her tea on the table.

“Ah-ah, coaster, I just refinished this thing,” Gideon corrected and slipped a coaster beneath the drink, and Harrow smiled in the corner of her mouth at Gideon being so tidy. It wasn’t that Gideon was any messier than Harrow, they just had different peeves. Harrow didn’t like it when Gideon left her work boots in the bedroom because they stank the place up and dragged mud in, and Gideon didn’t like it when Harrow left a clump of unwashed paintbrushes on the countertop that Gideon had finally had the energy to clean. But really, they wouldn’t have it any other way; they rather argue with each other forever than argue with anyone else, or no one at all.

Gideon sat down on the sofa hard, pulling her sweaty and stained white t-shirt over her head to air dry on the back of the couch as she sat. Harrow curled up next to her, right at the seam between her stomach and chest, and laid her head just beneath where Gideon’s scar stopped beneath the hem of her sweaty sports bra. Gideon had had heart surgery when she was twenty and Harrow was nineteen. Gideon had an accident at a landscaping gig when she was just starting out. She tripped on a shovel she’d mindlessly chucked across the yard by the fence, and boom, iron straight through the heart and nearly her neck. She died twice on the way hospital. At least, that’s what she’d told Harrow. It was during a landscaping gig, but she didn’t so much as fall as she threw herself onto the fence. Harrow knew the truth and the reason why she did it, but Gideon kept the lie up because it made her feel better. The whole event embarrassed her. She’d had to stop working solo and started working with a company so her reputation was less known. It helped that she’d changed her name—at least, legally—to Kiriona after the fact. The whole “dying and being resurrected” thing made her invested in her past, why she existed in the first place. She had phoned the orphanage and asked for her parents’ information, only to find that her mother was long dead, and that her father was kind of a shit.

Gideon had her mother’s hair and her father’s sense of humor. She’d met him—John. He was a scorned scientist, career ended early by experimenting with stem cells and cryofreezing (and some other stuff Gideon didn’t understand) on illegally obtained corpses to try and reanimate them—or at least, parts of them. There was something about using dead cows, too…? That’s not how he told the story, though, but that’s what she’d read online. Now, he lived in a modest house on the outskirts of Auckland, and streamed philosophy critique and got preachy on podcasts. John was kind of a chauvanistic prick, and Gideon didn’t particularly like being around him, but Gideon had learned from John that she was Māori, and wanted to do something with that. She’d never had much of a past to speak of, and if her dad sucked, at least she could try and connect with her ancestors or something. And so, shortly after Gideon and Harrow wed at twenty-five and twenty-four (respectively), rather than changing their last names Gideon simply changed her first name to Kiriona, and it was in that way she felt reborn. No fences, no fathers; just her, Harrow, and traditions new to her, old to time.

Gideon didn’t mind being called Gideon even still. She generally introduced herself as Kiriona, but her close circle had always known her as Gideon, and hearing “Gideon!” rather than “Nav!” or “Griddle!” out of Harrow’s mouth meant the world to her—and Harrow did call her Kiriona when she was feeling particularly poetic. Gideon, being an infant in the orphanage, was named after the person who left her, and her last name matching some of those in the Home. Harrow, on the other hand, had her own name, and her own history, and her own ancestors. Gideon, however, didn’t envy this, since Harrow’s history sucked ass.

Harrow shut her eyes, taking a nap already, and Gideon clicked on the telly, sitting above the fireplace. Gideon watched the TV on mute when Harrow slept in her lap; this was nearly routine on Sundays. Her legs would soon go numb, and she would idly pet Harrow’s head until she woke up in thirty minutes, realizing she’d fallen asleep. Harrow couldn’t cuddle with Gideon at night, due not only to Gideon’s schedule but Harrow’s lingering sleep issues, so she tried to get her snuggles in during the day.

As expected, Harrow awoke to Gideon’s warm hand in her hair, belly slowing inflating and deflating with her breath. Harrow rustled drowsily as Gideon started to shake the pins and needles from her right leg.

“Finally slept alright?”

Harrow yawned, “Mmm,” And reached to hug Gideon close, taking in her scent as she did so: wood, Harrow’s patchouli, and Gideon. Gideon dropped the remote to the floor with a dull thud as it hit the rug beneath, and hugged Harrow, kissing the top of her head, hair frizzy with sleep beneath her slouching veil.

