Chapter Text
The bell above the door had to come down. It was way too loud, too jarring in the usually zen atmosphere of the shop, and every time she had to hear it, it filled Agatha with a sense of immediate distaste for the person responsible for the sound. Which was not conducive to the start of any great artist-client relationship.
Clutching her pen harder in frustration, she glares at the drawing she’s been distracted with for the better part of the hour, and lets the stranger who's entered get acquainted with the space on her own for a moment.
“D’you do realism?”
Agatha looks up, narrowing her eyes at the woman before her in curiosity.
“Come again?”
She stares back, unwavering. “I went looking for your portfolio online, but didn’t really come up with anything concrete. I liked what I did see, though.”
Agatha had always been too old school for a curated social-feed folio. A binder on the table in the waiting room with her flash, new and old, and a few scattered Polaroid photos of her work. Walk-ins welcome, but often easily scared away.
Her clients hadn’t changed much over the years - some of them were actually beginning to run out of canvas space but by that time they’d usually referred one or two friends. In a few rare cases, their own children would spend some time sitting in on sessions, proving themselves capable of behaving until they turned eighteen and wandered in for their first piece of their own.
“Not really online much,” Agatha tells her. She nods to the stack of worn albums on the table near the window, pointing at it with the butt-end of her pen. “I do realism. No portraits, though.”
The woman nods, once.
“Thanks.”
She meanders over to the table and tosses herself heavily into one of the beaten-up leather chairs, looking more like she’s floating on top of it than sinking into it like most women who come into the shop do. She pulls one of the binders over, examining the cover, and then pushes it and a few others aside until she comes across Agatha’s. Leaning back like she’s holding an old magazine in a dentist office waiting room, she flicks through the pages with lazy curiosity.
Agatha realizes after a moment that she’s still watching her instead of focusing on the sketch in front of her, and forces her attention back down to it. It’s difficult to suss out if she has any tattoos already, in her semi-professional attire. The last thing she wants is someone squirming around in her chair and complaining while she’s working on something as involved as realism, but she seems to give off the confident air of someone familiar with their own pain tolerance.
An uncomfortably long silence stretches between them when the shop playlist stops completely to reshuffle itself on the speakers, and the soft scritching sound of Agatha’s classic BIC ballpoint on her paper isn’t nearly as good quality of white noise as her tattoo machine usually is in these moments.
The soft leather of the chair on the other side of the reception desk squeaks softly under the other woman’s movement, and Agatha’s eyes flick up to see her standing in the same moment that the shop door swings open and the bell above it rings irritatingly loudly again.
Billy pushes inside, making his way past the other woman to set down the tray of coffees he’s clutching in both hands before pushing his wet hood back from his head and shaking his hair into place. Agatha leans away from him with a wince, even though none of the rain he’d tracked in got on her, and then turns her attention back to the woman.
She stands patiently, open album in hand, waiting to see if she or Billy is going to speak first, and then clears her throat.
“This is almost exactly what I’m looking for,” she says, setting the binder down on the free space of the counter and pressing one black-manicured nail to a Polaroid in the corner.
“Poppies?” Agatha clarifies, getting only halfway out of her seat to get a better look.
“Actually, they’re windflowers,” the woman says; there’s no condescension in her tone, which surprises Agatha a little. Instead, it’s just relaxed knowledgeability. “I’d like asters, though.”
Agatha stares at her blankly for a moment, and she drops her gaze with a small chuckle to pull her phone from her pocket. She swipes at the screen for a beat and then holds it out, showing her the flowers on the screen. She flicks through two different bouquets, then lets Agatha take the phone out of her hand altogether.
Their fingers brush briefly, and Agatha notes that she’s ice cold despite having been sitting in the warmth of the shop for the past several minutes. Smoker, maybe. A favorite client archetype of hers - good at asking for breaks, less sensitive around the important veins.
“That’s a lot of line-work, you’d probably want to go with something a little bigger. Where were you thinking?”
