#ttbs

To her credit, Corona doesn’t flinch under the weight of the glare Harrow sends her, which she knows is effective. “Why the hell is she coming anywhere near the honors society?” Harrow asks, voice as cool and cold as she can make it.

“I invited her. And Camilla and Dulcinea.”

Harrow feels the tension in her chest ease. Griddle was…Griddle, but Camilla Hect is sensible and quiet, and Dulcinea will entertain Coronabeth. “Fine. I’ll be there two hours before the event to set up. Then I will go home and change.”

Corona’s face relaxes into the kind of disarming smile Harrow knows paves the way for many favors to be granted. “Thank you!” she chirps, sliding away from the table. “Good luck on finals!”

“I don’t need luck,” is all Harrow says, bending her head. Her heart throbs hard in her throat. It takes it a long time to fade away.

The only reason Gideon Nav downloads a dating app is that Dulcinea Septimus – one of her two close friends and probably the only brain cell she has left – asks her to.

“That’s the only way I can send you profiles to approve,” she explains one morning, sprawled out on the bench outside the school library, legs outstretched in the sun, breath only rattling a little in her lungs. It’s a good day. Gideon is glad. “I don’t want to go out with just anyone, and I know you’ll stalk me on the date if you don’t get a say.”

“Damn right.” Gideon flips open her silver switchblade. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. The snick of the metal is soothing. “But I really don’t want to make a profile.”

Dulcinea tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Please? For me?”

Gideon knows from years of experience that the battle of the wills is one she has already lost. “You’re lucky I love you so much, Septimus,” she grumbles, pulling out her phone and thumbing it open. “I swear, if I-“

“And would it be the worst if you met someone?” Dulcinea barrels on, acting like she hasn’t heard Gideon at all. Gideon just goes with it, as per usual. “Really, Gideon, aside from Camilla and me, you don’t get very much social interaction on the regular.”

Gideon snorts, typing her information into Tinder and adding exactly two pictures from her camera roll: a blurry photo Dulcinea took of her during her last fencing meet, and another of her in the only formal suit she owns from the last time she went to an athlete awards gala. “There. Send away.”

Dulcinea smiles prettily, the kind of smile that would’ve disarmed a weaker woman (including, but not limited to, Freshman Year Gideon) and looks down at her phone, the smile fading from her eyes before it slips from the rest of her face.

“What?” asks Gideon. She isn’t super well-versed in plumbing anyone emotional depths, least of all her own, but knows Dulcinea well enough to know that something is bothering her. “You okay?”

Dulcinea starts to nod, then sighs and shakes her head. “No. It’s just… Never mind.”

"What?" Gideon hikes up her foot and bends her knee to rest her foot on the bench. Dulcinea watches her with detached amusement. "Come on."

"First of all, can you ever sit like a normal person?" As Gideon shakes her head, Dulcinea continues, "second of all, it's nothing."

"What's nothing?" Camilla Hect appears behind the two women so silently that Gideon nearly breaks her neck twisting around to stare at her. "Oh chill, it's me."

She rounds the bench and plops down between the two of them, dropping her book-laden backpack on the ground between her feet and leaning back with a cardboard carton of food in her hands. "What's nothing?" she asks again, shifting her weight slightly when Dulcinea leans her head on Camilla's shoulder.

"Dulcinea made a Tinder profile,” Gideon says, poking at Camilla’s box of food until Cam slaps her hand away.

Camilla snorts. "Why?"

Dulcinea says something so soft Gideon can't make it out. "Huh?"

"Because I'm trying to get over someone," she repeats, color high in her cheeks. She lifts her head from Camilla's shoulder and pointedly doesn't look at the other girl.

"Palamedes," Camilla says, as if that conveys both the long and the short of it. It kind of does, Gideon guesses. "He and Dulcinea were- alright, alright!" She moves away from Dulcinea's none-too-gentle whacks on the arm. "Chill!"