Harrow looked to the old clock stood on the coffee table, reading 12:16.

“Outside?”

“Outside.”

This exchange could’ve happened in either direction and remained the same.

Gideon kept her cargo pants on, slightly pulpy from the morning chop, but added her thick jacket from the morning over her sports bra—no shirt this time—and Harrow removed her shawl, not wanting to dirty it in the grass.

Gideon opened the back door, pulling it open hard as it got stuck on a floorboard, muddy boots working hard to stabilize her in the pursuit.

Harrow started over to her flowers without delay, but Gideon stood by the back door and gazed at her like an idiot.

Harrow looked over her shoulder, feeling Gideon’s eyes on her back.

“What are you smiling at?”

“You.”

“Why?”

Gideon walked over to her and brushed Harrow’s cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m happy.”

“Kiriona, you will be the absolute death of me.”

Gideon only smiled wider. “I sure hope not!” She took Harrow’s hands into hers, pulled them to her lips, and kissed them gently, one by one.

Harrow smiled in the corner of her mouth and looked down at her feet, then up to Gideon. “What was that word you taught me?”

“Hmm, which one?”

“T- something. The Māori one.” Harrow had suffered significant memory loss during an accident, not long after Gideon’s. Like Gideon, it was “an accident,” and Gideon knew that Harrow had in reality tried to do something awful in a fit of grief after she thought Gideon had died, and that Harrow felt very lucky that she had lived through it to see that Gideon had lived herself. After so many years, she mostly had her memories back—not that she truly remembered them anymore, but people had told her what happened—but she still lost her words daily, and lost objects, and suffered the occasional migraine.

“Oh there’s lots of T- words, dear.”

“It means something like beloved, or darling.”

“Oh! Tōrere!”

“Yeah, tōrere,” Harrow blushed up at Gideon and kissed her deeply, all tippy-toed until Gideon scooped her up beneath the bum and held her fixed on the weatherworn stone of the house siding just behind the flower beds. Gideon peppered small kisses down Harrow’s neck, folding her mock-neck sweater as she went, until Harrow giggled—something Harrow did now—

“Giiiiideooonn!” Gideon paused.

“Yes, my love?”

“Well don’t stop now.” And Gideon resumed pecking at her neck until Harrow wormed her way out of Gideon’s arms, laughing as she slid down the house and onto her feet.

Gideon stood for a moment to catch her breath amidst smiles and laughter, before realizing: “Ah! The wood! Time-sensitive!” And ran off to the shed.

Outside the shed lay a pile of wood stacked neatly into a pyramid. Gideon examined it: the top of the pile had dried in the sun, but the bottom logs had gotten soggy on the bottom (Heheh. Soggy bottom, Gideon thought) with the dew from the morning. She started toting them inside the shed, bundling them up in her arms in fours. The shed was practically a miniature replica of the house on the outside, and a floorless box on the inside. In six or so trips, Gideon had stacked all the wood in the shed, and began to methodically plonk the dry pieces into the floor vise, clamp them down, and strip the top layer of bark off with her adze.

Meanwhile, Harrow’s fingernails were black with dirt, and her hands had turned ghostly with the cold of the soil. She refused to wear gloves, because she didn’t feel she was truly working if she didn’t have anything to show for it. Sitting next to her was a pile of discarded green-and-brown stems with the occasional speck of white flower petal. She always felt a pang of sadness whenever she had to dig up the dying flowers, because who was she to stop a life that was trying its best to keep itself alive? At the sudden realization that she’d forgotten to get fresh seeds from the shed, Harrow dusted her dirty hands off on each other in a perverted clap, then walked the few metres toward Gideon in her shed.

Hearing the crunch of grass under boots signaling Harrow’s arrival, Gideon picked the seed packets from a bucket tossed in the corner, and stood at the door with her hip cocked to one side, ready for Harrow’s entry.

Harrow opened the door-

“Forgot so-” Gideon’s cheek was cut off by Harrow jumping backwards and shouting, “Oh God, Gideon, jeez!”

Harrow took a moment to catch her breath as Gideon attempted to hold the door open while she doubled over with laughter.

Gideon choked out, “Sorry, s-” Followed by more laughter.

Harrow’s severity waned with Gideon’s cheer, and Gideon handed her the seed packets.

“Actually, I’m about done with the wood for today, d’ya need any help?”

Harrow thought for a moment. “Okay.”