“Um…” She glances back at herself and then gestures stiffly to the area on the back of her thigh, hand slipping around the side toward her hip. “I have a few others on that leg, I wanted to fill the space.”
She points to the little gate attached to the counter that Billy is blocking.
“May I?”
He steps aside and she makes her way through it and around the counter into the clients area. With one quick glance over at the door and then around the shop, empty save for the three of them, she tucks her fingers into the waistband of her leggings and pulls them down past her mid-thigh. She dips to the side to pull one side down a bit further to her knee, and turns to show the area a little better.
Agatha’s guess about it not being her first piece had been more correct than she realized. What she can see of the leg being presented to her is nearly fully covered, all plant life. The pieces have the cohesion of a theme and style, but they’re all slightly off from one another and not connected into a larger sleeve. Different artists, Agatha realizes.
“What do you think, six inches?” She asks, gesturing for Billy to take a glance at the empty space as well. He peeks over and nods with a shrug, then goes back to wiggling his coffee out of the tray without spilling the others.
The woman glances back over her shoulder curiously, stepping away when Agatha leans back into her seat and snapping her leggings back into place.
“If you’re trying to get started today, I could probably…” Agatha glances at the clock, “Start, at least set down placement. But I doubt we’d get it finished.”
The other woman shakes her head as she makes her way back around the counter and leans against it. She taps her fingers on the marred wooden surface and purses her lips in thought.
“I have to get back to work to close up. What are your books like for next week?”
Billy nearly knocks Agatha over in his haste to get to the computer. Scoffing in irritation, Agatha rolls her seat (his seat, technically, but she’s sitting in it) out of the way and lets him wake up the computer with a shake of the mouse.
Standing up altogether, she picks up the binder and snaps it closed, setting it aside and then picking up an appointment card to fill out as she and Billy decide on a date and time. He takes her ID and steps aside to make a copy, leaving the pair of them alone.
“I’m Rio.” She holds a hand out and Agatha takes it quickly. Her sleeve rides up enough for her to see the licks of more tattoos, and she feels herself relaxing despite her cold touch.
“Agatha.”
“I know,” Rio whispers conspiratorially, leaning in slightly. The playful smirk doesn’t slip from her face when Billy returns and hands back her ID, and Agatha nearly forgets to hand her the appointment card. She takes it with confusion but doesn’t question it aloud. Most people write it down in their phones, these days; Agatha prefers all of the information in the same place. Less time for Billy to spend fielding phone calls about forgetting the address or the date or god forbid, their artist’s name.
“See you Sunday!” Billy calls cheerfully as she heads for the door. Agatha winces again at his tone, impatiently gesturing at the remaining coffees in the tray until he hands her one.
He leans against the counter instead of asking for his seat back, which amuses Agatha much more than she’s willing to admit as she goes back to her sketch. Despite her inclination for subtly bullying him, the portrait in front of her portrays a much truer, more loving look at him. Her lines focus on the soft youthfulness in his face - the softness that he actively tries to snuff out with the extremely limited body modification available to him. The eyebrow slit; the piercings; the makeup. He’s still visibly too young to drink, which is why the others in the shop switched their go-to spot for after work drinks to the sports bar a few blocks away so he can join them when he so chooses.
He peers at the picture and even without looking up at him, Agatha can tell he’s trying to hold back a grin. It’s almost stupid how happy she’s made him by finally doing this. She’d drawn everyone else at least once, sticking them up below the ledge of the reception desk, hidden from the clients but visible to the artists every time they come to collect their tips or check their schedules. Billy’s portrait had been the only one missing for the entire two years he’d been with them, and she hadn’t meant to leave him out on purpose, it was just that she hadn’t set out to draw them all as some kind of intentional installation at the shop in the first place.
It had started with Lilia; inspiration had struck when Agatha had been doodling to keep her hands busy and spotted the other woman hunched over the coffee table, scrubbing at the glass surface with a rag so stained and starchy that was probably doing more damage than it was cleaning.
