Work Text:
“Say it.”
The feel of Harrow's throat bones under her finger-tips, the pulsating, the fragility. Once, she had forced her hand against this thin throat, felt meat and bone crunch together, watched eyes bug out wide. Freedom had been on the other side of her lady’s end and yet, she could never go that far.
The irony that Harrow was into choking. Go figure. Though, Gideon supposes it fits with, well–
“Say it.”
There goes Harrow's throat bones again–okay, Gideon knows it’s thyroid cartilage and the long rod of her trachea resting against her palm, her carotid artery at the mercy of her fingers. Gideon can feel her swallow though, it makes her feel dumb.
She’s gotta prove a point, dammit. She stills her other hand.
“I–I–” Harrow is trying, give her credit. “I’m beautiful.”
Gideon restarts a slow pace around Harrow's clit. Painfully slow. “Go on.”
“I’m w-worthy of love.”
She slid one finger inside, Harrow's hips rose high, hungry for more. Gideon stilled, strict as hell.
“I’m–I deserve to be happy.”
“You do.” Two fingers. “Start over.”
“I’m beautiful.”
Harrow really was. She was naked, cradled against Gideon’s front, flush high on her cheeks and both hands clinging to Gideon’s forearm where it crossed her chest to hold her at the neck. Gideon watched her cute little toes actually curl with pleasure and felt waves of emotion for this crazy thing of a woman.
“I’m worthy of love.”
She’s using her palm to grind against Harrow as she attempts to fuck her with her fingers but the angle isn’t quite there. Harrows moving her hips up into her hand anyway and while that’s so very hot of her–
“I don’t hear you.” Gideon sing-song whispers into her ear.
“I deserve to be happy.”
“Mhmm.” Gideon not so subtly brackets Harrow's hips into stillness with her thighs. Enough of that. Harrow almost whines.
Gideon adds a third finger, and Harrow actually whines. She stutters out a high pitched ‘I’m beautiful.’ before Gideon can even think about stopping. She wasn’t gonna, but, anyway–
Harrow is so wet–so ready. Gideon retracts her fingers momentarily to spread her wetness before pressing her palm and pushing her three fingers back in and the fluid motion makes Harrow’s hips buck up. It presses her fingers in deeper and Harrow keens, begging, and–
“Say it.”
Harrow damn near sobs. “I’m worthy of love.”
Gideon takes her hand away completely and kisses Harrow on the cheek.
“But–” Harrow's voice is wrecked and small with misunderstanding.
“Sh–I know, I’m not stopping.” Gideon gently pries herself from behind Harrow, crab-crawls off the bed and goes-a-searching. She returns from the dresser drawer with something fun in her hand to see Harrow propped up on her arms, naked, waiting, unsure. She waves the strap at her and says, “Yeah?”
And Harrow says “ Yeah.”
Gideon slides the strap over her boxers–inelegantly, there's really no other way. She can tell Harrow is stifling a giggle at how it wags around on her walk back to the bed but–and Gideon’s proud of this part–it’s back to business the second Gideon drags her bodily to the edge and flush with her hips. She hopes there's little bruises left on her iliacs, for the trouble.
Gideon hitches Harrow's legs around her, presses the tip of the strap to her entrance and is infinitely pleased by the little quick inhale she hears from Harrow. In her peripheral vision she sees Harrow's fingers tensing–she has a penchant for interference but Gideon’s doing a thing dangit. Speaking of. Gideon quirks an eyebrow.
“Um–which one was I on.”
“Ooh. Add ‘I can ask for help when I need it.”
“Too multisyllabic.”
“Big words, umbral mistress.”
“Shut up and fuck me.”
That almost worked. “Say it.”
“I’m beautiful.”
Gideon is careful then, to lean all the way down to where her love lay to kiss her, without jostling the delicate connection between them. She leant on her forearms and captured Harrow's mouth, felt her shudder as the strap slipped ever so slightly and brushed against her still sensitive clit. She leans back, hands trailing at Harrow's sides, leaving gooseflesh and coming to rest back at her hips. She uses one hand to press the strap ever so slightly more in and–
And she says “You stop, I stop.” With the same fervor and conviction as one flesh, one end. And slides the strap home.
Harrow's response is immediate; she tightens her legs around Gideon and cries out wordlessly before remembering herself and–”I’m wor–worthy of love.”
Gideon’s moving in and out at a steady pace–not hard or fast enough for Harrow’s liking yet, she’ll earn it. Her hips are already bucking towards Gideon in an ask for more. Gideon stills her with her hand across the span of her pelvis and dips her thumb down to rest at Harrow's needy clit. This earned her another squeeze from Harrow's vice-grip legs.
