Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gideon’s not a vengeful guy. She’s kind to children and the elderly, and she recycles, and – she loves the environment, actually. She’s never littered, not even once! She doesn’t even use aerosol based hairspry, because that’s bad for the ozone, right? She’s a fucking saint.

But she does want to kill this one bird.

She’s allowed to kill one bird, right? Just one, as a treat? Surely, no one could judge her for that. She’d do all kinds of penance about it. Volunteer at a sanctuary for ailing avians. Tenderly nurse orphaned chicks back to health. Sit on some fucking eggs, if that what it takes for her to be allowed to wring this one bird’s neck.

It’s a heron, or something. A goose. An egret. Does Gideon fucking look like a bird expert? Fuck no. The only bird-related proficiency she has is like, avoiding stepping in the thing’s shit, and running really fast when it gets That Look in its beady black eyes, and even that she’s only middlingly good at.

She swears, it knows her schedule. Always lurking outside the mall, the second she gets off work. She’ll scout it out from the upstairs, confirm that there’s no bird around, but then, like clockwork, it’s there to chase her back out to her car, where she definitely does not huddle in terror with her doors locked and her windows up, because she is an Adult and she is Strong and it is A Fucking Bird. A chicken with pretensions. An overblown duck.

She looked it up online, typing out “can a big mean waterbird kill me reddit help” and apparently a swan can break a grown man’s arm with a blow from its wing. Apparently, geese have like, twenty sets of teeth, like a fucking garbage compactor. Apparently, if velociraptors were alive today – she stopped searching at that point, for her mental health, which also meant she didn’t find out what kind of bird that was, but that was okay. Maybe she’d just. Never go outside again.

She did call off work for a few days, but that was – that was silly, right? It’s just a bird. A mean, powerful bird, but Gideon is a fucking human being. Homo sapiens, bitch. Apex predator. This is the age of the Anthropocene, and she is not going to be bullied by a creature that eats mainly kelp and insects and small fish (she learned something while googling).

Humans are smart, dammit. Humans are strong, and Gideon is strong, and Gideon has, what’s it called, disposable thumbs, so it is very reasonable when she orders a net on the internet and rigs it up over a pile of bread. Camilla thinks that she’s “losing the thread” but Camilla is a pill, and Camilla isn’t dealing with bird attacks. Palamedes says “Ardea herodias? Have you not suffered enough?” which is validating, but not particularly helpful either. So Gideon goes it alone, as she always has. Why should this time be any different?

The bread disappears. The net is in tatters the next morning.

She tries various things. So what if it’s becoming an obsession? It was obsessed with her first, and its beak is wicked sharp. Aiglamene says she could get sued if she put out a big steel bear trap anywhere but her own property, which is extremely unfair, but she tries everything up to that. Lots of nets, mostly. Weighted nets, and tarred nets, and motion sensors, and-

It is in desperation that she stakes out the mall late at night. She has night vision binoculars that make her look like an absolute creep. She has snacks. She has Red Bull, and she has no fear of God, and she has a reasonable amount of fear of Bird. What could go wrong?

It’s maybe 1am when she hears the cursing. She jolts awake – how the hell did she fall asleep? Stupid – and reaches for her flashlight in a welter of panic. Aiglamene warned her it was worth her job if someone fell into one of her stupid traps, and now – fuck -

There’s a person in the net, a person with smooth brown skin and a lot of it. A naked person. A naked girl.

“Shit,” says Gideon.

“Shit,” agrees her victim venomously. “Damn it. God damn it. Don’t – don’t look at me, you wench.”

“Sorry,” says Gideon automatically, lowering her flashlight. Except then it catches on the shine of feathers, a lot of feathers, a big mass of them scattered in the damp grass around the woman’s knees. “Hang on, did you manage to kill it?”

“I have managed nothing,” says the woman, with great irritation. “I had one task, and I have failed, and I am a nonsense.”

“Uh-huh,” says Gideon, who is starting to think this naked woman in the middle of the night might not have all her marbles. She snags a feather with her toe and pulls it towards her, and they all come with it, a great slithering mass. The woman cries out in dismay and clutches at it, but she’s too slow, and Gideon is holding – a big feathered cape? Like, some kind of cosplay shit?

“The fuck?” she says.

The woman lets out perhaps the first wail Gideon has ever heard in real life. “Yes, you have my cloak,” she hisses. “Congratulations. You win, damn you. I am bested.”

Gideon looks at the cloak. She looks at the woman.

“Explain it like I’m five,” she says slowly.

“Is that an order?” says the woman, and Gideon says tentatively, “Yes?”

Her voice goes syrupy soft with condescenscion. “You have my cloak,” she says again, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I can’t transform back without it, and so I am at your mercy.”

The feathers look familiar. So does the whole... situation. Gideon’s brain pings on an old story, about a maiden, who was also a swan, and a cloak -

“You’re the fucking bird?” she chokes out, and the woman looks at her with black, hateful eyes, and.

Yeah. That’s her. Yeah.

“I’m also your wife now,” says the fucking bird-lady, with the most long-suffering tone. “At least until I get my cloak back, and make you rue the day of your birth.”

Gideon looks at her new evil bird wife. She looks at the cloak. She looks back at her evil bird wife. Who has been tormenting her for months. Who’s actually, now that she’s in the same basic species as Gideon, absolutely bangin’. And looking at her like she’s going to skewer her eyeballs and eat them for breakfast, beak or no beak.

“Camilla is never going to let me live this down,” she says dazedly. And then she throws the cloak over her shoulder at the bird-wife and high-tails it back to her car.

When she’s safely ensconced, doors locked (it wasn’t paranoia! The monster really could open locks!) she dares to look back out into the night. The net is empty. There’s no sign of bird or woman, until – oh fuck, jumpscare, she’s standing right outside Gideon’s window. She’s got the cloak wrapped loosely around her shoulders, and her tits are fully out, and she’s right there.

Gideon opens her window the tiniest crack. “Hey,” she says, because she is a Grade A idiot.

Her… ex-wife looks at her with the greatest of disdain. But she doesn’t jam her fingers or her beak through the gap in the window and start feasting on Gideon’s flesh, so that’s an improvement.

“I think there’s a Denny’s around here that’s open 24/7,” Gideon says for some reason. “Do you eat human food?”

“No,” says her ex-wife.

“Right,” says Gideon, feeling like an idiot. “Well. See you around.”

The bird-woman’s eyes flash with what maybe, if Gideon’s not misreading it, could be a challenge. “Your next shift is three this afternoon, isn’t it?”

She knew it knew her schedule. She’s never letting Camilla call her paranoid ever again.

“Yeah,” she says, throat dry. “Yeah.”

Her nemesis nods decisively. “Right. Until then.”

“It’s a date,” says Gideon’s big dumb stupid mouth, and then she drives away before she can do any more damage.

In the rearview mirror, she sees the heron dipping its beak down to finish shredding the last of her trap. Gideon bangs her head against the headrest and turns up the radio and tries to drown out the chorus of what the fuck in her head.

She’s gonna show up early for her shift this afternoon, though. Cleanly showered. Just in case.

Chapter Text

“So what I’m hearing,” said Gideon slowly, when Harrow was done talking, “is that you want me to bone you.”

Harrow had been primed for rejection, not a dirty joke, which was in retrospect horribly optimistic of her. She attempted to recalibrate. “That is a grossly nonspecific way of putting it, and I do not appreciate the implication.”

“Okay, fair, let me try again,” said her least favorite person in the world, but she was grinning, which did not bode well at all. “You want… my bone juice. You wanna get all up in my bone.”

Harrow prayed for patience. “I have a medical condition, you hog.”

“A medical condition that only my bones can satisfy,” Gideon agreed, drumming her fingers on the glossy brochure. And: “Hey, here’s a question, just off the dome – how do you even know I’m a marrow-soulmate for you? Because I sure as hell don’t remember submitting some kind of sample.”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to,” said Harrow crisply. She was regretting starting this conversation. She was regretting swabbing Gideon’s drool off her sleeping cheek and sending it into the registry for testing. She was regretting her traitorous desire to live in the first place, if this was where it was leading.

Gideon wasn’t done. “You’re asking kind of a big favor of me, Nonagesimus,” she said, lounging with unbearable glibness in her hard, plastic hospital chair. “It wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer.”

Harrow gritted her teeth. “I am well aware of the inappropriateness of the request. If my doctor hadn’t insisted, I would never-”

“Whoa,” said Gideon, half-rising from her chair. Her arms made an aborted gesture, as if to – strangle her, probably. Harrow could not fathom any other possibility. “Hey. I’m not necessarily saying no. I’m just, you know, milking it.” She brightened. “Like you’re going to milk my bone, right? Hey-o.”

“Griddle,” Harrow snapped, temple pulsing.

“She extract on my marrow til she – no, that’s nothing. I dunno, I’ll workshop it later. Hey, is this going to be, like, a regular thing?”

Harrow surveyed her incredulously. But Gideon did not appear to be joking. “It is a one-time transfusion,” she said, as she would to a child, if anyone were foolish enough to allow a child around her. “On the off-chance that Doctor Sextus thinks it’s advisable to ever repeat the procedure, we would presumably have time to find a more suitable donor.”

Gideon’s cheery facade wavered for a moment. “More suitable,” she repeated slowly. “Like...”

Like one who was only ignorant of Harrow, rather than actively antagonistic towards her. Like one who had not already endured so many crimes at her hands. Like one who she had not already attempted to drain dry in every way that mattered. To take anyone’s stem cells to preserve her own life teetered on the edge of abomination. To ask it of Gideon Nav even once – if she were not so desperately, cravenly determined to live, she would never even contemplate it.

She opened her mouth to vomit that out. What came out instead was, “Like one who is not visibly scribbling down jokes rhyming Harrow with Marrow on the back of the brochure.”

Gideon relaxed visibly. “Good luck with that. The jokes write themselves. Anyone would find themselves seized by the holy spirit, in my shoes. God, is this how Ortus feels all the time?”

Harrow tried again, marshaling her traitorous lips in line. “I am serious, Griddle,” she said, catching Gideon’s hand. Gideon went very still, and Harrow forced herself not to look away. “You don’t have to do this. Not now, and not ever. The procedure is low-risk, but it can be painful, and you – you do not owe me anything.”

Gideon’s fingers tensed beneath her grip, but she didn’t pull away. “Yeah, no shit,” she said tersely. And then - “But, like. It’ll keep you alive?”

“Allegedly,” said Harrow dryly. And, when Gideon kept on looking at her, “Ideally. Doctor Sextus thinks it is worth a shot.”

And then she waited, humbly, for the hammer to fall, and for Gideon to consign her to her well-deserved demise.

“Okay then,” said the girl who had every right to hate her.

Harrow blinked, aghast. “Okay?” Okay?

“Well,” said Gideon, with an embarrassed little shrug. “You asked.”

Chapter Text

“This,” said Harrowhark frostily, “is degrading.”

Gideon scratched her chin. “Yop.”

“It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Harrow continued, never deterred by a lack of opponent. “ADA, sexual harassment – if the purpose of a corporate teambuilding day is to improve morale, this activity is doomed to fail on all counts.”

“Oh, for sure,” said Gideon, scuffing her feet in the grass. “But, like, think about it.”

Her coworker did not even look at her, which was moderately irritating. “I assure you that I am,” she said, “and I am regretting every second of it.”

Gideon rolled her eyes. “Nah, you gotta broaden your horizons, Nonagesimus. Think about it.” She tapped her head for emphasis. “Corporate teambuilding isn’t about morale, not really. It’s about power. It’s about – fucking – breaking you down. Showing that, hey, you think you’re a self-respecting adult with your own life? Joke’s on you – you’ll bark like a dog and carry an egg on a spoon in your mouth if we tell you to, and you’ll fucking like it. We own you. The challenges are degrading, and we do them anyway, and they know exactly what they’re doing.”

It wasn’t not like kink in that way, she had the sense not to say. Harrowhark didn’t need to know exactly how much Gideon could be broken down, and who owned her, and how much she liked it, and other such irrelevant trivia. 

“Awfully complex theory,” said Harrow, which could almost be mistaken as a compliment until she added, “coming from a nepotism hire whose main function around here seems to be to change the big bottles on the water coolers.”

Well, someone had to. Hydration was important.

“Awfully naive read from an actual-ass lawyer,” said Gideon, mimicking her snide tone. And: “Are we doing this or not, partner?”

Harrow’s face was a portrait of barely restrained despair. “I have been repeatedly assured by Tridentarius that it is not optional,” she said. “And yet-”

Gideon knew that and yet intimately. “Ready to throw it all away?” she guessed. “Fantasizing about quitting and slinking home with your career in tatters but your dignity intact?”

“Today, as always,” said Harrow. And did not leave. Neither did Gideon. Jobs were fun like that.

Gideon surveyed the field, with its fluorescent cones and its GaiusCo banners. She glanced at Harrow. “Promise not to kick me in the face?”

“I think we both know that would be a lie.”

“Damn, the teambuilding is working already,” said Gideon appreciatively. She rolled her shoulders. “Look at all that - improved communication and understanding and shit.”

“Nav,” said Harrow flatly. “Please shut up, and grab my ankles. If we are going to humiliate ourselves with a wheelbarrow race, we will at at least not humiliate ourselves by doing it badly. I refuse to lose to Tridentarius and Tern.”

Gideon snorted. “Whatever you say, boss.”

(Harrow did her best, really. But she had no upper body strength, typical of someone who had never changed even one water cooler jug, and whatever she was yelling to Gideon was awfully hard to hear over the sound of everyone else shouting. When she stumbled over her hands and they ended up tangled in the grass, Harrow’s scowling face far too close to Gideon’s own – well, what was anyone expecting?)

(Camilla and Palamedes won, and were intolerably smug about it, but that was fine. They deserved it.)

(And by the end of the day, Gideon and Harrow found themselves very close again, packing up the cones and pinnies, and – that was fine too. That was very good, actually. Harrow’s teeth at her neck, and her hand at her waistband, and maybe Harrow did know a thing or two about power and degradation. Maybe she could break Gideon down just fine, even without upper body strength, and maybe Gideon did like it. Maybe corporate teambuilding events were good for something after all, in the end.)

Chapter Text

Mercymorn ground her teeth and, not for the first time, fantasized about the logistics of developing some kind of acid jail for errant colleages. “A harp,” she repeated, and did not attempt to keep the disdain from the her voice.

“Or a cello,” said John, warming to the theme. He had that eager, childlike look in his eyes that typically made Mercymorn want to smash something. Nothing good ever came of that look. “Maybe a baby grand piano. Just – something to give some ambiance, you know? Make us seem classy.”

“Perhaps a tuba,” mused Augustine, who was absolutely not making it better.

“No, that seems a little too obtrusive,” said John, missing the joke entirely. Augustine looked pointedly at Mercy as if to make sure she caught the joke, and Mercy pointedly looked away from him and down at her notepad. Giving Augustine any kind of satisfaction was simply unthinkable. He was already far too pleased with himself on a regular basis.

“Right,” she said, writing HARP!!?! on her to-do list with much more force than someone might have said was strictly necessary. “Am I, most humble of your servants, permitted to ask why?”

“Don’t make it weird, Joy,” said Augustine, and Mercymorn threw a pen at him. He dodged, more the pity, but Mercy carried a lot of pens for this exact reason, and she had no doubt he would give her another excuse to use them.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Augustine here,” said John, the traitor. “You’re the Chief of Operations, not some kind of secretary. I think it would be a hate crime if I let you make that joke, actually. A hostile work environment, at the very least.”

Mercy itched to throw a pen at him too, but some things were out of bounds. “No,” she corrected, “Asking me to procure a musical instrument – and a full time musician! – for the foyer based on one of your absurd little whims – I think you’ll find that that is what constitutes a hostile work environment! I think you’ll find, in fact, that it constitutes a war crime, or at the very least, grounds for murder in self-defense.”

“Great, so that’s sorted,” said John, for which he would one day endure at least a 20-year sentence in her to-be-constructed penitentiary. “Next thing – we really need a new system for ordering supplies. I keep going to grab more coffee, and we’ll be plumb out. I thought we agreed that the person who took the last pod writes it on the shopping list?”

“Ah, I’m afraid that one’s probably me, old chap,” said Augustine unrepentantly. He had the gall to lounge as he confessed it! Mercy would throttle him one day. “I’m absolutely hopeless at those things.”

“Skill issue,” said John, shaking his head. “Get better at it, or Mercy might actually kill you, and I’ll be too undercaffienated to stop it. Well, that’s it for today, right?”

“Not right,” said Mercy immediately, blood boiling. Like hell they were going to dodge this issue again! “We need to talk about – the child.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” drawled Augustine. “As you make a habit of calling all the interns children.”

Mercy rotated her pen like a drill, seeing how many pages of notebook she could pierce through. “Your child,” she ground out, ignoring Augustine in favor of John.

John made a face like must we, and Mercymorn forged ahead because, yes, they must. Desperate times. “She keeps – fornicating with Augustine’s horrible little mentee. I have walked in on them in the women’s bathroom three separate times. It’s becoming untenable.”

“Ianthe?” said Augustine warmly. “Good on her. Excellent eye for power, that one. Show her a power structure, and she’ll climb her way to the top of it one way or another.”

“Disgusting,” said Mercymorn. “Disgusting! You are in charge of her, and John is in charge of Kiriona, and someone has to enforce a workplace where staff can be reasonably safe from being assaulted by the obscene sight of their – inappropriate entanglement. “

John was doodling. “I haven’t seen anything untoward,” he said, sounding very reasonable. As if Mercy were the insane one here! She could throttle him, too.

“Well, you don’t use the women’s bathroom, do you? And it’s not like you’re ever even around her-”

(John’s face flattened a little at that. A misstep, then. A truth, but a misstep, onto a landmine. Jokes, and expressions of irritation, and the ocassional errant tossing of stationary – those things were acceptable. But there were some things you simply couldn’t say to John. The silence stretched out, miserable and embarassed, and Mercy found herself thinking that actually, a harp would be preferable to this.)

“This seems to be an issue for human resources then, doesn’t it?” said Augustine finally, drawing attention back towards him as always. “Which – forgive me if I’ve lost track of the org chart – I believe it falls under-”

“Yes, it’s me,” said Mercy. “As always. Wonderful. Good meeting, everyone! I will be in my office, screaming.”

“See,” she heard John remarking, as she swept from the room. “The harp will at least help drown that out. It’s not completely impractical.”

“It’s a wonderful idea, and she’s just jealous,” said Augustine blandly.

--

Apparently, you could just rent a harpist. Mercymorn spent around twenty minutes searching local freelance musicians with decent reviews, and another twenty drawing up a standard contract for one who seemed reasonably priced, and then resolved to never think about it again.

Her resolve was tested when she arrived for work on Wednesday to find an absolutely massive harp blocking the elevator.

“Really?” she said, to the air above her. “Really, this is how it’s going to go?” Not for the first time, she regretted rejecting the church. At least if she were still religious, she would have had someone besides John to rail against.

She poked tentatively at the wooden behemoth, with its curving arches and its tiny little inlays of – what was that, bone?

“Do not,” said a tense, forbidding voice. Mercy turned to see a small, sharp-edged creature clad all in black emerging from the shadow of the looming harp. Her provenance before that? Baffling. Perhaps she had been stowed away inside the hollow compartment.

“It’s in the way,” Mercy said, enunciating clearly. “Are you aware of the function of an elevator?”

“Are you aware of the precise care needed to maintain an instrument like this in working condition?

“No, and that is fine with me, actually!” said Mercy, who had a real job.“Move it, or I will have an intern borrow a rolling chair from upstairs and make themselves into a battering ram. They are very desperate to please, and the wheels are extremely well-greased.”

The harpist – who appeared to be at most twelve years old, but musical prodigies always were precocious -  raised an eyebrow. “And how do you propose I do that?”

She meant the harp-moving presumably, not the battering rams, but either way - “Everything cannot be my problem!” Mercy seethed. “Ocassionally, someone will have to think for themselves around here! Ugh.” She considered harp and harpist with equal despair. “Well, how did you get it in here in the first place?” 

“My cousin,” said the harpist, returning to her stool. And, just as Mercy was starting to see the vain and flickering light of a solution on the horizon, she dashed it with a meaningful, “Who drove away half an hour ago.”

Mercy closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, and tried to remember what Cristabel had said about progressive relaxation. Clench the muscles, and unclench them. Tighten up, and – the harpist was playing the harp now. She still hadn’t moved the harp, and she was playing it. There were bubbling, musical waves rippling out from her tiny fingers to create the most peaceful damn ambiance the foyer had ever seen.

“Will you please,” said Mercymorn, with saintlike patience, “stop tinkling.”

The harpist did not stop tinkling. Her fingers danced over multicolored strings, and she said with flatness that contrasted jarringly with the pleasant music, “My contract stipulates eight hours a day of atmospheric music. Mainly classical with the ocassional contemporary cover. I will not be held in breach of contract because you are throwing a fit.”

“I wrote your damn contract!” Mercy spat. Though – she made a mental note to review child labor laws. Surely, it couldn’t be legal to keep a nine-year-old on the clock for eight hours a day, independent contractor or not. And Augustine would reach new heights of intolerable smugness if Mercymorn was the one who caused the latest lawsuit.

“Well, then you also know that you’re responsible for any damages,” said the implacable harpist. “So I trust you won’t actually be implementing your madcap scheme with the interns.”

Mercymorn rubbed her forehead. 9:07, and she could already feel the tension headache brewing.

It was with, for once, relief that she spotted Kiriona lounging near the reception desk. John’s bastard baby usually instilled in her some combination of rage, exhaustion, and derision, but she was at least good for one thing – well, two things, if one counted moving John to numb, guilty tears a useful talent, which Mercymorn occasionally did. The man required careful handling.

“Kiriona,”she called, beckoning the spoiled brat over with a snap of her fingers. “Help this – spindly waif of a musician move her absurdly oversized instrument somewhere more suitable.”

Kiriona Gaia, entirely unworthy heir to the GaiusCo fortune, cocked her offensively colorful head and said, “Is that an innuendo?”

She was surrounded by perverts and incompetents (And Augustine, who was both). “God help me,” said Mercy, with admirable restraint, for which she would one day receive a medal or some kind of embossed plaque if there was any justice in the world. “I will revoke your badge clearance to this building.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Kiriona, unconcerned “But good luck revoking my vag clearance, am I right?”

Mercy shuddered. “Eughh,” she said, with perfect diction. “Yeuch. Horrible, horrible child. You really do take after John. He is also laboring under the misconception that all puns are automatically funny.”

Kiriona’s mouth twisted, a matching sore spot. And then she rallied. “Yeah, but my puns are actually funny.”

“Debatable!” said Mercy, who did not intend to debate it with either member of the Gaius family, especially not while sober.“I am going upstairs now, and when I come down here, the harpist will be properly located, or I will-” as always, an appropriate threat came easily to her tongue. She had speculated quite a lot about this.“-loosen the bolts of exactly half the chairs you sit in for the rest of your duration at this company.”

Kiriona nodded thoughtfully. “Diabolical, I’ll give you that.”

Mercymorn took the stairs. The last thing she saw, a quick peek over her shoulder because no one could truly be trusted around here without her keen eye, was Kiriona ambling over to the harpist and leaning suavely against the instrument. The ensuing tirade from the musician – well. For once, for one blessed moment, it wasn’t Mercymorn’s problem.

--

The horrible businesswoman was gone. In her place, she had left a horrible – Harrow wasn’t really sure what this one was. A porter? A janitor?

“This instrument,” she informed the redheaded lout, “is worth over fifteen thousand dollars, and I will be extracting every cent of that from your employers if you even scratch it.”

The other woman – Kiriona, the shrill woman had called her - sucked in her teeth. “Damn, okay. Handle her like the classy lady she is. Got it.”

“I will need you to handle it quite a bit better than that,” said Harrow waspishly. “It has been in my family for generations.”

“Well, you don’t know how I handle the ladies,” said Kiriona, as if that were even a remotely reasonable rejoinder. And then, horribly, she winked. “Yet.”

Harrow folded her arms and did her best to ignore that idiocy. “Do not touch the strings. Do not touch the levers. Do not touch the tuning pegs.”

“You got it, my musical mistress.”

Kiriona’s hand, when she brought it up to the gloss-polished pillar, was very intentional. Harrow watched her eyes close, briefly, as she felt the graceful curves of the instrument, and felt a sort of – well.

“Do not bang the soundbox against anything,” she said, trying to keep on track. “Do not – dig your fingernails into the wood.”

“Yeah, no worries about that one,” said Kiriona with a snort. And then she – squatted, and wrapped her hands around the treasured instrument of Harrow’s house, and – she was barely wobbling when she stood. “Where are we going, my lyre-strumming leader?”

Just this morning, Ortus had huffed and puffed and dragged around various dollies and cords to tortuously move the harp ten feet into the building. When he had pathetically begged off after around fifteen minutes of excruciating labor, his face had been fully drained of color, and his back had been stained with a long triangle of sweat.

It took perhaps two minutes and a couple wide strides for Kiriona to move the harp across the lobby. And she set it down so gently – easing back into the squat with hardly a tremor, limbs so carefully controlled and steady as she laid Harrow’s pride and joy silently to bed. Her harp came to rest as quietly as a footfall – Kiriona’s arms and back strained and tensed, ever inch of her bent towards the careful placement of Harrow’s harp. It was exquisite. Harrow’s palms were sweating, and not out of anxiety.

“Good enough?” Kirionasaid, straightening up and flicking her hair out of her eyes. “I held off on banging it or pegging it, just for you. See, I can be a perfect gentleman, if you just ask nicely.”

“Good enough,” said Harrow, clearing her throat. The innuendo – she would not dignify that with a response. “Or at least, moderately adequate. You can go now.”

Horribly, Kiriona did not go. She leaned up against a gaudy marble pillar and folded those magnificent arms in front of her and said, “Nah, I’m good. Gotta hear what all the fuss is about, right?”

“Do you not have a real job to do?” Harrow asked in desperation.

Kiriona snorted. “Barely.” And when Harrow scoffed, she added, “It’s a whole thing, don’t worry about it.”

And then she just stood there and watched Harrow, golden eyes pinning her like stage lights. It had been years since Harrow had last taken the stage, had endured that hot and blinding glare that flayed her open with such intensity. But Kiriona brought it all back, and Harrow’s limbs were heavy as she settled herself at her stool, and leaned her harp down into her arms – Kiriona’s lips were parted, just the slightest bit – and began to play.

She chose one of her most technical pieces. Not the easy-listening dreck that her contract demanded – there was a gauntlet thrown in her path, and she would rise to it, as she always had. Kiriona had carried her harp with the most exquisite care, had cradled it in her arms, and then had good as asked Harrow what those fingers do? Finesse deserved finesse. Harrow never could stand to be found wanting.

It was not atmospheric, the piece she played. It was not rippling chords and gentle breezes. It was fierce undercurrents, and the lonely rolling tides of the sea, and the sharp crackle of ozone in the air as she tickled the high notes with the most minute twitches of her fingers. She should be watching her own fingering, but the piece came with practiced fluidity, and she was lost looking at her audience of one. And Kiriona was looking at her, only her, watching her hands, her face, the curve of her cheek as it pressed against the wood, the spread of her thighs as the instrument rocked into her embrace-

The piece ended with a long, low, strum, and Harrow looked away, letting the strings sing out their final vibration, her fingers trembling nearly as much. She was breathing harder than she should.

Kiriona wasn’t clapping. But there was a vulnerable break in her face, and sort of shocked wonder in her eyes. Her hands fiddled minutely at her pockets, and then she seemed to take a deep breath and put herself together.

“Damn,” she said. “Okay, I kind of get it. How long you doing this gig?”

Harrow returned the harp to resting position. She was tingling, and not because her limbs were going to sleep. She felt, rather, like she was waking up.

“My contract is indefinite,” she said mechanically. “I am booked for all working hours until – until.”

“Cool,” said Kiriona, stuffing her hands in her pickets again. “Cool, cool. And do you, like, get breaks and stuff? Like, union-mandated lunchtime?”

Breaks had always been immaterial to Harrow. Her work bag contained a few energy bars, which she would listlessly nibble at when she felt her fingers or legs beginning to tremor inexcusably.

“There is no union,” she said. “But – yes.”

“Cool,” said Kiriona again. “Very cool.”

--

The harp was a giant waste of time, obviously. Obviously! And who on Earth could have seen that coming. Mercy kept a tally all day of the number of customers who did not seem more peaceful, who did not compliment the business acumen or sophistication of having a harpist playing in the lobby. She saved them on a sticky note on her desk, pen gouging harder every time, and dreamed of a day where she would actually collect her overdue accolades. Just once, she longed to hear, Mercymorn, you were right, or Mercymorn, that could have been disastrous if it weren’t for you, instead of Say, Mercymorn, where do we keep the hydrochloric acid or Mercymorning, darling, don’t be cross, but-

She kept her tallies, and she stewed, and she avoided going down to the lobby for her lunch break. If the harp was still a problem, she didn’t want to know it. Let her turn a blind eye to an issue, for once, and let someone else take care of it. She would rather scrounge an unsatisfying lunch of granola bars and flat grapefruit soda than endure that particular logistical nightmare yet again.