When Agatha had pointed as much out to her, she’d snapped that it was better than sitting around on her ass. Her look of concentration never broke, and something about the lines in the other woman’s face deepening in thought had struck something inside her that she hadn’t been expecting. Looking back, it was probably because she’d been planning Nicky’s birthday that week, and the weighted thoughts of aging had been picking at the back of her mind for days. She’d gotten caught up in the way that time sat on the older woman’s features; a map of the life she’d led up until that point. That had been something Agatha had always liked about tattoos, but this struck a more melancholy chord in her that had her reaching across the desk for a pen and making quick work of translating it onto paper.
Alice had been next, almost six months later. Sitting cross-legged on her own tattooing bed, headphones on but playing their music so loudly that Agatha could hear it from her own station as she set up for a late-afternoon client. She’d looked up with the intention to tell her to knock it off, irritated and feeling unfocused, until she’d realized what she was doing. Her hands were shaking slightly as she blasted her own knuckles with her non-dominant hand, movements slow and intense from what must have been a combination of the pain and the difficulty of tattooing backwards. She hadn’t even looked up when Agatha took the Polaroid, flash on and all, to reference later when she’d finished with her incoming client.
Jen was last, only a week before Billy had been hired. It had been a little out of spite.
She hadn’t mentioned the portraits tacked to the desk, but she did stare at them each time she passed, Agatha always there to catch her staring, shooting pointed, but curious looks. She and Agatha already got under each other’s skin and she claimed that it was entirely Agatha’s doing - the last thing she needed was to prove her right with tangible evidence. So, like a combination peace offering/act of defiance, she’d sat down across the waiting room for her while she organized the binders and books, and got to work.
It had turned out as one of her best pieces, which had been unexpected. Jen was, admittedly, fucking radiant, and it was perfectly clear that Agatha thought so in the way that the final sketch looked. She’d tacked it up without showing it to the other woman, as she had with the others, and then made it a point to spend as much of her free time at the desk until Jen was forced to notice it while she was present.
Billy had been sweet enough - or scared enough - not to ask for his own.
Picking up the paper, Agatha turns in her seat and holds it up, eyes flicking back and forth between the drawing and the very real boy in front of her, then sets it back down to add a few more penstrokes to one of his eyebrows. He’d been especially portrait-worthy that day. The gloomy weather always put him in such a good mood that it sort of canceled out the overall vibe that he seemed to like so much in the first place.
Satisfied with the sketch, she tosses the pen aside and reaches into the jar of miscellaneous office supplies, pulling out a thumb tack and slapping the paper messily onto the wall next to Jen’s.
“Ta-da,” she deadpans, completing the sentiment with incredibly unenthusiastic jazz hands.
Billy beams at her when she turns to him again and she drops his gaze before she ends up smiling back. The very stern, if not unpredictable borderline-maternal attitude works well for keeping him out of trouble and useful. She can’t throw him too many bones and let him get comfortable.
“If you wanted to take off a few minutes early, I think I’ll be alright,” he tells her, eyes flitting over to the clock that appears on the computer screen when it settles back into sleep-mode. “Traffic might be a little weird with the rain, and then you won’t be late picking up Nicky.”
Agatha’s gaze follows his to the clock and she sighs. The reminder of how long she’d been sitting that day seems to spur on the ache in her shoulders she had been too distracted to notice before. Nodding, she pushes herself up from her seat and takes a sip from her coffee, leaving it in place as she heads back over to her station to get her coat and bag.
“What time are you in, tomorrow?” She asks Billy as she passes him once more and picks up the remainder of her coffee from the desk. He looks up from the business cards he’s organizing, reaching for his own coffee.
“Opening,” he replies, taking another sip.
Agatha reaches out and takes the cup from him.
“Should probably cool it on the caffeine, then,” she tells him. It’s a little controlling, but she can tell from the look on his face that he takes the advice seriously - and sees through her bullshit to the genuine concern for his health beneath it.
“Night, Agatha.”
“Night,” she sighs more than she says, pulling her own hood up over her head before stepping out into the rain.