Gideon was markedly better with plants than Harrow, mostly in that she knew how to use a shovel (Trowel, Gideon would correct), and the seeds would end up deep enough. Harrow could only dig so far with her human paws, and the dirt beneath her fingernails packed down and hurt more than she let on (at least she was past digging until her fingers bled). They worked replanting the flower bed until it no longer looked like they owned a dog, and then—as if on cue, it began to rain.

Gideon shook her head in the drizzle, welcoming the shower as Harrow recoiled.

“Made of sugar, are you, dear?”

Harrow grumbled, then: “Tea and porch.”

“Tea and porch.”

Gideon had worked a short porch onto the back of the house. She sourced wood that would match the house—at least as close as possible—by recycling wobbly old tables and chair seats, worn planks from equally-aged houses, and refinished them back to their natural state. The result was a porch of mixed deep woods with pillars of stone, collected from the pile of loose stones out back that came with the house. Gideon reckoned that there had been another shed out back before they bought the house, more likely an old detached kitchen or bathroom.

Harrow went inside, scooting her feet on the hairy straw mat before entering, and washed her face and hands in the kitchen sink before brewing two glasses of passionfruit tea. Sometimes she forgot the steps, so Gideon had written on the stainless steel of their shiny new fridge in dry-erase marker:

1. "Brew hot tea (shelf with the lazy Susan beneath the cupboard next to the sink)
2. (If it’s loose-leaf peach, persimmon, passionfruit - the infuser is in the drawer by the stove)
3. Steep for six minutes in boiling water
4. Gimme sum sugar ;)
5. Cold tea for later: pitcher in the cupboard above the stove; Cold tea for now: a shitton of ice in big glasses (still above the stove)
6. I love you!”

Their house was littered with post-it notes for Harrow, reminding her primarily of how to do things. It was much worse when she was still recovering; she forgot how to dress herself sometimes. Now the notes read “Your KEYS!” (Harrow’s handwriting) taped to the front door, and “Don’t forget to charge your laptop before work<3” (Gideon’s handwriting) taped to the small desk in the corner of their bedroom.

Harrow examined the instructions, nodded, and carefully followed them, checking the fridge every step. She reappeared on the porch after ten or so minutes with tea, the rain patter on the roof tiles soothing her, the gentle breeze of the rain cool on her skin. Gideon rocked in her chair and gratefully received a glass of tepid tea.

“So, tell me about this week’s project,” Harrow started as she sat down in her rocking chair to the left of Gideon’s.

“Wellll,” Gideon began, “This one will take a month probably. It’s a reno. Client wants to turn this house into an “open concept art gallery…’”

Harrow interjected an “Eugh.”

“Yeah. Brightside is I found original wood beneath the nasty shag carpet. They still need to bring in a plumber ‘cause the system is an absolute mess. I know this thing is old but good God whoever planned this thing should be shot.” Gideon was a demolition specialist, but small-time: she had a forklift license for bigger jobs; but mostly liked doing grunt work, moving parts around, hittin’ stuff. She didn’t have an explosive license, although she had considered getting one since there was money in those inner-city demos. Inner-city demos also meant daytime hours, but Gideon had started to like working nights. Store repairs, subways—places where people aren’t at night, all is quiet aside from her and the team bustling around—that was her favorite. Sometimes she did miss the privacy afforded by landscaping and solo home reno, though; construction boys were nosy.

“Agh, that reminds me,” Gideon continued, “I gotta take the truck into the mechanic this week.”

“I thought you were going to repair it yourself.”

“That was the plan, but it seems to be more than just leaking oil now, and I don’t have the time to investigate.”

“I can work from home if you need me to.”

“Yeah we might have to, but I dunno what I’m gonna do without that rustbucket while I’m on a job.”

Harrow thought for a moment. “Hmm you could… No…”

“You see my problem.”

“I might see if Abigail could pick me up and take me to the office, is your site on the way?”

“You really do sleep the entire car ride, don’t you?”

Harrow chuckled, “I can hear you talk but I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Yes, the site is on the way this time. I’m just making a loop when I drop you off.”

“I’ll ask Abigail tomorrow. Do you think one more drive will kill that death trap?”

“Hey! That’s my death trap you’re insulting.”

They laughed and sipped tea, and Harrow resolved to text Abigail for a pick up tomorrow so Gideon could drive the truck on its last legs to the mechanic, fearing it would give out on the forty minute drive to the university.

