Chapter Text
Gideon Nav had wanted to leave Drearburh ever since she gained consciousness as a young child. Nothing made her want to leave more than hearing the Reverend Mother and Father talk about that god forsaken tomb that they had worshiped for so long. She’d been trying to escape for— well probably forever.
Her plans were stupid, not thought out, and unfortunately for her it was even harder going and acting on them alone when she had no assistance other than the slight voice in the back of her head saying, No Gideon, you cannot escape by hiding in the back of Crux’s beat up car and hope for the best.
And this one wasn’t going any well either. She thought that maybe if she left in the dead of night she would have no one catch her but of course— like always. She was dead wrong.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus was of course awake at this time. Standing in front of the back door of the old church building with her paint smearing down her face from where tears had fell.
This is where her plan went to shit; and frankly? The rest of her life went to shit with the next sentence that came out of those black and white painted lips.
“Griddle. Take me with you.” When she looked down at the rest of her outfit, minus the robe, she saw boots, actual pants and an older sleep shirt.
-
That’s how they got where they were now. See, Gideon hadn’t said yes at the time, mostly being confused as to why Harrowhark of all people would want to run away from the dear old darling church of Drearburh.
She was constantly praying, talking about the tomb, whatever it was that butt touched nuns did.
But apparently Gideon's brain was indeed smaller than she had thought.
“Griddle, I can’t— ” Harrow had her face hidden away with her hands over it.
“After the discovery of my parents death they’ve been thinking of making me the new Reverend Mother; I’d need to make an heir, Griddle! With Ortus! ” She pulled her hands away, “I—” She looked like she was about to throw up in her mouth. “I can’t do that, I can’t have something inside of me for nine months—”
Seeing the one that had inflicted so much pain on herself and— well Gideon, shivering at the thought of a form of pain was both concerning and amusing.
Something coiled in her gut when they had talked that night, sitting in the kitchen of the main house attached to part of the church.
Gideon was sitting on the counter while Harrow picked at a plain boiled chicken breast she had microwaved. Harrowhark was seventeen, she could do whatever she wanted, fight her own battles, but that didn’t chase away the feeling of.. Defensiveness?
Maybe it was because she could oddly relate, also being a lesbian.
That conversation had been lodged in her mind for days until they could come back together again in the kitchen, considering that Harrow had the whole tiny building by herself, she could easily sneak Gideon in from her cell. (“It’s not a cell Griddle!” Harrowhark had argued.)
“So you really want to do this?” Gideon asked, twiddling with her thumbs.
“Yes, Griddle.”
“And you’re sure? Like positive?”
“Yes, Griddle. I’m positive.”
The ginger had nodded, mumbling a quick sweet, sweet.. Underneath her breath.
Both of them were silent. Only the noise of the buzzing light above had broken the silence.
“I just— I want to make sure. If we get caught both of us would be fucked, Crux would probably say that somehow I’m.. I dunno tainting you or making you all weird like me.” She blew a piece of hair from her face before swallowing. Never before in her attempts had she actually felt, well. Terrified.
Harrow was biting her lip, staring to the side and trying to avoid eye contact. “Okay.”
“Okay to what?” Gideon's head almost immediately shot up.
“Okay that we need a plan, you simpleton..” Her voice sounded softer. “Listen, we do not speak to each other during mass, we act as normal so there’s no suspicion. You only come in here when it’s twelve to three in the morning okay? No later leaving and no sooner arriving. That’s when Crux takes his naps that he thinks I don’t notice and then and only then is when you come here to meet me, do you understand?”
Gideon blinks, not really surprised by her assertive behavior but surprised that it’s obvious she has thought about this enough to make up a whole fucking plan “You’re.. Okay. Yeah, yeah I can do that.” She nods.
She felt almost awkward despite her— what? Ninety escape attempts? She felt like it was Harrow who actually had more experience here. And like always Harrow could read her mind on the matter. “Listen— I don’t.. I’m not like you. I don’t. I enjoy it here but I can’t make myself go through with the practices here if I have to—”
Gideon interrupts. “Fuck Ortus?”