But closing time – well, she would rather endure that particular logistical nightmare than sleep here, in the end. She waited til after five, when the harpist would reasonably be gone – not that she was hiding, mind you, she just – she had work to do, and harp-herding was not part of it. She was overqualified to be a harp-herder, and extremely busy, and that was all!

When she finally ventured down to the lobby, the lights were off, and the harp was zipped into a bulky black cover, and it wasn’t blocking the elevator, for which she sent up a small prayer of thanks to absolutely nowhere, as God was demonstrably not real and a loving God even more remote a fantasy. With everyone gone, it was almost peaceful. No one causing her headaches, or demanding her aid, or fucking things up on their own so thoroughly that she had to step in, or shoving their thumbs up their asses and smiling helplessly at her until she fixed the mess. Just smooth tiled floor, and wintertime-early shadows, and the humming of the ventilation system -

And the telltale catch of breath that she was now tuned to react to with a spike of rage and panic, like a well-trained horse. Mercy’s jaw clenched. There were little giggles, and pants, and – dear god- mewls coming from the supply closet behind the reception desk, and Mercy had had it with Ianthe and Kiriona’s bullshit. She placed a warding hand before her eyes, and a sensibly heeled foot against the offending door, and pushed.

“This is entirely inappropriate for a workplace,” she seethed, and took no small amount of satisfaction from the embarrassed rustling that universally heralded two humiliated horny youths rushing to pull their orifices apart. “I do not care if John mopes about if for weeks, and I do not care if-”

“Some fucking privacy!” Kiriona yelped, almost at the same time. “Jesus fuck, it’s a supply closet instead of a bathroom, what do you even want from me-”

“Discretion would be nice!” Mercymorn seethed. “I recognize it’s nigh-impossible, but I still dream, nay, pray for a single week where I do not have to repeatedly witness your inept, infantile fumblings-”

“Wow, fuck you, I eat pussy like a champ and everyone knows it-”

“The fact that everyone knows it is the entire problem, you oversexed, indolent child-”

“Should I go?” said a new, dry voice that was not Ianthe Tridentarius, whose drawl was nearly as developed as Augustine’s and getting worse by the day. Mercymorn made the terrible mistake of unscrewing her eyes, and beheld -

The harpist. Of course. Half in Kiriona’s lap, fingers suspiciously wet, buttons ostentatiously undone. Face – not even blushing, not even having the decency to act ashamed.

“Yes!” said Mercymorn, throwing up her hands. “You should both go! I believe I have made that very clear!”

“You don’t get to talk to her like that,” said Kiriona immediately, outraged. “She did nothing wrong – she’s a goddamn virtuoso-”

“I do not, nor have I ever wanted to hear an accounting of what you or any of your partners have done, wrong or otherwise-”

“Yes, I think we should go,” said the harpist decisively. She slid almost gracefully from Kiriona’s lap – Mercymorn averted her eyes, rather than witness whatever obscene horrors the musician’s skinny thighs had been graciously hiding from sight – and her hand closed posessively over Kiriona’s wrist. “My place, or yours? I’m inclined to go with mine, since last time you said I know a spot we ended up-”

“Yeah, okay, can you blame me for being in a hurry after you-”

“Just go!” Mercymorn spat, rather than hear the rest of that sentence. “You have ten seconds before I arm the alarm system.”

She remained in the lobby for a good thirty seconds after the giggling and footsteps had faded away, after the babies had skittered off to have their fun somewhere else, and then rubbed her forehead balefully.

A harp. She really was going to murder John this time.

Chapter Text

In the first hour of the New York Stock Exchange shutdown, Gideon is having a pretty chill time. She lounges against the terminals. She gets pretty girls to help itch her nose, since her arms are still locked in the sleeping dragon tubes. She does squats to keep her body moving, and she chants along with the not-arrestable crowd, and she flirts with the indulgent legal observer. One hot medic with absolutely excessive cleavage brings her a water bottle, and Gideon gets to have the actually fantastic experience of a bombshell blonde who knows exactly what effect she’s having tugging her bandana down with sure fingers, and holding a bottle to her lips and calling her a good girl when she successfully drinks it down without spilling a drop. She replaces Gideon’s bandana and pats her cheek, and Gideon looks up at her through hair that she can no longer push off her forehead, and smoulders. Nice.

It’s a good vibe. A big, broad coalition, and a huge crowd, and a fuck-ton of media. Gideon has her sunglasses on, for the opsec, and for the excuse to beckon more pretty girls over to help keep ‘em on her face, and she’s wearing her best docs, and her canvass vest with all the good patches. And the police haven’t even cleared the public out yet, haven’t even issued a warning, which means that they’ve got at least an hour before they even bring out the hacksaws, which means no international flow of capital today, no business as usual. Greedy CEO’s and hedge fund managers pissing themselves because they depend on people being too afraid to pull this shit, but not today, motherfucker. Today, Gideon and ten other bastards are chained to these terminals, and the crowd is roaring for them, and she feels on top of the world. A crowd of a thousand, give or take the usual complexities of organizer math, and like a dozen badass speakers, but she’s the one putting her body on the line, she’s the one who’s going to make this more than another forgettable rally. She’s doing it, she’s exactly where she needs to be, and she feels fucking amazing.

Even the nun next to her, who keeps giving her disapproving little looks, isn’t getting her down. So, anticapitalism creates strange bedfellows. The Catholics are down for the cause, and haven’t been overtly homophobic, so – whatever. Strength in numbers.

Three hours in, her shoulders are starting to hurt. The police have cleared the rest of the crowd away from them by about fifteen feet, but a slightly more distant audience is still an audience. The hot medic is tragically unable to reach her now, but Gideon is encouraging a perky brunette in a very tight NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR tank top to throw peanuts in her mouth from across the crowd control barriers. It’s a fun time, even if she’s missing most of them. One bonks off the nun, who scowls, and Gideon shrugs. What can you do? Gotta stay fed somehow. An army marches on its stomach, etc, etc.

Five hours in, the crowd has been removed. She can still hear them chanting outside, but there’s an eerie echoey silence to the atrium that layers on top of it. Every time she shifts, her pants seem to crinkle absurdly loud. Just ten protesters, and a handful of press and legal observers and whiteshirts negotiating. And like fifty of NYPD’s finest in full riot gear, staring them down.

The nun says, “Can you please sit still.”

Gideon lets out a long breath through her nose, and reminds herself that mass movements require a broad coalition. And that a significant reason the NYPD hasn’t kicked their asses yet is because of the optics of beating up a nun in an honest-to-god habit. Last night, they’d all looked each other in they eye and promised to have each other’s backs. Five hours ago, tingling with anticipation, they’d all executed the plan, swarming into position. She hadn’t hesitated then, grabbing the hand of the nearest fellow arrestee and letting the support team snap on the handcuffs and the PVC pipe and the endless swaths of duct tape until their enjoined arms were irreparably linked. 

She’s been holding the nun’s hand for five hours now. It’s very hot, and not even sweaty. Gideon is pretty sure all the sweat is hers.

“Sure,” she says now. “No problem.”

Six hours in, they get the saws out. Gideon hates this part. She looks away from the saw biting into the pipe far too close to her skin, and makes accidental eye contact with her partner. The nun’s teeth are gritted, and she winces at each long, shrill scrape of the saw.

It’s too loud to speak, and there’s a cop right there, probably ready to read every stray comment as evidence for federal charges. But Gideon squeezes the nun’s hand, and maybe it’s her imagination, but she likes to think that the nun’s shoulder’s loosen.

--

The wagon is dark. Gideon wiggles her sore shoulders, testing the give in the zip ties. She might be able to pull her left arm out, if – yeah. Okay. That’s better. She stretches her hands out in front of her. There’s a bruise already forming on her wrist from the ties, and in the crook of her elbow from the pipe. But she’ll be okay. They weren’t even all that rough, this time.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the nun’s name, if it matters. Probably doesn’t. It’s just a weird fucking name is all, so weird that the arresting officer chuckled uncertainly and said, “Giving false names to a cop is a crime, lady,” and Harrowhark said very frostily, “My identification is in the bag strapped to my waist.” And the cop fished it out, along with like five bottles of pills, and looked at it, and said huh.

Gideon can relate - to the weird name, not the pills. Her first name always gives her arresting officers pause. Two arrests ago, they were so confused they put her in with the men, which was fine, honestly, all the other guys arrested that day were her buddies anyway, but still.

She can still hear the crowd. They’re cheering, and they’re chanting – she bangs on the side of the wagon in rhythm, and hears the roaring double in intensity. Her people, still with her, still loving her. They sang her name as the pigs marched her out, a sea of people comitting it to memory, etching it into their brains as one more act to honor and protect her. Gideon, my friend, you will not walk alone. Sometimes, she thinks, she could live on that feeling.

Harrowhark, clearly, disagrees. She visibly winces at the noise.

Gideon settles back down on the bench “Hey. You okay?”

Harrowhark looks at her flatly.

“Fair enough. First time?”

“No,” says Harrow, and Gideon thinks that’s going to be it until they reach the precinct.

“Third,” she says finally, when the arrest wagon starts moving. “A nuclear reactor, and a pipeline.”

Cool, that’s how my mom died, she does not say. Because yeah, the epic standoff between Wake and Line 9 is movement history, and yeah, Wake did more for the cause in the last two weeks of her life than Gideon will probably ever manage even if she lives to a hundred, but that kind of morsel has a way of stopping conversations in its tracks.

“Badass,” says Gideon appreciatively, instead. “Love an eco-nun.” 

Her companion’s glare is withering. Maybe she should have gone with the other dialog option after all.

“Need me to scratch your face or anything?” Gideon offers, wiggling her freed hands. “Free service, for a comrade. Solidarity.”

Harrowhark closes her eyes. “I would like to be alone now,” she says, and that’s all she says for the entirety of the ride.

--

They get a cell together, because of course they do.

It’s cold. Gideon dressed in layers for this exact reason, but it’s still cold. In other arrests, she huddled with her cellmates, but that’s clearly not gonna happen here. Which is too bad, because that habit looks cozy. Real wool, probably. Lots of yardage in that cassock or whatever.

And, like. She already knows that Harrow runs hot.

The processing is slow, probably just to fuck with them. It’s a few hours before Gideon even gets her phone call. Legal aid already knows the situation, so she just calls Cam, her most above-board friend. Confirms someone’s looking after her cat. Confirms Pal got home safe, which of course he did, because Cam is on the ball. Confirms they’re probably not gonna have to pay bail, which is a huge relief. Just a matter of waiting now. 

Harrow refuses her phone call, and sits with perfect stillness while Gideon paces and does stretches.

A few hours into their cell stay, Gideon breaks. It’s a known issue – she doesn’t like to be ignored. She doesn’t like to be still. She doesn’t like to have someone else in the room with her, no one else around, but ignoring her. The fact that Harrow’s right there, but she’d still rather sit and pray or whatever than suffer her presence-

“How’d you get involved in this?” she asks quietly, like a fucking newbie organizer.

Harrow cracks an eyelid. “Have you heard,” she says, very slowly, “of operational security.”

Gideon’s frayed nerves tighten further. “I’m not an idiot,” she says, keeping her voice down with effort. “Found the mic, and it’s got a shit range. And the camera’s behind us, so they can’t even read lips.”

Harrow nods, taking that in. “Have you heard of personal space?” is her next question, and Gideon bangs her head against the wall.

--

Six hours since arrest. Still not even fingerprinted. Harrow is curled up, eyes closed. Gideon thinks she sees her rocking back and forth minutely.

“Know any good songs?” Gideon asks. “I’m drawing a real blank.”

Harrow does not open her eyes. “I know Gregorian chants.”

“Sick. Now let’s see if we can bring that Venn diagram closer together, because you know I don’t know any of that stuff. Does anything about-" she gestures at herself, in all her vaguely crustpunk, queer-ass glory "this - scream goes to Mass every morning?"

Harrow does not respond.

“Come on,” says Gideon encouragingly. “You must know some protest songs, or something. I’m dying, here. I’ve had the same song stuck in my head since the perp walk, and my brain is about to fall through my ears.”

Nothing.

“We shall overcome?” Gideon suggested, wracking her brains for churchy shit. “We shall not be moved?”

“Wrong church.”

Gideon exhales. “Damn, I always get them all mixed up.”

“Ours is the one true one, if that helps,” says Harrow, without a trace of irony that Gideon can detect.

“Amazingly, it doesn’t!” says Gideon brightly, with all her nonbeliever enthusiasm. And, when Harrow does not respond to that, she presses: “You gonna sing, then?”

“What?”

“Your creepy Latin chants.”

Harrowhark says, with exquisite disdain, “I am not here for your amusement.”

“Okay,”says Gideon. She might have deserved that.

And she thinks that’s all, but then Harrow says, “I am here because uncontrolled monetary greed is a form of idol worship on par with the Golden Calf.”

A knot unties in Gideon's stomach. She smiles, for the first time in hours. “Fuck yeah. Preach, sister.”

Harrow’s glare is withering and restorative all at once. “There is no creature so base,” she says, with genuine venom, “as grasping speculators, who use human beings as mere instruments for making money.”

Gideon snaps her fingers approvingly.

“He demands of us that we clothe the poor,” says Harrow, hands balled into her habit. “That we heal the sick, and care for the fatherless and the widowed. He teaches mercy and righteousness and justice, first and foremost. And yet, powerful men clothe themselves in His name and commit atrocities on a scale far greater than any mortal should ever be able to accomplish. It is an abomination. Just a drop of the wealth traded today could put a roof over every head, and yet - if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?”

“Damn right,” says Gideon. It’s definitely a Bible quote, but like, it’s the kind of Bible quote she can fuck with. The table-flipping, sex-worker-befriending, shit-stirring version of Jesus that she would actually get along with decently well.

Harrow isn’t done yet. Her voice is hoarse, but the words keep flowing from her lips. “It’s a sin, plain and simple. They will not see the kingdom of heaven, and unless earthly hands tear them down, they will only keep compounding the world’s misery. How else to come for them, but with a sword? What kind of servant of Him would I be, if I did not put my every breath towards driving them from the temple?”

“Tell ‘em,” says Gideon, letting the words roll over her. Harrow has flow, she’ll give her that much.

“Come now, you rich,” Harrow murmurs, and that’s definitely a quote now. She isn’t even looking at Gideon any more, just spewing out her admittedly badass litany. “Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.”

“Good shit,” Gideon agrees, shifting a little in her seat. And then, because she can’t help it, “What’s your stance on the gays?”

Harrow still isn’t looking at her. “You are trying to provoke me,” she says. “Badly.”

It’s not not true.

-

Ten hours in, Harrow says, “Have you done this before?”

Which could be a line out of a porno, but Gideon reads between the lines. “Sixth time,” she says, trying not to sound like she’s bragging or something. “Plus a couple citations, I dunno.”

Harrow nods, absorbing that. “And,” she says finally, as if pulling teeth, “What brought you here?”

Gideon can’t help the wide smile that breaks out across her face. “You trying to get to know me, Nonagesimus?”

And, when Harrow snorts derisively and makes to turn away, she adds hastily, “A friend tipped me off a few weeks ago. I’m not – I don’t have a ton to lose, if I’m arrested, so I try to do this shit when I can.”

Harrow nods, and doesn’t cut her off, so she keeps talking. Not about her mom, because that’s a whole thing that could definitely get her into shit with the feds if they overheard, but - “I used to make like $10 an hour driving for the fucking rideshares,” she said, letting the bitterness well up in her throat. “The goddamn platforms took half of it, just for, what? For existing? I’m paying $3000 a month in rent for a total shithole, and it’s going straight to my landlord’s mortgage, but no bank would ever loan to me. The landlord and the bosses just fucking take it, and they buy politicians to make their shit legal, and cops to enforce it, and -“ she leans her head against the cool wall. Tries to breath, to not scream in frustration, as it spills out.

“My rent went up $200 last year, can you believe it? Same place, mind you, same fucking roaches and leaky sink, but there’s a cupcake place around the block now, so I guess that’s fair. My cousin got evicted last month, so she’s staying with me, which is a whole boatload of fun, you can imagine. We had the heat assistance program, but that got shut off with the new cuts, yeah? My neighbor’s thinking of sending his kid to fucking Catholic school– no offense – because the school budget cuts get worse every year, and there’s like forty kids to a classroom now, and the toilets don’t even work. Nothing fucking works, not the hotlines or the shelters or the free clinics that they advertise on the busses but that are always completely full when you call them. Or it all works exactly like it’s supposed to. Like, a hundred shitty families take everything, and tell us we’re supposed to be fucking grateful, because at least there’s mutiple brands of toothepast at the supermarket! I grew up in foster care, and-” she cuts herself off. Marshals her breathing. Harrow doesn’t need that lore.

“It’s fucked,” she says finally. “It’s fucked, and it’s not getting any better unless someone does something. And if I don’t do something – if I sit on the sidelines while people starve and freeze and die – I don’t know how I’d live with myself. And some of my friends have to hold back, because of family, or jobs, or immigration shit, and that’s fine for them, but when it’s me, that would be – fucking unforgivable. I just can’t – what’s the fucking point of being alive, if I won’t even put myself on the line?”

Her nose is prickling. She does not want to cry to a nun in a jail cell. Fuck, is this confession? Is she accidentally Catholic, now, because she said something emotional while sitting next to a nun? God, Pash will never let her live that down.

She’s started from her musings by a hot, dry hand against hers. She clutches it back automatically, a lifeline.

Harrow says, quietly, “I could never forgive myself either, if I stood idly by. It’s the only penance that means anything.”

Which should creep her out, but Gideon finds herself nodding instead.

“Confession alone,” says the Catholic nun, “is mere self-gratification. God does not care if you feel bad. God only requires that you right the wrongs against him. It’s the only way to truly earn our salvation.”

Which. Yeah. Yeah. Though - “That doesn’t sound like your usual shtick,” says Gideon, dry-mouthed. “Which Pope said that?”

Harrow opens her eyes and looks at her. Dark, dark eyes, darker even than her now-dusty habit. Full, bowed lips.

Gideon looks away.

“Nonetheless,” says Harrow, and every word sounds like it’s being pulled out of her with pliers. “We do not all require the same level of salvation. Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times. Six times, now, you have done your service to him, and even if you were not here today, risking yourself again, I think that you-“

“Nope,” says Gideon, flustered. “Nah. You don’t have to say that.”

“Trust me that I would not lie to spare your feelings,” says Harrow with far too much intensity. “I merely think that you, in particular – you are already righteous, even when you are not throwing yourself on the cross.”

It burns.

“Right back atcha,” says Gideon, face flaming. “Like, even if you never do this again – you’re still -”

“Nope,” says Harrow, and the colloquialism is jagged in her mouth. “Let’s not talk, for a while.”

--

“How did you become a nun, anyway?” Gideon asks, near the twelve hour mark.

Harrow’s eyes have been closed for a while now. Light sensitivity, Gideon has finally figured out. Fair enough. The fluorescents are a bitch.

“I didn’t want to get married,” she says, flatly. “And I wanted to serve Him. Two birds.”

One stone. Gideon should absolutely not ask this, but, “Why not? Get married, I mean.”

Harrow doesn’t answer that one either.

--

Gideon gets released first. And Pash is there to give her a ride home, and she’s exhausted after over twenty hours of protest and jail, but – she sticks around outside the precinct, warming her hands with shitty coffee and texting everyone she knows that she’s okay.

She should go home. Her cat likes Cam better, understandably, but it would still be happy to see her. She has, like, laundry to do, and shit to plan. Every inch of her is sore from sitting in a stress position.

Except like... When she gets home, she just knows she’s gonna get the depression. It’s natural, right? Post-protest crash. Weeks of turnout and prep and practice, and the adrenaline of the action itself, the exhilarating maelstrom of conflict and glory, and then – the same damn apartment. Pash, snoring on her shitty futon. A few news stories, and maybe some concessions, but the world still turning, the wheel still grinding, the money still flowing.

She believes in protest and civil disobedience, she really does. She believes that a mass movement will make a difference, because if she can’t believe in that and work towards that, what’s even the point of being alive? But no one can believe 24/7 in something they’ve never really seen happen. Except maybe a nun. Gideon doesn’t know if Harrow collapses post-protest, or if she just flogs herself with a rosary or something and gets back to business. She doesn’t know anything about Harrow, really.

She waits anyway.

Harrow gets released maybe forty-five minutes later. It’s strange to see her under the amber streetlights, instead of the harsh light of their cell. She looks smaller, against the backdrop of the outdoors.

Gideon falls into step beside her, like a good cell-buddy. “Got any plans after this? Anyone to pick you up?”

Though – Harrow didn’t use her phone call. Sixteen hours in a cell, and she didn’t have a single person she wanted to call. No one she wanted to talk to, except Gideon.

Harrow is walking surprisingly fast, for someone so little. Gideon has to hustle to keep up with her, as Harrow heads – away from the precinct. Turns into a park.

“You didn’t get hit with anything serious, right?” Gideon presses, suddenly nervous. “I just had the usual – obstruction, trespassing, resisting arrest. I figured that’s what everyone got. Or-” another horrible thought, churned up by the relentless maestrom of her mind – “Did they fuck with you, after they let me out? I should have made them process you first, I can handle it better -”

“Gideon,” said Harrow, and it’s the first time she’s said her name. They’re in the park now, the sound of cars and rustling leaves and errant car alarms a welcome blanket to Gideon’s ears after the almost imperceptible buzzing of the precinct cell.

“Yeah?” says Gideon, puzzled.

Harrow takes her by the front of her jacket and tugs, very gently, but Gideon don’t need urging. Harrow is rising onto her tiptoes, and the brush of her lips against Gideon’s is so slight, and yet so much. She freezes, unsure what’s real, unsure what to do. Porn did not prepare her for the reality of Harrow’s chapped lips, the hint of moisture, the hitch of her breath.

Harrow sinks back onto the balls of her feet. And then, before Gideon can start to babble out some kind of malformed apology (sorry I corrupted you with contagious gay vibes? Sorry I enjoyed that way too much? Sorry I took that as a lesbian thing, instead of a super chaste normal God’s love thing which it obviously was, right) she comes up again, and okay, that’s a kiss. That’s Harrow’s lips parting against hers, and the teasing tip of Harrow’s tongue melting into her, and she was cold from jail just moments ago, but there’s liquid heat in her veins now as Harrow kisses her, as Gideon kisses her back.

“Are you allowed to do that?” Gideon asks dumbly, an eternity later. She has no idea how much time has passed. Pash is probably pissed.“Like, kiss girls? Is that even legal?”

Harrow shrugs, which looks unfairly cool and hot even in a dumb full-coverage nun outfit. Her lips are shiny, which is doing terrible things to Gideon’s stomach.

“What are they going to do,” she says with supreme boredom, but she’s taking Gideon’s hand, and Gideon is warm enough to explode now. “Jail me?”

“Fair point,” says Gideon, and lets herself fall.

Chapter Text

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, in her layers of black and mesh and heavy silver chains, has somehow never seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“How?” Ianthe asks again, marvelling at it. “How have you not seen it? You don’t strike me as the type to shirk your research, Harry.”

Harrow says, boredly, “It is far easier to not do things than to do them. And – burlesque gender-transgressive slasher musicals were not a priority in my household of origin.”

“I always forget you were an honest to god nun,” says Ianthe, still taking it in. Rolling it around her mouth, tasting the contours. As with most tidbits of information about Harrow, it deserves to be savoured, not merely devoured.

It’s the paradox of her, perhaps, that Ianthe enjoys so much. The no-fucks-given goth look, the heavy makeup, the multiple piercings of a church girl gone off the beaten path, but the maidenly shyness that still squirms beneath her tough new shell. For all her newfound secularism, Harrow is still so prim and proper, so composed. Harrow, whose face goes stony when Ianthe lets her skirt inch strategically up her thighs. Who seems to freeze like a deer in the headlights when Augustine makes an off-color joke during lab meetings. Whose eyes dilate noticeably when John’s weirdo wife pops by the office to devour his face, and who goes off-camera altogether when said weirdo wanders through John’s home office wearing only one of his shirts during work-from home day.

She’s afraid, is the thing. Ianthe can practically smell it. Aroused and afraid of her own passion in equal measure. There is a certain type of ex-Catholic lesbian, Ianthe has learned by now, who finds satisfaction in pain and deprivation, who will deny herself pleasure right up until the moment that she lets loose and slides into the most glorious debauchery. A Madonna-turned-whore, perhaps, or some midle-stage Animorph of them both. Oh, who even knows the terminology? Certainly not Ianthe. Ianthe has never stepped foot in a church in her life, out of mutual distaste. 

The point is, Ianthe has never been that kind of girl. But she truly adores fucking them.

“Oh, Harry,” says Ianthe, and watches Harrow’s face screw up in distaste at the nickname. “You are going to love the Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

--

She has a plan, loosely. The plan is to wear her best fuck-me top and leather pants, and cajole Harrow into something of at a similar nature. The plan is to push boundaries, to nudge Harrow out of the prison of her comfort zone. To take her by the hand and guide her into the world of weird leather perverts, and to be the one wise mentor that Harrow could fall back on among everything dizzying and strange. The one who showed her this magical world, who brought her out of her shell. Those are the main beats, anyway. Ianthe isn’t opposed to improvising. The night is young and full of magic, and she has toast in her purse.

The plan frays a little bit when Harrow shows up in her usual baggy black getup and refuses to be talked into coming up to slip into something a little less comfortable. It gets back on track when they enter the venue, when she sees Harrow’s tight little knuckles clench on the strap of her messenger bag as she takes in the body glitter, the suspenders, the assless chaps.

“See anything you like?” Ianthe murmurs, close enough to Harrow’s ear to raise goosebumps, but not so close as to strain plausible deniability.

“I would like to leave,” Harrow snips, but she doesn’t actually do so, which is all that really matters.

“Too much for you?” Ianthe teases, rubbing Harrow’s shoulder encouragingly. “I never took you for a quitter, Harry.”

“It is loud,” says Harrow, through gritted teeth. “It is bright. It is obscene.”

“Yes, and the show hasn’t even started yet,” Ianthe agrees admiringly. “We can go if you need to. I’ll have you know that I’m both generous and flexible, in life as in bed.”

“Nobody asked,” says Harrow frigidly. And: “Do not underestimate me. I will endure this, Tridentarius.”

“If I had a nickel,” Ianthe laughs. “God, this is so much more fun with my sister. Are you even going to try to pelvic thrust? Corona thrusts like a champ.”

Harrow’s fingers clench, if possible, even tighter, but there is a determined set to her mouth, and Ianthe knows she won’t be backing down any time soon. That lovely, infuriating, delicious girl never denies herself a challenge. God, Ianthe could just eat her up.

--

It’s rapturous, watching the tightly screwed-on lid of Harrowhark Nonagesimus come undone. Watching the fierce joy in her eyes as she screams along with the crowd, the hungry curl of her posture as she tracks the actors. Watching her become one with the scene, the crowd, the sex-soaked deviant chaos. She still scowls upon being ‘accidentally’ sprayed with Ianthe’s water pistol, but overall... Ianthe watches her pupil give herself over to the madness, and she sees that it is good. And then she pops off to the bathroom to freshen up in preparation for the long-awaited main act of what is shaping up to be a real blowout of an evening, and comes back to find -

Harrow’s bony fingers dug deep into an expanse of bronzed skin. Skinny black-clad thighs pressed frantically against tight golden shorts. Smeared black makeup and hungry gasps as Harrow unabashedly sucks face with the redheaded dyke playing Rocky.

Well! Ianthe clears her throat meaningfully, and Harrow’s dark eyes land on her. One of her hands is toying with the waistband of the Rocky’s shorts.

“Ready to head out, darling?” says Ianthe, and savors the souring of the Rocky’s face, the way she scratches her head and looks between them, parsing out the lines she’s overstepped. Because yes, Harrow is adorable, a real diamond in the rough, etc, but Ianthe, frankly, has dibs. Harrow is going to leave with the girl she came with, or so help her, she will burn this hole in the wall theater to the ground. No braindead gym lesbian is going to get one over on her, even if she does have exquisitely oiled abs and only the tiniest of golden pasties on her nipples. Ianthe can be shirtless too, though many, many people have asked her not to be. It would honestly take very little work, with the way this corset fits together. There is absolutely nothing this stud can give Harrow that Ianthe can’t do ten times better.

Not that it’s bad that Harrow was getting warmed up, mind you. Ianthe can work with that. Jealousy is for straights and squares, and Ianthe has never been accused of being either. And – as she suspected – Harrow with her stays let out is absolutely, incandescently gorgeous. There’s a red mark blooming on her neckline. Her hair is more mussed than Ianthe has ever seen it. She thinks she even sees a mouthwatering sliver of brown skin, where her black sweater has rucked up against Rocky’s abs. Hot damn. What would be next, a flash of ankle?

Harrow lets out almost a little hum. “No, I think I’ll be staying a bit longer.”

Ianthe raises her eyebrows. “Really.”

Harrow has the gall to raise her eyebrows back. “Please fuck off now, Tridentarius.”