“Okay, your turn,” Gideon said.

“No digs for a while. Focusing on investigating the woman in the ice. I think we could make another paper about it if we find enough information. Palamedes’ research has been useful, but he’s been having to take the train into Blenheim every weekend to skim the archives.”

“Not unlike Pal. Bet that weird little twink gets a kick outta that. Never did figure out driving either.”

“He doesn’t have any hobbies, truly.”

“Not unlike someone else I know.”

“Hey! I have hobbies… Just ones dictated by you and my, erm… health.”

Gideon laughed, “I’m sure you do babe, sure you do,” then asked: “Did he ever end up getting his license? How did that whole thing go?”

“No, Camilla was driving him up for a while until she got the job with FENZ.”

“Oh right! Big promotion from EMT. Man, I miss her. So busy now.”

“Saving lives. Worthy pursuit.”

“Sure bet,” and then, “Aw man, really coming down now,” at the sudden rumble of thunder accompanied with a gust of wind, rain turning from pitter patter to inside inside inside.

Harrow already had one foot in the door, and a chair cushion in her hand.

Gideon, naturally, forgot her chair cushion, and although Harrow realized this as Gideon came in, she decided to let Gideon leave it out and laugh at her when she forgot and squished down onto her wet chair the next time they sat outside. They still enjoyed pranking each other outside of the orphanage, so many years later. Harrow had joined Gideon at Drearburh Home at the age of ten. Gideon was eleven, and as Form 1’s and Standard 4’s do, Harrow and Gideon argued and pranked and fought each other endlessly. By Forms 4 and 3 they were “experimenting.” By Forms 5 and 4 Aiglamene had started chiding Gideon for not focusing more on her studies (“But I like gyyyym,” Gideon would moan, and Aiglamene would reply, “You seem to like girls more than gym, and that is not a criticism of the girls, rather the lack of focus. How do you expect to succeed in tertiary like this?” And Gideon would say, “I don’t want to do tertiary, I want to do ITP.” Aiglamene would massage her temples and walk away), meanwhile Harrow had begun being invested in their religious curriculum and becoming a “butt-touched nun” (in Gideon’s words). Drearburh had its own private school, the tuition from non-Home students providing most of the funds for the Home itself. All Drearburh inhabitants attended services on Sundays and Wednesdays, and the most devout (“Indoctrinated,” Gideon would correct) of the flock would sing in the choir or join in Mass as acolytes. But by Forms 7 and 6 Marshal Crux would be catching Gideon and Harrow clawing at each other in some weird sort of wrestle for power that could only be compared to proto-sex, and Gideon (reluctantly admitting that she was fantasizing about Harrow) thought that Harrow must kick herself constantly for such depraved (a word she heard in Harrow’s voice) thoughts. Drearburh was one of the last “traditional” orphanages left in the area, which meant that for better or worse, the likelihood of either Gideon or Harrow being fostered was very low (especially being past toddler-hood), and they would remain wards of the state.

Harrow had written her dissertation under Dr. Pent, and met the Warden at his student job in the archives Harrow holed herself away in to study. Despite Gideon having a different “life path” than Harrow, Gideon stayed close to her no matter what—making sure to get an apartment near the university to see her, and regularly getting a guest pass so she could follow her around campus. Gideon was much closer with the Warden and Camilla than Harrow was at the start of the formation of their friend group. Gideon had gotten close with Camilla when she found Gideon half-dead on a fence post, Gideon coming-to once in the ambulance and realizing Camilla was her EMT. Eventually Harrow’s study sessions with Palamedes expanded into gatherings with Cam, Pal, Harrow, and Gideon; and years later when it was career-appropriate, Abigail would join with her husband Magnus for karaoke nights, and bring along Ianthe Tridentarius and her sister Coronabeth. Ianthe had been Abigail’s other advisee, working on her thesis “The Thirty Years War of Bone and Sinew: Concepts of the Body and Soul in 1630s Holy Roman Empire.” Coronabeth wasn’t an academic: she worked a manufacturing job putting together cars for a while before her theatre career took off. She wasn’t by any means famous, but she did well for herself, and sometimes would come over to Gideon and Harrow’s place to help Gideon fix her truck.

Harrow placed her cushion next to the back door and called to Gideon, who was already on her way to the couch:

“Why can’t Corona fix the truck?”

