Title: Halfeti
Fandom: Gideon the Ninth | The Locked Tomb Trilogy, Tamsyn Muir
Pairing: Gideon/Harrow
Rating: PG
Length: 1800
Content notes: none, beyond them being disaster lesbians. No spoilers for Harrow the Ninth.
Author notes: Black Roses of Halfeti.

Summary: Koniortos Court Florists was not exactly Gideon's dream job. For one thing, she didn't have a dream job beyond "flex muscles on TikTok to universal acclaim and lots of ladies' DMs". But as that dream took its sweet time coming true, she could hardly regret taking this job.

Florist/Tattoo Shop AU, because Harrow the Ninth called for every single dumb AU possible for these two.


When she saw Harrow picking her way up the alley, Gideon groaned aloud and closed her eyes. She threw her arm over her eyes for good measure.

"Go away, Harrow."

"Afternoon," she said. Somehow she made a single word sound like a prissy rebuke.

"I'm busy." Gideon opened one eye and took in the sight of Harrow looming over her. Probably the only time she'd loom over anything not the size of, like, a bug. Cricket or mantis, one of those leggy freaky ones that Harrow herself resembled so closely. "Very busy."

"You're reclining on three milk crates, smoking — which smells disgusting by the way, what is wrong with you? — and tossing pebbles at the dumpster."

"If I hit the middle of the logo three times in a row, I win."

"Win what?"

"Fuck if I know." Swinging her long legs around, Gideon sat up. The crates were so short that she had to bend, then spread her legs wide. "What do you want, Nonagesimus?"

Harrow's eye twitched. "Nothing. Is Magnus here?"

"My most beloved boss, honored liege of the paycheck? No." Technically, that was true, because he was out in the shop, not here in the alley.

"Never mind then." Harrow turned to go, not back the way she'd come, but up through the shop.

"Hold up!" Gideon went to grab at her, overbalanced, and crashed forward as the middle milk crate finally gave way. "Shit."

Spitting gravel and grit, she executed a (pretty spectacular) one-armed push-up, then hopped to her feet.

Harrow's eyes narrowed against the sun. She did not acknowledge the sweet-ass push-up. She didn't even unfold her arms and pretend to offer a hand.

"Could've helped," Gideon mumbled and brushed off her apron. "God, you're awful."

"What do you want?" Harrow sounded pained. She always did. She probably had chronic migraines or sinusitis or something.

"Okay, you're the one who interrupted my break, first off," Gideon said. "Secondly, I just —. What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Harrow's expression went sharper, if that were even possible, pencilled-in brows drawing together. "Are you concussed?"

"What? No!"

Harrow came in very close. Uncomfortably close. Intriguingly close. Her dark eyes scanned Gideon's. She was teeny, even scrawny, but somehow she made Gideon freeze in place. Gideon wanted to take a step back, but couldn't.

"No, I suppose not," Harrow said as she withdrew. "Just your usual glassy-eyed dumbass state."

"Very funny."

Harrow pulled open the door and said, not bothering to turn, "It wasn't a joke."

Gideon pressed after her, through the narrow storage space, past the big walk-in cooler, and into the front of the store.

"Why do you always have to be such an asshole?"

"Gideon," Magnus said from behind the counter. He sounded weary. "Customers."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm still on break, gimme five —" She tried to grab Harrow's arm but knocked into the WELCOME AUTUMN! display. Her foot went right through the glitter-coated cornucopia.

"Seem to be having quite the day," Harrow said as she opened the front door and left. "Good luck with that."

"Motherfuck —" Gideon hopped on her good foot, then realized that Magnus was not alone. There were two middle-aged women looking at her askance, and a little kid between them, giggling. "Sorry. I'm on break."

She hop-limped her way to the back and leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath and chill out, but quickly. When her phone clanged to signal the end of her break, she dropped it as she tried to turn it off. Because of course she could afford to replace a cracked screen on part-time retail salary, sure.

"I need a raise," she told Magnus as she returned to the floor, dirty apron replaced, hands washed, shit-eating-retail smile plastered on. "And a week off. Also, can you pay for my cell plan?"

"No, hell no, and nope," Magnus replied. "You know what I can do for you, though?"

She hefted a bucket of pre-bundled sunflowers and headed for the sink to replenish their water. "What?"

Magnus chuckled. "Dunno. Thought you'd have a cutting, quippy comeback for me."

"Alas," Gideon said. "Having to interact with Harrow depleted my reserves." Bucket safely returned to its spot by the door, she spread her arms. "I am barren. Bereft! Buh—"

"Buh?"

"Never mind, thought I had a third buh-word, but I didn't."

"I could lend you a thesaurus," Magnus said. "That, I could do."

Gideon blew a loud, prolonged raspberry. "Last thing I need is more books."

He drew back, frowning in extravagant consternation. "You have books?"

"Shut up," she said. "You know what I meant."

He grinned. "I truly did not, but all right. Could you grab some more of the 2 kilo bags of fertilizer from the back?"

"You just like me for my muscles," she grumbled as she did so.

