Ship: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus, The Locked Tomb Words: 1,277 Notes: There's more I want to do with this version of Gideon and Harrow, but that will have to wait for another bonus round.
Contains a major scene that is mostly about self-harm. Child neglect is also implied/referenced.
I'd call this hurt/comfort, but Gideon doesn't know how to comfort and Harrow is really good at hurting.
——
You awaken to some confusion: you get up from bed, but your body doesn’t.
"Awkward, isn't it?"
You jump at the unexpected voice. (Your body remains motionless.) The voice's owner, standing inches above the floor at the entrance to your bedroom, is a tall and sturdy figure with close-cropped red hair and, defying all known laws of logic and decorum, wearing aviator sunglasses.
"How the hell did you get in here?"
The figure sticks its hand through your door. "Deathly powers. One of the few perks of being, y'know..." It cuts off abruptly. Evidently this is intended to be some sort of punchline. "Anyway, there's a whole speech I'm supposed to give, but it's a dumb speech so I'm not going to do that. Before you ask: Yes, I've been here the whole time. Yes, that means I saw everything. No, I'm not happy about that either. No, I didn't kill you, and no, I couldn't have even if I wanted to. Any questions?"
You could say that you have a few questions. You skip over such fascinating topics as who assigned you a speech? and what's with the sunglasses? and instead ask:
"So you’re telling me that I'm-"
"A newly experienced bucket-kicker. Your coil's been thoroughly shuffled. You've been drafted to fight in the skeleton wars. Wait," it scrunches its face. "That one doesn't work. Maybe... Your body's been drafted to fight in the skeleton wars, but your soul got a deferment. Yeah, good enough."
"You're dead, Harrowhark."
——
There are, as best you can tell, no upsides to death: you don't get a reprieve from existence, you can't do anything useful anymore, and you have to deal with the world's shittiest ghost.
Among the many facts you have learned in your first minutes of death:
- The figure's name is Gideon. - She's been dead for about twice as long as you were alive. - She talks Like That because she's spent a lot of time haunting the internet over people's shoulders. - The sunglasses are "for the bit." - No, she will not elaborate.
Noticeably absent is any actual information about being dead.
Fine, you'll have to figure that out yourself. You're more than capable of learning whatever needs to be learned.
You make it halfway to the door before you double over, heaving the nonexistent bile from your nonexistent guts.
"Yeah, I should have warned you about that. Your soul isn't used to not having a body, so it'll freak out for a while if you get too far away from the one it thinks you should be attached to. You should get over it in, I don't know, maybe a day or two?"
"Great," you say, despite the fact that this is decidedly not great. "Are there any other limitations of being a ghost that you also should have warned me about?"
"I mean, there's the obvious stuff - you can't eat, but you don't need to; you can't sleep, but you don't need to do that either; you're not physical so you can't get physically hurt anymore..."
You punch her in the face.
——
Okay, so maybe a ghost punching another ghost is kind of pointless. It feels good to see the shock on her face, though, even if the effect is more reminiscent of punching jello with a fist that is also made of jello.
You spend the next hour seeing how far you can get from your corpse without collapsing.
It's agony, but that's the point.
It starts with an empty-stomach nausea that leaves you dry heaving, denied the relief of emptying any offending contents. If you can stay on your feet through that - you can - then eventually it turns to an ache emanating from every one of your bones, or the places where they should have been. It's dull at first, like a headache through your entire body, but it grows sharper and angrier the further you get until it all blurs together into one screaming mass.
It's exquisite, really. It's a better distraction than anything you could manage while you were still alive.
Gideon tells you not to do it the first time, says you're just going to make yourself miserable and she'll have fun watching you change your mind and wait it out. (Her lack of perspective would be funny if you were capable of humor.) She tells you you're on your own when you collapse, but after you’ve spent a few minutes curled on the floor in the fetal position, she - to your everlasting humiliation - picks you up and carries you back to your bed, where your body awaits still undisturbed and undiscovered.
As the ache in your bones fades, the ache in your core is unmasked, as deep and insatiable as ever. In life, you could cover it with hunger or with violence, but here and now there is only one alternative, so you get up and walk again.