Ianthe opens her mouth to laugh, then closes it. There is quite a lot going on in her head right now as she – recalibrates. Sleeping with Harrowhark Nonagesimus has been on her to-do list for quite a while, and, well. She really thought she had it sewn up tonight. And no one likes to be disappointed.

“Her, though?” she says finally, when words reassert. “Really?”

Harrow’s hands tighten possessively on the golden hotpants, and she doesn’t even answer in words, just  – fucking pulls Rocky towards her for a frankly obscene grind. Her partner makes a truly humiliating noise and palms at the nonexistent black-clad ass that Ianthe was supposed to be uncovering tonight, dammit, she had a plan. Harrow tugs the useless slab of muscle down to her level and nips a perfect kiss against her throat, and her glittering eyes are open the whole time, watching Ianthe with – some kind of satisfaction, perhaps - as her new boytoy lets out another stuttering whine.

God, she’s hot. Ianthe would never have guessed she had it in her. Harrow momentarily frees a single hand to make a gesture, an imperious little you can go now, and well. Not at all how she imagined this happening! But – not a total waste of an evening either. The sight of Harrowhark Nonagesimus unbound, the precise cruelty and vicious crackle of her… she’ll be getting a lot of mileage out of that image. Before, she’d only imagined what it would be like to fuck the prude out of Harrow. Now, she knows exactly what it will look like, and it will be more than worth the wait.

And she works with Harrow. Harrow has to see her every day. Ianthe knows very well how to play the long game.

She excuses herself with a campy little finger waggle that is not jealous at all. And then, for lack of anything better to do, she goes to see a man about a queen.

Chapter Text

Harrow scrutinized the shopping list, feeling her migraine intensifying. “How are we,” she said slowly, “to understand… froma?”

“Hell if I know,” said Gideon, who was busy palming melons or some other such nonsense. “Hey, Harrow, listen to this melon. Does this sound ripe to you?” She knocked her fist on it decisively, and then cocked her head at Harrow.

Harrow resisted the urge to say something cruel about empty heads. She clenched down on the base, miserable animal part of herself that was feeling bad and wanted everyone else to feel worse, and gritted out, “You’re the one who wrote it, Nav.”

“Shit, really?” Gideon ambled over and loomed over Harrow’s shoulder, scrutinizing her own handwriting. It should have been humiliating – her hand on Harrow’s hip, her cheek resting against the fuzz of the crown of Harrow’s head – but it was Gideon, so it helped, moderately. Grounded her as Gideon said, brightly, “Oh, farro!”

“That is not a real foodstuff,” said Harrow blankly. “Tell me you’re not attempting to haze me, Griddle. It will not end well for you.”

Though hazing implied that this was her first time in a grocery store, so the term was perhaps inaccurate. Harrow subsisted mainly off items that could be purchased in the singular food aisle of gas stations and convenience stores, but she had been grocery shopping at least a few times. Nothing like Gideon, though, who seemed to do it three times a day. Who kept a fully stocked pantry and a fridge bursting with colorful leaves and neatly stacked leftovers. Who, every single time that she did her little errand, asked earnestly if Harrow wanted anything while she was out.

Two months, they’d been living together. Two months of Gideon whistling shirtless in the kitchen while mopping the floors, and eating Harrow out on the kitchen counter. Two months of waking up in the same bed, of lazy morning kisses and sun-soaked afternoons. Two months of Gideon enthusiastically fixing the wonky cabinet doors, and wobbling atop a rickety ladder calling for Harrow to pass her a lightbulb. Two months of being face to face with Gideon’s goodness, her generosity, her love made manifest.

Harrow did not understand the appeal of grocery shopping. She imagined it had something to do with the deprivation of their childhood, of Gideon’s lack of control over her food intake. Something to do with knowing that she had everything she needed on hand now, and no one could take it away from her. Harrow didn’t need to understand it, she reminded herself on a regular basis. Gideon was not her riddle to be solved. If something made Gideon happy, then it made Gideon happy – Harrow included, however bizarre that was - and attempting to unravel why was a fool’s errand, that would only lead to doubt and misery.

So if Gideon’s first inclination upon Cam and Pal leaving town for the weekend and lending Gideon their car was “Oh shit, now we can really stock up at the bulk food store!” – then Harrow was there with her. Her general distaste for food and crowds and fluorescent lights suited up for battle against her love for Gideon, and as always, Gideon won.

Gideon, unaware of the unlikely depths of her victory, was pawing at another fruit display. “Hey, Harrow, would you eat an apple?” she mused.

“Liturgical evidence suggests I already did,” said Harrow automatically. And: “Are the apples here really so much better than at the neighborhood store?”

Gideon dropped the apple, almost guiltily. “Shit, good point.”

“I did not mean-” Harrow swallowed stiffly. “You can get what you want. Obviously.”

“Yeah, but I wanna save room in the car for the good stuff. Good call. Okay, right, list. Farro.”

“Which I still refuse to believe is a real thing.”

“Watch and learn, my midnight hagette.” Gideon was running her finger across a line of plastic bins, each bursting with sundry grains and flour. The excess made Harrow a little sick. There was so much of it, so brightly colored, so abundant. So strongly scented – one aisle away, there were little pots of spices, and she swore she could smell each and every one of them. A bin banged closed, loudly, and she couldn’t help but flinch.

“Fuck, 79 cents a pound for green lentils? In this economy? Daddy is eating good tonight,” Gideon said admiringly. And then she noticed Harrow’s distress, and her perfectly sculpted face fell. “You good, babe?”

“I am good,” said Harrow.

“You wanna go wait in the car? You don’t have to do this-”

“I am good.”

“Seriously, Harrow, this is my thing, not yours. It was nice of you to come along, but I don’t want you to-”

“Gideon,” said Harrow, through gritted teeth. “Drop it.”

Gideon was watching her closely.

“Tell me what farro is,” said Harrow, with effort. “Since you so obviously want to.”

And Gideon didn’t look like she was done worrying about her, but Gideon would never be done worrying about her. So maybe it was good enough that Gideon said, “Well, I never could resist giving the ladies what they want. I dunno what it is, or like, how it’s grown. It’s just, like, a grain. Big. Soaks up a lot of moisture. Kind of the opposite of you-”

Harrow threw a little golf pencil at her. Gideon dodged it easily, because she is marvelously, completely in control of her body, because she has honed herself to physical perfection in her quest to withstand Harrow’s physical assaults.

“It’s good in like, risotto,” said Gideon, shoveling some of the little beige pellets into a plastic bag. “Pilafs. Tastes mild, but a little nutty. Kind of firm.”

Harrow nodded. “And you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s decent. But I was actually thinking for you-”

Harrow felt dread curdling in her stomach. “Do not attempt to cook for me,” she said, trying to summon the foreboding tones that had once come so easily, before Gideon started breaking down her walls.

“Just a little. I’m gonna make a risotto tonight anyway, with those mushrooms Nona gave us, and it’ll be like zero effort to just cook some plain for you.”

“I did not ask you to do that. I explicitly asked you not to-”

“It’s the easiest thing in the world – if you hate it I can just toss it back in with my leftovers-”

“It’s the principal for the thing-”

“What principal, Harrow?” Gideon dropped the bag of grains into her shopping basket with a thump, and Harrow flinched again. “The principal that I’m never allowed to do anything nice for you? That you have to be fucking suffering every goddamn minute to earn some kind of absolution?”

It was far too intimate an argument to be having in a bulk food store. It was far too intimate an argument to be having anywhere, at all. It could not be borne, and yet Harrow bore it, again and again, because she was not a graven idol, she was not a statue of a saint, she was a base creature of flesh and blood who loved Gideon, and Gideon somehow loved her. Which was both the whole problem and the one mercy of her existence.

“The scales are uneven,” said Harrow, with effort. “They are atrociously uneven, and every wonderful thing you do for me tips us further and further towards – towards the entire array slipping from its fulcrum into oblivion, and I cannot lose you. Do you understand? Do you comprehend, that I would rather suckle only the drippings of you, than drain you dry, or turn you from me with my greed? I do not deserve – you humble me, Gideon, with your grace, and I am so tired of being humbled.”

Gideon’s hands on her shoulders. Gideon’s embrace, warm and perfect in ways that she had never deserved. Gideon hugging her in a grocery store, folding her into her chest and muffling the inane music and the petty conversations and the clank of carts and the rustling of cellophane. Gideon’s voice, warm in her ear.

“I’m marking another box on my Harrow cognitive distortion bingo sheet. You’re gonna get me a win any day now, I can feel it.”

Harrow snorted, in spite of herself. “I haven’t already?”

“Lady luck is fickle. We’ve got the numbers, but they just haven’t been all in like, the same column.”

“Show it to me. I’m sure I can engineer a win for you.”

“Nah, doesn’t count unless they’re spotted in the wild. I’m a purist.”

Harrow breathed out into Gideon’s arms, and breathed in the smell of her, musky and dusty and bright. Gideon’s hand ruffled her hair, over and over, petting the short velvet of her recent shave. Gideon loved petting her hair after a cut. Gideon loved cooking for her, even if Harrow didn’t eat more than a bite. Gideon loved the looks on Harrow’s face when she tried it – disgusted, or quizzical, or contemplative, or disdainful. Gideon loved her, and she would never understand why, but it was her right. Gideon was allowed to love Harrow if she wanted to, and Harrow was allowed to let herself be loved.

“You know you don’t have to eat it,” said Gideon finally. “I think you’d like it, probably, because it’s basically porridge but it doesn’t get slimy. But you don’t have to do anything, you get that, right?”

Harrow nodded into Gideon’s breasts, and considered the mechanics of disentangling herself. They were blocking the aisle. No one else would be able to reach the farro, or the barley, or the couscous.

But then again, Harrow had never cared much for anyone else, or for assorted grains.

“Well, either way, tonight I’m gonna feast on farro,” Gideon said with satisfaction. And then she paused, and Harrow felt the changing in the air that heralded a truly awful pun. “And then after that, I’m gonna feast on Harrow, if you get my drift-”

“You are a hog,” Harrow informed her, still in her arms.

“I know, babe,” said Gideon, patting her head infuriatingly. “I know.”

Chapter Text

It’s a dry, rustly evening when they pull up to Drearburh for the first time in five years. Too dry, maybe. Gideon sucks her teeth, suddenly worried. “Are we gonna cause a natural disaster?”

“There will be nothing natural about it,” says Harrow dryly, throwing open the car door with more force than is necessary. And, at the sight of Gideon’s face, she adds, “Don’t worry about it, Griddle. I’ve rigged an anonymous phone call to the authorities for exactly thirty minutes after we kick things off. I prepared. I do not take this lightly.”

“No one could accuse you of that, my crepuscular queen.”

“Certainly not if they value their life,” says Harrow boredly, but she’s worrying at the bones of her thumb beneath her black leather glove. And sure enough: “Gideon, are you certain  you want to do this?”

Gideon is already fumbling with the trunk latch. “Stupid question,” she calls out.

“Reasonable question,” Harrow corrects, indignant. “It’s not too late for you to drive away, and avoid the fallout.”

“What, and leave you stranded on the side of the road?” Gideon swings open the trunk with an oof of effort, and surveys the shit within. Making sure they didn’t forget anything important, before they get this party started.

“And save yourself from being implicated in a felony, yes,” insists Harrow.

Like that’s ever gonna happen. “No dice. How the hell would you even get home, without me? Call an Uber, so you can have an eyewitness and a nice digital paper trail? Or you can hitchhike, and probably get murdered-”

“Then that would be my problem.”

Gideon gives up on the trunk, in favor of taking Harrow’s face in her hands. “Your problems are my problems, my umbral sovereign. In life, as in death. I think I’ve been pretty clear about that.”

Harrow closes her eyes, and breaths in. The cicadas hum, and Gideon watches the love of her life put herself back together. When she opens her eyes again, there is nothing but determination in her gaze. “Well then,” she says, holding out a black-gloved hand to Gideon. “Shall we?”

And there is nothing Gideon wants more, has ever wanted more, than to take that spidery hand in her own, and follow Harrow into hell itself. Not that Harrow demands hell – she’s a bit more mellow, these days. But Gideon takes her girlfriend’s hand in hers, and with her other hand, she grabs the first of the gas canisters.

And they get down to the business of burning down Drearburh Manor.

--

Harrow’s hands are small, and her muscles are practically nonexistent, despite Gideon’s best efforts to whip her into basic physical fitness over the years. She has to brace the gas cannister against her thigh to tilt it, and then she curses as the first, thin stream of it fountains onto her skirt. Gideon sets her own can down in alarm, but Harrow is already wrestling off the offending garment, leaving her in only fourteen layers of black instead of fifteen. Gideon can almost see her lack of an ass, under her long black sweater and beneath her black leggings. Scandalous.

“Burn it?” Gideon suggests.

Harrow shakes her head. “Evidence. We’ll take it home and wash it in the in-unit.”

Like she said. Harrow is smart. Harrow is prepared. Gideon would never accuse her of being anything else.

Drearburh is empty. Of course it’s empty – it’s been empty since Crux kicked the bucket a few years back. Functionally empty since Harrow turned eighteen. Drearburh has been emptying since the day Harrow was born. And yet it’s still stood, stark, and imposing, and dusty enough to give even the healthiest guy allergies, and making Harrow miserable with its very existence. Any of those are reason enough to burn it to the ground, really, but the last one especially.

So when Harrow said she wanted to do this – yeah, Gideon was in. Yeah, she’s not going to chicken out halfway through. Yeah, she’s going to carefully angle the gas can to spell out FUCK YOU CRUX in spatters of oil.

Harrow elbows her. “Please don’t sign the crime scene, Griddle.”

“It’s all gonna burn anyway,” says Gideon, put out.

“Yes, and those parts will burn faster, and on the off-chance that someone stops the whole place from collapsing in, I don’t want their suspect pool narrowed to people who hate Crux.”

“Everyone who’s ever met Crux hates him, so that’s hardly identifying,” Gideon points out reasonably. And when Harrow narrows her eyes, Gideon groans and splashes another puddle of gas, obliterating her magnum opus of arson. The things she does for love.

They walk the empty halls, gas pooling in their wake. “Lotta memories here,” says Gideon, to fill the silence.

“All of them bad,” says Harrow darkly. She sloshes oil up a wall studded with portraits of crumbly old motherfuckers with Harrow’s dark eyes and Harrow’s pointed chin sneer down at the.

“For me, sure. Had an absolutely terrible time here, no doubt.” Gideon eyes Harrow carefully. “But for you?”

“Also had a terrible time here,” says Harrow, perfectly dry. “Thank you for asking.”

“Harrow-”

“Griddle. They destroyed you. They ravaged you. They – we – devoured you. How could I forgive someone – anyone – who looked at you with anything but love?”

“...I got better,” says Gideon weakly. It dwarfs her, sometimes, the size of Harrow’s devotion. The things and people Harrow left behind for her, not the least of which is her past self. Harrow is hard on herself, but what she always, always forgets is that she left her church, and her family, and her home. That Harrow stopped being Drearburh when she started being Gideon’s, because there was no universe where the two could coexist. And, when it came down to it, Harrow chose Gideon.

“You’re being flippant,” says Harrow now. “And we are almost out of gas in these cans.”

Gideon salutes. “Say no more, my angelic arsonist. Two more cans from the car, coming right up.”

Harrow catches her hand. “Thank you, Griddle,” she says, voice small, and Gideon knows it isn’t just about the heavy lifting, or the accessory to arson. It’s about all of it.

“Any time,” says Gideon. About all of it.

--

When the house is fully doused, Harrow dribbles out a final trail of gasoline to the front stoop, and stands there imposingly. Even at five feet and pocket change, even with her face smeared with gasoline and her skirt shoved in a garbage bag in the trunk, she cuts an imposing figure.

“All packed up,” Gideon reports, dusting her hands off on her pants. “You ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

Harrow breathes in deeply, and relaxes her shoulders. “More than ready.”

“Coolio. So, how do you wanna…”

Harrow has produced a torn cardboard matchbook from her many pockets, because Harrow is always prepared. She stands there, one girl against a house that has stood for hundreds of years. One girl against a church packed with weirdos who knew exactly what they wanted her to be, and never thought to ask for her say about any of it. One girl, against what was once everything she ever knew.

“Let it be so,” says Harrow, with perfect preacher’s daughter solemnity, and strikes the match.

It skids across the striker strip and bends. Harrow curses, and scrapes it again.

“No, that one’s fucked, try another,” says Gideon, over her shoulder.

“I know,” hisses Harrow, tearing another match from the book. She peels off her gloves for extra maneuverability, and holds them out to Gideon without looking. Gideon pockets them instinctively, suffused with the warm glow of knowing that Harrow knew she would be there.

Harrow gives the match a withering look, daring it to disappoint her. She grips it close to the tip, and scrapes it deliberately, and then swears and drops it as it flares to life, far too close to her fingers.

“Shit,” says Gideon, alarmed. She takes Harrow’s hand in hers, turning it over to check the damage.

“I’m fine,” says Harrow irritably.

Gideon’s hand tightens on her wrist. “Can I just-”

“We are on a tight timetable here, Nav-”

“Always time for me to kiss your lil fingies,” Gideon corrects her, and lands one on the tip of Harrow’s index finger. Then a second one, pressed reverently to her middle finger, that old friend. One more for her marvelous, nail-bitten thumb. When she straightens up, Harrow is making one of those faces she makes sometimes. The bemused one, the one that says, how did I deserve you.

“What?” says Harrow, which means Gideon is probably making her own face. She shakes her head, shrugging. Words don’t do it justice.

Harrow tears another match, and does it properly this time, folding the matchbook back over to pinch the match against the striker strip. She pulls with all two of her muscles, and-

“The striker strip is outta oomph, isn’t it,” says Gideon mournfully. “Cheap piece of shit.”

Harrow crumples the matchbook in her palm. “Fuck,” she says vehemently. “Fuck- I had a plan, damn it.” Her face is hard, and furious, and then it is crumpling like the matchbook. “I just wanted to do this one thing for you,” she says, and she looks so young. Like the kid she was never allowed to be, in their childhood spent on these grounds.

“You’re pretty serious about this,” Gideon observes.

Harrow wipes at her eyes. “When have you ever known me to be anything less than serious about-”

“About anything?”

“Well, yes. And about you.”

There’s a noticeable absence of flames, but Gideon’s face is very warm anyway. “Charmer,” she accuses, and digs in her pocket. “Hey, Harrow?”

Harrow takes a step closer. “Yes, Griddle?” Her voice is low.

Gideon holds up the tiny plastic lighter. “Need a light?” she asks, husky and seductive, and Harrow barks out a startled, joyous laugh before she remembers herself.

“You don’t even smoke,” she says, taking it, turning it over in her hands. It’s decorated with little decals of marijuana leaves and yellow emoji faces. Harrow’s looking at it like it’s a marvel. And then she’s looking at Gideon like she’s the marvel, which is even weirder, but par for the course with a weirdo like Harrow.

“Thought you might need it,” Gideon says with a shrug. “I’ve got your back, my firebug fiance.”

Harrow raises an eyebrow. “Are we engaged now?” she says, thumbing at the lighter, and Gideon swallows. She did not actually intend for that to slip out. She was was waiting, for tonight to be over, and maybe for Harrow’s residency to finish, or for Mercury to be in gatorade. For the right time. Harrow deserves everything right.

“If you want-” she hedges. “I’ve been saving for a ring, but I know it’s like, a loaded concept, and there’s a lot of baggage, so I didn’t want to-”

Harrow lights the flame, and Gideon closes her mouth with a click. Harrow’s face comes alive with the firelight, strange shadows dancing across across her angular cheekbones. Her mouth is screwed in focus, but her eyes are bright and sharp as she sets light to the matchbook, takes a deliberate step backwards, and lets it fall.

The line of fire races towards Drearburh. There’s an audible whoosh as the centuries-old monument to Harrow’s fucked up family catches flame, as the gas trails they laid ignite in glorious synchronicity.

Harrow turns to Gideon, silhouette against the flames she lit for her. She’s beautiful as a heart attack, dark and sharp and perfect as she takes both of Gideon’s hands in her own.

“Yes,” she says, clear and crisp. “Marry me.”

Gideon’s heart is bursting. And it’s a terrible time for it, absolutely inappropriate, but Harrow knew what she was getting into all those years ago when she first flipped from hating Gideon to loving her, so what does she have to lose?

“Babe,” she whispers, low and sensual against the fire-translucent shell of Harrow’s ear. “It’s a little remote, and I heard it had some property damage lately, but - I think I found the perfect venue for our special day.”

Harrow scowls and headbutts her in the chin. But then she kisses her too, long and slow against the roaring flames of Drearburh, so all in all, it’s perfect.

Chapter Text

“Thank you all for coming here today,” said Paul, and they meant it. They made eye contact with each of the participants, trying to put warmth into their tones, make them feel seen and welcomed. “Restorative justice isn’t easy. We live in a culture that tells us that the solution to conflict is to choose a villain, and get them out of our sight as fast as possible – through ostracization, through incarceration, through execution. The fact that you all decided to do this process, and made time to invest in it, is a gift to each other, and speaks to your levels of commitment and care in your collective house, and in each other.”

Coronabeth was nodding emphatically, which was heartening. Ianthe looked ready to murder someone, which was also heartening. Paul wouldn’t really have expected anything else from her.

“I want to establish as soon as possible,” Paul continued, “that the purpose of this circle is not to decide who is right.”

Gideon opened her mouth, clearly about to opine vehemently on who was right, and then closed it when Coronabeth shot her a very pointed look.

“The purpose is to uncover the harm that has been done, and the needs that are not being met,” Paul said, in their most soothing voice. “That way, we can find a way to repair what was harmed, and for it not to not happen again. Are we all in agreement about that?”

Harrowhark’s mouth was a tight, mutinous line. But she didn’t storm out, which was a start. Ideally, Paul liked everyone to begin a circle from a place of openness and vulnerability, ready to own their own role in conflict and work to make things better. But at this point, with this crowd, they’d take what they could get.

So: “Great,” said Paul cheerfully. “Let’s get started. We’ve already talked about the – incident that brought us here today. But I’d like every member of the household to go around and share how this, and the conflict overall, has impacted them. No reaction is too small. Everyone’s feelings matter here, and there’s no real repair until we respond to the actual harm that has been done, even if it’s invisible. Isaac, can you go first?”

The kid to their left jolted. “Um,” he said, panicked. “Um.”

It was always rough on the first person. Even though really, Isaac should have known this was coming when he sat next to Paul. Paul made their voice welcoming, nonthreatening. “Take your time. We have plenty of it.” Coronabeth, they were quite sure, would tackle anyone who tried to leave, which they couldn’t condone officially but was certainly very convenient.

“I liked the spicy food,” said Isaac, hesitantly. “It wasn’t even that spicy, unless you’re, like, super white? Like, Gideon’s a pretty good cook. And –“ he met Paul’s encouraging gaze, and visibly gathered his courage. “And, like, I have a lot of tests to study for, but they’re really loud when they fight, and I don’t love that?”

Paul nodded appreciatively. “Thank you for sharing. Jeannemary, how about you?”

“Same,” said Jeannemary.

“Anything else?”

Jeannemary itched her leg. “I dunno. I kind of don’t want to take a turn cooking any more? It’s, like, a lot of pressure, and what’s even the point since we don’t have anything but salt and onions now? It’s all going to taste like shit – sorry, like crap – anyway, until we can buy new spices, and that’s not cheap, and the bulk food place is two whole bus rides away, and I’m busy with practice. Like, I know they have a thing going on, but. Still.” She exhaled, and Isaac patted her shoulder encouragingly.

“Thank you. And you are allowed to swear here. This is a safe space for expression.”

“Okay, then it fucking sucks,” said Jeannemary. “Now I’m done.”

Paul took a deep breath, eyeing the next person in the circle. “Harrowhark?”

Harrowhark Nonagesimus was curled up very tight in her seat, probably to avoid any inch of skin coming into contact with Ianthe, who was taking up the other 75% of the loveseat with what could only be called manspreading. She was scowling, but that was standard for Harrow, so Paul didn’t take it personally.

“Pass,” she said crisply.

Paul frowned. “That’s not really how this works.”

“I have made my feelings known to everyone here,” said Harrow stonily. “I will not waste their time with yet another recitations of my grievances against Gideon Nav. It would take more hours than any of us care to spend.” And when Gideon opened her mouth again, and Coronabeth threw a crumpled receipt at her, Harrowhark smirked a little and added, “And I feel confident you will be calling on me again.”

Which was true. “Well, I can’t force you,” said Paul doubtfully. “Ianthe?”

Ianthe looked up from – disgustingly – clipping her nails. There were little half-moons of keratin scattered about her on the floor, and no part of Paul trusted that she was ever planning to sweep them up. She blew a limp lock of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, me?” she said. “I’m fine with it all.”

Paul kept their face neutral, with effort. “This is a space for everyone to talk. I let Harrowhark pass, but you deserve time to say your piece.”

“Yes, and I’m saying it,” said Ianthe, lackadaisical. “No harm has been done to my person. I’ve decided it’s funny, actually, and I’m having a blast. You all want to fix Harry? Well, I can accept her as she is.”

Paul gave her a Look. They had warned Coronabeth this might happen. This was the problem with circles – they worked only when everyone wanted them to work. If people weren’t vulnerable, if they sat back and sneered at everyone who was, if they had no true intention to fix the problem, then they were all just wasting their time.

And Ianthe had feelings about it, they just knew she did. Ianthe was nothing if not juicy, in her proprietary little looks at Harrow, and her exaggerated grimaces. Ianthe… Ianthe would say her piece eventually. She wouldn’t be able to bear staying silent.

“Alright,” Paul said, conceding for now. “Corona?”

Corona perked up immediately. “God, where to begin? It’s awful!” Ianthe snorted, and Corona whacked her knee without looking at her. “You two are both such wonderful friends to everyone but each other-” Gideon’s turn to snort, then “-and I don’t see why you can’t just get along! If you just talked to each other-”

Paul cut in. “I hear your need for solutions, but I want to make sure we first hear how this is impacting you.”

Corona colored. She looked down at her lap, and wrung her hands, and said, “I don’t want either of you to move out. I don’t want anyone to move out because of this, and I’m afraid someone will, and then everyone will, and then – it’s not even a matter of handing the mortgage myself, it’s that I really thought we’d built something beautiful here, and I don’t want it to go away. I want you all to get along, and keep living here.”

Which was – real. Corona’s fear of abandonment, Jeannemary’s fear of retribution. They were real, and they were gritty, and they were exactly what was needed here. “Thank you for your vulnerability,” Paul said, and Corona glowed with the praise. “Judith?”

Judith Deuteros said, “I feel frustrated that my time is being wasted because two adults cannot get along.”

Paul exhaled through their nose, and prayed for patience. Judith, they were quite sure, would have solved this problem by evicting Harrow, or Gideon, or both just to be safe. She was probably still fuming that Corona had called for a circle instead. This was – this was acting out, just like Ianthe, and they could handle that. “I’d caution against calling this space a waste of time,” they said mildly, “but I hear your frustration. How is that impacting you?”

Judith drummed her fingers. “I am losing valuable time I could be working or studying, to participate in yet another conversation about these two’s dramatic antics. I felt that this was solved adequately two weeks ago, when Gideon agreed to cook a less flavorful portion for Harrowhark. We all agreed to it, and it was a reasonable solution that met everyone’s needs, reached without a six-hour gauntlet of emotional - exhibitionism. The fact that that did not work makes me…” she seemed to be searching with great effort for a polite, neutral way to express her disdain. “Unenthused about enduring another process. They did not respect one consensus. Why would they respect another?”

Gideon burst out, “You keep saying they, like it wasn’t all-”

Paul spoke over her. “Gideon, you’ll have your chance to talk without interruption. But this is Judith’s time now. Judith, continue.”

“The sanctity of collective process has been violated,” said Judith, which Paul found especially annoying because she was essentially right. Heartbreaking: the worst person they knew had made a good point. “And when that social fabric is torn, it opens the door to far worse chaos. Our house is built on a shaky foundation, and order is always closer to breaking down than one might think.”

“Spooky,” said Ianthe drolly, and Corona kicked her.

Paul turned to the next member of the co-op. “Nona?”

Nona wriggled in her seat on the floor. “Thank you for asking, Paul.” She looked thoughtful. “I don’t mind about the food and the spices, really. I wasn’t going to eat it anyway.”

“You really should,” said Judith, apparently unable to help herself, and Nona said, “Yes, but I think we both know I won’t.”

Paul gestured for her to continue, and Nona chewed at her braid a little, and finally said, “If Harrow is allowed to just get rid of things she doesn’t like, does that mean I can throw out Isaac’s orange hair dye?”

(“No!” said Isaac, horrified, and Paul held up a patient hand of we’ll address this later.)

“It’s a horrible color, and I don’t like it at all,” Nona continued, warming to her theme. “and I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

Paul said, with an eye to how Isaac was holding Jeannemary back, “I’m hearing you say that there’s an unfairness. That you manage not to go against house decisions, so you don’t see why Harrowhark can’t do the same.”

“No, I’m saying I want to throw out Isaac’s hair dye,” said Nona. “I liked that old picture where his hair was blue, from before I moved in.”