"It's true," he called after her. In a sing-songy soprano he added, "oooh, Miz Nav, oooh!"

Koniortos Court Florists was not exactly her dream job. For one thing, she didn't have a dream job beyond "flex muscles on TikTok to universal acclaim and lots of ladies' DMs". But as that dream took its sweet time coming true, Gideon could hardly regret taking this job. Magnus was fucking cool for an old person, she got to lift and haul and move heavy things all day. Her shifts out at the greenhouse were preferable, of course, because there weren't customers or uniforms there, but even here downtown was okay.

Except for the neighbors. Koniortos shared a building with the world's most pretentious tattoo studio. Who knew what they were calling themselves this week; in the past, they'd been The Lich Collective, Ink & Catastrophe, Wardens of the Soul, and worse.

And Harrow was the worst of the worst. She was a goddamn artist and never let you forget it. She handpoked tiny examples of her art into people's skin for more money than Gideon had ever made in a week.

She didn't even use color! It was all black and gray, thirty million shades of each, so the end result made you look like someone had spilled coal dust into your pores.

"Cheer up," Magnus said, hip-checking Gideon out of her angry reverie. "I'm ordering lunch. My treat."

"Manakeesh?" she asked hopefully.

"Extra halloumi on yours," he replied. "Just go pick it up, will you?" She was halfway out the door as he called, "And bring theirs upstairs, will you?"

"You tricky bastard," she yelled.

She half-jogged the two blocks to the little hole in the wall Lebanese place and loaded up on napkins. Two big paper sacks in her hands, she made her way back to the shop.

"Here's yours," she said. "I just need to grab something from the back, then I'll go upstairs."

"Don't spit on theirs," Magnus warned her.

Gideon grinned at him and showed all her teeth. "They'd probably like that."

Up the steep stairway to the second floor, the sound of morose trip-hop getting louder as she climbed, Gideon took her time. She had to wait to get buzzed in.

"Who?" Palamedes asked, static clogging the speaker.

"Your worst nightmare," Gideon replied. "With lunch."

She didn't mind Pal, nor his partner Camilla, all that much. They were art-school jackasses, to be sure, but compared to Harrow, they were salt of the earth.

"Lifesaver," Palamedes told her, grabbing the sack from her.

"Some of that's mine," Gideon said, trying to yank the bag back. Pal did not put up much of a fight.

The studio was bright and strangely empty. The tall windows overlooking the street were bare, uncurtained; the light they let in lay in long bright stripes over the glossy lacquered wood floor and white plaster walls.

"Harrow around?" Gideon asked as casually as she could when they were nearly finished eating.

Camilla brushed off her hands and jerked her head to the back of the studio. "Think she's just finishing up."

The floor creaked under her as Gideon approached Harrow's station. It was separated from the rest by a bead curtain of jet-teardrops.

"Hey, heartless harpie of the darkest depths," Gideon said, pushing the clacking beads aside.

Harrow was curled up in the client's chair, scowling furiously at her phone.

"Holy shit, is that Kwazy Kitty Kwest?" Gideon plucked the phone from Harrow's hand. "I fucking love this game!"

"It's ridiculous," Harrow sniffed. "Pastel-colored opiate of the masses."

"You haven't caught Dulcie the Ragdoll yet, have you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. May I have my phone back?"

"One sec," Gideon mumbled, thumbing through the completed levels. "You missed collecting the eight leaves of nip nectar, you know. That's going to bite you in the ass later."

"Gideon," Harrow said. "My phone?"

"I can catch them for you, gimme a sec —"

"Nav."

Gideon looked up to see Harrow glowering at her, holding out her hand. She dropped the phone into th waiting palm and said, "Fine, don't let me help. Sucks to be you."

"What do you want?" Harrow asked, tucking her phone into her pocket.

"Brought you this." Gideon dropped the plastic container, shaped like a bell jar, into Harrow's lap. "Forget it."

"Nav," Harrow said, examining the container. "Are you asking me to prom?"

"Fuck you."

"This is a rose corsage, is it not?" Harrow looked so pleased with herself, so delighted, she was probably vibrating with glee at getting to mock Gideon twice in one day. She removed the lid and took out the rose. "This is a rose corsage."

"It's a fucking Halfeti black rose," Gideon said. She thought she'd managed to imagine all the different ways this could go badly. She had, once again, failed to fully appreciate just how much of an asshole Harrow could be. "You're welcome, sorry for bothering you, good day."

She turned on her heel and hurried out of the studio. She felt hot all over, then clammy. She needed to throw something, or lift several somethings, to distract herself.

She stayed in the walk-in cooler for over an hour that afternoon, rearranging cut flowers and re-stacking supplies, until Magnus made her come back out to handle a sudden rush of customers. It stayed busy enough that she didn't check her phone until she'd clocked out and was heading home — by foot, because it was a nice evening and Magnus still refused to pay for her transit pass.

halfeti roses are only black in their native soil, how melancholy, the text from Harrow read. thank you.

new phone who dis? Gideon thumb-typed back. She wasn't that easy.

She was easy, sure, but still. She had some standards.