Sunset ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

Agatha parks outside the Children’s Museum and realizes she forgot her umbrella. 

The rain has started to come down a little harder, and she definitely didn’t dress Nicky for the unexpected weather when they’d been getting ready to leave the house that morning. They’d been running a little late, and it was endlessly annoying how the judgmental looks she got from the other parents and even teachers seemed considerably harsher when they landed on her than on the less ink-covered mothers who were equally as guilty of having an occasional off day.

She wipes as much of the rain from her own thick leather jacket as possible as she makes her way into the foyer of the near-empty building, shaking it out and folding it over her arm to lend to him for the run back to the car. 

Agatha hears him before she sees him, rambling away about something he’d seen on TV the night before, and she inwardly winces. Part of the reason for their late start that morning had been that she’d let him stay up considerably later than usual, stretched out on the floor in front of the screen watching a deep-sea predators documentary while she was totally engrossed in finishing up a piece she’d been working on. 

One of the museum volunteers rounds the corner with him just as Nicky’s voice grows exponentially in both speed and volume before stopping completely as he lights up at the sight of her. Rushing over, he slams himself into her legs, and she makes a mental note to book a massage on her next full day off. She grunts more dramatically than the action calls for, running a hand through his hair and then tugging at it gently to jostle his head back and forth until he laughs.

“Am I late?” She asks the volunteer, subtly giving her a sweeping look for a name tag to help her out.

“No, it was just him and one other today; you’re right on time.”

Agatha gives the woman a sympathetic look before she can help herself. Nicky on his own is ‘borderline hyperverbal’ - or at least that’s what his GP had called it while handing Agatha a business card to a specialist she had yet to bother phoning. Without a larger group of children at the Living History Club around as a distraction, he could talk to one person until they either asked him to stop or he literally rendered himself breathless. 

“Alright, put this on.” She crouches down, knees popping, and pulls his arms through her jacket sleeves, then lifts the bulk of it up for him to hold over his head. He drowns in the weight of the worn leather, but grins up at her enthusiastically as she leads him to the door. It’s a struggle that she wasn’t expecting to get him into the car and into a seatbelt with the jacket on, and by the time she’s back in the driver’s seat and rubbing her hands together for warmth, she feels like a miserable, wet cat. Individual strands of her hair pull and prickle against her scalp as she tries to pull it back from her face with wet hands and then start the engine.

“Did you have fun?” She asks, keeping the edge out of her voice when addressing him. She glances up into the mirror to see him in the reflection, but his focus is outside of the rainy window, watching the familiar houses pass by.

“Uh-huh,” he replies. “We went to see the Willows before it started raining. Did you know they can grow up to fifty feet? That’s nine and a half of you.”

“Wow,” Agatha replies, drawing the word out in hopes that it’ll make her sound more impressed than her bored tone does. 

“They let us go in the arcade since it was just two of us today,” he tacks on. 

That part doesn’t sound particularly educational, but Agatha was well aware when she signed him up for the club that it was just a glorified after-school program. That, and she can’t really blame the volunteers for just wanting to hand a kid a stack of quarters and setting them loose in a dopamine factory to tire them out for a little while at the end of the day. She’d like to do that with a few of her colleagues most days.

“Did you win anything?”

He shakes his head, gaze still out the window.

“I brought the tickets back.”

Agatha snorts. He’s been saving his arcade tickets for months now. She’s almost a little impressed at his ingenuity for having an excuse to make her keep taking him back there periodically.

“Well, we can add them to the pile, then,” she sighs, fighting to keep the amused smile off her face as she pulls into their driveway and kills the engine.

She’s given up on trying to stay dry by the time she’s wrangling him out of the back seat and leading him up the walkway to the door, taking back her jacket once they’re inside and hanging it off of the banister railing instead of in the closet in hopes of giving it a better shot of being wearably dry the following morning. Nicky takes off with his backpack, launching up the stairs two at a time and vanishing down the hall to his room as Agatha fiddles with the thermostat and locks the door for the evening.

Preheating the oven before heading up to change into something warm, and dry, and lacking an underwire, she sinks down onto the edge of her own bed and exhales a sigh that takes every last bit of air out of her body and strength out of her muscles. 

Across the hall, she hears Nicky shuffling around in his closet, likely adding his fresh arcade tickets to his stash. Forcing herself to her feet, she picks up her tablet from the side table and heads to his open door. She knocks on the frame, waiting for him to poke his head out of the closet at her.

“Hey. Spring rolls and rice sound okay?”

He lights up, clambering to his feet to follow her back downstairs, only making it halfway down the flight before he launches into a detailed explanation of how he nearly beat the arcade record for Whack-A-Mole. Agatha happens to know that the winning initials ‘AWG’ on the top of that leaderboard belong to local legend, her colleague, Alice. And Nicky would need a miracle to ever beat her score.

She expects him to veer right to the living room - and television - as they finally reach the first floor, but he follows her to the kitchen to continue talking.

“When I don’t have to use the step-stool anymore, I’m going to stay there all day until I beat it,” Nicky informs her, climbing precariously up onto one of the barstools at the island as Agatha rounds the counter and pulls open the freezer.

“Oh yeah?” She asks. “And who do you think is going to drive you and supervise you all day?”

“You,” Nicky replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Ah.” She pulls out a box of frozen spring rolls and kicks the freezer closed, turning back to face him with a nod. “Right, of course.”

“Did you do any… new ink today?”

The question makes her laugh out loud before she can stop herself - something she tries not to do when he’s not intentionally making a joke. He’s sensitive, and the way he sometimes freezes up in reaction breaks her heart each time.

“ New ink?” She repeats, shooting him a grin so he knows he’s not being made fun of. “Who taught you that?”

He fiddles with her tablet half-interestedly but doesn’t turn it on, eyes flicking up to her face with a shy smile and a shrug.

“I did a new tattoo today, yes,” she says, pulling out a baking sheet from below the counter and going about spreading a few of the spring rolls onto its surface. “And finished another one.”

He finally goes quiet, and Agatha busies herself with pulling out a leftover carton of rice, portioning a little bit onto a plate and setting it into the microwave. She follows it up by sliding the sheet of spring rolls into the oven and turns to catch his contemplative look.

“What’s on your mind, buddy?”

Nicky picks at one of the stickers on the case for her tablet and purses his lips. Agatha braces herself - he’s only careful about choosing his words when its very, very serious.

“Maybe… we could revisit the pet conversation.”

She freezes, eyebrows shooting upward at both his choice of vocabulary and the suggestion.

“Who have you been talking to lately?” She asks, tackling the first conundrum first. He gives her that shrug again, picking at the sticker with a little more aggression as he focuses as hard as he can on not meeting her eye. Fine.

Turning to the fridge, she pulls a few loose sauce packets off the top shelf and makes a mental note to reorganize it whenever she has a spare hour. Tearing them open with her teeth, she squeezes them into a ramekin and looks back at Nicky still intentionally ignoring her. It lasts at least three minutes, a new record of quiet for him.

“You know what I think?” She asks, waiting for his attention. “I think next week, if it’s a really good week, we can revisit the conversation.” 

He lights up, opening his mouth to respond, but she holds a hand up to stop him in his tracks.

“Just the conversation.”

He deflates slightly but not entirely - he knows her well enough and knows that this tiny crack in the armor is definitely his in. Agatha will be lucky if they make it to Christmas without some furry little nightmare scurrying around the house with Nicky in tow.

She pulls the spring rolls out and dumps a few onto the rice plate.

“Y’know what else I think?” She sucks some spilled sauce off of her finger and eyes the plate in front of her, eyes flicking between it and her son across from her. “This dinner could use at least one vegetable, probably.”

“No,” Nicky starts to whine, the sound of it growing louder when Agatha mockingly mimics it back at him and then turns away to snag the bag of baby carrots out of the fridge door that she spotted a few minutes earlier.

“Can’t take care of a pet if you’re dead from scurvy,” she tells him, tossing the bag onto the counter in front of him and smirking to herself as he begrudgingly pulls it open and begins snacking as he slips down from his seat and stomps off to the living room.

Retrieving napkins and tossing the remaining spring rolls onto a second plate, she follows after him and sets the plate down in front of him on the coffee table and snaps her fingers at him to drag his gaze away from the television to focus on eating first. 

It’s mercifully quiet while he eats. The white noise of the Discovery channel in the background nearly makes Agatha want to curl up with her admittedly pathetic excuse for a dinner and fall asleep early, but she forces herself up to retrieve the tablet and get to work.

She looks up asters, and scrolls until she finds some that look comparable to the photos that Rio had shown her earlier. Blindly reaching back for her sketchbook, she wipes some crumbs on the arm of the couch and opens it against her knee, tugging the pencil free from its spine and sketching out a few loose shapes. It only takes a couple of petals for her hands to fall into the pattern of the flower, spitting out bloom after bloom until she runs out of space in the confines of the section of the page she’s given herself.

Huffing out a little breath of frustration at herself for zoning out, she sits upright and reaches for Nicky’s remaining abandoned carrots and crunches down on the end of one as she tries to remember the shape of the space Rio had been looking to get covered.

Setting aside the sketchbook, she taps the end of her stylus against her lips and then opens the search bar again, typing in ‘windflowers’.

Well, Rio had been right. In her defense, she’d been working off of a direct photo reference for that particular client and the name of the flower had never come up. The client was satisfied and that had been enough for Agatha. 

Clearing the search, she brings up a fresh canvas and closes her eyes, trying to picture the space again. Six inches, maybe three wide at the top where the blooms would be. She couldn’t remember what the flowers closer to the top of her thigh had been - something with thorns, but not roses. Were there branches? The memory was unclear.

Opening her eyes and drawing out the initial shape of the clear space as best she can remember, she pulls her sketch closer and begins redrawing a couple of them, reshaping and resizing them as she goes.

Nicky gets up onto the couch when her hand begins to cramp, as if he can sense it, and messily crawls over her feet to peek over her knees at the screen. She pauses, raising an eyebrow at him and then looking over at his mostly empty plate scrutinizingly. 

“Flowers?” He asks.

“Asters. Yeah.” She tucks the stylus into its holder, then stretches her fingers out uncomfortably a few times to try to relieve the tightness. 

“Who are they for?” He asks, waiting until she’s closed the tablet altogether to climb clumsily into her lap.

“Someone new,” she replies, ignoring the way his spindly, bony little limbs dig into her in all the wrong places as he struggles to get comfortable. He’s starting to get too big for this. It’s a thought that puts a sharp, unrelenting ache in Agatha’s chest, so she ignores the frustration of taking an elbow to the ribs or a knee to the groin and patiently lets him get settled.

“What’s her name?” 

“Why does it have to be a girl?” She questions in return. She’s too tired for a lesson in sexism, though, and it’s apparent in the lack of challenge in her tone. Nicky shrugs like he’s aware of this, so she moves on. “Her name is Rio.”

“That’s a place.”

“Yes, it is,” she hums, running a hand through his hair as he sits up a little and leans against her bent legs leisurely. “I haven’t drawn flowers in a while, you think you could help me out?”

He launches himself off of her so fast that she nearly falls off of the couch with him, chuckling as he impatiently holds his hands out for her sketchbook and pencil. She flips to a fresh page extra slowly, just to keep him in suspense as he bounces on the spot, and then hands it over. He sprawls out on the floor, television forgotten, which gives her a chance to switch it over to the evening news without risking boring him or listening to him whine about wanting to watch something more interesting.

Nicky draws until he falls asleep, and as much as Agatha would love to pick him up and carry him off to bed herself, her muscles scream in protest just from the action of her sinking down to the floor beside him to retrieve her sketchbook and wake him. 

The ache still isn’t gone by the time she’s up in the morning, either. At the very least, Nicky is energetic and gives her no trouble throughout the process of getting dressed and dropped off. 

The shop is predictably busy when she arrives, needing to shoulder past a few people lingering in the waiting area and lining up toward the till. Lilia is helping Billy man the desk, but the process is slow either way. Alice is seated on one of the leather loveseats with a young woman, talking her through pricing, and the concerningly gentle-sounding music pushing through the speakers tells Agatha that Jen is in the back at her own station and most likely having her already-limited patience tested by whoever was tossed randomly into her chair.

Agatha hates the payday crowd.

She’s done her fair share of spontaneous tattoos - hell, she had her fair share of spontaneous tattoos - but the specific attitude of a freshly-paid twenty-something wanting to get their idea down before they lost it is a special breed of awful. She understands it, really, especially given the economy. The money is burning a hole in their pocket, but being faced with really having to hand it over in exchange for an hour under the needle is a reality that turns even the most generous of potential clients into bartering, entitled jerkoffs. 

“Agatha,” Lilia’s voice cuts through the chatter as she elbows her way between two men by the desk and into the slightly quieter comfort of the client-only area. “Walk-in.”

She gestures at the man at the front of the line. If Agatha had to guess, she’d say he was maybe thirty. Twenty-five, if he was a heavy drinker. She holds her bag up and rolls her eyes, turning to head back to her station to give herself just a moment of calm before starting her day. Shrugging off her jacket and dumping her bag onto the floor, she sinks down on her stool and plugs in her tablet, followed by her phone, and then pretends to be busy by rechecking all of her supplies in her cart with painstaking accuracy.

She knows she can’t really get out of it, so after triple-checking her gloves, she makes her way back to the desk, trying to look as flippant as possible.

“What’re we thinking?”

Lilia sidles between them to talk to the next person waiting, and Agatha resists the urge to elbow her in return.

“Dark. Days.” The man in front of her gestures across each of his knuckles.

Agatha sucks her teeth and inhales heavily, eyes dropping to his hands, which he seems to suddenly not know what to do with, first resting them on the counter and then balling them into fists again before dropping them completely out of her view.

“My minimum’s two hundred, and that’s the hourly. You want to tack something else on there?”

He balks a little and leans back from the counter a bit.

“Not particularly. How long would this take?”

She shrugs a little.

“Thirty, maybe thirty-five, give or take.”

“You can’t just go under?” He asks. She rolls her eyes in his face because it’s going to be an especially long day if she’s forced to become a customer service ambassador this early.

“No, the minimum is the minimum. I like expensive gloves. Free touch-ups for the year, though.”

He visibly reconsiders and she feels a smirk pulling at her lips. He probably didn’t even live in town - it was unlikely she’d ever be using up a second pair of expensive gloves on him or his predictable knuckle tattoos.

“I have to think about it,” He says after a beat, reaching aside to pluck one of Agatha’s business cards out of the holder on the other side of the desk. She pretends to be let down as he goes, turning to Lilia and shrugging as if to say ‘what can you do?’ and turning back to her station before anyone else can be sloughed off onto her from the waiting crowd.

She has the excuse of working on her piece for Rio’s upcoming appointment, and the crowd has mostly thinned out by the early afternoon, with a few stragglers being pawned off onto Jen and Alice when they suit the criteria. Agatha almost gets sucked into an appointment before discovering the client asking for a neck piece has no other tattoos whatsoever, and she steps away from her drawing just long enough to tear him a new one and send him on his way.

She takes her break after that, feeling guilty enough for her lack of clients to pick up lunch for the rest of the crew from the cafe around the corner and handing out coffees and sandwiches as she returns, slinking back into her corner to work. It’s a rare occasion for Lilia to fully close the doors, but clearly the collective exhaustion weighs on her enough to make an exception, and once the last client has left she hangs the ‘closed’ sign so the lot of them can eat together.

“I haven’t eaten in, like, five hours,” Billy says, finishing half of his sandwich in two bites and nearly choking as he tries to get it down. 

“I remember being twenty,” Alice says wistfully, taking bites of her own between making notes in her planner. She’s pulled her stool closer to the center of the space, inspiring the others into a crooked circle of sorts - minus Agatha, content to sit on the outskirts.

“I keep telling you guys we need a mini-fridge,” Jen says, carefully picking the seeds off of the crust of her bread one by one. She doesn’t even mind them, she just won’t eat anything Agatha gives her without pettily making adjustments. The older artist has run out of energy to pretend to care enough to complain about it.

“Yeah, right,” Lilia scoffs. “Not after having to reprint everyone’s business cards last year. I don’t understand why you people can’t just stick to one phone number.”

“I literally had a stalker,” Jen snaps, finally seeming satisfied with the seed ratio on her bread and taking a bite and speaking through it. “If you want me to have to keep bringing the police around, by all means.”

“I take full responsibility for mine,” Alice admits. “I was giving that number out way too freely. Lesson learned.”

“I could get one,” Billy suggests. “After I’m done paying this off.” 

He gestures to his calf, pant leg already rolled up with a slathering of numbing cream held on by a sheet of plastic wrap in preparation for his post-lunch session with Alice. 

There’s a collective groan of protest and dismissal from everyone, Agatha included, and the conversation fizzles out as they dive back into their food. He’s already bought a multi-pack of slow-misting spray bottles for Lilia’s plants and an electric kettle for tea in the back office on especially cold days. Agatha tried to tell him early on not to spend money where he earned it, that the shop wasn’t going to offer him any payouts for his extracurricular investing, but he hadn’t been convinced.

The phone rings on the desk, cutting through the first moment of calm that they’re all enjoying, and Lilia rolls her stool back to grab it without getting up.

“Coven Ink… Agatha.”

She holds the phone up, sliding aside when Agatha pushes herself to her feet and abandons her sandwich, approaching tiredly.

“Agatha Harkness.”

“Agatha, hey.” The voice on the other end of the line is familiar, which makes her drop her reflexively defensive, irritated tone. “It’s Elijah - I need a huge favor.”

She scratches her neck, feeling the irritation returning immediately.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m getting married!”

“Congratulations,” she deadpans, though it is nice to hear. 

“So I really need to get in and get that forearm piece finished ASAP.  We’re eloping next week.”

Agatha hazards a glance at the calendar on the desk and then the clock on the computer screen. 

“Can you fit me in?” Elijah asks when she goes a full few beats without responding to him.

“When?”

“... Today? Line work is already done, remember? I want to make sure I’m healed up and not wrapped up, y’know?” He laughs a little, and she can hear a nervous edge to it that she knows she’s wholly responsible for. She sighs, giving him a break.

“It’s nearly three,” she points out.

“I’m around the corner, seriously, I can be there in… ten minutes tops, if you need.”

She rubs her temple and squeezes her eyes shut against the sinus headache she can feel brewing in the distance.

“Make it thirty, I need to pick up my kid. And you’re paying cash.”

“Thank you!” Elijah’s volume makes her pull the phone away from her face in annoyance before she brings it back and reaches for a pen, drawing a line down the column below her name on the schedule, effectively blocking out the rest of the day.

She hangs up without another word, and then sidles past where Billy is helping Alice tidy her station so she can get started with working on him. Plucking her jacket up from the back of her seat, she shoves it back into her designated corner and digs through her bag for her wallet and keys, cramming them into her pockets messily.

“I’ll be back,” she announces, and it’s routine enough now that no one asks any questions as she makes her way to the door.

“You want to revisit the mini-fridge conversation when you’re back?” Billy asks her, the sudden familiarity causing her footsteps to slow to a pause. She whirls around and narrows her eyes, pointing a finger at him accusingly.

“You been talking to Nicky?”

“He mostly talks at me, to be fair…” Billy replies, causing her to roll her eyes and turn back to the door again. “Why?”

“Be a better influence!” She calls over her shoulder as she steps out into the street. 

It’s warmer out than Agatha expected, so she shrugs off her jacket as she heads down the street to the corner and turns onto the residential road she’s parked on. Nicky’s school is much closer to the shop than it is to their house but she considers it a pro, not a con. It helps for needing to pick him up on short notice and keeps her from making them both late on the odd occasion that they have a late start.

If she weren’t in such a hurry to get back and meet Eliiah, she’d have walked to get Nicky and given herself a little extra time with him in the nice weather before subjecting him to sitting around while she worked.

She climbs into her car as she approaches, not bothering to brush any of the thick covering leaves off of the hood of the vehicle and letting the wind do the work as she pulls away from the curb and makes her way toward the school. She passes back by the shop on her way and slows down enough to see that it still looks quiet in her absence - the crowd really did die down, she notes with pleased surprise. The planters outside look a little brown, even for the weather, so she makes a mental note to put Nicky to work with the hose once they’re back. 

Nicky drags his feet a little when she picks him up, as he does every Friday. It pulls at her heart a little - he has his friends and the history club, but she does worry that he’s lonely. Maybe the pet isn’t such a terrible idea. Once he hears that she’s taking him back to work for a last-minute client, there’s much more pep in his step, though. The shop is a second home to him nearly as much as it is to her - not that she’d ever admit as much - and the constant attention and adoration he gets to be on the receiving end of from the entire crew doesn’t hurt, either.

As they make their way up the block once more, Agatha slows to a near-crawl outside of the florist’s that she has grown accustomed to ignoring as background atmosphere just like everything else around the neighborhood over the years. It’s reasonably quiet most of the year, save for the bigger female-oriented holidays, and while today is no different, the presence of a familiar face in the window is.

Stretched out on her tiptoes, balancing precariously on a step-ladder to spritz some expensive-looking, brightly colored flowers in a gravity planter, is Rio. She’s clearly seen the background movement come to a stop in her peripherals because she chooses that moment to glance down and through the window, eyes flickering with recognition before a smirk tugs at her mouth and she gives Agatha a quick, two-finger wave.

Mildly dumbstruck, not expecting to see the other woman at all outside of their appointment that weekend, she waves back out of reflex and then hones in on the plant instead. A second jolt of familiarity shocks her and she tugs Nicky towards the door, pushing it open and poking her head inside.

“Hey,” Rio greets.

“What kind of flowers are those?” Agatha asks instead of responding to the greeting.

Rio blinks in confusion and then turns her gaze back to what she was doing. She fluffs one of the tiny blooms up a little, turning it in Agatha’s direction as if it had a face.

“Maule’s Quince.”

It’s a name that means nothing to Agatha, really. Knowing the species to the appearance really makes no difference to her. Rio seems to have the realization at the same time as Agatha does, though, and then clearly realizes how her train of thought led them to where they are.

Agatha’s eyes drift down to her leg - the one she’ll be tattooing in two days' time - even though she can’t see the other tattoos there through the other woman’s loose black pants. Rio shifts her weight on the stepladder as if she can physically feel the gaze through the clothing, but it’s Nicky tugging her hand for attention that snaps her out of it.

“Mom.”

She turns to him and then follows his arm to where he’s pointing to a small container of daisies on the shelf closest to the door.

“Can we get one?”

Rio steps down from the ladder and reaches into the container, plucking out the least pathetic-looking one and holding it out to him.

“On the house,” she says with a smile.

“You don’t have to do that,” Agatha tells her, already feeling incredibly stupid for stopping in in the first place when she really had no business being there.

“It’s fine. They’re all being composted tonight anyway,” she assures her before giving Nicky another little smile. 

“Thank you,” he says. Agatha squeezes his hand, pleased he didn’t need to be reminded to say it for once.

“We need to get going,” she says, nudging Nicky toward the door and pushing against it for him knowing full well he doesn’t have the weight to do it without a dramatic struggle.

“Good seeing you, Agatha,” Rio says, already halfway up the ladder when Agatha turns around to see her again. The door shuts before she can reply, and the scent of flowers is replaced by a distant rumble and the smell of incoming rain.

Chapter Text

“Ouch!” 

Billy’s exclamation precedes a delighted–if not slightly horrified–squeal out of Nicky, and Agatha glances over at the pair of them in time to see the former shooting her son a wink, dropping his pant leg back into place over the clear Saniderm covering his fresh update to the growing piece on his calf.

Nicky draws his hand back nervously and then giggles at the look his mother shoots him, realizing he’s being played with.

“Did it hurt a lot?” He asks curiously, still staring at the spot despite Billy’s pants covering it.

He shrugs.

“A little.”

Alice snorts, which draws another out of Agatha as well, but neither of them calls him on his downplaying of his relatively low pain tolerance. Alice told him once that she admires the people with lower pain tolerances who keep coming back for more, more than the ones who don’t seem to feel it, but Agatha thinks she was just trying to be nice and make him feel better.

“Should we go find a vase for that?” Jen offers, approaching Nicky as she comes back inside from removing the ‘walk-ins’ sign from the stand outside. He glances down at the flower still in his hand and lights up, following her off to the back of the shop with a little extra spring in his step.

Agatha turns back to wiping down her seat as the bell - that fucking bell - trills annoyingly above the door and Elijah makes his way in. To make matters worse, he’s whistling, but he soothes it over by slapping a wad of cash down onto the counter in front of Billy.

“You ready for me?” He addresses Agatha, running a hand through his hair and stifling a yawn as if he has the right to be tired after pulling her in for extra work.

She gestures to the chair and rolls her stool aside before collapsing into it.

“Not even going to congratulate me?” He asks, climbing up and making himself comfortable; he rolls up his sleeve and buttons it in place, eyes dancing mischievously.

Agatha finally meets his gaze and his face drops a little, clearly taking in how tired she is. 

“Let me buy you a drink after this.”

“Can’t, I’ve g-”

As if on cue, Nicky barrels out of the back office, Jen in tow, her stride a little hurried and nervous, which is likely due to the delicate-looking vintage glass flower holder clutched in both of his hands, the daisy Rio had given him poking out of the top of it. He slows to a stop at Agatha’s station, about to hold it out to her when he notices her gloves and looks around for a safe place to set it down instead.

“Hey, the desk could use some color,” Billy offers over his shoulder, causing him to whip around and approach with it held out in his outstretched arms. 

Agatha turns her attention back to Elijah and preps a disposable razor, rolling closer to him.

“Congratulations,” she tells him, voice rough but honest.

He smiles at her warmly and knowingly, then offers his arm over to her to prep. She focuses immediately, brushing one gloved finger over the lines from the previous session. This will round out three of three, finally putting the piece in the ‘finished’ folder of her mental filing cabinet. 

A simplistic, thick-lined Victorian house stares back up at her unassumingly from the man’s arm, the picket fence and forced-perspective apple tree shaded vividly, a pop of color coming from the single temptingly bright apple hanging from a branch.

“You were supposed to tell me whose house it was,” Agatha murmurs, turning away for a paper towel to wipe down the area and then tossing it into the trash to pour her ink.

“I said after it was finished,” Elijah reminds her.

She lifts her gaze to him from the ink cups and glares - it’s withering enough that he looks away and clears his throat.

“It was the first place I ever demolished. Couple that lived there for like forty years finally kicked it and the new owners wanted it ripped down to rebuild on the land.” 

Agatha flicks her overhead light on with her foot pedal and nearly cuts off his explanation with the buzzing of the machine in her hand coming to life. She presses her thumb into his arm, pulling it taut, and then slowly lowers the needle. His skin jumps under the initial contact, but he doesn’t miss a beat in his explanation.

“I’m going to rebuild one exactly like it one day.”

“With all the money you’re saving by skipping out on having a wedding?” Agatha asks, eyes not moving from the delicate shading she’s focused on.

“Yeah,” Elijah laughs a little at the lighthearted jab, waiting until her machine lifts for a brief moment to settle back into the seat a little more comfortably. 

A moment later, she feels a presence at her side and closes her eyes briefly before speaking.

“That better be my son.”

“I just wanted to see how it was coming.” Billy’s voice finds her, predictably, and she resists the urge to roll her stool back against his legs to physically push him away from her. He’s smart enough to keep the right distance, though, giving her no real leeway to complain as he observes.

“I bet you did,” she grumbles, knowing full well that what he really wanted to see was Elijah’s bare arms in his button-down, but she bites that comment back. “Where is my son, then?”

“Watering the flowerbeds with Lilia,” he explains. She had been so locked in on her work that she hadn’t even heard Lilia take him outside. “I heard congratulations were in order.” 

Elijah claps Billy on the shoulder as best he can from his position while Agatha turns away to re-up the needle.

“Thank you. I’d invite you to come celebrate with us if I could,” he tells the younger man, who immediately blushes so severely that Agatha can feel the heat radiating off of him without looking. He lets out a nervous laugh and a half-thanks before retreating to the reception desk, and she raises her eyes to meet her client’s gaze with a knowing smirk.

“You shouldn’t tease him.”

Elijah shoots her a devilish look and shakes his head slightly, keeping his voice low and just between the two of them.

“I’m old enough to be his father. And he’s harmless.”

Agatha scoffs, moving in for the next pass with the shader without any further warning.

The bell above the door rings again, and the telltale sound of Nicky’s sneakers slapping in stumbling, uneven pace against the tiled floor draws closer.

“ Stop ,” she snaps when she can hear him a few feet back. He does, halting in place like he’s frozen, and she continues the section she’s working on before finally turning to glance at him over her shoulder. 

He stands rooted to the spot, beaming as he rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, gripping an empty watering can that’s nearly half the size of him in both arms. 

“What did I say about running?”

His face falls slightly, but she doesn’t drop the stern act. In her peripherals, she can see that both Billy and Alice have stiffened up in their respective seats as well; an involuntary reaction.

“Not to?” Nicky says after a beat, tone lilting upwards.

“Do you need to go sit in the back office until it’s time to leave?”

He shakes his head, dropping his gaze shyly to the floor and drawing a little pattern back and forth with the toe of one of his shoes. She softens a little, then drags a second stool closer, patting it.

“Sit here. And be still.”

It doesn’t sound like a particularly fun demand. Still, Nicky lights up excitedly at the prospect of getting to watch her work, climbing up into the seat and, as is routine, immediately putting his hands under his thighs to keep himself from reflexively reaching out to touch anything - the equipment, the client, or her. 

She peels off her glove and retrieves a fresh one, just as Elijah launches into his dramatic exclamations that it couldn’t be Nicky he was looking at because the last time he’d seen him, he’d been thiiiiis small.

Agatha tunes them out as she gets back into the flow. Elijah’s always been good with kids, Nicky in particular whenever he was around, so she knows that being forced to listen to him name every single breed of whale that he can remember isn’t the same torture as it would be for someone else. 

The house begins to take on new life under her needle. She’d quite liked the outline on its own, though she could admit that it looked out of place in the center of the fully finished bits of the piece surrounding it. She’s done at least a hundred memorial pieces over her career, but she’s always especially curious about the ones that the client doesn’t seem to realize fall into that category. Divorce markers in celebration, childhood plushies and blankets that only exist in photos, children’s birthdays marking the end of life before parenthood, a favorite extinct prehistoric creature. A house demolished. 

She thinks about the couple living there before, narrowing her eyes as she darkens a window pane near the roof and pictures peering through it at them. She pictures them as elderly; Elijah didn’t mention it, but it’s easy enough to infer. Forty years is a long time, but Agatha refuses to picture anything around sixty as ‘old age’. 

Thirty minutes pass before Nicky gets restless. Agatha turns away to set down the machine and stretches her back a little, straightening her posture and sending Nicky off with a flick of her head back towards the reception desk. 

“He’s a good kid,” Elijah tells her. She glances back to see him cramming himself into Billy’s chair with him to better see whatever it is the older of the two is doing on the computer.

“Somehow,” Agatha replies without thinking about it. She refills her ink cup and catches Elijah’s eye, speaking again before he can do something unbearable like try to reassure her of her child-rearing skills. “Where are you eloping?”

“City hall,” he replies, taking the bait to change the subject. “Quick and easy. A friend who introduced us is going to witness, but that’s it.”

Agatha knows better than to ask questions about the rest of his family; she knows at least one of his parents is still alive, or was the last time he’d mentioned them, but he’s as old as she is and has been out of the closet for much, much longer. It makes little difference if the parent in question is technically alive or dead, at least when it comes to Elijah.

“How’s that look?” She asks, leaning back in after shading in what she hopes is the last section.

Elijah turns his head and tilts his arm, pursing his lips.

“Yeah. Love it.”

She lets out a soft sigh of relief and brushes her pinkie over the area that gave her the most trouble, wicking away a little blood and lymph. A bruise is already blooming under her fingers and she clicks her tongue.

“Be extra gentle with this for the next little while. Don’t want you looking beaten up on the big day.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Elijah asks, his tone amused. “No strenuous activity, no heavy lifting, no operating heavy machinery…”

“I’m not getting you out of your domestic duties just because you waited until the last minute to get back under the needle,” she deadpans, shooting him a fond look masked by annoyance. She rolls back from the chair and sets the machine back down, reaching for her Bactine and paper towels. 

Lilia practically materializes , and Agatha barely manages to hold back a yelp to accompany the way she almost jumps out of her skin.

Unbothered, she peers over her shoulder and eyes the finished piece, reaching out to pull the light closer for a better look. Agatha’s been working too long to feel nervous about the scrutiny, and Lilia wouldn’t let her carry on around the shop the way she does if her work was anything less than perfection, anyway. 

A moment later, she makes a small sound of approval in the back of her throat, then pats Elijah’s hand gently.

“Good to see you,” she tells him before leaving them both alone again.

“She doing alright?” Elijah asks once she’s retreated fully to the back office.

Agatha catches his eye, shooting him a warning look before spraying down the tattoo and wiping it carefully.

“Lilia’s fine.”

He catches her tone and leaves it alone, laying back down as she stands up and reaches around him for her Polaroid camera. He stays still as she takes one shot and lets it develop before returning the camera to its place, then retrieves her phone to take a few more photos for posterity. 

“I’ll need healed photos. I suppose that can wait until after the not-wedding.” 

Elijah sits up as she turns off the light and blinks to adjust his eyes.

“You got it, boss.”

He offers her his arm as she pulls a sheet of Saniderm out of the box, eyeing the piece one last time as if expecting something to jump out at her– some mistake; some missed detail. It’s hard to consider anything perfect, having long ago surrendered herself to knowing that it only needed to be correct , and in the client’s eyes, not hers. 

“Ooh, lemme see,” Alice insists as she pulls off her headphones and sees Agatha starting the wrap. She scurries across the space between them in the shop and grins as she peeks over her shoulder and gnaws on her lip. “I like the detail here, in the shingles.” 

She points to the place she’s referring to, and Agatha bristles slightly; Alice is good with compliments, slinging them around easily and yet somehow never weakening them by quantity. It still catches her off-guard every time. She doesn’t respond, focusing on making sure she doesn’t leave any air bubbles in the wrap as she smooths it into place until the other woman retreats over to the front desk.

“You know the drill, but get the kid to give you an aftercare card on the way out, anyway,” she tells him. “Makes it look like I’m better at my job.”

Elijah snorts and slides off the chair, turning to Agatha and giving her a penetrating, knowing look. She’s briefly terrified he’s going to go in for a hug, so she stays seated on her stool. It passes, though, and he holds a hand out for her to shake. She snaps her glove off and takes it, chuckling in spite of herself.

“I’ll call you the next time I want to make some wallet-draining bad decisions,” he promises.

She tugs her other glove off and runs both hands tiredly through her hair as he leaves, then forces herself to her feet to start the cleaning process before she can lose her momentum. She hears Nicky’s abrupt laughter as she picks up the spray bottle from her cart, glancing over in time to see Alice scooping him up into the air to stop him from rushing over.