Gideon blinks at both of them, leaning forward and letting her foot drop to the ground in favor of resting her feet on the pavement, her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand. "Dulcinea, I don't think another guy - or girl, whatever - is going to help you get over someone you so obviously want to be with."

"That was surprisingly emotionally mature for you," Cam unwraps the fork and knife she'd stashed in her pocket and opens the box to reveal the most disgustingly healthy salad Gideon had ever seen in her life.

"I can be mature. I have depth." Gideon takes a carrot sliver from the salad. Camilla stabs at her hand with the fork. "Hey! Save the stabby-stabby for practice!"

"If you keep being late in the mornings, I'm going to make you do drills," Cam says around a mouthful of greens. "Although you'd probably enjoy them."

Gideon doesn't say anything back, partially because Cam is right, but mostly because Harrowhark Nonagesimus is currently exiting the campus library across the street and Gideon is more interested in watching the scrawny black-clad figure struggle under a pile of books than anything else.

"What's with you two, anyway?" Cam asks. It takes Gideon a second to realize she's addressing her.

"They have some rivalry going back ages," Dulcinea answers for her, probably assuming Gideon's lost whatever small amount of rational thought she possessed prior to spotting her arch-nemesis. Across the street, Harrow plops her bony butt down at the nearest table outside the library and spreads out, books and papers everywhere, her tiny black laptop careening precariously near the table's edge.

"She's so weird," Gideon says. Camilla nods. Dulcinea gives her a reproachful look. "What?"

"Be nice, Gideon."

Gideon snorts. "No thanks. I'm good."

There was a time when Gideon was nice to Harrow. More than nice. Gideon has been really good about not allowing herself to think of that time, because Gideon isn't the type to rehash pain over and over until she's numb to it, which probably would be a horrible strategy and would certainly undercut her previous claim to Camilla about emotional maturity and depth.

Dulcinea and Camilla take their leave, ambling slowly away and talking about the class they share this semester. Gideon stays on the bench and opens her phone, figuring it was past time for her to check her school email the two times a week she actually remembers. Her phone opens to the Tinder screen when her phone unlocks, and in a moment of equal boredom and weakness for the potential of attractive women, she opens the dating view.

She's only swiping for a few seconds before she comes across a profile that nearly makes her drop her phone.

"Holy shit!"

Coronabeth Tridentarius can handle awkward. She’s really quite good at it. You don’t grow up with Ianthe and not learn how to handle awkward and petty moments like a champ.

She tells herself that as she lets herself into Gideon and Dulcinea’s apartment, unceremoniously dropping her purse on the floor near the door and kicking off her shoes. “You’ll never guess who I ran into,” she calls in the vague direction of the kitchen, where Dulcinea is leaning against the counter.

“We know. She was here first.” Dulcinea sounds as peeved as Dulcinea can get, which isn’t saying much. “She wanted to talk to Gideon.”

“What about?”

“I matched with her on Tinder and gave her shit." From down the nearly non-existent hallway, Gideon closes her bedroom door. "She came by to yell at me.” Gideon runs and slides into the kitchen in her sock feet. “Hi, Corona.”

“Hi, Gideon.” Corona opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of beer.

“Can we not talk about Harrow anymore?” Dulcinea rubs her temples. “Her attitude gives me a headache.”

“She gives me a headache,” Gideon grumbles, opening the oven and pulling out an only-slightly-singed pan of garlic bread. Corona grabs a slice before they’ve even cooled, toasting her fingers and tongue as her teeth sink in. "Is Cam coming?"

"You saw her this morning," Dulcinea points out. "I haven't seen her since class yesterday."

Corona likes the feeling of butterflies in her stomach a little more than she should at the mention of what Ianthe would have called her 'insipid little crush.' Camilla was everything Corona longed to be - smart, good at giving advice, unflinchingly loyal and really hot - and Corona was having an increasingly difficult time keeping her respectful distance. She doesn't even know if Camilla remembers their one-night stand last semester; it had been, in two words, ridiculously good, and Corona still can't decide if she wants to ask for a date or a repeat performance.

Or both. Both is good.