(“Pash told me blue was her color, and then she did throw out my dye,” said Isaac miserably.)

“So it is allowed!” Nona concluded triumphantly.

“No, Jeanne wrecked her room, and then they sparred a bunch, and we had a whole circle about that too. Orange was the compromise color.”

Nona considered it. “I think we should schedule another one, then, because I really don’t like the orange.” And when Jeannemary opened her mouth to object, she added, “and Paul’s right, it’s not fair that Harrow and Pash get what they want by going outside the process, but I don’t even though I have been very reasonable and good. And I’d also like to revisit getting a dog.”

“Objection,” said Ianthe immediately.

“Noted for later, but I think that’s outside the scope of this circle,” said Paul patiently. “Pash?”

Pash was lounging on the beanbag chair, eating peanuts. “Pass,” she said.

“You can’t pass,” said Paul yet again, feeling the urge to grind their teeth.

Pash tossed a peanut into the air, and caught it in her mouth. Nona, leaning against her legs, applauded politely while Pash chewed, and wiped her face, and finally said, “Look. I like non-carceral approaches to communication as much as the next bastard. Great policy for society as a whole, let’s get these circles in every school, etc. But in this one, specific case, I think Nonagesimus should go to prison.”

Which, at least, meant that there was strong emotion there. “Would you like to expand on that?” Paul prodded.

“Nah, I’m good,” said Pash.

“Right.” Paul took a deep breath. And turned to the other guest of honor. “Gideon?”

Gideon was slumped in a rickety rocking chair. She rocked forward, hands clasped between her knees. Her eyes were fixed on the mantle above Harrow’s head. “So, no one’s allowed to interrupt me? And I have three minutes to say whatever I want?”

“Yes.”

“Seems like a trap,” said Gideon darkly. “Seems like Harrow passed so that she can, like, get a perfect rebuttal in, and absolutely trounce me with lawyer bullshit. Don’t give me that face, Nonagesimus, it’s not a compliment, it’s a statement of fact. You’ve never met a set of rules you couldn’t bend to somehow fuck me over.”

Ianthe was opening her mouth to make the obvious innuendo. Paul jumped in first, for everyone’s sake. “I’d ask you to believe that I won’t let this happen. And trust the process as a whole, and your housemates.”

“Big ask,” said Gideon (“Skill issue,” Jeannemary muttered. "The rest of us managed it.").

Gideon rocked back. “Okay. Where to begin?” She fiddled with the cuffs of her sweatshirt. “The harm Harrow has caused me. The numerous injuries to my house and my person and my pride and my self-esteem and my general sense of decency in the world. I feel like this question is too broad and too narrow, because like, how are you supposed to answer it with anything but her existence is a pestilence and I would like a vaccine, please?”

(”Vaccines are for pre-exposure, everyone knows that!” said Isaac sullenly.)

“How did the Spice Incident affect you, Gideon?” Paul pressed.

“Cool, it’s got a name now. I was thinking the Herb Holocaust, or the Cleansing of the Cloves.” She looked thoughtful, then snapped her fingers excitedly. “The Asafoteida Annhilation.”

“Gideon.”

“The Marrakesh Massacre. The Despoilment - the Devastation? - of the Dill.”

“Gideon-“

“It sucks, okay?” Gideon exploded. There it was. “Like, okay, she wasn’t eating because she didn’t like my cooking. That’s fine, she’s an adult, she can do whatever rude, unhealthy shit she wants! But no, I go out of my way to make an extra bland portion for her, and it’s still not enough, because nothing’s enough for Harrowhark, queen of sneering and insulting my very sexy and competent efforts! I grew leeks for this bitch, and does she thank me?”

“I’m hearing that you feel unappreciated,” said Paul.

Gideon scoffed. “Sure, that’s one way of putting it. I bust my ass for this family, and I kowtow to her weird fucking demands, and what does she do? Half-assedly spot-mops the dining room, and shoves all the clutter on the table into one pile? Does the house laundry and doesn’t even fold it after, just lets it get all wrinkly? Tries to take out the trash, but she’s too weak to properly lift the bag so it splits on the concrete as she’s dragging it and then there’s garbage juice all over the driveway, and we get raccoons? Don’t give me that face, Harrow – I know you’re thinking I do things, Griddle – bullshit you do. The things you do are fucking unsolicited, Harrow, and they’re pointless. No one asked you to lovingly polish the candlesticks that you bought, and that take up a fuckton of space on the mantle. No one asked you to call the internet company and psychologically destroy the poor minimum-wage service rep until he offered us a better deal. No one asked you to buy an air fryer that we don’t even have counter space for-”

“You asked for an air fryer,” said Harrow, breaking her silence.

“Did not-”

“You said that your, quote, ‘chicken nuggies’ didn’t get properly ‘cripsy’ in the microwave, and the oven took too long to heat up.”

Paul interjected, “Harrow, this is Gideon’s time to speak.”

“Yeah, Harrow, Gideon Nav talking time,” said Gideon, sticking out her tongue. “And, okay, yeah, the air fryer is sick, but like.” She exhaled. “You don’t get to just, like, treat everyone like shit, and neglect all your house responsibilities, and then then do something so perfect and amazing every six months so that I can’t even hate you. That’s not how it works. I don’t want a fucking air fryer, though if you try to take it back I will rearrange your entire fucking filing cabinet so you never find any of your class notes ever again. I didn’t want an air fryer, I just wanted you to treat me with fucking – respect. Like a human. And say nice things to me every once in a while. Is that too much to ask?”

It hung in the air. Paul let it, giving Ianthe a warning eye when she opened her mouth. Harrow’s face was screwed up with an emotion they couldn’t quite parse.

“Okay,” said Paul finally. “What I’d like to do next is some reflective listening. Harrow, since you haven’t gone yet, can you tell me what you’ve heard people say, in a way that affirms that you understand their point of view?”

“You said she wasn’t going to get a rebuttal,” said Gideon, outraged.

“It’s not a rebuttal. Harrow, the focus is on showing your housemates that you understand how your behavior and your conflict with Gideon affect everyone. And Gideon, you’ll have a chance to do the same thing next.”

Harrow steeled herself, which on Harrow was a big production, when you knew how to look for it. She closed her eyes, briefly. She smoothed her untidy hair, and then the long skirt draped over her thighs – Gideon opened her mouth, likely to jeer at her to get on with it, and Paul gave them a look that promised immense pain. Harrow took a deep breath and turned to the youngest members of the house. “I hear,” she began, and faltered.

Paul girded their loins, ready to cut her off if the next words out of her mouth were some variation on that you’re a pair of whiny bitch baby cowards who can’t handle conflict. Which, knowing Harrow, was not unlikely.

Harrow wet her lips. “I hear that I have… created a culture where you feel afraid. Where you fear that the slightest misstep will catch my ire, and you must walk lightly to avoid my wrath. I can see how my actions created that, and I…” her throat worked visibly. “That is not the environment I wish to cultivate. Rest assured that my dynamic with Gideon is – separate, and I would not, to anyone else-”

“She means I’m her favorite punching bag,” Gideon supplied helpfully, from her corner.

“Gideon,” Paul chastised. “Harrow, that was” (astonishingly) “very well done. Do you have more to say to Isaac and Jeannemary, or-”

“I believe I covered it,” said Harrow, worrying at her thumbs. Her eyes slid, reluctantly, to Ianthe. “I hear that you are a deranged and amoral pervert.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Ianthe, with feeling. “It feels good to be seen.”

Coronabeth, next. “I hear your fear,” said Harrow, low and sober. “I hear that – must I phrase it this way every time, Sext?”

“Don’t let function get in the way of form,” Paul advised. “Speak from the heart.” There was a warm glow in their chest. Harrowhark, listening to others. Harrowhark, almost apologizing. There were times, usually involving Ianthe Tridentarius or someone of her ilk, that Paul doubted the efficacy of restorative justice as a real practice, but this – they could live another six months on this alone.

Harrow made a face at that, but she plunged gamely back in, and Paul could have embraced her for that, if they didnt know how much Harrow loathed being touched. “It is human, to fear losing what you love. To want to hold tight to the people you care for so that they can be safe, and loved, and comfortable. I can see how my behavior might. Drive people away, and you, at least, deserve better than that.”

Corona’s eyes were wet. She nodded, minutely.

To Judith and Nona: “You are correct, that I – disregarded process. If I am to live among others, I must accept no longer acting with only my own assessment of the situation in mind. I would not tolerate the same behavior from others – we are getting a dog over my dead body – and I cannot hold others to a more exacting standard than myself. And, Passion, you are welcome to attempt to arrest me if you think you have the gumption, but I highly doubt you do.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Pash muttered.

And then it was just Gideon. Harrow closed her eyes for a good deal longer, and Gideon was rocked forward, knees bouncing a little, suspended at the perihelion of her arc.

“I,” said Harrow, and could say no more. The moment trembled on. Harrow opened her mouth again, and from its depths emerged, “I-”

“Nope,” said Gideon, rising to her feet. “Changed my mind, actually. I'm out. I don’t want to here your coerced-ass grovel, Nonagesimus.”

“You agreed to the process,” Paul reminded her, worried. They were on the edge of something, they could feel it, and if Gideon left-

“Yeah, to figure out what to do about this shit. I didn’t agree to just, like, sit here and let her make excuses and half-assed apologies.” Gideon was pacing now, the wooden floor creaking with her every footstep.

“Here’s what you don’t get, Paul,” she said, turning back to jab her finger at Harrow. “What none of you get. Harrow’s talk is cheap. Harrow lies to nuns, and teachers, and parents, and cops – Harrow lies to anyone she needs to, if it’ll fuck me over. I never asked for an apology.”

“I hear,” said Harrow, whip-fast, rising to her feet too, “that you did, actually. I hear that you want me to treat you with respect. Like a fucking human.”

“See, she uses my own words against me! You can’t do a collaborative process with a fucking snake.”

“I hear,” Harrow continued, gathering steam, “that grand gestures are not enough. That you would prefer – the steady reassurance of regular words of affirmation, over acts of devotion. I – I hadn’t realized.”

“What, something Harrowhark Nonagesimus doesn’t know?” Gideon’s hands tightened on the back of her chair. “Well, now I’m listening!” And her sarcasm was tinged with the slightest hysteria.

“I know my words are cheap,” said Harrow, relentless. Her fists were clenched at her sides. “I know it, I have always known it! My words are maggot-eaten and threadbare, and you deserve - I have known in the marrow of me that there is nothing I could say to you that would earn your trust, or your forgiveness. I know it. Do you think I don’t know it? The fact that you would hunger for a single kind word from me – beyond comprehension. It shatters me.”

Gideon inhaled sharply, and her face was very lost.

“I appreciate you, Gideon Nav,” said Harrow, with terrible somberness. “I appreciate your ‘sexy and competent efforts.’ I appreciate the leeks, and I appreciate the assistance with the garbage, and I don’t appreciate your attempt to add celery salt to last week’s porridge, but I appreciate you. Damn me to hell, for all I have done to you, and damn me twice over for ever making you believe you are anything other than ardently, achingly – appreciated.”

There was a pregnant silence, as Gideon flushed very red, and Harrow did not take her eyes off of her. They were just looking at each other, the air charged with tension, and Paul would not interrupt this for the world, even if they were starting to re-evaluate their impression of the kind of conflict this was.

“Gay,” said Ianthe finally. She looked as if she’d stumbled across the abandoned aftermath of an amateur kombucha fermentation process in a communal fridge.

“Super gay,” Isaac agreed.

“Can they please,” said Jeannemary, burying her head in her hands, “just kiss already, and go back to normal?”

“Oh, they’ve been doing that for months,” Nona reported brightly, and both Gideon and Harrowhark were suddenly looking anywhere but at each other. “And having a lot of sex. On the couch, even, but they don’t like when people are in the room during, which seems rude to me, because it’s a common area and everyone’s supposed to be able to use common areas unless they specifically booked it two weeks in advance, which they didn’t.”

“Which couch?” asked Ianthe, with interest.

“Oh, all of them,” said Nona unconcernedly

Judith seemed to be swallowing several comments. She darkened, and tensed, and finally said, “I did not consent to be a pawn in your foreplay. Nor did I consent to sitting in your – fluids.”

“Don’t be a prude, Jody,” said Coronabeth, who seemed to be struggling to hold back a bemused laugh. “I’m sure they put down a towel.”

“Nope,” said Gideon, popping the P. “And Harrow’s a squirter.”

Harrow threw a pillow at her, which missed and hit Pash. Pash, whose head was buried in her hands, did not even respond to this particular insult. She seemed to be having her own crisis.

Paul massaged the bridge of their nose. “Nona, this would have been helpful information an hour ago.”

“That makes sense, Paul, but also, sex is private.”

“You just fucking snitched on us!” Gideon pointed out, outraged.

“Yes, but everyone knows I’m terrible with secrets, so I don’t think it’s fair to be angry at me,” said Nona sensibly. “I did my best, even when I really, really wanted to tell everyone, and Pyrrha said everyone gives into temptation sometimes and I shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

(“Wait, you told Pyrrha? God, she’s never gonna let me live this down-”)

Paul raised their voice for attention. “I think, that perhaps we should adjourn this circle. And certain elements of this can be handled in relationship counseling, and then debriefed at house meetings. I can recommend a colleague who specializes in couple’s therapy, if you'd like.”

“That is acceptable to me,” said Harrowhark, with awful primness for someone who’d apparently been fucking nasty on not one, but all of the couches. “Nav, a word?”

Gideon was still very sweaty, but she rallied impressively, and attempted a suave wink. “Your room or mine?”

(“I’m actually going to gouge my eyes out,” mourned Isaac.)

Pash said, “You and me both, kiddo. I’ve changed my mind. Prison for both of ‘em.”

Chapter Text

At sixteen, Gideon Nav had been a loser – a loveable, adorable, baby dyke with a heart of gold, sure, but she could acknowledge with the benefit of hindsight that she had also been a loser. It wasn’t her fault. It was just how the cookie crumbled, when you grew up in a shitty church household and had absolutely no lesbian role models to teach you how to get girls.

At nineteen, Gideon Nav had also been a loser, which – again, not her fault, if you think about it. She’d been going through a tough time. Finding her way in a world that wasn’t all nuns, figuring out how to actually talk to babes, trying to find an alcohol that didn’t taste like piss or gasoline or piss-gasoline – it was all hard, and nobody understood.

At twenty-two, though, Gideon Nav was an absolute lady-killer. She had the looks. She had the biceps (a subset of looks, but trust her, they absolutely rated a separate mention). She had the charming smile. She had the absolutely insane strap game. She had the sex – weird phrasing, but you get the idea. She had all the girls.

How? Someone might ask (mostly just Jeannemary, the baby queer who kept sneaking under her wing, but she was fully poised to write an advice book for entire world one day, once she figured out how to pirate Microsoft Word). Well, you see. She also had a system. Which could be summed up in three words: Open Mic Night.

Step one – dress to kill. She was already always dressed to kill, so that bit was easy.

Step two – don’t embarrass herself. Unlike sixteen-year-old Gideon, she had that down to a science too. She had a guitar, a kind of busted-up old thing, but decent enough to play a couple chords and half-sing along in her huskiest tones. She didn’t try anything flashy. She didn’t mix it up too much – as long as she hit different bars, she didn’t have to. The point wasn’t to be an amazing musician. The point was to be suave, and sexy, and make every girl in the crowd start rubbing their legs together. The point was for everyone to admire her fingering, if you get her drift.

Step three – be a supportive audience. Open mic night took vulnerability. It took courage, and that courage deserved to be rewarded with like, warm looks, and encouraging laughter, and enthusiastic wolf-whistles, and (soon thereafter) screaming orgasms. Which, yeah, sounded a little skeevy, but it was true. When you were up at a mic for the first time, singing the ballad you wrote yourself, or white-knuckling your way through the poem that’s been living rent free in your head for years, or taking your tight five out for a spin to see if it was any good… art wasn’t a solitary thing. You were doing for other people, hoping for approval or reactions from other people. Hoping to touch other people’s hearts. And a single friendly face in the crowd, someone who laughed or winced or nodded in appreciation at the right time… it made an impression, okay? It meant that when she mosied up to the bar later and offered to buy a drink, more often than not she wasn’t rejected.

Cam thought it was pickup artist bullshit. Pal hedged his bets, but had been heard to call it somewhat exploitative and cynical, don’t you think? But Pyrrha – Pyrrha said it was a rock-solid strategy, and Pyrrha had bagged both Cam and Pal, so clearly she knew what she was talking about.

Crucially, step four was to keep moving. She couldn’t keep hitting the same bar every time, or they’d get wise to her tricks. Someone might realize she only knew four songs on the guitar, and then where would she be? Alone in her kinda shitty apartment, that’s where she’d be, and Gideon… Gideon didn’t like being alone.

Tonight, she was at the kind of dive bar with a pool table and an electric dartboard with dead batteries, and she was feeling herself. She’d done her passable rendition of Wonderwall with maximum smoulder, and she definitely had some bites. A cute kinda preppy girl with dreads was eyeing her out of the corner of her eye, and there was a giggly blonde in a sequined miniskirt who’d been casting her obvious glances in between furtive whispered conversations with her friends for at least three sets now. Gideon settled her ass down at the bar, half-watching a hippie chick who definitely wasn’t wearing a bra nervously launch into her poem about the moon. She snapped her fingers encouragingly, and watched the aspiring poet visibly gain confidence. It was a good night.

When the set was over and she’d had a chance to cheer loudly for the poet (who blushed and did a dorky little heart gesture with her hands in Gideon’s direction, holy shit, she might be in love), and some sad dude in a sweatervest started reciting his epic Beowulf-ass poem, she turned to catch the bartender’s eye. “Can I get a-” she started, and that’s as far as she got, because the bartender was Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

At sixteen, Harrowhark had been an absolute evil bitch psychopath Jesus freak with a stick up her ass. At nineteen, she had probably also been an evil bitch psychopath, etc, but Gideon had been thankfully spared her presence. At twenty-two, she was absolutely rocking a shaved head and heavy dark makeup and a fuckton of piercings, and also looking at Gideon like she’d opened a refrigerator to find something unspeakably foul growing on her leftovers. Which meant she was probably still an evil bitch psychopath.

If Gideon were being fair, which she wasn’t, she’d admit she probably had the same look on her face. Harrowhark fucking Nonagesimus. In a bar. Goddamn.

Harrow recovered first – she always was infuriatingly composed. “Seats are for paying customers, Griddle. You know I would dearly love an excuse to kick you out.”

Gideon was, perhaps, not at the top of her game. She was wondering why she hadn’t noticed Harrow earlier, instead of falling ass-first into this jumpscare. She was wondering if Harrow had, horror of horrors, seen her set. She was sixteen again, pizza-faced and awkward and desperate to be liked and baffled why no one did.

“Nope,” she said aloud. “Not today, Satan.” Because she wasn't sixteen, she was twenty two, and like hell was she letting Harrow bring her back there. She pivoted, hard, over to the other end of the bar, where the hippie chick was catching her breath.

“I loved your poem,” Gideon told her, low and slow and earnest, and the girl exhaled. People weren’t complicated, really. Everyone wanted to be liked, when it came right down to it. All anyone really wanted to be able to peel off a little armor and show off something they’d made, and have someone tell them that it was good. No, you weren’t too much. No, it wasn’t cringey that you believed in yourself. No, your openness and honesty is beautiful, and fuck anyone who’s ever told you otherwise. Fuck the Harrows of the world. This wasn’t high school, and this wasn’t Drearburh, and Gideon wasn’t sixteen.

Hippie chick chuckled, a little breathlessly. “I’m so glad. I was nervous the part about the full, gravid belly was a bit – much.”

Gideon sank into the stool next to her. “Absolutely not,” she said, with feeling. “No, it was perfect. What kind of coward doesn’t appreciate a line about round, supple flesh?”

And she lit up. “Exactly! If you can’t handle me at my visceral fertility imagery, you don’t deserve me at my…” she tapped her finger, thinking, and Gideon drank it in, the excitement, the frisson, the way she could make this goddess come to life just a few kind words.

“Buy you a drink?” Gideon offered, leaning forward just right for her knees to brush against Fertility Metaphor’s drawstring cotton-hemp skirt. And the woman looked down to hide her surprised smile, and ran a hand through her hair, and said, “Alright. A whiskey sour?”

And Gideon turned to order for her, which was a mistake, because then she was face to face with Harrow once again. Right. She needed to, like put a bell on her, or get the hell out of dodge, or both.

“Coming right up,” said Harrow, with supreme boredom. And then, as she was measuring out the whiskey, “so that’s your game, Griddle? I can’t say I’m impressed.”

Gideon cast a quick look to make sure Whiskey Sour was out of earshot. “Do you mind?” she hissed. “I’m having a moment.”

“I noticed,” said Harrow dryly. “Tell me that doesn’t actually work.”

“Fuck off. I didn’t ask your opinions about how to pick up girls.”

“Understandable, since I would ridicule you mercilessly for your ignorance. I’m not sure you’d survive the onslaught of scorn.”

“Like you know any better?” That was a laugh. Harrow was – Gideon was pretty sure Harrow had been exempted from sex ed all throughout high school. If Harrow even saw a tiddie – even by accident, from a CDC-approved fifty-foot distance, in a dark alley – Gideon could only assume she would self-immolate. Harrow, Gideon was pretty sure, had a black hole where her cunt should be.

Harrow’s eyes flashed with a very recognizable look. Gideon, somewhere in the back of her brain, found herself exhuming a self-protective instinct that she thought she had put to bed long ago. When Harrow was issued a challenge, she belatedly remembered, she never backed down.

“I’m taking my break,” Harrow said, not breaking eye contact with Gideon. She ignored the protests of the other bartender, a horribly twiggy blonde, and came around the side of the bar. Gideon had the reasonable thought that Harrow was going to jump her right there, try and finish the job she’d started back in the bad old days and fully gouge Gideon’s eyes out with her goth-ass nails – but instead, she walked right past Gideon. Towards Hippie Chick.

Gideon watched, frozen, as Harrow handed her the drink, fingers brushing together sensually. She watched, aghast, as Harrow said something that had Hippie Chick lean forward in interest. She watched, incredulous, as Harrow gave a slow, clipped smile, as Hippie Chick gave a laugh that showed off the full column of her throat, as she playfully batted Harrow’s black-clad shoulder, and then did not move her hand. She couldn’t see Hippie Chick’s face any more. She could still see Harrow, head cocked with interest, stepping in closer.

Gideon went to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face. Fuck. Goddamn.

When she came back, Hippie Chick avoided her gaze. Harrow was back behind the bar, and when Gideon resumed her seat, she raised an eyebrow.What, her mocking gaze seemed to say. Like it’s hard?

Her black lipstick was smudged. Gideon was having trouble looking away from the tacky, tarry smear of it, the way it clung to Harrow’s sharp little teeth. The flash of warm flesh beneath it, Harrow’s singular gap in her armored underbelly.

Harrow said, “Well, predictably, that drink got you nowhere. Do you want to open a tab for it? Or pay now?”

--

So, she went back. It wasn’t – it wasn’t about Harrow. She could live without ever seeing Harrowhark Nonagesimus again. But it was a good bar, and yeah, maybe Harrow was lurking like a dark cloud over Thursday night open mic night, but Tuesday night comedy night? That would be unlikely. Harrow was like, in med school or something, a quick internet search confirmed, and Gideon knew her parents were old money, so no way she worked more than one night a week. No way she tore herself away from her studies and her dark rituals any longer than she needed to.

It raised the question of why she worked at all, but Gideon had a theory about that. Harrowhark was a demon from hell who thrived off of misery, everyone knew that, and what better place to soak up humiliation than open mic night? If Gideon was the angel of the audience, bolstering the confidence of pretty girls everywhere, Harrow was obviously the heckler. Maybe every heckler ever had actually just been Harrow, which seemed reasonable since it was a mean thing for a human to do, and Harrow had always had an immortal ageless prematurely-old vibe to her. It all made sense.

In retrospect, then, it made sense that Harrow would be at comedy night too. She clocked Gideon as soon as she came in, and raised an eyebrow in disdain.

The smart thing to do would be to just leave. Gideon had rarely been accused of being smart, and never by Harrow. And there there was a blonde in the audience who was leggy and curly-haired and exuberant as she knocked back a tequila shot, and Gideon was a simple guy of simple tastes. She wanted to make that goddess laugh full-throatedly, and she wanted to go home with someone else instead of her bare-ass apartment, and she wanted. She wanted, okay? And she was so tired of Harrow taking what she wanted.

She had a comedy set prepared. It had been a while since she’d gone for the comic route over the singing, but it got the job done. It was a chance to show her confidence. To swagger on stage and wink at some lucky girl in the audience and ooze charisma until everyone was slipping around in it and the servers had to come out with a mop or something. A chance to brag about how well she fucked and how much she could bench, but with a veneer of humor over it so she didn’t look too stuck up.

Gideon took the stage, and looked out over her adoring audience, and saw that Harrow had once again taken her break. She leaned against the back wall of the bar, arms crossed, and ready for battle.

So of course Gideon immediately forgot the first line of her set.

“Good evening, Toronto,” she said, on autopilot. “We got any dykes in the crowd?”

Some chuckles, and one appreciative whistle from the blonde (nice). A scoff from Harrow.

“Thank God,” she said, making eye contact with her new best friend. “Hey, has this ever happened to you? You dress up to kill, you hit the town, you walk into a bar – and everyone in there is straight? Like, every single chick has those long-ass nails, and all the guys are looking at you like they’re strongly considering a hate crime?”

From the coughing of the audience, this had not happened to many of them. The blonde was tilting her head. She did not look at Harrow.

Which did not save her from the electric pulse in her gut when Harrow said, very dryly, “Get better material.”

Scattered laughs. Gideon closed her eyes for a moment. Don’t engage hecklers, that was what everyone said about standup. Harrow wanted her to engage, Harrow had always wanted her to engage. Engaging with Harrow was a losing game, and the only way to win was not to play.

“Just me, then? Cool, cool. I’ll take one for the team. Because the number of times that has happened to me – whew. I absolutely have suffered more than Jesus.”

That one was absolutely for Harrow, who made a sour face. And then called out in her commanding, ringing voice, “I’m suffering more than Jesus just listening to this.”

Blasphemous! Gideon was going to tell God and God was going to uninvite Harrow from all future playdates. But the crowd, bizarrely, was loving it.

Gideon was boiling. There were jokes she’d made before, jokes that were probably on the tip of her tongue. What came out instead was, “Has anyone here ever had a nemesis?”

Harrow was watching her.

“Like a real nemesis. I’m not just talking someone you hate, or someone who hates you, or someone who wishes you would fall down a manhole cover.”

“Everyone here wishes you would fall down a manhole cover,” Harrow informed her, like she had them fucking queued up or something, and she got a scandalized ooooooh from a busty girl in the second row.

“I’m talking,” said Gideon, undeterred, “About the full package. A peer who hates you, and you hate them, and it’s not even from afar. It’s up close and personal. It’s gritty and vicious and almost life-affirming and it’s a hell of a drug. Anyone here ever had that?”

She gets a single, sarcastic whoop from Harrow’s understudy bartender, which in turn gets a laugh out of Leggy Blonde.

“Dear Penthouse: it’s happened to me,” Gideon improvised wildly. She was very sweaty. “A real uptight, sneery, churchy girl, you know the kind. Absolutely wretched. Crossed herself so often she had a repetitive stress injury. Nearly fainted every time she saw Jesus’s dong on the cross. So you know what I did about it?”

“Gave up and pursued a mediocre career in standup?” Harrow suggested. Her mouth was a little moue of contempt. She wasn’t – the worst part of it, Gideon thought, was that her heart wasn’t in it. She knew Harrow, knew what she was like when she had Gideon’s blood under her nails and her knee in her kidneys. Knew how vicious and laser-pointed Harrow could be. These lines weren’t that. The shit Harrrow knew about her, Harrow could say way worse. This was just garden-variety snark, crisply and perfectly delivered, but bland as all hell, and the audience still thought she was funnier than Gideon, and that could not be borne.

Gideon leaned in real close to the mic. “So obviously, I fucked her mom,” she said, and got a few startled laughs. Harrow’s face was stony. “No, really, I did.” And that got someone howling, which cheered her immensely. “Not my best lay, but sometimes you gotta play the long game, you know? Cause like – think about it. Imagine her face when she realizes she has to call me Daddy.”

This was not how it happened, obviously. You couldn’t have paid Gideon to touch Pelleamena with a ten foot stick. But Gideon knew what Harrow looked like when she was outraged, and the crowd was loving the transgression, and who was Gideon to argue with a crowd?

“Breaking up families,” Gideon said with satisfaction, shaking her head. “There’s really nothing like it. All those pundits on TV, talking about how 50% of marriages end in divorce, yeah? What they don’t realize – total statistical error. Most marriages are fine. But you plot it all out on a map, and what you’ll realize is that there’s just a fifty-kilometer dead zone around anywhere I’ve ever lived.” No one was laughing at that bit quite yet, so she clarified, “Because I slept with all the wives, and they had to leave their husbands about it – you get the deal.”

