Chapter Text
Billy’s chair at the reception desk squeaks as he makes small half-turns back and forth, absentmindedly twirling a coin between his knuckles. He keeps his eyes fixed on the computer screen, which keeps him from seeing the pointed, annoyed look that Agatha gives him for not sitting still.
“Okay, so there are a few different interpretations, but the general consensus from most dream-readers seems to be ‘fear of a perceived handicap’. This could be related to feeling stunted in your career, or—”
“Oh!” Lilia makes her way out of the back office at that very moment. “Are we holding you back, dear?”
The handle of her cane digs into the ticklish spot between Agatha’s lowermost ribs with frightening accuracy, and she drops the large framed print she’d been in the process of taking off of the wall. Lilia’s free hand shoots out, catching it like it weighs nothing before it can hit the ground and crack. It’s such an impressive and athletic display of reflexes that makes Agatha momentarily, crazily, think she might be able to get away with kicking the cane out from under her without Billy reporting her to Adult Protective Services.
“Maybe you can lend us your insight, Lilia,” Billy suggests before Agatha can complain. The older woman hands the frame back to her and turns her attention to him instead.
“What with?”
“Dream interpretation,” Billy replies.
“Yeah, Lilia,” Agatha jeers, as if injecting enough annoyed disinterest into her tone will be enough for everyone to move onto a new topic. She runs a finger through the thick coating of dust on the lip of the frame in her hands and offers it up. “You can read my fortune in this, right?”
Lilia either doesn’t notice or doesn't care about the skepticism and slaps Agatha’s dirty hand away.
“First of all, it is still widely debated whether or not abacomancy is a closed practice, and secondly, I wouldn’t touch your nightmares with a hundred-foot-range holy water gun, Harkness.”
Agatha glances over to Billy with a theatrical shrug as if that puts an end to the whole thing, then sets aside the frame, but he isn’t deterred. His attention shifts away from the two women to the computer screen once more.
“There’s a lot about loss of limbs here, but not a lot about grasshoppers. Huge bank of knowledge about locusts. Are you sure you weren’t a locust?”
Lilia laughs out loud, and the implication isn’t lost on Agatha, who considers for a second time kicking her cane.
“Let’s just drop it,” she suggests, dusting off her hands and pointing to the nearby frame meant to fill the freshly vacated space with an impatient snap of her fingers. Lilia shockingly complies without any snark, picking up the next print and handing it over helpfully.
“You’re going about this the wrong way,” she says, addressing Billy as if Agatha isn’t even there. “Is it loss of limb or a missing limb?”
Agatha closes her eyes, letting her forehead hit the wall in front of her with a soft thud.
It’s quiet for a moment, and she straightens up to see both of them staring at her expectantly.
“I don’t remember,” she says truthfully. When Billy had offhandedly asked her how she’d slept while watching her steal one of the last cans of Monster from his personal stash and down half of it without coming up for air, her response of ‘I had a dream that I was a grasshopper with no legs’, while truthful, had been meant to unsettle him into leaving her alone , not inspire a research project. “And what happened to keeping your nose out of my subconscious? This whole conversation about bugs is starting to make my skin crawl. Can we leave it alone?”
Her request is granted in the form of Jen shoving her way into the shop, clutching a smoothie in one hand and her oversized tote bag in the other.
“The tourists start swarming in earlier and earlier every year,” she complains loudly, dropping her bag on the waiting area couch and shouldering off her damp raincoat. “They’re like…”
“Locusts?” Lilia supplies. Agatha slaps her arm hard enough to cause her to sway on the spot, but she doesn’t otherwise react as she bobs back upright.
“I was going to say infestation , but the specific imagery seems pretty spot-on,” Jen agrees, sipping from her smoothie and then setting it aside. “Why do they have to come here ?”
“Mind you, she’s from Brockton,” Agatha tells Billy, under her breath. He hides his quiet laugh into a sip of the energy drink he’s recomandeered from her, but apparently, they’re not quiet enough.
“Something to share?” Jen snaps.
“Yeah, I’m calling you a transplant.” Agatha hooks the new frame onto the wall and steps back to check if it’s straight, ignoring Jen’s indignant protests as she stomps past the gate and into the client area to begin setting up for the day.
Deeming the new display satisfactory, Agatha turns to head to her own station just as Lilia pushes the shop door open to peer outside.
“At least with the rain, no one needs to water the flowers,” she comments, tacking on: “Not that it seems like they appreciate it.”
“Might be time to finally put them to rest,” Jen comments.
“You’re drowning them.”
Agatha, who had been in the process of checking the cap on a bottle of ink, dribbles a significant amount of it down the tips of her fingers at the sound of Rio’s voice, and whirls around in time to see her sliding past Lilia into the shop.
“Shit,” Agatha hisses, turning to her station again in search of a towel. Billy, who humiliatingly witnessed the entire thing, crosses the space in a few large strides with a saline bottle and handful of crumpled napkins left over from his breakfast.
She mutters a ‘thanks’ under her breath as Lilia closes the door behind Rio, silencing the sound of rain outside.
