Work Text:
Sitting this close to the other girl, Harrowhark can still smell the rust on the metal railing when she stepped into the pool. Her fingers ache from the memory. She can still smell the salt chunks in the waves as she was dunked under; the essence of skeletal matter, the dust in the corners, the privacy of a forgotten place. Remnants of the brine almost overpower the facepaint stinging her thumb—that manicured mixture, that acetone stench—as she strokes pitch black over freckled brown. A cloud ruining a perfect day.
It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that Harrowhark Nonagesimus—the Reverend Daughter, the 87th Nona, the dead-and-still-suffering 200—is purposefully focusing on her nose to ignore her eyes.
So yellow. Yellow as the sun. As the budding dandelion. As the lights deep within the water that shed light on all of Harrow's lies. Yellow is the color of Gideon Nav's eyes. Every time Harrowhark looks at them, she fears she will go blind, because Gideon is always looking back at her.
The thought still creeping, Harrowhark puts her theorem to rest with a glance. Gideon is looking between her forehead and her lips.
Can't have that.
"Close your eyes," she means to instruct, but her tone is a scratched, whimpered thing. She swallows, hard. "I need to paint your eyelids."
A smile pulls at the edges of Gideon's lips, a thing Harrowhark will not admit to seeing. "No you don't."
Slipping off the platter, that's meant to hold more than two colors, Harrowhark's free hand glides up Gideon's cheek and, with entirely feigned force, a pointer finger nudges fluttering ginger lashes. Down, down, just enough, until her stained fingerprint marks Gideon's eyelid. It drags, then flicks off at the end when Harrow's wrist is confiscated.
After being yanked forward, into Gideon's lap, they're chest-to-chest. Nearly nose-to-nose.
Harrowhark smells the paint.
"Nav!" She gasps.
"You don't!" Gideon repeats. "I mean, I don't! I never have."
Her tone is a pretty thing, laced with a giggle. The white of Harrowhark's canine gleams as it roughens her bottom lip. She much prefers the sting of pain to humiliation. The warming of her cheeks, she fails to rank.
Those eyes—the Emperor be merciful, those eyes—dart around her face in an interrogation.
"Nonagesimus." Gideon says, slow. "Are you blushing?"
Her cavalier can surely feel it: how her pulse has quickened, how her heart hammers in her ears, and how her body is apparently hot enough to melt the paint running through her fingers like water. God must hear her prayers, because Gideon's hand falls from her wrist, though those callouses tease her so.
"Sit still," is her only answer.
"Look at me."
Harrowhark does not. "What?" She barely manages.
"I will," Gideon repeats, her tone comically even by comparison, "if you look at me."
Nothing terrible happens when she gives in. At least, not right away. The tensing of every muscle in her neck is the exaggeration of the myriad, because Gideon is not glaring at her, nor is Gideon's hand raised to redirect her again, to grip her or hit her. As she has done to Gideon so many times. Furthermore, the ache in her throat (likely from the paint's fumes) has no right to exist. Gideon does not reach to choke her. Gideon does not draw her sword and cut it off.
Gideon simply looks back at her.
Gideon, whose face is half-hidden by the Ninth House. Gideon, whose eye is bruised, likely from some fight she took protecting. She has always been a protector. Gideon, who is smiling that crooked smile anyway.
When Harrowhark finally continues, she finds her hand steadier than before. The bold outline around Gideon's eyes is easily accomplished. The stippling on her ears, despite her proclaimed ticklishness, is not forbidden.
Each blemish is filled with the color of night and death. Each scar is, with a gingerness almost reverent, stroked until color blurs overtop.
It's somehow a shock to her tactile senses that Griddle is… Rough, on the exterior. As a cavalier should be. Ortus Nigenad had softer skin than Harrowhark herself, and the Third and Seventh are like flower petals come to life. Not Gideon Nav. Every other divot or so, Harrow backtracks. She'll rub, back and forth, until the years of abuse and servant-ship fade with the light. Each story is committed to memory before she buries it deep within the earth.
Her hand falls between them once more. The paint on the platter is so much colder. She scoops three full daubs of color, one per finger.
"Ah-ah."
Gideon tuts at her—but oh, the sound is so gentle. So quiet. A whisper on the wind that dares rattle the window of their quarters, that dares disturb the beauty hidden within Canaan House. Gideon is almost shushing her.
"Look," Gideon reminds her.
So she does. Harrowhark looks, so intently that she almost drawls her fingers down Gideon's chin instead of Gideon's lips.
Said lips purse before Harrowhark's thumb can fall away.
