Chapter Text
Gideon Nav spent the evening at soccer practice when her room was unceremoniously occupied without her consent. For two solid years, she thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of a single dorm room meant for two occupants. Ever since her last roommate left (and wasn’t THAT a story for the memory book…), she’d set up the unoccupied side with her own things - her pull-up bar hanging from the second closet, her spare sheets on the unclaimed bed, and her stash of snacks tucked away in the little cubby beneath the half-lofted mattress.
By the time she made it back to her room, breathless and sweaty and glowing with summer sunlight and grass stains, a wraith of a girl had taken up residence. Gideon’s jaw dropped when she found her belongings shoved aside to make room for the girl’s oversized trunk and sensible black sheets.
“Who the fuck are you? And why are you in my room?” Gideon sputtered, slinging her gym back to the floor. She narrowed her eyes, memory flickering forth as synapses fired and the pieces fell together. Her brain halted mid-thought as alarm bells blared through her head; the pinched face, the sharp jaw, the coal-black eyes... “Wait, shit, I know you!”
“It’s been quite a while, Griddle.”
Harrowhark Nonagesimus sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, a book perched atop them, back pressed against the wall where Gideon’s favorite naughty poster used to hang before it was removed by force. The audacity .
“Fuck me,” Gideon groaned. “Absolutely not. Nope. No. There is no possible way that you are in my room right now. Get the fuck out, and I’m going to pretend this never happened.”
“You look different,” Harrow said passively. She tilted her head, dark lips puckered into a frown. “When I saw your name on my ledger, I wondered.”
“You’re one to talk, Crepuscular Cretin,” Gideon muttered. Harrow’s hair was longer, and she was taller (though not by much) and wore clothing that could be nearly considered normal rather than the weird-ass robes she wore when they were children. “What? Cult life wasn’t your style anymore?”
“Not a cult,” Harrow replied automatically. With all the airs of a sovereign queen, she looked Gideon up and down, passing judgment. “What about you? Couldn’t find a foster home that wanted you for more than two weeks?”
“Low blow, Nonagesimus,” Gideon growled. She slammed the door behind herself, taking great pleasure in how Harrow winced at the noise. “For your information, I started school here almost six years ago. This is my school. Which is why I am wracking my brain to puzzle out why the fuck you’re here.”
Harrow grew quiet. She glared down at the pages in her book like they might attack her fingertips the moment she looked away. Her angular cheeks sucked in, and Gideon knew she was biting the tender skin inside each cheek like a feral wombat.
“Whatever. I can’t deal with this right now,” Gideon snatched a clean shirt and clean pair of shorts from her dresser and set them on her bed. “I need to shower. I have a date tonight.”
“What?” Harrow frowned. “It’s a girls’ school.”
“A study date, moron.”
“Oh.”
Gideon rolled her eyes, snagging her towel from the bedpost. She slipped on her shower shoes and grabbed her 3-in-one soap from the closet floor.
“And besides,” Gideon said over her shoulder, quirking a smile. “Finding a date in a girls’ school isn’t nearly as hard as you think.”
She winked and shut the door behind her, chuckling as she imagined the shocked expression on Harrowhark’s face. Poor idiot nunlet.
Three of the four showers were open, so Gideon dropped her clothes and shuffled into the one closest to the door. The tile was wet and slick with soap, and she stretched out her sore muscles as the spray heated from a lukewarm fizzle to a powerful molten waterfall. She hissed as she leaned back into it, letting the burning water caress her sweaty hair and neck. As her body adjusted, she hummed and lathered herself up with soap from head to toe.
“Is that you, Nine?” said the voice in the furthest stall.
“Oh shit, hey Cam,” Gideon grinned, peeking out from her shower curtain. “I didn’t know it was you or else I would have joined you.”
She could feel Camilla’s eyes roll even through several layers of shower curtains.
“When’s the next game?” Cam asked. “If it doesn’t conflict with fencing, I’ll take your free tickets.”
“What if I wanted to take another sexy lady to the match?” Gideon pouted playfully.
“That would require another woman to tolerate you,” Camilla said bluntly.
“It’s Friday evening, 6 PM.” Gideon said, splashing her face. “Be there or be square!”
“Nobody says that anymore.”
“Get it?” Gideon goaded. “Because you’re not a-round ? Eh? Eh?”