“And if you uproot them now, you’ll miss them. They look like they might be Hellebores.” Rio’s continuation is met with four blank stares, so she elaborates. “Christmas roses. They like the cold.”
Billy makes a sound of understanding as he makes his way back to the desk, and as the separating gate swings open, Agatha catches sight of the lower half of Rio’s outfit. Her shirt, mostly concealed by a rain-slick black windbreaker, is unassuming, but there’s a distinct flash of an obscene amount of leg on display, vanishing into a heavy pair of black boots before the gate swings shut again.
It spurs her into involuntary action; Rio picks up one of the flyers for the upcoming convention, and Agatha doesn’t even realize she’s made her way over until her legs bump against the gate, messily pushing it open using the clump of damp and stained napkins still clutched in her hand.
“Agatha!” Rio’s smile starts in her eyes as she greets her, her voice sparkling with surprise as if she’s just noticed her. Agatha rounds the desk, dropping the napkins onto it. Her eyes immediately land on the vine tattoo on Rio’s neck, narrowing as she realizes that it’s unwrapped.
Realizing she’s been caught, Rio turns unnaturally to the side, but Agatha reaches out to try to catch her jaw in time to stop her.
“Whoa, easy.” Rio grabs her wrist surprisingly hard, stopping her in her tracks as she lifts Agatha’s hand to examine her black-tipped fingers. “What happened here?”
“It’s… ink,” Agatha explains distractedly, pulling at her hand. “Where’s your wrap?”
She manages to wiggle her hand loose but uses her newfound freedom to reach accusingly for the other woman again. Rio laughs as she twists away this time, like it’s a game. The little flash of silver catches Agatha’s eye again, and her brain finally makes the connection. Tongue ring.
“It’s- fine- !” She dodges Agatha’s hand until she gives up, looking far too pleased with herself for winning their unspoken back-and-forth spar. “It came loose and I didn’t want to get dirt in it. I promise I’m keeping it nice and clean.”
“Better be.”
Rio clicks her tongue, cocking her head to the side with a dramatized pout.
“You wound me. I promised I’d be good for you, right?”
Lilia, lurking near the gallery wall and pretending to be busy cleaning the new display, lets out a sound somewhere between a squawk and a gasp. Rio’s pout curls into a grin, and she reaches around Agatha, closing in on her personal space enough that the smell of her shampoo, reactivated by the rain, invades her every sense for a second. She pulls back a beat later with a few of the shop’s business cards in her hand, swiped from the holder on the counter.
“How’s the other one?” Agatha asks instead of indulging her. Her gaze slides slowly down her torso to her lower half, and she leans to the side to get a better look at her leg. The saniderm there is still intact—at least the portion of it that she can see from her current angle—but Rio still tucks the leg back out of her view as if she’s suddenly shy.
“It’s okay. You want to take a better look, or do you believe me?” She nods toward Agatha’s station over her shoulder. Agatha follows her gaze like her chair will help her choose an answer. She briefly catches Jen’s curious gaze and is met with Lilia’s when she turns around again before steeling her gaze on Rio once more.
“No,” she decides. “I trust you.”
“Oh, good,” Rio mimics seriousness with a single nod before the smile returns to her face. She steps back and turns to the door before addressing Lilia. “Those planters out front are probably swamped, especially in the rain. I could have my guy take a look at them, probably get some drains in there if you wanted.”
Lilia looks both impressed and confused.
“I… if it isn’t any trouble,” she starts, turning to Agatha for assistance. She isn’t much help, dumbly watching Rio seamlessly acculturate once again.
“Great. I guess I’ll call you.” She holds up one of the business cards in gesture, then heads out with a small wave. The bell above rings shrilly as the door swings shut behind her.
Jen breaks the tense silence first.
“Holy legs , who was that?”
“Is that your new client?” Lilia asks. Agatha sighs.
“I tattooed her once .”
“Twice, technically,” Billy corrects. Agatha turns to fix him with the harshest glare she can muster, but the amusement doesn’t leave his face. Her irritation only seems to spur him on as he nods to her hands. “ Yeesh . That looks like it’ll stain.”
She grumbles a threat about making him walk home that evening as she slinks, defeated, back to her station.
Rio is already at the tattoo shop when Agatha arrives the following morning. The street is bustling, by their standards—likely due to the rare sunny weather. The tourists that Jen had complained about the day prior are everywhere, including the shop, as Agatha can make out through the front windows.
“Don’t you have a job?” She asks, raising an eyebrow when Rio nearly hits her head on the nearest planter in her haste to sit up straight. The oxblood tank top she’s wearing is a little sanguine in regards to the weather pattern as of late, but it clings to her body in a way that Agatha would be remiss to complain about.
“Uh…” Rio squints up at her, then gestures vaguely with the power drill she’s clutching in one hand. “I’m on break.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m my own boss; I can close up shop whenever I want,” she replies. Agatha’s sure she’s not imagining the subtle way her chest puffs out and the sliver of brass in her voice. She feigns being impressed, even batting her eyes a little to complete the image.