The younger girl grimaced, fidgeting with the cross necklace she had around her neck before nodding; not even going to correct her or get mad at her language. “I.. Griddle, we have to be smart about this. This is our only opportunity. Because Crux and the other Great Aunts trust me it’ll be easier to get resources.”
“Resources?”
“Money, Griddle. Keep up.”
When Gideon’s face looked purely confused she heard the Reverend Mother— Daughter? Whatever she was now, let out a deep sigh.
“During mass I can ask for donations, maybe something about renovations or more security, but we’ll secretly be pocketing it. I can tell Crux I’m feeling more paranoid or something of the sorts so I can keep a hold of it.”
She licked her lips, taking a sharp breath.
“And Griddle? Before you leave..”
Gideon paused from getting off of the small kitchen counter that she had been sitting on. “Yeah?”
“If you so much as think of leaving me behind; or taking the money for yourself, I will make sure that even after your escape you will not fully know peace.” She was trying so hard to look intimidating but something just said to Gideon that behind there was a bit of fear.
“I would never, my melancholy mistress.”
Whatever mood had been set in the room immediately goes away as soon as the words leave Gideon's lips.
Harrow immediately slips into her usual look of pure disgust before Gideon slips out of the back door.
-
Three months before the escape
Harrowhark was determined, at least that’s what she could tell from the planning they’ve had so far.
“If you have anything to say to me outside of our meetings, slip a paper underneath the back door and I’ll see it the next day. Then it will be brought up in our next meeting, do you understand?”
She did.
But so far?
Gideon had no complaints, no questions, and was going with the flow. Frankly most of her job had just been acting as usual, minus more of the behind the scenes stuff. One of the things she had to do was replace some of the dirty magazines she’d slip into the shipment orders Crux would put in with some boring lame magazines that hopefully he would just assume was from himself, Aiglamene, or maybe even Harrow. The reason why? Simple.
Coupons.
Harrow had overheard from some of the Great Aunts that supposedly these magazines had coupons, which would help out with any further spending that they might need when they get out. Mostly Gideon would probably be using them because she doesn’t think that Harrow would eat a “Meatlovers Pizza”. She doesn’t even think that she’s seen that girl eat anything with seasoning before.
So that was the routine, go over to the side house connected to the church from the broken back door, Harrowhark would have the magazines strewn across the counter with a pair of scissors and they both would get to work, counting up their earnings and smiling when it finally hit a whopping $ 72.04!
Well it was mostly Gideon who did the smiling.
It was one of these nights that Gideon came in through the back door as usual, coming to go and sit down across from Harrow at the kitchen table.
“How much we got, bone mistress?” Gideon asks, grabbing a pair of scissors as Harrow pushes a magazine towards her, already focusing on clipping her own. “Eighty three dollars. We’re close.” She lets out a shuddering breath, hands slightly shaking as she blinked down at her hands holding the scissors, slightly shaking.
Gideon looked up at her with a slight brow arch, before looking back down to cutting her own coupon. “What’s up?
Harrowhark rubbed her eyes, blinking down at her hands again. “I’ve been thinking of what’s going to happen after we leave, after I leave. What will happen? Griddle, they need me here.”
Gideon bit her lip, gripping the scissors in her hand before dropping them to the table. “That doesn’t matter Harrow, not when here your only option is going through a role you don’t want to take and fuck a guy that’s twice your age,” She snorts. “God, they’re all old enough to fend for themselves, Harrow. They don’t need a teenage girl to take care of them.” She exhaled hard through her nose before going back to clipping away at the coupons.
The shorter girl didn’t respond but she didn’t have to. She could feel the tension in the room almost immediately dissolve.
-
One and a half months until the escape.