They steal a kiss.
Gideon has kissed Harrowhark before. Oh, how the Ninth house would scowl. How they would raise their beads and rattle their bones, which ache very much to rattle, until Harrowhark felt the full consequences of her mingling. But alas. She didn't think of that as the pool was lapping her waistline. As Gideon was holding her steady. An unhurried kiss pressed above her nose and between her eyes, where sense met intellect. Yes, Gideon has kissed Harrowhark before.
Not while staring dead at her, though.
Harrow is watching her thumb be trapped in Gideon's lips. And she's watching Gideon smirk up at her like that's the best idea she's ever had (it probably is). And the paint is smudging, and a bit of drool is stringing, and oxygen is escaping from Harrow's lungs again.
She can't do this.
The yellow consumes her vision. Yellow like the sky before a storm. Yellow like the decaying of a body. Like heart failure, like Frankenstein's creature, like all things wrong and bad and spelling of disaster.
She leans in anyway.
Her lips press to Gideon's; her own description of the color is inept. Her new thoughts challenge her old ones. Though her reaches are desperate, they are not far.
The kiss is strangely wet, and hot, as a tea still mid-steep. The only tea Harrowhark has ever enjoyed.
Because somehow, the kiss is sweet. Copious amounts of honey stirred alongside two sugar cubes.
With a tilted head, Harrowhark's suddenness is taken in stride. Gideon takes everything that way. Lips and bodies move in tandem, and Harrowhark can feel her stomach swirling. The spit rising from nowhere and filling her cheeks almost worries her.
Then a hand, much bigger than either of hers, grabs at her neck. Those fingers sprawl the entire length of her nape, wrapping back around to press on her throat. To keep her there, long after the kiss' conclusion.
Their foreheads rest together. Their chests rise and fall in blessed unison.
Separate sets of lashes brush when Harrow's eyes flutter open. Goddamnit, Gideon is still looking at her!
"See?" Gideon chuckles at her, and she considers throwing herself out the window. "Not so—"
It's unclear who leans back first. A pain festers and then breaks like a fever on her forehead. She winces, which only makes it worse. Gideon's paints, not yet dry, have laid claim to Harrow's skin. Wrinkles and furrowed brows come apart with an unbearable sqllch.
"Shit," Gideon breathes. Warmth takes its leave from Harrowhark's collarbone as Gideon rubs her own neck, like a character in a magazine. "Sorry."
What Harrow initially mistook for nausea is still doing circles in her gut.
"Come back."
She doesn't know what she's saying.
Gideon blinks at her. "What?"
She doesn't know what she's doing. It's like she's a ghost, watching her body from afar. It moves on its own. The Reverend Daughter ruins her own handiwork by planting both her hands on the sides of Gideon's face. With indescribable fervor, she leans in a second time.
Sculpted curves of the cavalier's side are held. Despite both their cloaks being black, Harrow fists a torn bit of lace, and it reads as finger-painting.
Their conjoinment is somehow wetter than before. Watered down. Harrow swallows, and swallows—which prompts Gideon to make soft little moans, which prompts Harrow to swallow harder—and she can't get enough of Gideon's air. With her expertly-carved nails, she wants to tear Gideon's chest open and drink the oxygen from her lungs.
The paint smears, of course. Down Gideon's neck. Past her collarbone.
When Harrow fiddles with the buttons on Gideon's cloak, Gideon winds up on top of her. Her back hits the bed. Since when was she spun around? Her vision doubles and crosses.
Buttons make quite the distinct sound. As does throwing a cloak to the floor.
Unable to find her bearings, Harrowhark murmurs Gideon's name. And Gideon answers. Hands cup her own, returning to her wrists with a new, careful grip, one that is barely a grip at all. Midnight darts over Gideon's veins like a bat; Harrow's palm slides down Gideon's arms.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. What for, she doesn't know. She hopes she isn't asked. The paint? Or the history? The never ending loop of hate, and love, and hate again. "I'm sorry."
Lips replace one of Gideon's hands. Then paint. Distinct in texture and color—yes, paint is shoved into Harrowhark's palm. "Don't be," Gideon tells right to her ear.
Harrow's nose brushes against Gideon's cheek. Open-mouthed, she pauses to breathe, to find her footing. Which she doesn't have, with Gideon laying atop her. She never wants it again. Take her feet. Take her legs.
There's beaded sweat dribbling down Gideon's forehead. In the suspended moment, when Harrow steals a glance, there's a wild look in Gideon's eye.
The next kiss works the paint deep into the cracks of Harrow's lips. She wishes she could see it.