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"I know you're angry," Harrow said as she approached, as though she was being very gracious and very mature by acknowledging the obvious.
"No shit I'm angry," Kiriona bit out. She was going to strangle Harrow. In the culmination of all her wildest childhood fantasies, she was going to take Harrow's stringy, bony little shrimp body between her hands and absolutely murder it.
"I was trying not to eat you alive, Griddle."
"Yeah, except I gave you explicit permission, and in fact instructions, to eat me!"
Paul, who was watching with crossed arms and an expression that was all wrong for either of their components, said, "This is more than I wanted to know about anyone's desire for Harrow to eat them."
"Then get out, Frankenstein," Kiriona said, without looking away from Harrow. Maybe they did get out. She was too angry to pay attention. "I gave you everything I had."
"I wanted you to keep everything you had."
Kiriona hated looking at her. She was all wrong. They had dressed her body in all the black they could find before coming in to get her, but the clothing items still weren't what Harrow should be wearing. And the rest of it was probably all in her head, but there was an ineffable something else, the something of someone else having lived in Harrow's body for six months. They had sat on the furniture, fluffed the pillows, eaten food at the counter, and even though they had cleaned up politely after themselves, Gideon could just tell they'd been there.
Partly, to be fair, because they had kissed her with Harrow's mouth, which Harrow would never do.
"No, you just didn't want it yourself. There's a difference."
The look of contempt on Harrow's face was absolutely reassuring. Nobody could arrange Harrow's features into that look except her. Gideon felt a little better just seeing it. And then Harrow said, "You're dumber than one singular brick. I could get more stimulating opinions from a construct."
"Then construct yourself a new cavalier," Gideon retorted.
"No. I'm not giving you up." The thing was, Harrow had kept coming closer. And closer. And now she was standing close enough to Gideon that she had to tilt her head back just to look at her.
"You already did, sunshine. I'm done. Fuck you, Harrowhark Nonagesimus." She took a step away just as Harrow grabbed onto some handful of her clothing, so the result was that Harrow, unwillingly, came with her, stumbling right into her body.
No doubt their new proximity was what caused the newest flash of loathing on Harrow's face. She opened her mouth, and since she looked pretty winded from a whole walk of about ten feet plus a stumble, Gideon leaned down, so she wouldn't have to project her hatred for Gideon and Gideon's lack of any redeeming qualities any farther than necessary.
Harrow grossly misused this generous gesture to plant her mouth on Gideon's.
Kissing Harrow was the most underwhelming experience of Gideon's extremely overwhelming life. It felt like kissing someone who had never kissed before and had little interest in the concept. And then it felt like kissing someone who was developing, if not an interest, then a professional curiosity about the concept. And then it kind of felt like kissing someone who wanted to devour her all up in one gulp, which was so unfair, because Gideon had literally handed her whole self over to Harrow already and she hadn't had any interest then.
And then Gideon thought about how humiliating it was going to be if Harrow won the kiss and she lost, so she started getting involved, with tongue. Harrow made a noise of resolute outrage—into her mouth, holy fuck—and kissed her back harder. Possibly that amount of teeth in a kiss should hurt, but things didn't really hurt Gideon anymore.
"You're the worst," Harrow said, without really taking her mouth away from Gideon's enough to talk, so it came out all damp and mumbly. She might not have even said "You're the worst," actually. Maybe it was meant to be "Urnna wursh."
"Okay," Gideon said.
"Ay'ade oo," Harrow said.
"I hate you too," Gideon said back into her mouth.
Harrow's hands pushed into Gideon's hair, tugging in a way that should have been painful and seemed to say, "Get down here," even though she hadn't even straightened up yet, so Gideon pressed their mouths back together. If this offended Harrow, all she did about it was keep attempting to use her teeth in a way kissing probably shouldn't. Gideon didn't mind.
She kind of wished things still hurt. It was the only way they had ever known how to love or hate or anything each other. When they were hurting each other at least she knew where they stood, and that Harrow was standing with her and not somewhere long and far away in the dark, brooding over her dead and beloved.
Which reminded her.
She pulled away and asked, "Hey, Harrow, how'd it feel to have the Body inside you?"
Harrow, hands still fisted in the front of Gideon's shirt and forced onto her tiptoes, glared. "It felt like I'm going to turn your skeleton upside down so you have to talk out of your anus, which is what you already do anyway."
"Oh, cool. So not as good as kissing me, then. Cool."
"Gideon," Harrow said, threateningly.
"You can't threaten me. I've been upgraded. My bones are dense as hell."
"As is your brain," Harrow said.
"Good ol' dad did a number on me. I'm, what's the word, impermeable? Impenetrable?"
At this, Harrow paid more attention to Gideon's body than she probably ever had in her life. "Oh. Griddle. You're all..."
"Yeah."
With an arrogance Gideon did not believe (Again, God did this to her) but was nevertheless reassuring to hear come out of Harrow's mouth, she said, "I can fix you."
"I can make you worse."
"Fucking try it," Harrow said. So Gideon did.