“Ah, you know the rules - she’s spraying poison over there; wait here.” Alice holds him up further, flipping him onto his side in her arms and grunting dramatically as she begins a set of bicep curls with him that leaves him too hysterical to speak.

It sends a tiny jolt of jealous frustration through Agatha’s system that she wasn’t anticipating, and she makes a mental note to get back to strength-training her arms if she ever finds time to make it back to the gym again. She focuses her frustration on getting the clean-up done as quickly as possible, then makes her way over to the desk and holds her hand out impatiently to Billy for the cash that Elijah had left.

Jen sidles past on her way out, leaning in close enough that her breath tickles at Agatha’s ear irritatingly.

“Did you ever pay me back for the grip tape?”

She sighs and pulls a twenty out of the stack, holding it up over her shoulder between her index and middle finger for the other woman, stopping her by pulling it away slightly as she reaches for it.

“I said black , by the way. I really doubt that they only had pink.”

“ I only had pink,” Jen clarifies, snatching the twenty and tucking it into her bra as Agatha turns to face her. “And I didn’t feel like running out and wasting time. You’re welcome, also.”

“Whatever,” she huffs. It’s not the comeback she’d have slung if she were less exhausted, and Jen only responds by snorting and turning on her heel to leave. 

“C’mon, kiddo, it’s go-time.” She nods to Nicky, who immediately whines as Alice sets him back down. She doesn’t even look slightly out of breath - Agatha will need to find a way to subtly get her arm-day routine out of her.

“Noooo, no, can we stay?” Nicky pleads, peering up at her with a well-practiced puppy-dog-eyes routine that she dramatically rolls her eyes at as an excuse not to have to look.

“There’s nothing to stay for,” she points out, gesturing around the mostly empty shop. “It’s getting dark, and you still need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” he insists.

“You’re not?” Billy asks, raising an eyebrow at him faux-curiously. He tsks and shakes his head. “I’m so hungry. You’re so lucky you get to go have dinner.”

Nicky narrows his eyes, putting on the same calculating, serious look that Agatha does when she feels like she’s being manipulated into something and weighing the pros and cons.

“And,” Agatha tacks on, feeling the weight of the cash in her jacket pocket and thinking about the abysmal state of their refrigerator, “If we go now, we can go out to eat.”

Nicky squirms on the spot, looking back up at her curiously. She bites back a smile, knowing he’s about to crack.

“...Can we go to Longboards ?”

Agatha pretends to consider for a moment longer than necessary, then sighs.

“I suppose so. You paying?”

“No,” he replies, his tone so haughty and offended that she chokes, snorting to bite back a genuine laugh.

“They have the best chicken fingers,” Billy agrees, nudging Nicky softly. 

Agatha sucks her teeth and then nods, glancing at him instead and then narrowing her eyes and deciding to throw him a bone, especially for his assist with Nicky.

“You closing?” She asks.

“Alice is,” he replies, pointing back over his shoulder with his thumb to where the other woman has gone back to her station to pore over another drawing. A small smile begins to creep across his features, and Agatha’s annoyance and fondness wage war over her expression as she watches him realize in real time what’s happening.

“Alright, come on.” She jerks her head toward the door, watching Nicky scramble around the counter to her, suddenly enthusiastic with the promise of chicken fingers. “Nicky’s buying you dinner, too.”

Billy nearly falls over himself to join them, rushing to clock out on the computer and pull his hooded sweater on in the same movement.

Agatha nurses the single beer she’s allowing herself with the knowledge that she’s both about to put away her weight in carbs and that she’s always been able to hold her fucking booze.

She only mocks Billy for his decision to copy Nicky’s choice of chocolate milk for a few minutes before she’s too tired to put in the effort any longer. He quietly helps Nicky with the maze on his menu for a while, giving her a chance to decompress until their food arrives and only turning his attention to her once Nicky is on the verge of choking on his french fries with the speed he’s inhaling them.

“So your Sunday morning appointment…”

“The asters.”

“Rio, yeah.” He looks down at his plate and uses his fork to dig a ditch in the middle of his rice. “Did you know she owns the flower shop up the block?”

“I did,” Agatha replies slowly, setting her burger back down to properly level a warning gaze on him with all of her focus. “Why do you know that? Taking up gardening?”

Billy’s cheeks flush and he shakes his head slightly. 

“It was on her LinkedIn.” 

Agatha sighs and goes to rub her temple before thinking better of it and wiping the burger grease from her fingers first on her napkin.

“If I don’t ask why you were looking her up, will it make this conversation stop here?”

Nicky, sensing tension, sets down the handful of fries he’s holding in one ketchup-covered hand and looks between them curiously. Agatha catches his look and sighs defeatedly, gesturing at Billy to carry on.

“You haven’t had anyone new in a while - and all of her stuff looked like it came from different people, so I wanted to make sure she wasn’t a weirdo.”

“A lot of people have a lot of artists,” Agatha points out.

“You don’t have much tolerance for a lot of people,” Billy points out, not missing a beat.

She stares him down for another moment before dropping his gaze, picking her burger up again, and taking a generous bite. It gives her a moment to consider her next question as she chews, and even Nicky senses the danger is at bay enough for him to dive back into his fries. 

“What else?” She asks around a swallow, dropping the burger onto her plate and then reaching over to turn Nicky’s around so his last remaining chicken fingers are closer to him than the fries he’s massacring. She’s going to make this lazy excuse for a dinner nutritiously balanced if it kills her, so help her.

“You didn’t want me to look into her, so maybe I should just -”

He cuts himself off with a literal gasp at the threatening look she gives him. At least she’s still got it.

“I don’t know, her page was pretty empty. It looked like she studied around here, but that was a while ago. She had a couple of middle-management credits in New York before the flower shop.”

Agatha can feel herself tucking the information away neatly by category despite really not wanting to. It feels like a waste to know she’s using up so much mental storage on someone she’s going to work with for a few hours and then likely only ever see again when she needs to make funeral arrangements for someone or buy a last-second apology bouquet. 

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Something to talk about when she’s in the chair, I guess,” Billy replies. “Honestly, I mostly checked her out because I was bored. It’s not that often that we have a new face, Not in your corner of the shop, at least.”

Agatha hums and steals one of Nicky’s fries from his plate when he isn’t looking and winces at the sickly sweet ketchup it’s been caught in the crossfire of.

“Well, if I don’t end up having to pawn her off onto Jen or Alice, maybe she won’t be a new face for long.”

Billy shrugs as he skewers a few pieces of chicken onto his fork and then uses the blunt end of his knife to pile some rice on top.

“She didn’t seem like she’s going to be an issue.”

“We’ll see how she sits,” Agatha dismisses, turning back to her own food and letting Nicky regain Billy’s attention with a riveting discussion about his Christmas wishlist, ignoring that it was months away. As the pair of them wrap up in conversation again - if it could be called a conversation, Billy was painfully accurate about Nicky talking at him - she sips her beer and leans back against the uncomfortable booth seat. 

“... Aaaand a bunny,” Nicky finishes his list with a dramatic flourish.  Agatha’s sure she has no idea where he got that particular trait from.

“Excuse me?” She pipes up, raising an eyebrow at him curiously. 

“And a bunny,” he repeats, a little slower, emphasizing each syllable. He has no idea how (hilariously) rude he’s being, and explaining it to him would mean admitting that it was also rude when she did it to people, so she doesn’t correct him for the time being.

Billy stifles a laugh and she takes another of Nicky’s fries, pointing it at her colleague threateningly. 

“I haven’t decided how I’m exacting my revenge for this, by the way. But once I do… just make sure you have your affairs in order.”

Billy doesn’t seem too concerned. Maybe she doesn’t still have the edge she thought she did.

Pushing the last few bites of her burger aside, she points to Nicky’s plate.

“Eat another chicken finger, or the entire pet discussion is off the table,” she tells him, ignoring his grumbling as he obediently picks one of the last pieces up and begrudgingly takes an aggressive bite. Billy obviously catches the amused look she gives Nicky but doesn’t say anything, dropping her gaze when he catches it and being saved by his phone buzzing on the surface of the table.

He picks it up and snorts at the screen, reaching into his pocket with his free hand.

“My mom wants me to get the check,” he says. He reaches toward the tablet mounted at the back edge of the booth. Agatha nearly slaps his hand away before catching herself, hand freezing mid-air before she redirects and grabs the edge of the tablet, turning it away from him.

“Don’t be fucking annoying,” she tells him, hitting the ‘request server’ button before he can reach for it again and then sliding it back into its spot. “Next she’s going to be sending me gas money.”

“BAD WORD!” Nicky exclaims, pointing at her so aggressively that a little bit of loose breading from his chicken finger flies across the table at her and bounces off her shirt. She considers them even in terms of dinner-table offenses and doesn’t even respond. Billy clears his throat, looking at her more seriously.

“...Did you want gas money?”

“Billy, finish your food.” 

She tugs some cash from her pocket as she sees their server making her way back over to their table and then slams the last of her beer.  Despite everything, her mood has significantly lifted from its sourness earlier that day – not that she’d admit it. Nicky giggles at her using the same stern tone with Billy, clearly finding it much more amusing when he’s not the one on the receiving end of it. 

She can’t help but smile a tiny bit in reaction to the sound, shooting him a wink and then leaning back in her seat much more contently. The weekend ahead of her seems a little brighter; the company she’s kicking it off with doesn’t hurt either.

Chapter Text

Agatha dreams about the house. 

She’s hyper-aware of the fact that it’s a dream as soon as she recognizes her surroundings, and for once in her life she’s curious enough not to utilize her lucidity to manipulate her surroundings into something more R-rated. She can’t possibly know what the inside of the house ever looked like but her subconscious builds it up for her anyway; winding hallways and too-steep staircases that stretch as she climbs and force her to clamber up them on all fours like a child, doorways nearly so narrow they’re almost impassable that seem to disappear behind her entirely once she gets through. 

There’s an odd, melancholy nostalgia thickening the air as she explores, growing more and more cloying as she tries to find her way to the window she’d been so focused on during the tattoo. It reminds her of childhood - her body feels younger, too; lighter, catching air in her footsteps when she speeds up her pace. All of her dreams that don’t have Nicky in them - as few and far between as they are - feel like this, but she stopped letting herself feel guilty over it years ago. 

She rounds the next corner at random into the next room and there it is, appearing right when she was about to grow frustrated enough to give up. She makes her way across the worn floor, the wood soft and uneven beneath her feet, and peers out of the dusty, scratched glass. She can see the apple tree from where she stands - the single red apple sticking out among the grey and black leaves. She feels the presence of someone else behind her before she hears the floor creak, and whips her head back around only to be brought face to face with the window again, this time on the opposite wall of the room. It’s an impossibility that her subconscious immediately dismisses in order to keep her asleep. That, and there are much more pressing things to focus on, like the sight of her mother blocking her view. 

Agatha exhales shortly. Her breath is suddenly cold. Her mother stares back at her, expression colder. The lines in her face are deep and harsh - she looks so much older than she’d ever been; she hadn’t even looked this old when she died. 

The two of them stare at one another, and then Evanora opens her mouth. Too wide - something out of a horror movie. It’s like she’s about to let out an ungodly, haunting wail, but the sound that comes out is much more jarring: a long, loud rattling buzz. It lasts for a few terrifying seconds and then she closes her mouth, silencing it. Before Agatha can speak, she opens her mouth again and it repeats. Wincing away, unable to look at her contorted maw any longer, she feels the sudden weight of her body again, acutely aware of the stress-induced sweat that dampens her entire form.

She sits up in the morning light of her own bedroom and breathes heavily, eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden change before she realizes what woke her in the first place.

The buzz starts again, not nearly as scary now but equally as grating, and she snatches her phone off her wooden side table that it’s threatening to vibrate off the edge of.

WORK - DO NOT ANSWER flashes on the screen. She jams her thumb against the ‘accept call’ button.

“What?” she snaps.

“Agatha,” Billy sounds out of breath, as if he’s just woken up from the same dream that she has. He’s almost drowned out by the background noise of the shop behind him; Saturdays off are a privilege that Agatha wouldn’t exchange for anything. “Hi, sorry to bother you.”

“Not sorry enough not to do it,” she grumbles, pushing herself up onto one arm and leaning her weight into one hip.

“Your appointment tomorrow morning - Rio - she wanted to talk to you about the design. Something about…” He pauses, audibly shuffling some papers. “Something about half of the flower bulbs being closed? I don’t know, she was insistent on talking to you about it, not me.”

Agatha shakes her hair back from her face and tucks the phone into her shoulder to free up her other hand and use it to throw the sheet back from her body. Her assumption that Rio wasn’t going to be a problem is slowly being proven wrong.

“Can I pass your number along?” Billy asks.

Agatha sits upright and drops the phone to the bed, staring at it as if it burned her. Picking it up, she holds it up between two fingers as if it’s contaminated and snaps, “Obviously fucking not.”

“Well, I don’t know what to do. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow if you need to do another whole consultation.”

“I’ll come in,” Agatha tells him defeatedly, hearing the hint of an unfortunately pathetic whine cutting into her complaint. 

“What?”

“I’ll come in and call her from the shop.” The last thing she wants is to spend her entire Sunday reconceptualizing and redrawing the full tattoo before hunching over the table for several hours.

The continual background noise of the shop is the only proof that Billy hasn’t completely hung up on her, shocked into silence on the other end. She waits another beat to see if he’s going to say anything, and then simply hangs up on him, instead. Dropping the phone onto the bed, she retrieves her sweatpants from the night before and tugs them on, yawning as she makes her way out into the hall and towards the bathroom.

She brushes her teeth and ties her hair up into a messy knot at the back of her head, splashing cold water into her face before making her way to Nicky’s room and leaning against the open doorway to watch him sleep for a few quiet moments. He’s sprawled out like he’s trying to sweat out a fever, sideways on the too-big-for-him bed with a limb stretched out to each corner of it atop all of the sheets. It would be concerning if it wasn’t his usual. A children’s illustrated encyclopedia lays splayed open on the floor near the foot of the bed, likely having fallen off in the night after he passed out mid-read. 

Stepping into the room and climbing up slowly onto the bed beside him, she eases his arms and legs together; he’s pliant to her adjusting him, slipping into her lap and curling up against her chest without fully waking up. He’s like a heated, weighted blanket, lulling her back into an immediate sense of unproductive laziness. She considers calling Billy back and changing her mind again - what’s a few extra hours on a Sunday with a difficult client? This feels like a fair trade-off. She knows she’ll regret it, though, and after a few moments, she rubs his back to try to ease him awake. 

He stirs, fingers curling against her collarbone.

“Morning,” he greets, eyes still closed.

“Morning,” she whispers back, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Time to get up.”

“Is it?” He rubs one of his eyes with his fist and slowly blinks them open, peering up at her with a furrowed brow.

“Uh-huh, I have to run an errand, and then when I get back we can spend all day together.”

He turns to tuck his face back into her neck, a futile attempt to have just a few more minutes of sleepy quiet. She can’t say she blames him.

“What errand?”

Agatha doesn’t answer that, shifting him away from her to get his legs under him and set him down off of the edge of the bed on his feet. He sways on the spot tiredly for a moment before getting his bearings and heading to his dresser, nearly tripping over the abandoned book on his way. 

She helps him with picking out an outfit and brushing his teeth, getting him comfortable in the car with a freshly-toasted Poptart and then taking him to the drop-in program near their house. He doesn’t go often, but he still rushes off away from her once the sugar hits to play with the freshly updated shelf of toys across the room, giving her a bit of relief from her guilt at leaving him alone on what is usually their full day together.

When she arrives at the shop she makes her way wordlessly around the reception counter and grabs the back of Billy’s chair, wheeling him away from the computer while he’s midsentence trying to explain availability to the client in front of him.

“Agatha -” he protests, but she cuts him off.

“Pretend I’m not here,” she says as if it’s just the distraction of her mere presence that’s causing the issue. She clicks around to pull up Rio’s file and reaches for the phone, dialing the number that she’s left with them and waiting impatiently for her to pick up. 

Billy scoots his chair back around her to get to the computer and she mercifully steps aside enough for him to get back to the client. Rio picks up on the third ring, her voice far too chipper for what Agatha would consider too early of an hour to be so.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Agatha scratches at her brow, dropping her bag onto the desk and digging around in it with her free hand for her tablet. “I was told you wanted to talk about your tattoo for tomorrow.”

“Oh. Agatha.”

“Yeah. Me.” She flips open the case and swipes past her lock screen, tapping through the various pages until she can pull up the asters she’s been working on for the woman on the other end of the line. “Half closed, you said?”

“Yeah,” Rio replies. “I can send some photos, but your email wasn’t on your card.”

Agatha uses one knuckle to circle a few of the flowers on a new layer of her drawing, picturing the balance of having them take up less space than their fully bloomed counterparts.

“How many of them?” Agatha asks, instead of responding to her offer/hint.

“Pardon?”

“Did you want some of them half-closed? Or half of them fully closed? Our apprentice isn’t exactly adept at asking the correct questions.” She kicks the wheel of Billy’s chair and he shoots her a glare that she pretends to ignore.

“Oh, uh…” 

She rolls her eyes, sighing directly into the receiver before she can help herself. Rio chuckles, clearly not too offended by her unfiltered reaction.

“Sorry,” She starts to explain, but Rio cuts her off.

“Are you at the shop? I can come by; make this easier,” she offers. “I’m just at work, I could be there in a few minutes.”

Agatha takes in the cacophony of the busy parlor and tenses uncomfortably at the idea of trying to have a meaningful consultation in the midst of it.

“I’ll come to you,” she says, flipping the case on the tablet closed again and shoving it haphazardly into her bag once more.

“Oh,” Rio sounds pleasantly surprised. “Yeah, alright. I’ll see you soon.”

Agatha hangs up without another word and pushes past Billy to head to the door again, sighing in relief once she’s back outside on the street and away from the noise. It’s not late enough in the day yet for the sun to bring on much warmth, and she has just enough time to start regretting leaving her jacket at home when she arrives at the flower shop. Eyeballing the planters hanging in the window, she notes that they’ve already been changed out since the last time she had been by; she’s still looking at them as she pulls the door and steps inside.

“One second!” Rio calls to her from behind the counter. She waves a hand dismissively, not even looking over as she comes closer to peer into the window display and reaches up to touch one of the vines hanging from the closest of the plants. Her eyes flick from the leaves to the price tag on the underside of the planter and she quickly lets go of it, stepping back for good measure and nearly backing into the other woman who she hadn’t even realized was behind her.

“ Scindapsus ,” Rio says, eyes on the plant, not Agatha. She nods to the planter, then catches her eye, smiling softly.

“Gesundheit.”

Rio snorts, dropping her gaze as it turns into a giggle, which is when Agatha notices the sheet of paper and flowers she’s holding.

“Shall we?” She asks, nodding to the door and sliding past her to tape the sign to the inside of the window. Agatha notes the sharpie bleeding through and reads the backward writing: back in ten , and a phone number.

Rio pushes the door open once the note is secured, and nods in gesture for Agatha to step out - which she does without thinking.

“What’re we doing?” She asks, turning to see Rio follow her out and then turn to lock the door behind them.

“Getting coffee. No offense, you look like you could really use it. I accept that that’s probably my fault, though - your apprentice said it was your day off.”

Agatha’s skin prickles unpleasantly at the notion that Billy is mentioning anything to her clients outside of direct details about their appointments, but aside from this small transgression, Rio seems disarmingly harmless.

She holds the flowers out for Agatha - two white asters, one open and one closed. She reaches out and takes them, reflexively bringing them up to smell. They’re devoid of much scent except the generic, light smell of freshness, but that alone is enough to awaken her senses a little.

“Where are we going?” She asks.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Rio replies. “I still don’t know the area that well, I was kind of hoping I could charm you into giving up the real locals-only diamond.”

Agatha scoffs softly but does turn to head back down the street, Rio following suit. 

“I don’t know if I should put you onto the best spot before you’ve paid your dues, but you are letting me jab you with needles and paying me for it, so I can make an exception this once.”

They pass by two separate tourist-trap-themed cafes on their walk, both of which Rio slows down questioningly at before being directed by Agatha to keep walking. She takes her instead around the next corner to her go-to sandwich shop, stepping inside to almost-too-loud jazz music on the speakers and not a single other customer in sight. 

Even the exhausted-looking twenty-something behind the till doesn’t acknowledge them as they enter, but Rio slips past Agatha toward the counter, unconcerned. 

“Sit,” Rio insists, her hand sliding across Agatha’s back as she heads to the counter, “I’ll get it.” 

She does, shivering off the last of the cool autumn air and making her way over to the low table closest to the front window. Sinking into the taller of the two mismatched chairs, she drops the flowers onto the table and fiddles with the (likely expired) shaker of powdered coffee creamer. Rolling her shoulders, she lets her eyes drift around the space before they land on Rio again.

She’s pretty sure she’s never seen that particular barista crack so much as a smile in all the years that she’s worked there, but whatever Rio’s saying to her has her fully giggling, biting her lip and tapping her nails on the edge of the POS system screen and looking like she’s about to launch herself over the till at the older woman. Agatha finds herself staring unintentionally, fixated curiously on the way Rio goes to hand her a folded bill and then pulls it back slightly, head tilted as she tries to convince the other woman of something. It’s a tactic that pays off because when she returns to the table, she’s got two empty ceramic mugs dangling by the handles off of one finger, and a full fresh pot of coffee in the other. 

She hands the mugs off and then forms a makeshift pot holder from a handful of napkins, setting the coffee down before sinking into the opposite chair.

Agatha takes it upon herself to fill the mugs, then takes a sip from her own before pulling her tablet out. Rio sits up a little straighter, peering over curiously as she picks up her own mug in both hands, her lips resting against the rim of it. 

“So,” Agatha turns the screen around, reaching down to pinch the drawing and zoom out for Rio to take a look. “If you want them fully closed, like this,” she taps the end of her stylus against the unbloomed of the two flowers Rio had given her, “We could do these.”

She hesitates, struggling to see her layers upside down, but then selects a few to bring up a few messily-drawn circles around a few of the flowers on the screen.

“Asymmetrical,’ Rio observes. “I like it.”

Agatha sags in relief, pleased to not have to do too much more refiguring. She pulls the tablet back and immediately gets to work on the new additions, eyes flicking over to the closed flower on the table, just a rough sketch to make sure they’re on the same page.

“I appreciate this a lot,” Rio tells her, still holding her mug to her lips. “I was just… staring at asters all night and they started looking too…”

“Uniform,” Agatha finishes for her, thinking back to her initial rough sketch, and how easy it it had been to get carried away in the repetitive shapes.

“Yeah,” Rio breathes. Agatha’s eyes flick up to her face for a moment, spotting the hint of a smile on her face before going back to her screen. She locks her gaze on the flower again instead, blindly trying to let it take form through her hand.

“I want to take an outline of the space, too,” she says.

Rio finally sets down her mug, reaching for the pot again to refill it.

“I can do that back at the shop - I don’t think I should ruin my first impression here by taking off my pants.”

Agatha’s hand stills and her eyes flick up to the other woman’s face.

“Somehow, I don’t think you’d hear much protest,” she says, glancing over at the barista who has taken to cleaning the pastry display case with a pair of wired headphones dangling from her ears. Rio doesn’t follow her gaze, but it’s clear from the slow-spreading smug expression on her face that she understands the implication being made.

“Alright, you caught me. I’m just shy.”

Agatha snorts. She’s gone through bouts of insomnia that have lasted longer than she’s known the woman sitting in front of her, but she’d bet money on ‘shy’ being somewhere near the bottom of acceptable adjectives to describe her.

Rio tops up Agatha’s coffee without being asked, then rests her chin in her hand to watch her work for a moment in silence.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Tattooing?” Agatha clarifies, moving on to another flower. “You’ll be my first.”

Rio laughs outright at that; Agatha’s beginning to understand the poor, unsuspecting barista who’s been swindled out of her entire fresh pot of coffee. It’s unnecessarily flirty-sounding, without any of that skin-crawling girlishness that she usually observes in women trying to get their way.

“Twenty-five years,” She says after a beat when Rio doesn’t ask again. She whistles lowly, nodding and tapping the tips of her fingers against her mug.

“Did you always want to do it?”

“Did you always want to be a florist?” Agatha asks instead. She’s not particularly interested in the truth, but her focus stays a lot sharper when Rio’s the one doing the talking instead of trying to bounce her brain between her drawing and her answers. 

“Um, maybe,” Rio says, her tone lifting up an octave. Agatha’s stylus stills, her eyes narrowing when she realizes that she’s hearing something she rarely does from a client - a lie.

Pausing her efforts on the drawing, she flips the stylus between her fingers and taps the dull end of it on the edge of her tablet case, looking up and across at the other woman more seriously.

“What did you actually want to do?” She asks, cutting through any chances she has of dancing around the real story.

Rio surprises her by avoiding her eye, shrugging minutely. Agatha waits a beat, then sighs when she realizes the answer isn’t coming. She’s not interested in pushing her for an answer she didn’t care about in the first place, so she turns her attention back to the drawing. It’s becoming a lot more detailed than she intended for their consultation, but she’s not prepared to abandon their coffee, and being in an environment other than her house does help with her productivity. 

“What’s your boy’s name?”

The stylus slips from her hand and clatters to the table, rolling right off of the edge and stopping at their feet.

They stare at each other for a beat, before Rio leans back and dips under the table to retrieve it for her.

“What?” Agatha asks, hearing how dumb her tone sounds when Rio returns the stylus to her and sits upright in her seat once more.

“I mean - I just assumed,” she says, a new, careful edge in her tone that would normally give the artist a little bit of her power back, but it doesn’t this time. 

She keeps her tone clipped, not even meeting her eye in hopes of not inviting further questions.

“Nicky.”

Rio seems to know better than to push it any further, which Agatha is silently grateful for. 

“I wanted to be a doctor,” she says; Agatha recognizes it as less of a peace offering for her accidental overstep and more of a gift, evening the scales out between them so they can return to their comfortable back-and-forth. It almost pulls a thankful half-smile out of her, but the coffee hasn’t quite kicked in enough for her to have the energy to muster one. As if sensing it, Rio tops her mug up one more time.

“So how’d you end up with a flower shop?” 

“My uncle left it for me,” she replies easily. “I majored in botany, he must have thought it was a good enough overlap. Plus, he didn’t have his own kids, so…” She trails off, tapping her fingers on her mug again. She almost looks sheepish for a moment, like all of that information just spilled out of her before she realized it was happening.

Silence stretches between them for a moment, but it’s not nearly as uncomfortable for Agatha as she can tell that it is for Rio. She turns the tablet around again - the drawing is nearly perfectly clean, now, but she’ll go over it one more time before bed that evening.

Rio admires it, pointing out one of the new additions specifically.

“This is exactly what I was picturing,” she says, reaching over and blindly brushing her cold fingers against Agatha’s arm in her quest to pick up the flower. She pulls it into her view and finally looks away from the screen to give it a comparative look.

“Is there a secret meaning behind the flower choice?” Agatha asks, putting a playfully accusing edge in her tone to distract from her now-genuine interest. She takes a few generous sips of her rapidly cooling coffee, nearly finishing it. “I’m not secretly engaging in gang-affiliation, right?”

Rio shakes her head, letting out an exhale of a chuckle as she leans back in her seat and pushes the flower back across the table.

“I just think they’re pretty. They symbolize love. Or knowledge, or valor. Or royalty. Depends on the color, or how in-bloom they are.” Rio runs one fingernail around the rim of her mostly empty mug. “I guess these’ll be off-white.”

“Which one is that?”

“Innocence,” she replies, looking up to meet her eye again. She reaches across the table and takes Agatha’s mug, putting both of theirs together in one hand again to pick up the empty pot. 

“And the half-blooms?” Agatha presses.

Rio shrugs.

“Not that innocent.” 

She turns on her heel to make her way back over to the counter. Agatha watches the barista see her approach and scramble back behind the counter, standing up extra straight and beaming as she takes back the empty dishes. 

She packs her bag and meets Rio at the door, the pair of them pausing awkwardly as they step out onto the street and realize how much easier it’ll be to return to their respective jobs if they head off in different directions.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Rio says, fiddling with the flowers in her hand before handing them off to Agatha. She takes them reflexively, then drops her gaze to them questioningly like she’s not entirely sure how they ended up in her hands. Rio cocks her head to the side. “Keep them. They attract bugs when they’re fresh, but if you crush them up and boil them it’ll make your entire place smell like a Christmas tree farm.”

Agatha’s eyebrow ticks upward at the unexpected piece of trivia, and she tucks it away for later to share with Nicky.

“Thanks.” The breeze picks up a little, and she hunches her shoulders a little. Sensing the discomfort, Rio begins to step away, backing across the curb toward the road. 

“Later, Agatha.”

Agatha turns to head off down the road toward the tattoo parlor, in a hurry to get out of the cold air, though not enough of a hurry not to hazard one more glance back at the other woman as she rounds the corner on the opposite side of the street and vanishes.

Nicky lets Agatha make it up to him with a trip to the Pirate Museum, even though she knows deep down he doesn’t really need any sort of penance for forgiveness from her. He’d had the unexpected chance to see some of his drop-in daycare friends that he didn’t have the chance to play with often, and the in-house snack options he’d been provided with had been so riddled with processed sugar that it was a miracle Agatha managed to get him into the car without him vibrating off the edge of the seat. 

He’s been to the museum twice that year already, but he still slows down at every single plaque, though Agatha thinks that’s more of a mimicry of politeness than an actual interest in rereading any of the information. She holds his hand tightly each time he tries to dart off ahead of her, keeping him close by her side and out of the thick Saturday crowds. Running off is for tourists, she once told him. He’s not totally sure why that’s a bad thing, but seemed to recognize from her tone that it was a class of people that they were not. 

They take the guided tour with a group of a few other families, even though Nicky has most of the story memorized, and it satisfies him enough to be patient in their impromptu grocery store stop on the way home. He doesn’t even whine when she says no to his unenthusiastic but habitual ask to go down the candy aisle; from the way he’s squirming around uncomfortably, she deduces that he’s regretting loading up on so much junk food throughout the day.

He’s cranky by the time they finally make it through the front door, so Agatha parks him in front of the television under a heavy blanket to rush through unpacking the groceries and putting a pot of chicken soup on the stove.

As she’s boiling the broth, she remembers the flowers - the ones sitting in the back seat of her car - and makes a mental note to retrieve them before they end up rotting in her back seat.

The early dinner and cozy environment after a cold day make it mercifully easy to get Nicky down for bed at a reasonable hour, and Agatha follows suit without meaning to.

She dreams of the house again, at least briefly. A glance up at the window she’d been so curious to peer out of before looms over her in the distance, but the idea of finding Evanora there again turns her off of the idea of further exploration. She squeezes her eyes shut, digs her nails into her palms, and wakes up with a start in her own bed. 4 AM. Fucking wonderful.

Her heart pounds and Agatha realizes there’s no way she’s going to fall back into any meaningful sort of sleep. Resigning herself to another early evening, she climbs out of bed and checks on Nicky before heading downstairs to the cold, dark kitchen. 

She leaves the lights off and lets the glow of the open refrigerator guide her to the counter after she retrieves her bottle of cold brew concentrate. The door shuts slowly on its own and throws her back into darkness just as she pulls a cup down as quietly as possible from the counter and fills it halfway with cold water from the tap. 

As soon as Nicky hears her awake, he’ll be awake, and she needs a few moments to herself before she has to deal with his energy until she drops him off with the Kaplans. 

She drinks her coffee in the quiet dark of the kitchen, the only sounds being the liquid sloshing in the cup with each sip and the soft creaking of the house under the autumn wind. A tree branch outside the living room door to the back yard slaps quietly against the house siding - a reminder to get the landscaper to come by one last time before it becomes too cold out. 

Agatha’s hands grow restless, tapping against her glass and making her regret leaving her tablet upstairs next to her bed. She could be using this time to double-check her drawing for Rio’s tattoo one last time before heading in - but instead she moves from the kitchen to the living room and settles for her sketchbook that sits abandoned on the side table by the couch in the corner of her eye.

Flipping to a fresh page, she redraws the shop from memory. It’s probably her thousandth interior portrait she’s done of it, every single corner and area mapped out over and over again without much more to add, but she dives in anyway. The waiting area forms on the page as soon as she sets down a few perspective lines, the pencil loose in her fingers and barely grazing the page. She tightens her grip to focus on the softness of the couches, deliberate, rounded shapes taking on the lumpy, mismatched surface of the old leather. 

It contrasts sharply from the corner of the coffee table; she hones in on perfecting the knotted wood more than a simple practice sketch deserves, so she forces herself to move on, marking out a set of long, slender legs dangling from the edge of the recliner, one crossed languidly over the other, ankle to knee.

Wait .

She’s all the way up to the hips of the seated figure when she tosses the pencil down and pushes the sketchbook off of her lap irritably. Absolutely not. 

Pursing her lips, she watches the pencil roll to the edge of the coffee table and off of the opposite side of it, vanishing out of her sight. Before she has enough time to properly settle in to mentally berate herself for letting her mind wander like that, Nicky’s voice behind her startles her out of it.

“Mama?”

Her eyes flick over to the clock below the television in alarm, wondering if she’d lost track of time, but there’s still plenty of time for her to take care of Nicky and get to the shop. Sitting up to look over the back of the couch, she watches him round the corner from the stairs and pad through the kitchen sleepily, one pant leg of his pajamas pushed all the way up past his knee, the too-big shirt hanging off of one of his shoulders. It had clearly been a heavy sleep.

“Hey, buddy,” she replies, wincing when her voice cracks from underuse. She beckons him over to the couch, smiling softly when he climbs up beside her and carding her fingers into his hair.

“I had a nightmare,” he tells her, flopping roughly against her side and nearly knocking the wind out of her briefly. She inhales shakily, ribs immediately sore, before responding.

“Yeah? What about?” 

He sighs heavily like he’s trying to release the weight of the world off of his tiny shoulders.

“There were pirates, and they were making us walk the plank.”

Agatha bites back a snort. 

“Oh yeah? For what crimes?”

Nicky frowns up at her for a moment, like he can sense her amusement and lack of concern for this very serious trauma that he’s relaying to her. Her expression softens a little as she looks at him, continuing to card her fingers through his impossibly soft hair. She gives him a small nudge of encouragement, and he continues.

“Scurvy.”

She hums and nods like this is all very logical.

“Well, good news. Because scurvy is a disease, not a crime.”

“But you said that’s what happens if I don’t eat my vegetables,” he points out, confusion knitting his brows together. 

Damn, she thinks. Maybe if he’d led with that she could have worked with it.