“Or perhaps marriages die around you,” suggested Harrow, into the lull of a joke not quite landing, “because people look at you and decide they never want to have sex again.

A loud ooooooh, yet again. Heads were turning, back and forth. Gideon gritted her teeth, and broke a cardinal law of standup.

“Do you want to take a turn?” she offered. “Since you’re such an expert at this? Maybe take the stage for a little roast?”

“You’re doing a fine job making a fool of yourself,” said Harrow boredly.

“Yeah, but you can always do better, right? Isn’t that what you’re trying to prove? Come on up here, Harrow. Show us how it’s really done.”

And Harrow never turned down a challenge. Harrow rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck, and - ugh, Gideon had forgotten about that nasty habit – fucking dislocated her thumbs or something as she advanced on her death march to the stage. And then she was there next to Gideon, absurdly tiny even after all these years, jerking the microphone from her grasp.

There was a frozen moment, as Harrow wetted her lips, black lipstick shining with just the faintest patina of saliva. Gideon watched, as she always had, because whatever happened – the only thing more captivating than watching Harrow crashing and burning was watching Harrow absolutely dominating.

“Has anyone here,” said Harrow slowly, deliciously, voice laced in the flattest irony, “ever had a nemesis.”

Appreciative chuckles for a fucking callback Gideon had set up. A sardonic “Harry, don’t kiss and tell!” from the bartender, which Harrow quite reasonably ignored.

“I think we all know the definition,” Harrow continued into the tail-end of the laughs. “Thanks to our opening act, here. Can we get a round of applause for Gideon Nav? It was awfully brave of her to come up here, especially given her natural disadvantage.” She leaned into the mic. “She plays rugby, you see.”

Laughter. Clapping, but they were laughing at her, not with her, and the cheers were pitying. She could tell. Gideon slapped a fake smile on her face and took a bow and stepped meaningfully into the audience, where no one could see her face. Part of the crowd, anonymous, no longer on display to anyone... Except Harrow, who was watching her as she soaked in the laughs.

“I used to know this girl,” said Harrow, mic so close to her face that it was gonna smear her lipstick again, but she was glowing. “A real Neanderthal. Brutish, and brash, and always getting in trouble. Always disrupting class with her moronic pranks, and making the rudest scatological jokes, and emitting the most foul noises.You know how when the teacher finds a whoopie cushion on their chair, they always have a specific kid in in mind as the culprit? They’re looking through the class of bright-faced little angels – Andrew, was it you? Mary, was it you?” Her voice dropped. “And then you’ve got Griddle, wriggling around in her seat, almost pissing herself with laughter and so clearly desperate for someone else to think she’s funny.” She paused, and puffs out her shoulders, and did a gesture that Gideon could only describe as preening, that had the crowd in stitches.

“’Griddle, was it you?’” Harrow immitated, and then she was imitating Gideon again, shaking her head in a close-lipped nuh-un, and there were howls of laughter. Harrow was Sister Aisamorta, severe and scowling, and Harrow was Griddle, and they loved it, they loved her.

“Dear Penthouse,” Harrow said, when the laugher abated enough to get a word in edgewise. “A confession, in the interest of my immortal soul. Forgive me, father, for the real culprit was-” her ugly, bitten-off finger, catching the light and then pointing at her own head with a sarcastic twist of the wrist. Gasps, laughs. “Can you blame me? I am only human, and she made it so easy.”

Gideon felt a sour twisting in her stomach. A kind of pain between her ribs. Harrow had never admitted it before. Don’t be absurd, Griddle, she would scoff, like Gideon didn’t know how horrible she could be. Like Gideon could be fooled like everyone else - like Gideon wasn’t the only one who saw the real Harrow.

“So then, obviously,” said Harrow, rocking into the mic, and the audience quieted in preparation, because they knew it would be good, because they trusted her and they were following her. “I fucked her mom.”

Absolute howls. A cacophony of laughs, Gideon’s own yield from that line multiplied a thousand fold. A lie of course, a lie for a lie, because Harrow knew as well as Gideon did that Wake had gone full suicide-by-cop rather than let them take her alive, but none of these people cared about that. None of them knew about Gideon and Harrow, not really. Not one of them had seen the shitshow of Drearburh, and beheld the wild, miserable, clawing tangle of hatred that was Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

“I jest, of course,” said Harrow, when it had calmed down. “I’m not that sophomoric. It’s so crude, isn’t it, that cliché? The ownership. The implication of power, and defilement. The mother as an object of revenge, rather than a whole sexual being.” Thoughtful silence, the curdling of shame as an audience considers that maybe they fucked up, maybe they’re the baddies, and just as it started to congeal, Harrow said with a perfect arch of her brows, “I made tender, reverent love to her mother.”

There was a buzzing in Gideon’s ears, almost louder than the crowd’s roar. She wanted to leave. She wanted to deck Harrow. She wanted-

“It’s funny, the things you do when you’re young,” said Harrow meditatively. The paWrapped up in the warm blanket of the crowd’s attention. Getting everything Gideon ever wanted, as fucking usual. “It’s very easy, to hate. To hate yourself, and to hate the people who bring out the worst in you. When I think back now on poor little Griddle, I think-” and her eyes were very dark under the stage lights. There were silver rings on her fingers, and little flecks of sweat at her temples, and she was soaking it in.

“I think I hated her for what she proved, in a way. For showing, so completely, what would happened to me, if anyone ever saw me step out of line. For facing scorn and rejection, and existing anyway. For implicitly asking me what I was afraid of, and for enduring my nightmare every day, and for somehow, despite everything, thriving. It was intolerable to me, in my frozen misery.” The crowd was quiet, waiting. Thoughtful. Gideon was frozen too, though not in misery – it wasn’t misery she was feeling, or fury, or humiliation. She was on a knife’s edge between emotions, waiting to fall.

“I still don’t regret fucking her mom, though,” said Harrow, and the dam broke, and there was laughing and cheering as Harrow bowed her head, and said something indistinguishable about tipping the servers, and swept from the stage.

--

Gideon waited until closing time. Not inside – she couldn’t look at anyone in there. She couldn’t let anyone look at her. She was a frayed nerve, a shorting circuit, and she didn’t know half the things that were going to set her off. She loitered in the alley, instead, and she smoked, and she waited. Harrow had to leave eventually. She didn’t actually sleep in a casket in the basement. Probably.

It was late, way too late, by the time Harrow muscled open the alley door and emerged, wrestling a garbage bag that was around her height and five times her width. All two of her muscles were straining as she pulled it towards the dumpster. She looked sweaty and miserable, which cheered Gideon enough to say, “Here, I’ve got it,” and lever the dumpster lid open. And then, when Harrow began laboriously winding up to toss the bag, Gideon took pity on her again and just tossed it for her.

“What the hell, Nav?” Harrow spat, affronted as always. Because Gideon had wounded her pride, her stupid pride, like Harrow hadn’t done the same or worse just hours ago, and for their whole childhoods.

“I could ask you the same thing,” said Gideon, slamming the dumpster closed. “What the hell was that?”

Harrow’s face was set. Harrow was never silent, never misspoke, but she hesitated for the barest of moments here, and then said cooly, “You may be dense, Griddle, but you must know I never actually fucked your mother.”

Gideon’s fist slammed into the dumpster, and the crash was louder than she’d intended. Harrow hated loud noises, always had, but she didn’t flinch.

When it died down, Gideon said, “I didn’t fuck yours, either. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Harrow agreed. “It’s just low-hanging fruit.” And: “Are we done here?”

They should be done. They should have been done last week, and they should have been done four years ago when Gideon left Drearburh. She was never supposed to see Harrow again, she knew that deep in the marrow of her.

“Did you mean it?” Gideon said, instead of any of that. “What you said?”

Harrow took a step closer. “Did you?”

Gideon tried to remember what she’d even said in her set. That she’d been to too many straight bars (true, unfortunately). That she’d broken up marriages (false – Abigail and Magnus had an open thing, and their love was forged of unbreakable steel). That she’d hated Harrow (true) and Harrow’d hated her (oviously true) and it had made her feel more alive than anything in that entire fucking shithole of a town.

“Yeah,” she said, voice breaking a little. “You – yeah.”

Harrow nodded slowly. “I as well,” she said, all pitched and formal, and when Gideon squinted at her, trying to parse that, she gave an exasperated heave and said, all in a rush, “It wasn’t fair, what I did to you. Back then, and the other night, and even tonight. I was – it doesn’t matter. There can be no forgiveness.”

Harrow, face twisted up with exaggerated disgust whenever she found one of Gideon’s magazines. Harrow, watching Gideon with suspicious eyes wherever she went. Harrow, her eternal audience, her heckler, but Gideon had had a taste now, of a life without Harrow and a bare apartment and the way an empty room sent her voice echoing back. She knew, now, that there were worse things than Harrow’s dark eyes boring into her in a dirty alleyway.

“So, you fucked my mom, huh?” said Gideon, aiming for casual. “And that girl you stole from me the other night? Her too?”

Harrow avoided her gaze. “It was juvenile. It was always satisfying to take things from you, but I cannot be lead only by my selfish satisfaction.”

Like pulling pigtails on a playground.She certainly knew the instinct. “Right,” said Gideon. “But for real, did you fuck her? Or was it just about, like, beating me?” And her head was still tumbling with it. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, now with piercings and close-cropped hair. Harrow, joking about Jesus, and tending bar, and laughing about gay shit. Who would have thought?

Harrow said thickly, like something ancient and rusty being dredged from a cursed lake, “She wasn’t my type.”

Something uncoiled in Gideon. “Yeah?” she said, taking a step forward. “What’s your type, Harrow?”

And Harrow could never resist a challenge.

They met in the middle, magnets finally reversing polarity and clacking together instead of repelling. Harrow’s lipstick was waxy and flat-tasting against her lips, and Gideon felt herself loosening, loosening with every movement of her tongue. She smelled of spilled beer and dried sweat,and her hair was still damp and sweaty as Gideon brought her hands up to cup her temples, to snarl in her short curls, to hold tight so that Harrow could never, ever, let go.

She had to eventually. There was a juddering clang, and Harrow flinched like she’d been shot and then said miserably, “The doorstop.”

“Oh,” said Gideon. “Are you-”

“The front door is still unlocked,” said Harrow. “And I am closing alone tonight. If you would like to-”

She choked on the word.

“Stay?” Gideon suggested. “Make out in a corner booth?”

“Or on top of the bar,” said Harrow, regaining herself. She was flushing. “I can wipe it down, afterwards.”

“Presumptuous,” said Gideon, feigning shock. “I’m not like your mom, Nonagesimus. I don’t put out that easy.”

Harrow whacked her leg, and it was easy and familiar. “Let me make you a drink, then,” she said, heading to the front door. “On the house. Or – I heard your act the other night. Is that the only song you know?”

A challenge, and Gideon couldn’t resist a challenge either, not really. Not when it came from Harrow. She stuffed her hands in her pocket and ambled after Harrow. “You wanna watch me sing, queen of the mic? Gonna heckle that too?”

On the doorstep of the dive bar, half-in half-out. Harrow was silhouetted in neon, the sharp contours of her face soaked fluorescent blue and pink. Her lipstick was a nonsense of smudges. She was watching Gideon hungrily.

“Always,” said Harrow, her first and best and worst audience, and Gideon took her clammy little hand and followed her back into the half-lit cavern of the bar.

Chapter Text

There was a particular weight that came with being Harrowhark Nonagesimus. A stiffening in the shoulders that started bad and only got worse. A tightening of muscles that were already on the edge of snapping. It had been that way as long as Harrowhark could recall, for all that she had rarely paid it much attention beyond minor accommodations. To exist in flesh was to suffer – what else was new?

Gideon had thought that was, in her words, “bananas.” “Damn, bitch, you really live like this?” she used to say without rancor, or she’d leer in a very particular way that made it – acceptable, at least, for Harrowhark to deign to let her give her a back rub, which of course turned into more. Gideon was good at that, at taking care of Harrowhark in a way that somehow let Harrowhark feel she was the one doing Gideon a favor. In making her feel safe, something so preposterous that it always left her feeling like she was just about to wake up from a dream.

The dream ended, eventually. Eight months after losing Gideon, her body was as whip-taut as it had ever been, and now the difference was only that she’d had a brief, glorious taste of something else.

It would likely have been better, in the balance of things, not to have experienced what she could no longer have. She slid her wedding ring from her finger, her studded leather watch from her wrist. She no longer wore the bone piercings to work, or the makeup – taking it off in the company bathroom was an unnecessary humiliation, and she had more than enough of those. She stripped the facets of her personality with practiced, dispassionate grace, and made herself into the corporate drone that Gideon would have looked at with pity.

They said that it got easier, with time. It had been eight months, and that had not been Harrowhark’s experience in the slightest. Perhaps they simply had piss-poor relationships that were hardly worth mourning. Perhaps their dead spouses were mundane, fallible creatures that the world could do without. Harrowhark could not relate.

And yet, the work continued.

--

There was a particular weight that came with being Harrow N. This was not a solipsistic complaint – Pal S, at least, was convinced that it was verifiable and reproducible. He asked her, on occasion, to hold her arms certain ways, rate the pain associated with certain movements. This, to him, passed as science, or perhaps rebellion, or perhaps both. To Harrow, it was clearly a waste of time.

“The body remembers,” Pal S. insisted, as if that were a meaningful statement rather than a pile of dogshit heresy. “Why do I keep reaching for my face, when I don’t even wear glasses? Why is Millie H in constant motion? It’s the one link we have, and we have a responsibility to investigate it.”

“We have a responsibility,” Harrow said flatly, “to the work.”

Millie H said, “You never know. This could be integral to the work.”

“You just want me to cooperate with his asinine investigations,” Harrow accused, and Millie gave a little shrug like you caught me.

“If it were important, management would tell us,” said Harrow, and Pal made a face like, really? Management?

His overfamiliarity rankled. But he was not wrong. Management’s last solution to Harrow’s pain had been – considerate, but ultimately more a hindrance than a help. Yes, her pain interfered with the work, and the work was mysterious and important. Yes, it was reasonable for management to provide a physical therapist, and yes, the physical therapist had massaged her aching limbs until they trembled like the gel wristguard on a mousepad and slumped like heavy braids of cables beneath the desk. But she had also made jokes while doing it, and attempted to talk to Harrow, and that could not be borne.

Her body belonged to Mithraeum Industries, and to the Gaius family. Her body belonged to her outie, and she existed – this was not nihilism, this was objective fact – to serve her outie’s needs. To live without pain would be a service to Gaius, and a boon to the work, and yet.

Yes, her body belonged to Mithraeum, and yes, her existence came with a purpose, and yes, she was honored to serve, but some things were private. The bone-deep sorrow that flooded her bones when the therapist dismissed her from her sessions, and the frisson of excitement when her hand brushed her neck, or the deep, confused longing that churned deep within her belly – those did not serve Gaius, and so she deluded herself that it could not be a sin to take measures to prevent them. She belonged to the work and to her outie, but here was the dreadful truth it would take a second severing to erase from her knowledge:

She would delay the work, and she would suffer the pain, and she would betray her very purpose if it meant she didn’t have to see Kiri G again.

Chapter Text

There is a baby bird on the sidewalk. This, in and of itself, is not insurmountable, not for a brilliant and detail-oriented researcher like Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She hovers at a safe distance, in a reasonably conscientious but unbothered way, for approximately forty five minutes to give the parents a chance to come back. She gives the stink-eye she’s been honing for nineteen years to a hapless dog-walker, who elects to cross the street rather than trespass in her protected territory. She keeps a keen watch out for raccoons, and squirrels, and foxes, and (worst of all) children. She squints doubtfully at the overhead canopy, cursing the brightness of the sun, fruitlessly attempting to spot nests or parents or perhaps a kind and merciful god.

And after forty five minutes, she resigns herself to her new duty and texts Sextus that she won’t be coming in to the lab today. And then she silences the flurry of concern and well wishes, and sets about learning how to care for what appears to be a newly-hatched sparrow.

No, the bird itself is not a problem. It doesn’t resist when she gingerly scoops it up into the crumpled nest of her repurposed shawl. Close examination at the lab station in her bedroom confirms that it is free of parasites and rot, and it has no significant wounds. A cardboard box is not hard to come by – Nav is always ordering useless garbage that arrive swathed in a wasteful amount of packaging, so it’s a moment’s work to unbox today’s delivery and dump the contents on the coffee table. Toilet paper suffices for the bedding, and she obviously has enough eye droppers and syringes to feed an entire army of sickly birds.

No, the problem is that the creature will not eat. Harrow is aware of the irony, as she stirs sugar into water and probes gingerly at the fledgling’s beak. She would not eat enjoy having sugar water pipetted into her mouth either. For the bird’s sake, she endures it, letting a few saccharine droplets fall into her own mouth, though her research has not satisfactorily proven that the creature is developed enough to make the logical leap that Harrow eating something means anything for its own prospects. She makes several trips to the kitchen, a room she usually avoids, to procure other foodstuffs – a raw egg, the breaking of which is a humiliating fumble that should not be recounted, and some diluted honey, in case the sugar is too processed. And still, the thing will not eat.

Harrow looks at it, feeling perhaps the slightest bit frazzled. It looks at her, eyes black and heavy-lidded with drooping, translucent skin.

“I am aware this is the pot calling the kettle black,” says Harrow, dry-mouthed. It was good to talk to birds, or so they said. As long as the speaker’s tone is soothing, which Harrow has never been accused of in her life. “But I am an adult human, and you are a baby bird, so I feel fully within my rights to insist that you eat a damn meal.”

The bird emits a pitiful cheep. And does not eat.

--

Nav finds out.

Harrow would have preferred to keep it from her forever, under ideal circumstances. It is not Nav’s concern, and she is a blundering, over-sentimental moron who has ideas about the bird, and what it means. She lacks a scientist’s precision, and a scientist’s dispassionate focus. If Harrow lived a life that afforded her even a shred of grace or privacy, Nav would never know about her charge, and the bird would enter and leave Harrow’s life without a single snide comment from her childhood nemesis turned roommate.

Instead, Nav bangs on her door with her usual galumphing, aggressive confidence, blathering about the typical nonsense – Replace the toilet paper roll, asshole, and don’t fucking unbox my deliveries, what the fuck, and oh my God, Harrow, you can’t just dump eggshells in the sink, I told you the landlord is being a dick about fixing the disposal, and Cam said you’re sick and I said ‘yeah, sick in the head’ but she still made me bring you this soup, so come out and get it before I eat it all.

Harrow did not want soup, nor did she want to interact with Gideon Nav. But the bird, the cursed bird, chose quite the wrong time to let out one of its mewling peeps, and so-

“And you’re really not hand-rearing it to kill it and make its bones into indie jewelry?”

Harrow pinches her nose and, not for the first time, regrets the circumstances that prevents her affording her own apartment as far away from Nav as possible. “No,” she grinds out.

“And it legitimately fell out of its nest or whatever? You didn’t kidnap it to do mad science?” Gideon is sitting (uninvited) on Harrow’s bed, leg jittering as she looks between Harrow and her charge.

“You think far too highly of me.”

“Can’t underestimate you, Nonagesimus, that’s a one-way ticket to hell.” And before Harrow can remind her that they are both already in hell, as demonstrated by this interaction, Gideon barrels forward and asks, “So how’s it going?”

“Fine,” says Harrow automatically. And then, as the creature twitches slightly, she admits stiffly, “It won’t eat.”

“Like mother, like daughter,” says Gideon, which is not at all witty but is at least concise. “Can I try?”

“I forgot you were an expert at precisely pipetting liquids. Remind me which lab-”

“And I forgot you were a massive bitch. Come on, coach, put me in.” (this is accompanied by the half-hearted eye waggle that has always heralded an obscene joke).

Harrow eyes Gideon’s large, clumsy fingers, her tall frame vibrating with energy. The way she is worrying her lips with her teeth.

“You cannot force-feed it,” she says, hedging her bets. “And do not – douse it. It can cause hypothermia. Just nudge the beak-”

“Yeah, yeah, got it.” Gideon elbows her out of the way and takes up the eyedropper. “Hey, little buddy,” she says, voice dropping into a far friendlier register than she has ever reserved for Harrow. “You want a little sippy?”

Harrow scoffs, and Gideon elbows her without looking up. “Your mom’s just being a cunt as usual,” she says in what is likely the most soothing voice this house has heard since they moved in two years ago. “But what she doesn’t get is that animals respond more to how you say shit than what you say, isn’t that right? You can still be a huge bitch, as long as you say please and thank you and pitch your voice like this, haven’t you heard?”

Harrow restrains the urge to throttle her, but only because she cannot make rent alone, and because the bird – the bird is tilting its head, and its beak is parting one glorious, miraculous, millimeter.

“That’s it,” Gideon says, breathless. “Come on, Griddle Junior-” (Harrow tightens her fingers in the palms of her hand and vows swift revenge) “-this is why you’re my favorite, you know that? Come on, my sweet birb. My little borb boi. Our tiny angel of destruction. You can do it-”

Harrow exhales a breath she didn’t realize she was holding when Gideon’s trembling fingers release the drop of water. And the bird swallows it, and nuzzles for more, and makes the tiniest of cheeping noises.

--

“Okay, I get all that, but how?” Gideon says, six feeding cycles later. They have settled into a rough schedule, taking it in turns to go to the bathroom or make new batches of sugar water or look up pertinent information online. It is getting late, and Gideon usually has practice or a date at this time of night, but she has made no move to leave. She is fully sprawled on Harrow’s bed now, restless leg making the whole mattress judder.

“I hardly think that’s the point,” says Harrow, in her least aggressive tones. She is trying, for the bird, even if Gideon is a pest who is continually distracting her from scouring the internet for bird care tips. “It is no longer in the nest. This is the reality we live in.”

Logic, as always, bounces right off of Gideon’s skull. “Yeah but – like, what kind of shit bird parents don’t even notice their baby fell?” She lowers her voice, as if wanting to spare the bird her speculations – though Harrow, unfortunately, is still subject to it. “Or what, they can’t be assed to come get it? That’s not just ‘moms are allowed to have their own lives, stop hyper-scrutinizing women.’ That’s like, criminal neglect.”

“Ah yes, a violation of bird law,” says Harrow dryly. “Alert the avian authorities”

Gideon exhales. “I’m just saying. Absolute incompetence. You know I’d be calling Bird Child Welfare on those bitches.”

“Careful, Nav, your neuroses are showing.”

“Oh, fuck off. I’m not – this isn’t projecting,” says Gideon, flushing. “This is a very rational question of like, are these feathery bastards gonna be dropping their problems on our doorstep every year? Do we need to go all Four Pests Campaign on their asses to prevent these shitbags saddling us with another lil’ chicken every time they get bored?”

Harrow considers this – not the Maoist bit, which is patently absurd and counterproductive, but the obvious vulnerability on display. Gideon Nav, who sulked in the back of the classroom when well-meaning classroom teachers assigned the children to create monstrous glittery cards for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, and then got sent to the principal’s office for accidentally spilling her cup of juice on Harrow’s meticulous creation. Gideon Nav, the child who she found googling adoption how to find birth mom at age ten on a library computer, resulting in a fight that got them both banned for six months. Gideon Nav, who always, always looked at Harrow’s parents with an achingly obvious mix of longing and fear distorting her broad features.

Gideon’s weak spots have always been so very evident. It’s like palming an overripe peach at the grocery store, or finding a wayward unraveling thread on the hem of her clothes, or being conspiratorially told don’t look now, but she’s right behind you. Harrow has never been good at avoiding the urge to squeeze, to pull, to turn around.

But. Gideon has done her a great service today. Gideon has done what Harrow, with all her care and devotion and precision and education, could not. So Harrow just clears her throat and says, “Lucky for you, then, that you are not obligated to care for every abandoned passerine that comes our way.”

“Harrow,” says Gideon, suddenly deadly serious. “You know that I hate you and I pretty much think every word that comes out of your mouth is hot bullshit, right?”

Harrow does know that. “You have told me this many, many, times,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Cool, cool,” says Gideon, still far too intense. “Just making sure you have a good baseline for when I tell you: that’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever said.”

--

Harrow has never been one for sleep. This is convenient, as the bird needs feeding every few hours, and as the prospect of leaving it unsupervised even between feedings is obviously untenable. Gideon agrees, but she gets progressively more sluggish, and finally keels over around 2 am, nestled among Harrow’s blankets. Harrow sits on the other side of the bed, watching over her and the bird both.

Gideon is a heavy sleeper, which has never served her particularly well. The number of times that Harrow used to steal into her room to rifle through her private little stashes, or plant incriminating objects on her person, or deface her scant belongings – every time, she used to think that it would be the last time, that Gideon would surely have learned her lesson and figured out how to sleep with one eye open. Every time, she was confronted instead with Gideon’s peaceful resting face, and free rein to destroy her as she willed. And Harrow has never learned the trick of holding someone’s trust in her hands without giving in to the urge to destroy.

Gideon sleeps with a lock on her door, these days, finally wise to her tricks. She has a lock on her phone, too, after her weed dealer gave her shit about it. But it’s only a thumbprint lock, and she is an awfully heavy sleeper.

Harrow puts on white noise, so that the sound of the bird rousing or her own movements won’t disturb Gideon’s slumber. She lowers the lights, though it makes the screen of her laptop infuriatingly bright by comparison. She texts Sextus again to extend her sick leave another day, and silences her morning alarm so that it won’t shatter the peaceful silence in four hours.

And Gideon slumbers on.

--

It has been three days now. The bird is reliably eating sugar water and egg, and beginning to hop about its enclosure. Harrow has hardly left the room the whole time, and has certainly not showered, but that’s not entirely unusual. Sextus is understanding of her vaguely alluded-to mystery illness/family emergency/breakdown.

Gideon has left the room, driven by the needs of the flesh as she is. She has showered, and she has eaten, which Harrow considers laughably undisciplined but typical, but she has also redeemed herself by going out to the scrubby patch of dirt between sidewalk and street and grubbing around until she found some wriggling, fleshy insects.

“For my family,” she says wisely, mashing them up and setting them in front of the creature. “You hungy, my pride and joy? My prodigious progeny?”

Harrow tolerates this, because the bird tolerates it. Its voice is growing louder. It is, occasionally, flapping its stubby little wings now.

Gideon insists that the creature needs a name. “It doesn’t,” Harrow assures her, because Gideon is a child who sometimes needs to be reminded of obvious facts. “Birds get along fine without them. Its parents didn’t have names, and neither did their parents.”

“Yeah, and her parents are clearly role models,” scoffs Gideon, who is still far too hung up on that point.

“It happens,” says Harrow, frustrated. “There are numerous reasons birds fall from nests. Parents can be killed by flying into glass doors, or by housecats or birds of prey-”

Gideon makes a dismissing and frankly disgusting noise with her sinuses.

“Sometimes, birds jump themselves,” continues Harrow, relentless in the face of such confident ignorance.

“Our baby isn’t suicidal-”

“Attempting to thermoregulate during heat waves, you idiot. Or overestimating their ability to fly too early-”

“Yeah, no way this lil guy was trying to fly. Quit victim blaming, you’ll give her a complex.”

“You are impossible,” says Harrow, instead of saying what she wants to say next.

Gideon winks. “Like mother, like daughter. She takes after me, too.”

--

It is perhaps a week before the bird is ready for release. Harrow is no longer entirely sure – time has moved slowly, marked by two-hour increments between feedings, and by Gideon’s sleeping face lit by the glow of her laptop. She has made – compromises, between her usual priorities and the needs of the bird. She has consented, with great reluctance and disgust, to eat Camilla’s soup. Gideon made jokes about eyedroppering it into her mouth, and Harrow did not throw the whole lot of it into her face. “You’re softening with motherhood,” Gideon said, noticing the pent-up ire, and Harrow did throw a pillow at her, but only very softly, and after making sure the bird was nowhere near the line of fire.

They stand uncomfortably on the sidewalk where Harrow originally found the creature. It looks up anxiously when Harrow uncovers its box, and Gideon hums soothingly, automatically gives it her finger to nip at.

“So,” says Gideon, clearing her throat.

“So,” agrees Harrow, feeling unbearably tired. Her limbs are all very heavy.

“We did it,” says Gideon, running hand through lank hair. “Against all odds, the two worst kids in the high school health class finally made it through the stupid egg baby activity. Who’d have thunk?”

Harrow does not laugh, but it is a close call.

Gideon cranes a head upwards. “Think her parents are up there?”

Harrow shrugs non-noncommittally.

“You be safe, okay, lil Griddle? And if you ever feel unsafe, just remember, you can always come home.”

She is casting little glances at Harrow, as if waiting for her to laugh. As if Harrow has ever laughed at a single one of Gideon’s irritating little jokes.

“Like, if anyone bullies you, or makes fun of you for being adopted, or your parents make you feel unwelcome-”

“Not this again-”

“I’m just saying, someone fucked up-”

“Siblicide,” Harrow bursts out finally. The word she’s been keeping in, hour after hour, day after day. “It’s a common adaption, Nav. If it seems like there isn’t enough food for multiple chicks, the stronger one will knock the weaker one from the nest. Surely you encountered it, if you are as literate as you claim to be.”

