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With all the lights out, the flashes of lightning shocked the whole room with a white, electric glow. Gideon shifted under the covers, propped up slightly against her pillow. The following rumble of thunder was playing keep-away with her attempts to sleep, as it had been throughout the night, but it didn’t stop her from turning over and adjusting position again as if it might magically lull her off to dreamland.
The wonders of a living planet never appeared to cease, from temperatures of a wider range than “really cold” and “super fucking cold,” to forces of nature like rain and thunder. For the most part, Gideon liked the planet they had taken shelter on; it was so bright and colourful, with green everywhere and running water in shades of brown and white and blue. She liked the way the sun and the rain felt on her skin, and even liked the way that the rain drummed against the roof - it was just the damn storm that was interrupting her beauty sleep.
It had been raining heavily since the morning, but the thunder had started in the late afternoon and had only become louder and more frequent since then. The ground outside the little house the four of them shared was soupy with mud puddles, and Gideon longed to go running and stamping through them come morning. That was, of course, if she got a wink of sleep between now and then.
She turned over under the blankets again, flipping onto her back. The storm had brought with it a drop in temperature, and while it was downright toasty compared to life on the Ninth, it still made tossing and turning no fun. Every inch of the bed that hadn’t been lain on for a minimum of five minutes was crisp and cold, as if getting to sleep wasn’t difficult enough already.
There was a creak in the house, either wind or footsteps. It was hard to tell what the house noises were caused by, if anything, but Pyrrha had assured them that it probably wasn’t going to collapse on them. Even if it had been left uninhabited for a century or two, it had been built strong. At least, that’s what Gideon chose to believe.
There was a soft shuffling sound, barely there, and another creak. Gideon wouldn’t have thought much of it, if it weren’t for the timely flash of lightning that illuminated the room - including the small black figure halfway through her doorway. She let out an embarrassingly loud gasp, hardly able to choke down on a scream, as her heart went about panicking in her chest. The figure in the doorway jumped as Gideon scrambled to sit up in bed, grasping at her chest.
“Holy shit,” she wheezed, slightly mortified by her reaction and trying to summon some bravado to make up for it. “Holy fucking shit, Harrow. What the fuck are you doing? Have you not heard of knocking?!”
The figure - Harrowhark, because who the fuck else would be breaking into her room at ass-o-clock in the morning - straightened up as the thunder started to roll around the sky. She was hard to make out now that the room was dark, but Gideon knew where she was. She could even tell what facial expression she was making - indignant wet cat - though that was really down to years of close proximity. She had grown fluent in Nonagesimese over the years.
“I couldn’t be certain that you were awake,” she whispered in response, sounding annoyed. Like she wasn’t the one slinking around like a little wraith scaring the shit out of people.
“What would you have done if I wasn’t? Snuck up on me and watched me like a fucking stalker?”
Harrow was silent, and Gideon wondered if in her mission to save face she might have gone a bit too far. As true as it was that Harrow was a fucking creep, she and Gideon were still in the process of patching up their relationship. Or perhaps, given that their old one hadn’t been particularly wonderful for either of them, starting a new one. Gideon didn’t want to undo all that work they’d done to get here.
Lightning flashed through the room again, and she could see Harrow standing in front of the door and looking just as closed off to Gideon as it was to the hallway. Her arms were tucked close to her chest, her eyes cast determinedly to the floor. Something in Gideon’s chest ached, a taut bowstring snipped in two. Part of it was guilt, that she might have hurt her friend; part of it was simply the ache of seeing the fiercest person she knew reduced to being so young-looking in her vulnerability. Somehow, it made her look twice as small as she really was, small enough to be tucked safely inside Gideon’s pocket.
Thunder racketed between and around them, booming ominously in the otherwise silence festering between them. When it had faded to distant growling on the horizon, Harrow spoke.
“Paul explained to me that every second between the lightning and the thunder is the number of miles between you and the lightning.”
“How far is a mile?”
Harrow didn’t answer the question. “There was hardly two seconds between the two that time.”
The pieces started to come together in Gideon’s mind. Careful not to scare Harrow off with her tone, Gideon whispered, “Are you afraid?”
For a while, there was no answer. A shuffling sound in the dark, like Harrow was adjusting her nightgown, which Gideon was pretty sure used to be one of her t-shirts. Then, “Lightning is pure electricity. Direct strikes can split trees in half and start fires, even in the rain. It’s… foreign. And strange to live on the surface of a planet, particularly one in which we are at the whims of such forces of nature.”