“Griddle, you need to steal Crux’s keys.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Gideon turned from where she was standing, holding the large jug of water that she was taking a sip out of; coughing as she swallowed. “I need you to steal Crux’s keys. ” She places her scissors down and stares at Gideon, pitch black eyes meeting golden ones. “Gideon we can’t just leave here on foot we’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no possible way that we could get far enough out of here just on our feet.”
Gideon felt her heart almost immediately drop to her ass. “Why do I have to do it? Exactly?” She coughs again, holding her hand to her chest as she tries to somewhat fix herself.
“Because, Griddle, between the two of us who do you think is more inclined to.. Acquiring things from Crux? You have the most experience. You should know well enough how to get the keys off of him.” Never once did she think she would find a moment like this, one where she could and would correct Harrowhark.
“But he knows not to let me around his key rings anymore, c’mon, sweetness. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that at the very least? After almost ninety times I don’t think he’d trust me around him, and as soon as they go missing I’d be the first one he checks.”
Harrow purses her lips, “Then I take them.”
“You know how much risk this adds to shit, right? If he knows you stole from him, Reverend Daughter or not he’s going to make sure we aren’t able to talk to each other and plan another get away like this again, Harrow. We have— Harrow.” She looks up from whatever she was fucking around with in her hands.
“I’m going to tell you something; Griddle.” She takes a deep breath and puts her hands in her lap, eyes raking back and forth over Gideon as she felt heat rush over her face. “The only reason we are doing this together is because of the fact that I have enough of a brain to realize that I am going to need at least some assistance with my escape. This isn’t because I believe us to be friends, Griddle. The world is cold, and it is cruel. And if I have to use your brutish excuse of a mind to make it so I don’t have to get impregnated by a fucking poet then I’ll do what I need to do.”
Gideon swallows. Her face feeling even redder than before.
“Okay.” She nods. “Okay. Yeah. I get it, I get it.” This time she didn’t have a witty response.
“So, uhm. How are we going to actually do the.. You know the leaving?”
Harrowhark exhales, massaging each joint of each of her fingers, going one by one before closing her eyes.
“Every few months, depending on how things are going, that’s when we get the orders with food, toiletries—” She pauses waiting for Gideon to talk or maybe pipe in with something stupid, when she gets silence in response she continues. “We don’t have any coming in at night this month, but there’s one coming in the next.” She bites her lip.
“And that’s when we go?”
Harrow nods in response, exhaling deeply and going to fidget again with her cross necklace.
They both sit in silence, staring at the kitchen counter before Gideon opens her mouth to speak, leaning back on the creaky old wood of the stool and staring up at the ceiling as if God himself was going to come down from the heavens and tell her what to ask or say.
“And.. When do we pack? What do I pack? I don’t think I have a—”
“Use the bag that Aiglamene makes you pack full of your..” She waves a hand around, eyes landing hesitantly on Gideon. “Sword things.”
The taller woman sighs, though it comes out as more of a gasp or— Just something that gave up the total “What the actual fuck have I agreed to” energy that she was trying to fully display. “Fine then, you’ll need to leave your bag with me though.”
Harrow scoffs her hand pausing over part of the cross as her mouth slowly gapes open. “Why should I do that?” She looks almost disgusted as even the idea of Gideon holding onto something of hers fully develops in her mind.
Gideon begins to rock back and forth in the shitty wooden stool even more, her foot bouncing up and down just from nerves alone. “Because when push comes to shove, sugarlips? And we have to run because Crux caught us or some other batshit reason— You’re not going to be able to run holding your bag filled to the brim with all your.. Nunlet garbage. I’m going to be able to carry it so your scrawny ass can go and run into the car and we make our—” She puts up her hands and shakes them, jazz hands baby!
“Grand escape!” She makes a gasp while her lips curl into a smile faker than a mime doing an over the pants hand job. “I mean seriously, think you can carry something that’s probably twice your weight all the way across the stretch between House Drearburh, and the gate where they put in all the… whatever supplies?”
The goth furrowed her eyebrows, pinching them together and staring at Gideon as if she kicked her dead parents right in the stomach right in front of her. “Fine. I’ll give you my bag a day in advance so it’s less likely that anyone searching will find it.”