"She's been acting weird," Gideon muses, swiping a piece of bread and sitting back up on the counter despite Dulcinea's repeated shoves at her thighs and pleas to get down, I want my coffee mug and your head is in the way. When that doesn't work, Corona reaches around and pinches Gideon's ear. "Ow!"

"Are you causing someone bodily harm, Corona?" Cam's dry voice sounds from the doorway. She kicks the door closed and tosses her keys halfway across the room, lifting a fist in triumph when they skid and come to a halt atop the dining room table. "Oh, never mind, it's just Gideon."

Gideon raises a middle finger to Camilla, then runs her hand through her overgrown red hair. Corona watches the movement, captivated by the shifting color of the strands. There's no way you could ever get that hue from a bottle.

Gideon hops down to grab the pizza Cam brought and Dulcinea retrieves her mug from the cabinet with a look of supreme satisfaction on her face. Corona perches on the stool off to the side of the kitchen and watches the three of them move around each other, a perfect three-part harmony.

"How many pieces do you want?" Camilla asks her, ripping open the bag of salad Corona knows Cam is prepared to eat all by herself.

Gideon doesn't even wait for an answer, placing two slices of pepperoni-laden pizza on a plate and sliding it toward Corona. Corona gleefully bites into the greasy slice, fully aware that her sister would be judging her so hard right now.

"So what are you guys doing this weekend?" Corona asks around her bite.

Gideon thumps her forehead against the counter. Camilla pushes out a dining room chair with her foot, a hint that Dulcinea takes and Gideon does not.

"We have an invitational tomorrow," Camilla answers for Gideon, "and Nav doesn't want to go."

"It's not that I don't want to go," she says, voice muffled. "It's that Judith Deuteros drives me nuts and I'll probably end up going against her again."

"You'll win. You always do." Corona pats Gideon's arm reassuringly. The muscles flex under Corona’s hand as Gideon lifts her head. "It'll be fine."

“I can count on one hand the times you’ve lost,” Dulcinea says from over by the sink, swallowing a handful of pills with an impressive amount of nonchalance. Corona can feel her gag reflex kicking in out of sympathy, but it doesn’t seem like Dulcinea is even a little bit fazed. “You’re good, Gideon. Deuteros has no idea what’s coming for her.”

Gideon preens a little under the praise. Corona shoves at Gideon’s head until the younger girl stands up and goes to get food.

“I suppose you’ll be in team captain mode all weekend?” Corona asks Cam, who nods, mouth full of salad. “Dulcinea, want to sit together?”

Dulcinea nods. “I heard there’s going to be a house party after.”

Gideon’s eyes light up. “Really? Where?”

“One of your teammates' houses, I think.”

Cam says, “How did I not hear about this? I’m captain!”

“Right, that’s why.” Gideon sits at the table, slouching despite Dulcinea’s scolding. “You’re in a position of authority - that makes you a buzzkill.”

Dulcinea starts laughing and Camilla swats at Gideon’s shoulder. From her perch at the kitchen counter, Corona watches the tableau, feeling a little jealous even though she’s the fourth piece of this strange puzzle. The three of them had already known each other by the time Corona inserted herself into the mix, partially due to Dulcinea’s influence and partially because she was tired of being sad and alone every Friday night.

These nights were good for her, she supposes. It's nice to be part of a chosen family, and equally nice to spend time with Camilla, even though her heart insists on doing jumping jacks every time the other girl speaks to her, or even looks at her.

Therein lies her current conflict, she muses, watching Dulcinea and Gideon tell Camilla a story that seems to be aging Cam by at least three years. She doesn’t want to bring up the one-night stand in case that’s all it was to Camilla; she’s unwilling to break her own heart over something that may have meant nothing. But she finds herself pining for the woman, and knows that if she doesn’t act on it, she’ll spend a long time hung up on the mystery of what could have happened.

Camilla rolls her eyes at the story’s end, shifting her gaze from Gideon and catching Corona’s eye. Her gaze holds on, narrow and dark, as unreadable as ever.

As Corona watches, she smiles.