Gideon’s eyes narrow. “You don’t know that’s what happened.”

“Brood parasitism,” Harrow continues, relentless. The urge to destroy is in full force. “A – a brown-headed cowbird, for example, lays its eggs in a sparrow’s nest, and the parasite chick starves out or pushes out the host’s actual offspring. It’s well-documented.”

“Oh, hey there, Crux, the middle ages called and they want their insults back,” says Gideon bitterly. “Gotta hand it to you, Nonagesimus, it’s been like a whole month since you called me a cuckoo. You might have set a new record.”

Harrow readies herself for the fight. Too long now, a whole week, since they raised their voices. Too long spent keeping the peace, sharing a nest of blankets, unconvincingly playacting a happily family. It is a relief to dispense with the facade, to reassert the natural order. Her hands clench around the box, where the creature still nests obliviously. Things will be normal, now. There is no need to cooperate any longer.

Except Gideon sags, and says, “We should release Baby Navegesimus first, right?”

And Harrow doesn’t scoff at the name, perhaps because it has never dissuaded Gideon before and she has no interest in meeting Einstein’s definition of insanity in addition to her actual diagnoses. Harrow nods stiffly, and puts out a finger, and lets the creature’s dry, cool little feet close around it. And she hands the box off to Gideon, and looks the creature in the eye, and gingerly transfers it to a nearby tree hollow.

Gideon makes another wet sound, like she’s clearing her throat. Harrow keeps her eyes fixed on the bird as it shuffles, and pecks, and flicks its wings.

“You can do it,” Gideon breathes, the most devout prayer Harrow has ever heard from her lips. “Come on, Napoleon Bone-apart. Daddy’s little treasure. My gorgeous firstborn. I never doubted you could do this. You’re the best fucking bird on the planet, and I fucking love you, but – you’re gonna do great things, kid. You don’t need us anymore.”

And Gideon’s horribly-named bird cocks its head and takes flight. Not far, just a little fluttering leap to a lower beam, but it does it, and Harrow’s heart feels, perhaps, a single iota less burdened.

And then there is just the two of them. Gideon is still holding the box, and Harrow can’t meet her eyes. She opens her mouth to speak just as Gideon opens hers, and there is embarrassed silence.

“You go first,” says Gideon, kicking at a rock.

Harrow’s neck feels very hot. “I was only going to say,” she forces out, stilted. “That siblicide is most common in nests where – resources are scarce, and there isn’t enough food and attention to go around. It is not – a predestined tragedy, inherent from hatching. It occurs out of scarcity, based on circumstances outside the control of the chicks.”

Gideon takes that in, mouth pursed. “And the cuckoo shit? That’s not predestined either?”

Harrow wishes she could take off a layer of black cloth, but to look away from Gideon in this moment is unthinkable. “We are not birds,” she says instead, and instead of coming out supercilious, it sounds almost - hopeful.

“Right,” says Gideon, nodding perhaps too long. “Yup.”

Gideon is standing so close, but it is the work of centuries for Harrow to reach out her hand. Her fingers, usually so steady, are trembling inexcusably, but Gideon meets her in the middle, and the brush of her hand latching around Harrow’s steadies her.

Harrow clears her throat, with effort. “What were you going to say?”

“Isn’t important,” says Gideon immediately, flushing. “Your thing was better.”

“I insist,” says Harrow. Gideon’s thumb is brushing against her knuckles, and it is doing something to her.

Gideon looks embarrassed. “I was just going to tell her – bone voyage.”

Which is – wretched. Typical. Everything she can’t stand about Gideon Nav.

She keeps holding her hand anyway. And together they watch their bird take flight.

Chapter Text

Then:

She was wearing a very stupid little robe. Not at all like the cool flowy one Moses was rocking in that Dreamworks movie. More of a smock made of stiff cotton that made her look like a real dumbass. Which was deeply unfair, because Harrow got to wear a cool toga situation and a gold necklace, and also got to sit on the fancy chair, and the teachers praised her for it like she was making some huge sacrifice, instead of reaping all the best parts as per usual.

“I am honored to play the villain,” Harrow said, in her stuck-up, prissy voice. “It means I get to instruct the audience in the greatest lesson of all. We should all recognize the Pharoah in ourselves. If we imagine him as a remote evil, we cannot see the evil that lurks in our own hearts and may, unwittingly, blind ourselves to the depths of our own sin, and cut ourselves off from the light of Jesus.”

Which was rich, coming from someone who’d tripped Gideon in the cafeteria just yesterday. Harrow was either blind as hell or the world’s biggest hypocrite, or most likely both, because Gideon had seen her heart and it was as evil as they came.

The yearly Passover pageant was a joke. Every day of Holy Week was a joke. Easter – Easter was okay, because there were marshmallows and jelly beans and chocolate and Gideon was decent at finding eggs, but the rest of it – not to use harsh language, but it sucked. She couldn’t wait to get out of this robe, and out of this church, and out of this town, and never have to do this ever again.

Now:

“We’re out of eggs,” warned Harrow, voice tight. Steam from the soup had her face flushed, and she had cut herself a few hours ago while slicing carrots, and was doing a terrible job keeping her bandage on. And now, it seemed, she was convinced they were out of eggs, and possibly about to punch a hole in the wall about it.

Gideon spared her that misery – Harrow’s hands had been through enough today. “Au contraire, my beitzah babe,” she corrected, pausing in the slicing of her apples. “Gideon provides. There’s two more cartons in the bag, for your boiling pleasure.”

Harrow softened, by millimeters. “Boiling pleasure sounds like an extremely inadvisable heating lube,” she said, wiping her face with a sweaty sleeve.

“Really? Right in front of my charoset?” Gideon hunched over, shielding her creation with her body. “It’s definitely not old enough for that kind of sexy talk.”

“You’re deranged,” said Harrow, but she was smiling. Gideon didn’t even need to look at her to tell – it was obvious from her voice. Three years living together, and six since they started dating, and a lifetime spent in each other’s pockets, meant that Gideon knew her voice, knew every twitch of her face, knew from just the brush of her knuckles against Gideon’s exactly what her wife was feeling.

For example: Gideon ran a quick Harrow scan now and came away with a heady mixture of satisfaction, fondness, and overwhelming anxiety. Which checked out. It was their first year hosting a seder. Only their second year since Harrow’s conversion. Really, just five years since Gideon even found out her dear old mom was Jewish in the first place. They were like little babies when it came to seders, in the grand scheme of things.

And Harrow had been clear about her trepidation, a few months ago, when they’d begun making these plans.

“It’ll be nostalgic,” Gideon had suggested, patting Harrow’s thigh bracingly. They were tucked into bed, snug as bugs, and her heart was bursting in the kind of way that could only be expressed with cuddles, and with seder planning. “We’ll reminisce about the bad old days, and Sex Pal and Abigail will have talmudic quotes to explain every single question anyone asks, and Camilla will find the afikoman in about two seconds flat. And we can bully Isaac into doing the four questions, and make Magnus bring that one fucking amazing kuggel, and-”

“It sounds delightful,” said Harrow, from where she was tucked into Gideon’s breast. “Do it without me.”

“No way,” said Gideon, drawing her back up. “Where I go, you will go, my besheret beauty. I’m calling it in.”

“That is certainly a novel misreading of the Book of Ruth.”

“Pretty sure that’s actually exactly what it means,” said Gideon, rubbing her wife’s shoulders. “My God is your God, my rituals are your rituals, my community is your community. You said it yourself. And engraved it on our wedding rings, you big gay weirdo.”

“You are using my words against me.”

“Yup. What you quote I will quote,” Gideon continued, with satisfaction. “No one made you do the ol’ religion swapperoo, Harrow. I literally didn’t care. But since you did it – why not go all the way?”

And Harrow exhaled into her neck, and she thought that was the end of it, until Harrow muttered, slightly muffled, “I have no right to it. It is not my ritual, not truly, and I will not take one more thing from you.”

Which was some bullshit, but also not surprising. Because if there were two things Harrow loved, they were: orchestrating elaborate ritualistic gatherings where people argued about theology, and denying herself things she secretly wanted out of misplaced guilt.

Gideon groaned. “It’s not even mine, you bozo. I have like, a couple years on you at most. But even if it were-” she drew back to see Harrow’s face, to kiss her furrowed little brow. “What’s mine is yours. Remember?”

Harrow squirmed in her arms, and made a noise that always reminded Gideon of a disgruntled cat. And then she flopped over in bed, made herself a perfect little spoon, and said, “I cannot be held responsible for my actions if Pent once again attempts to peddle her theory of a Levite splinter group who experienced a literal Exodus.”

Gideon smiled into the crown of Harrow’s fuzzy head. “Nor should you,” she agreed. “Go get em, my litigous lover.”

“Yop,” said Gideon now, not even trying to beat the derangement allocations. Tell the press: Gideon Nav was a silly little guy who was wild about her wife. She finished her last apple, and surveyed the chaos of their kitchen. “Okay, that’s basically all the ritual food, sorted. I told everyone to just bring, like, boatloads of wine, so we’re set on that front.”

“And-”

“Yes, and concord grape juice for your sensitive palate, my kaddish kitten,” said Gideon. “I told you, I provide.”

“I never doubted you,” said Harrow dryly, but Gideon’s finely tuned Harrow senses could hear the warmth behind it, the sincerity.

“Damn right,” said Gideon with feeling. “And you - please tell me you’re gonna do the voice this year, my pesach princess.”

“How do you even come up with these?” said Harrow, clearly overcome with lust at the quality of her wordplay.

Gideon winked, and began ripping open the matzah box. “It’s a gift, my horseradish hubby.”

Harrow wrinkled her adorable nose in disgust. “Abhorrent,” she said. “Hubby refers exclusively to the childlike husbands of recipe-blogging straight white women, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but I do have to sneak vegetables into your food, so how different is it-”

“That’s the most offensive thing you ever said to me,” said Harrow, pausing in her egg-boiling. “And you once told me that everyone would be better off if I died.”

“Possibly more than once,” Gideon agreed, scratching her chin. “Well, if we’re harkening back to the bad old days after all, then do the voice.”

“Griddle-”

Gideon abandoned all pretense of preparing for the seder. She had a greater duty. She was fucking locked in. Harrow scanning mode engaged. “Right nickname, wrong tone. Come on, Harrow, this is day one stuff. You’d mastered it by like, age eight, my winsome wise child.”

Harrow set her spoon down, and regarded Gideon wearily. “If I don’t do it now, you’re going to keep pestering me to do it at the seder, aren’t you?”

“In front of all our friends and God,” Gideon agreed.

“Then I suppose I have no choice.”

“Yup,” said Gideon. She flipped to a page in the haggadah, squinting down at the columns of English and Hebrew text. “Hey, Pharoah, can we, uh, go to wilderness for a few days for a festival to the Lord?”

“No,” said Harrow forbodingly.

“No?” Gideon hedged. Waiting for the perfect moment-

And just as she had so many years ago, Harrow drew herself up in magnificent haughtiness and sneered, “No, Griddle, I will not let your people go.”

Gideon slumped, pressed a hand dramatically to her heart. “God, that hits the spot.”

“There is something wrong with you,” said Harrow, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “my… Passover paramour.”

Gideon’s heart grew, like, three sizes. Call her chametz, with how light and fluffy she was feeling right now. In her kitchen, with her wife, hosting their seder – Not the Ninth Church’s seder, not the Ninth Church’s Harrow. Just Gideon, and her community, and her perfect, glorious, passionate, adorable wife.

“Just nostalgic,” said Gideon, grinning like an idiot. “And, you know, devout,” she added belatedly, which had Harrow snorting. “Praise Hashem.”

Chapter Text

“Take this,” said Harrow, shoving the cup of medicinal tea towards the dying Prince.

“Who the hell are you?” said her patient, opening a single golden eye. Taking her in, and seeming highly unimpressed.

Harrow attempted to summon her patience. She was being paid a lot of money for this, money her village sorely needed. “The person who’s telling you to take this,” she said, with a forced smile.

“Great, you’re really expanding my pool of information here,” said Prince Kiriona Gaia, struggling onto her elbows. “Can I ask what the fuck this is?”

“You can ask,” said Harrow absently. She was taking the Prince in, comparing her to the reports she’d been given by the palace apothecary, and the official portrait she’d seen on her way upstairs. Poor color. Loss of muscle mass, consistent with the nausea and vomiting reported. Three weeks into a mysterious illness, and no solution in sight.

“Thanks, very generous of you,” said her patient, uncaring of Harrow’s rigorous diagnostic procedures. “Let’s try this again: What kind of nasty piss-mixture are you trying to shove down my throat?”

Harrow scowled. “A tincture of yarrow and willowbark,” she ground out. “For your headaches."

“Wow,” drawled the Prince. “Sounds fucking miserable. No thanks.”

“Your father-” Harrow began, infuriated, and was quite a bit more infuriated when the Prince cut her off with a loud sound that could only be described as a raspberry.

“Your father has summoned me to treat your illness-” Harrow tried again, and the Prince did it again, though she couldn’t seem to hold it very long – poor lung capacity? Shortness of breath?

“Are you aware,” said Harrow sharply, finally losing her temper, “that you are dying?

Kiriona shrugged. “We’re all dying, sweetcheeks.” And when Harrow opened her mouth to object to the nickname, she barreled on ahead with: “The only question is whether we drink shitty tea about it. And… yeah, I’m gonna choose not to drink the tea, if it’s all the same to you.”

But that was a lie. She was afraid to die, Harrow could see it in her eyes. She had treated many patients, and she knew what it looked like when they were seeking death with open arms. She had watched her parents leap fearlessly into the dark, and Prince Kiriona Gaia had none of that fervor, none of the peace of the dying elder, none of the relief of the pain-stricken victim of illness.

“You cannot tell me that you have nothing to look forward to,” said Harrow, trying another tack. The yarrow tea was cooling in her hand, and she set it on the table beside the Prince’s sickbed.

“Eh.”

“You are the heir to a massive and wealthy kingdom,” Harrow continued, watching closely.

“Thanks.”

“It is not a compliment,” said Harrow, unable to stop herself. “Since it involved no effort on your part.”

The Prince didn’t seem offended. “And yet, I’m honored by it, so suck on that. Still not drinking your vile tea, though.”

Harrow longed for a mortar and pestle, to grind something into dust. She was terribly afraid that she wasn’t going to get through this treatment session without destroying something. “You are supposed to getting married. To a legendarily beautiful princess. You aren’t even willing to live for that?”

Kiriona considered that thoughtfully.

“They say that Coronabeth Tridentarius has golden hair down to her knees,” Harrow continued, seizing on her advantage.

“And tits the size of melons, with nipples made of diamonds, I know,” said Kiriona. “You make a good point. I’m thinking about it.”

Like dealing with a child! “Think about it on your own time,” said Harrow. “I have other things to do.”

“What, more important than me?” said the firstborn and only heir to the throne of Dominicus.

“Easily,” said Harrow. “Drink the damn tea. I have a career riding on this, and I’m not letting your faux-nihilism and indolence get in the way.”

“Is that an order, Newer Shittier Mercymorn?” said the Prince. But she quirked her brows and drank a sip, mouth screwed up in exaggerated disgust. Harrow decided she would count that as a victory.

--

“Your prognosis?” asked the palace’s chief apothecary.

“She is…” Harrow searched for the right word. “Recalcitrant. Resistant to treatment options.”

“She’s a little shit, yes, we all know that,” said Mercymorn dismissively. “Welcome to the castle! Welcome to her treatment team! Welcome to the shittiest job in the whole damn castle!”

Harrow found that she could not disagree. “What do you think is wrong with her?” she asked, which seemed the most diplomatic option.

“Oh, who knows with that one,” said Mercymorn, uninterested. “Always some kind of nonsense. Mercymorn, Kiriona has lice! Mercymorn, Kiriona is flirting with all the serving maids! Mercymorn, Kiriona has a tummyache! I’m still not convinced that she’s even ill. I wouldn’t put it past her to feign illness to get out of… well, anything that she didn’t want to do, really. Her father’s the same way.”

Which was very near to treason, so Harrow did not comment. “Are there any courses of treatment you have already ruled out?”

“Retroactively strangling her traitor mother,” Mercymorn suggested, without much hope. “Drowning her in the moat like a sack of unwanted kittens. John vetoed them all, the sentimental bastard. Maybe if she drops dead, I can actually make progress on my important research. Until then, she is your problem, and I have no interest in hearing any more about it! Thanks!”

--

“Your tea didn’t fucking help,” said Kiriona, the next week.

“But you were so compliant with my medical recommendations,” said Harrow dryly, taking inventory of her symptoms. Poor color, still. Clammy skin.

“Don’t be a bitch,” her patient said bitterly. “I’m the one who’s dying, aren’t I?”

Harrow sobered immediately. “You must know,” she said, “I do not intend to let you die.”

“I didn’t realize you were in charge of that,” said Kiriona, after a slight pause.

“The things you didn’t realize could fill a library,” said Harrow dismissively. “Move your head, I want to check your jugular pulse.”

And Kiriona rolled her eyes, but she also undid her collar with clumsy fingers and lolled her head exaggeratedly to the side.

Harrow took it in critically. The loss of coordination. The exhausted way that she let her hand slump to the mattress as soon as they were done. “This red flush,” she said, tapping at the Prince’s neck. “Has it been constant?”

“Only when you’re touching my neck like that, you flirt. I’m a very modest maiden, you see.”

Harrow did not dignify that with a response. “And the vomiting? Is it at a particular time of day?”

“Only when you’re touching my – ow, fuck! You’re supposed to make me healthy, not fucking kill me.”

“It’s a blood draw. Don’t be an infant.”

“It’s my fucking blood!” said Kiriona, as Harrow smoothed on a bandage. “I’m allowed to have a goddamn reaction.”

“Shall I give you a moment to hyperventilate?” Harrow offered with her best approximation of sweetness. “Would you like a posy of calming herbs?”

Kiriona recoiled. “Hell no. I’ve had enough of your herbs for a lifetime.”

“Clearly you haven’t, or you’d be on your feet again.”

“Or maybe you’re not as good as you think you are,” Kiriona shot back. “Maybe you’ve been bested by my fucked-up body, and you can’t do shit about it, and you’ll have to go crawling home in disgrace to the… weird mystic hollow tree you came out of.”

And Harrow saw it again. The fear of dying, of course, but also the fear of even hoping for a remedy, when hope was all she had left. How much easier would it be for Kiriona, if she could drive Harrow and her cures away, and resign herself to death?

Thankfully, Harrow was not here for Kiriona’s comfort. Thankfully, Harrow didn’t particularly care what Kiriona wanted.

“Kiriona Gaia,” Harrow said, meeting the Prince’s gold eyes. “I am not going to give up on you.”

Kiriona flushed, and averted her gaze. She seemed to be wrestling with something.

“Okay,” she said finally.

--

“I didn’t ask to be the heir, you know,” said Kiriona, apropos of nothing.

I did not ask, Harrow wanted to say. It was on the tip of her tongue. But the Prince was… lethargic. Morose. Prodding her into submitting to the usual examination had been less of the usual spirited match of wits, and more a matter of dragging a tired and reluctant horse from the stables.

“Oh?” she said instead, attempting to cultivate what she had heard described as bedside manner.

“I was fine before my dad scooped me up, you know,” Kiriona continued meditatively. “Like, not fine, the nuns were actually evil as all hell, but I was getting decent at the sword, and I had some prospects. Joining the army. Becoming a smith, maybe, I always loved watching them do their… what’s it called. Hitting the thing with the hammer. Like, Gideon’s life wasn’t a big life, but it could have been my life, you know?”

She had thrown up twice today, the servants reported. She was barely keeping anything down. Two weeks Harrow had been in this castle, and Kiriona was only getting worse. Harrow worked feverishly, day and night, consulting Mercymorn’s notes and her own logs, testing Kiriona’s blood, concocting tinctures. And nothing was working. She did not deserve to be called the best herbalist of her generation. She did not deserve to call herself an herbalist at all. All the women and children her parents had plied their craft on, experimenting and documenting so that they could have their own child and pass on their genius, and Harrow was not worth it in the slightest.

“Do you ever feel like you’re being punished?” Kiriona said, heedless of Harrow’s internal panic.

“All the time,” said Harrow with feeling. And: “What would you have done to deserve this?”

“I dunno,” said Kiriona, letting her eyes drift closed. “Let my guard down, I guess. Like, becoming a soldier would have been fine, but I had to get greedy, right? Had to get used to the people bowing down, and the fancy clothes and food and lessons. Shoulda-” she paused for breath. She was doing that more and more often. “Shoulda known better. Every time someone called me their Highness, I should have made sure they knew I was just some dirtbag kid, and maybe then-”

“You are not being punished,” said Harrow sharply. “And you are not going to die.”

“Sure I’m not,” said Kiriona easily. “And I’m going to marry Princess Coronabeth. God, I should have fucking known it was too good to be true, just from that. So goddamn stupid.”

Harrow was finding it harder to breath too. She said haltingly, “It is not stupid to – want. To enjoy good things. To have hope.”

“Sure,” said Kiriona again. “Hey, you gonna tell my dad about this conversation?”

Truth be told, she had barely seen King John since she arrived at the castle. He had greeted her warmly, and instructed Mercymorn to give her what she needed, and then had not summoned her once. She hadn’t seen her in the sickroom, either.

“No,” said Harrow. “Everyone deserve secrets.”

--

“You ever think about it?” said Kiriona. She was very cold now. “Death?”

Harrow nodded slowly. “It is a constant companion, in this job. A respected colleague.”

“Spooky,” said Kiriona.

She was having trouble staying awake now. Harrow was desperately afraid that if she fell asleep now, she would never wake up.

Perhaps that was why she said, “My parents died, when I was young.” To distract Kiriona. To give her something, anything, to listen to.

“I’m sorry,” said Kiriona. Trying to comfort Harrow, who deserved no comfort, even on her deathbed. It was desperately unfair. It was unbearable, that Kiriona said with labored breath, “That’s – that’s shit. You didn’t deserve that.”

Perhaps it was the strange intimacy of the sickroom. Perhaps it was the way Kiriona looked into the face of her own death without flinching. Harrow had always wanted too badly to live. It humbled her, to see someone accept with grace what she had always fled.

“I did, though,” she found herself saying. “It was my fault.”

Kiriona shook her head. “You-”

“I was supposed to be competent,” said Harrow. She had never spoken of this to anyone before. She had planned to take this to her own grave. But it was flowing from her lips now, congealing in Kiriona’s grave too. “They taught me their trade, gave me every secret they had. I was supposed to make them proud, and instead I – bungled my first patient, a rich one. Her family was furious. Our entire reputation, up in flames because of one squeamish child who couldn’t do the one thing she existed for.”

“That’s-”

Nothing could stop this now. Harrow balled her fists and said, “My parents killed themselves, my Prince, and they did it slowly. I helped them boil the root, and extract the toxin, and prepare three doses. And then they downed their cups, and I-”

And then she was alone, and alive, while those she owed everything to were dead. Then she was alone in a dusty home stocked with endless boxes of herbs that could never bring them back, in a world they hadn’t even wanted to inhabit. Alone with two bodies as their convulsions slowed, and their blue lips stopped taking in air, and eventually, they-

She could not look at Kiriona’s clammy cheeks. She could not look at Kiriona’s bluing lips as she rounded out meaningless platitudes while dying from Harrow’s incompetence. Kiriona was saying something kind, but all she could think about was her mother’s dilated pupils, and the cool, sweaty feel of her father’s hand as she begged and begged for them to wake up. All she could hear was their labored final breaths, and all she could smell was the bitter, vividscent of almonds.

Almonds…

Harrow’s eyes snapped open. She reached for her reference books, though the symptoms were indelibly marked on her eyelids. She should know them in the dark of night, but she had to be certain. She flipped frantically, nearly tearing a page.

“Rude, to look away from a dying girl,” said Kiriona, somewhere in the distance.

“Shut up, I’m thinking,” said Harrow, fingers flying through the pages and landing finally on the right spot. She scanned it hungrily. “What have you been eating, lately?”

“I dunno, like, toasted bread?” said Kiriona, bewildered. She was making an effort to keep her eyes open. “Fruit? Why, you’re trying to steal my fitness routine,? Cause it’s working so well-”

“What about meat?” Harrow pressed.

“Can’t keep it down, with all the vomiting, so Mercymorn told me I could stop trying months ago,” said Kiriona, and Harrow inhaled sharply and rung the bell to call a servant. “Why? What are you-”

Her fingers were inexcusably clumsy on her vials and boxes. She dropped the comfrey, heard it shatter on the ground, but – why didn’t she organize these? Why was she such a fool, an embarrassment, a nonsense – cringing from the very memory that would have saved her patient if she only had the courage to think about it for one damned second? She was ten, and she had fucked up and killed her parents, and she was twenty-one, and the Prince was-

Her hand found the tiny pot of charcoal.

“This will be unpleasant,” said Harrow rapidly, measuring it into water. “But I need you to do it anyway, Kiriona. Drink this, now.”

“I don’t-” said Kiriona, baffled.

“Please,” said Harrow, and she couldn’t make it sound like anything but the plea for mercy that it was. “Please don’t make me lose someone else.”

And Kiriona drank.

“Harrow,” she said after a long swallow, a bit of black liquid leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Are you going to-”

The servant knocked at the door, and Harrow rocketed to her feet. “Bring meat,” she demanded. “Red meat, and from whatever the servants are eating. Not from the royal kitchens, do you hear me?” And she must have looked utterly unhinged, but the servant scurried off. And then there was nothing to do but wait.

--

“Cyanide,” said King John Gaius thoughtfully. “How novel.”

Harrow dared not look up from where she was kneeling. “It was likely ingested in small doses, over time, to give the impression of a natural illness. It can be found in – a certain starchy root, or in the pits of stonefruit. I don’t know how-”

“Oh, I’m almost certain it was Mercymorn,” said the King, startlingly casual. “She’s been acting up again, lately, and she certainly has the knowledge and the access. And she never was able to stand Kiriona, God knows why. I’ve given her too long a leash, I suppose.”

“I see,” said Harrow, who didn’t see at all. “So she will be...”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it,” said the King, which did nothing to quell the horrible thoughts in Harrow’s head, and actually made it quite a bit worse. “How on earth did you know what to do, though? That’s what I’m impressed by. Mercymorn is exceptionally good at what she does, bless her shriveled little heart – when she poisons someone, that’s usually lights out. I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten one over on her before.”

“I have… encountered the affliction before,” said Harrow, praying that he didn’t ask for more details. “It can be treated, with charcoal to absorb the harmful miasma, and meat to bolster the failing blood.” A vast oversimplification, but the King nodded.

“Marvellous,” he said, as if examining a portrait he’d commissioned. “Highly impressive. We’re very lucky to have you now, Harrowhark.”

“My lord?” said Harrow, puzzled.

The King looked bemused. “Well, you’ve saved the heir to the throne, and an important marriage alliance to boot, and I am about to be short a chief apothecary, so…” he spread his hands helplessly. “The job’s yours. Stay here, make sure Kiriona gets back up to spec, keep an eye out for any other poisonings, make sure we don’t all die of plague. The usual.”

“I-”

Harrow’s face was burning. She had not spoken to the Prince since she nearly caused her death with her own incompetence. Or since her confession. Secrets shared to the dying were meant to be taken to the grave, but Kiriona was still, blessedly alive, and the thought of facing her made Harrow’s stomach churn.

The King seemed to sense her hesitation. “Think about it, okay?” he said, more gently. “No pressure. I’m only ordained by God, right? What do I know?”

--

She didn’t need to speak to Kiriona, technically. And so she didn’t. She instructed the servants to alert her of any changes to the Prince’s condition, and she restocked her supplies, and she sequestered herself in Mercymorn’s former study to look through her stores of curatives and poisons, and decode her ciphered formulas, and make use of her truly flawless glassware. Below her tower, there were celebrations of the Prince’s health, and delegations from the Kingdom of Ida to resume planning the wedding. There were swags of gold and violet silk, and servants gossiping about the latest fashions in Ida, and none of it required Harrow in the slightest.

She promised herself two weeks, in case the Prince developed another medical problem. That was what she was here for. That was her purpose, her duty: to heal, to save lives, to restore her parents’ good name and win riches for her village and make even the slightest dent in debt of death that she had incurred.

In theory, taking up this post would allow her to do all those things. But it would also require her to live in close proximity to Kiriona, who knew her sins, and had somehow not looked away. And to the Princess Coronabeth, who was well known to have the most firm, luscious thighs in the continent, and eyes like a gorgeous twilit sky. She would match well with Kiriona, once she was back at full health. Harrow had seen the portraits in the gallery, the Prince’s ruddy cheeks and boisterous energy and dashing figure. They were well suited, and she was – not in the mood, to entertain the thoughts that it was giving her. It was fruitless to fantasize. Kiriona was engaged to the most beautiful woman in the world. Staying here would only serve to make Harrow… confused.

And then a servant knocked meekly on her door and told her that the Prince’s recovery had stalled.

--

“Open your mouth,” said Harrow, furious. The Prince’s pulse was steady, and her temperature was normal, and none of the usual tests of her blood were yielding anything. But she was sickly again, and complaining of headaches and nausea, and Harrow’s own blood was thumping in her ears as she contemplated the calamitous possibilities.