After the fifth or sixth attempt (you lose count), when Gideon sets you down on the bed, you are far too drained to stand. She catches you trying to roll to the floor, intent on crawling if you need to, and places herself in your way.
"Nope, we're done now. Goddamn it, Harrow, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to hurt yourself."
It's all too much. You feel a ruinous sob working its way up your body, and you have no strength to tamp it down. You roll to face away from her and perhaps salvage whatever dignity you still can.
"Nonagesimus, if you're... oh god fucking dammit," she cuts herself off as she Realizes. "Look. If it's something I said, I'm sorry, okay?"
There are so many things you would say, if only your traitorous spirit would obey you. Instead, you barely manage to choke out, "Die," before realizing just how toothless and pathetic that sounds.
"Yeah, little late for that, buddy." She pauses uncomfortably. "Look, uh - no, fuck it. Personal backstory time: So I really didn't have much in the way of 'friends' - or really, like, 'people who gave a shit about me at all' - back when I was alive, and it turns out that ghosts kinda suck shit at learning new skills, so I don't have a clue how to do this. But what I mean is, if you want me to..."
Another uncomfortable silence. Then a hand on your shoulder, and you freeze.
Mistaking your lack of reaction for consent, she lies down behind you, drapes an arm around you, shifts four or five times before reaching something that could pass as a crude approximation of holding you.
It's a bizarre feeling, and totally unfamiliar. You had imagined this, once upon a time, imagined someone (a woman) holding you (touching you), comforting you (caressing you) through your worst moments. But that was when you were a child, and you have long since put away childish things.
Perhaps your childish self had been on to something.
You think this would have been much more satisfying if you were both still corporeal, capable of endogenous warmth and firm pressure. But that's not something you experienced then, and it's not something you can ever experience now, so you discard that thought as irrelevant. Eventually, blessedly, the sobs halt, and you regain control of your voice.
"Unhand me."
"Geez, I'm just trying to help, okay? I'll give you space."
She extracts herself from next to you. You are not going to miss the closeness. That is absolutely not a thing that is going to happen, much less one that is happening now.
It is for purely utilitarian reasons that you are relieved she still stays in the room.
FILL: Team Webcomics/Webtoons
Words: 1,277
Notes: There's more I want to do with this version of Gideon and Harrow, but that will have to wait for another bonus round.
Contains a major scene that is mostly about self-harm. Child neglect is also implied/referenced.
I'd call this hurt/comfort, but Gideon doesn't know how to comfort and Harrow is really good at hurting.
——
You awaken to some confusion: you get up from bed, but your body doesn’t.
"Awkward, isn't it?"
You jump at the unexpected voice. (Your body remains motionless.) The voice's owner, standing inches above the floor at the entrance to your bedroom, is a tall and sturdy figure with close-cropped red hair and, defying all known laws of logic and decorum, wearing aviator sunglasses.
"How the hell did you get in here?"
The figure sticks its hand through your door. "Deathly powers. One of the few perks of being, y'know..." It cuts off abruptly. Evidently this is intended to be some sort of punchline. "Anyway, there's a whole speech I'm supposed to give, but it's a dumb speech so I'm not going to do that. Before you ask: Yes, I've been here the whole time. Yes, that means I saw everything. No, I'm not happy about that either. No, I didn't kill you, and no, I couldn't have even if I wanted to. Any questions?"
You could say that you have a few questions. You skip over such fascinating topics as who assigned you a speech? and what's with the sunglasses? and instead ask:
"So you’re telling me that I'm-"
"A newly experienced bucket-kicker. Your coil's been thoroughly shuffled. You've been drafted to fight in the skeleton wars. Wait," it scrunches its face. "That one doesn't work. Maybe... Your body's been drafted to fight in the skeleton wars, but your soul got a deferment. Yeah, good enough."
"You're dead, Harrowhark."
——
There are, as best you can tell, no upsides to death: you don't get a reprieve from existence, you can't do anything useful anymore, and you have to deal with the world's shittiest ghost.
Among the many facts you have learned in your first minutes of death:
- The figure's name is Gideon.
- She's been dead for about twice as long as you were alive.
- She talks Like That because she's spent a lot of time haunting the internet over people's shoulders.
- The sunglasses are "for the bit."