“Well, yes…” She shifts a little, letting him lean against her a little more comfortably as she settles in for her explanation, “But that’s something that happens to you, not something you do. It… makes you cranky, and then -”

She doesn’t get to describe any more symptoms before Nicky cuts her off.

“Not eating my veggies makes you cranky, not me,” he informs her. Her jaw drops, eyes sparkling, and his entire expression lights up in nervous giddiness, realizing he’s stumbled onto something unintentionally funny. 

“It also makes your teeth fall out, and then you have to eat soup forever, for every meal,” she pokes at him warningly but one sharp reflexive kick to her knee with a tiny, but deceptively powerful foot makes her change her mind about the idea of tickling him and risking further injury. 

“I don’t like soup,” he whines, as if there’s any real danger of him developing scurvy.

“Then I guess you’re stuck eating veggies forever, kid,” she tells him, sighing. “Them’s the breaks.”

He settles against her side again, sighing defeatedly.

“You were trying to save me, but they captured you and tied you to the mast.” He continues to explain the narrative of his bad dream, though he does sound a little less concerned now. Agatha nods slowly, her hand returning to his hair. Being trussed up by a bunch of villainous pirates would be about the most action she’s gotten in a year.

“Maybe we should think twice about going back to the pirate museum if you’re having all these bad dreams, huh?” 

“No!” Nicky sits up and spins around in alarm, eyes wild. 

She puts both hands up in surrender, pretending to be shocked by his refusal.

“I mean, I just worry about your sleep schedule. You’re going to get your growth stunted and then you’ll never be tall enough to use the waterslide, and then -”

Nicky pounces on her, squealing when she catches him by the arms and tosses him fully onto the other side of the couch. It takes about all of her strength now that he’s getting bigger, and she knows she’ll regret the exertion in a few hours when she’s hunched over her tattoo bed, but her son’s hysterical laughter as he jumps back up and leaps at her again makes it briefly worth it. She tosses him one more time and then stands up before he can get his bearings and come barrelling back in for a third try, and offers him her hands to help him down from the couch.

“Go get dressed,” she tells him, “We need to get ready to go.”

He takes off for the stairs, clearly no longer worried about the nightmare, and Agatha takes a moment to recenter herself for the day ahead. Retrieving her sketchbook and pencil, she deposits both back into their spot on the side table and heads back to the kitchen to put something together quickly for the two of them before they head out for their day. It’s nearly 6:30, and once she takes Nicky to the Kaplan’s, it will be a more reasonable hour for her to finally head into the shop. 

She makes them toast, melting together some butter and cinnamon in the microwave for Nicky’s as she listens to him root around in his room upstairs, and pours herself a second cold coffee, hoping that it’ll pay off in the form of productivity over anxiousness. 

Once he’s fed, Agatha makes her way to the Kaplan’s place, ignoring the early morning chill putting a fresh ache in her bones that will surely bother her for the entire day.

“Agatha - you’re early.” Rebecca answers the door looking more haggard than Agatha feels, which is nice until she realizes that it’s because she’s caught her mid-workout. Her skin glows as she dabs at her neck with the towel hanging loosely from it, and despite her heavy breathing, she smiles brightly at the sight of both of them.

“I can come back,” she offers, gesturing back behind herself at her car parked on the curb. It’s not a genuine offer, so she’s pleased when the other woman waves a hand dismissively and ushers Nicky inside.

“No, no, this is great, I’d love some company. Billy’s still asleep - did you want me to…?” She gestures back into the house again and Agatha shakes her head. Not only does his shift not start for another two hours, but she doesn’t want to be suckered into giving him a ride and having to endure any chipper, early morning conversation.

“No, let him rest. I’ll see him later.” She nods to Nicky, already sitting in the foyer to pull off his shoes. “He’s eaten already. No shows about pirates, please, he’s been having nightmares.”

Rebecca nods seriously, and both women ignore Nicky’s whine of protest.

Crouching down for a kiss and hug goodbye, Agatha reminds him to behave, then heads back to the car to make her way to the parlor. 

She’s always liked their street in the early morning, especially with the colored leaves littering the road before having the chance to be swept away by the bustle of the day. She finds herself peering into the dark windows of Rio’s shop as she passes, disappointed to see that the lights are off before remembering that it’s her day off, hence the tattoo appointment.

The quiet of the tattoo parlor is almost unsettling, so after dumping her purse in her corner Agatha connects to the wireless speakers and scrolls through her phone to find some music to fill the space. Landing on something ambient and dark, with a steady beat, she gets to work going through the motions of organizing herself. It’s too early to set up, but she cleans anyway, then takes it upon herself to let herself into the back office and retrieve the watering can tucked underneath Lilia’s desk. She fills it in the utility sink by the bathroom, making her way back outside to water the nearly-dead flowers in the planters that line the large windows of the parlor.

It’s getting too cold to bother replacing them - in a few months, they’ll be dead beneath piles of snow, anyway, but tending to them as she listens to the wind hitting the old buildings that line the block is meditative and pleasant, and it takes some of the caffeine-induced shake out of her hands.

She’s in such a deep state of relaxation when she returns inside that the sound of the phone ringing causes her to literally throw the nearly-empty water can up in the air, watching helplessly as it lands and splashes its remaining contents across the foyer. Grumbling to herself, she rounds the desk and snatches the phone from its cradle.

“What?” She starts with, before amending, “Coven Ink.”

One of Alice’s regulars on the other end asks about making time for an appointment for a touch-up, and Agatha tries not to swear at her in frustration when the first pen she manages to grab to jot down a message is one of Lilia’s, complete with the assistive attachment. It has the opposite effect on Agatha’s writing, nothing on the Post-it note resembling English by the time she puts the phone back. She doesn’t bother making it any more legible as she slaps it onto Alice’s station and heads back to the bathroom for the wet floor warning sign. 

The bell rings above the door to signal Billy’s arrival, and Agatha snaps at him with one hand up.

“Watch it.”

He freezes, mouth open in what was likely about to be a chipper greeting, and glances down at the puddle. Sidestepping it, he makes his way to the desk and sloughs off his sweater.

“I didn’t think you’d be here already,” he says, instead of whatever his original greeting was about to be.

“Thought I just abandoned Nicky?” She asks, her tone rough with frustration as she returns with a dry mop and the sign. She shoves them both at him wordlessly, pleased that he takes them unquestioningly and begins to clean up her mess.

“You could have gone back home to bed,” he says, though they both know that hell would probably freeze over before she ever would.

He passes her as she leans against the reception counter, watching him unhelpfully, putting the mop away and vanishing into the back office. 

“What time is Rio coming in?” He calls, his voice carrying through the empty space and over the sounds of the music.

Agatha glances at her watch, shaking her sleeve back.

“About an hour, maybe a little less.” She watches as he returns to the desk with the cashier drawer balanced in both hands, stepping aside to give him room to get through. He settles in on his seat to count, expression neutral and well-rested in a way that only someone as young as him could possibly be at the hour.

“You must be looking forward to it,” Billy says, his focus elsewhere. She bristles.

“Why would you say that?”

He continues counting, lips miming the numbers as he mentally does the math, and then sets aside a small pile of wrinkled bills. It’s like he doesn’t even realize her question is serious, glancing up and doing a double-take when he sees that she’s still watching him.

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t done anything floral in a while, it might be a nice change of pace.” 

His answer seems honest enough, but it doesn’t change the fact that she feels on edge now. Her eyes flicker over to the waiting area and then narrow, thinking back to her near-unconscious sketch that morning. Glaring at the empty couch as if it personally offended her, she spins on her heel and is about to head back to the office to give herself a few moments alone when the bell above the door rings once more.

Agatha turns back to the door and freezes at the sight of Rio; a version of her she hasn’t seen before. Her hair is knotted loosely at the nape of her neck, reading glasses perched on her nose and nearly slipping off entirely as she leans down to wipe off a couple of dried leaves stuck to her sweatpants. 

“Morning,” she says, sounding a little out of breath. Her cheeks are tinged pink from the cold but the warmth of the shop inspires her to shrug off her coat, leaving her standing in the entryway in nothing but a tight, ribbed black tank. 

“Morning!” Billy chirps back. Agatha tries not to sneer.

“You’re early,” she says instead. Rio nods, turning to the coat rack and hanging her jacket. 

“I know, but I saw the light on when I was passing and thought I’d see if you were in.” Billy hands her a waiver on a clipboard and she takes it upon herself to reach over the desk for a pen confidently. “I can go and come back, I just thought if it worked out that you were ready…”

She is ready, at least in terms of having nothing else to do before Rio’s actual appointment time, but seeing her there before she was expecting has left her feeling unmoored, like the floor is uneven beneath her feet.

“I mean, I… have to set up,” she hears a stutter in her voice and almost physically recoils from disgust at herself.

“Okay,” Rio replies lightly, eyes flicking up from the clipboard. She catches Agatha’s eye and smiles, like she hasn’t just completely thrown a wrench in her whole day.

She turns back to her station, leaving Billy and Rio to go through the new-client onboarding process. She’s about halfway through filling her ink caps when Rio approaches, wandering closer and coming to a stop about a foot away from where Agatha’s poring over her tablet and trying to get it to connect to the shop’s spotty wifi. 

Her eyes lift from the pair of sneakers visible below her tablet screen, freezing when they land on the small sliver of the other woman’s torso that’s visible where her sweatpants have slung too low on her hips. She stares a beat too long, then tilts her head back to meet the other woman’s (infuriatingly, ridiculously) knowing gaze.

“Where do you want me?”

Agatha opens her mouth, which has gone embarrassingly dry, but the stencil printer beside her grunts to life and startles her out of her response.

She turns away abruptly and snatches the pages that it spits out, spinning back around in her chair in time to see the other woman toe off her shoes and then smoothly hook her fingers into the waistband of the sweatpants, shoving them down into a pile at her feet.

It shouldn’t shock her; she’s tattooed someone’s entire penis, once. Still, the sight of Rio standing calmly and confidently before her in biker shorts that ride so high it might have been just as easy to forgo them for a pair of regular underwear instead knocks the wind out of her for a moment.

She brandishes a disposable razor, rolling closer to the other woman, and stops when her hand shoots out to touch her shoulder and stop her in her tracks.

“Laser hair removal. Should be good.” 

Agatha turns her head away so she doesn’t see her wet her lips at the unfortunately clear image that those few words have conjured. She tosses the razor back onto her cart and grabs her transfer cream instead. Using the backs of her fingers, she applies it carefully to what seems to be the last untattooed space on the other woman’s thigh, her free hand gently cupping the back of her knee to turn her a little to reach the back.

This close, she can see the way her skin jumps almost imperceptibly at each brush. Rio couldn’t have told her in plain English any more clearly where she’s sensitive, what’s going to hurt the most or leave the clearest bruises. Her skin answers it for her, even without Agatha having to ask as she presses the stencil carefully into place and smooths her fingers over the edges lightly. 

Rio jumps a little when she lifts one hand and waves it at the spot, hoping to speed up the drying process - a stark contrast of suddenly cool air after just growing used to the sensation of her much warmer-by-comparison hands. 

Agatha peels back the paper and then slides her seat back to scrutinize the placement for almost an entire minute in silence. Rio shifts, like suddenly the gaze is making her feel uneasy, and she cranes her head to take a look herself.

“You want my opinion, too, or…?” She asks, her tone playful even though Agatha can hear the telltale tremor of insecurity creeping in at the edges. She gestures to the full-length mirror propped against the wall between her station and the unused one beside it, and Rio slides past her wordlessly to take a look herself.

“Looks good,” she says decisively.

“I have a perfect track record of zero people-pleasers, so take a better look,” Agatha demands. The look of surprise on Rio’s face is worth losing control of her tone for, shooting a little tinge of smugness into her stomach.

“I really like it,” she says, not even looking back at her reflection again. The gaze she levels on Agatha is nearly challenging. She sighs - it is a perfect placement, but Rio outmatching her confidence is misplaced for their current power dynamic. It unsettles the artist just a little further than her disregard for the set appointment does. 

She directs her onto her stomach on the table, letting her lay there in silence as she finishes the last of her preparation and then wheels herself closer. Adjusting the light, she pulls on a pair of gloves and eyes the purple lines filling the once-empty space on Rio’s skin.

“You ready?” She asks, eyes flicking up to the other woman’s face. She picks up the machine, revving it a little in what she won’t admit is a last-ditch attempt to regain a little bit of her threatening aura. 

“Uh-huh,” Rio replies, tucking her arms under her head and having the nerve to close her eyes as if she’s preparing to catch a little more sleep while Agatha works. 

She chuckles, the sound a little darker than she intended, and then lowers the needle to her leg.

Chapter Text

Over the quarter-century that Agatha’s been tattooing, she’s seen pretty much every reaction to pain possible. Grown men will grunt and wince and clench their fists when faced with the shader, taking deep, dramatic breaths as if they consider it to be how ‘toughing it out’ works. One of Agatha’s regulars, a delicate-looking, thirty-something-year-old woman, needs to bring Red Bull to her appointments to avoid falling asleep listening to the buzz of the machines while having the entirety of her back covered in a multi-session snake piece. Just a week prior, Alice had picked up a walk-in wearing what Billy had to inform Agatha was an ‘infinity collar’, who seemed fine until the end of the first hour when she began squirming in a specific way that made Jen, Lilia, and Billy all retire embarrassedly to the back office for the rest of the appointment.

She’s seen the whole spectrum–terror, panic, agony, arousal, and outright indifference. 

Rio’s reaction to the first stroke makes her feel like someone’s poured ice water over her head.

The muscle in her thigh jumps under the sensation, which takes Agatha by surprise. She’d expected tougher, maybe more of a guarded front. The twitch goes all the way down to her knee, but she relaxes under the machine immediately, not even opening her eyes. The reaction that makes Agatha freeze, though, is the sound that slips out of her, muffled into her folded arm. She lifts the needle immediately.

A sigh, but filthier. Caught between an exhale and a whine, it lingers, heavy, in the air. Agatha stops hearing the machine buzzing in her hand, like she’s lost the ability to hear anything else–or the interest to–after that.

Rio peeks one eye open, catching Agatha’s gaze.

“Almost forgot what this feels like,” she says. Her voice is thick, like she’s just been awakened from a good dream.

Agatha wordlessly lets her eyes roam down Rio’s arm, the tattoo-covered one, back to the leg she’s working on. All the pieces are well-healed, some even a little faded, blown out around the edges. It could have been months since she’d last been tattooed, if not longer. The thought doesn’t exactly explain the obscenity of the reaction, but Rio’s words, the reminder that this is a real human being under her hands waiting to continue their session, spur her back into her work.

To her credit, Rio doesn’t make that sound a second time, but her eyes are open now, chin dipped down into her arm so she can watch the side of Agatha’s face while she works. She pretends not to notice her, and after a few focused moments, she stops noticing for real.

Rio’s skin seems to open under her, reminding her of an old Magic Eye poster like the ones her mother never let her keep up in her room. (“Those are for drug addicts and socialists, Agatha, and I’ll be damned if I have one of those or their awful taste in decor under my roof.”)

Agatha’s pleased to know that she probably won’t have any issues with aftercare when it comes to the woman under her. If she’s this well-moisturized (not to mention the laser investment) and prepared for their first session, she can definitely count on her to keep it clean and turn in some decent healed photos in a few weeks. She hits a nerve that puts an unmistakable involuntary shake in her leg and wordlessly presses one hand to the ditch of her knee to hold her still. 

“Thanks,” Rio mumbles. Agatha doesn’t look up, transfixed on the movement of the skin under her machine. Her vision nearly goes blurry around the edges from how hard she stares, unblinking. She won’t be able to keep this up for the entire session without needing a break and an aspirin, so she finishes the stem she’s working on and then sits back, turning her head to press her eye into her shoulder until the spots vanish.

Rio adjusts a little, having the nerve to pull a catlike stretch, seeming to melt across the bed while Agatha re-ups her ink. 

“How long can you normally sit for?” She asks, inching her chair a little closer to move upward on the first flower, beginning the less intensive labor of the petals. The lines are shorter, and the curve to them makes them so easy to throw down that Agatha thinks she could probably do this in her sleep.

“For you?” Rio asks. Agatha can hear the grin in her tone and refuses to meet her eye. “Probably all day, if you’re not busy. You’re very gentle.”

To her horror, Agatha feels her cheeks heat up and realizes she’s fucking blushing.

“Most women are, I’m told,” she says, turning her body fully away and pretending to fiddle with something on the machine in her hands.

Rio hums in agreement, pushing herself up onto her elbows to turn to face the other woman a little better.

“Do I get a discount if I push past your hourly into a day rate?”

Agatha snorts. Then, in a flailing attempt to regain the upper hand, says boldly, “I don’t do day rate. There’s an extra fee if you keep flirting with me, though.”

She makes the mistake of looking up at the other woman as she settles back in and is frozen under the spotlight of her gleaming, mischievous stare. It was her own dumbass fault for taking the bait in the first place; it was never in her nature to not have the last word.

“Okay, Agatha,” Rio replies, tone bright and teasing. She pauses before delivering her final blow: “I can be good.”

She slides back down onto her arms, closing her eyes again. Hook, line, sinker.

Agatha stares at her, slack-jawed. She scrambles for another comeback, something, anything to add another tick to her side of the scoreboard, but comes up with nothing. Narrowing her eyes, she turns her attention back to the tattoo. She’d never risk making her art suffer, but she does pull the skin taut with her free hand a little harder than necessary, going through the motions of multiple connected petals without lifting the machine once and only stopping when the woman under her begins to tense.

She waits until she’s clenching hard enough that her skin is pulling back, away from her fingers, then lets go and wheels herself back to her cart wordlessly. Rio exhales slowly, shakily, and Agatha bites back the smirk threatening to cut through her guise of professionalism. 

By now, she’d probably have asked how she was doing, but the last thing she needs is to give the other woman some kind of opening. She wicks away a single bead of sweat that rolls down the back of her thigh, then reaches up with the back of her wrist to nudge her overhanging light a little more into place as she continues. It isn’t until she’s finishing a third flower, and is convinced that Rio might have actually fallen asleep, that Billy’s voice cuts through the music.

“Agatha?”

She grunts back in response, eyes narrowed as she hones in on a small cluster of disc florets. 

“Do you want to judge Miss Salem Ink this year?”

Agatha rears back from Rio’s leg, so bewildered that she doesn’t even have a chance to be offended when Rio almost mirrors her shocked and confused look, head shooting up from her previously restful position.

“Come again?”

“At the convention. You’re still coming to that, right?” Billy asks. He wheels his desk chair around the wall and peeks over the half-gate to the client area. She turns to glance over at him, because it’s better than having to look into Rio’s curious, amused face, and immediately regrets it when she sees the hopeful look he’s turned on her.

“I don’t know about the convention yet,” she tells him, deciding to tackle one issue at a time. She turns away from both of them and reaches for a paper towel instead.

Billy breezes past her non-answer.

“They asked for a female judge, and it would have to be you or Lilia with the experience requirement.”

Agatha cracks a genuine smile at that, chuckling to herself as she pushes back over to Rio and wipes away the smallest hint of blood blooming up on her skin where she’d overworked the head of one of the flowers a bit. The image of Lilia being responsible for judging a glorified ‘Twin Peaks potentials’ contest is funny enough to make Agatha want to preorder her convention tickets right then and there. Hell, it might be worth looking into group rates - she’d happily treat a few of her regulars to the show, too.

“I’m a little busy right now. Ask me later,” she tells him instead, then adds under her breath, “Or forget to. That would also be fine.”

Rio chuckles softly, fully alert again now as Agatha starts on a fourth flower.

“I think you should do it. It sounds fun.”

“It’s unpaid labor,” Agatha replies. “I don’t need to work for exposure anymore.”

The exposure would be good for the shop, though. Lilia’s going to have to retire sooner or later, though Agatha thinks its equally as likely that she’ll just stubbornly pass away in the back office one day, and Billy’s own portfolio is growing closer and closer to completion every week.

“Have you ever done it before?” Rio asks, clearly not planning to let it go.

Agatha sighs, lifting her eyes to meet the other woman’s gaze with what she hopes is a discouraging look.

“No.”

“Then how can you just say ‘no’?” Rio asks. 

Agatha sighs a second time, much more defeatedly, and watches the telltale shake of poorly withheld laughter shudder up her leg as she readjusts her grip. She doesn’t even dignify Rio’s obnoxious question with an answer, shaking her head to herself and letting the sounds of the machine blend into the music once more.

The next flower comes to life much more quickly; Agatha’s thankful for the stencil, fully aware that if she’d let herself freehand the entire piece, it would end up crowded and dense like her original practice sketch had been. 

Her playlist ends, and the quiet stretches the air between them long enough for Rio to speak again.

“When is it?”

“Huh?” 

“The convention,” Rio replies. “The one you’re not going to be a judge at.”

Agatha stays quiet for a long moment, not wanting to break her concentration on the last of the half-blooms. At the desk, she hears Billy shuffle around before another playlist begins, the one he curated specifically for her. She rolls her eyes.

“Next month. You can get a flyer on your way out,” she says roughly.

Rio lets out a little thoughtful sound–a hum from the back of her throat that’s far too similar to the sigh she’d made earlier–and Agatha freezes, hands stilling as she lifts them away from her like she’s worried she’s done something to draw another one out of her.

“But the shop will be there?” Rio presses, seemingly oblivious. 

“Uh-huh,” Agatha replies, unsure where she’s going with this, but continuing to find herself leaving her defenses down. She waits for a follow-up question, not feeling safe to lower the needle back to her skin until she’s sure she won’t be thrown another curveball, but it doesn’t come. She looks up to see that Rio has closed her eyes again, and exhales softly as she gets back to it.

Despite the conversation that always feels like a trap, she finds herself growing more and more comfortable with Rio as a canvas. She doesn’t hesitate to nudge her back and forth, nearly manhandling her into turning onto her side and dipping her knee closer to her as she gets started on the last couple of asters. She wipes away the excess ink between passes without a hint of acknowledgment of the way the other woman twitches away or gasps, easing up her pressure when she sees the tension in her jaw. 

The linework only takes two hours. They’re interrupted by Billy just as Agatha’s pulling off her gloves, clutching two frosty bottles of water in offering. Agatha takes one, popping the cap off and swigging from it before even bothering to hand Rio the second one, and then lowers it suspiciously to watch the condensation bead under her fingers.

“Where’d you get this?”

“...The back room?” Billy stares at her, head cocking slowly to the side.

“There’s no fridge in the back room,” Agatha points out.

Billy shuffles on the spot, stammering for a moment and then hanging his head.

“They were in the… mini fridge. At the desk.”

Agatha glares at him, opening her mouth to berate him, but he cuts her off.

“Wow, this looks great so far,” He sidesteps her, closer to the table to take a look, like he’s using the fact that she won’t want to jostle Rio as his first line of defense in the unlikely event of a physical attack.

“Yeah, I don’t usually hear any complaints,” Rio says. Agatha doesn’t have to look to know Billy has immediately averted his eyes.

She’s absolutely not smiling when she grabs her saline, though the actual yelp of shock that Rio lets out when she suddenly sprays it over her leg does make her smirk.

“Whoops.”

She plants the paper towel in place, soothing it over her soaked skin with a slow wipe, making sure the paper is completely saturated before dragging it across the sore and raised flesh under it. Rio inhales sharply, which Agatha assumes is out of irritation, and makes the mistake of deeming it safe to look up at her questioningly. She intends the look to be challenging, but her breath catches in her throat at the sight of her client worrying her lower lip between her teeth, eyes wide and pupils blown out. 

It takes her a moment to remember that Billy is still standing beside her, staring at the ceiling tiles with extreme interest, hands crammed into his pockets.

“I’m out of Bactine,” Agatha tells him. She’s not; she triple-checked her cart before he or Rio arrived that morning, but it gives him an excuse to leave and gives her something to say other than the first string of expletives that came to mind. Billy nearly falls over himself in his hurry to rush to the back office, and Agatha presses another dry towel onto the tattoo.

“How is it feeling?” She asks because she should, even though she half-expects Rio to answer with something absolutely obscene.

To her surprise, though, she doesn’t. She pushes herself up onto her elbows, cheeks flushed, and clears her throat with what Agatha would guess is uncharacteristic meekness.

“It’s good. I’m good. I could do this all day.”

Agatha chuckles darkly before she can help herself.

“Oh, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Rio’s eyes gleam, but before she can retort, Billy jogs back over with a fresh spray bottle and hands it to Agatha, then makes himself immediately scarce. She makes a mental note to remember to tip him out before she leaves for the day. 

“This might sting,” she says, tugging the cap off of the bottle and leaning forward to spray it across the fresh linework. She’s so close that she inhales a little of the mist in the air, feeling it burn in the back of her throat. There’s a pause as it lands, and then Rio lets out a full-body shudder of discomfort, lips tightening for a moment in reaction to the feeling. It’s little more than an itch, Agatha knows from experience, but she also agrees that it’s much worse than the more demanding, unrelenting pain of the needle. This pain inspires the urge to make it worse, to scratch for relief. 

Rio’s fingers twitch briefly, then still as the sting subsides to the kind numbness that takes over.

The song playing over the speakers changes to something lighter and pop-toned, and Agatha grits her teeth. Billy’s been sneaking a few of them in each time he updates her playlist, clearly trying to brainwash her into expanding her taste.

“Billy!” She calls, smiling self-satisfyingly when the song stops and skips to the next track. She focuses on Rio again, finally meeting her eye. “I’m going to let that sit for a minute. You need a break?”

She wheels back from the table and sips her water again, watching as Rio pushes herself to sit up completely and uncaps her own bottle. 

“You’re the one being bent over for hours,” she says, and even though it’s completely honest and accurate, the tone she chooses is anything but. “It’s up to you when we tap out today.”

Agatha exhales directly into her water bottle at that, fixing the other woman with what she hopes is an unamused look.

“What did I say about the flirting tax?”

Rio cocks her head to the side, lowering her own bottle before she can take a sip. She completes the innocent look by having the nerve to flutter her lashes.

“What do you mean?”

Agatha narrows her eyes curiously, then stands up from her seat.

“I’m going to stretch my legs.” She nods toward the door. “Do you smoke?”

“Good guess,” Rio replies, slipping down from the table and presenting her leg as Agatha grabs a fresh pair of gloves and a roll of plastic wrap.

She wraps the piece loosely, careful not to press on any of the fresh lines, and then tapes it into place before Rio retrieves her folded sweatpants and steps back into them, tugging them up around her hips and following Agatha out of the client area and back into the foyer. She digs in the pocket of her coat on the rack for a moment before pulling out a small snakeskin and gold-plated case, flipping it open, and pulling out two cigarettes. She offers one to Agatha, who hesitates, then avoids Billy’s judging gaze as she accepts it wordlessly and tucks it between her lips to free up both hands to put on her own jacket.

The cool air presses in on them from all sides once they step outside, and Agatha bristles uncomfortably as she tightens her jacket around herself and adjusts to the stark difference from the warm, comfortable shop.

She watches Rio light her cigarette with an ornate-looking lighter that Agatha doesn’t get a good look at and then holds a hand out for it. Rio snorts, taking a quick drag to make sure that it took, and then sticks her smoke between her teeth, speaking around it.

“I already took my pants off for you; we can probably save the butane and just fuck.”

The cigarette nearly drops out of Agatha’s mouth entirely when her jaw goes slack, but she straightens up when Rio leans in closer and pinches both cigarettes to steady them. She presses the lit butt of hers against Agatha’s, and after a beat, she remembers to inhale as well, lighting it.

Rio seems perfectly comfortable in the silence between them as she straightens back to her full height and takes a few more drags. For the first time in a long time, Agatha finds it to be unbearable.

“How long have you been at the shop?” She asks, hearing the stutter cutting into her question but forcing herself past it. She nods down the road a little, toward the corner where the flower shop is.

Rio narrows her eyes as she inhales, nodding slowly in thought as she mulls over the question.

“I inherited it a few months back, but negotiating with the employees– employee , I should say–wasn’t going well. I’ve only been there myself for a couple of weeks.” 

“Is it just you, now?”

Rio nods, watching as Agatha takes another long drag before speaking.

“For now. Unless you know anyone who got a diploma in floral artistry or whatever.”

Agatha snorts, a puff of smoke exploding from her lips from the force of it, and then looks away.

“That’s definitely not a real thing.”

“Oh, it is,” Rio replies, amusement lightening her tone. “At least, according to the last girl. Which was why I was supposed to be paying her more. Apparently, working for cheap was a favor for my uncle for being such a pillar of the community or something.” 

She makes air quotes with her fingers, the ash from her cigarette falling off of the butt end of it from the movement. 

Agatha eyes her thoughtfully, wondering briefly if she’s even aware of the truth in that.

“He was, actually.”

“Was what?” Rio’s question is muffled around the cigarette returning to her lips.

Agatha flicks the ash from the end of her own.

“A pillar in the community. I, uh…” She scratches the back of her neck with her free hand when Rio looks at her curiously. “I didn’t know him, though. We’d probably only met once or twice.”

She’s a little embarrassed to realize she doesn’t even remember his name.

“Well, don’t… beat yourself up over it?” Rio suggests, brow furrowing a little as she tries to parse the uncomfortable tonal shift the conversation has taken. “Most people don’t have a close personal relationship with their florist.”

“He did most of the planters around here,” Agatha gestures to the street. Rio follows her gaze, eyes snapping back to Agatha when she speaks again. “He was here long before I was. All the weddings and baby showers for everyone in every one of these shops, all him.”

She points to a few of the buildings, but this time, Rio’s eyes don’t leave her. She doesn’t meet her gaze as she takes another drag, long enough to burn harshly in her throat.

“Funerals, too, right?” Rio’s voice is tentative now, audibly tiptoeing through a minefield. 

“Yeah.” Agatha finally meets her eye, holding her gaze as she drops the nearly finished cigarette to the pavement and stomps it out with her toe. “You about done?” 

Rio’s gaze drops to her own cigarette and she frowns, like she’d forgotten she was holding it. She drops it as well, pulling her hair back from her face as she leans over it and spits. It’s quiet enough between them that Agatha can hear the sizzle of it going out, and looks away with a soft sound of disgust under her breath.

It draws a laugh out of the other woman, and she wordlessly follows her back inside. 

When Agatha returns from the sink, she finds Rio leaning against the reception counter, talking to Billy. The latter looks up at her, almost guiltily, as she approaches.

“Hey, so–”

“What am I being suckered into?” Agatha cuts him off with her question, slowing to a stop a few feet away from the pair of them and cramming her hands into her pockets.

“I just thought… we’re tearing through this so quickly,” Rio gestures at her leg, “If you still had time, after, we could do something else.”

“Depends what you had in mind.”

She thinks about Nicky, and about how she shouldn’t leave him with the Kaplans for too long. Still, Rio is right; they’re moving through the piece a lot more efficiently than she’d anticipated when she’d first started planning the appointment, admittedly due mostly in part to how well Rio is sitting for it, and it wouldn’t hurt to get another piece in or started.

Rio lifts one hand to her ear, tracing her index finger in a curve behind it, as if she’s tucking back her hair.

“Just a little vine.”

Agatha purses her lips. Rio, with her actual flower shop and camera roll full of floral displays, undoubtedly has something more specific in mind than what she’s saying.

“What kind of vine?”

“Dealer’s choice,” Rio replies. It takes Agatha a second to realize that that isn’t the name of a plant species. It throws her off a little - some of her oldest regulars still don’t let her make decisions like that for them.

She gestures back towards the bed, then nods.

“Yeah, sure. If we have time, after the shading.”

Rio lights up, a little spring in her step that Agatha pretends not to notice as she makes her way back to the bed and kicks off her shoes.

She’s careful as she slides the sweats off, and when the plastic is peeled back, Agatha can see the beginnings of some swelling, but Rio doesn’t seem bothered, so she sets out a few fresh ink cups and readjusts her machine.

Sometime during their time outside, Billy has moved on to his own playlist. Too tired to complain about the sickening back and forth of dark alternative pop and the dreamier-sounding top 40 tracks, Agatha works in silence for the next several minutes. 

Rio's resolve to sit well seems to be waning. To her credit, she doesn't complain or even flinch, but when each pass grows too long, her muscles tighten to the point of almost outright resisting the needle. 

"You still doing okay?" Agatha asks, not even realizing she's said anything until Rio gives her a surprised look. She doesn't blame her; she could hear the genuine concern in her own tone, and it sounded foreign to her, too.

"Yeah," Rio replies softly. "Yeah, I'm alright."

Her expression, almost touched, matches her voice almost unbearably. Agatha drops her gaze again and wicks away a little blood with the back of her pinky finger. Her needle returns to the same spot, and she hears the first real sound of pain from the other woman that she has for their entire session.

It's a groan. Her fingers dig into the side of the table, and she laughs in disbelief when the needle lifts again.

"Okay. That's... a little tender."

Agatha feels her lips twitch upward before she can help herself.

"Just wait until you finish this off," she warns, brushing the backs of her knuckles across her kneecap - some of the only other uninked skin on that leg.

Her skin jumps under the touch, too light after such sharp pain, and she inhales sharply.

"Yeah, not looking forward to it," Rio agrees, shifting slightly and trying to get comfortable again without going too far. "We'll have to figure out something good for it - worth it."

Agatha pauses. That is quite the assumption, but Rio is no longer looking at her, so she can’t fix her with a look to convey it.

They make it through the next hour without another word to each other, but the quiet is surprisingly comfortable. Rio might have actually fallen asleep, breathing evenly and slowly without stirring while Agatha finishes darkening each of the stems. She only stirs when the cold, wet paper towel makes contact with her leg again.

“Please tell me we’re done,” she groans, drawing a laugh out of the artist.

“That’s your call,” she tells her, wiping away the excess ink slowly and gently, then sitting back to look at the final piece with what she hopes is a bit of objectivity. 

Rio arches awkwardly to take a look, then swings her legs off of the side of the bed to pad over to the mirror. It’s definitely swollen; Agatha can see the difference now that she’s a little further away. The black and grey lines are outlined by a faint reddish glow of irritation, the centers of each flower already intensified with slight bruising, but the work is solid, and the look of appreciation on Rio’s face seems to confirm that.

“I think it’s good, I don’t see anything I’d change.”

Agatha exhales, flexing her fingers uncomfortably and setting down the machine on her cart. Beckoning Rio back over to the table, she reaches for her towels again, spraying another one down until it nearly drips on the floor.

"Hold still," she says, reaching out with one hand for Rio's leg, cupping the inside of her thigh from behind. She realizes her mistake as she does it, feeling a twinge of something akin to interest when Rio makes some sort of sound halfway between a giggle and a sigh. Her cheeks flush and she slaps the wet paper towel down to her skin with a bit more enthusiasm than necessary, like she's trying to physically cut her sound off.

"Cold," Rio hisses, leg twitching forward with a jerk, like her knee was about to buckle.