“I need some room to move, love.” Gideon used her free hand to unlatch Harrow's right leg off her hip, bringing it forward and up to rest against her shoulder. She braced it there with her arm, traced circles around her ankle bone. Lateral malleolus .
“I deserve to be happy.” Gideon couldn’t help but feel the timing of that affirmation was congruent with the position change. Sue her. She snapped her hips and–
“ OHh.”
“Did your back just arch ?”
“I’m b–beautiful.”
“Yes–yes you so are.”
Harrow's arms are thrown above her head, she’s got her hands fisted up in the sheets and her face turned into the crook of her arm. Her body is splayed out for Gideon–for the taking? For anything, really. She’s panting tiny breaths that make her belly tremble, revealing the hollow under her rib cage. Her body rocks back and forth with every thrust and Gideon delights in how that moves her breasts–but she’s been pushed away incrementally and that just won't do. Gideon releases her ankle to scoop her hips back where they belong, and she’s rewarded with a gorgeous moan. But–
“I’m wo–worthy of love.”
Just in time–the concept of stopping at this point, with the base of the strap rubbing perfectly against Gideons own clit with every thrust, well that’s just hard to think about. Gideon would, though. She’s made harder sacrifices.
So had Harrow. Gideon blinks away the heated emotion in her eye sockets. You big softy–fucking focus . Square the fuck up.
“I deserve to be ha–happy.”
And it’s my job to make you happy . Gideon thought. Anything for her. Anything. Including holding her damn hips still–she was close. Harrow’s leg still rested against Gideons chest, untethered and spasming with pleasure–Gideon let go of her hip momentarily to re-holster that leg to her hip, brushing a soothing hand down her thigh back to that wild hip. “Don’t lock me in now.” Harrow had freaky leg strength when horny. And she was, well–incredibly. Not to brag too much but, Gideon was putting in the work. Harrow didn’t just want to be held, she wanted to be held down –Gideon had her bracketed by the hip and where her other hand still rested along her pelvis, thumb making delicious circles around Harrow's swollen clit. All that was missing was–oh–
Harrow had un-fisted the sheets with a hand to come to find Gideon’s at her hip, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled it up to her–to her throat–
Well it would take some core strength, but it’s do-able. Gideon adjusted, and then Gideon stilled.
“Wha–huh?” Harrow’s eyes opened onto Gideon, realization dawning. Wow, she’s cute when she’s fucked beyond thinking. “Oh. I’m beautiful.”
Gideon smiled and resumed her many coordinated movements. She was right about the core strength, partially leant over like this, careful not to lean her body weight on the hand that’s now again around Harrow’s throat. She wasn’t even squeezing, really, but the touch was enough.
“I’m worthy of love.”
Gideon picked up the pace. Thumb moving in tandem with every hip thrust, Harrow undulating to meet her movements now that she was free to do so. Gideon talked her through it, muttering encouragement while Harrow answered back her affirmations, I’m beautiful, I’m worthy of love, I deserve to be happy. She babbled them out like pleading, like prayer. She was so close.
“You’re amazing–will you come for me?”
Whatever words Harrow was about to say–neither were really keeping track on what they should have been anyway–were choked off by a guttural “ Nngh .” Which, yeah, Gideon was for sure gonna make fun of her later for. For now it was incredibly hot.
“Keep talking, Harrow.”
“I–I–”
“ Harrow.”
“I–I de-deserve to be ha-happy.”
“C’mon.”
“I’m beau–beautiful.”
“ Yes. ”
Gideon’s abs were screaming, and her own pleasure was building–but Harrow was right there on the edge and Gideon longed to push her off. She squeezed Harrows throat– carotid artery ever so slightly, and–
“I’m wo– rngh .”
Her necromancer’s body seizes still, arched beautifully again in orgasmic pleasure. Gideon is again constricted by Harrow’s legs, nearly unable to move, but–that’s never the plan, is it? Gideon stills all movements save for her thumb, which continues its circular path while Harrow rides her pleasure through. When Harrow loosens her pantomime of rigor-mortis, Gideon goes in for the kill.
Or really, round two. Three? Eh, who cares. She withdraws from Harrow completely and drops to her knees, bringing her face-level with Harrow’s drip-wet cunt that’s been fucked open at Gideon’s hand and no doubt overstimulated. She uses her now two free arms to throw Harrow's skinny legs over her shoulders, then practically seatbelts her down with them as she presses her open mouth to Harrow and licks . ‘Seatbelt’ be damned, Harrow practically takes her nose off. She calms her with soothing strokes of her tongue, avoiding the oversensitive clit. Harrow catches her breath.
“Do you–should I still–say the–?”
Harrow had managed to pull herself up onto her elbows; to watch, Gideon knew. The deviant . Gideon doesn’t pull away. She meets Harrow’s eyes and laps gently over her clit. Satisfied by the way Harrow’s eye twitched in response, she pulled away to say, “You believe ‘em yet?”