“And you’d do that just to come over here and do manual labor for us? Don’t tell me you lied about having a guy.”
Rio’s cheeks turn pink, much to Agatha’s amusement, and she rolls her eyes with good-natured embarrassment.
“If you must know, if I have to smile and sell one more bouquet to some annoying teenagers who want to have a photoshoot on some poor stranger’s gravesite, I might blow my brains out.”
The idea of tourists plaguing the local graveyards makes Agatha stiffen; muscle memory irritation washing over her and causing her to roll her shoulders in an attempt to relieve the thought.
Rio is still staring up at her from her spot on the pavement, probably waiting for confirmation that her casual suicide threat wasn’t taken too seriously. From this angle, Agatha can see the way the smattering of tattoos on one of the woman’s arms masks the obvious weight of her muscles. She drags her eyes over the ink toward her bare arm to compare the view, but Rio moves out of her line of sight to continue drilling in the planter when the silence stretches on a beat too long.
Agatha licks her lips.
“Coward,” she teases.
Rio almost drops the drill in her rush to shoot Agatha an indignant look.
“Oh, come on ,” she complains, though there’s an unmistakable laugh hidden underneath it. “Surely you of all people know how tiring it is.”
She nods to the looming sign above the shop’s door, and Agatha follows her gaze for a moment as if she had forgotten where they were.
“I don’t think you’ve been here long enough to have any strong feelings about tourists,” she notes, a small, wry smile pulling at her lips without her permission. She grabs the door handle and yanks it open, heading inside before Rio can retort.
“Morning!” Alice greets before realizing that it’s only Agatha who’s entered and quickly dropping the mask of customer service representative. “Oh. Hey. Your book’s updated. Do you know what time Billy’s supposed to be in?”
“I’m not his mother,” Agatha replies, ignoring the customers waiting near the window and sliding past the desk. She pushes into the client area and throws her bag down on her station. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust in the low lighting, but once they do, she scowls at the small stapled stack of paperwork waiting for her. “The hell is this?”
“Release forms for the convention.” Alice’s voice is much closer than she’d been expecting, and when Agatha turns around, she sees that she’s abandoned her post at the desk to follow her.
“I already said I wasn’t sure if I was—”
Alice cuts her off, startling her with a loud, long groan.
“You do this every fucking time, Agatha. We all know you’re going to drag your feet and then force Lilia to file your registration last minute when you agree anyway. Can we skip the theatrics this year and just do it the easy way? For once?”
Agatha stares at her, admittedly dumbstruck by her sudden snappiness, and can’t find it in herself to form a retort before Alice tosses a pen onto the pile of forms and walks back to the desk. Making a mental note to figure that out later on, Agatha turns back to her station to settle in and set up for the day ahead.
It’s an uneventful morning. Even with the tourists, Agatha only gets saddled with two quick walk-ins and the last-minute flash appointment that Alice had booked for her before she’d come in. The clients managed to simultaneously be both boring and too talkative. On her second walk-in, she’d almost wiped away her own stencil mid-session in her distraction from trying to tattoo and field questions about whether or not the shop was haunted at the same time.
She stays out of Alice’s way, even when Billy comes in and relieves her of desk duty. The two of them work wordlessly across from one another, neither of them seeming to want to speak first, when Billy asks what Rio is doing outside.
“...She’s Agatha’s client,” Alice finally caves, in the process of wrapping the piece she’s just finished.
“Well, I didn’t hire her for landscaping,” Agatha replies, meeting her eye briefly.
Billy pushes himself up on the desk to peer over it and out the window.
“Is she doing that for free? Did Lilia say? Maybe someone should bring her some water or something,” he suggests.
“Knock yourself out,” Agatha replies.
“Someone else ,” he clarifies.
Alice laughs outright, catching Agatha’s eye again before softening a little, a silent truce crackling through the air between them. If Billy notices the tension lifting, he doesn’t mention it, eyes still fixed on the planters outside and the woman tending to them. He nearly falls in his rush to get back into his seat when the door swings open, and Agatha doesn’t need to see over the gate to know that it’s Rio making her way in, not another customer.
“You guys should be set if it rains again, though it looks like I might’ve been a little too late.” Rio gestures upwards out the window as she steps further inside, drill-wielding hand hanging loosely at her side. “Ooh, you guys having a flash sale?”
She picks up one of the sheets that Alice left out on the desk, tilting her head to the side as she eyes the designs. The familiar, nagging itch of jealousy wriggles up Agatha’s spine, and she shifts in her seat to try to dislodge it. She’s never been one to care that much about clients seeing different artists, but she’s sitting right there, and it’s her shop , or at least the one she works at—
“These are gruesome,” Rio says, eyes flicking up to meet Alice’s as her client steps around the counter and Billy rings her up. “They yours?”
Alice nods, and Agatha sits up a little straighter, curious.
“I know someone who would love this.” Rio points out something on the sheet. “Can I take a picture?”
Making her way to the gate, Agatha reaches over to the desk and pulls the sheet out from under Rio’s finger to see for herself. For a brief moment, it looks like Rio may try to snatch it back, but she thinks better of it for now, sighing and choosing to tap her free hand against the bare counter instead.
