Chapter Text
"How is she sleeping like that?" Palamedes asked.
"Pretty sure she could sleep hanging from her ankles like a bat at this point," Gideon said.
"I mean how has she not suffocated?"
Gideon looked over at her mate who was lying face down on the couch with her face smooshed into the middle of one seat cushion and her arms flat beside her, palms up.
Protecting the head of the infant she was holding to her chest, she walked over and crouched down beside her exhausted omega. "Nope, still breathing," she said cheerfully. "My poor little love." She stood up and yawned. "That's going to be me too if I don't keep moving. I think I'll go for a walk. You want to come?"
"Is it warm enough outside for them?" Pal asked.
"Should be alright. Can you hold Kauri for a sec?"
Pal fumbled for a bookmark with the hand not holding her other pup and Gideon grabbed it for him, waited for him to put the book aside, and handed him the second infant. There was a whole lot of handing back and forth involved with having two pups at once. Cuddling both of them at the same time was excellent, the best really, but it did mean your hands were completely tied up so there was always a need to have someone to pass them off to. Harrow certainly resented the fact that she couldn’t care for her pups alone because she couldn’t pick them both up from a surface at once, and once holding them couldn’t put them down. Putting pups onto her mate and then taking them off was a duty that Gideon was well equipped to perform, and she did it at least hourly. It was nice at least to be useful. Gideon pulled her shirt over her head, took her pup back, and tossed the shirt at Pal.
"Excuse me," Palamedes said indignantly. Haeata made a tiny sound of protest in his arms but then settled.
"Kauri gets my body heat and you can wrap Hey-hey in the shirt," Gideon said, snuggling Kauri against her chest. She was a little bit too big for Gideon to stick down the front of her sports bra now, which she’d had a few weeks of doing, mainly to make Harrow smile in suppressed amusement. It was very good to be in her omega’s good books again. The pups had reached an appropriate weight for newborns but were on the small side, still so very tiny in Gideon’s eyes, and they didn't have any hair yet. Pyrrha called them marsupial pups, but in the absence of pouches, someone just held them basically every minute outside of the five cumulative hours when everyone was asleep at once.
Pal made a face of disgust, but of course, he knew Haeata would be content for longer surrounded by her sire's scent.
They walked around the garden and the edges of the clearing in companionable silence. Gideon's brain felt as pleasantly blank as the clear sunny sky. For the moment, love was her only occupation.
They heard but didn't see when the pack van pulled away from the house because they were at the far side of the clearing walking the line between the grass and the shade of the trees. This close to the packhouse every root, stone, and tree trunk held a memory, most of them good ones. In those brief and very happy years between when Aro had begun to phase and when she’d started school they had explored this territory together, every plant, insect, or cool rock brought to her attention, everything made new because it was new to her daughter. In Gideon’s memories of her own childhood that had mostly been a time of learning the rules, for Aro it was the time for learning the world, which included rules but so many other things besides. With two learning at once it would be even greater chaos and even greater fun. And Aro could help to corral her sisters and teach them the secrets of their pack's territory. She would want to show them everything. She was already such a wonderful sister. She tried so hard at being careful with them and was always eager to fetch things for Harrow and entertain her with random stories or reading out loud during the ‘million hours per day’ she spent nursing.
They returned to the house through the back door and snuck upstairs to attempt a double diaper change without alerting Harrow's spider senses. It only sort of worked. By the time they came back downstairs Harrow was sitting up and looking around blearily. She made a weak 'gimme' gesture with her arms outstretched and Gideon and Pal obediently handed the sleepy omega her pups. She tucked her legs up beneath her and held them both against her chest. Gideon sat down beside her, and Harrow rested her head against her side, emitting a quiet subvocal purr, an exclusively 'cuddling pups' sound that Gideon would never let Harrow know she was making since she would probably find it embarrassing and it was ridiculously cute.
They had enjoyed about five minutes of companionable silence, Palamedes wandering off somewhere to be spared from their domestic bliss, when Gideon heard the front door open. Thirty seconds later Aronui was prodded into the room by Cam, both of them looking distinctly disgruntled (on Cam it was very subtle, but Gideon had known her a long time).