Harrow blushes, bites her lip, nods ever so slightly. Gideon has to kiss her, so she does. She can feel the lactic acid in her abs when she moves but it's nothing compared to the little belly flip she gets right before they kiss. It’s always like that. Harrow makes her nervous.
Gideon breaks the kiss, kisses her once on the cheek, returns to her kneeled place before the altar of her own personal goddess of love and lust. “Good. Lie back.” And she takes her necromancer apart yet again with the unyielding muscle of her tongue.
Completely spent, Harrow puddles into their bed with her eyes closed, her legs abandoned over the side of the bed while Gideon removes the strap and, fuck it, her boxers too, and crawls up next to her. All it takes is a little poke, and Harrow turns enough to completely weave all her bony limbs into wherever she can touch on Gideon. Her sorta sweaty head is pillowed into Gideons neck, an arm is squished up between them while the other is wrapped at Gideons waist, and their legs are just a total tangle. Gideon could lay like this forever, raising gooseflesh along Harrow's spine where she lightly dances her fingertips across it. She feels the tiniest of smooches from Harrow’s lips to her skin, and she smiles.
But then Harrow mumbles “I don’t deserve you.” Into that same bit of skin, and Gideon sighs heavily.
“Harrow–” Gideon is silenced by her necromancer, who flops her hand against Gideon’s mouth in a semblance of a shush. Harrow raises her head, looks Gideon in the eyes. The heterochromatic eyes are a reminder of everything that’s happened between them, and the gold one that used to be her own stares back at her with nothing but Harrow behind it.
“It was meant as a compliment for you .”
“Really? Because it sounded self-deprecating. What did we just accomplish here? You do deserve me, idiot. So mark that hyperbole from your lexicon of bullshit, please.”
“I can’t just undermine a lifetime's worth of self loathing, even if the process to do so is infinitely enjoyable. Apparently. I think other houses have something called ‘therapy’.”
Gideon pulls her in tighter, kisses the tip of her nose. “We can do therapy. I definitely have some shit to work out. They’d probably tell us we’re codependent, though.”
“Comes with the territory of sharing a soul.”
“And there’s my entire friggin point, Nonagesimus.” Gideon tucks a strand of Harrow’s hair behind her ear. “I know your soul, and I love every beautiful rotten piece of it. So stop talking shit about my wife before I get cross.”
Harrow drops her head and groans. “Is that you proposing again?”
“Again and again until you say yes.”
Gideon was intensely aware that she’d brought them back to the start of this cyclical tête-à-tête that she’d hoped she’d broken the cycle of with a well earned orgasm. She’d propose, and Harrow would spiral down a corkscrew of shame, weighing her actions against everything she’d been told to believe. Gideon had always resisted the cult, but Harrow had led the damn thing, and it left its marks.
There was a Ninth ritual of marriage that Harrow had never used to look forward to, but now that it was defunct and gone–the prospect of change weighs heavily on a vestal who’d relied so much on everything staying the same.
Harrow had made these feelings plain by saying: “Two hundred souls leveraged for me so that I would ensure the continuance of my faith, and I was the one to destroy it.” And then she’d gone down her shame spiral lined with two hundred dead children, and the burden inherent in that kept her low. Made her beg for forgiveness for shit Gideon’s already forgiven her for. Made her say such self-flagellating shit.
Gideon would gladly dig up the emaciated corpses of Priamhark and Pellemena just to resurrect and muder them again freshly. The image of their hanging bodies comes to mind, and the pain on child-Harrow's face–and the distant words of Palamedes Sextus as he’d absolved her of responsibility for the deaths of Harrow’s parents.
Gideon opens her mouth for some weird pillow talk. “Had I been the tomb opening bomb my mother intended, neither of us would be here right now, and none of the horrible shit that’s happened in my lifetime would have. Including those two hundred souls.”
Harrow lifts her head with one quizzical eyebrow over searching eyes. “What–?”
“I am the product of two very fucked up people who have a much higher death toll and my survival did nothing but make that death toll rise.”
“That’s nonsense. You had no choice in the matter.” Gideon gave her a pointed look. “It’s two entirely different situations!”
“‘The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.’”
Harrow narrowed her eyes. “You got that from somewhere. Who said that?”
“Some cartoon named ‘Mewtwo’. I don’t know, it was in my dad’s stuff. Point is–” Gideon noted the little smile on Harrow’s lips at having been correct in her assumption. “We can keep coming back to the tragedy of your conception but there is so much beauty in your life.”
“I spent the first seventeen years of it making your life miserable.”