“Out of town,” She returned without looking back, “Visiting Naberius.”

Harrow didn’t reply, only mentally acknowledging. She walked to Gideon, grabbed the tea glasses from the kitchen table to wash in the sink, before Gideon snuck up behind her and unceremoniously smacked her ass.

“Griddle!”

Gideon laughed and laughed, Harrow fuming.

“You have snuck up on me how many times today?”

“Lost count,” Gideon smiled.

“You’re lucky I didn’t drop them.”

“I’m lucky I have you,” Gideon hugged Harrow at the sides as Harrow raised her arms up to protect the glasses.

Gideon let Harrow go without word, which Harrow raised an eyebrow at as she washed the glasses, suspicious. Gideon was only quiet when she was trying to be sneaky.

Gideon loudly tromped upstairs. She ran the sink tap, turned it off. Bureau opened, bureau closed. She rummaged through a drawer, taking care to shut it gently, and walked a few random steps around the room, before stamping back down the stairs.

“All clean,” She smiled to Harrow.

Harrow looked Gideon up and down from the edge of the kitchen, “Good enough,” Before looking down at her own nails to check that they were no longer muddy, coming away satisfied.

Gideon set the TV to the music station her and Harrow liked to listen to on calm nights such as this, and lit the fire in the fireplace without much thought. Sundays were for their comforting routines, a nice reset from their busy lives. Gideon plopped down onto the couch as hard as usual (”One day you’ll break it,” Harrow would say). Harrow snuggled into Gideon and immediately descended upon her with an array of kisses down her muscular arms, now jacketless and exposed.

“Right on schedule,” Gideon remarked.

“Oh hush,” Said Harrow.

“Oh nooo, you didn’t change out of your outside clothes, we’ll have to fix thaaat,” Gideon jokingly protested, and started removing Harrow’s shirt. This was their routine.

Harrow rolled her eyes and let Gideon remove her shirt as she began to struggle out of her “work jeans” (something Harrow never thought she’d have, or need).

When Harrow had sufficiently wormed herself out of her clothing, she sat on top of Gideon’s thigh, and smiled crookedly.

“Hello, beautiful,” Gideon said with her typical feigned-suaveness.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Gideon shut up and kissed her, breaths coming in hot on the other’s face, moving like the other had just returned from war: urgent, eager, wanting.

Gideon fumbled her tongue into Harrow’s mouth and pulled Harrow’s body in closer to hers, holding her at the small of her back as Harrow began to grind onto Gideon’s thigh. Harrow begged with her fingers for the straps of Gideon’s sports bra to come down, and Gideon willingly unzipped the front zipper, breasts unfolding from the contraption like the chesty girls in the Japanese cartoons John had shown her, which Gideon then brought to group hang outs to poison the rest of the gang (”If I had to see it, so do you”).

Harrow loved how Gideon dressed. Ordinarily you could see her work on her: plain white tees permanently brown (Harrow had tried to replace the shirts by sneaking new ones into the drawer, but they would just end up as stained as the others), flannel-lined jackets, workman’s pants. Harrow loved even more how Gideon dressed down: sports bra and gym shorts with boxers peeking out; she could see Gideon in the raw without seeing even a glimpse of flesh. Gideon looked comfortable, and that was the sexiest thing in the world. But more than anything, Harrow loved Gideon’s skin, and took every chance she had to kiss her scars, or simply stare. Gideon was a gnarled garden of dots and hair and scars painting her body’s history along her form. Harrow wanted to put her to canvas desperately.

Harrow bit tiny love bites down Gideon’s chest, grasping at her breasts as she returned to Gideon’s neck, chin, mouth. Gideon groaned and ran her hands down Harrow’s arms as she fell forward onto Gideon, mouth sliding messily off hers, head drooping down to Gideon’s shoulder as she rutted onto her well-worn cargo pants, before Gideon realized:

“Ah shit, you’re leaking onto my work pants!”

“Not a better word in that mind of yours?” Harrow huffed.

Gideon tutted and shooed Harrow off her pants to remove them, sliding them off to reveal—

“What is that in your shorts,” Harrow asked bluntly and toneless, now standing in front of Gideon.

“Oh, this?” Gideon said as Harrow resumed her position, and rose out of Gideon’s briefs her strap, one end secured inside of her.