"Aronui, why aren't you at school?" Harrow asked, startled.
"She is suspended. Effective for the rest of the week. She punched another student and broke his nose," Cam stated bluntly.
"Aronui Nav!" Harrow exclaimed. The pups she was holding both made sounds of pitiful displeasure.
Gideon stared at her daughter in shock. "Please don't tell me it was that same kid. Or, no, please tell me it was."
“I didn't break his nose on purpose. But he deserved it anyway," Aro said stubbornly, looking at the floor.
"Ok. Well… Come sit down. Tell us what happened," Gideon said.
Harrow and Cam both raised a brow at her.
Aro sat at the end of the couch, her legs tucked up, fiddling anxiously with the tip of her braid. Her toes had an irregular pattern of dirt from her sandals.
"He was scaring Val," Aro said to her knees. "She never comes outside for recess but today she did. It’s my fault, I said she should just read outside, but then I didn't stay with her to protect her. So now she'll never want to go outside again and shrivel up into a raisin and die, like you said," she added miserably.
"Your mom was being hyperbolic," Gideon said.
"Speak for yourself," Harrow muttered. She addressed Aro evenly, a model of calm and parenting techniques acquired from books. “What happened that you didn’t feel like you could resolve with your words or tell a teacher?”
Gideon tried not to ever forget what a miracle it was, the kind of expectations they could afford to set for their own pups. The two of them had fought each other bloody nearly every Sunday at Aro’s age. There had never been any discussion or questions about their wrongdoing, just the lash of the cane on Gideon’s butt and thighs. They very likely would need to discipline Aro, but it wouldn’t be that sort of discipline, not ever. They could hear her out so that they could talk to her about what she had done wrong. They could give her what Gideon had always wanted to have just once as a pup: the benefit of the doubt.
“He took her crutches,” Aro said forcefully to her knees. “I did try telling him to give them back, when I saw. I don’t even know how long he had them before that! He was trying to make her come down the stairs on her butt! He didn’t listen!”
“So you punched him to take them back?” Gideon asked. It seemed like something she would have done.
Aro shook her head. “I grabbed one. I could have gotten the other,” she said, with a little bit of pride. “I got it after. But he said…” Her knuckles paled with the pressure of holding onto her shins as her body curled inwards in discomfort. Gideon patted her knee reassuringly. She added, quiet and forced, “He said…He was teaching her to beg. He said it was important and she needed to learn and I should be grateful since I’d be the only one who would-“ She broke off and grabbed at her own lip spasmodically. “I won’t let him make her be scared of me! I’m not even – I don’t – I won’t ever be like that. I won’t!”
“Of course you won’t,” Gideon said, squeezing her knee. “I know you won’t.” Gideon knew something of this feeling, having someone assume you were capable of the worst, like a nasty seed that would germinate into a strangling vine or one of those man-eating plants. Of course, Gideon had been a shitty pre-teen and some days she’d taken a twisted pleasure in the way some of the nuns looked at her like she might bite. From the day she learned what she would grow up to be, every time they hit her, she imagined they were both counting down the days until the confusion of her body transformed into something they were too fucking scared to touch. If she was nasty, aggressive, and rude at eleven, what kind of nightmare would she be as an adult alpha? Of course, Aro wasn’t any of those things, but she was nearly a head taller than most of her classmates and sturdily built and she had always been the kind of casually transparent about her subgender that came off as proud if you didn’t know her well, and people made assumptions.
Harrow looked thoughtful, and as it often was, her thoughtful had a sliver of cunning. “Will you tell us the words he used Aronui?”
Aro chewed her lip. Then she got on her knees and leaned her whole body over Gideon, casually hanging onto her shoulder for support, and whispered something into Harrow’s ear. Whatever she was repeating was so embarrassing that her ears were bright red.
“This is completely unacceptable,” Harrow snapped. Her harsh tone disturbed the infants in her arms, and she bounced and shushed them briefly.
Gideon took the opportunity to wrap her arms around her daughter’s middle, making her squeak. “Share with the class please?”