- No, she will not elaborate.
Noticeably absent is any actual information about being dead.
Fine, you'll have to figure that out yourself. You're more than capable of learning whatever needs to be learned.
You make it halfway to the door before you double over, heaving the nonexistent bile from your nonexistent guts.
"Yeah, I should have warned you about that. Your soul isn't used to not having a body, so it'll freak out for a while if you get too far away from the one it thinks you should be attached to. You should get over it in, I don't know, maybe a day or two?"
"Great," you say, despite the fact that this is decidedly not great. "Are there any other limitations of being a ghost that you also should have warned me about?"
"I mean, there's the obvious stuff - you can't eat, but you don't need to; you can't sleep, but you don't need to do that either; you're not physical so you can't get physically hurt anymore..."
You punch her in the face.
——
Okay, so maybe a ghost punching another ghost is kind of pointless. It feels good to see the shock on her face, though, even if the effect is more reminiscent of punching jello with a fist that is also made of jello.
You spend the next hour seeing how far you can get from your corpse without collapsing.
It's agony, but that's the point.
It starts with an empty-stomach nausea that leaves you dry heaving, denied the relief of emptying any offending contents. If you can stay on your feet through that - you can - then eventually it turns to an ache emanating from every one of your bones, or the places where they should have been. It's dull at first, like a headache through your entire body, but it grows sharper and angrier the further you get until it all blurs together into one screaming mass.
It's exquisite, really. It's a better distraction than anything you could manage while you were still alive.
Gideon tells you not to do it the first time, says you're just going to make yourself miserable and she'll have fun watching you change your mind and wait it out. (Her lack of perspective would be funny if you were capable of humor.) She tells you you're on your own when you collapse, but after you’ve spent a few minutes curled on the floor in the fetal position, she - to your everlasting humiliation - picks you up and carries you back to your bed, where your body awaits still undisturbed and undiscovered.
As the ache in your bones fades, the ache in your core is unmasked, as deep and insatiable as ever. In life, you could cover it with hunger or with violence, but here and now there is only one alternative, so you get up and walk again.
After the fifth or sixth attempt (you lose count), when Gideon sets you down on the bed, you are far too drained to stand. She catches you trying to roll to the floor, intent on crawling if you need to, and places herself in your way.
"Nope, we're done now. Goddamn it, Harrow, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to hurt yourself."
It's all too much. You feel a ruinous sob working its way up your body, and you have no strength to tamp it down. You roll to face away from her and perhaps salvage whatever dignity you still can.
"Nonagesimus, if you're... oh god fucking dammit," she cuts herself off as she Realizes. "Look. If it's something I said, I'm sorry, okay?"
There are so many things you would say, if only your traitorous spirit would obey you. Instead, you barely manage to choke out, "Die," before realizing just how toothless and pathetic that sounds.
"Yeah, little late for that, buddy." She pauses uncomfortably. "Look, uh - no, fuck it. Personal backstory time: So I really didn't have much in the way of 'friends' - or really, like, 'people who gave a shit about me at all' - back when I was alive, and it turns out that ghosts kinda suck shit at learning new skills, so I don't have a clue how to do this. But what I mean is, if you want me to..."
Another uncomfortable silence. Then a hand on your shoulder, and you freeze.
Mistaking your lack of reaction for consent, she lies down behind you, drapes an arm around you, shifts four or five times before reaching something that could pass as a crude approximation of holding you.
It's a bizarre feeling, and totally unfamiliar. You had imagined this, once upon a time, imagined someone (a woman) holding you (touching you), comforting you (caressing you) through your worst moments. But that was when you were a child, and you have long since put away childish things.
Perhaps your childish self had been on to something.
You think this would have been much more satisfying if you were both still corporeal, capable of endogenous warmth and firm pressure. But that's not something you experienced then, and it's not something you can ever experience now, so you discard that thought as irrelevant. Eventually, blessedly, the sobs halt, and you regain control of your voice.
"Unhand me."
"Geez, I'm just trying to help, okay? I'll give you space."
She extracts herself from next to you. You are not going to miss the closeness. That is absolutely not a thing that is going to happen, much less one that is happening now.
It is for purely utilitarian reasons that you are relieved she still stays in the room.