The sheet is good—Alice never cuts corners, even on her themed-flash—but it still makes Agatha inwardly roll her eyes a little. A witch on a stake, complete with traditional-looking blackwork flames licking up from below, seems to be the one that’s caught Rio’s eye.
Rio finally takes the sheet back with surprising snappiness, but the gesture is softened by the amused look on her face when Agatha catches her eye again.
“I can do flat rate if your friend wants to come in this week.” Alice’s voice snaps them both out of it. Rio clears her throat softly and holds her phone up in gesture.
“I’ll let her know. She’s only going to be in town for a few days, but—”
“I’ll be around,” Alice says eagerly. Agatha pauses to wonder if the enthusiasm is inspired by the irritatingly fast way that Rio seems to have charmed the entire staff or if it has more to do with the rather generous tip she’d left after her session with Agatha.
“It’ll be nice to give her something to do that doesn’t just involve sitting on my couch every night,” Rio says. Alice has already started to walk away, and Billy is still occupied; her attention has turned back to Agatha, comfortably, as if they’re old friends. Not sure how to react to the almost too-familiar sense of ease radiating off of the other woman, she picks up a small stack of magazines brought in from that morning’s mail to be placed in the waiting area and shuffles them blindly.
“I really didn’t take you for a homebody,” Agatha tells her honestly.
“I’m not,” Rio laughs. “I just still don’t know where anything really is.”
“There’s a pirate museum about twenty minutes away,” Agatha replies. She means it as a sarcastic joke, but her tone accidentally comes across as a little too genuine, and she internally kicks herself for sounding so, in her opinion, uncharacteristically uncool.
Rio hums, looking thoughtful as if she’s really considering it.
“That a Nicky recommendation?”
Agatha catches herself before she can make a quip about the dubloon-shaped nuggets in the cafe that come with their own plastic treasure chest of honey mustard, lest that sound too unironic as well. Rio doesn’t wait for her to answer, turning her attention back to her phone for a beat, then asks a new question just as Billy finishes with his customer and rejoins them.
“You wouldn’t happen to know a bar called The Empress, would you?”
Agatha cuts her eyes to Billy as Rio addresses him, politely inclusive, but not quickly enough.
“Well, I’m twenty,” he answers quickly, before tacking on, “ But Agatha goes there all the time.”
She closes her eyes in frustration, her fingers clenching around the magazines in her hands.
“Oh?” Rio’s curious voice floats over to her like an omen, and she doesn’t need to turn around to know she’s being watched. She stays stiffly turned away, not wanting to give either of them an inch, so Rio continues. “Is it any good, then? Or are you just a glutton for punishment?”
“Apparently both.”
“Well, they have about as much of an internet presence as you do, so you must feel right at home.”
Agatha bristles at that. The words aren’t intentionally mean, but she can feel the connotations.
“I will let them know your complaints,” she says, a little haughtily. “‘Hey, there’s this new business owner down the road from Coven, and she thinks you need to get on Instagram’.”
Rio bristles this time, then nods. Parrying when Agatha lunges—unexpected and interesting.
“Okay. That isn’t what I meant—”
“It’s just a dive,” Agatha tells her, mercifully, to relieve a little of the tension that was making her feel just as on edge as Rio looks. A step further, into friendly territory, she overdoes it without thinking. “I’m going after work. It’s half-off cans. You can check it out if you want to.”
It’s only half of an invitation, giving them both some breathing room and plausible deniability. She expects Rio to at least pretend to hesitate, but she doesn’t seem to have nearly the same mortal hangups about seeming cool that Agatha does.
“Yeah? Yeah, I’d love that. I’ll uh… buy you a drink.”
“Technically, you should be getting the free drink since you’re doing our yard work for us,” Billy pipes up. Agatha swats him upside the head before she can help herself, drawing a high-pitched yelp of shock out of him.
“What time are you off?” Rio asks, visibly fighting off laughter as she pretends not to notice Billy.
Glancing at the screen on the desk, Agatha eyes her schedule for the day and clicks her tongue.
“Should be able to get out of here by six.”
“I’ll come back after I close up, then.”
“Bye!” Alice and Billy call out to her in unison as she turns to go, startling Agatha so badly that she jumps, slamming her knee against the edge of the desk.
Shoving Billy away as retribution—though he just harmlessly rolls away in his chair—she rubs at her leg with a frustrated growl.
“Should I tell my mom you’ll be out later?”
“No,” Agatha snaps, very much not liking that implication—especially not coming from her twenty-year-old coworker. “I’ll still be by at nine.”
“Oh,” he sounds almost disappointed, turning his seat and planting his feet down to face her fully. “I just thought, because…”
She stares him down as he trails off, clearly rethinking sharing. Alice, ever-helpful, fills in the blanks as she makes her way back to the front and leans over the back of Billy’s chair.
“Because you just asked out your client.”
“I did not.”