Aro righted herself with her arms around Gideon’s shoulders and whispered in her ear too.
“Yeah, um, I’m really glad you know better than to repeat any of that out loud,” Gideon said flatly when Aro was done. Her only frame of reference for those sorts of slurs was a few adult rated graphic novels where an abusive and usually drunk alpha shouted them at their mate, a naïve and beautiful omega who would later be stolen away in a challenge by someone better or rescued by a superhero, depending on genre. Definitely not the sort of content an eleven-year-old should have access to, even if they weren’t a nasty little jerk who would imitate it for shock value. There were some things that Pack Rho had exposed to Aro, for so long the only pup in the household, that most would consider age-inappropriate: Pyrrha’s ribald humor, one of them bringing up a random anecdote from childhood only to realize that everyone else viewed it as shocking and traumatic, Pash’s colorful language when she talked to her online friends, her parents making passionate love in the tool shed. But Gideon was glad that they’d managed to shelter their daughter from an awareness of that kind of cruelty until now, and that it shocked her. “Well shit. What the hell is wrong with that pup?” Gideon said. This time nobody told her to watch her language. Then she stuck out her hand for Aro to high-five, “Nice work!” Aro tentatively smacked her palm, looking confused. “He was asking for alpha behavior, and he got it! Good job!”
“She is not an alpha, she is a pup,” Harrow said forcefully. “It is not her responsibility to protect her classmates from one another.”
“Maybe not, but taking it anyway is a good thing. She shouldn’t be in trouble for that,” Gideon argued.
“I agree that she should not be punished, and I am glad that our daughter is a loyal friend.” Harrow turned to Aro and said firmly, “You are not in trouble with us.” Considering the matter closed, she turned back to Gideon, “But more than the inappropriate consequences being doled out by the school, I am concerned about the fact that our daughter feels personally responsible for another pup’s wellbeing because the adults in this situation have failed to intervene in a situation that by all rights has nothing to do with her!” Harrow said heatedly.
“I mean, it sucks, I agree, but we both know it’s just like that sometimes,” Gideon reasonably.
“It does not have to be. We cannot let it be. We must address it, or the situation will only repeat itself and Aronui will be the one to suffer!” Harrow insisted.
“I mean, we might hope that the knuckle sandwich might have knocked some sense into that little asshole. I can talk to their teacher again though. I do know Aro can’t be expected to be around to protect her friend all the time,” Gideon offered.
“We are going to talk to the principal. Right now,” Harrow declared. She shuffled forward until her feet were on the ground. “Take them. We’re going, Griddle. Now.”
Gideon looked at Cam, hoping for some input. She had been standing in the room in silence with her arms crossed over her chest, just observing. Cam nodded; she was never one to interfere when it came to their parenting decisions. “If you’re going out you might want to change your shirt, Harrow. That one has spit up on it,” was her only contribution.
Harrow wrinkled her nose. “Yes, fine. Shirt, bra…diaper bag.” She twitched her eyebrows in a motion that meant ‘Go fetch, Griddle.’
Gideon got up and put a hand on her bewildered daughter’s shoulder. “Looks like your mom’s on the warpath. Did you hurt your hand at all?” Aro shrugged and proffered her right hand looking embarrassed, but pleased. Gideon looked her fingers over and gave them a kiss. “Good thing Pyrrha taught you to throw a punch properly.”
“Can Val come over today? What if I made it worse and he does something even worse at home?” Aro asked tentatively.
“I think that’d be a great idea. We’ll see what we can do. Can you help your mom out? I’ll be right back.”
Aro nodded. Gideon squeezed her shoulder again before she headed up the stairs.
Gideon returned three minutes later with Harrow’s clothes, including socks in case she wanted them, the diaper bag, Harrow’s refilled water bottle, and a sleeve of her biscuits tucked into the side pockets. Pal, who had come back in, was being filled in on events by Aro, and the two of them were holding the twins. “Cam’s moving the car seats to the trucks and says not to let Mom bite anyone,” Aro said.
“Nope, I’m not interfering with your dame’s agenda. Thanks though.”