"You still want that vine?" Agatha asks, a challenge more than a question.

Rio stills, looking down at her and pursing her lips to try to hide her amusement.

"Yes."

"Alright," Agatha replies lightly, standing back up to her full height to retrieve the Polaroid camera. 

Billy pokes his head around the corner as the flash goes off, and Agatha can tell he's desperate to come and see the finished product but possibly still too nervous at the possibility of Rio making another off-color joke when he isn't expecting it. Agatha silently adds a tally mark to the 'pro' side of her mental pros and cons list of having Rio as a client on her roster.

"I'm assuming you know the drill: give it a week, take it off in the shower," she smooths the cover over the piece carefully, avoiding pressing down too hard on any of the more concentrated areas.

Rio nods along, dipping down to retrieve her pants. 

"Yeah, I got it," She promises. Her face is so close to Agatha's for a moment that she can smell the smoke on her breath, mixing in with the mint from the piece of gum she must've been grinding between her molars since they'd come back inside earlier. She steps into the sweats and hikes them back up her hips, leaving them hanging just a hint too low to meet the hem of her tank top once again.

"I'll set up for your vine," Agatha says, gesturing to her cart and then all but shooing the other woman away from her station. "You can go stretch your legs if you need to."

It's less of a friendly suggestion and more of a demand to get out of her space. Rio takes the hint, testing the feeling of leaning her weight onto her freshly tattooed leg and heading back towards the front of the shop.

She pulls up a few references on her tablet before bothering to spray anything down, pulling out a fresh needle pack and swiping the empty ink cups into the garbage can. She glances at the stencil printer briefly and then reaches for a couple of her markers instead. 

“What’re you thinking?” She calls over her shoulder to the other woman. “Fine line?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Rio’s voice is way closer than she anticipated, and she jumps almost out of her seat entirely before whirling around to look at her. She’s returned silently in the last few moments, clutching a fresh bottle of water in both hands.

“I’m just going…” Agatha’s voice falters and she starts over. “Show me how big you want it.”

Rio tugs the hair tie off of her wrist and pulls her hair back messily, then sinks down to run her finger along the area again. Agatha watches her as she pulls on a pair of gloves, then rolls closer with an alcohol wipe. Blindly reaching back for her marker, she leans closer to begin her rough outline. 

Twitching away, Rio huffs out a sound of surprised frustration, then returns to her original position so Agatha can put her non-marker-wielding hand against her jaw steadyingly. 

“The needle won’t tickle nearly as much,” Agatha assures her, acutely aware of how close they are when she continues to freehand the design, ignoring the twitch that travels down the woman’s entire neck as her fingers brush into her hairline near her nape.

“Oh, good,” Rio exhales shakily; it isn’t a funny enough comment to laugh at on its own, but combined with what seems to be obvious nerves, it draws a chuckle out of her. Agatha’s eyes narrow slightly but she doesn’t question it, sketching out a few more tiny leaves and then stepping back.

“Get Billy to grab you a hand mirror,” she tells her, stepping back and letting go of her jaw. 

She watches Rio for a moment too long as she wordlessly heads back over to the desk and then settles back at her station, fiddling with the machine until she returns.

“Round two,” Rio sighs, sitting up on the edge of the table without needing to be asked.

Agatha stands up and gestures for her to turn her head to the side, buzzing the machine in her hand to life.

“Don’t get any more brilliant ideas halfway through this one,” she warns, though the playfulness in her tone is unmistakable. “Unless you trust the apprentice to do it. He’s not even off-paper yet, though, so do it in the alley out back or we’ll lose our license.” 

Rio laughs, leaning away from her a bit to make sure she doesn’t bump into her from the movement of it.

“Okay, noted. Final round,” she amends.

“Better,” Agatha replies, leaning in closer once more. She lowers the machine to skin, almost drowning out Rio’s next words:

“Today. Final round, today.”

Chapter Text

Rio sits in silence for the whole twenty-odd minutes that the fine line tattoo takes. The buzzing in her ear is undoubtedly too loud for her to hear any attempts at conversation that Agatha would make if she even wanted to, so she just tenses her jaw, grips fistfuls of the sanitary sheet on the bed, and lets Agatha work in peace.

The familiar, almost nostalgic scent of Rio’s perfume — potent but not overpowering — and the sound of her forced steady breathing are Agatha’s entire world for those several minutes. It’s not until she’s cutting out a small piece of Saniderm to cover the finished piece that they’re disturbed at all. The bell above the door chimes, and Agatha hears Billy roll his seat back for a better look before he greets them brightly.

“Hi, Mom.”

Whirling back around from where she was smoothing the wrap into place, Agatha looks over at the doorway in alarm. Rebecca Kaplan approaches the desk, resting her crossed arms gently on top of it, and Agatha breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of the very top of Nicky’s head poking up over the ledge at her side.

She raises one finger in front of her lips in a gesture for silence, watching Rebecca’s eyes drift to her. She nods slowly, making a similar gesture in return, then nods to Billy. He glances back and clears his throat.

“What’re you doing here?”

“We were out running errands and thought we’d say ‘hello’,” Rebecca explains. She lifts a greasy-looking paper bag over the counter and sets it down in front of her son, quirking an eyebrow. “And Nicky said that you’re always forgetting to eat when you take your break, so…”

Agatha can hear the blush on the boy’s face when he groans in protest, trying to shush her as he gratefully digs into the bag. Rio snickers, bringing Agatha’s attention back to her to finish the task at hand.

Nicky’s shoes squeak on the tile, but he’s still too short to see over the gate.

“Mama?” He calls out into the client area. Agatha winces 

Rio eyes her for a moment, then looks both amused and surprised when she doesn’t immediately answer him. Instead, she pushes her chair back as silently as she can, reaching for her phone for a last photo before her workflow is interrupted entirely. She takes one photo, then winces when the second photo sets off the automatic flash that she still hasn’t figured out how to turn off. 

Nicky grabs the gate and rattles it. Rio snorts, her head dropping forward and causing the third photo to come out blurry. 

“Hey,” Agatha snaps over her shoulder. The rattling stops abruptly, and she rolls her eyes. Without thinking, she takes Rio by the jaw and raises the camera again, turning her head back into position. She realizes her mistake when the other woman’s breath catches and the amusement drops from her features. 

If she didn’t have both Billy and Rebecca’s eyes on her, along with her extremely impatient son waiting for her, she might have given herself a moment to enjoy Rio’s expression; maybe even comment on it, but for the time being, she keeps her commentary to herself, and lets go of her chin after the last photo turns out perfectly.

"What do I owe you?" Rio asks, her voice low. She doesn't step back out of Agatha's space, forcing her to make the move herself to tuck her phone into her back pocket.

She checks her watch, then glances up at the clock on the wall to double-check.

"Three and a half hours, minus the hundred deposit... Six, even."

Rio steps closer, closing some of the space between them once more as she roots around in the pocket of her sweats before bringing her thumb to her lips and licking it. Agatha's sure she sees the flash of silver peeking out, averting her eyes back down to the folded bills in the other woman's hands. She peels back a few bills and holds them out wordlessly, then chuckles quietly when Agatha quickly tucks them into her bra and turns away. 

She gestures toward the front area, turning her attention back to her setup and reaching out to begin tearing the plastic wrap off of her tool tray.

Billy is a little overenthusiastic with his greeting as Rio approaches, likely just in an attempt to focus the stilted energy of the shop elsewhere. 

“Hey!” Rio says. Her voice, bright and happy, gives away that her greeting is specifically meant for Nicky. She steps slowly out from behind the separating gate and Agatha glances over in time to see Nicky lifting one finger and aiming it at Rio.

“Rio,” he recalls. He sounds hilariously adult-like, but Agatha scolds him nonetheless.

“Hey . We don’t point.” The gate swings back shut before she can catch his eye, and both he and Rio ignore her.

“Uh-huh,” Rio agrees, focusing her gaze on him with playful scrutiny. “Nicky, right? You been taking care of that daisy I gave you?”

Nicky is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment, and is likely wearing an adorably guilty expression, because Billy jumps in to save him.

“We kept it at the shop,” he tells her. Rio’s eyes flick from Billy to Nicky again.

“Regifting flowers?” She tsks playfully, and Agatha makes her way back over to the counter just as her son starts stammering through an explanation. By the time she’s at Billy’s side, Nicky’s near-incoherent rambling has turned into giggling, Rio’s expression having softened and taken the sting out of her faux offense.

“I was going to crush them up into dirt, anyway,” Rio tells him. Nicky frowns.

“What? Why?”

“To help other flowers grow,” Rio says simply. It’s not exactly a good explanation about the ins and outs of composting, which quiets Nicky for the time being as he visibly rolls the idea around in his mind. 

“We’re good here,” Agatha tells Billy, nudging him and nodding to Rio. She doesn’t mean to rudely rush her out, but the combination of all of the company crowded around the desk is making her fidgety. Billy dutifully clicks the ‘paid’ button on the screen, Rio’s appointment time vanishing and being replaced with the full spreadsheet schedule.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” Rio says, shrugging her coat on. Agatha gives her a quick nod, and she makes it almost fully to the door before the compulsion for inappropriateness seems to hit her again, and she tacks on, “I have like, a whole other butt-cheek that could use some beautifying.”

Nicky bursts out laughing - he has no idea what the entire sentence means, surely, but a grown woman did just mention butt cheeks in front of him, which is the peak of comedy. Billy snorts, though Agatha hopes that it's in response to Nicky’s contagious giggling and not because he has a similar sense of humor. 

The bell above the door rings, but before Rio can step outside, Rebecca spins around, gesturing to her with one hand and slapping the other to her forehead as if in total disbelief.

“Oh! You work at the florist’s, down the road.”

Rio pauses, turning around.

“I own it,” she corrects gently, but Agatha is pleasantly surprised to hear a hint of pride laced deep underneath her simple words.

“Rio gave me a free flower,” Nicky tells her, pulling Rebecca’s hand when he realizes the attention is no longer focused on him.

“That was very nice of her,” Rebecca tells him gently, before turning to Agatha once more. “If you’re still busy packing up, we can leave and come back-”

Before Agatha can respond, Rio cuts in again.

“You could come by the shop if you have a spare minute. Get a replacement, if you like.” She makes her offer to Nicky fully, eyes locked on him as if he’s as much an adult and part of the conversation as any of the rest of them. She only lifts her gaze back to Rebecca to double-check for permission. “Assuming you aren’t in a hurry.”

“No, not at all, that sounds lovely,” Rebecca clearly doesn’t notice the way Agatha bristles, but Billy does, glancing up at her like he’s wordlessly asking her if she’d like him to step in. She ignores him; there’s no other option when Nicky starts bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet and pulling Rebecca for the door.

Rio pushes the door open further to allow Nicky and Rebecca to pass her out into the cold air. Nicky doesn’t even glance back at Agatha before he bounds outside, and she busies herself with straightening a stack of business cards on the counter in a well-acted rendition of ‘ that doesn’t sting at all’. 

The door slams shut loudly behind them, the wind adding insult to injury, and Billy speaks immediately.

“How’d it go?”

Agatha turns to him and narrows her eyes, but her heart isn’t in the glare; it isn’t his fault, but she needs someone to be annoyed with, so she swipes the bag off of the counter and pulls out a second pastry, tearing into it with her teeth before spinning on her heel to head back to her station.

She finds herself rushing the takedown process and tries to force a little more deliberateness into her movements. She’s not going to cut corners just because she’s in a hurry to cut Rio, Nicky, and Rebecca’s time together short.

She’s in the process of crumpling up the used stencil from Rio’s originally-booked leg piece and folding it into a ball of plastic wrap when Billy approaches, forever unable to take a hint.

“Are you going to book her again?”

Agatha closes her eyes, picking up her bottle of disinfectant and picturing herself spraying it at him like a misbehaving cat before aiming it at the bed, instead.

“Depends if she wants to,” Agatha replies, tacking on: “Depends what she wants.”

The double-meaning of her own words isn’t lost on her, and if it weren’t Billy she were talking to, she might have regretted saying anything at all. Jen probably would have had a dirty insult locked and loaded to fire back if it had been her there to witness the events of the day.

“She sit alright?”

Agatha’s mind floods with images of the other woman shifting under her hands, the sounds she’d made - some that she was beginning to suspect were voluntary and intentionally timed to throw her off - and she wishes Billy would just go back to the desk and stop making her think about the session at all.

“Obviously. You saw her, she’s probably running out of space.”

“Except for the other butt cheek,” Billy jokes. Agatha can tell he’s trying to lighten the mood; maybe cut some of the frustrated tension in the air, but she wants to throttle him for making her think about Rio’s ass again when she just got the image out of her mind.

“Did you need something?”

She whirls around to glare up at him and he balks, shaking his head and taking a step back before holding out a fresh roll of paper towels for her, clutched between both shaky hands. She snatches it away and tears off a few squares to start wiping with, going over the same spot on the bed over and over again until she hears him give up and walk away again, heading for the back office.

Unfortunately, Rio had sat perfectly, flirting aside. It was one of the easiest new-client sessions Agatha’s had in recent memory. She tosses the used paper towel into the trash and pulls the cash out of her bra, flipping through it and paling at the bills still remaining un-flipped after she passes the threshold of what she’d been owed. Tips were expected, but between the flirting and the almost gratuitous excess cash, Rio’sbordering on a dramatic flair that Agatha isn’t sure she has room in her roster for, but isn’t in any financial position to ignore.

She grabs her bag and jacket, heading for the door just as Billy makes his way back out of the office.

“You taking off?”

She mostly grunts in response, tossing one of the extra bills onto the counter blindly for him and shoving out the door.

Unlocking her car as she approaches, she slumps into the driver’s seat and sits in silence for a moment, trying to fully decompress. Not that she’d ever admit it out loud, but Billy’s incessant insistence on making a mental pros and cons list during times of frustration was proving to be one of Agatha’s more commonly used tools. 

Pros: She sat well; she tipped well; and she didn’t seem hell-bent on trying to impress Agatha, flirting aside. 

Cons: A little over-familiar; new to the area and hard to read; possibly trying to force Agatha into unknowingly indulging some kink.

Agatha grips the steering wheel and presses her forehead to the top of it, exhaling with all of the air left in her lungs until she feels like she’s fully deflated, then turns the key in the ignition. With a little coaxing, the Plymouth roars to life, and rumbles reassuringly as she wrestles her way out of her jacket and fiddles with the worn-out seat belt. 

There’s very little reason to drive around the corner to park at Rio’s shop other than to give herself the excuse of being parked in a loading zone, therefore having no time to chat and needing to grab Nicky and run. Her back is already starting to ache from the session and getting caught up in a triangle between Rebecca’s chattiness and Rio’s… whatever she classified her banter as, was the exact opposite of how Agatha wanted to spend her first hour of post-work freedom.

Pulling up right below the ‘NO STANDING’ sign, Agatha tosses the car in park and considers leaving it running before deciding that may be overkill. She retrieves her bag and pushes her way inside the shop just in time to hear Nicky’s yell of surprise near the counter.

Rebecca turns to her first, admiring a large glass case near the door full of ready-for-pickup bouquets, each with its order slip tucked neatly below. 

“That was quick,” she comments, and Agatha can’t even bring herself to respond, eyes flicking around the space until she spots Nicky sitting up on the check-out counter, kicking his feet softly against the worn wood side of it while Rio speaks to him in a hushed tone.

She moves to approach and pauses at how enraptured he is. It’s a look usually reserved for the television - often when it’s something he knows he shouldn’t really be watching - the grin threatening to stretch his cheeks permanently, eyes as wide as saucers. She follows his gaze to a potted plant, one of Rio’s hands wrapped around its base, though Agatha can’t make out what exactly it is from where she stands, and then back down the line of his arm to his hand, where he’s gripping a long pair of copper-colored tweezers.

Before she can step any closer, or make her presence known, he squeals again, dropping the tweezers entirely. Rio snatches them the moment they hit the counter, her free hand leaving the plant to slam down roughly onto the surface of the desk a few inches away just a beat later. 

The pair of them freeze, and Rio lifts her hand again to look at her palm questioningly. Her gaze turns mischievous, and she reaches out to show Nicky. His fit of terrified laughter nearly sends him pitching off the edge of the counter. Something lights up in Agatha’s chest, shooting through her nerves and forcing her forward through the space; she catches him just as he loses his balance, landing squarely back against her torso and grabbing her arms for balance. Her heart pounds in her chest at the near-miss, and she shakily lowers him the rest of the way to the floor, muttering a nothing warning about being careful that he pointedly ignores to focus on the florist instead.

The grin hasn’t left Rio’s face, though she does have the sense to look at least a little guilty. Agatha looks to her for an explanation and then hones in on the little splatter of snot-colored goop with a few spindly, broken legs currently glued to the center of her palm, and makes a face before she can help herself.

“What is that?”

“It was a grasshopper. Still is, I suppose. That really depends on your personal opinions about dualism and the death of the body.”

Agatha stares at her.

“We were feeding Seymour!”

Nicky points helpfully to the plant on the counter, and Agatha drops her gaze from Rio to it, instead. An unimpressive Venus flytrap sits unassumingly between them, only about three inches tall.

“Wouldn’t Audrey be more appropriate?” Agatha asks. Rio purses her lips before they pull back into a dazzling grin, and Agatha is forced to drop her gaze again before it accidentally catches her.

“You a big Frank Oz fan?”

“Not particularly,” she sniffs, her hand dropping to Nicky’s shoulder if only to have somewhere to put it. She watches as Rio turns away to grab a paper towel from behind the till and wipes her hands clean, then pulls a container of live grasshoppers out from below the counter. “Just saying, you would be the Seymour in this scenario, if we’re -”

“Do you want to try again?” Rio fully cuts her off to address Nicky, and he wiggles out of Agatha’s grip to try to pull himself back up onto the counter again impatiently.

“Yes!” He insists, nearly falling once more before Agatha gives him a boost without thinking about it. He settles into his former spot and holds out a hand, shaking slightly in excitement, and accepts the tweezers that Rio places in it. At the end of the implement an angry-looking, wriggling grasshopper fights against the restraints; Agatha watches one of its legs tear free from its body and drop silently to the countertop. Nicky doesn’t seem to notice, focused on the plant, and follows Rio’s instructions to hold still until Seymour ’s jaws close around it. 

“That’s good,” Rio tells him, helping him pull the tweezers free gently. Something in Agatha’s chest pulls at the way he lights up at the reassurance.

“What now?” he asks, eyes still fixated on the plant.

“Now we have to wait,” Rio says with a heavy sigh, like she’s preemptively agreeing that it’s a boring response. “He’s a little bit of a slow eater. But you can come back in a couple of days and see if you want.”

Her eyes flick back up to Agatha’s, but Nicky’s gaze does the same, and the latter wins her attention. He gives her a pleading look, already reaching for her to pull on her sleeve. She considers stepping out of his reach, as if it will help, but doesn’t want to risk him falling again.

“Are you ready to go?” She changes the subject.

He immediately regrets latching onto her, because it gives him no time to squirm to freedom before she pulls him down from the counter and rights him on his feet. 

“Can we come back tomorrow?”

“No,” Agatha replies shortly, already dipping down to pull his sweater more squarely on his shoulders and reach for its zipper. “You have school tomorrow.”

“After?”

She doesn’t bother saying ‘no’ a second time, managing to get the zipper done up and narrowly missing catching her fingers in the teeth of it in her hurry. Rebecca joins them at the counter with a small bundle of carnations, and ringing her up distracts Rio for long enough that Agatha can lie to Nicky properly without being given away.

“It’ll be closed, after. Come on, we have stuff to get done at home.”

The idea of leaving the fun of a predatory plant to do chores only inspires more whining, and Agatha feels the last tight thread of her patience finally snapping.

“Nicky. Enough.”

He freezes, staring at her in shock for a moment before the glint of defiance slips into his glare around the edges. There wasn’t much Agatha wouldn’t do for him, but this particular setting for a tantrum feels like something crafted out of one of her very specific nightmares.

“But, I-”

“Now. Car.” She raises her voice just enough that it catches the other two women’s attention, and she sees them pointedly pretending to ignore her out of the corner of her eye. The idea of being publicly embarrassed is enough to briefly quell whatever attempt at independence Nicky had been revving up for, and he stomps grumpily over to the door, pressing his hands against the lower glass with all of his weight until it finally opens and lets him out into the street.

“I’ll be in touch!” Rio calls when Agatha goes to follow him. It lands in her ears like a threat.

Nicky’s in the middle of poutily kicking at the back tire of the Plymouth when Agatha steps out, so she doesn’t bother telling him to stop when she unlocks the car with the fob and triggers the horn to give off a single, warning ‘beep’ that he wasn’t expecting. He jumps halfway out of his skin at the sound, turning to glare at her and even completing the look by crossing his arms.

She can’t help but smirk a tiny bit, considerably more endeared by his shitty behaviour when she isn’t being overwhelmed by unwanted company in an unfamiliar location. 

“What a face.”

A flicker of a smile pulls at his mouth and he forces it down dramatically, tightening his crossed arms as Agatha approaches and pulls the back door open for him, gesturing with a nod of her head for him to climb inside.

Taking care not to catch his jacket or leg in the door, Agatha closes it behind him and rounds the hood to her side, taking one last glance up at the shop front as Rebecca exits as well, her fresh flowers wrapped neatly in dark paper and twine. She lifts them in a gesture to Agatha, giving her a wave before heading back down the street in the direction of the tattoo shop. Agatha watches her until she completely vanishes around the corner, and then slips into her own seat.

Nicky pouts silently for the entire drive home, even when Agatha tries to get his attention once or twice with questions about his day. She can tell his adamance to stay upset with her is serious when he won’t even tell her about the Venus flytrap, even though she can see him physically squirming from the effort to keep from telling her everything. It’s not until they’re pulling into the driveway that she realizes he didn’t get a new flower from Rio’s shop like initially promised, so she makes sure to retrieve the nearly-wilted asters that have fallen into the footwell of the back seat before they head inside and she parks him at the kitchen counter.

He watches her curiously while she flits around the kitchen, finding a barely-used mortar and pestle from the top shelf of the cupboard above the stove, and a cutting board from beneath the sink. She hasn’t done much involved cooking since Nicky was a baby and she’d been petrified of accidentally causing his early demise by somehow missing some key nutritional factors. A few of her pricier kitchen tools had been gathering dust for years since she’d come to realize just how resilient little boys could be.

“What’re you making?”

“ We ,” she corrects, “Are making a potion .”

She places the flowers onto the counter at the same moment that she remembers Rio’s warning about them attracting bugs, and drops a damp dish towel over the top of them as she turns away to pull out a large glass pot.

“What does it do?” Agatha is pleased to hear that Nicky’s voice has lost all of its previous grumpy dismissiveness, the excited thoughtfulness back in full swing. 

“Make the house smell nice, mostly,” she admits.

“Do we drink it?”

She pauses, pulling her phone from her pocket and tapping in ‘are asters poisonous?’ before responding, “You could. But it would be pretty gross.”

She makes a face that makes Nicky laugh, then turns to pull the kitchen scissors out of the wooden knife block beside the sink. He reaches over and picks one of the flowers up, turning it around in his fingers and peering at the petals, before looking up at her again.

“What are they?”

“You don’t recognize them?” Agatha asks, narrowing her eyes at him playfully and challengingly. He frowns, running his fingers softly over the petals as if trying to tacitly jog his memory, then defeatedly shakes his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Asters. We were drawing them the other day.”

He lights up at the reminder, turning his attention back to the one in his hands. 

“Why do you have them? Did Rio give them to you, too?” 

“Uh-huh,” Agatha’s tone is two octaves higher than usual; she’s uninterested in bringing any more work home with her than her job already requires, so she moves on quickly. “Okay, this is your part.”

She cuts the head off of one of the flowers, plopping it into the stone bowl and sliding it across the counter toward Nicky. He pulls it closer still, pushing himself up onto his knees on the bar stool and then reaches for the pestle. Its weight seems to surprise him, and even in his grip it drops, hitting the counter with a worrying CLACK that sets Agatha’s teeth on edge. Neither the pestle nor the countertop seem to be damaged, though, so she bites the inside of her cheek as he readjusts his grip and looks up at her questioningly.

She cuts another head from a second flower before reaching over to help him, lifting his hand into the bowl and pressing down in a twisting motion until she feels the satisfying sensation of the petals squishing together and then being properly crushed into the stone. Once she’s sure he has the motion down, she lets him go to continue on his own, and begins to chop the stems from the two decapitated flowers into smaller pieces.

“Did you know some flowers can live up to 45 days?”

Agatha snaps the next stem more roughly than necessary.

“What did you and Ms. Kaplan do today?” She asks, trying to steer the conversation away from whatever other fun facts Nicky no doubt badgered out of Rio during their short time together.

Luckily, the distraction works. Agatha drops the head of the second flower into the mortar just as the first becomes a half-powder half-paste mess, and Nicky launches into a long explanation about the upcoming weather cycle for the week. Apparently, Rebecca had left the news on while making lunch, and it had been a slow day, headline-wise.

Agatha fills the pot and dumps the chopped-up stems into the water, setting it on the stove before turning her attention back to where Nicky has moved on from grinding to stamping the pestle into the bottom of the dish, and swipes it out of his hands quickly.

“That’s good. They can’t get any deader.”

He giggles at the faux-exasperated look she gives him, slipping down from the counter when she beckons him to the stove with one finger. Double-checking that his two-handed grip on the heavy mortar is sufficient, she hoists him up by the hips so he can pour its contents into the simmering water, and then gently lowers him back to the floor to stir it.

True to Rio’s word, a strong pine-like scent fills the kitchen as the water continues to heat. It sends an unexpected twist of pain through her chest - she’s never considered herself a Scrooge by any means, but some combination of the lack of vitamin D and the crooning, depressing Christmas music always seems to put a filter of melancholy over the whole time of year for her. Apparently, she’s learning, so does the smell of Christmas trees, even out of season.

“Are you sure we don’t drink it?” Nicky asks, snapping Agatha out of her thoughts.

She glances down at him and shakes her head, then pulls him against her thigh while she continues to stir, watching as the simmer turns into a rolling boil before lowering the heat.

“It does smell good,” He decides, despite his obvious disappointment at the lack of edibility. “Can we go look at Christmas trees this week?”

“It’s months away from Christmas,” Agatha snorts. “The trees don’t live that long.”

“Rio said they live for a thousand years .”

“Oh, we’re talking about Rio again,” Agatha breathes, before she can help herself. She turns to Nicky and sighs, taking in the confused look on his face and closing her eyes. “Why were you talking about Christmas trees?” 

She realizes her mistake when he opens his mouth, stopping him in his tracks by raising one hand for him to hold it - whatever long-winded train of thought he’s about to take her on probably won’t make the entire situation any less perplexing. He stills, shifting his weight from foot to foot, then holds his hands out.

“Can I crush the rest of the flowers?”

“Absolutely,” she agrees, depositing the mortar back in his grip and sending him back to the other side of the counter.

The remainder of the afternoon and even evening goes by without another mention of Rio, even when Nicky is inspired while picking out his clothes for school the next day to choose a graphic tee with a scientific illustration of several healing herbs and their names. She stares at it as he hands it to her to set on top of his dresser, waiting for him to verbally make the connection, but he just stares back at her expectantly, so she doesn’t bring it up.

Returning to the kitchen to tidy up the floral murder scene, Agatha relights the burner under the aster-filled simmer pot almost without thinking and then retires to the living room with a heavily poured glass of wine and her tablet. 

She first flicks through her photos from Rio’s sessions that day and chooses the clearest shot of the leg piece to email to Lilia for the shop’s social media. While Agatha’s own online presence was lacking, she didn’t argue with the older woman about the importance of enticing their client base into making a split decision to spend more money mid-scroll.

Staring at the photo once she clears the email from her screen, she lets her eyes ( professionally , she tells herself) wander. Disappearing out of view of the focus of the photograph, another of Rio’s tattoos pokes out from beneath the shorts she’d worn to her appointment. Agatha briefly wonders just how far in the spindly, twisting stems go, but cuts that thought short with a gulp of wine big enough to hurt her throat on the swallow.

Refocusing on the photo with a strictly artistic lens, she shrinks it into the corner of the screen and opens a new canvas, resting the tablet on her lap in order to hold both her glass and her stylus in each hand. 

Rio had mentioned liking the asymmetrical choice Agatha had gone with for the asters and her current pieces were mismatched enough that she could surmise that she would appreciate it for the next session, too. The leg she’d been space-filling had lots of leaf-work. Thorns and branches and greenery whose lushness shone through even in shades of black and grey ink. Her other side might benefit from something softer - where the flowers Agatha had already done had stood out on one side, they could be more commonplace on the other.

She gets halfway through her second attempt at a climbing rose when she realizes she’s drawing the other woman’s ass from memory and every hair on her arms stands on end so suddenly that she nearly upends her wine onto the screen. 

She barely manages to calm her nerves when Nicky’s soft voice behind her startles a scream out of her. He looks equally as alarmed as she feels when she whirls around to face him, and she forces herself not to snap at him in misplaced frustration.

“Why are you up?” She asks tersely.

“I had a bad dream. Can I sit with you?”

Agatha closes her eyes and exhales slowly, trying to center herself before hazarding a glance at the clock.

“No,” she tells him, watching his face fall with a pang of guilt. She downs the last of her wine and sets the glass aside blindly. “It’s past my bedtime, too. C’mon.”

She snaps her tablet shut and pushes herself off the couch, then leads Nicky back to the stairs before doubling back to turn off the stove. He hesitates outside of her bedroom door and she pretends not to notice so she doesn’t cave, marching him insistently back to his own bed. When she’s sure he won’t get up again, she brushes the remnants of wine from her mouth and crawls into her own bed. She digs three melatonin pills from the drawer in the side table, though her fingers do hesitantly brush over her vibrator with the thought that it might put her to sleep faster, and swallows them dry before she can mentally conjure up any interesting ideas for bad dreams of her own. 

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.

Chapter Text

Agatha manages to skirt the discussion about the rabbit’s foot tattoo by goading Rio into letting her teach her how to throw properly. She’s surprised it takes as much convincing as it does; Rio’s been going out of her way to flirt and disarm her as much as possible since the very moment they met, but it appears that having her in the spotlight - with the chance to make a fool of herself - has quelled her boldness a little.

“I want it on record that I’m doing this in a cool, ironic, post-cringe-culture millennial way,” Rio says, setting down their fresh beers. Agatha notes that she’s switched to a new label and is drinking from the can this time. “ Not in the ‘divorced old man who votes wrong’ way.”

“Which one do I fall under?” Agatha asks, head cocking to the side as she watches the other woman hike her cargo pants up on her hips a little before grabbing a dart. 

Rio rolls her tongue over her teeth beneath her lips, eyes narrowing.

“You going to show me how to do this, or what?” She asks instead of answering as she gestures between the pair of them with the dart clutched between two fingers.

“You’re holding too tight,” Agatha tells her, reaching over and adjusting her fingers on the barrel of the dart before letting go and watching her focus ahead again. Her sigh makes Rio pause again, glancing at her questioningly. Pushing herself off the edge of the table, she approaches and gestures for her to step closer. She does without question, shuffling right into Agatha’s personal space as if it's a familiar place she frequents.

Wrapping just the ends of her fingers around the curve of Rio’s elbow, Agatha presses encouragingly upward, stopping once the line of her arm is straight enough, then ghosts her touch down the underside of her bicep, an admittedly self-indulgent choice. She follows the curve of the muscle, letting the hint of hardness there guide the pads of her fingers organically around toward the top of her shoulder instead of vanishing down the arm hole of her tank top, then presses firmly there in a gesture for her to hold her position.

And Rio does stay incredibly still. So much so that when Agatha lifts her eyes to her face, she’s not surprised to see that she seems to be holding her breath.

“Alright, now turn.” Her hand drops to the other woman’s hip, the other following suit to shift her until they’re face to face, then slides around her back. She presses her leg against the back of Rio’s, nudging her in place with her knee and dropping one hand reflexively to her hip to steady her before her own knee buckles.

“Easy,” Rio hisses, leaning more of her weight into Agatha than is probably necessary to maintain her stance. Agatha gives her the benefit of the doubt of the alcohol throwing her off balance, even though she knows they’re both holding their beers just fine.

“Relax,” she reminds her.

 “There’s fresh ink back there,” Rio reminds her.

Agatha experimentally presses into her a little more, feeling the crinkle of the plastic wrapping beneath Rio’s pants brushing against her own pant leg. Rio makes another warning sound of protest.

“Oh, that doesn’t hurt, you big baby,” Agatha scoffs, fingers tightening around her hip.

She both hears and feels the other woman’s huff of amusement in her exhale as they both focus on the board again. Rio lines up the shot just like she’s been shown, then rocks backwards into Agatha slightly as if giving herself momentum. Her hand reflexively shifts back, thumb brushing over the curve of her waist toward the small of her back just as the dart is sent out into the air and lands anticlimactically in the pock-marked wall below the board.

“You did that on purpose,” Rio accuses as she whirls around. Neither of them takes the time to move away from each other, and her hair hits Agatha across the face. She raises both hands innocently.

“You’re a little jumpy,” she reasons, fighting the smirk off her face as best she can - a feat that only grows more difficult when she sees a flicker of frustration sharpen the other woman’s otherwise playful look. 

“You wanna see jumpy?” She reaches for another dart, but Agatha covers her hand quickly, almost lacing their fingers together in her messy attempt to still her.

“Ah- rule one, no throwing anything sharp when you’re all riled up. Especially with your aim.”

Rio yanks her hand free and swats at her harmlessly, failing to keep her smile at bay.

“If I had a better teacher-”

Agatha pries the dart out of her hands, lining up her shot quickly and tossing the dart directly into the center bullseye before Rio can finish her sentence. She trails off as she turns to face her again, then clears her throat.

“Sorry to interrupt. You were saying?”

Rio snatches another dart from the case, wordlessly turning to face the board again. After a beat, she clears her throat impatiently, and Agatha realizes she’s waiting for her to help position her again. She steps closer, adjusting her arm just as before and leaning in to see how well she’s lined up. 

“Hands off, this time,” Rio insists.

Smirking but lifting her hands up and away, Agatha takes a few steps back for good measure.

“Alright, fine. All you, superstar.”

Scoffing under her breath, Rio shakes her hair back from her face and then rocks back and forth before flinging the dart. It lands in the third ring, sticking firmly in place. Agatha reaches for the next dart and wordlessly places it into Rio’s still-outstretched hand.

“Try it with three fingers.”

“If I had a nickel…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Agatha says through a laugh, nodding to the board. “Focus.”

“Bossyyyy,” Rio teases under her breath, biting down on her smirk to try to stifle it before throwing again. It lands just beside her last attempt, and Agatha can tell she’s beginning to lose the plot a little.