Camilla wrenched off her shower faucet.
“You’re incorrigible,” she sighed. “See you then.”
Gideon respectfully did not peek out as Cam passed by her stall in nothing but a towel and an air of dignity unmatched by anyone else in their wing, but it took more effort than she’d admit.
She rushed through the rest of her shower, slipping and catching herself before gaining a concussion on the edge of the tile-covered shelf. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?
Here Lies Gideon Nav,
Taken Out by Good Hygiene.
She was in a good mood as she shuffled back to her room with her squeaky shower shoes, swaying her hips back and forth as she hummed. Her towel threatened to fall at any second. Upon opening her door, however, Gideon remembered exactly why her day went fuckside-up.
“Oh, right,” Gideon sighed heavily. “You’re still here.”
“I do live here,” Harrow pointed out. She had moved to the windowsill, where she sat scrunched up in the corner with her nose in her book, facing the courtyard beyond the window pane.
“Were there really no empty rooms left?” Gideon asked, practically stomping her feet as she crossed the room. “I swear we just had a graduation last week.”
“It was last month,” Harrow corrected. “There were open rooms. I am…” she trailed off, fussing with her lip. “It was best for me to have a roommate.”
“But why me?” she groaned. “Didn’t you already make my life miserable enough? I had almost forgotten you!”
“Likewise,” said Harrow, lying. “I hardly remembered you half the time.”
“Let’s just keep it that way,” Gideon huffed. She dropped her towel, grabbing the clothing she had set aside. She pretended not to notice how Harrow’s eyes widened. “I forget you; you forget me. We live simultaneously, but definitely not together. Deal?”
“You’re very different,” Harrow said quietly, tucking her bookmark between two pages to mark her space.
“Good,” Gideon felt her jaw tighten. “I’ve worked hard to be who I am right now. I don’t need some cuckoo cryptid from my past mucking it all up. I have to meet my lab partner in-” she checked her watch, “-fifteen minutes, but when I get back tonight, we need to establish some ground rules. I am not living with you unless there are some solid fucking boundaries, Nonagesimus.”
“Fine, Nav,” Harrow said curtly. “Don’t keep your girlfriend waiting.”
“She’s not my-” Gideon shook her head. “Right. Yep. Whatever. I’ll be sure to scream your name when I’m boning in the library. Fuck off, Harrow. And fuck you very much.”
She flipped the bird and slung her backpack over her shoulder, slamming the door with a satisfying bang. She hoped it made Harrow jump.
Gideon decided to walk a few laps around the library after her lab assignment was complete and her partner had gone off to dinner with friends. She loved the library here at Canaan Hall. It smelled like old books and worn rugs and wood polish, and she loved the well-worn paths of hundreds of girls’ feet down the aisles. You could almost map out the most popular sections based on how the wood dipped and grooved with wear.
She almost never checked out books, but she liked looking. It blew her mind that every single book in that building was written by a person. Just like that - bam! - an idea to paper, and people would still read it hundreds of years down the line. She dragged her finger along a faded spine and traced the golden letters, “Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy.” Curious, she pried it from its shelf and flipped through the pages. Diagrams and black-and-white photographs of muscles and bones lined every page. Teres major . Latissimus dorsi . Triceps and deltoids - she knew those - but Gastrocnemius ? Popliteal fossa ? She couldn’t even pronounce those.
She was once again quite grateful that her upperclassman, Ianthe, was the medical student and not her. That crazy bitch could keep her subcutaneous fat and Abductor Hallucis Longus to herself. Gideon would stick with the things she knew better - soccer, drama class, and the prospect of studying forestry in the future.
She thought she would make one hell of a lumberjack.
Sliding the book back on the shelf, she settled down at the magazine rack to see what new edition of Cosmopolitan had been left for her to browse. The Cosmo magazines weren’t exactly school-issued. Rather, the cute librarian’s assistant with the short, curly hair and the wry smile left the issues in the very back of the shelf tucked inside an old edition of National Geographic for Gideon to find.
It was the little things in life.
Gideon threw her legs over the arm of the plasti-fabric library chair and perused the magazine - for the articles, of course. She flipped to the article titled “What is Squirting and How to Make Her Do It?” and tried not to cackle at her own idiotic jokes as she read. When the librarian’s assistant peered out from behind the desk, Gideon gave her a brilliant smile and a wink. The girl, Dulcie Something-or-Other, blushed and went back to her stool behind the counter. She’d have to ask her out one of these days.