They both huff.
Eventually Gideon picks the scissors back up.
-
1 month before the escape
“Do you have everything? Oh my withered bog body of a nun.” Gideon puts her hands down on the counter and hops right up on, placing her ass right on the marble of it. “Because we only have… four weeks? Thirty days?” She cocks her head to the side, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Every single day that it gets closer and closer to the day of the planned escape it gets harder and harder to sleep.
“Yes, Griddle. I have everything. My planned bag has been packed and it’s hidden underneath my bed. I’ll give it to you at the meeting the day before our escape as planned.”
Gideon nods, tapping the side of the counter. “So we’re.. Good?”
“As good as we can be so far, Nav. We have over a hundred dollars, we have.. By the tomb around.. Seventy coupons? There’s no need to worry.”
-
Two weeks before the escape
The meetings didn’t really cease but they were in total not as eventful. They had a plan, they thought it out. They were going to be fine.
-
One week before the escape.
They had a plan.
-
Three days before the escape.
And they were going to be fine.
-
One day before the escape.
Gideon knew that tonight was the night before their plan. And she knew what to do. She knew what to do as she slowly woke up, drool drying on the side of her face, a hand going to brush it just to find half of it still slightly wet and the rest dry and crusted.
Disgusting.
She knew what to do and what to expect from the rest of the day as she sat in the pews, in the shirt she cut up being stared at by all the Great Aunts and Aiglamene. She knew what to do when it came lunch and she shoveled gruel in her mouth trying to not immediately barf it back up.
She didn’t however know what to do when Crux came up to her at lunch, slamming a hand that was mostly bone and mummified flesh. “What are you scheming, Nav?” His voice comes out laced in not venom, but what sounded more like motor oil. His breath smelled of old cigarettes and scotch, spittle coming out of his mouth and hitting directly on Gideon’s hand, making her immediately want to chop that hand off and soak it in the nearest container of bleach before haphazardly gluing it back on.
“Sorry, buddy. No clue what the fuck you’re talking about?” She asks it almost like its its own question, gulping down half of a glass of water already to stop her big mouth from saying anything.
“You know what I mean, you’ve been peaceful. No disruptions.” He frowns, staring her up and down. “You’re even wearing your paint, Nav. You’re not as innocent as you want to seem.” His yellow teeth are glaring brighter than her eyes ever have been.
She rolls her eyes, scooping up another spoonful of shitty gruel.
“I don’t think you understand the severity of this, if I find out you’re truly up to something I will make sure you have no opportunity to stare at those vulgar magazines you sneak into our shipments, because of your lack of eyes!”
Gideon blinks. “Yuh-huh. Ever think that maybe I’m just going along with the flow so maybe I don’t get threats like that? Maybe I just want a break from the bruises on my ass from you kicking it. ”
Crux turns red from an amount of blood that she didn’t even know he had going up all the way to his face. “Confess now, or I— I swear that I’ll..”
She whistles, staring up at the ceiling. “Swear on what? The Tomb? The new Reverend Mother? Don’t pop a blood vessel.” This seems to make Crux fume even further, but eventually, with the three remaining brain cells in his mind he decides to shut the fuck up and back off.
“I’m watching you, Nav.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less.
-
Later in the night, just like they planned, Gideon got out of her cell. (“Not a cell!” She could practically hear Harrow in the back of his mind.) Crawling through the window around the basement and having to seriously suck in all of her extra body fat and muscle to wiggle through, almost losing a boot while trying to sneak all the way to the church.
As usual, the back door was jammed, so she wiggled the door knob three times, just like Harrow instructed, walked in, and excited to see Harrow, biting the skin of her thumb. With a massive bag on the counter.
“That’s all of it?”
Harrow nods, taking a deep breath.
“Didn’t forget anything, didn’t forget any of your creepy nun shit?” She cocks up a brow, leaning back on the balls of her feet going back and forth.