Gideon flops her head back in exhausted defeat–but she’s not yet defeated. She remakes their eye contact and says “Nonagesimus, to be perfectly fucking honest here–I’d do it all again if it meant I got to be here with you now, grabbing your ass while you wax poetic about how unlovable you are. I love you . Not in spite of anything in our pasts, or any horrible thought you think about yourself. I love you simply because I do, and I always will, even if you don’t think you deserve it– especially when you don’t think you deserve it.” Harrow’s eyes had gotten a bit glassy. “Can we put the old shit to bed and move forward together?”
Harrow closed her eyes, the smallest tremble at her lips betraying the emotion she was hiding. She nodded. She opened her eyes just to pull herself those few inches to Gideon’s mouth, closing her eyes again to kiss her. Gideon let herself be kissed, dropping the threads of her next Big Speech and resting her palms at the small of Harrows back.
Harrow broke the kiss moments later to drop little pecks of kisses all over Gideon’s face–her jaw, her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. “Harrow that tickles.” She said, laughing a bit, because it tickled.
“Marry me.” Harrow said. Gideons eyes shot open–they were nose to nose.
“Yes.” Gideon said, embarrassingly immediately, and Harrow smiled a sweet, genuine smile. Gideons own smile was outdone by her then squeezing the life out of Harrow with a bone crushing hug of happiness. “You aren’t being a shit, right? You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it idiot.” Harrow sounded cute when she was being crushed to death and calling Gideon an idiot.
Gideon released her only to recapture her mouth in a kiss. Harrow adjusted her legs to straddle Gideon, bracketing her arms on either side of Gideons head. She could feel her cavalier’s smile in the kiss, and her own rose unbidden to her face. They were both absolutely saps for each other, total weenies.
Gideon took advantage of their positioning to push her torso up to sitting, Harrow nestled into her lap with her hands in Gideon's hair, pressing herself as close as she could. Gideon made her intentions plain with her very grabby hands that were very-grabbing Harrow's ass and sneaking around her thigh to her crotch. Her fingers just made purchase on the still slippery wet skin when skeletal hands came out of fucking nowhere and pulled her bodily back by the shoulders to the bed, Harrow barely containing a villanous smile above her.
“Harrow–what the fuck!” The construct that had been raised to pull her down took a step back and crumpled into a pile of bones, and Harrow straight up giggled. And then she unceremoniously went straight for Gideons as-yet ignored clit and Gideons mind went immediately blank.
Harrow adjusted her body around, keeping her fingers in their patterned strokes against Gideon while she maneuvered the rest of her off Gideon and up on the bed to where she could look her cav in the eye. She leant on her free elbow and kissed Gideon languidly, adoring how Gideon chased the kiss as she pulled away.
“I love you.” Harrow said, lips close enough still to go right back in for another heated kiss. Gideon had just enough wherewithal to raise a hand to Harrow's jaw, holding her in the kiss while her brain completely short circuited otherwise. She was sensitive, okay!
Gideon gave the slightest whine when Harrow withdrew from the kiss entirely to pepper kisses all along her cavalier’s neck, to sternum, to breasts, to ribs–it was reverential, it was praise, and it was culminating in Harrow slipping between Gideon’s thighs and replacing her fingers with her tongue, her fingers slipping inside Gideon in one fluid movement. Gideon keened, and Harrow used her free hand to find one of Gideons, pointedly placing it in her own hair.
For all Gideon might poke fun at Harrow’s noises and lack of control when Gideon is giving her pleasure, for all her barely contained ego at being the one responsible for those noises and lack of control–well, Gideon’s a damn puddle right now. When Harrow’s in control she’s in control and Gideon fucking loves it. She was right on the edge and it’d been only seconds to get there, and if she’d just–
She lifts her head to look, and black and gold eyes gaze back at her, and Gideon comes. Harrow brings her through it with slowing movements and a chastening tongue, withdrawing fully to spare her the oversensitivity. She crawls back up to slot their mouths together again, settling over the puddle formerly known as Gideon Nav.
When Gideons breathing slows, her eyes open, and she squeezes her necromancer tighter to her, delighting in the little ‘ mmph ’ sound Harrow makes against her neck. Gideon.exe is back online, and she uses her reclaimed ability to manipulate her limbs to pull herself and the necromancer currently latched onto her towards the pillows. The blanket had been rucked up to the footboard; she toed under it and kicked it up until it was reachable, tucking Harrow and herself in before settling her hands back around her necromancer. She’s back to tracing the knobbly bones– vertebrae –of Harrow’s spine, enamored with the way their breathing syncs up and makes their combined mass rise and fall in unison. Feels very one flesh of them.
“Only you would use sex to try to get me to stop hating myself.”
Gideon shrugged. “Two for one special.” Harrow laughed, it was little more than a ‘hmph’, but it was music.
“We should still seek a therapist.”
“Oh definitely.”