Gideon’s stomach started to growl in a most uncool way, so she meandered towards the dining room. There were only a few girls left at this time of night. Gideon loved to come in late because the dining staff would give her extra helpings so the food didn’t go to waste.
“Evening, Miss Nav,” said Ruby, the kindly older woman who often served the meal. When Gideon had arrived as a kid, Ruby snuck her extra chocolate pudding cups to help ‘fatten her up’ and Gideon had always had a soft spot for her.
“Good evening,” Gideon smiled, reaching for the plate that Ruby slid over the divider. “How are you on this fine night, Mrs. Ruby?”
“Oh, I can’t complain,” the woman smiled, eyes crinkling. “How about you? Did you kick some hiney in practice today?”
“Sure did!” Gideon beamed.
“Atta girl!” Ruby clapped. “I’m bringing my grandson to your next match. Give him a good show, will you?”
“You know it,” Gideon grabbed a pudding cup and spoon. A sudden shadow caught her eye. Her face dropped as Harrowhark Nonagesimus slid into the dining hall like a phantom, seemingly sucking the warmth out of the room.
“Oh! The new girl,” Ruby waved at Harrow’s hunched figure. “Gideon, have you met her? Why don’t you show her the ropes? I wasn’t sure if she would make it to dinner tonight. Her arrival was pretty rushed and hush-hush.”
“She’s my roommate,” Gideon droned flatly. “I know her.”
Ruby raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sure she would appreciate a little kindness and understanding.”
“Or a swift kick in the knee,” Gideon mumbled.
“Gideon Nav, you know better,” Ruby said warningly. “You were brand new once too, and you were scared to death. Show some empathy.”
“I’ll show her more than that,” Gideon huffed. Ruby raised her worn wooden spoon and Gideon backtracked. “Okay, okay! Leave it to me.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Ruby mock-sternly. She turned to Harrow, who had slid into line looking like a rabid bat in her black oversized clothes and wild black hair. “Hi there honey, what’s your name?”
“Harrowhark Nonagesimus,” Harrow replied primly. “Reverend Daughter of the Church of Drearburh.”
“Well that certainly is a mouthful,” Ruby chuckled. “Harrow-hart… Nona-Jessie?”
“Nonagesimus,” Harrow repeated slowly. “Just Harrow is fine.”
“All right, Just Harrow, what’ll you have tonight?”
“Oh,” Harrow frowned at the serving bar filled with options. “I get to choose?”
“She doesn’t like flavor,” Gideon snorted. Harrow glared daggers. “Give her the mac and cheese with a bread roll.”
“Now Gideon Nav, I know you aren’t saying my macaroni is flavorless,” Ruby raised her eyebrow. Gideon blanched.
“Nope! Not saying that at all. I’m saying it’s a… delicate texture and taste, artfully refined to less, uh, overwhelm the senses.” Gideon glanced at Harrow. “Try it.”
“That sounds… good,” Harrow said quietly. “Thank you.”
“One plate of cheesy-mac, coming right up,” Ruby said kindly. “Why don’t you sit with Gideon? She knows this school like the back of her hand. I’m sure she can give you some tips.”
“I’ll give her some tips, alright,” Gideon muttered.
“I’d really prefer to sit alone, but thank you,” Harrow said, taking the plate with her eyes downcast. “I’ll manage.”
“Well, you heard it from the horse’s mouth,” Gideon saluted. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Ruby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’re lucky you’re so charming, Miss Nav,” Ruby sighed. “Or else I’m afraid nobody could stand you.”
“So I’ve been told!” Gideon said cheekily, and she carried her plate to one of the long wooden tables where two other girls were finishing up their meals. She dug into the roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes with a ferocity unmatched. She was ravenous after practice and homework and Harrow .
Of all fucking people.
Gideon saw Harrow move into her periphery. The surly nunlet perched on a chair on the opposite side of the table as far as she could be from Gideon without leaving the room. Gideon watched as Harrow picked around the plate with her fork, inspecting the creamy cheese sauce carefully before sliding a single noodle between her lips. Harrow cringed, but then her face slackened and she reached for another forkful. Gideon snorted. Six years apart and she still knew Harrow better than Harrow knew herself.