“I am not planning on biting anyone. We are going to talk to the principal like civilized adults,” Harrow said dourly, pulling her shirt over her head.
Gideon handed Harrow her clothes and then helped her with her bra clasps because her entire bra-wearing history consisted of about two dozen days, mostly a decade ago. “Those are some fine titties,” Gideon whispered in her ear. The nursing bra pushed up her mate’s milk-heavy breasts very enticingly.
“Focus Griddle,” Harrow said, rolling her eyes.
After Harrow was dressed and had pulled herself up on Gideon’s proffered hand Gideon took Hey-Hey from Pal with a nod of thanks. “Good luck,” he said. “I will diverge from my mate and say go ahead and bite anyone who deserves it.”
“Thank you. We will not be biting anyone. Let us depart,” Harrow said.
Gideon walked protectively close to her mate down the porch step and on the gravel drive. She wasn’t as steady as Gideon would have liked and she was always a little worried she would fall on uneven ground. Harrow defiantly hauled herself up into the truck before Gideon could intervene and placed herself between the two car seats in the back. Now that Aro was taller and heavier than her dame, they didn’t have any grounds to tell her she couldn’t sit in the front seat of the trunk. Frankly, this just made Gideon worried that they shouldn’t have been letting Harrow sit in the front – the airbag would probably shatter all of her tiny bird bones into a million pieces if they got into an accident– but she had not made this argument because she didn’t want to be murdered in her sleep.
On the way to the school, Harrow further cross-examined Aro on the details of the incident and her entire history with Kade while Gideon drove. The school parking lot was empty save for a small man Gideon didn’t recognize sitting in the driver’s seat of a minivan with the door open writing in a notebook and sipping something from a large cup, and the school grounds were quiet with all the children in class. Gideon took both pups, as she figured that was mostly what she was here for, and they went inside. Aro looked nervously at the doors of the classrooms they passed as if concerned someone would come out and see her illicitly back on campus.
They had to wait a little while with a secretary for the principal to meet with them, during which time Harrow became increasingly agitated and Aro became increasingly anxious, drumming her heels against the floor on the couch beside Gideon. Gideon had no idea what Harrow intended to say but expected it to be incredibly scathing, and she really hoped she was not expected to contribute too much. She sat on the comically small colorful couch outside the principal’s office and jiggled her tiny pups to keep them snoozing. It was a stereotype that alphas tended to become more interested in their pups later on when they got more interactive, but Gideon hadn’t ever felt that way. Smaller pups had simpler needs and simpler problems and sometimes that was all her brain felt equipped to handle.
When the principal’s door finally opened Harrow stood up quickly. Or tried to; the force she put on the back of the plastic chair getting to her feet toppled it backwards the second her butt was out of the seat. She over-balanced and had to catch herself on the secretary’s desk. Gideon’s hands were full and she couldn’t do shit but lurch forward pointlessly, but Aro and the secretary had both moved towards her to help. Harrow waved them off as the secretary picked up the chair. Her face was flaming red, and her expression was the kind of carefully controlled that concealed a thunderstorm. Gideon knew that whatever she was about to say had gone from scathing to incandescent. Good luck motherfucker, Gideon thought.
“Are you alright?” everyone asked at once.
“Perfectly,” Harrow said icily.
The principal turned to Gideon, “Good afternoon. I take it you are here about today’s incident. Please come in. Ms. Nav, Ms…”
“Nonagesimus,” Gideon filled in. Point two against this bland-ass man’s survival today.
They sat in the principal’s office on chairs that were once again stupidly small. Did no adults ever come in here? Or at least adults who weren’t Harrow-sized.
“I take it your pack leader explained what happened today.” Gideon nodded; Harrow sat rigid and still. “I understand you must be shocked and upset. Aronui has never had any serious disciplinary incidents until recently. I understand that changes at home can result in acting out,” he indicated with his head to the twin pups, “but our school has a strict policy against violence and zero tolerance for bullying.”
Gideon restrained herself from saying ‘Like hell it does!’ very maturely. Harrow…did not.