Gideon had known Harrowhark for a very, very long time. It wasn’t until recently that they’d started getting to know each other in a more… relaxed setting. Casual domesticity instead of power moves and surprise attacks and all-out brawling. And in that time Gideon was starting to learn that Harrow’s long-winded way of speaking was more often than not a deflection, of some sort. Like when Pyrrha asked if she’d eaten today and she rolled her eyes and said, nourishment of the body at thrice daily intervals is highly unnecessary, which meant that she had not.
In other words, Harrowhark Nonagesimus was scared of thunder.
Completely sincerely, Gideon asked, “So would we be safer if we cuddled?” which resulted in a wheeze of air that sounded a bit like the hissing of a feral cat.
“I… I wasn’t intending to sneak into your room and cuddle with you because of a little rain,” spluttered Harrow, which seemed like a fast pivot from we are at the whims of a tree-killing-death-storm. “I merely… sleep eluded me and I needed to go somewhere, and to affirm that all was well with you.”
Gideon’s heart went all soft. Not just because Harrow had come to check on her, wanting to make sure that she was alright. But because in Harrow-speak, that was yes, I’m scared and I want to cuddle with you. She shuffled to one side of the bed, peeling the blankets back and patting the mattress beside her so that Harrow could hear.
“C’mon, sugar. We don’t have all night.”
Harrow made another affronted noise. “I don’t -”
Lightning flashed again, effectively cutting her off, and the thunder followed shortly after it. Whether the counting-the-miles trick had some merit to it or not, the storm certainly appeared to be closer.
Waiting for the rumbling to subside, Gideon patted the bed sheets again, a little more gently. Trying for softness in her voice, which was something she had never before needed to learn, she said, “Come here.” Then, hesitantly: “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Miraculously, the sound of Harrow’s footsteps followed. Gideon had been half worried she would be too stubborn to give in, but the late hour and nearby storm must have worn her away already because soon she was standing at the edge of Gideon’s bed, her hands bumping along the mattress in an attempt to find her way.
Still, before she lowered herself down, she murmured, “I’m more concerned about harm being brought to you.”
Gideon reached blindly across the mattress until her hands found Harrow’s, enveloping them and running a thumb over the back of her hand. Her hand was so small in Gideon’s, so soft, and cool from the night air. Being able to touch her was a miracle Gideon would never grow tired of.
“Nothing can hurt me with you here,” she promised. “We protect each other.”
Harrow said nothing - though Gideon thought she might have nodded - and then she was climbing into the bed, and Gideon was pulling the blankets up to her shoulders and adjusting her spare pillow as Harrow wriggled around for a comfortable position. She ended up pressed to Gideon’s side, her head pillowed instead on her shoulder, and Gideon tried not to be too surprised by it even though she was literally the one who invited her to come and cuddle. She wasn’t entirely used to Harrow taking her seriously - nor was she particularly used to being cuddled by her.
She tried to compose herself before Harrow could notice her slightly freaking out, and wrapped her arms around her, pulling her closer to her chest. Harrow was warm, a poky little hot water bottle, and with a couple of awkward adjustments to their positions, they fit against each other comfortably. She was a natural extension to Gideon’s side, or natural enough, anyway. It was a miracle she had ever functioned without her there.
Gideon’s breaths slipped through Harrow’s hair, which in turn tickled her nose slightly. She smelled less like bones and old books and blood these days, and more like the plain soap they all shared in the bathroom.
Lightning lit up the room. With her face buried in Gideon’s clavicle, Harrow didn’t flinch until the thunder started; Gideon, however, was stuck trying to remember how to breathe at the sight this fourth strike of lightning revealed to her; Harrow, tucked closely into her chest, her hair mussed and splayed around her face. Her shoulder high against her flushed and freckled cheek so that her arm could reach around Gideon’s neck and hold her just as close. Gideon wasn’t certain she ever could have realised how deeply she loved Harrow outside of that moment.
After a few minutes, Harrow seemed to stiffen and shift away. “I can go if you aren’t comfortable.”
“No!” said Gideon, a bit more quickly than she meant to. “I mean, I’m not uncomfortable. I’m the opposite of uncomfortable. Like, comfortable.”
Harrow didn’t move any closer, probably because Gideon sounded like an idiot. For once, however, she did not point this out.
“Your heart rate spiked when I lay down with you,” she said instead, almost like she was admitting a shameful secret. Then, so quiet it could be mistaken for tearful: “If you still harbour distrust for me, I would be understanding.”
No thunder came to fill the silence this time. Just the terrible, aching echo of Harrow's words.
