Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me

[sugarlips]

Desolation. That's what Harrow feels when the King Undying tells her that what she wants most is impossible. Not even what she wants, but what she needs. She cannot live without Gideon Nav, and she will not. Unending life, in spite of being what she had sought after in the beginning, is now unthinkable. She looks up into his surprisingly normal face, his unearthly eyes, and lets her gaze drop.

A horrible certainty rises in her, and becomes a morbid hope. Her face is serene with unspeakable grief, none of her wild plan showing as she asks to see the body of her cavalier. He grants her this, and she walks like a woman to the gallows down the ship to the cold storage. He has the grace to leave her alone with her grief, of course, and she opens the door with her heart in her throat.

The chill of the corpsetorium echoes the cool calm of her mind. Her chest aches, her throat is sore from screaming, but the sight of Gideon, hole in her chest, laying on a slab like so much dead meat does not inspire the crushing grief she had expected to. It fuels her. Motivates her to think harder, to dissect the theorems she studied and the one megatheorem that led to this cursed conclusion (damn Sextus for being right).

Harrow has no idea how long she sits there, her mind working in overdrive, peering inward to slowly pull out the stitches she had made in her own soul only mere hours before. It feels like only seconds at the same time it feels like eons. She has to do this carefully, slowly. I will not live without you. she thinks to herself and to the traces of Nav that exist inside her. She repeats it like a mantra. I told you that I am undone without you. We are both undone if I must go on alone.

It's the most delicate work she's ever done, and it hurts. It's a pain right down to her marrow, like she's trying to peel layers of calcium off of her own bones. At the end of it, it feels like she's holding a doll in her metaphysical hands. A little gauzy imitation of Gideon Nav. She pulls it free of herself, feels blood drip from her forehead into her eyes, and with all of the ferocity she had to hold back during the excavation, she slams the soul back into its rightful body.

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[sugarlips]

Of all the things Harrow expected, Gideon sloshing down in beside her was not one of them.

Now that the large red-headed cav is down here with her, though, she realizes it couldn't have been anything else. No matter what else they might hate each other for, Gideon is painfully, stupidly, perfectly loyal.

Harrow opens her mouth and air bubbles out of her mouth, her hair floating up wildly around her head. She finally pushes herself up and surfaces, nudging Gideon with a foot to encourage her to do the same.

[bonebutchblues]

She surfaces with Harrow and wastes no time in looping her arms around her and pulling her close. The water here is warm, and fresh, and nothing at all like that cold pool in Canaan House, but she can't help but be reminded of the night that feels like yesterday to her. Distantly she wonders how long it's really been.

Instead she presses her own head to Harrow's and whispers, "I'm sorry. Harrow, I'm so sorry."

[sugarlips]

Hey, woah, what? Harrow blinks like a startled cat as she's drawn in by wonderfully dense biceps and held close enough to Gideon that she can feel their chests touching. Her face heats from the neck up.

Something about being mutually submerged in a pool has her feeling the same vulnerability all over again.

Of all the things in empire, Gideon starts to apologize and Harrow goes limp as a dead thing. "What?" She asks, deeply incredulous. "Please... don't." She doesn't want apologies! "What are you on about, Nav?"

[bonebutchblues]

Don't think about her boobs touching you don't think about her boobs touching you don't think about her boobs- She takes a slow breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth.

"I was selfish. I was unforgivable," she confesses. Her arms tighten around Harrow in case she gets the idea to pull away, selfish again. "I couldn't watch you die. I'm too selfish for that."

[sugarlips]

Oh. This is about... that. In retrospect, that's obvious.

Harrow's head falls against Gideon's shoulder with a soft wet sound. "It was very cruel of you," she agrees, finally lifting her limp arms to wrap them back around Gideon. Her blunt, broken nails dig into the muscular flesh there, like a cat digging in its claws to keep purchase.

"I told you once," probably a thousand years ago it feels, "that I deserve to die by your hand. Part of me wonders if I deserve the fate worse than that- to live forever without you. I was too selfish for that. I will not go on that long without you, Gideon. I won't. If you try that shit again I will kill both of us."

[bonebutchblues]

Her hand wipes wet hair out of Harrow's face. Of course it's about that. Let's not talk about anything else that it could possibly be about. "Well, that's fair enough."

[sugarlips]

Gideon's cursed wonderful hand is warm and calloused against her face, and the flush on Harrow's deathly pale skin worsens. She closes her eyes to hide from that intense golden gaze.

"Never leave me again." Her voice is soft, imploring, higher pitched than her usual sepulchral tones. "Please."

[bonebutchblues]

Those calloused hands are unrelenting, brushing back her hair and stroking it gently against her scalp. It's really starting to sink in for Gideon. They made it. They're out.

"I won't," she almost whispers, "I promise."

[sugarlips]

They did it, they're out, they're alive. And they're naked together in a very large bath basin.

And Gideon won't stop petting her. Harrow squirms until her face is pressed into the seam where Gideon's neck meets her shoulder. She's warm, and alive, and smells like oil and ashes and blood.

"Well," she has to break up the silence or her mind will run away from her, "I didn't intend for every important conversation to happen submerged in water." But that's just the theme now, apparently.