Harrow didn’t yell, but she used that tone of voice that really made you wish she would just start yelling, or better yet just put you out of your misery. The principal attempted to respond and then gave up, looking utterly unsure of what to do. Harrow often had that effect on people. She left them wondering if they were missing some information when such a tiny omega acted like she could and would kill them at a moment’s notice, especially right now when she had about as much muscular strength as a half-drowned kitten and two newborn pups in tow. Aro looked up at her questioningly and Gideon shrugged. It wasn’t really about her at this point. Harrow just needed to let off some steam and she had found a reasonable target. The principal looked at Gideon in mute entreaty to make it stop and Gideon smiled blandly at him.
Hey-Hey started to whimper a bit and Gideon swayed subtly in her seat to try to keep her quiet, wondering if she should just leave. Eventually whimpering escalated to quiet crying and Gideon’s amusement increased when Harrow looked over thoughtfully for about two seconds and then gestured for Gideon to fetch and returned to her angry diatribe before the principal could recall himself to cut in. Gideon handed Hey-Hey over and went to grab the pillows from the little couch in the waiting room. Gideon then handed over the pillow and Kauri, who was still chilling, but she knew Harrow would rather be imploded than have them get out of sync, and sat back down chuckling to herself internally as Harrow continued her unbroken monologue, now with extra titties. There had been a time that Harrow had been shy. So shy at seventeen that she wore a shirt through her whole first heat with Pack Rho. Still shy enough at twenty that she was comfortable with her pack mates, but still got all red-faced and wanted to hide behind Gideon on the rare occasions she had needed to nurse in public. Twenty-one-year-old Gideon had found this endearing and been very protective. Thirty-one-year-old Harrow had no fucks left to give and thirty-two-year-old Gideon adored this woman, who was practical and dedicated to her family and took no crap, more than ever.
Half an hour later Vallerie had been summoned from class, Kade had returned from the clinic with an older beta male Gideon vaguely recognized from the dollar store, and their four parents and guardians arrived from their pack house. Paul and Nona had come from Pack Rho’s pack house and had the twins with them out in the parking lot to avoid exposing them to any more pathogens than bringing them into the school had already done.
The party opposing consisted of the Bales brothers, very similar looking, not especially tall but extremely beefy alphas with very short light hair and faces that perpetually looked a bit like a heirloom tomato; two omegas Gideon did not recognize; Vallerie; Kade, whose nose was swollen but had been re-set; and a pup of about eight months being held by the female omega who must be Kade's dame. There had also been a three-year-old who had come in with them but had been taken away by the beta upon his arrival. Kade’s dame was small, barely taller than Harrow, and plump with light skin and light brown hair in braids coiled around the back of her head. The other omega was a skinny man with very fine features; he gave the impression of someone who had once been rather pretty, or indeed might still be, except for a lack of will to be anything at all. Neither of them would look directly at Gideon, which was all the evidence she needed for exactly what kind of pack Pack Ashtfall was. The two alphas looked twice as stupid as Gideon felt in the weirdly small chairs, more of which had been brought in from somewhere. Both of them looked like they thought their time was being wasted horribly. Gideon quite agreed, they would all be better served if she just punched them in their stupid smooshed tomato faces and took Vallerie home with her. She tried to smile at the tiny girl sandwiched between her indifferent guardians, but she was keeping her eyes down too, only flicking them up to look at Aro every once in a while.
It went something like this: The principal explained to all parties why they were there and laid out the accusations Harrow had made, though he was smart enough not to specify who had made them. He said that he had agreed to arrange this meeting on the basis that it appeared bullying was happening on school grounds that originated from a dynamic that had started at home and which parents and guardians might not be aware of, and that Kade had been accused of using language that violated the school's code of conduct, but of course that Aro had injured him as well.