“It’s a good thing I’m too nice of a person to have put money on this,” she lies, leaving Rio at the table to retrieve the darts. Plucking them out one by one, she looks back and watches as the other woman pulls one of the last remaining ones from the box, turning it over in her fingers.

“No, I think I was really getting it at the end there. Why don’t you stay over there, and I’ll see if I can get it through your earring?”

Agatha rolls her eyes, snatching for it as she approaches. Rio keeps it out of her reach, her hand falling to Agatha’s waist when she gets close enough as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. She’s smooth , Agatha will give her that. Effortlessly charming and quick in conversation, truly invested - and playful . She knows exactly when it’s safe to reach out and touch Agatha without startling her into shying away, even managing more than once to make it Agatha’s idea to touch her , drawing her in like a fly into a spiderweb.

And she’s very, very sexy, which doesn’t hurt, either.

Still, none of it manages to cloud her judgement long enough to keep her from remembering that this is a new neighbour and patron, and she hasn’t been around quite long enough to suss out what kind of problem she’ll be if Agatha leans in.

As if she can sense that she’s about to say something to ruin her fun, Rio lets go of her waist, leaning around her unnecessarily to put the dart back among the others in the box.

“Come have a smoke with me,” she insists. She delivers her request with a knowing look, like she’s baiting Agatha into lying again.

“You’re corrupting me.”

Rio lets out a single bark of laughter, and despite her half-hearted protest, Agatha follows her to the door. 

The cold air is unforgiving against Agatha’s fingers as she clutches her beer can, forced to use both hands to keep her grip when she pulls her sleeves up over her palms for a minuscule amount of extra warmth. Rio lights a single cigarette and then holds it out to her before she can free her hands, leaving her no choice but to lean forward and take her drag from between Rio’s fingers. The other woman silently takes a drag of her own and then offers it to Agatha for another. Anticipating it this time, she doesn’t hesitate as she leans forward for it, playing along.

“Why’d you tell everyone you quit?”

Agatha finishes her inhale before replying, a small puff of smoke accompanying her answer.

“To be left alone, mostly.”

“But then you never get any peace,” Rio points out. “Always… sneaking around.”

“I don’t find sneaking around that difficult, especially in exchange for some peace and quiet.”

Rio’s eyes gleam as she takes another drag. She looks like she’s considering her next jab, but stops when Agatha sets her beer on the ledge and gathers her wind-disturbed hair back, beginning to pull the elastic from her wrist.

“You should leave it down.”

She pauses, elastic between her teeth and fingers, considering. On the one hand, she doesn’t want to set the precedent of asking how high? when Rio says jump , but on the other, denying her something so simple seems petulant; childish. To encourage her further, Rio offers her the cigarette to take from her, this time, forcing her to drop her hair back into place.

“It’s in my face,” She says through the smoke. “Maybe we should go back in.”

“What happened to peace and quiet?” Rio asks. Instead of answering her, Agatha shakes back her sleeve and sighs at the sight of her watch face.

“Actually…” She sees Rio’s posture deflate a little, preemptively disappointed. “It’s getting late. I need to pick up Nicky, and it’s a school night-”

“I get it,” Rio cuts her off. She forces a quick smile, holding a hand out for the cigarette and taking one last quick drag before dropping it to the sidewalk and crushing it beneath the toe of her boot. “Really. I’ll walk you back to your car.”

“Wow,” Agatha can’t resist teasing, “ Now who’s the gentleman?”

Rio drops her gaze to laugh under her breath, reaching over and picking Agatha’s beer can up off the window. She holds it out for her, then nods over her shoulder for them to start on their way.

“Assuming you’re not on the other end of town, I could give you a ride.” Agatha hears the offer leave her mouth before she consents to making it.

“I’m, uh… No,” Rio disagrees, clearly surprised enough by the gesture to keep from making the dirty comment that Agatha had been expecting. “That’s fine.”

Agatha’s steps slow as she tries to catch her eye,  which Rio pointedly avoids.

“I can’t keep watching you shiver. You look like a… stressed-out stray dog.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind.”

“Seriously, I don’t mind-”

“I’m staying above the shop.” 

Agatha stops walking altogether, watching as Rio keeps on ahead before realizing. She turns around and stuffs her free hand into one of the too-small pocket of her jacket, the cropped cut forcing her shoulder to shrug stiffly upward.

“And?” Agatha presses.

“I mean, it isn’t exactly… legally outfitted. But the hotels are so expensive this time of year, and I haven’t decided how long I’m going to stick around, so I don’t think looking for a lease right now is a good idea.”

An itch settles at the unreachable spot between Agatha’s shoulders as she takes in the guilty, nervous expression marring Rio’s usually much brighter, more pleasant features. Bit of a dick move to be so pushy about making friends just to skip town, if you asked her, but she’d find time to complain about that later.

“Whatever,” she says instead. “What am I, a cop?”

Rio deflates in relief, and the itch between Agatha’s shoulders vanishes as she sips from her beer to mask her own uncontrollable expression of relief.

They fall back into step together for a few quiet moments before Agatha speaks once more.

“Rough estimate, how long do you think before you go back?”

“Mm?” Rio looks startled by the question, like she’d been totally off in her own world.

“To Wichita,” Agatha presses. “You said you didn’t know exactly how long you’d be staying here. Do you have a general idea?”

“Oh. No, not really. I don’t think I’ll go back, though. Not anytime soon - I was getting bored, anyway.” She sips ruefully from her beer, thoughts clearly drifting somewhere unpleasant for a brief moment. When she catches Agatha’s eye again, her expression softens into a smile, then sharpens mischievously. “You going to miss having someone to make fun of?”

She shrugs, pursing her lips in thought as if really considering it. 

“You tip well,”

Rio tilts her head back and laughs at that, and it’s contagious enough that Agatha has to take a few long sips from her own can to avoid mirroring it.

They round the corner onto the main road and their steps slow even further, as if they’ve both unconsciously decided to drag the moment on just a little longer. 

“Thank you for tonight. It's always a bit weird not knowing anyone in a new place. I know you’re probably busy, so…”

She trails off, waiting for Agatha to fill the space in their conversation, then clears her throat when she doesn’t. Unhooking her keys from her hip, she fiddles with them twitchily.

“Anyway. Just… thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Agatha replies. The soft genuineness in her voice makes Rio look at her properly, then stumble a little as she hits her shin against one of the flower boxes they pass from not watching where she’s going.

“We should do this again, sometime.”

Rounding her car and leaning against the roof of the driver’s side, Agatha pitches her half-empty beer can into the sidewalk trash can with a jarring CLANG of metal on metal, but Rio doesn’t even flinch.

“You know where to find me.”

Rio snorts, already turning to the shop door to unlock it. 

“You’re really not even going to give me your number?”

Wordlessly, she wrenches the car door open and slips inside, focusing pointedly on starting the ignition until she sees Rio vanish inside the flower shop through her peripheral vision. Plugging in her phone, she pointedly ignores a text from Billy, asking for a ride the following morning. Chances are, he doesn’t even need the ride and just wanted to interrupt her night and see how it was going.

The clock flashes just past 9, so she guns it to the Kaplans and hurries through a hushed apology for her lateness as she’s handed Nicky’s limp form. He’s utterly dead to the world, flopping heavily against her chest silently.

“How was he?”

“Sweet as always. How was your date?” Jeff’s eyes have the same optimistic sparkle as Billy’s, which immediately inspires annoyance.

“Not a date,” Agatha corrects pointedly, adjusting Nicky to keep her balance. “Tell Billy I’ll pick him up tomorrow.”

She leaves before there can be any further questions, tucking Nicky into the back seat and staying well below the speed limit all the way home to ensure he stays asleep.

Wednesday morning is hell.

Agatha bounces back and forth between bribes and threats until her list runs dry, but nothing really affects Nicky, who refuses to get out of bed. The only reaction she does manage to get is tears when she starts to strip the bed while he’s still trying to sleep in it, but she pushes through the initial heartbroken instinct to apologize, forcing him to his feet. 

He’s not running a temperature, and besides exhaustion, he doesn’t seem to be experiencing any other discomfort. Agatha knows she only has herself to blame for his attitude - he’d probably had too much excitement with the Kaplans the night before, and having to wake him to get him inside and into bed had messed up his whole routine. Not her most brilliant move on a school night.

“Seriously, you’re too old to be acting like this. They’re going to send you back to daycare. Is that what you want?”

“No they’re not!” He snaps back at her shrilly, doing an excellent job of managing to squirm out of his coat each time she manages to force one arm into a sleeve. Agatha drops his gaze before the angry tears brimming in his eyes can get under her skin and weaken her resolve.

“They will after I tell them how you’ve been acting all morning,” she replies, jaw clenching when he frees his left arm from the jacket just as she wrangles the right again. His fist collides sharply with her shoulder in his flailing attempt to get away from her, and she snatches his hand, hard. Realizing her mistake, Agatha instantly softens her grip until it’s firm enough to keep him from lashing out again, voice low and cold. “Absolutely not. You’re already in so much trouble, do you want it to be worse?”

Nicky makes one last pathetic attempt to pull free before sagging a little in her grip.

“We’re going to be late.”

“I don’t care,” he whines, kicking the toe of his boot on the floor. He refuses to catch her eye for a beat, so she waits until he does before speaking again.

“Tell me the rule about hitting.” She yanks the jacket back on, nearly catching her fingers in the zipper at the breakneck speed she does it up for him.

“Not to. Unless I’m in danger.”

Pushing herself to her feet, she grabs his backpack and offers it to him, breathing an internal sigh of relief when he takes it without another word.

He fights with his seatbelt as if it’s strangling him, and it’s annoyingly distracting enough that Agatha drives for ten minutes the wrong way before remembering Billy. She swears under her breath as she pulls an extremely illegal U-turn on a mercifully empty street, and nearly takes out the recycling can as she slams on the brakes outside of the Kaplans’. 

“Trade me,” she demands when Rebecca answers the door with Billy in tow. Nicky makes a petulant, offended sound, stomping forward when Agatha takes him by the arm to usher him inside.

Billy steps into his boots as Rebecca laughs, clearly completely unfazed in the face of Nicky’s attitude.

“Y’know what? I think we have time to stop for hot chocolate before school. It’s pretty cold outside… might be necessary.”

Nicky perks up just a little as he toes off his shoes, his eyes flicking from Rebecca to Agatha, expression softening. He’s visibly changing alliances from that simple bribe; Agatha would complain about rewarding his behaviour, but she’s been equally as guilty too many times in the past to count.

“Ready!” Billy pipes up, ruffling Nicky’s hair in passing and accepting a kiss on the cheek from his mother with a blush. He awkwardly squeezes around Agatha when she makes no effort to move out of his way.

“I’ll pick you up after school,” she says, trying to catch Nicky’s eye. “Okay? Have a good day, I lo-”

Having finally freed himself from his shoes, he darts past Rebecca into the house before she can finish her sentence, and she feels the eyes of both Kaplans burning into her as she sets her jaw.

“Right. Okay. Talk to you later,” she tells Rebecca, turning to follow Billy down the driveway while pointedly ignoring the gently sympathetic look he’s trying to give her. 

“So…” He starts, once they’re both settled into the car. For a terrifying moment, she thinks he’s going to try to say something reassuring about Nicky. In an annoying turn of events, he chooses her second-least-desired topic of discussion. “How did last night go? With Rio?”

Agatha’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel, and she sighs heavily.

“Roll down your window, your cologne is giving me a headache.”

He does as asked, but it isn’t enough of a distraction as she pulls away from his house.

“Are you seriously not going to say anything? Was it that bad?” He presses. 

The opposite , she thinks, totally uninterested in sharing that information with the boy next to her. After Nicky was back in bed, she’d been restless, continually getting up for water and telling herself it was headache prevention even though she’d barely had enough to drink to get a real, authentic buzz going. She’d found herself grinning to herself whenever she remembered a particularly funny thing Rio had said, spending a little extra time before bed braiding her hair back to keep it neat enough to wear down at work that day; none of this was going to be repeated to Billy - or any of her coworkers - if she could help it.

“It was fine. Just an after-work drink. I don’t know why you all have to make such a big deal out of everything.”

“Agatha!” Billy’s tone has spiked upward in pitch, dripping in such sheer delight that she fears she may have said the part about giggling alone in her kitchen over something the florist had said out loud. “It’s a big deal because you are making it one. You’re never this skittish when you don’t care.”

“I value my privacy all of the time, thank you.”

“Right.” Billy turns his attention back to the road, and Agatha readjusts her grip on the steering wheel as she pointedly ignores the smugness radiating off of him, more potent than the cologne.

“Which also means I don’t need you telling your parents that I’m abandoning my child at yours so I can go on dates .”

“First of all,” Billy turns his whole body in his seat to face her, “It’s babysitting that they agreed to, and love doing. Secondly, I said nothing about a date. But since it very obviously was one, they came to the conclusion naturally, just being given the basic facts.”

Refusing to ask what those basic facts are, Agatha takes a deep breath through her nose and centers herself.

“We were only out for a couple of hours. We talked about the shop, had a beer, and left.”

“You’re blushing.”

She isn’t, but he’s trying to make her. 

“I’m never picking you up again.”

Billy sighs heavily, slumping in his spot a bit. 

“You could just humor me. It would be painless.”

She glances over at him and does a double-take, feeling smug at the look of defeat he’s finally wearing. Point Agatha.

“Don’t you have your own love life to be worrying about? What’s going on with Theodore ?”

“Still no contact, thanks for asking,” Billy replies, surprisingly sharply. “Forty-three days, not that I’m counting.”

“I told you, hooking up with an ex is never worth it,” she replies, recalling her warning to the younger artist about his decision to reach out to Teddy post-breakup. Whatever semblance of friendliness they’d had was shot dead afterward, and the shop playlists had reflected the event for a torturous week of Olivia Rodrigo.

“I imagine that that’s easier advice to follow when none of your exes can stand to be in the same room as you,” Billy replies. His voice sounds shaky, like he can’t fully commit to the cruelty. Agatha laughs, though, and sees his shoulders straighten more confidently.

“ Ouch , kid.”

He smiles twitchily and then shakes his head before burying a hand in his hair.

“It’s fine. It’ll obviously never happen again, anyway. He’s probably eyeballs deep in guys at WIT anyway.”

“Well, I don’t know about eye balls, but -” 

“If you finish that sentence, I will hurl myself out of this car right now.” Billy’s tone is sharp; Agatha bites hard on her lip to physically force the joke back down her throat.

She pulls up to the flower shop and parks in Rio’s spot, already out of the car before Billy even manages to get his seatbelt off. Her eyes immediately land on the front display window, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to what looks like a floating torso. Rio’s head pops out from behind a hanging planter a moment later, the rest of her dark outfit - a cropped top and long, open cardigan - almost blending into the darkness of the shop.

Even though she can hear Billy getting out of the car behind her, Agatha struggles to tear her eyes away for a moment. Peeking out from the underside of the top is a small, wispy bundle of some kind of greenery, the tattoo contrasting brightly against unblemished skin. Its curved design vanishes under the material and undoubtedly follows the curve of her breast, a small ribbon appearing on her cleavage to tie the 2D plant together.

Rio is already watching her when she meets her eye. Wearing a smirk that Agatha thinks she might be imagining, she lowers one hand and waves with just the tips of her fingers, then adjusts her top so that it slips upward and reveals just a little more of the tattoo.

“Does she even care that you stole her spot?” Billy asks. His voice suddenly at her side makes Agatha jump, whipping her head to face him.

“Her car is still in Wichita,” she tells him automatically.

“Oh, my mistake,” Billy says, not missing a beat. “You know her much better than I do.”

He heads down the street toward the shop before Agatha can threaten him properly, leaving her awkwardly in front of Rio’s window. She turns to take one final look, then realizes the display window is empty. Frowning in confusion -and, admittedly, disappointment - Agatha turns to follow after Billy when Rio’s voice interrupts.

“Morning.”

Turning to follow the sound, Agatha sees the other woman leaning languidly against the open door, arms crossed loosely over her chest. 

“Morning,” she replies, “Y’know, knowing you’re living here really takes some of the pressure off of trying to get here before you in the mornings.”

Rio chuckles, head tilting.

“I didn’t realize we were competing. I take two-hour lunches, if that makes you feel less inadequate about your work ethic.”

“That, and my job is significantly more difficult than yours,” Agatha sniffs.

“Right, right,” Rio doesn’t look even slightly deterred by the comment. If anything, it only pushes her grin wider as she pushes herself off the door with one elbow. “The Venus fly trap is about ready for Nicky to visit again, by the way.” 

Thinking about Nicky and the state she’d left him in that morning makes Agatha immediately tense, and she tilts her head to loosen her neck a bit before responding.

“Mm, not today. He’s a little… prickly, right now.”

Rio nods in understanding, turning to head inside.

“Of course. I’ll see you.” She smiles and then vanishes back into the dark of the shop., Agatha briefly feels a pang of disappointment, but brushes it off to head to work herself. She spots Billy down the street, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders scrunched from the cold morning air as he waits for her to unlock the door. 

As she approaches, she fishes a few loose bills from her pocket and hands them to him.

“You go pick up coffee, I’ll do the tills,” she promises, letting herself inside. 

The warmth is hugely welcome, even after such a short time outside. Agatha autopilots through the opening procedures and digs out her sketchbook at the desk, flipping open to her older half-finished piece of the waiting room. This time, she doesn’t let herself overthink (or unpack at all, really) as she continues working on the contours of the woman on the recliner. She feels at peace in the morning quiet,  scribbling the vague shape of the bit of tattoo she’d seen on Rio onto the faceless figure. 

It’s not until the bell above the door signals Billy’s return that Agatha smoothly tucks her pencil behind her ear and swiftly shuts the book, but the image stays unrelentingly in the forefront of her mind.

Chapter Text

Agatha is swamped by the time lunch rolls around. Billy offers to pick up a burrito for her on his way back from his own break, but the two coffees, energy drink, and 2-piece packet of saltines that she’s already torn through have left her feeling too unsettled to picture eating anything so filling without getting nauseated. 

Toughing it out through one last client that cut into her originally planned break, Agatha crams a handful of loose bills from her bag into her pocket and heads outside, ignoring the twinge of lightheadedness that suddenly hits her after hours of sitting in low light. Just as she passes Rio’s, slowing her steps to see if maybe she’ll be able to make her out through the window, the door swings open and the woman in question dangles almost cartoonishly out of it.

“Hey!” She yells from across the street, causing a few other nearby pedestrians to stop and turn to her in alarm. Agatha stops as well, glancing around for a moment as if Rio would possibly be addressing anyone else before she continues: “Are you taking a break?”

A few people slow down to glance at Agatha, one wincing away from her dramatically when she yells back a confirmation.

Rio makes a ‘wait’ gesture with both hands, almost losing her footing on her door’s ledge for her trouble. She hurriedly vanishes back into the shop, leaving Agatha alone in the middle of the sidewalk. She waits awkwardly for a few minutes, regretting her choice to leave her jacket behind, and ignores the surge of something akin to giddiness that lights up in her chest when Rio reemerges and locks the door to the shop.

“Starting one of your famous two-hour lunches?” Agatha asks as the other woman jogs across the road to join her.

“Uh-huh,” Rio replies, smiling and slightly out of breath. “Where are we going?”

“Oh!” Agatha quirks an eyebrow, a smirk pulling at her lip. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

“Hm, you just waited out here in the cold for me without a jacket so we wouldn’t hang out?” 

“I’m getting a salad.”

“Great,” Rio replies perkily, naturally falling into step with her as soon as she starts to walk. Agatha doesn’t have the care or strength to pretend that her presence exasperates her. 

“Slow day?” She asks instead, regarding Rio's abandonment of the shop without warning.

“Very,” she groans in response. “You?”

“The opposite.”

Rio makes a not entirely sarcastic noise of sympathy. 

“You, um…” She reaches over and plucks something from Agatha’s hair. She spots the fleck of purple-stained stencil paper floating away as Rio smoothes her hair back into place.

“That’s what I get for wearing it down,” she says, wondering how long that had been there. The other woman chuckles.

“It looks nice,” she says, eyes lingering for a moment before she turns forward again.

That was the point, Agatha thinks, before she can help it. She grabs Rio automatically by the elbow to steer her around the corner as they approach the end of the street instead of joining the small gaggle of people waiting to cross. She follows along wordlessly, with a more natural bounce in her step than Agatha thinks she could consciously conjure into her own even if she were paid to.

They pass two storefronts and a realty office before Agatha slows to a stop at the overpriced vegan cafe that’s become her only source of vitamin C during work hours over the last few months. Rio squints at the chalk-paint logo drawn on the inside of the window, but Agatha steps inside before she has a chance to try to change her mind. 

The skinny twenty-something behind the counter starts tapping her order in as soon as he sees her, pausing when his eyes flicker over her shoulder to presumably take in Rio. If only to encourage him to continue - she’s worked hard to have a non-verbal ‘usual’ order; the creative dish names are all humiliating to have to recite aloud - she puts a little distance between herself and the other woman, already fishing the cash from her pocket.

She feels Rio approach more than she hears or sees her, too close to her back as she eyes the order screen and then the menu, before her gaze finally seems to land on Agatha trying to decide if it would be more gauche to pay in singles or ask to break a hundred.

“Can I get the same?” Rio requests. Before Agatha can say anything, she feels her arm wrap around her as if she’s done it a thousand times. Long fingers slide across her stomach, pressing the wind-cooled material of her worn t-shirt against her skin before tucking her palm firmly beneath her ribs. Everything feels haltingly, terrifyingly still for a second, but before Agatha can register the confusion that clashes into thrill in her mind, Rio’s fingers splay out, grasp firmly, and Agatha is being strong-armed away from the register in two swift steps.

Grabbing onto the offending strong arm in question with both hands, Agatha tucks away her observations about the wiry muscle flexing in her grip for later and tries to squirm free. Humilatingly, Rio’s hold on her doesn’t loosen, but she does angle her even further away from the register in retaliation, an action that fully - if only briefly - lifts Agatha entirely off the ground. 

“I’ve got it,” she says, as if that is the pressing concern. She taps her phone to the reader and lets Agatha go without another word. 

Agatha wonders why she didn’t find the words to complain in time, only to realize that the entire interaction had lasted maybe four or five seconds. She clears her throat, and Rio glances at her as she’s mid-reach for her receipt.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Did what?” Rio replies. She’s playing coy about paying for them both, but Agatha still feels an unwelcome heat crawling up her neck at how much the other woman’s constant need to touch her is starting to get to her.

She doesn’t wait for Agatha’s answer, taking the order slip and gliding off to the other end of the counter without an ounce of concern. 

“Most people can pick up the check without the manhandling,” Agatha huffs as she joins her.

Rio grins, nudging her again.

“ Hardly. Didn’t realize you were so delicate; my mistake.”

Agatha tries to shoot her a glare, but the unwelcome blush is spreading noticeably, so she looks away before she has a chance to catch the other woman’s eye.

“What’re we having, exactly?” 

“Tripe,” Agatha replies lightly, keeping her gaze fixed on the small glass panel that separates the food prep area from the waiting customers. “Lab-grown, obviously. Cruelty-free. And pickled onions… tofu-”

Rio cuts her off with a giggle; the sound of it is so pleasant and out of place that it startles her.

“ Tofu? You’re trying to improvise the grossest food you can think of, and tofu makes the cut?”

“Tofu is disgusting.”

The woman manning a wok of caramelized onions behind the salad station shoots a sharp look of offense in their direction. Rio puts her hands up innocently, tilting her head toward Agatha as if to say, ‘Hey - she said it, not me.’

“It’s uh… some… bastardized Asian-fusion thing. With the edamame beans and sesame dressing,” Agatha starts gesturing as she explains, “Carrots. I don’t know. It’s the only thing I ever get.”

Rio eyes her, calculating, and just before it becomes uncomfortable, she softens and shrugs with a little smile.

“Cool. I like edamame.”

Agatha thinks she might have tried the tripe, too, if it had been her asking, but she shoves that theory into the back of her mind as two salads are slid onto the counter. Rio swipes both up, nodding to one of the rickety-looking nearby tables even though Agatha’s feet were already pulling her in the direction of the door.

“ Ow ,” She mutters as she collapses into the uncomfortable seat.

“Did you make it home in time?” Rio asks, ignoring her complaint. “I forgot to ask this morning when I saw you.”

“Huh?”

“Last night.” Rio tears open a dressing packet with her teeth. “You had to get home. Relieve the babysitter. How is Nicky?”

Not sure if she should even bother with the first question since she moved on so quickly, Agatha shakes her head.

“He’s, uh… he’s good. Having a rough morning, which is probably my fault because of last night,” she admits.

“Does that mean I won’t be able to convince you to come with me to Alibi tomorrow night?” Rio asks.

“Do you have some deep-seated phobia of going to bars alone?” Agatha asks in return, if only to distract herself from watching the other woman empty her dressing into her salad and sucking the remaining drop off of her finger.

“I like your company,” Rio says. It’s so simple that it entirely knocks the wind out of her for a few seconds. Trying pathetically to reinflate her lungs, Agatha waits for the other beat; the punchline, but it doesn’t come. 

Rio sticks out her tongue, catches the ball of her piercing, and balances the bar of it against the tiny gap in her front teeth, her focus entirely on spreading her salad dressing as evenly as possible with the back of her flimsy plastic fork.

“Billy’s convinced we were on a date,” Agatha finally says. She regrets it as soon as she says it, but she had to find something to fill the gap in the conversation. Something to squash out Rio’s unembarrassed niceness . 

The other woman’s eyes gleam as she looks back up.

“But you set him straight?” She asks, unbearably teasing.

“I have a bit of a rule about not asking out the people I regularly accept money from,” Agatha replies.

“Well, if it were a date, technically I asked you .” Rio stabs up a few leaves of her salad and takes a bite. She chews thoughtfully, then jabs her empty fork accusingly in Agatha’s direction. “Unless that was your plan all along.”

Agatha takes several large, unladylike bites in a row - nearly a third of the entire salad - so that she can justify a confused look and grunt in response instead of asking her outright to clarify her point.

An unsteady laugh at her antics cuts through Rio’s explanation.

“Y’know. Tricking me into asking you out so you’re not technically breaking your own rules, or whatever. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t threaten your integrity like that.”

“Really? ” Agatha asks, disbelief and disappointment muffled by romaine and shredded cabbage.

Rio’s eyes gleam again, but she drops her gaze to her salad and shrugs.

“Sure. That’s sort of all we have in life, right? Our rules?”

“Is that more liberal arts bullshit? Philosophy of meaninglessness , or something like that?” Agatha asks.

“Something like that,” Rio replies in agreement. She waits a beat and then tips the last of her salad into Agatha’s nearly-empty bowl. Before she can protest, she cuts her off: “You seem hungry. I already ate, anyway.”

She pushes back from their table and gathers up her garbage, taking it to the trash can by the counter and leaving Agatha struggling with the lid to her own salad while parsing exactly what just happened. Practically scrambling after her, she crams a couple of extra napkins into her pocket.

“Do you have to head straight back?” Rio asks once Agatha is back by her side. There’s a hint of whining under her question that Agatha’s sure she isn’t imagining. 

“Lilia would probably hex me if I tried to pull off two-hour lunches,” Agatha replies, knowing full well that she already does get away with a lot more than she probably should. 

“Well, do you have time to stop at the shop?”

“That depends on whether you’re offering free flowers or trying to rope me into helping you move something heavy.”

Rio grins, shaking her head.

“No manual labor.” She rounds the corner and glances both ways before stepping off the curb. She turns to walk backwards, beckoning Agatha with both hands as she adds on, “I promise. C’mon.”

Rio leans forward with an exaggerated pout, and Agatha’s eyes drop to the sprig and twine of her breast tattoo again; she steps out into the road after her without a second thought.

“Well, it’s no rabbit, but Nicky’s going to love it.”

Billy moves to poke the end of his pen at Seymour’s open, leafy little jaws, but Jen reaches out and slaps the back of his hand before he can.

“Ow!”

“Don’t poke at it!” Jen says shrilly, gesturing wildly in Agatha’s direction for backup.

“Word,” Agatha replies, glancing up briefly from where she’s been clicking around the webpage for a nearby pet shop, squinting at the prices of live-feeding insects. She remembers the glib warning sign that Rio had pointed out in the shop, taped to the glass shelf that housed a few baby Venus flytraps. ‘Please don’t tease the flytraps! How would you like it if someone stuck their finger down YOUR throat?’

“Don’t agree with her,” Billy huffs, rubbing his hand with a scowl. “I’m the one doing you a favor tomorrow.”

“You insisted ,” Agatha reminds him. She lets go of the computer mouse for a moment to wring her cramped hands together irritably. Her post-lunch walk-in had picked one of her regrettably smaller, detail-oriented pieces of flash off the wall — ‘Hoisted by her own petard,’ she’d overheard Jen comment to Billy as she’d led her client back to her workstation.

Billy doesn’t have an answer for that, so he goes back to admiring the plant. When Agatha had returned after lunch with Rio - and Seymour - in tow, he’d overheard the florist’s re-request to join her for another drink the following night, and had demanded the opportunity for a movie night with Nicky. With the babysitting handled and no other convenient excuses, Agatha had agreed, and then promptly thrown herself into researching where to buy bugs in bulk for the new foster plant.

“Why doesn’t Rio give you… supplies?” Jen asks, pointedly avoiding looking at the photos on the monitor. Agatha catches her squirming and zooms in on an image of some maggots.

“She has her own plants to feed,” she replies.

“But you’re like… co-parenting this one,” Jen says, pointing to the plant with one freshly manicured nail.

Agatha whirls around to glare at her, and Billy, caught in the crossfire of the heat of it, whispers a startled ‘Oh my god’ under his breath. Jen smiles sweetly, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall.

“Two dates and suddenly you’re starting a little family. It’s very… U-haul,” she says.

“First of all, you’re not a lesbian, so you can’t say that,” Agatha snaps. “Secondly, this is for Nicky to learn some responsibility, and thirdly, they are not dates. ”

“They seem a bit like dates,” Jen mocks.

“Well, they’re not,” Agatha replies, mimicking the other woman’s cadence childishly. She clears her throat and sits up straighter when she notices both Billy and Jen drop their eyes in amusement at her sudden slip in composure, and then says more firmly: “We have actually been pretty explicit about the fact that they are not dates.”

“Well, all good relationships start with a clear discussion about boundaries,” Jen sighs. Her expression softens into something friendlier, bordering on affectionate, and she jostles Agatha’s desk chair with her outstretched foot before teasing, “You like her.”

Agatha sniffs and rolls her eyes.

“She’s a hell of a lot more tolerable than either of you two,” she says, eyes flicking from Jen to Billy. Terrifyingly, they both grin in response.

“So, for tomorrow, I’ll get my mom to pick me up and drop me at Nicky’s school - we can walk, if it’s nice out. He still on that weird pizza strike?” Billy holds a hand out as he talks, and Agatha wordlessly begins working the spare key off of her keyring.

“What kid doesn’t like pizza?” Jen asks. “I told you that Thirteens is nasty and overpriced.”

“They also hide all of his three a day in the sauce, and he’s practically wasting away,” Agatha replies. She holds the key just out of Billy’s reach before he can grab it from her, staring him down sternly. “No horror movies - I’m serious.”

“That was one time, and he was supposed to be in bed. And! I only let him stay for the end because he said he would sleep better if he knew how it turned out,” Billy reasons.

“You believed a six-year-old.”

“He was very convincing!” Billy replies defensively. “You should be looking on the bright side. He’s hitting the complex reasoning milestone with way more power than most of his peers his age usually do.”

Agatha narrows her eyes, then firmly presses the key into his still-outstretched palm.

“No horror,” she repeats.

“No horror,” he agrees dejectedly.

“Speaking of horror and six-year-olds, I need to go pick him up,” Agatha announces, shoving herself tiredly to her feet. She reaches over and snatches up the Venus flytrap, carefully transferring it to the crook of her elbow so she can shoulder her bag and reach for her jacket.

“Bye, Agatha!” Billy calls as she heads to the door.

“Bye, Seymour!” Jen tacks on, smiling innocently as Agatha flips her off.

The first thing Billy does when Agatha walks into the shop the following morning is wolf whistle, and she immediately considers calling Rio to cancel their evening plans.

His reaction causes both Jen and Alice to pop their heads around the corner, one above the other, the scene looking even more cartoonish when Lilia joins, cramming between them a moment later.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she warns, pushing his rolling chair aside as she rounds the desk to check her schedule. Just as she leans to peer at the screen, she feels a brush of something along her waist, way too close to her ass, and stiffens, whirling around.

Billy stares at her, wide-eyed, and puts his hands up in pure terror.

“Are these vegan leather?” Jen, the real culprit, asks.

“Vegan leather is worse for the environment,” Alice pipes up helpfully. “If anyone cares.”

“Those pants are older than Nicholas,” Lilia chimes in. She eyes Agatha curiously, leaning against the wall that separates them. “I haven’t seen them in years, though. Special occasion?”

“They’re pants ,” Agatha huffs, waving an arm dismissively. “How bored are you people? Do you all just sit around moping pitifully, waiting for me to get here each day? I’m more than just a personality hire - I’m also the most talented person here.”

Jen rolls her eyes, tilting her head in Lilia’s direction but keeping her eyes trained on Agatha.

“She’s got a date. With Rio ,” she says.

Alice gasps.

“Again?”

Agatha closes her eyes and takes a slow, calming breath before responding. Her morning routine with Nicky had gone much smoother today, and he’d been very apologetically snuggly the night before to make up for his behaviour. She’d had an inkling that the good streak she had going would end when she got to work, but she hadn’t anticipated how immediate it would be.

“If any of you make one more accusation about my romantic life, I’m reporting you to HR,” she threatens.

“Consider it reported,” Lilia replies flippantly. “You’re the one advertising it with the pants.”

“Oh!” Agatha’s voice goes up an octave, “So now I’m asking for harassment because of how I’m dressed. That’s great, Lilia. Really.”

The older woman stares her down boredly, undeterred. Losing their game of chicken, Agatha turns her attention huffily back to the computer screen. 

“I mean, they are sexy pants,” Jen comments.

Just as Agatha considers blindly launching the wireless keyboard over her shoulder at her, the shop bell DING s, mercifully diverting everyone’s attention.

“Whoa, welcome wagon. Nice.” The rather petite blonde who makes her way inside strides confidently over to the desk, which the entire staff has convened around, and flicks her gaze across each one of them before landing on Alice. “I think I’m your nine o’clock.”

Alice lights up, slapping Billy on the shoulder.

“Dottie! Yes! Billy will get you a waiver. I’m almost set up.”

The group disperses immediately, Lilia returning to the office while Agatha, Jen, and Alice each slink off to their respective workstations.