“I knew you were up to something. You’re terrible at stealth.”

“Never tried to hide it.”

“So you think I’m going to sit on that thing? You know how I feel about the… plastic feel.”

Gideon hummed, “Well, I thought it was worth another try. I love watching you bounce on me.”

Harrow thought for a second. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect,” and then, “Lay back for me?”

Harrow obliged, laying on the opposite side of the couch, head propped up by their two decorative pillows. Gideon took a moment to admire Harrow’s delicate ribcage, her sides pinching her bones and breath elevating her chest.

Gideon awkwardly shifted the strap back into her underwear and positioned herself the best she could on the couch, right beneath Harrow’s cunt, one arm pushing the side of the couch, the other posed by Harrow’s warmth, ready.

Gideon licked stripes across Harrow’s pussy, Mmming at her taste, before wetting two fingers in her mouth and sliding them inside Harrow, trying to find her favorite spot in this strange position.

Harrow moaned, “A-ah, Giiiideon,”

“Aaand there it is, there’s my girl.”

Harrow bucked down onto Gideon’s fingers after a minute with some frustration, wanting more of her—all of her. She had already been quite horny since Gideon’s surprise spank.

“Mm,” Gideon began, “I think it’ll be too hard to do missionary on the couch. Ride me?”

“As long as you hold me close.” Harrow loved being reassured by Gideon’s body that she would never be left alone.

Gideon smiled and sat up on the couch, pulling the strap out of her pants once again.

Harrow bit her lip nervously and sat up on her calves around Gideon’s big thighs, comforted by the feeling of Gideon’s skin on hers. She positioned herself over the strap, and Gideon held her hand up to Harrow’s mouth: “Spit, please.”

Harrow grimaced before deciding to spit anyway, and Gideon spit in her own hand additionally before coating the strap in their saliva. Harrow was disgusted only for a moment, before she liked the idea of both her and Gideon metaphorically being inside her, comingling.

Gideon held Harrow’s slim waist to guide her down, and Harrow slowly sat on the bright purple obnoxious-and-loud thing, moaning under her breath until she bottomed out, when she moaned outright.

“Ohhh baby, that’s it, look at you,” Gideon admired Harrow’s form, sat atop her with blush rising to her cheeks and chest rising and falling with unusual speed.

Harrow wriggled around on the strap, fussing with the position of her lips before finding herself satisfied with the feeling.

“How does it feel, baby? You ready?”

“Mmm,” Harrow thought, “If this is the closest you can get to me, it will do.” She felt needy.

Gideon knew this meant Harrow liked it, but asked anyway: “Will it just ‘do’ or do you like it—I’m not doing anything you don’t like.”

“I think I like it, yes.”

Gideon’s smile quirked in the corner of her mouth, and she thrust up once into Harrow, gently. Harrow let out a quiet Oh! Gideon took her by the hips and began to thrust into her slowly, deeply—giving Harrow the most pleasure she could manage, while letting her adjust. With every push, Harrow felt a pulse of electricity run through her core, responding in an Ah! every time, and not but two minutes in did Harrow say:

“Oh, Gideon, fuuuck me,” As she craned her neck and rounded her back to meet Gideon’s shoulder, placing her hands on the couch behind her.

“There you go, sweet thing,” Gideon crooned and picked up her pace, using Harrow’s hips as leverage to bounce the fine-framed girl on her cock.

Although Harrow still occasionally felt pangs of shame when she fucked, she had gotten much better. She had begun to understand sex as a holy act, the feminine as divine, the using of the whole body for pleasure as true reverence for creation. But when she yelled, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck meeee!” she still felt the heat of embarassment, though this time in a way that made her grow wetter: a symbol of her devotion to her wife, and to her love of her, and the world; being brought down to base carnal desire in a moment where all her intellectualism was removed, and she became truly animal: her intellectualism her only defense, now entirely gone, held in Gideon’s strong hands. She was safe.

Harrow flung herself back, back arched, her hands searching desperately for support as she began to roll her hips down onto Gideon’s strap with every thrust she was given. Gideon grabbed her hands and held them, the two moving in tandem, Harrow yelling quick little Uh! Uh! Uh!s.

Harrow’s chest was heaving hard, and she began to sweat, slowing her hips. Gideon offered, “Turn around and bend over for me?”

“P-please,” Harrow sputtered out, adding: “Arms are weak.”