It would have been hilarious if it weren't so fucking depressing how inadequate the adults of Pack Ashtfall were to address the situation. The alphas were at odds with each other from the start whether to defend or deny, without wanting to be. They had no knowledge of the dynamic between Kade and Vallerie but were the only ones talking, and looked a gratifying mix of enraged and disgusted at being talked down to by rage and disdain incarnate in the form of a tiny omega. The male omega stared off into space except when his mate suggested at one point that Kade might have learned his foul language from the television, at which point he went white as a sheet. The female omega stared at the top of her youngest pup's curly blond head with her lip quivering. Gideon had started off angry with her for not intervening, as the primary caregiver in the pack, but now she just pitied her. She was likely to be the one blamed when they all got home, just as Gideon had been inclined to blame her, and Gideon now suspected she had probably just lost the plot with regard to her pack's older pups since she apparently had six of her own and the pack currently had two foster pups. Nobody could keep on top of that many pups without substantial help. Aro alone could run their whole pack ragged.
In the end, Aro's suspension was slightly shortened and Kade got some detention, which Harrow thought was inadequate, but Gideon didn't much care. A few days of missed school never hurt anyone. What Gideon cared about was that after a few whispered words exchanged with Aro as they left the building, Aro ran over to her friend, with Gideon behind, and asked her over for a sleepover.
Vallerie nodded violently, her eyes flashing between the adults of her foster pack.
"What are you fucking playing at?" the pack leader spat.
"Hey, language, we've got pups around," Gideon said, suppressing a smirk. "We'd like to have her over for the weekend, is all."
"Well, I wouldn't," the other alpha said.
"Look at it this way," Gideon, leaning close and speaking quietly. "Either I can say that my daughter wants to have a sleepover with her friend, or I can say that I think something bad might happen to an innocent pup if I let her go home with you tonight. Take your pick. But she's coming with me."
"Are you challenging me, you fucking cunt-whipped cat-pole?!" the other alpha hissed.
"Would you like me to be? Are you ready to risk everything for a pup you don't even give the time of day to?" Gideon growled, "Say the word and I will gladly take it all." Gideon hadn’t ever been in that sort of fight, but she was suddenly very much in the mood. She would thoroughly enjoy turning him into a smear on the tarmac surface and then taking Vallerie home where nobody could bother her ever again.
"You are the one blowing things out of proportion!" he snapped.
"Well then." Gideon smiled, an even, threatening smile that showed all her teeth, "I think we have no problem here. It's just a sleepover, right? Come on girls."
Gideon lifted Vallerie up into the high bed of the truck and Aro passed up her crutches as Harrow strapped the twins into their car seats.
"Do you need anything before we leave town?" Harrow asked as they got underway. "We have a spare toothbrush and things and you can borrow some of Aro's old clothes.
Vallerie must have shaken her head no because Harrow said, "Alright. We can always come back if we need to."
After a few minutes passed in silence, Harrow said, "If you're going to challenge one of them you'd be better to go for the second. I don't want the rest of that pack."
Gideon snorted, "You don't want them?"
"No. They're all awful. Besides, his bones are weaker so you can take him more easily."
"I'm offended that you think I need the advantage and disturbed by your knowledge. Have your bone powers gotten so advanced you can now perceive them inside people's bodies?" Gideon said.
"No. It's common sense. Kade is the oldest of six, ergo his sire has had a maximum of four dozen and a minimum of a dozen ruts in the last decade depending on if they have multiples, ergo his bone density has suffered."
"Someone's idea of common sense" Gideon muttered.
"Why do you think alphas have such phenomenally thick skulls?"
"I didn't think you meant that literally."
"It's both in your case," Harrow huffed.
"Are you really going to challenge Kade's sire?" Vallerie asked quietly. It was the first words she had spoken to Gideon directly.
"For you, little lady, I would, but only if I have to. Would you like to stay with us for a while?"
"She is nodding yes," Aro supplied.
"Good. We are very happy to have you," Gideon said.
--
After the two older pups were in bed, Vallerie in a pair of Aro's old pajamas that had been stored away in hope, and the younger pups were temporarily in their cribs, the adults of Pack Rho had a meeting.
"I don't want her to go back to that pack house," Gideon said when they were all seated around the kitchen table.
"We can't just keep her. What you did was already borderline kidnapping Gids," Pyrrha said.
"Might we dig up something on their pack to get their foster license revoked?" Palamedes suggested.