Agatha throws herself back into the sketch she’s been working on for an upcoming sleeve session with a regular of hers, tuning out Billy’s irritating choice of music and Alice’s conversation with her current client. She’s in the middle of deleting and redrawing the same detail for the fourth time - a bloodied section of wire on a rusting gigli saw - when she is abruptly and rudely tuned back into the frequency of the real world.

“Yeah! I’m actually staying at Vidal’s , down the block. The flower shop. Have you been? So not the boring Hallmark -vibe that I’d been expecting.”

Dottie's words draw Agatha’s attention to her like a magnet, and she curses internally when she looks up to see Jen already looking to her for her reaction.

Alice looks up from the woman’s forearm that she’s inking her outline into and catches Agatha’s eye for a moment, as if silently asking for guidance, but Jen decides for them.

“Agatha’s there a lot,” she supplies helpfully. She points the piece of her flash she’s holding over to where Agatha’s sprawled out on her tattoo bench with her tablet, then returns to her task of pinning it to the wall over her tool chest before she can catch the scathing look Agatha gives her.

Dottie's eyes flick curiously over to Agatha in recognition, and drift over her slowly. Pursing her lips after a beat, she nods approvingly and turns her attention back to Alice.

“Well, it’s really cool, you should check it out. The guy I met on my flight - he said his ex-girlfriend used to work there.”

“The guy taking you out tonight?” Alice clarifies, turning away to reup her ink and shooting Agatha as subtle of an apologetic look as she can.

“Uh-huh!” Dottie takes the bait to change the subject and Agatha returns to her screen, but her momentum has already left the building. Snapping the case shut in frustration, she sits up and swings her legs off the bench.

“I’m getting some air,” she announces, heading for the back door past the office. 

She can feel Lilia following her out of the office more than she sees it, but she ignores her until she reaches the trash cans out back and pulls out her phone to look busy.

Lilia shoves the door open with a creak and steps out as though Agatha hadn’t intentionally let it close on her.

“I thought I’d find you out here smoking,” she says.

“Told you I quit,” Agatha replies gruffly, opening and closing her weather app.

“Alice said that you still haven’t turned in your registration for the expo,” Lilia nearly cuts her lie off, already moving on. “If we have to late-register again, it’s coming out of your tips.”

Agatha waves a hand dismissively.

“I’ll see if I can get a sitter.”

“You should bring Nicky. He had so much fun last time.”

“Yeah,” Agatha mutters, “Except that now he won’t stop drawing all over himself with that stupid fake tattoo pen that someone bought for him.”

Lilia laughs lightly at that, then startles her by reaching out and taking one of her hands away from her phone and tilting it in the overcast sunlight to take a better look at the tattoo arching between her index finger and thumb. It’s only two years old, but fading fast; the constant hand-washing between work safety and the second occupational hazard of raising a little boy has aged the piece much more quickly than some of her others.

“He just wants to be like you,” Lilia says wistfully, her thumb brushing over the grey-black lines of silhouetted tooth marks. “This needs to be touched up soon.”

Whether because of the sudden unexpected tenderness or the almost far-away look that Lilia suddenly has, Agatha pulls her hand away and shuts the idea down.

“I like it how it is.”

Lilia eyes her for a beat, clearly trying to decide if Agatha was being truthful or not. It had been the last tattoo she’d done before putting the machine down for good, and while it was a little blasphemous in most cases to have another artist improve on someone else’s work, exceptions like retirement were usually considered fair game.

The decision to let the subject go clearly wins, and Lilia’s expression and tone turn stern and professional once again.

“You’re going to the expo. Coven needs to be a united front if I’m supposed to judge Best Freehand , anyway.”

“Oh, now I am so excited about going,” Agatha grins. “You should have led with that. God, those persuasion skills of yours are really getting rusty in your old age.”

“I’m going to let that slide because you’re already in an emotionally volatile state on account of being dressed in your best fuck-me -pants on a Thursday morning, but next time I’m putting you on first-call for walk-in flash-discount day.”

Lilia whirls around before Agatha, rattled, can respond, and vanishes back inside the shop.

The morning rolls by quickly, but the afternoon seems to drag on, almost as if time itself is aware of Agatha's increasing anxiety and is trying to rile her into such a sweat-soaked state that it'll be impossible to even take off her leather pants in the event that the evening were to go that far.

“Whoa, Agatha… Nice pants.”

Agatha groans loudly in lieu of her greeting as Rebecca Kaplan steps into the shop, pulling off her sunglasses to take a better look.

“I swear to god-” She begins, turning around to face the other woman and being met with two nearly identical Kaplan expressions of barely-harnessed glee.

“I’m serious! You look… really good .”

Her excited tone tells Agatha that Billy’s already filled her in on the occasion. The thought makes her want to return the compliment with an exceptionally crude one, just to make him squirm, but she bites her tongue.

Crossing the space to the desk, she snorts when Billy flinches like he's expecting her to shove him, and then slaps a couple of bills down in front of him.

“For dinner. No pop, please, I can't handle that tonight, or ever.”

“Got it,” Billy agrees, swiping up the bills and getting up from the desk. “Do you want us to call you before bed?”

Agatha hesitates, feeling the stares of both Billy and his mother piercing through her as she finds a very interesting scuff on the wall to focus on instead.

“Text me first, you know how the service can be.”

“Right, the phone service,” Billy agrees sarcastically, rounding the desk and glancing back at her before saying more seriously: “Have fun. Please.”

Waving him away in embarrassment, Agatha turns back to her station and pretends not to notice that it’s exactly three hours and fifty-nine minutes until she needs to leave to meet up with Rio.

Agatha drives extra slowly past Alibi, twice, to see if she can spot Rio through the large fisheye-like window of the bar. Realizing as she starts her third pass that her oversized car isn’t particularly inconspicuous, she gives up on her mission and parks a few doors down, sitting in the quiet dark of her car for a few moments.

It’s nearing ten past, which also makes it ten past the time she told Rio to be there. Deciding that it’s enough of a buffer, Agatha tucks her keys into her pocket and steps out into the street, slinging her jacket over her shoulder.

The temperature has dipped sharply in the mid-afternoon, but the cold air feels energizing against her skin, buzzing with the heat of anxious nerves in a way that it hadn’t in years. These nerves feel much sweeter than the ones that consistently flared up with various Nicky-related events; she feels oversensitive, restless in her own skin, and hyperalert. Like a superhero, not like a small animal being hunted for sport.

The irritation that being around her nosy coworkers instilled in her melts away with each step closer to the door that she gets, and goddamnit, her heart picks up speed when she wrenches open the heavy door and immediately spots Rio at the corner of the bar.

She’s seated with her back to the door, which gives Agatha  a split second to compose herself before the rush of cool air that follows her inside alerts Rio of her presence. Her curious look morphs into a genuine grin, so open and honest that it almost stops Agatha in her path, her steps stuttering a little as she makes her way over.

The grin morphs into a smirk, taunting and unfairly tempting, and Rio kicks out the seat beside her for Agatha as she approaches.

“You’re late.”

“Hardly,” Agatha scoffs, glancing around at the nearly empty bar. It’s a small space, crammed between two more uniform buildings. A spite property , the plaque behind the bar indicates. An intentional olden-days obstruction of a structure, a symbol of the owner’s refusal to bow down in the face of new builds trying to price locals out of the area. Fewer than five other patrons are scattered about. “I’m shocked you were able to get us in.”

Rio snorts, then slides a condensation-coated bottle of beer into the spot on the bar before the empty seat.

“I’m just saying, you were early last time. That kind of inconsistency can really turn a girl off, you know.”

Agatha purses her lips and takes a sip of the beer, holding Rio’s attention rapt for an agonizing beat before shrugging.

“Well, if that means this is the last time you want to do this…”

“I haven’t decided. Maybe you’ll win some points in the back half. You gonna sit down?” Rio’s eyes drop for the first time as she takes her in properly. Her stare lingers over a few of the tattoos that weren’t visible to her before, now all out in the open in her ribbed muscle tank, and Agatha doesn’t miss the way her eyes briefly pause on her breasts before tastefully darting back up to her face.

“Yeah,” Agatha nods. “My eyes are up here.”

Rio doesn’t even respond, just smiles genuinely into the lip of her own bottle as she takes a calming, cooling swig and blushes.

Brushing against Rio’s side as she squeezes between the two stools, Agatha finally sits in her own and sets down her beer.

“Met your friend today. Sort of,” She says.

“Oh yeah?” Rio turns her entire body in her seat to face her. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be in or not. The tattoo came out great. How long has Alice been there?”

Agatha squints thoughtfully.

“Eleven years, now, I think.”

“Were all of you guys like… founders, then?” Rio asks.

“No,” Agatha shakes her head and chews her lip. “No, Alice and Jen weren’t. Alice’s mother - she and Lilia and I opened together. Alice took her spot in the shop when she died.”

“Oh.” Rio’s expression falls a little bit, and she awkwardly takes another sip to fill the air before plucking up the courage to ask, “Were you close?”

“Close enough,” she lies, moving on. “Alice was in some dickhead private studio in Silicon Valley. Came back for the funeral and never left. Salem has that effect on people.”

Something about Rio’s demeanour shifts, but Agatha can’t put her finger on what exactly it is. Before she can ask, the other woman moves on to her next question.

“And you? Have you been here your whole life?”

Agatha scoffs quietly, shaking her head.

“No. Just most of it.” The idea of revealing any hints that might lead the other woman to start formulating a tragic backstory for her makes her feel suddenly cold and clammy, so she changes the subject once more. “Where’s your friend tonight?”

Rio frowns in confusion for a moment before realizing what she means, then laughs out loud.

“Oh my god. She met some local guy on the plane, and she’s like… in love. They’re going to a museum and getting drinks, I think. She’s smitten . It’s gross.”

Agatha shakes her head in amusement.

“Awfully cruel way to talk about your friend. What if he is the one?”

Rio fixes her with a playful look of disbelief.

“Her track record sucks. He seems normal enough from what she told me, but…” she sighs wistfully. “I don’t know. He sounded a little… boring.”

“Well, we can’t all be florist-philosopher-botanist-globetrotting…” Agatha trails off, and Rio does a terrible job of trying to look unamused.

“I’m just looking out for my friend.”

“Mmhmm.” Agatha nods sarcastically, twisting out of the way mid-sip when the other woman reaches out to prod at her and just managing to dodge it.

“You’re really mean to me. I don’t know why I keep hanging out with you,” Rio tells her.

Turning to her, impressed with how beautifully Rio teed her up, Agatha quirks an eyebrow.

“ Because I’m really m-”

Rio swipes at her again, managing to loosely swat at her and accidentally graze the tips of her fingers across her thigh, too high for the energy to not suddenly crackle between them.

They both freeze, but Rio drops her gaze first, focusing on her legs and then boldly putting a hand on her knee. The leather warms immediately under her touch, and Agatha’s skin suddenly feels too hot, the giddy, nervous itch returning and forcing her to make a conscious choice not to squirm.

“How’d, um-” Rio clears her throat, pulling her hand back agonizingly slowly. “How’d Nicky like the new foster-plant?”

The reminder of how happy her son had been the night before, insisting on reading Seymour a bedtime story and making a name tag for his planter, floods Agatha with an entirely different warmth - bright and heavy and making her chest suddenly feel so full that it almost aches.

The conflicting, overwhelming feelings loop together and become one giant, confusing mess of adoration and excitement. The genuine happiness and frazzled, hopeful anticipation become such a surge of affection toward the woman in front of her that she’s surprised she doesn’t launch herself out of her seat and into Rio’s lap on reflex.

“He loves him,” she breathes, smiling and rolling her eyes with a shake of her head.

“Good.” Rio smiles brightly, then tacks on playfully, “Anything I can do to keep the bunny discussion at bay for as long as you need.”

Agatha groans and rubs her temple, then chuckles defeatedly.

“I’ll be lucky if I make it another month. Between the stupid rabbit and this fucking tattoo convention, I’m very quickly losing control of my own destiny at this point.”

Rio makes a sympathetic noise that sounds entirely too amused to land.

“Did you finally get suckered into judging that contest?”

“No, thankfully,” Agatha admits. “Lilia’s doing it, and a few others. Which will, at least, be funny enough to make the day less horrible.”

“Oh, you don’t have to put on a brave face and hide your disappointment, you poor thing. Lilia took your job of staring at the bikini-clad tattoo models?” Rio teases, feigning sympathy. “You must be absolutely gutted.”

“Half of my job is staring at hot tattooed women. It loses its novelty after a while,” Agatha replies.

“Guess I better come up with a better schtick, then,” she hums, punctuating the implication with one of the last sips from her beer.

Before Agatha can find her footing again, Rio’s expression morphs into one of startled confusion, and she lifts the bottle to the light, shaking it and peering up into the bottom of it.

“What is it?”

“Shit,” she says, voice slurred as if she’s curled her tongue inward. Her next word is even more garbled, as she points past Agatha to the bar. “Napkin.”

Confused but following along, Agatha hands her a cocktail napkin and watches as she frantically upends the last couple of dregs from the bottle onto it. Dropping her gaze to the mess, Agatha spots the tiny silver ball that rolls through the foam, just before Rio snatches it up and glances around.

“Come help,” she slurs, grabbing Agatha’s wrist and all but dragging her away across the bar.

The bathroom is only marginally better lit than the actual bar space, but much, much quieter. With no music or other patrons to add an extra layer of dampening to their interactions, all Agatha can focus on is how close Rio pulls her, adjusting the jewelry bar in her tongue so close to the mirror that Agatha is briefly concerned she might accidentally lick it and pick up some mysterious disease.

“Mm,” Rio grunts, holding the piercing ball out between two long fingernails, which Agatha quickly establishes as the reason for being called in for the assist. She turns to the small sink and makes quick work of washing the condensation from her hands.

She takes the ball wordlessly, twisting it around in the light to find the hole and then gesturing for Rio to dip down a little as she opens her mouth and extends her tongue, the height difference making her task twice as difficult.

“Alright,” she sighs, reaching in and gripping what’s visible of the bar between her fingertips, fumbling for a moment before managing to screw the pieces together. She tightens it into place and hesitates, eyes flicking from Rio’s mouth to her eyes briefly, really taking in their positions for the first time. “That good?”

Time slows down as Rio moves to pull back, firmly running her tongue down the half-length of Agatha’s fingers, knuckle to tip. There’s no way it isn’t intentional. She straightens to her full height and wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand just as slowly as she’d licked the other woman’s fingers, and nods.

“Good. Perfect. Thank you .”

Her eyes are dark, obvious even in the poor light. Agatha watches breathlessly as she rolls her tongue around in her mouth to test the security before speaking again.

“That was really -”

Whatever it really was, Agatha doesn’t get to find out, because she closes the last inches of space between them in a messy, nearly bruising kiss.

The combination of beer and a distant cigarette and mint gum takes over Agatha’s senses, and it’s the only thing she can focus on before realizing Rio is backing her toward the large single-stall door.

“Can I be honest with you?” Rio breathes as they finally separate. “I had a totally different plan for getting you into this bathroom like this.”

Jolting forward to steal another brief kiss, Agatha watches the excited rise and fall of the other woman’s chest.

“I’m not sure ‘come keep me company while I pee’ would have inspired as much urgency,” she replies, imagining the mystery tattoo she knows is hiding under Rio’s shirt. The thought of it drains almost the last of her inhibition from her body, and she takes another step backward, letting the door to the stall creak open.

“I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘please let me touch you, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw you’.”

That shoots a hole in the barrel keeping Agatha’s remaining self-control intact, letting the last of it dribble away and evaporate.

The look on Rio’s face tells her that whatever expression she’s wearing on her own has completely given her away. It’s almost out of spite how roughly she grabs Rio by the belt loops and drags her the rest of the way into the stall, forcing her to awkwardly twist her arms behind herself to close and latch the door.

“I haven’t had to use a handicap stall for a hookup in a while ,” Agatha says pointedly.  

“When was the last time?” Rio asks. Agatha suspects she’s just nervously making conversation for the sake of not having them fall into awkwardness. 

“Too long,” she replies. Deciding the lock will hold well enough, she turns to the other woman and kisses her again, messy and impatient this time. It does the trick, though; Rio stares at her hungrily when she breaks away, gaze dropping to her lips before she speaks breathlessly.

“Well, that’s okay, you’re my first anyway.”

Agatha, in the middle of closing the last few inches of space between them, freezes.

"I'm kidding. I promise I have slept with women." Agatha notes the slight shake in Rio's hands as she palms one of her breasts a little clumsily.

"Any this decade?" Agatha asks as gently as she can while mocking someone. She covers Rio's hands with her own, stilling her.

“Don’t be shitty,” Rio huffs back, her free hand slipping behind her back and up under the hem of her top. Her fingers wick through the sweat beginning to gather at the small of her back, then flatten firmly to her spine, forcing her forward.

Agatha kisses her again, almost apologetically, though she truthfully just has no further comeback, and the slow build of tension in her thighs and core muscles is rearranging her priorities, putting ‘arguing’ somewhere near the bottom of the list.

Her thigh slots between Rio’s, and one of her hands slips from her neck to her shoulder, pushing her downward and forcing her legs to spread further around it. She tenses; Agatha feels what’s coming in the split second before it happens just from the way she freezes mid-kiss. The moan Rio pours into her mouth is loud enough that it feels like everything around them goes silent just to make room for it. It trails off into a small laugh of disbelief, like even she can’t quite believe what just came out of her.

Pressing one’s knee between someone’s legs mid-makeout is a notable classic from the lesbian playbook, but Agatha doesn’t remember it being quite that effective. She tightens her hand on Rio’s shoulder when she goes to stand up straighter, keeping her still as she leans forward to press insistently against her a second time.

“Agatha, waaai- ohmygod-! ”

“Jesus, ” Agatha breathes, her stance wavering when Rio’s forehead connects with her shoulder. “Are you sure you -”

“It’s- my- “ Rio struggles around the words as she scrambles to grip the straps of Agatha’s top and starts shoving them down impatiently. “Just be gentle.”

“Okay,” Agatha agrees, exhaling sharply when her shirt is shoved messily down to her waist and then her bra to her ribs with no hesitation from the other woman.

There’s no more shaking as Rio thumbs small circles around both of her nipples at once, letting out a soft chuckle as she eyes them in the low lighting.

“Huh. Twins,” she notes, her thumbs brushing over them again simultaneously, circling the barely-perceptible indents of scar tissue there. Suddenly conversational, apparently, she begins to ask, “D’you find they’re any less sensitive now that you’ve let them heal-”

Agatha cuts her off with a sound halfway between a moan and a laugh when she brushes feather-light over the tip of one, then the other. Rio stills, then grins almost predatorily.

“Guess not.”

She looks just a little too cocky as she works one hand into the infuriatingly tight waistband of Agatha’s leather pants, just managing to get past the first barrier and start in on her underwear when Agatha shifts forward, pressing her breast further into Rio’s hand and nudging her back to the stall wall once more. Jolting at the change, Rio’s hand shoots up from her breast to her arm as if she expected to fall.

She experimentally pushes her thigh up against her best estimate of where Rio’s clit is through her jeans once more and lights up when the other woman’s hands dig into her skin roughly, leaving tiny crescent-shaped indents in her bicep. She lets out a high-pitched moan that has such an unexpected pornographic quality to it that Agatha might have assumed was fake, if she wasn’t already becoming so increasingly aware of how vocal Rio is.

“Stop doing that , you demon,” Rio growls, squeezing her legs tightly around Agatha’s thigh to still her, before letting go of her iron grip on her arm and freeing her hand from her pants to work open the button and zipper of her own jeans instead.

Agatha laughs softly, brushing Rio’s hands aside once her fly is open and pushing her hand into her panties impatiently.

“Never heard you angry before,” she notes, easing past the wiry, trimmed pubic hair in her path and seeking out her clit.

“Still haven’t,” Rio grits out, head falling back against the wall of the stall again. She bucks upward when Agatha’s fingertip finds its target, and then stutters to a stop when it brushes over something unexpectedly solid.

“You’re kidding,” Agatha breathes, brushing her middle finger over the silklike skin of her hood and feeling her nail bump almost clumsily into the bit of metal sticking out above and below it.

Rio’s eyes flutter closed with a shiver, and for a moment, Agatha thinks she can hear her heart before realizing it’s her own. She’s suddenly tingling all over, curiosity piqued and not-entirely-unwelcome butterflies taking off in a cloud in her chest and stomach.

Adrenaline shakes the usual reliable steadiness out of her hands, and she pulls free as carefully as she can, clutching the material at Rio’s hips to drag the garment down and out of the way. Righting herself awkwardly, Rio’s hands bump clumsily into hers as she moves to help her. The material sticks to her bare skin but glides smoothly over the saniderm wrap on her leg; Agatha is vaguely aware that it’s probably bad tattoo-artist karma for her to be helping Rio work up a sweat this early in the healing process.

Even once the jeans are bunched around her thighs, she can’t see , so Agatha drops to her knees without hesitating, and only then takes a beat for a silent prayer that the floors have been cleaned somewhat recently. The leather of her pants squeaks against the tile as she dips forward and cards her fingers smoothly through the slick patch of hair before her.

Rio gasps, hips lurching forward and almost bumping herself into Agatha’s face. A tiny gold bead peeks through beneath her fingers, and as she presses up gently, its other half reveals itself nestled neatly below her clitoral hood.

Her gaze drops a little further, and she hums softly, dropping her hand and dipping her fingers almost inside of her as she gathers a little of the wetness beginning to gather there. 

“I’ve never…” Agatha trails off as she eyes the string of slick connecting her fingers to Rio as she pulls back slightly.

“She’s a teammate, not an obstacle,” Rio explains breathlessly. She sees her head drop forward in her peripheral vision and looks up to catch her gaze, holding it steady as she boldly leans in and flattens her tongue to her with no further preamble.

All of those loud, startled moans she’d managed to pull out of Rio earlier seem to have left her system. Instead, she almost purrs , both hands dropping to Agatha’s hair with surprising gentleness as she takes her time and savours. 

The piercing nudges against her nose, and Rio stiffens in anticipation; Agatha internally rolls her eyes at herself. Coward , she thinks. It’s a piece of anodized titanium, not a bomb needing to be diffused, and damned if Agatha fucking Harkness is going to let herself blame inexperience for ignoring the clit for the first time in her life.

Replacing her tongue with the pads of her middle and index finger, she shallowly eases Rio open with a scissoring gesture and then latches her lips around her clit as gently as she can manage. 

She swears she feels her insides liquify at the sound that Rio lets out; like all of the air is knocked out of her at once, her groan would be almost inaudible if Agatha weren’t intently listening for it. A split second later, her hands tighten in her hair, a warning that she ignores in favor of trying to get an encore of that sound by letting go just enough to flick her tongue beneath the ball of the piercing, nudging it unintentionally in her effort to get to the target below.

Rio seizes, her grip turns painful and sends a dizzyingly pleasant tingle across Agatha’s entire scalp, and she pushes herself up onto the balls of her feet with a voice-cracking, high-pitched moan of defeat. Agatha can feel her pulse against her fingers, the wetness she’d been admittedly practically just playing in suddenly spreading down the digits toward her palm.

She lifts her head in shock.

“Did you just -?”

“Fuck my life.”

Rio lets go of her hair, and Agatha lets out a bark of laughter before she can help it. It’s an empowering sort of relief to be on her knees with her tits out in a bar bathroom and still somehow have the upper hand of composure.

Rio wrestles her jeans back up her thighs, muttering under her breath in something that sounds like it isn’t English. Agatha chews her lip and feels such an unfamiliar surge of affection well up in her chest that she can’t help but lean forward and wrap her wet fingers around the back of Rio’s knee and then press her lips to it apologetically as she looks up at her.

She can’t wipe the smug little smile from her face, but Rio’s glare softens anyway. She rolls her eyes and looks away when a smile of her own threatens her expression, and she runs a hand through her hair with a groan.

“I should get that fucking thing removed.”

Agatha laughs again, pushing herself to sit upright on her knees as she begins pulling her bra back into place, pausing when Rio makes a quick noise of protest.

“Oh, please,” Agatha scoffs. “We need to relocate. I’m not going to be that quick, and someone’s bound to have to pee eventually.”

“My, um… my friend sort of has dibs on the shop right now, in case her date doesn’t go well,” Rio explains, guiltily refusing to meet her eye.

“Is that why you were so… gung-ho about a bathroom hookup? I just thought you were, like… an exhibitionist, or something,” Agatha says. Her mind is reeling, though, trying to parse the inevitable fact that she’s going to be going home unfucked despite Rio’s best efforts.

“I’m so sorry,” Rio starts to ramble, “I didn’t - I came in here to get you off, I wasn’t trying to like… use you, or whatever. I’m sorry. Seriously, there were only like three other people in here, I don’t think anyone’s coming in-”

She reaches for her hintingly, but Agatha steps back in the cramped space, readjusting the straps of her top and shaking her head.

“No, we’ve been in here long enough.”

For an idiotic, desperate second, she considers getting them a hotel room, but somehow that feels even dirtier than kneeling on a bathroom floor. The shame that hits her from the idea is followed by a burst of white-hot arousal, unexpected and sudden, distracting her enough that Rio manages to close the space between them again to kiss her.

“What about your car?” She suggests, pressing her forehead to Agatha’s when she breaks away, then surging forward and nipping at her lower lip before she can answer. “Please. I’ve been thinking about making you feel good all day.”

Her fingers hook into the waist of her pants again, but this time they grip tight, pulling Agatha’s hips against hers. As they bump into one another, she lets go, hand dropping to cup her greedily through the increasingly uncomfortable material.

“Okay,” she agrees, not even realizing what she’s saying as her hands land automatically on Rio’s hips.

Rio lights up like she’s won the lottery; the giddiness on her face would be almost laughable if Agatha’s brain weren’tt so fogged over from her own delirious horniness. Rio nearly knocks the stall door off of its hinges in her enthusiasm to get out, shouldering out of the bathroom altogether. 

Agatha shakes her hand free from Rio’s as they emerge, not wanting to give anyone any more cause for suspicion, but the other patrons don’t seem to pay them much mind as they return to the bar for their jackets.

“I closed out before you got here,” Rio tells her, grabbing her wrist to stop her when she reaches into her coat pocket.

“Presumptuous,” Agatha accuses, though she’s beginning to realise that might be one of Rio’s most prominent traits.

Rio just shrugs in response, her poorly concealed smile forcing an infuriatingly charming dimple onto one of her cheeks as she nods impatiently toward the door. It’s a little more of an ego-boost than Agatha would ever admit aloud to see just how desperate and impatient Rio is - and how badly she’s trying to act anything but.

“Where’d you park?”

Chapter Text

“How was it?” Billy asks, peeking over the back of the couch as Agatha makes her way through the foyer. She shoots him a warning look, eyes flicking to the stairs, but he waves her off with an easy smile. “He’s totally knocked out. I put the white noise machine on.”

Agatha makes a grunting sound of approval and heads straight out of his eyeline and into the kitchen. 

“You want a beer?” She calls. He doesn’t reply as she tugs the fridge door open and squints at the contents before realizing with a sense of defeat that she’ll need to check the garage fridge, instead. Dipping out of the heavy side door into the cement-floored space, she ignores the icy coldness seeping through her socks and into the soles of her feet, padding to the opposite wall.

By the time she returns with four beers cradled in one arm, intent on restocking the house, Billy has made himself comfortable at the kitchen island.

“Taking that as a yes,” she mutters, sliding two of the bottles onto the counter and turning her back to him to house the other two in the fridge door.

“This mean you’re going to tell me about it?” Billy asks. She hears the sound of one of the bottles cracking open and turns in time to see him reaching for the second, sweater sleeve pulled down over his palm as a makeshift opener.

“Depends,” Agatha says. “Am I going to have to deal with more third degree from your parents once I do? And speaking of… if a word of this gets back to them, you’re permanently cut off.”

She points to the bottle that he’s picked up for himself, and he grins in a self-satisfied way that she refuses to admit pulls at her heart as he takes a sip.

“Not a word,” he replies, pushing her own bottle closer to her as she joins him and leans against the island opposite him.

“Astounding how you suddenly know how to keep your mouth shut when it benefits you.” 

“Permission to speak freely?”

“Shoot.”

“Your fly is down. And your shirt is inside out.”

Cursing, Agatha reels back from the counter and glances down at herself, adjusting the zip of her pants and then considering what the best course of action will be for the shirt. Giving up, she rolls her shoulders and raises her voice slightly to cut through Billy’s snickering laughter.

“I wore it that way on purpose.”

“Sure,” he agrees lightly. “Did Rio appreciate it?”

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation,” Agatha mutters, sipping from her bottle in hopes that the cool drink will break up a little of the unbearable heat on her face and neck.

“Alright, alright,” Billy holds his hands up and leans back on his stool a little, surrendering if only to get her to keep talking. “I’m sorry. Tell me how it went, please.”

Agatha levels him with a stubborn look and then caves, rolling her eyes as she sips from her bottle again to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts.

“It was nice.”

He waits a beat, then leans forward in anticipation.

“...Nice?”

“Yeah,” she replies, a little gruffly, feeling defensive without fully understanding why. “It was nice. Having someone my age to talk to. Someone to talk to that isn’t one of my dickish coworkers.”

“What did you guys talk about?” He presses, unperturbed by her offhanded insult.

“I don’t know. The shop. Work. Nicky.”

“Really?” Billy lights up and Agatha immediately regrets speaking, though she can’t quite pinpoint why; reflexively hackles-up, her specialty. She lets the silence sit between them as she has another sip of her drink; reliably, it prompts him to continue. “I just… she’s new, y’know? It’s nice how comfortable you already are.”

Standing in the middle of her kitchen, having a beer with her underage coworker and wearing pants she thinks she may have to permanently sacrifice to get out of before bed, Agatha narrows her eyes disbelievingly.

Billy smiles brightly back at her and takes a long chug from his bottle as he maintains eye contact with her.

“You all act like I’m a poorly socialized cat.”

“That… isn’t true.” His voice falters, his conviction ruined by the smile that turns mischievous. 

Grunting in annoyance, Agatha eyes his mostly empty bottle and turns to the fridge to retrieve another. She slides it across the counter before finishing her own and retrieving the fourth. 

“Tell me what everyone at the shop is saying.”

Billy takes the second bottle gratefully, but leaves it sealed as he continues to nurse the last of the one he’s still working on. She’d expected she’d need to prod at him a little more but, ever loyal, he spills immediately.

“Well, Alice’s client from today said Rio said she had some hot new tattoo artist she wouldn’t stop gushing over. And Alice told Jen that she thinks you two have been hooking up since the first appointment. Jen said you weren’t because you were still all wound up.”

Agatha scoffs, and sets her empty bottle in the sink. Billy snatches her next bottle out of her reach to open it for her before she can crack it with her teeth – something she knows he hates, though that’s mainly why she does it.

“Lilia said you’d be dating by Christmas. But then Alice said her client mentioned that Rio might already have moved by then.”

Freezing, Agatha wordlessly takes the bottle as Billy slides it towards her.

“...Really?”

“Yeah. I guess that’s not abnormal for her, though.”

Agatha presses her lips to the rim of the bottle but doesn’t take a sip, inhaling the scent of the cold glass and condensation instead as she rolls the thought around in her head. It’s increasingly apparent that, despite her half-serious attempts to get Billy to mind his business, he’s miles ahead of her in the race to understand all things Rio.

“What else?”

Billy purses his lips, suddenly very interested in the label on his own bottle.

“Billy.”

“Did you know these guys are the oldest brewery in Salem?” He gestures to the line of trivia on the back of the bottle.

“Billy.”

He groans.

“Just that… you’re mean whenever someone brings her up. But whenever she’s around you’re… it’s just nice. Everyone likes knowing she’s coming around because you’ll be in a good mood.”

Agatha feels the blush flood her face but feels entirely helpless to stop it, and forces her eyes down to the countertop instead. She can’t just say nothing; that’s an especially obvious admission of defeat, even if her sparring partner is her junior by decades.

"I don't know what you want me to say," she finally sniffs. "I like her company."

"You don't have to say anything," Billy tells her. She can hear the underpinned meaning there, but doesn't take too much offense. "But, while we're on the topic of the shop... I filled out your convention paperwork. Its on the dining room table – you can bring it to Lilia tomorrow."

Agatha sighs heavily again, feeling the beginnings of a headache forming.

"I'm behind on sketches," she tries.

"You can get them done at the booth. You know people love to watch that stuff, anyway."

"Yes," she agrees, "And it's extremely distracting."

Growing up, Agatha had always hated the brownnosing attention of her classmates, peeking over her shoulders with backhanded compliments like 'wow, you're actually good at that', or requests for free drawings despite very pointedly never having said a word to her otherwise. It hadn't suddenly become fun now that she was older and her peers were adults, too.

“It’ll make Lilia happy,” Billy says, and then, like the manipulative little fucker he is, tacks on, “This is probably one of the last one’s she’s going to, anyway.”

“Jesus,” Agatha breathes, reaching up and rapping her knuckles against the wooden overhanging cabinets. Billy’s eyes widen.

“I don’t mean it like that! I just meant because she’s getting tired of them.”

“She and I both,” Agatha points out.

“Well, you’ve got like twenty odd years on her, so I don’t think you’ve earned the right to be so jaded,” Billy says, his tone haughty and mocking, though he grins as he takes a sip to hide it.

Something in Agatha’s chest warms at that, and she narrows her eyes, but can’t keep the smile off of her own face.

“Oh, you don’t think I have, huh? You’re not even old enough to be drinking that.” She nods to the bottle.

A laugh escapes him as he takes another hasty sip, like she might round the counter and wrestle it away from him.

“And who are you going to tell, exactly?”

Rolling her eyes, Agatha puts both hands up in quiet defeat and then shakes her head in amusement.

“I’m only doing the convention if I can find a last-minute sitter for Nicky.”

“You could ask Rio,” he suggests. “Or do like… a trade off. You’re the one who said trading with your neighbors is becoming a lost art.”

“Yeah,” Agatha scoffs. “For like… goods and services.”

“Babysitting is literally a service.”

“Oh, did you think you were getting paid?” she asks, eyebrows raising. He levels her with an unamused look. While she’d never explicitly handed him an hourly rate, they both knew that he didn’t need to be left as much money as he was for takeout and be told to keep the change every time.

“Whatever.” He slides her his second empty bottle and slips down from his stool. “You’re being stubborn. And I don’t want to ruin that little heart-shaped cloud you floated in here on by pushing it. You win, Agatha. At least for tonight.”

He tugs on his sweater and heads toward the front door, not giving her the proper chance to defend herself from his unfairly accurate observation.

THREE HOURS EARLIER

“Next time, I’ll be better prepared, bed-wise,” Rio says. Agatha considers commenting on her continual presumptuousness, but the air is bitingly chilly around them, and she chooses to retain her warmth by staying quiet and huddled into herself.