Alice and Billy’s faces both bloom into matching looks of mischievous amusement. The effect should have been creepy; Agatha has a few references to The Shining that come to mind immediately, but she’s too focused on keeping her own sudden blushing at bay to properly insult either of them.
“Well, I guess Rio is the one paying, so that means… actually, I don’t know what it means. This isn’t my wheelhouse,” Billy says, waving a hand.
“It isn’t…” Agatha stutters, mortified, and then shakes a few loose hairs back from her face that have fallen out of her ponytail. “It is a miracle you ever managed to trick anyone into going out with you, given how badly you’re reading this situation.”
Billy’s grin doesn’t waver, shielded from her petty, desperate insults by the high of having Agatha cornered. He rarely gets her on her back foot like this, and a small part of her feels that Rio’s new presence is probably some long-owed bit of karma coming back to bite her in the ass in exchange for her years of tormenting him.
“Well…” he says slowly, like he’s winding up. She can already sense that it’s going to be a doozy.
She lets out a small sound of warning under her breath, which he ignores.
“If I ever need help in the romance department, I guess I know who to call. That was very smooth. Granted, her whole routine was bound to trap you.” He picks up a slightly higher tone, putting on a terrible but clear impression of Rio. “I’m new in town, and I don’t know where aaaaanything is, Agatha can you pleeeease escort me around, and—”
His impression is cut short when Agatha lunges, but Alice reflexively, protectively yanks his seat back a few feet.
“Okaaay,” she cuts in, her tone soft like she’s speaking to a particularly aggressive wild animal. “Let’s all get back to work. Alright?”
Agatha takes a calming breath, though the terrified look on Billy’s face does also help put her at ease, feeling less off-balance than a moment earlier when he’d been fearlessly ribbing her.
He rolls back to his spot at the desk once she’s made her way back through the gate, safely putting it between them, and Alice nudges her gently as she sidles past to her own spot.
“It was smooth, though,” she says lowly.
“I was not asking her out!”
“You’re early,” Rio greets as Agatha steps into the flower shop. She turns away from the door as it swings shut again, and only then does Agatha notice the presence of anyone else in the space. Rio’s steps slow to a stop as she rounds the counter with a large orange and yellow potted bouquet clutched in both hands. Her gaze lands more seriously on Agatha, expression intense, before the man on the shop-side of the counter clears his throat quietly for her attention.
“What do I owe you?”
“Oh, um…” Rio’s attention snaps forward again, and she smiles stiffly. “$75, even.”
As the man fishes his credit card from his wallet, Agatha turns her attention back to the nearly empty fridge she’s closest to. A couple of bouquets remain—one very clearly for mourning, dark lilies and baby’s breath are nestled between a bunch of white asphodel—but the remaining bunch are much more cheerful: sunflowers, extremely out of season, wrapped neatly in a simple green ribbon and nestled in a plain, white clay vase.
The sight of them makes her smile without her realizing it. The year prior, the community garden had sported a massive patch of sunflowers, and Nicky had been so desperate to pick the seeds once they were ready that Agatha had caved and shelled out for a plot in the shop’s name just so he could.
She tilts her head, trying to see the cards and price tags on the two orders as best she can through the glass, but finds that it’s futile. Behind her, the old-fashioned till rattles loudly with a ‘ding’ as it flies open and is slammed shut again.
“I’ve never seen you with your hair down,” Rio says, just as the man sweeps past Agatha for the door.
She turns and runs one hand through it absentmindedly as she watches the other woman go about locking the various cases around the till area with an overloaded ring of keys.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Gets in the way when I’m working.” Her fingernails snag a little tangle in one lock, and she gently picks it apart with her fingers as she waits for Rio to finish up. She’s always quite liked her hair, which alone would have been enough to outweigh her mother’s constant nagging and rude comments about it, but once Nicky had developed the free will (and dexterity) to braid it when he needed something to do with his hands, she’d stopped bothering with cutting it altogether.
“I wish mine would sit like this after a day of work,” Rio says as she makes her way over, reaching out and touching her hair curiously. She weaves one of the locks around two fingers and strokes the entire length of it, the backs of her knuckles brushing Agatha’s shoulder as she lets it go. There’s a long pause, then her curious look shifts into a smile. “You ready to go?”
If only to watch her squirm, Agatha gives her a slow once-over, as if double-checking that she’s dressed appropriately, then leads them outside. Rio slows down at the sight of the Plymouth parked outside the door, giving it a questioning look, but Agatha waves a hand dismissively.
“We’re walking.”
“That’s fine, I just… did you park in my spot?” She sounds much more amused than put out by the realization.
“I drive by here every day,” Agatha replies, “I know you don’t park here.”
“My car’s still in Wichita,” she explains, the amusement in her tone growing.
“Not New York?”
Agatha’s a few steps ahead already when she realizes Rio is no longer walking beside her. She does a double-take, then glances back to see that she’s stopped a few feet back, hands crammed stiffly in her jacket pockets.
“Did I tell you…?” She trails off and Agatha realizes her mistake, but before she can scramble together a lie to cover herself, Rio mentally talks herself out of her own recollection and hurries her steps to catch up. “Forget it.”