"I'm sure there is plenty of grounds for it, but we can't exactly go to their pack house and spy on them," Harrow said.
"And then she could just end up somewhere worse," Gideon pointed out.
"You want to keep her yourself?" Cam said sardonically, "I would have thought you'd be full up on pups right now."
"It's not that I want more pups," Gideon said. "It's just...I guess I thought when the government closed down the orphanages things would be better. And maybe they are in a way, like at least they don't seem to be beating her with a stick daily or anything, but she's shut up inside getting tormented everywhere she goes, I’m pretty sure she’s scared shitless of at least one of the adults in her pack and I'd say there is zero chance they are planning to address either of those things. I don't want to know that and not do anything about it. She's safe here tonight. How can I send her back to that?"
"We can't," Harrow said, lacing her fingers through Gideon's under the table.
"Even if you challenged their leader, which I hope you won't because that would make a headache for me, you would only win rights to actual members of his pack; it doesn't entitle you to their foster license," Cam said.
"Plus, based on what you said, he sounds like the type to take it as a challenge for his mate too," Pyrrha said.
"That's illegal," Gideon said with surprise.
"Only without the omega's consent. It's virtually the only way to break a mate bond without the omega losing face," Pyrrha told her.
"I'm pretty sure he would sell his mate for one corn chip, traditional values or no," Gideon said.
"Which is too high of an asking price," Harrow muttered.
"Harrowhark Nonagesimus," Gideon said with feigned shock, poking her in the thigh. "Don't be cruel."
"Well, he's pathetic," Harrow said.
"The man is obviously depressed, you jackass. You’re not being any better than that fucking pup for saying nobody will want Vallerie if you're going to say that someone is unlovable for having mental problems," Gideon said with a sigh.
"As the only person here who has dealt with both I'm entitled to my opinion of which is the worse," Harrow said waspishly.
"And as the people who have to deal with you, we disagree," Pyrrha said. Everyone nodded or made a noise of ascent.
"You think it's the opposite?" Harrow said, looking deeply offended.
"No, you ass," Pash said.
"She means that we all love you no matter what kinds of problems you have," Paul said.
"And we would not sell you for any amount of corn chips," Palamedes added.
"Even though you also have a terrible personality," Pash said.
"Because of that," Gideon added cheerfully.
"We love you very much," Nona concluded.
"So don't be a dick," Pyrrha said.
"But nonetheless, we should not acquire a whole new pack or anyone's mate over the unfortunate pup upstairs," Cam reminded them.
"Then what do we do?" Gideon asked.
"Someone could apply to foster her in our pack. It wouldn't be immediate, but it would be a possible solution in the long term if they seem willing to relinquish her," Palamedes offered. Gideon turned to her mate, but he added, "I doubt you could make a successful application with two pups who are still coming up on newborn, Gideon."
"I'll do it," Pash said.
Everyone turned to her. "What?!" Everyone said at once. Everyone except Nona anyway, who just looked at her with curiosity.
"What?" Pash said.
"You don't want a pup," Paul said.
"She's, like, ten. It's not the same thing at all."
"You want an older pup?" Pyrrha asked, curiously.
"Why not? They're just small people. It's the squirmy grub stage I’m not into,” Pash replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Excuse me, our pups are not grubs. They're beautiful and perfect," Gideon objected.
"At being weird larva things, sure. They’re, like, nothing but a digestive system attached to a thing that makes the shittiest noise ever. I love ‘em 'cause they're family, but objectively they look like naked mole rats. You only think they're cute because they share your terrible DNA,” Pash accused.
"So do you assmunch, and you're still ugly as sin," Gideon retorted.
"I think naked mole rats are cute," Nona volunteered.
"Nona, I love you but there is something horribly wrong with you," Pash said kindly.
"Guys," Cam said with exasperation.
"Right. Sorry. Well. I'll do it," Pash said, turning back to the group. "How do I do it?"
"You're serious Pash?" Pyrrha asked.
"Yeah. It's just like Nona, isn't it? I don't want to leave an innocent kid with a pack that doesn't give a shit about her,” Pash said. Nona beamed affectionately at her.