An ache settled into Gideon’s chest, and she quelled it with a spoonful of potatoes and meat as one does when one’s world gets flipped upside down on what should’ve been an ordinary Tuesday. By the time she reached for her pudding, Harrowhark was gone. Gideon pursed her lips; the girl had left her barely-touched plate and full glass of milk on the long wooden table instead of taking it to the kitchen window like she was supposed to. Moron.
She finished her dinner and balanced her plate and Harrow’s on her arms while trying not to spill the milk. She wordlessly passed the plates and cups and cutlery across the window to the waiting hands of the poor unlucky bastard stuck with dish duty tonight. Having done it herself a time or twenty, Gideon empathized.
As much as she hated to, she made her way back to her bedroom. It was much easier to focus on a full stomach. The room was dark, but Gideon could make out the shadowy figure of Harrow curled up next to the window, reading by moonlight.
“That’ll wreck your eyes,” Gideon said, flipping on the overhead light.
Harrow glared at her, squinting at the brightness. She slid a bookmark between the pages of her book. Gideon was amused to see that the bookmark was just a faded receipt.
“I’ve done it all my life,” Harrow argued.
“Still terrible for your eyes.”
Gideon took a deep breath. She crossed over to the window seat and plopped down across from Harrowhark, pulling one knee up to her chest. The cool glass of the window pane felt good against her arm; her muscles were tired and sore, and she really just wanted to sleep for the next eight hours without some corpse-worshipping lunatic staring down at her while making voodoo dolls or whatever she did for fun these days.
“We need to talk.”
“I’d really rather not,” Harrow said.
“Well same fucking here, you brainwashed buffoon, but here we are.” Gideon tried not to let malice seep into her tone and failed spectacularly. “We need ground rules.”
“I don’t touch your stuff, and you don’t touch mine?” Harrow said, twisting a knotted strand of hair around her thumb. “Basic. Done.”
“You’re not getting off that easily,” Gideon clapped her hands and Harrow flinched. “Rule 1: If it’s mine, it isn’t yours.”
“Fine.”
“Rule 2: Don’t keep me up at all hours of the fucking night. I know you still sleep like twenty fucking minutes at a time, don’t you? Well don’t keep me up too. That means no bright ass lights, no rustly pages, no stupid hymns, and most importantly-” Gideon held up her hand, “-absolutely no creepy fucking prayers out loud at 2 AM. I still have bloody nightmares about that shit.”
Harrow glared with that sour-lemon face, all sharp angles and contempt.
“Fine.”
“Rule 3-”
“How many rules are you planning to list, Griddle?”
Gideon cringed.
“Okay, an amendment - Rule 2.5: Don’t call me Griddle! I haven’t heard that name in years and I don’t want to get used to hearing it again. Now, where was I?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Right, Rule 3: When it is Gideon Nav talking time, don’t fucking interrupt me.”
“Noted,” Harrow said coolly. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, Rule 4:” Gideon smirked. “If Gideon brings home a girl, consider yourself sexiled to the common room until told otherwise.”
“That’s crass and disgusting,” Harrow scoffed. “Sexiled? My god, what are you, twelve?”
“Wouldn’t expect twelve-year-olds to know about sexiling,” Gideon said. “Sexilising? Sexielizing? Whatever.”
“You still have such an eloquent way with words,” Harrow rolled her eyes. “Now for my rules.”
“It’s my room!” Gideon protested.
“Mine too, now,” Harrow reminded her patiently. “I need you to listen to me, Nav. Things are… different.”
Gideon paused, and something wormed at her brain that she couldn’t quite grasp. Harrow fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, and Gideon noticed how ragged her hands looked near the cuticles. She’d been biting them again; a nasty habit Harrow had always had as long as Gideon had known her. Her mother used to make her wear gloves because of it. The longer Gideon looked at her, the more she realized. Harrow’s eyes, always dark and sullen, were more sunken and worn than she remembered. Her hair, always cropped short in childhood, now stood out in odd angles as though unbrushed for days. She wondered if she should offer her a comb.
“Are you okay, Harrow?” Gideon blurted out. Her voice caught them both off guard.
“Fine,” Harrow said automatically, then corrected herself. “Fine enough. Griddle-”
“Don’t call me-”
“-I’m undergoing treatment.”