Two passersby, young, heavily-tattooed men, call out a quick greeting to Agatha as they pass, and Rio turns to watch them as they vanish down the road.
“Are you going to be warm enough in that?” She changes the subject, nodding to the cropped, probably-not-authentic-leather jacket the other woman is buried in. She can tell by her stiff posture and gait that the answer is definitely ‘no’.
“I’m always cold; it hardly makes a difference,” she replies. A breeze catches them, and she shivers slightly. “That said… is it a particularly long walk?”
Agatha nudges her, gently knocking her hip into hers and then steadying her by the elbow.
“I can hear your teeth chattering from here.”
Rio nudges her back more roughly for her comment, but doesn’t deny it.
“A real gentleman would give me their jacket,” she says a beat later. Agatha glances at her from the corner of her eye and sees her smirking but keeping her gaze straight ahead.
She whips her head around to look all over the street they’re alone on, then shrugs.
“Guess you’re out of luck. I don’t see any.”
Rio tips her head back and laughs freely, the sound melting into the surrounding noise as the pair of them round the corner onto a much livelier side street.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” she replies playfully. “Does that mean you’re going to let me buy the drinks after all?”
Agatha doesn’t have a real chance to answer her as they finally draw closer to the bar. Another of the regulars outside stops patting down her pockets as they approach, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips.
“Agatha, hey—you have a light?”
“I quit,” She replies, reaching for the heavy brass door handle. Rio, ever helpful, quickly pulls out her own and flicks it open, offering it to the woman leaning against the planter.
“Since when?” The other woman asks, muffled around the cigarette as she cups her hands around Rio’s. She barely gets her cigarette lit for her before Agatha ushers her inside, ignoring the question, eager to get out of the cold wind beginning to pick up around them.
She doesn’t give Rio much chance to get her bearings in the cozy space, nor the chance to adjust her eyes in the darkness.
“One second, Agatha,” The bartender’s voice cuts under the music, and both women turn to see her raising a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture as she heads toward the men at the other end of the bar.
“Wow,” Rio comments, her voice lilting playfully upward in a way that makes Agatha hesitate to steel herself before turning to her again. She’s wearing the exact shining expression of curious smugness she’d been expecting, but it still disarms her as she continues teasing. “I must look so uncool in comparison to the local legend I rolled in with.”
“You look very out of place, actually,” Agatha tells her. “Which is a difficult feat, since you’re covered in tattoos and wearing work boots.”
She really couldn’t fit in any better if she’d made a serious effort to, though Agatha hasn’t ruled that out as a possibility yet. Agatha watches as another woman on her way to the door gives Rio a lingering look, surprisingly filthy for how quickly it happens, though Rio seems a little too in her own head to notice the attention.
“I’m not out of place,” Rio scoffs. She’s literally bouncing on the balls of her feet, the ring of keys on her carabiner jingling softly under the divorced-dad-alt-rock playing through the bar’s speakers. “I’m just—”
“You look terrified. You are gay, right?”
Rio shoots her a look.
“I lived in New York for five years.”
“I don't think that's how it works—”
Rio cuts her off, voice raising a little.
“They’re… very particular about their dive bars and who belongs in them.”
Agatha softens but rolls her eyes nonetheless.
“You live here. I know I was giving you a hard time earlier, but no one is actually going to—”
“Hey, Agatha.”
She turns once more toward the sound of her name, giving the other patron—a past client—a small, distracted wave before returning her attention back to Rio. She smirks, her head cocking to the side.
“You were saying? No one here is actually going to ask to see the deed to my land before serving me? Especially not while I’m here as the guest of a neighborhood celebrity?”
Agatha blushes, exhaling heavily before narrowing her eyes.
“You were saying? You’re not out of place , you’re…?”
“...Unfamiliar with the local beer,” Rio finishes, smirking now. “What’s good?”
She turns her head, her eyes travelling up to the chalk menu board above the shelves. Agatha’s gaze flicks over the scabbing lines of her vine tattoo, then trails down the unblemished side of her neck.
“ Captain Oblivious .”
Rio whips her head to face Agatha again, and she has to bite back another laugh at her offended look, pointing at the far end of the menu. Rio takes a moment before she looks at it again, like she’s worried the next beer Agatha is going to recommend will be called Sargeant Gullible .
“Jesus, 8%? Is everyone here an alcoholic?”
Agatha stares Rio down as the bartender sidles closer, not breaking her gaze as she orders.
“ Mugwort Haze , and my friend’s going to have water, apparently.”
Chuckling, but not arguing, Rio leans against the back of the stool in front of herself.
“Y’know, some people think mugwort aids in dreamwalking. Astral travel, y’know,” she offers up conversationally. Agatha bristles, feeling like a cat that’s been verbally brushed the wrong way as an unexpected shiver rips through her. It makes her think of her recent conversation with Billy and Lilia and the dream it had been about.