“Ask me on a date first-” Kiriona said lazily, and then yelped when Harrow grabbed at her jaw. “Fuck! A little warning?”

“I am trying to ascertain if you are dying.”

“Well, I did okay last time, so maybe chill a little bit,” said the Prince, as if that were an even remotely sane takeaway from the events of the past few weeks. But she rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, so Harrow let it slide.

“This is delaying your wedding,” she pointed out, unable to stop herself from chiding at least a little. “It’s a diplomatic disaster. I have a responsibility to address it.”

The Prince shrugged, as if to say, then address it. Unhelpful as ever. And her tongue was inconclusive too. No growths. No sores. Harrow closed her eyes and tried to think against a rising tide of panic.

“Long time no see, by the way,” said the Prince pointedly. “I really appreciated you coming by to check on me during my recovery. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

“I wasn’t aware that was an expected part of my duties,” said Harrow, consumed by trying to recall the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.

She realized that she had made a misstep when Kiriona went – flat. “Right,” she said. “Just as well you didn’t. I was busy.”

“With planning your wedding,” Harrow surmised, reasonably.

“Yop.” Kiriona popped the p.

“Then it is just as well I did not distract you,” said Harrow.

“Too true,” said Kiriona, and stretched with leisurely abandon, and Harrow looked away for the sake of propriety.

“My dad says you might stay,” Kiriona said, drawing her attention back. “Now that Mercy is-” she draw her finger across her throat, grimacing. “Is it true?”

Harrow shrugged stiffly. “I cannot leave until you are recovered. I have a duty.”

“Okay,” said Kiriona slowly. “And after that?”

“Hold still,” said Harrow, in lieu of answering that. “I want to check your pupil dilation response.”

Kiriona jerked away from her steadying hand. “Yeah, no, I asked you a question.”

“And I am still your physician,” said Harrow, attempting to turn her head, “so I’ll thank you to stop getting in the way of my job.”

“And I’m the fucking Prince, so maybe stop manhandling me-”

Kiriona’s hand was tight on her wrist. Their faces were very close at this point, which should be perfect for inspecting Kiriona’s pupils, but Harrow was having a hard time focusing. She flicked her eyes down, recalibrating, and her gaze caught on the Prince’s lips, warm and alive and flush with oxygenated blood. Kiriona licked her lips, and Harrow’s eyes flicked away like she’d been stung. The prince’s eyes were dilated, which was a symptom of cyanide poisoning, but also…

This kind of thing was why she had been trying to stay away. There were some plants that were effective in small doses, but bred – dependence. First a small dose, then the irresistible urge to take a larger one. If Harrow stayed in this castle, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could resist the urge to kiss Kiriona. And if she kissed Kiriona, even once, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to stop.

“Harrow?” said Kiriona, very softly. She had not yet moved to throw Harrow off. Harrow could feel the Prince’s pulse pounding through her veins, healthy and vital and alive.

“I’m sorry,” said Harrow, humiliated, releasing the Prince’s face. “I’ve overstepped. Forgive me.”

“Harrow-”

“You are engaged. I should not – I’ll leave. I’ll recommend a colleague to assist with this latest malady.” She packed up her bag in a welter of panic, vials thudding into the padded depths. Her cheeks were burning.

“Are you – hey, what’s-” but Kiriona’s voice was already fading as she barreled out the door, down the stone corridors. She would keep running forever, she would leave this place and the miserable feelings it evoked. But her lungs had always been dogshit and she made it barely twenty paces before she was forced to stop for breath and lean her forehead against the cool stone wall.

“Harrow,” called Kiriona, voice somehow growing nearer. Harrow whirled around to see her, barefoot in her nightshirt, charging after her. “Fuck,” said the Prince vehemently, skidding to a halt. “I can’t believe I had to run - how are you so fucking fast, you’re basically made of lightweight sticks-”

Something clicked in Harrow’s head. It was one of the things she liked about her trade, when she allowed herself enjoyment. The fierce satisfaction of that moment when an unrelated tangled of symptoms resolved themselves into a diagnosis. Where the random and unsolvable became comprehensible and ordered.

“You’re not sick,” she accused. “Are you, Prince Kiriona?”

Prince Kiriona winced. “Not as such. Not anymore. Fuck, you figured that out fast.”

“I’m very good at what I do,” said Harrow absently. Gloating was secondary, with the mystery that was unrolling now. She began to circle her patient – her former patient. “Then – why? Why make me think my cure had failed?”

Another wince. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Or make you feel like you fucked up.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You’re really going to make me say it?” said Kiriona, scratching at the back of her head. Now that she was out from under the blankets of her sickbed, her nightshirt was awfully short, and made shorter when she reached up like that.

“I can’t diagnose without a truthful summary of symptoms,” said Harrow slowly. Turning it over in her mind.

“Maybe-” said Kiriona, fidgeting. Harrow berated herself for believing, even for a second, that Kiriona was still ill. She was a powerhouse of energy, even when she wasn’t running, or fighting her. She practically glowed. “Maybe I’m not super stoked about what happens when I get better.”

Harrow scoffed. “Unlikely. When you get better, you can get married to the most beautiful woman in modern history. What was it you said? Nipples made of diamond?”

“Yeah,” said Kiriona. “Right, and that’s obviously objectively hot as hell. It’s just – I’ve been thinking.”

“What is there to think about?”

“I don’t know!” said Kiriona, throwing her hands in the air. “That she’s going to look at me and expect to get Prince Kiriona Gaia? That she’s going to find out that deep down I’m just Gideon Nav the dumbass orphan farmhand, abandoned bastard, nearly dead because even my dad’s best friends fucking hate me? That she’ll hate me too, or she’ll pity me, or she’ll be so disgusted she can’t even look at me?That marriage is one step closer to taking a throne that I never fucking asked for, and being part of bullshit political deliberations that I could only fuck up?”

Her words rang in the empty hallway.

“I have seen nothing to indicate that you would fuck it up,” said Harrow slowly.

“Well, stick around, and you’ll get to experience it firsthand,” said Kiriona – Gideon- and raked her hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I just – is it weird that it was easier when I was dying?”

“No,” said Harrow immediately. She knew exactly what Gideon meant.

“Cool,” said Gideon. “Great. So I’ve got that to look forward to.”

There was a short, embarrassed silence.

“I have seen Gideon,” said Harrow slowly. “And I think your future wife will be – very lucky.”

Gideon exhaled, slow and shaky.“Yeah, I guess you have.” Her face was very tentative. “And you-”

“I don’t hate her,” Harrow said immediately. “Or you.”

“I don’t hate you either,” said Gideon, suddenly intense. “You know that, right? When you didn’t visit me, I was climbing the fucking walls. Like, embarrassingly bummed out about it. Alive, and getting married, and all I could think about was like, what’s Harrow doing? Does Harrow miss me? How pathetic is that?”

“I was sorting herbs, mainly,” said Harrow’s mouth. Her brain was occupied elsewhere.

“Yeah, that checks out. Your bag is a fucking mess.”

Harrow nodded slowly, not even taking in the jibe. There was something spreading through her veins, warm and tingling.

“I stayed away,” she said, “because I was also – not enthused, about your upcoming wedding. You deserved joy, not bitterness. You have already suffered enough.”

There was a slow grin spreading across the Prince’s face. “Yeah, I’ll say. I endured two whole weeks without you.” And when Harrow opened her mouth to object that she meant the miserable childhood, and the poisoning, Gideon cut her off. “Hey, Harrow. Wanna tell me why my wedding was bumming you out?”

Harrow was sure that her face was on fire. “I believe you are capable of guessing,” she ground out. “And I will deal with it my own way.”

“Sure, sure,” said Gideon, who was oddly flushed herself. “I’m sure there’s a bunch of herbal remedies you could try. Or, hear me out – we could kiss about it.”

Her face was approaching fever levels. But with all her education and hard-won knowledge, the only cure that she could particularly think of, in this moment, was to sweat it out.

Gideon’s lips were warm and soft beneath her own. Not cyanotic, not deoxygenated, not withering away. Harrow kissed her, and Gideon kissed her back, a big warm hand coming up to cradle her head and hold her in place. Which was good, under the circumstances, because Harrow was quite sure that she might float away otherwise. She was deliriously happy.

“Fuck,” said Gideon, when they had to pause for air. She was breathing heavily, and smiling like an idiot. “I think I need to go lie down again. Like – holy shit, Harrow. Holy shit. I think you just exploded my goddamn heart. Not that I’m complaining. Goddamn.”

“I have a tea for that,” said Harrow, trying and failing to keep the smile from her own face. And Gideon snorted inelegantly and went in for another kiss, and Harrow met her in the middle.

Chapter Text

Gideon has a no soliciting sign on her door – the landlord’s, not hers, but the sentiment remains. She has a rainbow flag hanging in her window. She has a sign on her lawn that says IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE SATAN IS KING. So it’s a mystery to her why the fuck door-to-door prosthlytizers keep darkening her doorstep. Do they, like, look at her nonbeliever ass and see a challenge? Do fundie cult teens sit around at night daring each other to go to the big scary dyke atheist house? Do they get points for how far they make it up her driveway before turning around? She hopes she’s worth at least three points. But she also hopes they’ll leave her the fuck alone, so it’s a complex emotion.

It gets more complex when she yanks open her door and the “leave me the fuck alone” dies on her lips. Because the woman on her doorstep, resplendent in a black button-down, short dark hair pasted to her brow in sweat-soaked whorls, bone earrings jutting impudently from like ten different holes – does not look like any Mormon she’s ever spoken to. She looks like a girl she would crush on from afar in her first period study hall in high school. She looks like she could wreck Gideon’s shit.

She is holding an array of severe-looking pamphlets, though, and a hefty Bible. So Gideon wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Hello,” says her unwelcome visitor, and then pauses to rub at her eyes. Her black eye makeup comes away smeared.

“… hello?” says Gideon, mystified. “I don’t want a new religion, thanks.”

The woman scowls. “That’s what everyone says, before they are plunged into the fiery pits of hell.”

“Great. Super convincing. Can I have a pamphlet? Or-" inspiration strikes, just a moment too late. "-like, one of every kind of pamphlet you have?”

The woman – Harrowhark, her stupid little nametag says - clutches her pamphlets tighter. “Are you going to throw them away as soon as I leave?”

“Nope. Scout’s honor. I’m going to show em to all my friends.”

“I don’t believe you,” says Harrowhark, and then, alarmingly, sways.

Gideon puts out a hand automatically, then stops herself before making contact with that sweaty shoulder. Not a good idea. “You okay?” she asks instead.

Harrowhark closes her eyes and breathes in deeply through her angular nose. Her face is very colorless.

Gideon gives her a quick once-over. Bible, check. Pamphlets, check. But the bag she's carrying is small, and she isn't carrying a water bottle, and she's absolutely dripping with sweat, and it's like a hundred ninety nine degrees today -

“Please,” she says, and it's the closest she’s ever come to a genuine prayer, “Please don’t pass out from dehydration on my doorstep.”

“Don’t be absurd. I merely-” Harrowhark presses a shaky hand to her forehead. “I think I need to sit down.”

“Right,” says Gideon, turning on her heel. “I’m getting you a Gatorade. What’s your color?”

“Do not,” says Harrowhark, aghast.

“Too late,” Gideon calls from the kitchen. “I’ve got orange and blue -”

“I am not drinking something tendered by an absolute stranger,” Harrowhark insists, which is undermined by the fact that she is now leaning heavily against Gideon’s doorframe. “I merely need to – rest my feet.”

“Try the recovery position,” Gideon suggests beneficently, returning to the scene of the crime with a blue Gatorade. “Head down between your legs, eyes closed, breathing deeply.”

Harrowhark is rubbing at her eyes again. Probably seeing black spots, if Gideon knows the progression of symptoms, and she unfortunately does. God, she hates being right. “That will not help.”

“I have A/C inside?”

“I’m not going into your house,” says Harrowhark, with such perfect, disdainful dignity that Gideon very nearly believes her. And then she passes out.

--

So yeah, she caught the fainting prosthletyzer on her doorstep – or at least, kinda grabbed an arm to steady her until she kind of wilted against Gideon’s front and then she was able to hook onto the little freak’s armpit to stop her absolutely eating shit on the pavement. So yeah, she dragged her inside and set her up on the couch, and then for good measure she put a wet cloth on her forehead and a glass each of water and Gatorade beside her.

Yeah, she knew it was bad. To balance it out, she did steal all the pamphlets.

When Harrowhark finally stirs back into consciousness, Gideon is deep in the Ninth Church of Christ’s guide to “Living an Authentic, God-Honoring Life.” Good shit, good shit. Too glossy to wipe her ass with or start a fire, but it can definitely be shredded for like, making homemade paper. Paul makes homemade paper, right? Could be a cute craft for them to do with the little one.

“Unhand my property,” are Harrowhark’s first words, which unfortunately checks out. Gideon should have known not to expect any gratitude.

“Nah,” says Gideon. “I’m really interested in learning how to ‘make peace with my promised demise and embrace it with fervent worship.’ If I stop now, how am I gonna save my immortal soul?”

“You are mocking me,” says Harrowhark, and then does a very mockery-worthy wiggle as she tries to lever herself off of Gideon’s hella comfy couch.

“Oh, hundred percent,” Gideon agrees. “Drink some fucking electrolytes, you need it. Can’t see you making it off this sofa if you don’t, let alone down the block.”

Harrowhark glares balefully at her.

“It’s a bad look,” Gideon explains belatedly. “If one of you lot dies on my block. Cops are going to be looking real closely at the dyke with the Satanist iconography, and do I need that hassle?”

“You could,” says Harrowhark, but she’s taking a prim little sip of the plain water, “take down the Satanist iconography.”

“Can’t, actually. It’s load-bearing. House would crumble.”

“Like the Phillistine Temple,” Harrow muses. “Perhaps it would be worth my death to bring it crashing down.”

“Calm down, Saint Harrowhark. No one’s getting martyred today, as long as you get some fucking fluids.”

Saying her name certainly has some kind of effect on Harrowhark. She beetles her dark brows, and glances down at her nametag, and then shifts to cover it with her arm. Like there are any cats left to let out of that bag. The cats are frolicking around her apartment, clawing up all the furniture. The bag is drifting through the wind, waiting to start again, because its cat-holding career has definitely not worked out.

Gideon opens her mouth to make a joke about that, or about getting in fluids (does sexually harrassing an obvious fundie earn you a ticket to super-hell instead of regular hell?), and then mentally slaps herself on the wrist. She has a very clear image in her head of Cam and Pal, looking at her balefully.

“What do you hope to accomplish with this?” Pal would ask, with a particular wrinkle of his nose that suggested he knew what Gideon was going for even if she didn’t, and he did not approve.

“It’s embarrassing,” Cam would add. “For all of us, but mostly for you.”

Gideon sticks up an imaginary middle finger at mind-Cam and mind-Pal. She isn't hoping for anything. She's just shooting the shit. Just pulling one over on someone whose religion is at best batshit and at worst a cancer on society. Harrowhark is sharp – sharp enough to match wits with her, sharp enough to know that her religion is a fucking sham, right? No one has ever called Gideon smart, but to her credit, it took her less than five years of life to realize that the nuns around her were full of shit. Fucking mind-boggling, then, that Harrowhark is a full-ass adult and still doesn't get it.

And yeah, maybe she wants her to get it. Maybe she wants to be the one who could say the perfect thing and shatter that constricting straitjacket of fucked-up faith. Maybe she wants to get one over on whatever fucking death cult Harrowhark is part of, to win for once instead of constantly coming up short.

But what are the odds of that happening?

So she just. Sits. Reads pamphlets (shocker: Ninth Jesus’s divine plan for all his flock does not include gender transition or abortion). Shreds pamphlets. Steals little glances every few minutes of a wan, sweaty zealot drinking water in the most longsuffering way possible.

“I would like to leave your house now,” says Harrowhark, after maybe twenty minutes of that purgatory.

“Door’s that way,” says Gideon, not looking up. This isn't a social call.

Harrowhark makes a soft noise of assent. There is rustling, as she frees herself from the couch, and picks up her little bag.

“Take the Gatorade,” Gideon suggests, unable to help herself. “Not like I can use it, now that you’ve gotten your germs all over it.” Does the Ninth Church believe in germs? She'll have to consult her pamphlets, which might involve some jigsaw puzzle fuckery at this point.

She can hear Harrowhark picking up the bottle, which is a nice little surprise. And then, a way bigger shocker – “Thank you,” says Harrowhark, stiff and dry and formal.

Gideon makes the mistake of looking up, which has mind-Cam and mind-Pal throwing off their hats in disgust. Because once she looks up, she sees Harrowhark’s dark eyes, and Harrowhark’s full, slightly blue-stained lips, and the tentative almost-smile hovering on said lips.

“Any time,” says Gideon, because she's an idiot. And then, because she's also insane, “Is that all? You’re not going to cage-fight the Devil for my immortal soul? I didn’t think your kind gave up that easy.”

Harrowhark quirks a brow, which Gideon is incredibly jealous of. Gideon should be the one who knows how to move just one eyebrow – she would look so fucking hot. Harrowhark doesn't deserve to be that hot, especially just half an hour after so closely resembling a drowned rat.

“Do you want me to fight for your immortal soul?” Harrowhark asks, just the slightest bit deadpan and the slightest bit intrigued, and Gideon has the belated realization that she is already in way too deep.

“Um,” she says. “Are you. Offering?”

Harrowhark takes one of Gideon’s pens from the side table, and one of Gideon’s post-it notes, and Gideon isn't even mad about it. She's just watching Harrowhark write something out, and trying not to do anything weird with her face or make any noises as Harrowhark presses it into her palm.

“Until next time,” says Harrowhark, dignified and cool, even as she steps back out into the hottest fucking day of the summer.

Gideon unfolds the note. Expecting – what, a phone number? An instagram handle? Stupid. TABLING AT GRANT STATION, 3PM SATURDAY, it says in crisp and blocky handwriting, because of course it does. PREPARE ACCORDINGLY.

Gideon goes into the recovery position. Head down between her legs, eyes closed, breathing deeply. And when that doesn't help, she also lets out the longest, loudest, most obnoxious groan her lungs allows. She's feeling sweaty, despite the AC. She needs to lie down.

Obviously, she's going to go. Obviously. Self-respect and principles and personal growth be damned. Mind-Cam and mind-Pal can go fuck themselves. She's doing this.

She feels like that blonde lady with the math symbols buzzing around her head, except instead of calculus, it's desperately trying to parse what the hell PREPARE ACCORDINLY means. She absolutely needs to look up what the Ninth Church of Whatever thinks about the gays, like, immediately. Like, they must be cool with it, right? Harrowhark is so obviously – but sometimes people don't – and if she is-

For the first time in her life, Gideon finds herself wishing for a weirdo Christian pamphlet to give her the answers that she needed. Except she doesn't have the pamphlets, because they are currently resting in the form of confetti in an old tomato-stained tupperware. Because she's the world's biggest fool.

Gideon grabs a pillow from the couch and screams into it. Which does not help, and in fact makes everything the tiniest bit worse, because it kind of smells like Harrowhark. Fuck her life.

Chapter Text

(Archived reddit post from u/harrowing_situation on r/AmITheAsshole. Originally posted May 14th, 2025)

AITA for asking my wife to change her medication? 

(Using a throwaway because she has beady little eyes that can see into my soul)

bear with me here, pals because it's a lot and at least one of us is losing our minds. I (32F) have been happily married to my wife (31F) for over a decade. she is the light of my life, the center of my universe, I can and will kill for her, she could tell me she’s hungry for kidneys and I’d rip mine out without hesitation, I’ve allegedly committed several federal crimes for her, etc etc. to all you fuckers flexing your typing fingers to comment “ESH that sounds codependent as hell” fuck off, you don’t know real love. We’ve known each other our whole lives AND we have a dog named noodle <3 you may not like it, but this is what peak relationship performance looks like. #lovewins

So in addition to being perfect in every way, my wife does have a history of some of the ol’ brain ghosts. Ya know, the neurospicies. The Horrors. Which, like, none of my business, she manages her shit, she hasn’t tried to fuck a ghost in at least six years. That’s how marriage works. I don’t ask her what she’s on currently or when she last saw her psych, and in return, I also don’t ask her what she puts in my breakfast smoothie, because we have a little thing called TRUST.

The trouble started like, maybe a few months ago, when she started a new carpentry project. I was like, “you sure you don’t want me to cut those boards for you, my DIY duchess?” because I have the physique of a god and she’s made out of bamboo sticks and knobbly bits of wire, but she got all “I am perfectly capable of operating a basic miter saw, u/harrowing_situation, and if I fuck that up then I deserve to lose my fingers.” Which, fair. I made space in the garage and drove her to the hardware store ocassionally (she can’t drive since the Incident) and drove her into wild throes of arousal with my wide collection of multitools and my uncanny ability to tell deck screws from wood screws.

But it’s been months now, and like. It’s very clear she’s building a boat. And we live in the Arizona desert, so ?????? I tactfully enquired about the why of it all pretty early on, and she said it was “not my concern” and it was “no less absurd than those jorts” (objectively false, my jorts are practical and sexy and the boat is neither). We have the room for it, because we live in bum-fuck nowhere, and she’s in-budget, so I was cool with it for a while. Except last night she took my face in her bony hands and went full-on eye-contact and told me I should have a go-bag ready, for when it’s time to board.

And I’m like, “Board what? This dick?” and she’s like “please be serious, even though you are so sexy and funny that I am experiencing some sort of paroxysm” and I’m like “ok, I’m serious, that’s a seriously shitty staycation” and she says “better than drowning,” and it all came out. That she’s been (allegedly) communing (!) with the spirit of the planet (!!!), and she’s been told to build an ark (!!!!!!!?!*%?!)

I said, “like Noah?” and she said “If you must draw Biblical parallels, but I prefer to think he is like me” and I chewed on that for a bit and counted to ten because I’m a very mature person and we’ve both done a lot of therapy, and then I said something very reasonable along the lines of “or, hear me out, God’s not talking to you, and maybe you should see what Dr. Pent thinks of this” and you can kind of guess where it went from there. Now she’s mad at me for questioning her sanity and attempting to manage her care and override her autonomy, and I’m super chill and cool but a little miffed that she’d rather have a literal psychotic breakdown than ask for help, and also there’s still a big-ass nautical structure in the backyard that I can no longer pretend isn’t an ark.

Reddit, should I just let her have this one manic project, as a treat, and hang back unless she does anything dangerous? Or am I the reasonable one here when I say that this is bugfuck insane and I need her to get help before it gets way, way worse.

Edit: Wow, a staggering number of responses here, and a staggering number of them are from straight people in terrible relationships? Since some of y’all can’t read, allow me to clarify:

• we’re not gonna get divorced, because I love her and she loves me and we swore each other a sacred vow.

• we don’t have a prenup (the fuck is wrong with you all?) because, see above, I love her and she loves me

• No, there isn’t a gas leak on the property, and she’s not using any arsenic-based paint or anything. Her meds aren’t expired. Whatever chemical explanation you’re looking for here, I promise, I’ve thought of it already and I wish it were that simple

• No, she hasn’t done anything else “crazy” in a bit, but have I mentioned? The ark? Is that not enough for you people? We are going full Noah here and I know-ah I don’t like it (see what I did there)

• Yes, other people are concerned too. She’s been posting online and putting up flyers in the neigborhood and stuff, and honestly we’re lucky no one’s called the cops about her yet. When I tell her to cool it, like it’s fine to have revelations from God but maybe don’t make it your whole personality or rub people’s face in it, she gets all pissy, and not in the hot way. Well, slightly in the hot way.

• Yes, she grew up Christian (we both did) but she hasn’t been into that stuff for years

• Yes, thanks for asking, the spirit of the Earth IS apparently a hot lady who lays beneficent palms against her forehand and praises her for her fortitude. I’m not thrilled about it either! But one thing at a time.

• Yes, we are still fucking, but it’s the angry kind, not the sappy kind, and I’m not the toxic young enemies-to-lovers dyke I used to be :( 

• Couples therapy was a decent idea. I brought it up to her, and she looked at the calendar and did a little smirk and said “Any time after June 8^th should be fine for a first session.” Which obviously! Obviously! means that she thinks the world is going to end on June 8^th! She’s the most brilliant woman in the world but she’s not even trying to get one over on me. So I guess I’m gonna hunt for a therapist, and get ready for the crash and/or rationalizations after June 8^th????

Edit 2: u/tridentarititty please stop commenting “YTA, if you can’t handle her divine revelations, you don’t deserve her devoted worship” over and over. I promise, she’s NOT going to fuck you. That goes for u/baberius too, and also @mods can we get a ban for this fucking blatant sockpuppetry?

Edit 3: Found a decent queer couple’s therapist and we’ve got an appointment scheduled for June 9^th. Unclear if we’ll make it – there’s a big storm rolling in, and the school are already closing for flood warnings, but we’ll reschedule if we have to. Wish me luck!

--

The sky and the sea were practically indistinguishable masses of gray. Noodle had finally stopped barking, and was now huddled, shivering, under the eaves. Gideon patted his head with an absent hand, and looked out into the watery abyss. Gray oceans, and gray sleeting rain, and gray clouds.

Harrow was the only spot of any other color, a stark blade of black where she lurked under the canopy. Her sweater was damp with sea spray, and her piercings were misted with tiny droplets of water.

“You can say it,” said Gideon, when it became clear that Harrow was not going to speak first. “You told me so. I deserve it, my prognosticating princess. My auspicious auger. My knowledgeable Noah.”

“That seems gauche,” said Harrow, settling beside her. “I would hate to gloat.” Which, in and of itself, was worrying, because Harrow loved to gloat. Her wedding ring clacked against the boards of the deck as she leaned against Gideon. Her damp head settled on Gideon’s shoulder, and Gideon could feel the exhaustion and despair radiating from her.

“We’ll be okay,” said Gideon, though she wasn’t at all sure of it. She wasn’t sure of much of anything any more – whether anyone else survived, or how, or why. “No thanks to me, but – you did it, babe. You saved us. And I know you, I know you think it’s not enough, or you should have done more or something, but I’m alive because of you, and we’ll figure it out, okay? You’ll be the founder of a new civilization, and I’ll learn to fish, and we’ll decorate this whole damn boat with nasty little fish skeletons. You in, my seafaring sweetie?”

For a horrible second, Harrow didn’t react, and it was a second apocalypse, smaller and nearer and infinitely worse. Gideon watched her in profile, watched the way Harrow stared out at the waves, felt her warm breath puffing against Gideon’s neck in shallow bursts.

“Well,” said Harrow, finally, after an eternity. “I did swear you a sacred vow.”

“Fuck yeah, you did,” said Gideon, inordinately relieved. “In sickness and in health, in life and in death, on land and on sea. One flesh, one end, bitch, amphibious edition.”

“One flesh, one end,” Harrow agreed, and together they watched the rain fall.

Chapter Text

There was a crossbow at Kiriona’s neck, and a knee pinning her to the forest floor. The pin, she could probably deal with. The crossbow would be a little more complex. Which meant this situation would necessitate her other greatest skill, besides swordplay and eating pussy.

“Let’s talk about like gentlemen,” she suggested, in her most charismatic tones.

“Let’s not,” said her captor, digging the knee in a little deeper. She had a good grip, for someone so small. “I’m not fucking around. Tell King Gaius-”

“Release the Prince!” some dumb fuck guard shouted over her, and then there was a searing pain in her shoulder that could only be-

“She shot me,” said Kiriona in disbelief. “She fucking shot me!”

The woman who fucking shot her slotted another bolt into her crossbow and jabbed it against Kiriona's back again. “I told you, I’m not fucking around.”

Kiriona was still hung up on the shooting of it all. She made a desperate appeal to reason. “Ianthe, did you see – she fucking shot me! In the shoulder!”

“I saw, Gonad,” said Ianthe unconcernedly. In retrospect, she was the worst possible choice for a reality check. But since Kiriona had only brought like five retainers on this little road trip, her options were limited.

“Are you going to do anything about it?” Kiriona pressed.

Ianthe pretended to consider it. She examined a lock of pallid hair, as if there were anything more important there than Kiriona being held hostage. Like, refocus, bitch. We all know you have split ends.

“Well,” said Ianthe finally. “The way I see it, once you’re out of the picture, that makes me-”

“Still not in line for the throne, bitch.”

“But a hell of a sexy regent someday,” said Ianthe, who had never let a line of succession stand in her way for very long. “Try to follow my logic here, if you can: we have a tasteless funeral and all pretend we liked you, John fathers another bastard child, and I take it under my wing when he’s dead and gone. And who can say what happens to Little Kiri the Second after that?”

Kiriona groaned. “God. I always forget how much you’re the absolute worst. I’m being held hostage, and you’re still the biggest piece of shit in this clearing.”

“I’m not sure you understand that a hostage is not required to talk,” said her assailant, nudging her reloaded crossbow against Gideon’s occipital bone. Apparently two fucking minutes of conversation that weren’t about her were two minutes too many. “Tell John Gaius that he will renounce all claims-”

“Sarpedon, are you seeing this shit?” Kiriona interrupted.