Gideon blinked, her next words evaporating before she could say them. Her frown grew deeper.
“What?”
“Treatment,” Harrow said impatiently. “Medical care given to a patient for an illness or an injury.”
“I know what the word means, you weird walking thesaurus,” exasperated, Gideon crossed her arms across her chest. “But what for?”
“I’m not ready to share that yet,” Harrow said carefully. “However, it would be best if you follow a few basic rules to make things easier for both of us.”
“Alright,” Gideon ran her hand through her hair absently. “Name it.”
“Rule 1:” Harrow began, “Come home every night.”
“Why?”
“I can’t safely stay by myself at night,” Harrow said, her voice strained and calculating. “An addendum - Rule 1.5: If you see me doing something odd in the middle of the night and I don’t appear to be fully conscious, don’t wake me. Just put me back in bed.”
“So like, sleepwalking?” Gideon asked. “You used to talk in your sleep.”
“I still do,” Harrow’s thumb cuticle made it into her mouth. “It’s gotten worse in recent years. I don’t always know if I’m awake or asleep.”
“So just… put you back to bed? Herd you like a sheep? Put you out to pasture?”
“I have no fucking idea what you’re saying,” Harrow spat a fleck of fingernail on the floor. “Rule 2: Give me privacy when I ask for it. If I’m keeping a secret, it’s for good reason.”
“Gods, you’re still so cryptic.” Gideon pursed her lips. “Conditionally, I’ll accept, but I want it in writing that if I need to know something, you’ll tell me.”
“Granted,” said Harrow diplomatically. “If you need to know, you will know.”
“Anything else?”
“Rule 3: Don’t touch me without permission,” Harrow said quietly. “That’s all I ask. After you left, things became more complicated.”
“How so?” Gideon asked. She tried to read Harrow’s face but couldn’t catch her eye.
“After…” Harrow began, then stopped. She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “After the police came and took you, there was an investigation. Things were… fine. For a while.”
Gideon leaned forward. Harrow’s voice sounded clipped and so very far away.
“The Reverend Father was cleared of all charges on the condition that no other foster children would come under his care. He agreed. But-” Harrow sucked in a breath. “I’m not a foster child, so nobody came for me.”
“Oh shit,” Gideon exhaled. “Harrow, what the fuck happened?”
“Nothing like what happened to you,” Harrow said quickly, unable to meet her gaze. “I’d rather not go into details.”
“Did he…?”
“No, he didn’t,” she said carefully. “Nobody ever touched me like that. Gideon, I’d really rather stop this conversation here.”
Harrow licked her lips and sank back into herself, weariness etched into every crease of her pinched little gremlin face. Gideon had a million burning questions, but couldn’t find the words to say a damned thing. Finally, after an eternity of awkward silence, she cleared her throat.
“Right. No touching without asking. I can do that. Anything else, Penumbral Postulate?”
Harrow rolled her eyes at the nickname.
“Rule 5: Don’t touch my shit,” Harrow said, quirking a lip in what could have been a smile if you squinted hard enough.
“Right-o,” Gideon said self-consciously, sliding off the window sill. “Good talk, chief.”
“Good talk.”
Gideon grabbed her toothbrush and left the room, a headache beginning in the back of her skull. She zoned out in the bathroom while she peed, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and stared out across the darkened courtyard of Canaan Hall. She used to look out this same window when she first arrived as the nurse helped her change her bandages those first few weeks.
It was tranquil, in a way, where the shadows disappeared beneath the trees. The fountain pulsed little rockets of water skyward, bursting into shimmering droplets that pattered back into the basin. She couldn't justify stalling any longer. She was tired, so fucking tired, and just wanted to rewind the whole day and stop it from happening.
Harrow was asleep when she returned to her room; or, Harrow was faking being asleep. Neither would have surprised her. In the darkness of the room, she could barely make out Harrow's curled form beneath her blankets, a few wayward strands of black hair splayed across her pillow and the rest of her obscured from any prying eyes. Gideon shook her head. Some things never changed.
She groped her way through the dark, tripping over her sneakers and managing to bang her knee against her bedframe. She patted the blanket blindly until her fingers grasped the pajamas she'd worn the previous night buried in her sheets. She fell into bed with a soft thud, already halfway asleep when her head hit the pillow. She barely noticed the dark shadow moving in her periphery as she drifted off to sleep.