“You’re just full of fun facts, aren’t you?” She asks hypothetically.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, please, you should hear the way your name pops up around the house. You know, everything you tell my son goes into a diamond vault, so be careful with that. Every day it’s ‘Rio said this’ , and ‘Rio said that’ , or, my new personal favorite: ‘Um, that’s not what Rio told me.’ ”
The bartender cracks open a tall can with an artsy label and slides it across the bar, pausing when she catches her gaze.
“What?” She asks disbelievingly. “Were you waiting for a glass?”
Agatha jerks her head towards Rio, who she can see from the corner of her eye is still grinning mischievously in reaction to the revelation about Nicky.
“Poltergeist for her,” she orders, turning to the other woman and narrowing her eyes before asking condescendingly, “Do you need a glass?”
Rio, who had gone back to eyeing the board, dark eyes flickering thoughtfully over each description, doesn’t even look at Agatha again when she replies, “Well, obviously, if it’s a port. What am I, an animal?”
Agatha laughs before she can help it, muffling it into her own drink and pretending not to notice the way Rio lights up at the sound of it.
“You can tell me if you hate it,” she tells Rio. “But I will question your taste forever.”
“Or maybe just your ability to read it,” she suggests, teasingly harsh.
The bartender returns with another can and a glass, setting both down before her while giving her a less-than-subtle once-over. Her eyes flick questioningly over to Agatha, but she doesn’t verbalize her curiosity, making herself scarce once more. She can’t really blame her for the confusion. It has been a long time since Agatha’s had a non-coworker guest with her for a drink, and she knows how it must look. For a brief, terrifying moment, she wonders if Billy and Alice had been right and she had unwittingly asked Rio out.
“Do you play?” Rio asks, jutting her chin over Agatha’s shoulder. She doesn’t have to turn to follow her gesture to know she’s looking at the singular, crooked old pool table near the bathrooms.
“Not that,” she replies, having another sip. “Darts, sometimes.”
“Really?” Rio grins. “I didn’t know anyone other than like… seventy-five-year-old men still did that. Are you good?”
“Are you going to drink that, or are you just waiting for it to get warm?” She asks instead of answering. Rio looks down at the beer and still-empty glass in her hands, as if remembering the reason for their outing for the first time. She pulls the tab open with her teeth, hands full, and then flicks her hair back from her face to focus as she pours.
“I’m assuming you’re either really bad and don’t want to tell me, or you’re really good, and now you’re worried I’ll see you as a seventy-five-year-old man if you admit it,” she says.
“I’m fine ,” she says, after a beat. There was no right answer, really.
“You wanna play?”
Agatha’s eyebrows shoot up, and a spark of competitive excitement shoots through her that she quickly crushes down.
“You just said it was for old men.”
“And you, apparently. Old men, and you .” She grins, turning to flag the bartender down again just as Agatha catches herself smiling against her will.
“I should wipe the floor with you for that,” she threatens.
“Oh, I don’t doubt you could,” Rio agrees as the bartender slides a worn case of darts across the bartop. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Agatha snorts, shaking her head.
“And you what, expect me to teach you?”
“Can’t be that hard. The pointy end goes into the board with the circles on it, right?” She bats her eyelashes; Agatha snatches up the darts in her free hand so she can turn away and hide her laugh.
A couple of other patrons milling near the dartboard step aside to the nearby tall tables to give them space as they approach. Taking over one of the tables as well, Agatha claims it with the darts and her beer, shrugging her jacket off of her shoulders to hang over one of the chairs as Rio follows suit. Agatha finds herself admiring her arms again, but doesn't have time to avert her gaze before Rio catches her this time.
"See something you like?"
Agatha pauses momentarily, then realizes the other woman is probably referring to her tattoos.
"This one," she replies, reaching out for what looks like a small gravestone. Rio lifts and turns her arm at the same moment, and Agatha's fingertips brush over the impossibly soft skin along the inside crook of her elbow. She thought she'd imagined the change in the air as she did, but then Rio jumps back with a laugh, and she realizes she actually shocked her.
"Um..." Like she forgets how to speak for a moment, Rio trails off as she looks at her, then shakes her head and turns her attention down to her arm again. Her fingers pull the skin more taut, lifting it to the low lighting a bit.
Agatha can make out the blocky text on the faded stone: Sleep tight. Her eyes drift back to Rio's face expectantly, but she just stares back, no answers on her features giving her away.
"Well? What's the story?"
Rio purses her lips, eyes flicking over to the dartboard and then the box of darts.
"I'll tell you if you can hit that."
"Anywhere?"
"No. Middle three," Rio amends.
Agatha barely even glances at the board as she picks up her dart, whipping it through the air so fast that she swears she hears it whistle. It hits the second ring with a small, satisfying 'thunk', and the poorly hung board wobbles against the wall before settling into stillness. She turns back to Rio expectantly.
She whistles, clapping slowly, and Agatha pretends not to preen at the half-sarcastic flattery.
“Well?”
“Oh,” Rio glances at her arm again, then picks up a dart of her own. “I was a very edgy and sarcastic youth.”
Agatha snorts, breath catching when Rio catches her arm gently and turns it to eye the tattoo along the inside of her forearm on her unsleeved side.