Rio fiddles with her keys until she finds what she’s looking for, and wields a pair of nail clippers on a small ball chain triumphantly. They round the last corner towards Agatha’s car and she digs out her own keys as she hears the telltale ‘snap’ of one of Rio’s fingernails being cut down.

Agatha ignores the way her entire body seems to start thrumming at the sound. She hastily unlocks the back seat and climbs inside without another word, squirming onto her back and using her feet to shuffle up toward the opposite door.

“We’re not going to end up on the news, are we?” Rio asks. The sharp snapping sound of a second fingernail being snipped off punctuates her question. She glances down the empty street nervously.

"There's no CCTV," Agatha grits out, shifting back further still until she feels the crown of her head brushing the upholstery of the door panel. She's vaguely, fuzzily aware of how long its been since she's had the car detailed, but can't bring herself to care about the years-old dust she might be transferring into her hair.

Rio crawls in after her feet, grabbing her ankles even though she's already stopped.

"Careful, you'll hurt my feelings if you tell me I'm not the first girl you've lured out here," she says, even managing a convincing pout. Even in the dark, Agatha can make out the way her eyes sparkle challengingly.

"You sure you want to talk about that right now?"

Rio's eyes narrow, and the car jostles slightly as she pushes forward a little more, knee resting against the sideboard of the door. 

"So you have," she says, her tone too light to properly convey the unbothered air that she's so obviously desperate to exude. "Good to know."

The last time Agatha had parked here to take advantage of the lack of cameras was to cry hysterically during her lunch break on Nicky's first day of school, but if Rio thinking that it was because she'd been munching box after a single light beer with an irresponsible hookup lit her fire, she was welcome to continue to live in that reality.

The old, crumbling pavement under Rio's weight-bearing foot scrapes against itself, loud in the silence of the otherwise empty street. She rucks up one leg of Agatha's pants and wraps her hand around her ankle, leaning her weight onto her forearm against the edge of the seat. Her free hand gets to work with the laces of her boot when Agatha sits up on her elbows in confusion.

"What're you doing?"

Rio blinks up at her, still unlacing, her fingers around her ankle dipping under the edge of the boot to tickle pleasantly at the skin there.

"...Taking off your boots?"

Agatha shakes her head slightly, eyebrows raising, silently asking the follow-up question which Rio dutifully answers with the same infuriating condescension. 

"...So I can take off your pants?"

She falls back again to avoid directly rolling her eyes in the other woman's face.

Clearly taking that as another wordless question, Rio concludes:

"So I can go down on you. There's no way I've misread this."

She chuckles at her own sarcasm, and even Agatha feels the sound pull at the corner of her lip, but she straightens her expression again and gestures impatiently with one hand for Rio to join her in the back seat.

"You don't have to like... undress me. In the spirit of honesty, I'm not sure I'm getting out of these pants that easily, anyway. Just..."

Rio climbs over her, feet dangling out of the open door, and kisses her soundly. 

It definitely feels a little out of order to throw such a soft kiss into the middle of everything, especially after the bruising makeout session against the bathroom stall and having already watched Rio cum from down on her knees on the floor, but the carefulness of it drowns everything else out for a blissful moment.

Outside the car, the street lamp buzzes loudly as it lures in and punches the ticket of a moth. Rio lowers her weight, pressing firmly and reassuringly against Agatha's side and chest, arms shaking slightly under the strain of balancing on her tiny sliver of available seat real estate. 

"This is okay?"

It takes Agatha a full second to realize she's no longer being kissed and that she's also being asked a question. 

"Mm?"

"This is okay? Like this?" Rio drops a little more of her weight onto her, arms steadying. The movement forces a little of the remaining air out of Agatha's chest, and she bites back a pleased sigh at how unexpectedly grounding and relaxing the pressure is.

"You're stalling," she mutters, the arm not trapped under Rio's weight slipping down to grab at her waist and hold her in place. "I knew you were going to just take your nut and run."

The playful goading drags a low rumble between a laugh and a warning from Rio's chest, and all of that slow sweet softness evaporates out of the air between them. The earlier urgency slams back into Agatha's brain like a horny, inhibition-throttling wrecking ball.

"Not a chance," Rio growls against her cheek, before biting at the apple of it harmlessly and working her hand aggressively at the zip of Agatha's pants.

She barely gets them peeled past the bottom of her underwear before giving up on that task entirely and licking her fingers obscenely. Agatha hardly has time to register it, wanting to burn the image into her memory before that same hand vanishes below her panties, startling a gasp out of her from the first touch. 

Rio's fingers pause, eyes flicking down to meet Agatha's.

"I'll go slow," she offers, "We don't need to both be embarrassed."

Agatha nods, a little more frantically than she means to. She doesn’t give a fuck about pace or pressure or the definite rugburn the scratchy old upholstery of the Plymouth is going to leave on her ass for days. Rio’s middle finger presses softly – too softly, really – against her clit, stilling when Agatha inhales sharply again. Then, after patiently waiting for her full attention once more, begins rolling an impossibly small circle.

The movement is so minute that it’s almost like she isn’t moving at all, but it’s all Agatha can feel; all she can consciously grasp onto for the next few quiet moments. She’s glad she seems to have a bit of a better sense of control than Rio does, knowing she’s definitely going to be wanting something a little more on the harder, faster, deeper end of the spectrum to finally cross the finish line, but the extra-soft teasing feels so unexpectedly good that she can hardly stand it.

Rio moans into her neck like she can feel it too. Agatha mirrors her as if agreeing, lifting her hips just slightly to try to force the other woman’s touch to stutter. Something; anything to give her a second to catch her breath. 

As if she were anticipating it, Rio pulls back just slightly, just enough to keep just the very tip of her finger against her clit with the same steady, almost tickling pressure, and when Agatha whines, she laughs.

Sinking defeatedly back onto the seat, Agatha’s entire world shrinks down to the inside of the car. The only things she has are her establishing rugburns; her stupid too-tight pants constricted around her thighs; the tea tree-tinged scent of Rio’s foundation mixed with something unseasonably summery.

Sunblock, Agatha realizes in the same second that she questions it. Sunblock in autumn in Massachusetts because Rio, who illegally sleeps on a futon above her place of work, is still just responsible enough to remember to wear SPF even when it’s cloudy.

That overwhelming combination of affection and attraction comes surging back into Agatha’s chest with a vengeance just as Rio decides she’s teased enough and swipes three fingers greedily through her folds, the still-long nail of the third one scratching painlessly over the slick surface of her labia and making every muscle in her torso clench up in reaction.

She cries out. Loudly. Loud enough that Rio shushes her softly, eyes flicking nervously down to the open car door by their now-tangled feet. Her fingers still again and Agatha feels a distinct pulse – her cunt protesting the sudden lack of movement and trying to take matters into its own hands.

“Fuck- don’t stop,” she says, trying to sound stern even though her voice doesn’t come out as anything other than a whisper.

Rio shushes her a second time, but she doesn’t have time to be offended before her fingers return to their work, slipping back and forth, parting her labia and brushing against her entrance but never once sliding inside her. Agatha can hear how wet she is, but rocking against Rio’s hand only forces the touch to become massage-like; too firm, borderline soothing in a way that doesn’t drive her nearly as crazy as the earlier clit-teasing had. 

Groaning in frustration, she forces her hips to slow to a stop, letting Rio work at her own desired pressure and speed, and she’s quickly rewarded with the other woman taking her now much slicker fingers to her clit again. 

The leather around her thighs acts like makeshift bondage, forcing her to keep her legs tight around Rio’s hand when she desperately wants to spread herself open. Her muscles strain hard as she pulls fruitlessly, the tightness in them contrasting sharply with the careful caressing around her clit.

“You actually going to fuck me a-anytime soon?” She grits out, stuttering over a telltale gasping whine when one particular circle edges just enough inwards to let off fireworks behind her eyes when Agatha squeezes them shut.

“I was thinking about it,” Rio replies, though the playfulness in her words is all show, her own breath ragged against the side of Agatha’s jaw. “You were just having such a good time, I didn’t want to interrupt.”

As if to prove her point, she suddenly switches the direction of her swirling, a second fingertip joining in and adding enough pressure that the first warning sign of her incoming orgasm washes over Agatha like a warm wave. She moans approvingly, head dropping back just in time for Rio to mouth wetly down the column of her throat, pressing a little more of her weight against her stomach and chest.

Just as she’s beginning to forgive her, Rio pulls her hand free once more and shifts off of her enough to bring it to her mouth. Glaring with real, sudden anger, Agatha snatches her wrist clumsily, digs her nails into the soft ink lines hard enough to begin to pierce the skin. The movement is too slow and too weak to fully stop Rio from putting her shining digits into her mouth, moaning around them immediately and then sucking all the way down to the middle knuckle.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathes, muffled around her fingers.  She ruts hard against Agatha’s thigh and Agatha has to force herself not to move away out of petulant, impatient spite.

She tightens her grip on Rio’s wrist and feels the skin snap under her nails.

“If these aren’t back inside me in the next fifteen seconds, I’m kicking you out and going home.”

Chuckling, pupils blown wide, Rio heeds the warning and sucks at her fingers one last time before unwrapping her lips from them. She nods breathlessly, and Agatha lets go of her with a final warning look. Shakily working her hand back into her panties she tries to explain, voice hoarse:

“Said I’d go down on you but I didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

Warm fingers part her and two slide in easily (index and middle, Agatha notes, how romantic) and the sound of it coupled with the sweet relief forces Agatha’s head back with a sharp, high moan.

“What was I supposed to do if I had to go home tonight without tasting you, huh?” She picks up her pace immediately, seemingly just as out of patience as Agatha was. She latches onto her earlobe and nips, hard enough to make Agatha yelp, and soothes the impulsive choice over by laving her tongue over it, sucking gently in apology.

Agatha had never felt any particular fondness towards too much talking in bed. There were only so many times one could hear a whiny, repetitive ‘I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum’ before the urge to yell ‘THEN DO IT ALREADY’ started gnawing at the back of their mind. 

But something about the delirious honesty in everything Rio said, the way that something akin to fear shook her statements as if she was horrified by her own helplessness to voicing them, made an unfamiliar excitement wake up in some part of herself that she hadn’t been aware of in decades.

Between living with her evil cunt of a mother and her angelic, unscarred (thus far) son, Agatha has pretty much mastered the art of bringing herself to orgasm in complete silence, but with the jump between the softness of Rio’s teasing and the deep, stretching sensation of her fingers inside of her, Agatha struggles to keep her volume where it won’t get the two of them in trouble – empty street or not.

She squirms when Rio licks her lips, still close enough to her ear that her tongue flicks over the lobe again and the tickling sensation spreads up from the spot to scatter across her entire scalp when a shiver runs through her.

“God, I want to taste you again but I think hearing you cum is going to be just as good-”

Rio ruts against Agatha’s hip and breaks off her own borderline-babbling with a truly pathetic whimper, and that does it.

“Fuck, Rio, I’m -”

As if it weren’t the most obvious thing in the world, she gives up and clenches her legs around Rio’s forearm, crying out high, and sharp, and long. She can’t remember the last time she let herself actually scream at anything, let alone just needing to vocalize something so good.

Rio moans softly as she pulls her fingers free, lids heavy, teeth almost bared.

“Oh, yeah, better than I imagined.”

Agatha doesn’t have time to react before Rio grabs a fistful of her pants and underwear right at the crotch, yanking hard enough to free another inch and a half of Agatha’s thighs. Just enough, it turns out, for Rio to manage to force her chin into, the material forcing her face directly up into Agatha’s pussy for her to immediately start devouring like a woman starved.

The sudden emptiness left by her fingers is filled by her tongue, deep enough that the barbell sitting halfway through its length worries hard against her oversensitized clit each time she moves.

The sound Agatha makes is somewhere between tortured and rapturous. Both hands fly out warningly, one slamming against the back of the front seat so she doesn’t fall completely into the footwell, the other practically slapping Rio in the back of the head, patting around frantically until she can get a good enough grip on her hair to pull, hard.

Rio fights her on it, moaning straight into her cunt at the pain and opening wider to envelop even more of her between her lips. 

“Please, please!” Skipping demanding to fall straight into pleading, Agatha pulls at her hair again, adjusting her grip to try to push her forehead and put some distance between them. She’s horrified to hear her words losing their power as they ride out of her throat on a wave of overstimulated, borderline ticklish giggling.

Dragging her tongue firmly upward as she mercifully slips out of her, Rio lifts her head and resembles a dazed, milk-drunk kitten for a moment before she starts giggling herself.

“Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ,” Agatha breathes, chuckling again though this time in disbelief. She jerks away with a little ‘ah!’ when Rio reaches down and smooths a little of her pubic hair back into place, but it goes ignored.

Popping her fingers back into her mouth, Rio sits up properly and glances around the space curiously, much too casually.

“This is a huge fucking car.”

Closing her eyes to catch her breath, Agatha feels the blood pounding in her head begin to slow a little. She’s hyperaware of how hot she is, surprised that steam isn’t rising off of her skin from the cool air outside of the open car door.

“Yeah,” she agrees, even though her voice sounds far away. 

She opens her eyes in time to see that Rio has helped herself to a tissue from the little travel pack of them that had been tucked into the seat compartment. She licks her lips widely, tongue stretched like she’s trying not to miss anything Agatha left on her chin before defeatedly wiping her mouth and balling the tissue up in her fingers.

“You alright?” She asks. 

Agatha takes that as her cue to pull her clothes back on, lifting her hips and tugging her panties back up. She forces herself not to wince at the cold contact from her own wetness, reaching for her pants which turn out to be a significantly bigger challenge.

“I’m good,” she promises, huffing in protest when Rio tosses the tissue aside and slides down into the footwell, gripping both sides of Agatha’s waistband and helping her slide them back up. 

The combined effort it takes makes a laugh crackle between both of them, the post-orgasm endorphins making Agatha feel unexpectedly light, almost loopy.

Without asking, Rio pushes the bottom of Agatha’s skewed tank top up a little, eyes lit up with curiosity at the sight of more tattoos.

“Hey-” Agatha stops her hand as the material bunches at her navel, quirking an eyebrow.

“Let me see,” Rio insists, chuckling softly and pushing at the material more. Agatha relents, letting it slide up to bunch below her bra, then sits up properly to pull it off entirely. Rio turns, reaching for the door to close it now that they don’t need the leg room, and Agatha takes the opportunity to begin plucking at her shirt, too.

“I want to see this one,” she says, when Rio shoots her a questioning look of her own. She nods to the top of her shirt, where the sprig vanishes down beneath it.

“I bet you do,” Rio replies playfully, though she does sit back a bit and dutifully pull her own shirt straps down her arms, letting the circle of material fall around her waist. She reaches back without an ounce of hesitation, undoing the clasp of her bralette and letting it fall down her arms.

Agatha’s eyes flick from the ink to the small golden balls secured to each of the barbells piercing her nipples, then back up to Rio’s face. She tilts her head, eyes sharpening as she quietly waits – for an opinion, or a question, or even a compliment, Agatha isn’t sure. She looks perfectly comfortable and confident, though, shoulders back and eyes forward.

Turning her attention to the tattoo, she notes the bow in the twine and the tiny berries littered throughout some of the leaves previously hidden by her clothing.

“Is that…?”

“Mistletoe,” Rio confirms.

“You slut,” Agatha scoffs, causing Rio to let out a bark of laughter too loud for the confined space of the backseat. She grins in spite of it, shaking her head as Rio reaches for her and strokes two fingers across the arc of black gothic text over her navel.

“What does this mean?”

Agatha glances down at the Latin as if she’s somehow forgotten what she had tattooed there and would be able to translate it from fluency.

“Uh… repetitio mater memoriae. It’s like… repetition is the mother of memory, or something like that.” When Rio continues to just stare patiently at her, she tacks on, “Push present to myself, once everything was sort of… back in place.” 

She gestures vaguely at her midsection, feeling her cheeks growing warmer the longer that Rio looks at her, but is saved from the uncomfortable silence when Rio trails her fingers downward, brushing over the scar tissue above her navel.

“How come you never put any of your piercings back in? Assuming you took this one out for the pregnancy, too.”

She had, but she doesn’t have any real answer to give her.

“Because I’m not seventeen and a slut anymore, mostly.”

Rio scowls and pokes her in the stomach in retaliation, and when Agatha recovers from twisting away with a laugh, she catches sight of the black, dangling jewelry hanging from Rio’s stomach as she pulls her shirt up to show her.

“Well,” Agatha hums, “What did I say?”

Rio goes to prod at her again, but she catches her hand this time, stilling it and letting her flatten it to her flank instead.

“Why dogs?” She asks, brushing over one of the twin tattoos that cover either side of her stomach, vanishing just below her pants near her groin.

“Hellhounds,” Agatha corrects, sighing contently at the attentive caressing that the other woman continues administering, tracing the outline of the nearer flank’s piece.

“Oh yeah?” Rio grins. “‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ or whatever?”

“Something like that,” Agatha chuckles, unfolding her shirt in her hands and tugging it back on, forcing Rio to pull her hand back. She tries not to feel too flattered by how disappointed she clearly is, running a hand through her sex-mussed hair.

“Do you need to get home?”

“I should,” Agatha replies, feeling her own sinking sense of disappointment settling in as Rio opens the car door once more and slides out of the backseat into the cool night air. “I’ll drive you back.”

“It’s only a few blocks.” Rio watches her climb out as well, offering her a hand for balance just a little too late for her to take her up on it.

“Don’t be annoying,” she huffs, straightening herself out and reaching for the passenger door, tugging it open and gesturing impatiently for Rio to climb in. She does, and by the time Agatha rounds the car and gets into the driver’s seat she’s acutely aware of how obvious the scent of sex in the vehicle is.

She chooses not to mention it, nor the way Rio’s hand automatically lands on her thigh when she starts the engine as if it belongs there.

Chapter Text

Agatha wakes up with a crick in her neck and her hair half-matted, partially trapped under her pillow and tangled beyond belief. Freeing it from where it’s pinned, she spreads it back over her pillow and lies flat on her back, closing her eyes and trying to trick herself into believing the weightlessness of it and the relief on her scalp are permanent. She imagines herself bald. She’d hate it, and she knows it. It’s true, though, that her hair, as much of a resistant act of self-love as it is, would be so much more convenient if she could just take it off whenever she felt like it.

She pictures herself free of it, and that train of thought inevitably reminds her of her last conversation with Evanora, two days before she passed, almost seven years ago.

“Your hair is getting so long again,” she’d said, running her fingers through to the ends and then curling them. Maybe she’d meant to pull it, but she’d been too weak by that point. “Too long.”

Agatha had pulled the bulk of it back, messily shoving it through the dirty elastic on her wrist, a leftover from her unpacking boxes at the shop earlier; felt the rubber yanking a few strands out of her scalp, her irritation level spiking astronomically. The room was suddenly too warm.

“It’s the prenatal vitamins,” was the bomb she had chosen to drop, instead of the bullet of a comment about her mother’s own hair that she’d really wanted to fire off. The sickness took her vanity by force, replacing it with an even stronger sense of jealousy.

She hadn’t waited for the response. The nurse came in asking about vitals, and Agatha made herself scarce for the short rest of Evanora’s life.

It was one day past the two-month pregnancy milestone when she had passed, those two days later. Agatha had woken up and thrown up so violently she thought it might kill her, but she still made her way back to the hospital that afternoon to visit Nicholas’ father. He’d looked even worse than she’d felt at the time, so she reminded him that he had to stick around for the birth or she wouldn’t forgive him. It had been one of the last times she’d been able to really talk to him, too. The nagging fear in the back of her mind that it was karma for how she’d treated her mother in the end stuck with her up until Nicky was born.

Now, she hears the sounds of her son getting up in the other room and forces herself to ground herself in the present.

She listens for him as he makes his way down the hall and flips up the toilet seat, peeing with the door open — a habit she needed to nip in the bud sooner rather than later — and then the scraping sound of his stepping stool being dragged over to the vanity sink so he can wash his hands at the too-tall counter sink. Tiny victories, she decides.

Pushing herself to sit up, she shuffles back against the headboard and hazards a glance at the clock, mentally mapping out how much spare time she has in this little oasis of comfort with him before the real world starts to crowd in on the two of them. 

The water shuts off, and she hears him head back down the hall. She considers calling out for him when she hears him go back into his room, inviting him to come sleep in her bed until he has to get up to start the day properly, but she doesn’t get the chance before hearing him make his way back into the hall. Her own door opens further with a creak, and she turns to see him peering at her curiously from the door.

“You’re up,” he observes. 

She snorts.

“Uh huh.” She notes the large human anatomy book tucked clumsily under one of his arms, a stuffed bear clutched in the other, and jerks her chin in gesture for him to join her. He flings both the bear and the book up onto her lap before clambering up onto her as well, losing his balance on her legs before collapsing on the empty side of her bed.

He positions himself neatly up against her side, cheek pressed to her ribs just above her heart, and reaches for his book. Flipping through a couple of pages, he seems to find his place and sighs far too wearily for a six-year-old as he focuses on the page. She doesn’t bother asking what he’s doing up, and he doesn’t volunteer any extra information, content to stare at the illustrations on each page and run his fingers over the outlines of muscle and sinew there thoughtfully.

She falls into the space between asleep and awake as she listens to his steady breathing and the distant, muffled clanging of a radiator pipe down the stairs in the living room, fully zoned out until he snaps her out of it.

“How do you say this?”

She glances down at his book and then defeatedly reaches for her glasses on the side table, shaking them open with one hand as he impatiently squirms closer.

“Brachioradialus.”

Nicky stares at the page, then looks up at her with a surprisingly concerned look.

“Like the dinosaur?”

“You’re thinking of brachiosaurus,” she guesses, fighting off her smile.

“Why do they sound the same?”

Surrendering herself to what appears to be an incoming ‘unending stream of questions’ sort of morning, Agatha slides a hand up the back of his soft, worn pajama shirt and rubs his back gently in hopes of subliminally lulling him into a less-inquisitive mood. 

“Brachio is a root word, like, uh…” She trails off, scratching her cheek as she tries to think of an example he’ll be able to wrap his head around. “Like aqua. Aquatic, or… aquamarine, or -”

“Aquarium?” Nicky cuts her off. Agatha lights up, laughing in surprise.

“Exactly,” She replies, grabbing both his shoulders softly from behind and jostling him softly until he laughs and tries to elbow her away. “Have I ever told you how smart you are?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m telling you again.”

He wiggles forward to escape her harmless but annoying shoving and narrows his eyes at the book again.

“Well, then what does brachio mean?”

Agatha leans over his shoulder and points to the illustration. “Arm.”

Nicky whips her in the face with his hair when he turns to her again, looking both alarmed and irritated all at once. 

“What does that have to do with a brachiosaurus?” He demands, as if this is her fault.

She gives him a bewildered shrug and reaches over to shut the book.

“I don’t know, buddy. Maybe when you grow up, you can be the genius paleontologist who changes the name to something better. Something to do with the neck.”

Nicky absentmindedly scratches at the raised dot of scar tissue on his own neck at the thought, and Agatha gently catches his hand to stop him wordlessly.

“C’mon, baby, time to get up.” She eases the book away from his hands and places it on the nightstand, then smirks mischievously as she drags him into her lap. He shrieks at the sudden, unexpected show of strength, and she forces herself to her feet before she can let her sleep-sore muscles catch up to her impulse.

“AHH!” Nicky barely gets the scream out before bursting into laughter when he’s hoisted messily over her shoulder, dangling down her back as she clutches him by the backs of the thighs and marches out into the hall. He whacks at her legs with the stuffed bear uselessly, laughing too hard to protest properly, even when she reaches his room and tosses him into the bed with a bounce. 

He flings the stuffed bear at her as he gets his bearings, and she tosses it back at him with only half the strength as she turns to tug open his dresser drawers.

“Mama?”

Glancing wordlessly over her shoulder at the sudden shy tone her son’s voice has taken on, Agatha narrows her eyes curiously as he sits up on the edge of his bed, kicking his feet.

“...Yeah, buddy?”

“Can I come to work with you today?”

“No,” she dismisses, turning back to the drawers and tugging out a warm long-sleeved shirt for him. “You have school.”

“I’ve come with you before!” He protests.

“That’s when you were sick,” she replies — a half-truth. Explaining away all of his exhaustion and confusion post-hospital had been a lot easier with a blanket term he could understand, at the time. “Are you sick?”

He’s quiet until she turns around, and she has to tighten her jaw to keep from smiling at the nervous, thoughtful expression on his face. He’s slowly been developing a tendency to lie almost reflexively these days. Lucky for Agatha, he’s god awful at it.

“No,” he admits softly, a tiny smile pulling at his mouth when he drops her gaze and picks at a loose thread on his pajama pants. She hands him the shirt to keep his hands busy and turns to dig out a pair of blue jeans as he begins changing. He’s still tangled in the shirt when she finishes putting his clothes together, so she pelts him in the head harmlessly with a balled-up pair of socks and underwear.

Laughing and whining all at once, he shoos her out of the room with the insistence that he can do it himself, and she leaves him to it. 

The moment alone is a blessing. The empty bottles from her and Billy’s conversation the night before are still on the edge of the kitchen sink, and her pants — which she’d abandoned in the dining room as soon as he’d left — are still in a heap on the floor by the table. Hastily tidying as she hears Nicky make his way to the bathroom, she rushes through the motions of putting his lunch together, not having had time the night before.

“Will you give this to Rio?” Nicky asks when he finally appears in the kitchen doorway, dragging his backpack in one hand and clutching a sheet of paper in the other. Dried toothpaste sticks to the side of his mouth and trails down to the collar of his shirt.

“Depends what it is,” Agatha says, wetting a paper towel and sinking to his level to dab at his shirt and mouth. “Is she being served?”

Nicky stares at her blankly, confused, and she sighs, nodding to it.

“Show me.”

He proudly turns the page around to show her his work — a bright, messy drawing of a massive Venus flytrap, with what appears to be a much smaller Nicky, Billy, and Agatha surrounding the plant. In the top corner, he’s written ‘For RIO’, her name taking up much more space than necessary.

“It’s to say ‘thank you’ for Seymour,” he explains. “So she knows we’re taking care of him.”

Dropping the paper towel to the floor, Agatha softly grabs either side of his head and pulls him in, meeting him halfway to press her lips firmly to his forehead. She closes her eyes and inhales the smell of his hair, the combination of soap and sleep and the remnants of fabric softener from his pillowcase. 

“I’ll make sure she gets it,” she promises him, not letting herself think twice about what it’ll be like to run into Rio that day after the night they’d just had together.

Nicky assists her in picking out his lunch, and she takes it as a fair deal for her own poor planning to let him win the argument to take two different flavors of fruit snacks. Despite the relatively easy morning, he’s dragging his feet by the time she drops him off — she can’t tell if it’s maternal empathy that’s making her mirror his sudden clinginess or just the possible brewings of a near-hangover making her feel extra emotional, but when she arrives at the shop to get the doors open, she’s incredibly grateful to be alone with her own vulnerable thoughts.

She sets up her playlist and leaves off the majority of the lights, content to float about the shop space lit only by the glow from Lilia’s office at the back and her own station lamp. She dusts the framed art in the waiting area and rearranges the binders, charges the card reader and her own tablet, and has even moved on to refilling the cleaning supplies — usually a Billy task — by the time Alice makes her way in almost an hour later.

“Morning!” She calls out, considerably more cheerfully than she usually sounds when greeting Agatha. That new behaviour is explained when Agatha pokes her head around the corner of her station and Alice catches sight of her properly, and jumps in surprise. “Jesus. I thought you’d be Billy.”

“No,” Agatha sighs. “No, today I still woke up ‘me’. Better luck tomorrow.”

“No, I meant—” Alice groans, though it seems mostly at herself for even reflexively indulging the other woman’s sarcasm. “I thought Billy would be opening.”

“Schedule’s on the front desk,” Agatha grunts. “Hasn’t moved in years.”

“Thought you might’ve switched shifts.”

Pausing from where she’d been tucking back into her station, Agatha weighs the pros and cons of asking for an explanation before her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Why would we do that?” 

Alice is quiet after that, waking up the sleeping computer at the front desk and taking her sweet time removing her backpack and jacket. Doubly-irritated, now, at both having decided she wanted the answer and now not receiving it, Agatha clears her throat in what she hopes is a threatening manner, then reaches over to pause the music on her phone, throwing the space into a stifling quiet.

“Your date!” Alice replies, almost a little frantic. “Obviously!”

Agatha’s enjoyment of how easily she can still back the younger woman into a corner with very little effort is cut short as her words sink in properly.

“That was last night. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about what they’re doing with time these days, but it’s pretty much linear.” Agatha lifts a hand and slides it outward. “One long line.”

Alice gives her an unamused look.

“Right, well, sometimes when women go on dates and make a good impression, the subject of their interest makes the mistake of taking them home.” She snaps open her bag and begins pulling out her supplies, glancing back at Agatha again with a much softer look, like she’s already regretting her choice of words and worried she’s hurt her feelings.

“No one said I didn’t get laid,” Agatha replies haughtily, both to soothe her own ego and, secretly, ease some of Alice’s obvious guilt.

Alice’s concerned expression morphs into a giddy one. Agatha regrets throwing her a bone.

“Did you really?” She asks, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Turning her back to her, Agatha turns the music back on. Alice raises her voice to speak over it.

“Okay! I get it, no details! But come on, it’s just… I don’t know. A little unexpected. I know we were all giving you a hard time about her, but this is kind of a big deal, right?”

Sighing wearily, Agatha glances over her shoulder and then snorts at the sight of Alice standing in the middle of the space, hands wringing together nervously like she’s about to present her with a disappointing report card.

“Let’s make a deal,” she suggests. “I give you exactly zero details about my personal life, and you give me exactly zero indication about the conclusions you’re all coming to. Fair?”

“You know that’ll never happen,” Alice sighs, before her lips pull up into a tiny, mischievous smile, and she shrugs. “It’s four against one. Might as well face the inevitable: your friends are going to take an interest in your life.”

Grumbling at her choice of words, Agatha turns back to her own station, and Alice, for the time being, leaves her alone.

The bell on the door chimes again, much too soon, and Agatha doesn’t have to look up to know, based on the energy shift in the studio, that it’s Jen, though she does turn away from her work just to shoot the other woman a glare for letting the door clatter loudly shut behind herself when she makes her way inside.

“Good morning, Agatha. How was your adult-oriented queerplatonic evening with your hot client that’s desperately trying to fuck you?”

“We’re finally calling it a date,” Alice updates. 

Jen sags theatrically in relief and then hands Alice a coffee from the tray in her hand.

“Finally. So? You want to get the details out now, or should we wait for Lilia?”

“She’s not budging,” Alice says, setting her coffee aside to cool as Jen sweeps across the room to hand Agatha one of the remaining three cups. “I give it until three before she finally caves. Earlier if Rio shows up.”

“Ooh,” Jen’s eyes sparkle at the thought as Agatha snatches the coffee wordlessly and glowers at them both. “That would be bold. But that sort of seems like her vibe. Or does it? She’s hard to read.”

Rolling her eyes, Agatha sips poutily at the americano in her hands and waits for the pair of them to stop talking as if she isn’t even there.

“I’m going to fake an injury and go home early if you don’t stop,” she threatens. “And you can do all the payday walk-ins yourselves.”

Heeding the warning, both Jen and Alice hold a coffeeless hand up in surrender and turn their attention to each other, instead, ranting back and forth about the previous night’s episode of whatever reality slop they’re both watching the current season of.

The phone rings just as Lilia bustles inside an hour later, bringing the cold morning air with her.

“Alice,” She says, pointing to the phone as she slides right by the desk and allows it to keep ringing. “For you.”

Confused, the youngest of the group makes her way over to the desk and picks up, frowning into the receiver.

“Coven Ink. Yes, this is she.” She gives both Jen and Agatha a perplexed look as they glance her way, shrugging. “Oh! Yeah, how’s it holding up? That wrap job still tight? Good, good.”

Lilia squeezes Agatha’s shoulder in passing, a silent ‘wait here’ gesture, before vanishing into her back office. Alice glances over as well, before saying into the receiver: “Agatha? Yeah, she’s around.”

Shooting her a look of betrayal, Agatha mouths a sharp ‘What the fuck?’ at her, which she politely ignores.

“For you, since I know you’ll be bored this weekend.” Lilia materializes at Agatha’s station like an apparition, handing off an unwieldy, hand-stretched canvas. Taking it carefully, Agatha flicks her gaze up to the older woman and narrows her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been complaining about not having any time to paint. May as well take advantage.”

Confused, but not complaining, Agatha carefully tucks the canvas aside behind her tool cart and nods in thanks.

She had spent a lot of time complaining as of late about the lack of time or space to paint, and the environment of the convention did work well for her to flex some of her slower-paced creative muscles. Onlookers often got bored watching a visual art process that wasn’t on a blue light screen, which meant she was more likely to be left to her own devices for most of the time it took to finish any substantial amount of a new piece.

A regular of Jen’s arrives for a touch-up, though she’s in and out within an hour and does little to lift the energy in the shop above its quiet, sleepy rhythm. Agatha considers the havoc a second coffee will wreak on her empty stomach just as the start of Billy’s shift is signalled by him practically bouncing through the door.

“No, I’m seriously surprised you haven’t heard of it. It’s sort of like the first thing that pops up when you’re trying to stalk Zillow. The guy’s a total fucking dick, though. Still, month to month, can’t really be that picky.”

His voice carries across the waiting area of the shop and into the back, and before Agatha has the chance to turn and see who it is he’s rambling at, she senses her. It’s like every single tiny hair follicle lights up with electricity, the back of her neck suddenly prickling uncomfortably, and in a split second of clarity, Agatha realizes it’s the uncomfortable sensation of being watched that’s bothering her, not just Rio being in her space.

Hazarding the most minute side-eye glance possible, she notes that Rio is barely looking her way, instead watching Billy intently as he speaks while following him inside. The staring itch seems to be coming from Jen, eyes locked on Agatha from her perch at her own station.

“Look who I found,” Billy announces, smiling cheerfully until Agatha catches his eye and quickly sobering his expression.

He abandons Rio for the safety of his reception desk, rounding it quickly and shutting himself in.

“Hi, Rio,” Jen and Alice chime in unison. Agatha pictures banging their heads together like cymbals as she slowly wheels her seat out from her station to get a better look at the other woman. 