“None of it.” She swallows. “It’s all there Gideon.”
“Okay, we need our checklist, you have the money, the coupons?”
Harrow nods along.
They were going to be fine.
-
Day of the escape
The morning of the day they were meant to leave Gideon felt like she was punched directly in the gut, from the years of feeling this almost every morning she knew they had a big event at church, extra training with Aiglamene or anything that would result in gut wrenching anxiety.
That was the first warning.
Or it should’ve been.
After that it was always breakfast, then mass. She was sitting in the lone corner table where she would eat that absolutely phenomenally tasting gruel, packed with a great mix of grey mush and what tasted like chewed up paper!
She grimaced at the texture in her mouth, her tongue to the roof of her mouth to try and shove it all the way back down her throat so she didn’t have to fully taste it. Wonderful.
Gideon, honest to god tried to take the moment by the throat and enjoy it as her last day in this hell hole, but it was difficult when she was still, again, overwhelmed by almost disgusting amounts of anxiety.
It was fine, it’d be over by the time they all go through with mass, it should be over. She’ll feel better. The anxiety would be fine as she stood in the back away from all the pews and it’d be over by the time that they have to talk about how they want that rock to stay put or whatever.
It’d be fine.
She’d be fine.
They’d be fine.
-
The second warning was when it hit twelve thirty and she got out of the cell, holding both bags around her arms with a huff as she finally crawled out of the tiny window.
Especially when she didn’t see Harrow standing outside like she said she would.
Maybe she was being late? Probably needed to double count the money. Or the coupons.. That’s just how Harrowhark was she needed to be sure on almost everything, down to the damn penny. Literally in this sense, too. The final warning was when she heard a shriek coming from inside of the house.
Fuck.
Almost immediately did Gideon drop the bags, and almost immediately was she on her feet, sprinting as fast as she fucking could, feeling like her shitty cheap combat boots were about to fall off her feet as she sprinted, all the blood rushing to her face.
God— she could hear the wind going by her ears almost as she ran, hitting the door finally and backing away, stumbling back and throwing her full shoulder at the door. Because of how fucking old the house was the door was almost down immediately.
Falling face first on the ground she scrambled to her feet, the shitty wooden floors under her hands as she scrambled back up, running to the kitchen to see Harrow with an envelope in one hand, the other being held by a very very upset Crux.
“Reverend Mother! You cannot leave a dying church! The Ninth Church of Drearburh needs you after your parents death, my lady! You cannot leave with this— this heathen!”
“I am not Reverend Mother, Crux! Let me go!”
Everything went so fast. Everything . God it’s. He looked like he was about to raise a hand on her. Sure they fought all the time but what the fuck was she supposed to do tonight was their only chance at escaping. So she pushed him, by the shoulder and it was honest to god not meant to be that hard, but next thing she knows he’s on the ground sputtering, trying desperately to get up like a turtle flipped upside down.
“Harrow, Harrow, go. I mean now. ” She hisses through her teeth, getting her to go out of the door, pushing her out, “Bags are near the fucking window to the basement, get it, here are the keys, now go.” And Harrow did as asked for once in her life.
Gideon came quickly after, sprinting somewhat faster than Harrow as she grabbed the bags, looking at the delivery truck near the opened gate as both of them heard Crux screaming behind them. The poor delivery guy looked confused as fuck but that didn’t matter as Gideon ran to the beat up Honda near the gates, sliding over the hood and entering the drivers seat throwing the bags into the back and opening the passenger door for Harrow.
She’s never seen that girl run so fast in her life before but dear god could she run.
“HARROWHARK FOR FUCKS SAKE GET IN THE CAR!”
Harrow slid in, slamming the door, and placing the envelope on the glove compartment, almost dropping the keys as they both saw almost all of the lights in the church light up with Aiglamene going up to a limping Crux to ask what the fuck he was up about.
Then her head turned to the car as the engine started.
But thats all either of them saw as Gideon pushed the everloving fuck out of that gas pedal and sped out of there as fast as she could.