“Your turn,” she says lightly. Her thumb brushes feather-soft over the black and grey neotraditional rabbit’s foot on a chain that’s been tattooed there for ten years. A shiver runs through her before she softly pulls herself free and nods to the board again. Rio follows her gaze, fiddling with her dart and nodding. “Same ring?”
“Mm, any of the middle three. Your choice.”
Rio lines herself up, then tosses the dart with considerably less grace and purpose. It does, to her credit, just manage to stay stuck into the board where it lands, just inside the bottom of the third from the center. She lets out a sound so delighted that anyone who hadn’t been watching might have assumed she’d managed a bullseye.
“Okay, tell me,” she demands, turning to Agatha with a look of childlike excitement exaggerating her features.
“They’re good luck,” Agatha sniffs, dropping her gaze to her tattoo again. “Haven’t you heard of that?”
Rio's grin shifts notably from amused to almost predatory.
"Oh my god."
"What?" Agatha hears the defensive nervousness shake her voice, but it's too late to stop it.
"You're a really bad liar. Oh, finally, something . A crack in the armor."
“I’ve never been accused of being a bad liar before,” she sniffs.
“What kind of liar would you say you are, then?” Rio asks, leaning against the table top with crossed arms. Agatha narrows her eyes, then picks up another dart and turns back to the board. She overthinks it, by her standards; hesitates for just a moment and feels it slip slightly in her hand as it leaves it, mirroring her own unsureness. Still, it lands directly below her first shot, and she whips around and jabs a finger at the clock that runs up most of the length of Rio’s bicep.
She glances down at it and cranes her neck to get a better look.
“To be honest, a lot of these are going to default to the edgy kid thing,” she admits. “I took a lot of philosophy classes in my twenties. I kind of thought I was the only person on the planet to really think about death for a while. Just like every one of my classmates.”
“The arrogance of youth,” Agatha supplies, not unkindly.
“Right,” Rio chuckles.
“I thought you said you’d wanted to be a doctor.”
Rio looks surprised at that, but pleasantly so.
“Good memory. I didn’t say what kind, though.”
Agatha hums into her drink, and Rio mirrors her with a sip of her own.
“You’re like… my mother’s worst fears about what the liberal arts do to a person, exactly manifested.”
“Oh yeah?” Rio starts giggling again, only managing to quell it with a much more generous few sips from her glass. The tiniest hint of foam sticks to her lip as she puts it down again, but she licks it away in the same moment that Agatha imagines herself reaching out to wipe it away.
“Yeah, just add sleeping with a professor and joining a peace collective to the list and you’ve got a bingo.”
Rio sighs wistfully at that.
"I really wanted to fuck my Introduction to Meaninglessness professor, actually."
"And? Did you?"
"Agatha!" She feigns being scandalized, then drops the act and shakes her head as she fiddles with the tab on her empty beer can. "No. And she was in her 60s when I was in my 20s, so I think the window for that has closed forever, even if I did go back and look her up."
"So why the switch to... what was it? Botany?"
"Do you really want to know?" Her tone is suddenly meeker.
"Sure."
"I didn't like how intangible the philosophy side of it all was."
"Of all what?" Agatha asks carefully, feeling the sudden weight in the other woman’s words.
"The cycle of life."
They hold each other’s gaze for another moment too long. Agatha’s beginning to lose count of how many times she’s found herself completely caught up in just looking at the other woman, but it helps that Rio meets her halfway, seeming to take no issue with the staring and returning it with her own bold, unworried intensity.
“Philosophy, botany, manual labor… You’re very worldly .” She sets her teeth on the edge of her can, eyes flicking from the other woman’s down to her lips.
Rio catches the obvious flirting in her tone and leans in.
“Well, that’s very polite. Now call it what your mother would.”
“Oh, I don’t even think a dive bar would be an appropriate place for that kind of language.”
Rio nods.
“Something, something, you can lead a hor-ti-culture -”
Agatha chokes on the last of her mouthful of beer, turning away to cover her mouth with the back of her hand so she doesn’t spit through her laughter.
“I didn’t even get to say the actual joke—” Rio tries to protest.
“Fuck,” Agatha wheezes, eyes watering as her body wars with itself on whether to start coughing or giggling.
Rio leans around the table as Agatha rights herself, reaching out and gently wiping a rogue tear of mirth from the corner of her eye. She’s grinning breathlessly herself, chuckling softly when Agatha hiccups out her last laugh and catches her breath. They’re the closest they’ve been without the guise of a tattoo session between them, but the energy stays relaxed, fuzzy around the edges like it’s been shaken loose by laughter.
“I’m going to get us another drink,” Rio announces, grabbing Agatha’s can as well as her own, and her empty glass. She clutches them all to one arm so she can reach out with her free hand to tap at the rabbit’s foot on Agatha’s arm. “Maybe you can come up with a more interesting lie about this one while I’m gone.”
Agatha goes to protest, but by the time she looks up again, the other woman has dipped between the other patrons towards the bar, out of sight.