Slowly, so as not to startle her in the dark, Gideon reached for her, guiding her back with all her uncertainties bundled up against her chest. Reluctantly, she lay her head back down, and Gideon took a few indulgent moments to stroke through her hair, waiting until she felt her body untense just a little.
“They probably didn’t teach you this in all your necromancy books, given that they were all written by nuns with chronic sticks up their asses,” Gideon started, feeling more than hearing Harrow’s long-suffering sigh, “but hearts can tell you a lot of things. Not just fear.”
Harrow was quiet against her chest. For one trembling minute, Gideon thought that might be the end of it, no more awful mushy-gushy feelings on her end.
Then Harrow whispered, unsteadily, “I don’t understand.”
Gideon heard the quaver in her words and swallowed hard. She didn’t need to be a necromancer to know what Harrow’s heart was doing. “Yeah, you do.”
Again, silence. Silence that had been so barbed on the Ninth, and now just uncertain. Delicate in a way their past interactions never had been.
Slowly, so unsure of itself, Harrow’s arm pulled a little tighter around Gideon’s chest, her hand making a fist in the fabric of her pyjama top. Wordless, saying everything.
Gideon pulled her closer and buried her nose in her hair, breathing her in and taking all of the words bobbing inside her skull in with it. Clinging to each other, seeing their inseparability in a different light.
“I didn’t mean to scare you when I came in,” Harrow mumbled eventually, half muffled by Gideon’s chest.
Gideon, who hadn’t thought she was sleeping but wasn’t expecting further conversation either, laughed a little bit at the recollection. It was kind of funny, now that she wasn’t this close to wetting the bed out of terror.
“You’re such a fucking creep,” she said, grossly affectionate this time as she nuzzled her face into Harrow’s hair. Harrow grumbled slightly and Gideon only held her closer. “You’re a freaky little weirdo and I’m going to cuddle you the whole night.”
Harrow shoved half-heartedly at her chest. “I only came in to check you were alright from the storm. Keep pestering me and I will gladly leave you to be electrocuted.”
“Naww, you wouldn’t do that,” Gideon teased, tugging Harrow back in and rubbing their cheeks together annoyingly. She was adept at ignoring Harrow’s poking at her shoulders, particularly given that Harrow wasn’t putting a lot of effort into getting her to stop. “You like me too much. You’re too busy snuggling with me.”
Harrow kicked her under the sheets, and Gideon giggled like a fool. Harrow’s sigh still managed to cut over her, even paired with the rustling of her pulling Gideon close. Gideon went gladly, obedient for one of the few times in her life, and leaned her head with Harrow’s.
“You’re an idiot,” she said, with about the same level of venom as Gideon’s you’re such a fucking creep. She stroked Gideon’s hair, an idle gesture that made Gideon want to weep. She softly pressed a kiss to her forehead, and surely took note of the way that Gideon’s heart stopped completely when she felt it. “I would never let you get electrocuted.”
“Mmm. You’re too scared of the thunder to leave.”
Harrow pinched her, not hard enough to cause pain but just enough to serve as a warning. The teasing threat was undermined by the flash of lightning that followed, and the way Harrow immediately tensed up like a spring coil under Gideon’s weight. Gideon laughed, not unkindly, and sat up enough to pull Harrow back onto her chest, stroking her hair and her back as the thunder passed. Harrow said nothing when it was over, just lay there with her nose pressed to the side of Gideon’s neck.
Gideon craned her head enough to give Harrow the same soft kiss to the head she had received a few minutes earlier, cradling her close.
“I’ll keep you safe,” she murmured. “Don’t worry, honey. I wouldn’t leave you.” She kissed her hair again, kind of addicted to it now. She never wanted to stop touching her again. “You’re safe with me.”
Harrow murmured unintelligibly into Gideon’s shirt, and Gideon simply smiled and held her closer.
“You can always come to me,” she whispered. “I’ll keep you safe from anything.”
Harrow briefly held her a bit tighter, and Gideon knew that the night’s conversation was coming to a close. Sleep was beginning to settle in on her, as well, now that Harrow was curled up in her arms, a comforting weight on her chest. The storm, crouched above and around them, suddenly seemed a million miles away.
Harrow murmured something else, then turned her face to one side so that Gideon could make out what she was saying. “Goodnight, Griddle.”
Gideon smiled into the dark, her face and her chest suddenly very warm. She could hardly believe she had ever been cold, tossing and turning in this very bed.
“Goodnight, Harrowhark,” she whispered. “Sweet dreams.”