[bonebutchblues]

"This water's nicer," she says stupidly, tugging Harrow to sit on a submerged bench. She won't stop petting her though. She doesn't want to stop touching her, ever. She also doesn't want to examine her not wanting to stop touching her ever. She just wants to touch Harrow and be warm and not think.

[sugarlips]

Harrow snorts a laugh in spite of herself. Well, Nav's not wrong. This water is warm and clean and not making her feel all crusty from salt.

In fact, she's realizing just how exhausted she is because of that heat. So much so that she doesn't fight being pulled onto a bench and into Gideon's lap. She sits side-saddle, her cheek still pressed against Gideon's shoulder.

She slips into a light rest, floating between sleeping and waking. It's stupid, she thinks, but she feels safer than she ever has, and she is in no hurry to unpack that.

[bonebutchblues]

OK, well she was aiming to put Harrow beside her, but when Harrow sits on her lap, her body and face warm even beyond what the water causes. She stays in that silent moment a long time, until finally she grabs at a bar of soap and begins to lather up Harrow's grimy hair.

[sugarlips]

Yes, well, Harrow isn't doing her best thinking right at the moment.

She returns to alertness at the hair lathering, blinking and mumbling. She seems to realize all at once that she's sitting on Gideon and that she should be embarrassed about that, so she lets the water help her bob off and onto the bench beside her fussing cav.

The suds fall onto her shoulders in a rusty brown foam and Harrow frowns at them. "Eugh."

[bonebutchblues]

Gideon can't deny to herself her disappointment when Harrow leaves, but it was too good to last, wasn't it? At least she's allowing Gideon to wash her hair. Someone has to.

"Fucking nasty" she agrees.

[sugarlips]

Excuse, she is perfectly capable of washing her own hair, thanks!

"Bet yours is worse," a ghost of a smirk flickers onto her face.

[bonebutchblues]

"I wouldn't take that bet." She tries to let her fingers say all the things she can't out loud. She lets all her tenderness go into her hands as they gently work out gunk and untangle snags. Finally she's satisfied for her work for this first round. "Hold your breath for me?"

[sugarlips]

That smirk flickers into a smile for a moment before her face relaxes into the touch, gone slack from all its usual creases and concentration. It's nice, nicer than she expected, to let someone else wash her hair like this. She tries to remember the last time her mother did this for her, and can't.

There's a tenderness to Gideon that Harrow wouldn't have thought possible until a very short time ago. It makes her feel very strange to have it turned toward her in such a way.

The question has her heart climbing up into her throat with a metallic sort of ping. She swallows it back down and nods, doing as bid and holding her breath.

[bonebutchblues]

She cups her hands and begins pouring water over Harrow's head. It's all very full of baptism imagery. Then she moves on to her back.

[sugarlips]

The irony is not lost on Harrow, and it crinkles amusement around her eyes. She sighs, full of contentment and something else she doesn't dare name.

Her head lolls slightly as Gideon moves on to her back, the way she slouches making her shoulderblades prominent and the top of her thoracic spine stick out like a ridgeback lizard. All at once she grabs one of Gideon's hands and holds it out, spreading her smaller palm and thinner fingers against the cavalier's.

"Are you angry with me? For... separating us?"

[bonebutchblues]

Gideon stops when Harrow grabs her. She’d be content enough to continue in silence, but apparently that isn’t an option. Still, there’s a long beat before she answers.

“Well, I should have expected it,” she says, not actually answering the question at all, “of course a little control freak like you wouldn’t accept Lyctorhood under anything but your own perfect conditions.”

[sugarlips]

The fact that Gideon doesn't answer tells her as much or more as if she had. Harrow's face looks melancholy, contemplative, even if Gideon can't see it. She traces the lines of the cavalier's palm with her finger.

She turns Gideon's hand around and carefully lifts it to her face, brushes her lips over the knuckles feather-light and presses them to her cheek before letting the hand go completely. She's not sorry for it, so she won't apologize, but she hopes Gideon will forgive her anyway. Again. Instead she just whispers, "Thank you," to the water.

[bonebutchblues]

She can’t see that face. She can’t read Harrow here at all. The kiss has her confused, but maybe Harrow’s just mirroring her own action from earlier. It could mean anything. She grunts an affirmation and pulls back to wash her own hair.

Or at least, she tries. There are a couple of awkward, aborted movements as she realizes she can’t lift her arms up with her chest still freshly healing.

[sugarlips]

That grunt sounds like the grunt of a Gideon who has no idea what's going on and doesn't want to admit to it. Harrow turns, in time to see the reach and the wince. She reaches out to gently touch Gideon's arm, pressing it down with firm kindness.

"Let me?" It's half an order and half a question.

[bonebutchblues]

It is exactly that kind of grunt. When Harrow presses on her arms, she lowers them and nods, but also looks away. Harrow's not the only one unsure she deserves tenderness. But still, she sits on the bench, her back to her Necromancer.

[sugarlips]

Harrow tilts her head slightly, wet strings of hair falling against her cheek as she watches Gideon turn. Did she look... shy? That's not something she's ever seen before. She isn't sure how she feels about it.

It motivates her to not be shy herself, at the least. She takes up the soap and lathers it into Gideon's hair, massaging it into her scalp. She drags fingers backwards through shorter hair, keeping the suds away from her face, and for the indulgence of touching.