“Don’t worry love, I’ll hold you.”

Harrow dismounted and turned around, hands on the coffee table. As her arms shook, Gideon took a brief moment to admire Harrow’s warmth. As she stood, Gideon marveled, running a finger up Harrow’s slit, remarking: “Oh baby, you’re so fucking wet,” before playfully smacking Harrow’s clit, eliciting a “H-hey!” and a giggle from Gideon.

Gideon said: “You ready?,” lining herself up to Harrow.

“Mhm, yes please.”

Gideon re-entered Harrow, Harrow moaning a loud “Ohhh fuuuuck,” as Gideon roughly gathered Harrow’s thin wrists into her hands, and used her new-found leverage to fuck into Harrow hard.

Harrow yelped Ah Ah Ah!, before saying something Gideon could’ve never prepared herself for: “God, Gideon, fuck me with your butch cock!”

Harrow had entirely forgotten herself. This was Gideon’s favorite.

Gideon let out a deep groan from inside her chest, letting out all of the tension in her body. She dropped Harrow’s arms, opting instead to pull Harrow up entirely and hold her at the fronts of her shoulders so she nearly stood. Gideon gripped her roughly and fucked into Harrow hard, loosing the moans she’d kept hidden in her throat with every hit of her end of the dildo to her own cunt.

“Fuck, Harrow, tell me who I am.”

“You’re my wife, my wife!” Harrow gasped. Gideon loved being called Harrow’s wife, loved hearing her titles spill out of Harrow’s mouth (despite having to restrain herself from making Borat jokes).

“That’s right babygirl, and what’s my name?” Gideon moaned low and deep as her left hand moved to hold Harrow’s throat gently—more of a caress than a grasp.

“Kiriona!” Gideon slid two of her fingers up from Harrow’s throat and into her mouth, Harrow sucking down as Gideon said “Fuck, baby, fuck you’re gonna make me cum, Harrowhark you’re so beautiful, oh my God—”

And with a brief pause from Gideon, she moaned a loud Ahhhhnnnn! and pulsed quick and hard, removing her fingers from Harrow’s mouth, relishing the feeling of Harrow’s tongue on the pads of her fingers as she pulled away.

Harrow tried to say something about if Gideon needed to stop, but Gideon hardly even heard her, instead holding Harrow close to her, one hand on Harrow’s breast and the other over Harrow’s clit. She continued to thrust into Harrow with a more tired, but resolute pace, and rubbed Harrow’s clit in short circles beneath her fingers.

Harrow was speeding towards absolutely losing it. The electricity came in faster now, from deep inside her cunt, through the center of her belly, and out her throat. She felt the panic that she needed, she needed, she was going to—

“Oh God, oh my God, Kiriona, I—” Harrow tried to say, before squirting hard around Gideon’s cock, breathing coming in in loud Auugh!s. Gideon pulled out, holding Harrow at her chest still, and watched Harrow’s flower pulse under her touch, running her fingers all around Harrow’s cunt as she moaned, legs shaking.

“Fuck, Harrow—” Gideon gasped as Harrow was entirely breathless. Gideon took the initiative of sitting and carefully pulled Harrow down with her to sit on her thigh as she rode out the last of her aftershocks.

“Dammit!” Harrow said suddenly, cutting off any saccharine thoughts Gideon had formed—

“What, what happened? Are you okay?”

“We have to clean the rug now.”

Gideon laughed and caught her breath, “Jeez, Harrow, I thought I hurt you!” She bounced her un-Harrowed leg nervously.

Harrow spun herself around to meet Gideon’s chest, who was pulling the strap out of herself to toss to the side (which Harrow would certainly chide her for later).

“No, no you felt so good, but I seem to be developing a habit of making our house look like we have a dog.”

Gideon chuckled warmly and wrapped her arms around Harrow, pulled her into her lap properly, and kissed her glistening forehead as Harrow’s shaking began to cease.

After a prolonged, restful silence, Harrowhark said: “Oh Kiriona, kei te aroha au ki a koe,” her head buried in the crook of Gideon’s shoulder and neck.

“You remembered!”

“Say it back.”

“Kei te aroha au ki a koe, Harrow kairangi, taupuhi,” Gideon pulled Harrow’s chin up and looked into her eyes earnestly, Harrow staring back at her with all the seriousness of the dead.

“I only understood some of that, but I love you.”

“I know.”