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When Gideon walked through the front door of her and Harrow’s home it was with the intense relief of someone returned from a long and perilous journey- or someone coming home from a 10-hour shift of hard labour, which is more or less the same thing.
The air inside was cool, a welcome reprieve from the dry heat that had her and everyone she worked with sweating half their body weight by the first smoko. She kicked off her boots a little more aggressively than needed and peeled off the damp socks on each foot, dumping them into the basket she had placed by the door after Harrow had taken the dirty socks Gideon forgot to remove from the hallway and hid them under her pillow.
She continued to strip from her dirty work clothes as she walked their bedroom, searching the floor for her singlet and gym shorts. Now a little freer from the grime that came from the sheet metal factory Gideon padded her way to the living room and unceremoniously flopped onto the couch beside her girlfriend.
You could tell the weather was getting to Harrow by the makeup she wore, she never went without it entirely but today she seemed to be without her heavy foundation and instead seemed to be wearing one of those tinted moisturisers things she made Gideon put on for fancy events. Her eyeliner was thick but that was about it in ways of it. Oh to be a goth in the peak of summer.
But hey, her shaved head probably helped her keep cool.
“You reek,” Harrow said by a way of greeting, not looking up from her laptop.
“You love it.” Gideon drawled, moving closer.
“I absolutely do not,” Harrow said sharply, moving the laptop off her knees and onto the coffee table, already moving out of Gideon’s path.
“You do.” Gideon continued to tease, taking hold of Harrow’s bony wrist and dragging her closer, “you love it~” Harrow squawked in indignation as Gideon pressed her bulk against her, dropping her bulk to lie on top oh her. “I stink like sweat and burnt metal and you love it you freak.”
There was no response from Harrow, which Gideon almost took for surrender until she felt a sharp pain in the meat of her bicep. “Did you just bite me?”
“Perhaps.”
“I will never recover from this you know? This is the kind of betrayal you cant walk away from.”
“You’ll live.” Harrow groaned, still being pressed between Gideon’s bulk and the sofa. “Now get off. ”
Gideon huffed a small laugh and got up letting Harrow sit back up before lying back down, her head now resting on those soft pale thighs. “I had to make, like,
200
pops today,” she complained, looking up at the rest of her human pillow. “And there’s about 500 to go. I think this may be it, this is now I die.”
“Pops are those bars with the sheet metal running through it correctly?” Harrow asked with a slight sigh. She never really cared to understand much about Gideons job, and she couldn’t blame her. Whoever sat down one day and thought ‘hm I want to learn all about all the stupid fiddly bits that make industrial roofing just for funsies.’ should be shot on site because they clearly were evil to the core.
No, people only learn that shit because they have to.
“Nah those are box gutter brackets, also shit. Pops are the circular things with the funny hats.”
“Right.”
The silence filled the space, it was comfortable in its familiarity. The two women simply existing together, Harrow with her laptop to her side, typing away for whatever morbid anthological piece she was working on currently, and Gideon scrolling tumblr because fuck you, you cant get that kind of fuckery on any other site.
“Is that a new bandaid?” Harrow asked gesturing with a wave at her had at Gideons left thumb.
It was a new bandaid, every few days she was returning home with some new form of battle wound. Most small inconsequential cuts and scrapes, but a few times she had needed to go get stitches during her lunch break. Fun fact, metal is sharp.
“Yeah, slipped again.”
She had actually accidentally given herself a small stab wound because she had about five minutes to kill while she waiting for one of the guys to finish with the spot welder. She’d had the urge to do that knife song trend from what must have been a hundred years ago now. It didn’t matter anyway. It was a small stab wound.
A hand was in her hair now, scratching across her scalp in a way that made her hum appreciatively “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah,” she smiled. Once, the insults between them were filled with venom, aiming for every weak point. Trauma bringing them both to fail to know how to express emotions healthily, both being pitted against one another. Now the insults had no bite to them, the pain had brought them together, but healing allowed them to grow together.
“Yeah, and you’re a bitch.” She took the hand running through her hair and pressed it to her lips.
“If I say I’ll shower with you will you please bath, you really do reek” Harrow’s nose wrinkled as she pulled a face.
There was a totally not flustered pause, as Gideon definitely didn’t turn as red as her hair and stutter out. “Yeah, sound good, yeah.”