"But she's not your friend. She's a pup you barely know," Cam said.
"I know her well enough to be sure she'd be the least annoying member of our pack to date."
Everyone looked at Pash again.
"What do you want me to do?" she said irritably. "Say 'ooooo, I was wrong, I changed my mind and I desperately want pups and feel totally unfulfilled as an omega without them?' 'Cause that's not what this fucking is."
"No," Gideon said, "We just genuinely thought you didn't like pups at all."
"What are you talking about? I just told you, I love all your hellspawn," Pash insisted.
"As evidenced by the fact that you just called them demons," Gideon said sarcastically.
"Nah. That's just in reference to how Harrow's cunt is probably the gate to hell,” Pash said, jerking her eyebrows at Harrow.
"You want to shut the fuck up?" Gideon snarled.
"They don't call it the ring of fire for no reason," Harrow quipped, leaning her face into her palm.
Gideon turned and stared at her mate incredulously.
"And I haven't exactly checked there are no demons either. It’s been a looooong time," she added, shrugging.
"Oh my God, are you becoming delirious?" Gideon asked.
"Yes," Harrow said, smiling slightly. "Definitely. Have been for over a week."
"Ok, well, looks like I am going to put my mate to bed and then we can continue this discussion," Gideon said.
She got up and scooped Harrow out of her chair into her arms.
"Better check for bats," Pash called out.
Harrow stared up at her all wide-eyed and floppy, a far cry from the righteously angry woman of earlier today, "There are definitely bats," she whispered loudly as Gideon carried her up the stairs. "They can’t wait to nibble on your dick. Nom nom nom," and she giggled.
"As hilarious as this is it is also profoundly distressing to witness. What can we do so that you get more sleep?"
“Rest is not the sum of its parts,” Harrow mused, wrapping her arms around Gideon’s neck. After taking a few moments to parse this statement Gideon decided she heartily agreed. Harrow couldn’t be that short of sleep in terms of total hours. They all made sure she didn’t have to do anything except feed the twins and do her physical therapy exercises. The problem was that she wasn’t getting it in increments of more than about ninety-five minutes. And that was, according to Harrow’s meticulous timing, more like the intervals she was able to sleep than the periods that she actually managed to be unconscious. She’d never been terribly consistent at sleeping to begin with. Besides, Harrow wanted to be awake during the day. She had been too isolated for so long, it only made sense that she wanted to be down in the common areas surrounded by their pack. “But I will abide,” Harrow added.
"I guess this will pass, huh?" Gideon sighed and kissed her mate on the forehead. She plopped Harrow on the bathroom counter and they brushed their teeth together.
By the time Gideon tucked her omega into bed Harrow looked at her watch and whispered, "I've got 28 minutes."
"Well, sleep hard for 28 minutes.” She kissed Harrow on the forehead again. “I'll be up to join you soon. I love you."
Harrow nodded and closed her eyes, and this time she was asleep in under a minute. Gideon got up with excessive reluctance and made her way back to the rest of her pack. She flopped into her chair in the middle of a more temperate discussion.
"You two are a walking ad for contraception," Pyrrha said.
"Rude. Have we come to any conclusions?"
"Pash is insisting," Palemedes said. "So I think we're all going to sleep on it and then see what can be done in the morning."
"Go to bed Gideon," Cam said, "You're just as bad as your mate."
"Am not," Gideon said.
"Oh yeah, is there a logical reason you're not wearing pants then?" Pyrrha asked.
Gideon looked down at herself and was perplexed to find that she was not in fact wearing pants. She must have started to undress with Harrow, autopiloting through her bedtime routine and then stopping midway. At least she was still wearing underwear. "Can someone please stop me from coming downstairs naked tomorrow?" she groaned.
"Of course. We wouldn't want to traumatize our guest," Palamedes said.
Gideon went back upstairs and washed, but she didn't go to bed right away. She waited outside the door to their room, not wanting to disrupt Harrow's precious few minutes of sleep, until she heard a pup cry, and then she slipped inside to help.