“I am, my Prince,” said her father’s most actually loyal retainer.

“And the – you caught the bit where Ianthe was a traitorous bitch?”

“Yes, my Prince,” said Admiral Sarpedon with the closest thing to proper respect that Kiriona had experienced today. “And – perhaps you can’t tell, because of the angle at which you’re currently pinned, but she’s also twirling a knife with what seems to be very evil intention.”

“Narc,” said Ianthe.

Kiriona wished she could bash her head into the ground without her captor taking umbrage and shooting her dead. She wished, not for the first time, that she could bash Ianthe’s head into the ground and be rid of her dad’s obviously sinister hanger-on once and for all. She also wished that she’d never gone into this fucking forest in the first place, but fuck it, she was here now. “God,” she said, slumping against the forest floor. A twig dug into her cheek. “Alright, Sarpie, get your ass back to court and tell dad to come bail me out. And that if I’m dead, it’s absolutely because Ianthe done got my ass, and she needs to go directly to dungeon. And don’t let her kill you on the way. Sound good?”

“Yes, my Prince,” said Sarpedon humbly.

“No!” said her captor, who apparently couldn’t be satisfied, and just had to throw a wrench into Kiriona’s excellent negotiating skills. “I have a message for you to deliver as well-”

Kiriona slumped, if possible, further. “Aw, fuck, okay pass on whatever she’s saying too.”

“Thank you,” said her captor haughtily. Perhaps the least sincere expression of gratitude Kiriona had ever heard, matched only by Ianthe’s languid oh, all right then, I suppose we’ll get it over with the one time Kiriona had finally sunk low enough to sleep with her. “Tell John Gaius that he will renounce all claims to the lands of the Ninth, or the outlaw Nova will fill his heir with arrows and leave her corpse nailed to a tree. I’ll expect the proclamation delivered here, at midnight, or Kiriona Gaia dies a painful death.”

Kiriona sucked her teeth in. “Well, hate that. Get on it, then.”

“Well-” said Ianthe, clearly about to throw her horrible opinion in the ring too, or maybe just kill Sarpedon, and the crossbow lifted very briefly from Kiriona’s neck just in time to – holy shit – put a bolt right in her gut.

“Shit,” said Kiriona, awestruck, and then she was being tugged roughly to her feet, and thrown over a horse. Under the circumstances, she didn’t even object.

--

“So, the Ninth, huh?” said Kiriona, a few hours later, once the heady, vicarious thrill of watching Ianthe get shot with a crossbow had well and truly worn off. Her hands and feet were bound now, and she was tethered to a sturdy tree, but her mouth was free, so it could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. A lot of people hated her dad, for obvious reasons, and it was objectively better to end up in the hands of someone who would accept a nice land-bribe, than someone who just wanted to shove hot pokers into her flesh to even the old misery scales. Better, at least, in the same way that drinking your own urine was objectively better than dying of thirst, which was to say, it fucking sucked, and was making Kiriona feel sick to her stomach.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, was the thing. This wasn’t what she was for. Like, she wasn’t the best kid in the world, but she was, you know, competent. She won tournaments. She sat in on boring meetings without even a single snack to tide her over, and she foiled assassination attempts, and she saved damsels in distress, dammit. She wasn’t supposed to be the damsel, wasn’t supposed to cost John something to keep her around. A lifetime based around making herself a value-add, minimizing the inconvenience of her existence, and now she was the biggest inconvenience around.

She couldn’t even be mad at Nova about it, though. She had no one to blame but herself. She didn’t bring enough guards, and she didn’t have her sword at the ready fast enough, and she didn’t hear Nova coming, and that was on her, her and no one else. At least two guards were dead because of her, and Ianthe might still kill Sarpedon, and she just had to live with that, apparently, because that’s what being a Prince was. People dying for you when by all rights it should be the other way around.

“It’s concerning that you still don’t understand what a hostage is,” said Nova.

“So sue me, I’m bored,” said Kiriona, aiming for nonchalant. She hadn’t been this fucking… chalant in years, but there was no reason for Nova to know that.

“Bored, when you are being held for your life?” said Nova, who maybe was more aware of Kiriona’s chalance levels than previously anticipated.

Kiriona went for a charming smile. “Well, yeah, you’re not gonna kill me, or you wouldn’t have wasted a bolt on Ianthe. You want this to work as much as I do.”

And that, apparently, was the right answer, because Nova didn’t have a snappy response lined up. She just glared, dark eyes full of hate.

Nova, when she wasn’t crouched on Kiriona’s back with a weapon to her jugular or whatever, was a lot smaller than Kiriona would have expected. She’d caught only a glimpse when Nova had ridden in, between the whole sordid business of bursting from the carriage and batting arrows from the air and marshalling her guards and generally attempting to go from sweet idyllic forest scene to oh shit oh shit oh shit. Now, though, Nova sat huddled six feet away, which made it difficult for Kiriona to ignore that she was basically just a girl her age. A girl who would probably shoot her if given half the chance, and was carefully oiling a crossbow and had three knives visible on her person, but a girl nonetheless. A girl with fine, pointy limbs and a haughty chin that could cut glass and (inexplicably, incongruously) the lips of an angel.

“Look,” said Kiriona very reasonably, “either we talk, or we fuck.”

Nova scoffed ostentatiously. “Why would I want to copulate with you?”

Kiriona decided not to take that as an insult. A less experienced diplomat would perhaps be hurt, but she was better than that. “You did promise to nail me to a tree,” she pointed out. And when Nova’s face twisted up with disgust, she added, “Look, I’m your handsome captive, you’re some hot vigilante – it’s been known to happen.”

“Where?” Nova demanded. “Where, and when, has that ever been known to happen?”

“Around,” said Kiriona, who was extremely well read. “Against trees. Don’t worry about it.”

“You are ridiculous,” said Nova.

Kiriona nodded sagely. “So I’ve heard. So, the Ninth?”

“And infuriating, and incapable of shutting up,” Nova continued. 

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” said Kiriona, who received all that feedback on the reg from Mercymorn. She adopted a serious tone, all the better to talk turkey. “Look, I feel like you’re barking up the wrong tree here, on the Ninth shit. Like, yeah, my pops took it, but it was in bad shape already. The old ruling family ran it into the ground – if we didn’t take it, someone would have.”

Nova’s hands did not do anything so unsubtle as pausing on her crossbow maintenance, but Kiriona marked the new tension of her posture. “Is that what he told you?”

“I’ve seen the fucking treasury report. Whatever the fuck they were doing over there, it was not working.”

“The inner workings of the Ninth are not for your unworthy eyes,” said Nova, and her tone was getting sharp. And Kiriona should probably not antagonize the woman holding her captive, but it was so fucking stupid, was the thing. She was out here tied to a tree because Nova wanted to restore the ruling line of the Ninth? The fucking Ninth?

“I’m just saying,” said Kiriona, who was not even remotely just saying. She actually needed Nova to see that this was fucking stupid, right now, or she might explode and make Ianthe the happiest woman in the world. “Even if you get it back, the old king and queen kicked it, so-”

“The Ninth does not die,” said Nova with the kind of sepulchral chilliness that was artisanally crafted to end conversations.

But Kiriona was mad, and Kiriona had never known when to shut up, so Kiriona said, “Their execution said otherwise.”

And she had time to witness the sheer rage on Nova’s face before she lunged forward and gagged her with her own fucking cravat.

--

“You’re their daughter, aren’t they?” Kiriona said, a few hours later. Sunset was ambling in, which meant she was a few hours closer to this farce being over. Also that she’d had a few hours to work the gag out of her mouth, and a few hours to think.

Nova didn’t react, but that didn’t matter. Kiriona was like, 70% confident about this, and had very little to lose.

“I remember,” Kiriona continued, watching her closely. “A diplomatic visit when I was really little. They had a kid.”

And Nova finally broke her silence to say, “No. They didn’t. The king and queen of the Ninth had no heir.”

Which seemed – off. Yeah, there’d been no heir up on the chopping block when her dear old dad had run the old fuckers through the guillotine, but Kiriona remembered. Six years old, maybe, shoved into a prissy little white uniform that she had to be bribed into not immediately smearing with dirt, and eyeing a dark-haired, dark-eyed little kid with interest. Wondering if she’d play with her. Wondering if she’d like her. Well, that was one question answered, now, if Nova was who she suspected. The serious little girl had grown into a serious little bitch who was way too good with a crossbow.

But it raised another question, and there was no fucking way Kiriona wasn’t going to ask it, not when Nova couldn’t really do anything to her. “So,” she pressed, “who are you expecting to take the throne, when you win it back?”

Nova didn’t respond. Nova was busying her hands with some kind of important, fiddly arrow maintenance, but she wasn’t slick enough for Kiriona to miss the look on her face. A sort of sour-lemon pucker.

“Do you even have co-conspirators?” Kiriona asked, twisting the blade. “Will anyone in the Ninth even cheer for you, when you win this?”

“Do I have to gag you again?” asked Nova sharply. “Your prattle is – intolerable.”

“Do your worst,” said Kiriona. She was getting somewhere, she knew it. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach, in the fizzy feeling in her throat. “Fair warning, though, I think it turns me on now. What can I say? You’ve awakened something in me.”

Nova made a noise of disgust, and did not move to gag Kiriona again. She seemed frozen between fleeing and absolutely kicking Kiriona’s ass.

Kiriona’s hands itched for her blade. She always felt its phantom weight in her hands, when the time came to destroy something. Gideon Senior said that was good, that she knew what real violence looked like. That it meant she would be judicious in her wrath, and not transgress blindly.

She could destroy Nova so easily. Awfully devoted of you, she could coo, Ianthe-level mockery dripping from her voice. Still carrying their memory, and after everything they did to you, too. Shame they didn’t think of you the same way. Shame they’d never do the same for you. They didn’t even want you in their family, so why would they want revenge by your hands?

They wouldn’t. But Nova, she could tell, would do it anyway. There was a certain frenzied determination in her, a barely contained rage. The independence of the Ninth would not bring her parents back, and she knew it, and she was willing to die and kill for it anyway. Which was – almost admirable, except it was fucking up Kiriona’s shit royally (ha). The longer she spent out here, the more she found herself dreading seeing her dad again. A whole territory lost, even a worthless barren chunk of land like the Ninth, and why? Because Kiriona couldn’t handle her shit? She didn’t know why Nova’s parents had disowned her, but she doubts even Nova fucked up that bad.

Maybe that’s why she stayed her hand, and said instead, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth, “From one heir to another, that’s-”

“Please stop talking,” said Nova sharply, and Kiriona did her the mercy of shutting her mouth.

--

They did not talk again. Nova’s face was a topographic map of contempt and concentration as she watched the sky, and prepared her weapons, and finally pulled Kiriona roughly to her feet. The point of the crossbow digging into her neck was an old friend at this point, and Kiriona tried to find relief in the knowledge that this would be over soon. Or not over, because she’d have to go home and John would want to talk about it, or worse, he wouldn’t want to talk, but at least she wouldn’t have to stare into the mirror of Nova’s dark eyes any longer.

The platoon of her father’s emissaries emerged from the trees, and she let loose a sigh she hadn’t known she was holding. Obviously, he sent people. Obviously, he wasn’t just going to ignore Kiriona’s plight, no matter how stupid she was for getting herself into this situation.

“Great,” said Kiriona, buoyed by relief. “He made it snappy. Let’s get this over with. You give the lady what she wants, and-”

Everything happened very fast. Nova hissed in pain, and her armlock on Kiriona loosed. Kiriona spun around, never one to ignore a golden opportunity, and beheld-

“He fucking shot you!”

Nova was bleeding heavily from a bolt near her elbow. Her arm hung limp. “I saw,” she said, through gritted teeth. And then the second bolt buried itself in the back of Kiriona’s calf, and she realized, oh, no, they were fucked.

There were a lot of questions about what was going on, but whoever the fuck was shooting at her was trying to kill her, so that took a backseat. Nova, incredibly, came in clutch – to her credit, she immediately slashed Kiriona’s bonds and ordered, “Sword! Saddlebags!” which was instruction enough for Kiriona, thanks. Then came the fight: arrows flying, ducking and scrambling to hide behind a horse (which was its own kind of humiliation), and fumbling at buckles until her sword finally decided to tumble into her hands and the party could start in earnest.

And it was easier, once she was fighting. She gripped the hilt with sweaty hands and charged into the fray. Once it was fighting, it didn’t matter that her dad’s guys wanted to kill her (why the fuck did her dad’s guys want to kill her?), or that Nova had inexplicably become her only ally, or that she’d been shot twice today and her body was about five minutes away from disintegrating with a sad trombone noise. Just the mindless rhythm of the fight, of slash, and parry, and block, and stab, and-

She came back to herself straddling the last surviving soldier, sword pushed hard against their throat. “Who sent you?” she kept saying, over and over. “Ianthe? I swear to god, when my dad finds out, that little bitch is going down-”

And the soldier was frantically shaking their head, as much as they could with a big sharp bar of steel digging into their windpipe. “Please,” they were saying, snot and tears running down their face, “We had orders -”

“Whose orders?” Kiriona demanded, feeling like a thread about to snap, a bowstring about to release, a bridge about to burn.

And the soldier’s wide, earnest, pleading eyes got even more earnest and pleading and they said “King Gaius – please, my Prince, I swear, it was king’s orders-”

Kiriona was damn good at the sword. Not at many other things, not as good as she should be. She was only a middling dancer, or negotiator, or strategist, and she couldn’t keep a straight face to save her life when someone made an ass joke even in an important setting. She didn’t even know any other languages, and she wasn’t much of an heir, really, not compared to someone like Ianthe, or even like Nova. But if there was one thing she was good at, one redeeming feature that turned her from a nothing into a something, it was her skills at the blade. Which made it even more inexcusable that for the first time in maybe a decade, her hands slipped, unbidden by any conscious effort, and the soldier began wheezing their last through a slashed windpipe.

There were hands on her shoulders. Kiriona batted them away numbly, but Nova gripped her tunic tightly and jerked her until she stumbled to her feet. “We have to go, now,” she demanded, or her mouth formed those words, but Kiriona’s head was a little fuzzy, and her pulse was pounding in her ears, so it was hard to tell.

“Guess it figures, right?” she remembered saying, as Nova tugged her back onto the horse and impatiently positioned Kiriona’s hands around her waist. “He never really wanted a kid – mom got pregnant as a real fuck-you – and an heir is a vulnerability, right? Makes people think about replacing you? And I fucked up - maybe if I hadn't fucked up -”

Nova did not reply, just drove the horse onward until everything around them was a blur. Kiriona focused on the only thing that wasn’t giving her motion sickness: the back of Nova’s neck, with cowlicks of thick dark hair, and the angular jut of her jaw, and the tense lines of her neck. The sweat beginning to wick from her hair, and the flush of her skin.

She had no idea where they were when they stopped. She stumbled off the horse, only realizing after the fact that Nova had offered her a hand to climb down. Nova wordlessly dug in her saddlebags, and Kiriona hoped, briefly, that she was about to pull another weapon to put her out of her misery, but instead she procured only an apple, which she tossed to Kiriona. Kiriona caught it automatically, and then regarded it morosely.

“Sorry,” she said finally, when it became clear Nova would not speak first.

Nova squinted at her, and it was hard to tell in the pre-dawn dimness, but she looked – disbelieving. “Sorry,” she repeated flatly. “For what?”

Kiriona gestured vaguely. She was beginning to feel the arrow in her calf now, but the idea of dealing with it was too big a bummer on top of a day that had already been nonstop bummers. “For, you know,” she said. “Not really pulling off my end. Guess you picked a bum hostage, huh? If you’d nabbed someone my dad really liked, you’d be sitting pretty in the Ninth right now.”

Nova’s face was twisted with something Kiriona couldn’t identify. “That is not your fault,” she said haltingly. And, with the air of someone giving themself stitches with a rusty nail: “I am… sorry.”

“Not your fault either,” said Kiriona instinctively. She had the wild and awful urge to laugh. “You didn’t know it was gonna end like this. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Nova agreed. She was watching Kiriona again, with those awful, knowing eyes. “Still,” she added, horribly intense. “From one heir to another… it sucks.”

The laugh, which had been lurking opportunistically in her esophagus, made a break for it, and Kiriona found herself fully incapable of holding it back. She doubled over and laughed, tears streaming from her eyes, until her stomach hurt. “Yeah,” she said, with feeling. “Yeah, it fucking sucks.” And across from her, former Ninth heir Harrowhark Nonagesimus cracked the first smile Kiriona had ever seen on her pinched, miserable face, and they both laughed as the sun finally, finally started to rise.

Chapter Text

It was forty-five minutes to the national forest, and like the sap I was, I did most of it on foot. No morphing for me, not after the absolute fuckup last week, and of course there wasn’t a bus line there, because Harrow had to choose the absolute worst places to hang out. Plus, of course, I had the meat to carry. Couldn’t be toting that across the city as an owl or a wolf or a housecat or whatever.

So that made it even more irritating that Harrow wasn’t there when I lugged my ass to her meadow. Not surprising, of course, because she hadn’t been there seven days in a row, but irritating as all hell. A guy could only take being stood up so many times before she had to say, enough is enough, and also, is Harrow okay?

She was probably fine, because she was an evil witch from hell and would keep herself alive out of pure stubbornness. But she was also like, ten pounds soaking wet now, and vulnerable to, I don’t know, hunters, or predators, or flying into windows and electric lines. Or, like, bird flu. Was that a thing for hawks? I didn’t fucking know. All I knew was that birds allegedly ate raw meat, so I’d been bringing bargain styrofoam trays of it to the forest for a week now.

Probably, she was fine. I could almost definitely turn around and go. But – it was Harrow, and it was potentiall an Offical Animorphs Problem, and it was objectively my fault when you came down to it, so yeah, I went the extra mile, beyond the extra 2.4 miles I’d already walked, and I turned into an owl about it.

The wolf probably would have been better, because it knew Harrow’s scent, but the thing about birds was that they were famously not stuck on the ground, and wolves typically were. So owl it was, trying to take advantage of the gathering twilight. I shucked off my shoes and outer clothes, and let my flesh slither down into feathers and little hollow reed bones and pointy bits, and I took to the air to hunt down the worst person I knew.

It took maybe twenty minutes to find her. Owls had good eyes and ears, but hawks had good camoflague, and Harrow was tucked up into a hollow of a tree, so huddled in its eaves that I didn’t find her til the third pass. Owls also were sneaky as all hell, something about the feather shape and the ear hollows, so it actually wasn’t that hard to just fucking cannonball her, knocking her ass-over-teakettle out of the tree. Bird on bird violence, a whole spectacle. She hissed about it, squirming in my talons, nipping at me with her beak, and for a second there, I thought maybe I’d fucked up real bad and just attacked a random, possibly endangered, bird.

<Harrow?> I ventured, and she got, if possible, more enraged, which was pretty telling. Wrestled a wing out, and batted me in the face with it, until I finally muscled her into the dirt. <Stop struggling, asshole, you’re gonna get hurt.>

<Then unhand me!> she hissed, glaring at me with golden eyes that were somehow all her. Harrow’s old face was gone now – no more evil, beady little black eyes, and mocking lips, and pinched little nose – but the bird-eyes had the right vibe anyway. Analytical. Predatory. Inhuman. Just ignore the feathers, and it was almost like old times.

<Nope,> I said, just like old times. <Not til you eat a damn meal. Seven days, I’ve been bringing you special supermarket deliveries, and you let all of them rot. You know there’s starving birds who would kill for this kind of service?>

<Then open a sanctuary and feed them,> she sneered. <I did not ask for your pity, Nav.>

Of course she didn’t. Harrow wasn’t the kind to ask for things. She was the kind to demand things, to extort things, to sneakily arrange things so she got them. Our whole lives, she only ever asked for one thing, and this wasn’t it.

<It’s not pity,> I said. <Call it an investment.>

<I understand you’ve never had the money to experience this firsthand, but investments are done with the expectation of future payoff,> said Harrow. <I, obviously-> she bobbed her little head down at her body <-have very little to contribute, to the Animorphs, or to your personal gain. I am a bird, Griddle, do you comprehend that?>

<Yeah, I’ve heard of em,> I said. <One saved my life last week.>

And that, finally, shut her up. I wish I’d known that trick earlier. A whole lifetime with Harrow, and it was only now that I learned you could shock her into silence with something approaching a compliment. Though, in fairness, it made sense it didn’t come up before. I’d never hard many compliments to deploy, until now.

I gently loosened my talons, and when she didn’t make a move to fuck off, I demorphed. Seemed rude to do that, kind of flaunting my human form, but bad enough that one of us was stuck as a bird. Didn’t mean we all had to do our emotional conversations that way.

“You’re still useful,” I said, when I was back to normal, or as normal as you could get while barefoot and spandex clad in a forest. “You can, I don’t know, fly around and spot suspicious shit. Put your nasty, suspicious, prying brain towards finding the fucking Yeerk Pool entrances, or figuring out who’s a controller, or playing backup on missions.” This did not appear to be making a dent in her feathery head, so I added for good measure, “We’re saving the Earth, sugarlips. You don’t get to drop out of the fight just because you had a surprise change of species.”

Her eyes narrowed at that. <I am not so faithless as to desert this fight,> she said venomously. <Don’t you dare accuse me of cowardice.>

“Then stop being a pussy, and eat,” I shot back at her. “Seven fucking days, and you haven’t eaten the meat I brought you? How does that help anyone?”

And she tilted her head in a way that I couldn’t even begin to parse. I knew a lot of Harrow signals, little quirks that warned me what kind of bullshit she was going to pull, but those were human-Harrow signals, and I might as well finally wipe them out of my head, because there was no more human-Harrow. Just hawk-Harrow, because she’d stayed in the Yeerk Pool too fucking long and gotten stuck. Because I’d been stupid enough to get captured, and she’d been stupid enough to come for me, and fight for me, and beg me to run. And I’d been stupid enough to listen. None of us were getting into Mensa, at this rate.

<Real hawks,> said Harrow finally, <hunt for their food.>

I rolled my eyes. “And how’s that going for you?” If you’d asked me just a week ago, I would have had a full bit ready to go about how Harrow probably already ate rats, probably hunted them down in her huge, awful manor and bit into them like a burger. But now she was, you know, actually an obligate carnivore (Pal’s words, not mine) in addition to a huge bitch (my words), and the two didn’t seem to be melding like I’d thought they would.

It was the fucking funeral. That was what was messing with me. Sympathizing with Harrow was dangerous – always had, always would be – but it was hard not to sympathize with someone when she was declared legally dead, and had the saddest, lonelinest fucking funeral in the world, just me and her ancient buddies, and then her parents offed themselves on top of it. So when Harrow just sat there, radiating bad-at-hunting energy, I didn’t push further. I didn’t talk shit, or call her useless at living, or any of the usual banter. I said, “Come on, let’s go back to your tree,” and got to my feet. And I heard, rather than saw, as she rustled into flight behind me.

It was a decently long walk back to where I’d left her food. Silent, too, the kind of silence that presses down on you like a hydraulic press until something comes bursting out through those little holes in the top. I made it maybe five minutes before I said, “Harrow, there’s something you should know. Your parents-”

<I know,> she said.

I sagged. “You know? How-”

<Hawks have excellent vision and eyesight. And I have a lot of free time,> she said, which was an understatement if I ever heard one. Human-Harrow had always been busy with school or research projects or church duties or being a massive pain in the ass. Bird-Harrow, understandably, was not scheduled for most of those things.

“Okay,” I said. “Yeah, okay. I’m-”

<Don’t you dare apologize,> she said bitterly. <I know you hated them.> I wasn’t sure where she was anymore – somewhere above head, getting some altitude for a longer flight. Somewhere I couldn’t see her expressionless face. But not gone yet. Staying in thought-speak range.

“Yeah, they were real cunts,” I agreed. I wasn’t sad for old Priam and Pella, per se. But their daughter… “But still, if we’d told them you were still out there…”

<It was an unacceptable risk,> she said. And that – that pissed me off.

I’d never liked Harrow’s parents, and the feeling was more than mutual. But it was hard not to get a little sentimental about them now, after they’d hung themselves out of parental grief. Mine never cared enough to even tell me who they were, and Harrow’s loved her so much they’d die for her, butshe didn’t even love them enough to come out of the closet as a bird. Typical Harrow, really – having everything, and throwing it away like garbage. Typical Harrow, never loving anything as much of herself. Typical Harrow, absolutely unwilling to risk herself for anyone and anything.

Except me, of course. By which I meant, all the Animorphs, not just me. The Andalite had asked which of us would join the fight to save our planet, and Harrow had barely hesitated, face set with zealous fervor as she pressed her hand lovingly to the glowing cube.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” I said. I didn’t mean to. It just came out.

A whoosh of feathers. Harrow alighted on a branch at eye level. And I know hawks always look like they’re glaring into your soul, but the glare level was up to at least 90 already. It was, frankly, blinding. But I held it anyway, because bird or no bird, it was Harrow, and I wasn’t going to lose to her in a staring contest.

<I don’t regret this,> she said, surprisingly vehement. <Believe what you must, Gideon, but I made the right choice.>

Which was insane, absolutely insane. “You’re a fucking bird now, and your parents are dead – that’s three lives lost-”

<And I would do it again,> she said, not moving an inch. Just looking at me, way too intense as always, and her eyes almost the same color as mine.

Seven days ago, the Yeerks had caught me, dragged me to the underground pool. They’d wrestled me to the water’s edge, kicking and punching and biting – I’d fought harder and dirtier than I’d ever fought anyone but Harrow, but they were piloting grown adults and huge bladed lizards, and I was just a stupid teen who thought she was smarter than she really was. A stupid teen who thought she could save the day like in the comic books, who thought all she needed to do was spy on a few meetings and contact a few newspapers and the credits would roll. Harrow had called me all that and worse on the first day after the Andalite, when we’d met to sort out our strategy, and I’d flipped her off, but in that moment, I knew that she was right. They shoved my head down towards the surface, and I was losing, failing to fight them off, and I knew that Harrow was right and I’d fucked up and I was going to ruin everything, that my parents were right to never want me, that her parents were right to hate me. That they were going to climb in my head and steal my body and use it to hunt all my friends and Harrow down, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

And then I heard the scream of a red-tailed hawk, sharp and piercing as an eagle’s cry, and the big guy holding me let go because his fucking eyeballs were a bloody ruin. They spattered on me, alien blood and goop and sludge all mixing into a miserable modernistic art piece as Harrow cried, with more emotion than I’d ever heard in her nasally little voice, <Gideon, run, I’ll hold them off! Please, go ->

A stupid thing for her to do. I could have told her that, if I’d been in morph and able to thought-speak back. I could have told her that I wasn’t worth it, that there was no way she could win that fight, that there was no way I could win either but at least me sacrificing myself for her would make sense, in some twisted way. Our shitty little band of teens didn’t need another musclebound screwup, not when we could make new muscles by morphing. We needed Harrow, with her evil little brain that was always one step ahead, her Crusades-level determination, her fanatical thoroughness.

“You’re wrong,” I said, mouth dry. Arguing with a bird in a national forest. “You gave up everything-”

<Yes,> she said, and she didn’t sound sad, even. Just matter-of-fact. <I gave up Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and everything she held dear. I gave up her future, and her church, and her family, and all their dreams. My bloodline is dead, to preserve you, and I do not regret it. Do you hear me, Gideon Nav?>

I considered that she’d been taken over by a Yeerk, though I had no clue how one of them could fit into her tiny bird-ears (did hawks have ears?). I considered that maybe this was a different red-tailed hawk with emotions and telepathy, and I’d just mistaken it for Harrow because I was functionally bird-blind. I considered that Harrowhark Nonagesimus gave a shit about me in a positive way, that I lived in her head as anything but a punching bag and a cautionary tale and an occasional grudging ally.

“Bad call,” I said slowly. “But okay, weirdo. Does this mean you’ll eat some meat, if I ask you to?”

She cocked her head at me a little. <If you ask me,> she repeated, and there was scorn there, but there was almost always a background level of scorn when Harrow said anything, so that wasn’t a deal-breaker.

“Yeah,” I said. “Not telling. Not extorting. Just – asking. Harrow, I don’t want you to die either, and I’d appreciate it if you’d put some meat on your scrawny bird bones before you crash into a tree, or get nabbed up by a real owl. Will you do that, for me?”

I didn’t think she would, really. Thinking things, wanting things, expecting Harrow to be anything but the absolute worst – it always got me into trouble. So when Harrow fluffed her wings and took off from her perch, I thought I’d finally scared her off, and humiliated myself in the process.

Except she just circled my head with clumsy flaps, and came to land on my shoulder. Her talons were sharp, pinpricking through the synthetic fabric of my exercise shirt, but that was fine, actually. A lot of things were fine. Good, even.

“I look like a pirate,” I observed, a little giddy, and Harrow gave me a warning peck with her beak. But she didn’t fly away, or gouge out my actual eyes, a thing that I knew she was capable of doing. And she ate some of the meat, and she promised to come to my attic if it rained, and I thought that maybe, for today, that was enough.