That proves to be a colossal mistake. The Rio across from her is dressed comfortably: dark linen pants that make her legs look even longer by some miracle, and a silky button-up top with the sleeves rolled up to the crooks of her elbows. Her makeup is much more daytime-minimal than it had been the night before, her hair tucked up messily at the nape of her neck in a scrunchie that looks as though it’s seen better days. Agatha takes her in, but her eyes seem to miss the memo, causing heat to flash over her entire body so quickly that she swears she’s transported back in time, staring up at Rio’s face as she towers over her in the back seat of her car, long fingers buried to the hilt inside of her and drawing screams out of her throat she’d hopelessly wondered if she’d ever hear again before that night.

As if picking up on the image telepathically, Alice stands up abruptly, sending her wheeled stool rolling back away and bumping into the wall.

“I’m going to go smoke,” she insists. “Jen?”

Jen waves her off quickly and irritably, like she’s just interrupted her during a movie she’s never seen.

“Agatha,” Rio greets, like they’re the only two people in the shop. Her easy half-smile turns into a knowing smirk.

“Rio,” Agatha replies, carefully putting a slight husk into her voice that she’s well aware makes the other woman’s pupils dilate like clockwork. They do, then, and all of a sudden Agatha’s vision seems much clearer, like she’d suddenly found the right prescription eyeglasses. 

Now, Rio’s confidence is completely transparent from where Agatha is sitting. Her attempt at ‘lounging’ against the side of the desk is too stiff, her hands in her pockets fidgeting visibly under the linen despite her obvious intent to hide the movement. Coming by was a bold move, sure, but Agatha can tell she’s holding her breath as she waits for the verdict on whether or not it was the right one.

Letting her squirm a moment longer, Agatha digs in her bag and pulls out her tablet, flipping open the case to pull out Nicky’s drawing tucked safely inside. She stands from her rolling stool and approaches Rio slowly, failing to bite back her smirk when the taller woman stands up straight immediately, eyes widening.

“This is for you,” she says, holding it out. Rio doesn’t take the paper for a beat, eyes fixated on Agatha’s, before she seems to actually hear what she’d said and drops her stare to the page.

All of the cautious curiosity is wiped off her face by the brilliant grin that splits across it as soon as she registers what she’s seeing.

“Did Nicky make this?”

“No, I did. Obviously,” Agatha replies, the sarcasm slipping out before she can help it. 

Rio crinkles her nose, slapping her arm with the back of her hand without looking up from the picture.

“I love it,” she says, finally looking up. “It’ll need a frame before I can put it up at the shop, though. Humidity’ll ruin it otherwise.”

“I have something!” Lilia insists, startling both Agatha and Rio with her volume. She turns around and grabs Jen roughly by the forearm, dragging her back towards the office. “Help me look.”

“But I want to-” Jen tries to protest, trailing off as she’s pulled away.

Billy glances at them both and then pulls his headphones up from his neck and over his ears, turning away from the pair of them pointedly to pretend to focus on the schedule book splayed out on the opposite side of the desk.

“Y’know,” Rio turns her attention back to Agatha, and leans almost imperceptibly closer. “I would have just called. If you weren’t so hellbent on maintaining your mysteriousness and just gave me your number.”

“Called for what?” Agatha replies innocently, cocking her head to the side.

“It would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. After I made you mmph-!”

Agatha abruptly covers her mouth with one hand, eyes widening and shooting over to Lilia’s open office door at the back of the shop. Neither Jen nor Lilia is lurking in the doorway to eavesdrop, though, so she turns her gaze back onto the woman before her and glares warningly. The heat of it simmers off into shock when Rio’s tongue pushes out from behind her lips and swipes at the inside of her fingers before forcing itself between the crack of two of them and wriggling.

Yanking her hand back with a little gasp, Agatha wipes her hand on the leg of her pants.

“What is wrong with you?”

“I thought that was you asking for a recreation,” Rio replies sweetly.

“Why start reliving the night there? Maybe you should set a thirty-second timer and see if you can -”

Rio covers her mouth, this time, cheeks red and eyes wide in horror despite the telltale smile threatening to land on her lips.

“Point taken,” she says. “Truce.” 

It’s unintentional, but Agatha knows she must be smiling when Rio pulls her hand away, because her eyes drop to her lips and she mirrors it. 

“Is that all you came over for?” 

“Actually,” Rio shuffles one foot against the floor and cocks her head. “I was going to ask for a ride to the convention tomorrow. Since you’re so insistent about it, usually.”

“Oh, those are time-sensitive offers,” Agatha tells her, forcing her smile into a smirk.

Rio sighs heavily, but doesn’t ask a second time, letting her request hang in the air until Agatha relents, rolling her eyes.

“Fine. But it’s the total opposite direction from my place, and I don’t want to go back and forth.” She snatches a pen from the top of her workstation and grabs Rio’s wrist, twisting her hand until it’s palm-up and uncapping the pen with her teeth. “Be ready to go by nine, or I’m leaving without you.”

Rio pulls her arm back almost reluctantly as Agatha lets her go, eyeing the address written in cramped capital letters on the palm of her hand. She opens her mouth to speak — most likely a sarcastic comment about still not having Agatha’s number, given the mischievous look on her face — but Lilia interrupts as she floats out of the back office, clutching an ornate-looking black picture frame.

“Here you are,” she announces, offering it to Rio with unnecessary flourish. 

Jen strays a few steps behind, eyeing the pair of them like some kind of sexual-tension-detecting dog, and crosses her arms over her chest when Rio steps back, tucking both the frame and drawing to her chest.

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, waving with her free hand before turning and making her way to the door. 

Lilia and Jen both turn their questioning looks onto Agatha, who simply goes back to her station as if she hadn’t noticed their silent demands for an explanation. 

“I can’t be the only one working today,” she huffs. “Don’t you have flash to be finishing?” 

Her sudden interest in productivity seems to startle everyone back to their own business. Agatha’s gaze falls to the blank canvas once more, and she tugs her tablet closer to begin brainstorming ideas.

Agatha wakes before her alarm — a worryingly frequent occurrence — and decides to start getting ready for the day ahead instead of trying to fall back asleep. Nicky will be an impatient force of nature once he’s awake, and she knows that getting dressed and put together will be much easier without his hyperactive distractions. 

By the time her alarm does go off and Nicky still hasn’t come to drag her out of bed, the smallest nagging hint of concern beginning to grow in the back of her mind, becoming more and more insistent as each minute ticks by, mirroring the increasingly heavy rain against the outside of the house that had only been a dusting mist when she’d first woken up.

The door to Nicky’s room is still cracked open from one of his several trips to the bathroom for water the night before, and when Agatha pushes it open, she sees a suspiciously Nicky-shaped lump in the middle of the bed beneath the covers.

It shifts, stiffening as the door creaks open, and Agatha has to bite back a smirk.

“Nicky. You awake?”

“Um. I don’t want to go today. I need a home-day,” the blanket-lump tells her.

The smirk on her face is quickly replaced with a frown as she approaches the bed in a few swift steps, sinking down onto the edge of it.

Nicky shifts, sinking further down into the sheets even as Agatha tries to peel them back to see him.

“What is it, buddy?” She asks, forcing the impatient edge out of her voice as best she can.

“I just don’t want to today.” He wrenches the sheet back from her and buries himself beneath it. Agatha blinks in surprise, rubbing his back softly through the thin material and trying to subtly feel out if he might have a fever brewing.

“Are you sick?” She asks. “Or just tired?”

“Neither,” He replies, muffled beneath the sheet.

Before she can ask a follow-up question, the doorbell echoes through the house, cutting through the soft sound of the rain outside. 

“Shit,” Agatha whispers, slipping off of the bed and pulling the sheet off Nicky with more force. “Okay, kid, we gotta go. Come on.”

He looks almost on the verge of tears, and it hits Agatha so sharply in the chest that she feels physically wounded for a moment. Before she can even think to beg him for an explanation, a knock on the door follows and she groans, rushing out of the room and down the stairs.

Rio rocks on the balls of her feet as Agatha answers the door, one arm raised still from where she’d been admiring the wreath hanging there before Agatha had pulled it out of her hand.

“Morning,” She greets.

“Hey. Look, I’m sorry - Nicky’s… something. I don’t know. Sick, maybe. But you can take my car, just wait here, I’ll get you the keys.” Agatha turns to head back inside, hearing Rio follow behind her despite the lack of invitation. She grabs her bag from the banister railing and digs through its disorganized depths for her car keys, trying not to feel too insecure at the discrepancy between how put-together Rio is versus her own appearance.

“I don’t need to borrow the car,” Rio tells her, closing the front door behind herself. “I mean, shit happens. Probably be sort of weird hanging around there without you, anyway.”

Agatha pauses her search, glancing back over her shoulder at the other woman.

“You sure?”

Rio smiles, calm and open and a thousand percent less frazzled than Agatha feels. 

“Yeah. Is Nicky alright?” Her eyes flick toward the stairs at the sound of a soft ‘thud’. Agatha follows her gaze, calling out to her son instead of answering Rio directly.

“You okay up there?”

“Who was at the door?” Nicky calls back, tossing a third unanswered question into the ring.

Rio catches sight of the small planter housing Seymour the venus fly trap on the dining room table and brushes past Agatha to head further into the house as if she’d been there a hundred times. Crouching a little, she gently touches one of the new sprouts in the soil and smiles.

“Looks better than it did in the shop. You’d think a florist’s would have better natural light,” She muses.

Agatha crosses her arms as she watches her, then nods to the planter.

“We had to move it down here because he was staying up late talking to it.”

“Well, there are studies that show that conversation helps them grow,” Rio agrees, standing up straight and turning to Agatha and adding on in a playfully serious tone, “It’s when you start hearing them talk back to you that there’s cause for concern.”

Agatha snorts, caught off guard by the joke, and forces herself to roll her eyes as if it hadn’t amused her.

“Corny,” she huffs. Rio grins, opening her mouth to speak, but Nicky interrupts, coming down the stairs two at a time. He freezes on the last step at the unexpected sight of Rio, then lights up when he realizes they must be admiring his meticulous care of the plant in the middle of the table.

“Hey,” Rio says, jerking her head toward the plant. “Seymour giving you any trouble?”

Nicky giggles at the absurdity of the question, responding with an exasperated, enthusiastic ‘No!’ as he makes his way into the dining room to join them.

He climbs up onto one of the dining room chairs and reaches across the table, tugging the planter a little closer.

"I've been watering him a little bit every day. But not too much."

"Right," Rio agrees, stepping a little closer still. "Wouldn't want to drown him."

Nicky stiffens and Agatha mirrors it, a knee-jerk sympathetic reaction to his sudden discomfort. He turns to Rio slowly, rigid with concern.

"What?"

The abrupt smallness in his voice makes the florist realize she must have somehow misstepped, and she glances at Agatha for help, confusion clear on her face.

For Nicky's sake, more than Rio's, Agatha clears her throat and forces a tiny smile at her son and shakes her head.

"No, it's just a figure of speech." She brushes past Rio and rests both hands on Nicky's small shoulders, squeezing them reassuringly. "Just because Seymour acts a little bit like an animal doesn't mean he is one. He can't feel anything, buddy. He's just a plant."

Part of her wonders if Rio will contest this idea; if her botany background will make her want to come to the defense of the non-sentient being in the small planter on the table, but she doesn't say a word. When Agatha glances back at her again, feeling Nicky relax under her hands, she catches the apologetic look on the other woman's face.

'Sorry', Rio mouths, even though it’s clear she's not totally sure what it is she's apologizing for.

"You seem like you're feeling a bit better," Agatha tells Nicky, turning her attention back to him. He stiffens again, though this time in preemptive protest, not fear.

"I... I still want a home-day," He insists, turning to look up at her with a devastatingly effective pout.

“You’re killing me, kid.”

Sensing the defeat in his mother’s tone, Nicky’s expression softens into something a little more self-satisfied, realizing he’s already gotten his way.

“Maybe Billy could come over,” he suggests, but Agatha shakes her head.

“He’s at the convention, too. I was gonna paint today. How are you supposed to entertain yourself, huh?” Agatha runs a hand slowly through his sleep-mussed hair and feels the defeat swell when Nicky’s eyes flick from her face to over her shoulder, where Rio is standing.

Catching the hint, Rio speaks up.

“I could… hang around. Here, I mean. So you can focus.” The offer hangs in the air between the three of them for a moment before she adds on: “I mean. Shop is closed up for the day, anyway. I didn’t have any other plans.”

Agatha finally turns to her, wincing when Nicky exclaims his agreement with the idea.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

Rio shrugs.

“You didn’t have to offer to give me a ride, either. It’s a win-win. I need a documentary-watching buddy; you need time to work on your art. I take payment in the form of going through your snacks, though. Didn’t get breakfast.”

Agatha snorts. The entire thing feels threateningly intimate - somehow more so than even sleeping together had - but Nicky is already rambling about everything he wants to do that day, sliding down from the dining room chair to grab Rio’s hand and pull her toward the kitchen.

“We have Pop-Tarts!” He tells her, hurrying her along, and graciously offering, “You can have the last blueberry one. They’re my favorite, but you’re the guest.”

“Ooh, I love Pop-Tarts,” Rio tells him, just as they round the island counter and vanish into the pantry. 

Agatha’s gaze falls to the large, blank canvas propped up against the railing at the bottom of the stairs, then back towards the sounds of Rio and Nicky talking animatedly about something in the pantry. Lilia had been right; it would be a waste of an opportunity.

“I’ll be just down the hall!” She calls out, waiting for the dismissive response from the pair of them before picking up the canvas and making her way towards the ‘office’. 

She drags her easel out of the corner and tries not to feel too guilty about the layer of dust that falls off of it as it skids and bumps across the worn wooden floor, and is just about to prop the canvas up when she hears Nicky shriek delightedly in the other room and almost drops it.

The shriek dissolves into laughter, and it’s followed by the pleasant low sound of Rio’s voice, though Agatha can’t quite make out what it is she’s saying. Nicky quiets down again, and the sound of their voices blends perfectly into the rhythm of the house itself: the rain on the windows, the creak of the floor, the ticking of the grandfather clock that’s been gaining a second every two minutes for so many years that it’s looped back around to being properly tuned, for the time being.

Agatha sinks onto her stool, boneless, and reaches for her toning brush, and for the first time in over a year, puts paint to canvas.

Chapter Text

There was probably something to be said about the cliche of Agatha enjoying working backwards out of shapeless shadows instead of following the rules that had worked for almost everyone who came before her.

Even the most reckless, famous-for-disruption artists that she admired had a grasp on the basics. Every high school art teacher and tattoo mentor she'd ever spoken to had told her that knowing the rules was one of the first steps to breaking them. She knew they weren't wrong, and despite what people came to expect from her, she really did respect the fundamentals. She knew, inside and out, how to create a piece that would make even the most stern AP visual art teacher relent and grade her well, but it was all mental. When it came to translating that to the page, she faltered every time.

'I can't teach you how to see what you aren't seeing already,' was what one of her first post-high-school visual arts teachers had told her. She'd been staring at the pile of randomly cobbled-together garbage that served as the subject of their current still-life oil session. A cheap plastic skull stolen from the drama department, a string of purple Mardi Gras beads, a dusty candle that probably couldn’t be lit anymore, and some silk faux-flowers laid on the table. Agatha's seat in the circle gave her a clear view of the leftover glue on one of the plastic stems. The half-torn price tag sticker still clung to the end of it. 

Underpainting had been a pain in the ass for her to wrap her head around. The color theory just couldn’t find a way to make its place in her memory permanent. Still, without the scrutinizing glare of an instructor looming over her shoulder, Agatha could, in a few broad strokes, put together something that perfectly mirrored the tints and shades in front of her on the table. Starting with the brightest tones and trying to fill in the spaces had always felt totally backwards when her clearest work always came from brightening the highlights that stood out against a much darker sea. 

She’d dropped that visual arts class after three weeks. She couldn’t force the administration or her instructors to see it her way, and no one seemed to care about the outcome when she couldn’t neatly show her work within the specific rules and technicalities. 

That had been decades ago. The guilt over it had left her system just about as long ago, when she’d started spending more time loitering around a local tattoo shop. 

Now, seated on her uncomfortable wooden stool in front of a secondhand canvas gifted to her from her boss, Agatha begins to paint backwards. She layers on her toning wash until the canvas is almost soaked, the overall shade of it too dark to be anything other than the quasi-scenery she’s picturing in her mind, leaving no room for a change of heart. Getting up from her seat, she shuffles the easel back until it’s directly under the flow of air from the ceiling vent, and reaches for her phone. It begins to vibrate in her hand before she can even unlock it, and an icy cold wave of shame hits her when she sees Lilia’s name on the screen.

She’d been about to call her, but suddenly she can’t bring herself to answer the call. She lets it ring and ring until the missed call notification appears, and only then does she unlock it and open up her group chat with the rest of the tattoo shop.

Hey, Nicky needs me home today.

I’ll be there tomorrow.

Jen, predictably, replies first, though it’s not the scathing accusatory message that Agatha had initially anticipated:

[9:02AM] bitch: Everything ok?

Before Agatha can respond, Billy’s text follows.

[9:02AM] future organ donor: if you still want to go to the con, i can come by.

[9:02AM] future organ donor: i haven’t left the house yet, we can swap places and i can watch him

I’m good here, Agatha replies.

Down the hall, the booming sound of the Netflix studio card blares from the television, followed by Nicky and Rio giggling before the volume is hastily lowered. Setting aside her phone, Agatha ignores the buzz of more messages joining the chat and stretches her arms over her head, turning her shoulders and twisting her back until she feels and hears the satisfying 'pop' of cavitation.

Whatever mystery mental illness that Nicky was suffering from that morning doesn't seem to be an issue now that Rio is around. Agatha realizes with another icy wash of shame that it was probably loneliness, the same kind that she knew made him so unhappy about leaving school or being told that he couldn't tag along with her to the shop most days.

Shaking off the sympathetic sadness, Agatha eyes the canvas and reaches out to stroke the still-damp material curiously with a single fingertip. Good enough. She'd wanted to paint a waterscape, anyway.

The colors basically bloom to life on their own when she blindly mixes her light tones, basing her measurements on gut instinct rather than any sort of discerning form of study. Waves appear as naturally as they would in the real ocean, her brush building up towering walls of salt water that dissolve into sprays of white on blue. When she pauses, lowering her brush to bring her palette closer, she feels another ghostly wave ebb through her arm and out of the tips of her fingers, like she interrupted the tide of her own brush strokes.

This is good for her, she thinks. The rhythm. It tugs her muscles like she's haunted, the way it does when she tattoos, but this is a quieter, more ancient-feeling force. She finds herself holding her breath for long moments at a time, so focused and wide-eyed at the establishing feeling appearing in front of her that its almost like time itself stutters to a stop each time she pauses to reup her brush.

A sharp knock at the slightly ajar door causes Agatha to nearly send her thinner cup flying off of the wobbly side table it was resting on. Her eyes flick up to see Rio standing there, the door having slid just a sliver more open from the force of her knuckles.

"Hey. Sorry."

Rio eases her shoulder through the gap, wedging the door a half foot more open. When Agatha doesn't respond, she sidles completely into the room, edging forward like she might round the canvas; Agatha holds up her paint-stained brush, business end out like a warning, and Rio stops, hands up like it's a stickup. She doesn't need to verbalize the clear warning: Not for your eyes. Don't look.

"I just wanted to ask where your tupperware was. Nicky wasn't much help and I didn't want to go rifling through everything in case I accidentally exposed where you were hiding some contraband candy or something."

Agatha snorts at the thought despite her defensive stance, and slowly lowers the brush to the cup of thinner, dropping it in messily.

"Cupboard over the vent hood," she replies.

"'S a weird spot," Rio murmurs, already turning to go. Agatha squawks in protest at the random, drive-by judgement, and sees Rio's shoulders hitch with a stifled laugh as she makes herself scarce again without further explanation.

Wiping her hands on an old stained rag, Agatha turns her attention back to the canvas and sighs, eyes narrowing as she tries to force herself back into the flow state she'd been so suddenly pulled out of. She can't bring herself to pick up the next brush, though, as a weight that reminds her of a gentler pressure of executive dysfunction is starting to press in on her. Getting up from her seat abruptly, she makes the quick decision to take her first break. A glance at her phone tells her that she's managed to work for nearly an hour without realizing the time had passed at all, and she carries that reassurance with her to ease the creeping guilt as she heads out of the room and across the hall to the bathroom.

She knows she shouldn't be washing oil paint from her hands up here. None of the sinks inside the house are really suitable for it. When she's feeling particularly responsible, in the summer months when its warm, she'll go all the way outside to the yard after a painting session and spray her hands and arms off in the grass. When she's feeling especially patient for playing, she'll get Nicky to do it for her, knowing full-well that it always ends in a water fight where they're both freezing cold and soaking wet, skin prickling itchily from the high magnesium carbonate and calcium and leftover rust inside the old hose.

What she really needs is to install a utility sink in the studio room. But the idea of committing to a miniature renovation for a project she guiltily only puts the work into once every year, if that, rears up long-squashed financial anxieties that she swore she'd never focus on again once Nicky had been born.

As if her thoughts summoned him, she hears him.

The soft sound of Nicky's giggling protests draws her down to the kitchen unconsciously, and she pauses on the other side of the island counter to watch as he seems to be trying to employ some form of reverse gentle-parenting with Rio as she spoons macaroni and cheese into a small Bluey-printed child's bento box.

"What're we doing?"

Rio jumps, this time, and as Nicky whirls around, Agatha watches his face cycle through a storm of emotions; elated, horrified, disappointed, pouty.

"Noooo-" He marches around the island to grab his mother's hands, spinning around her to turn her away from Rio and the kitchen and try to drag her back towards the staircase with a few steps. "We were packing you a lunch, you can't see."

"I can't?" Agatha asks, trying not to laugh in the face of his dramatically let-down expression. It's not that she's happy to have disappointed him but the idea of a surprise – even in the form of boxed, food-dyed processed cheese and pasta – in the middle of her day is almost unbearably sweet.

"No!" Nicky stops at the base of the steps and then lets go of her hands, stomping around to get behind her and fix her hands at her lower back to try to push her up the steps like a rancher with a particularly stubborn member of their livestock supply.

"Nicky," she snorts, "I'm taking a break. You want me to go sit in there by myself twiddling my thumbs?"

Nicky pauses, his pressure on her back faltering before falling away completely.

"No," he agrees. "No, but at least go sit at the table. You can't see."

Turning around swiftly and catching him by surprise, Agatha grabs him by the forearms and lifts him slightly from the ground, letting his feet swing.

"You want to try adding a 'please' on there?"

"Please!" He giggles hysterically, going limp in her hold and grinning up at her excitedly.

Agatha eyes him suspiciously for another beat and then gently sets him back down, swatting his butt softly as he turns to go back to the kitchen. She sits at her usual spot, lifting Seymour from his spot and tugging one of the cracking plastic place mats from the center of the table toward herself.

Rio's voice filters back in from the kitchen, too soft to make out the words, and a moment later, Nicky appears with a bowl, bringing it over to Agatha's spot and serving it with the flourish of a true five-star waiter.

"Appetizer," he announces, the bowl slipping slightly as he puts it down and rocking in place before settling. Agatha bites back a snort at the freshly rinsed carrot sticks and immediately picks one up as Nicky vanishes once more.

"How's it coming in there?" Rio asks as she slips out of the kitchen as well, and sets two steaming plates of macaroni and cheese at the other two empty spots at the table.

"This your idea?" Agatha asks instead of answering, gesturing at her 'appetizer' and the other plates.

Rio chuckles and shakes her head.

"No. We were trying to pack you a lunch, which was also Nicky's idea. You interrupted," she says. "I figured this might not be your thing, but I guess you have to suck it up now."

"And it’s your thing?" Agatha clarifies.

Rio fixes her with a serious, wide-eyed look.

"Mac and cheese is literally my favorite food," she says, hand to her heart. "Y'know. After every single adult food."

Agatha snorts just as Nicky returns with another plate clutched carefully in both hands. He holds it up for Agatha to take and her breath catches at the sight of the shaky, overzealously squirted ketchup heart topping a slightly over-buttered portion of neon orange pasta.

Agatha never allows herself to feel embarrassed by anyone witnessing how soft around the edges everything Nicky did could make her – in fact, she suspects a little that the juxtaposition of the people around her seeing just how capable she is of patience and sweetness makes it all the more impactful when she doesn’t dole it out for just anyone. Still, the way Rio's face immediately softens in reflection at the way Agatha is suddenly so genuinely caught off guard makes her cheeks warm, an unwelcome fluttering filling her stomach that has nothing to do with the impending and inevitable heartburn that she's about to subject herself to.

"Thank you, sweetheart." She takes the plate and sets it aside, catching Nicky gently by the head when he turns to go and pulling him closer, kissing the crown of his hair and smoothing the wild strands down. He giggles and whines shyly, squirming under the affection being witnessed by his Very Cool New Best Friend.

Rio politely pretends not to notice Nicky's embarrassment, but Agatha catches her hiding her smile behind a forkful of macaroni.

Climbing into his own seat, Nicky leans his entire upper half across the table to take one of the 'appetizer' carrot sticks.

Agatha is careful to eat around the ketchup heart – preserving it, she tells herself, not just because the idea of ketchup and macaroni triggers her gag reflex without having to even reach her tastebuds.

"We're gonna make cookies after lunch," Nicky tells her, dipping a carrot into the liquid cheese on his plate and taking a bite. 

Agatha reminds herself that fondue exists to trick herself into not finding it as gross as she does.

"We don't have any cookie dough," she points out.

"We have all the ingredients," he replies, unconcerned. "Except the chocolate chips. But we're gonna order some."

"We are, huh?"

"I am," Rio corrects, amused. True to her word, she actually is making her way through her plate with few issues. Agatha can't tell if she's just being nice for Nicky's sake or if she really does have a palate similar to the six year old beside her.

"That's awfully generous," Agatha says, pointedly, to Nicky so he mumbles a quick 'thank you' between enthusiastic bites, and then toward Rio with an air of suspicion creeping in.

"Not really," the other woman shrugs, not looking up from her plate. "Can't make cookies without chocolate chips, it just has to be done."

Before Agatha can point out that they didn't really need to make cookies in the first place, Nicky cuts her off.

"Mama, it's going to get cold."

Agatha glances down at her barely touched plate that she's been swishing her fork aimlessly around in for a moment, then hums thoughtfully and sets her fork down.

"Y'know, I'm not super hungry right now."

"We can save it for later," Rio insists, giving her a quick out. She stands up and grabs her own half-finished plate as well, taking both into the kitchen as Nicky continues eating.

"Do you have to go back to painting right now?" He asks, his voice suddenly much smaller than it had been for the cookie-making discussion. Agatha's heart clenches uncomfortably and she fixes him with an amused look to hide it.

"Uh-huh. More chocolate chips for you, I guess."

That improves his mood immediately. Slipping down from his spot, he takes his plate to join Rio in the kitchen, leaving Agatha to her thoughts and the carrot sticks.

If she spends the next hour on the distant strip of skyline at the top of the canvas, it should be properly dried down by that night, and she can probably get a good extra forty minutes in once Nicky has gone to bed while still leaving enough time to work on her sketches for the upcoming week. She'd been on a roll with the seafoam, though. The idea of sacrificing a flow that good for the sake of efficiency makes the entire project suddenly feel more like work than it’s meant to. An uncomfortable dread tickles up the back of her neck, a familiar, unwelcome guest in the form of impending burn-out waltzing back in, an old friend she hasn't seen since art school.

Popping another carrot back into her mouth and getting up, Agatha calls for the pair of them, muffled.

"I'm going to get back to it!"

Not having to see either of their disappointed faces at the abrupt and quick end of her break time makes it easier to make a clean break back to her painting.

The sunlight has already begun to turn grey outside the window and the makeshift studio room feels a lot colder when she steps back in, but she knows from experience it’s just a trick of her mind, trying to dissuade her from getting into it. Ignoring the chill, she settles back in at her easel and pulls her brush from the thinner, wiping it messily on the nearest rag and immediately getting back to work.

"Oh, good, you're alive in here."

Rio flicks the overhead light on before Agatha can register her presence in the doorway. The sudden brightness makes Agatha wince so violently it takes everything in her power not to hiss like an injured vampire to complete the theatrics. She hadn't even realized how dark it had gotten outside the window, the low, warm light from her standing lamp behind her in the corner lighting up the dark seascape she was working on like an eerie, distant lighthouse.

"Little warning, next time?"

"Nicky says you never forget to eat," Rio says, ignoring her as she edges into the room.

"That's nice of him."

Snorting, Rio crosses her arms and leans back against the wall beside the light switch and regards Agatha thoughtfully.

"You alright?"

Agatha glances back at the canvas and is startled to find that it suddenly looks like paint. Beautiful, sure, but just shades and tones, now, no longer the actual crashing waves she'd been swimming in a moment before.

"Yeah. Yeah, just lost track of time."

She stands up, tossing her rag down onto her seat and subtly turning the canvas a little further away from the door.

"We were thinking about dinner. Any suggestions?"

"Oh, am I getting out of having to eat my leftovers from lunch, then?" Agatha asks, sliding past Rio and gesturing for her to step out of the room first, then pulling the door closed behind her. Rio brushes against her unnecessarily as she goes, then follows Agatha across the hall to the bathroom.

"Uh-huh. You've skirted punishment for not finishing your vegetables, too. You should count yourself lucky."

Agatha flips the tap on and watches flecks of paint slide down the drain under the running water. A tiny smirk pulls at her lip as she lifts her eyes to catch Rio's gaze through the mirror.

"I don't think you have that authority."

Rio sets her jaw, eyes sparkling.

"No?"

"Not under my roof, sweetheart." Wiping her hands on the closest hanging towel from the rack, Agatha turns around to face the other woman properly, just as she steps into the small bathroom space and boxes Agatha against the vanity. An embarrassing gasp of shock leaves her lips, her eyes dropping reflexively to the other woman's mouth. Rio leans in a little, posture hunching slightly so her eyes are level with Agatha's.

She close enough for Agatha to see the faint dusting of freckles across Rio's nose. She can feel the warmth of Rio's body, and smell the faint scent of cinnamon, warm and spicy and just distracting enough to make Agatha wonder where it had come from. She tries to remain rigid, hackles up, but her body acts on its own accord, melting in Rio's gravity without her express permission.

"Shame," Rio breathes. "It would have been a really fun punishment."

Agatha's already weak breath hitches a little more, but she gathers the strength to retort.

"That sort of defeats the purpose."

The silence stretches taut. Agatha forces herself to lock her gaze above Rio's mouth, whose expression had shifted from playfully predatory to curious. Crazily, Agatha pictures herself surging forward to kiss her right then and there, but before she can take the plunge, Rio purses her lips thoughtfully, nods once, and steps back.

"I think Nicky was hinting at fried chicken. Sound alright?" 

She's already back across the bathroom and hanging on the doorframe, head turned back over her shoulder before Agatha has a chance to register what even happened.

"I don't–"

"I have, like, a hundred dollars in credit because the delivery drivers can never figure out that I'm like, in the flower shop. My treat." Rio is already pulling her phone out of her pocket as she turns to leave Agatha breathless and confused at the vanity.

Agatha follows after her, speechlessly outraged though she can't quite figure out how to explain why. Rio practically skips down the stairs, glancing back and up at Agatha as she reaches the bottom, and Nicky comes barreling into her, unable to successfully skid to a stop in his thick wool socks on the hardwood floor.

"What did she say?" He asks, though he's looking at Agatha while addressing Rio.

"Jury's out," Rio replies, eyes fixed on Agatha as well.

Agatha's gaze flicks between the pairs of wide brown eyes staring up at her and sighs, trying to shake off the residual anticipation from the almost-but-nothing in the bathroom just a moment earlier.

"Yeah. Chicken. Whatever."

Nicky cheers, straightening himself and rushing off to the living room. Agatha eyes Rio suspiciously.

"You didn't give him sugar, did you?"

"No, not since the Pop-Tart this morning. He hasn't even had one of the cookies yet, they're still cooling. Oh. And a glass of juice, I guess."

"An actual glass of juice?" Agatha clarifies, then sighing when Rio nods innocently. "You're supposed to like… dillute it."

"Ew. Really? Ew." Rio makes a face, stepping back to give Agatha room to step off of the last stair.

As they round the corner to the dining area, Agatha is greeted by half a dozen coloring sheets, some sketches on matte white computer paper, and two of Nicky's books spread open on the table. She picks up the nearest drawing and realizes it's Rio's, not Nicky's. At least she assumes as much, peering at the steady and sure outline of a venus fly trap with cartoonish eyes on top of its closed jaw, the ends of which are inaccurately curled upward into a smile that looks more menacing than friendly; it's probably not what Rio was going for, thematically.

Rio playfully snatches the paper out of Agatha's hand, folding it over itself and then once more, tucking it into her cleavage so it vanishes past the visible sprig of mistletoe.

"Ah ah, no. You can't see mine if I can't see yours."

Agatha scoffs, reaching forward like she's really about to grab it back out of Rio's shirt. Rio believes her, stepping back further with a little grunt of complaint as one hand comes up to ward the other woman off.

"I was admiring your visual storytelling," she insists.

"Don't be a dick," Rio replies, voice catching on a laugh. She nods to the remaining papers on the table instead in distraction. "Nicky did a really good one of some roses. Did you teach him that?"

Agatha, now properly curious, abandons their current game to follow Rio's gaze and pick up a different piece. It's not bad at all, once she gets past the initial motherly instinct to believe it's a total masterpiece. There's actual layers to the petals, folding outward from one another in a slightly-too-uniform but extremely impressive for a six year old sort of way.

"Did you show him how to do this?" She asks, eyes flicking curiously up to Rio.

"Nope." She shakes her head, smiling genuinely. "He showed me, actually. The plant theme was his idea."

Agatha's gaze slides back across the table and she takes in the details with clearer eyes. The books are propped open to scenes of greenery, Seymour's pot has been turned around to face the messy workstation that clearly belonged to Nicky, and all of the pencil crayons that are lined up next to the abandoned coloring sheets are in floral shades.

"He wants to impress you," Agatha says, before she can stop herself from sharing the obvious truth.

"Really?" Rio asks, looking genuinely flattered.

Feeling a little guilty for divulging as much when he's not there to defend himself from what he might consider an embarrassing admission, Agatha glances over toward the living room where her son is fully engrossed in a cartoon, sprawled on his stomach way too close to the television to be advisable.

"Don't tell him I said that."

Rio mimes a cross over her heart, then a locking-key motion over her lips, though the gesture is somewhat ruined by the easy, relaxed smile on her face.

"Here." She hands Agatha her phone, the delivery app already open. "Pick what you want first."

Leaving her unlocked phone in the other woman's hand, a modern-day act of trust so profound it briefly causes Agatha's breath to stutter, Rio spins on her heel and heads to join Nicky in the living room.

"Hey buddy, how about we scoot back like… a good five feet from that screen? Even four would be good. Three?"

Chapter Text

ONE MONTH EARLIER

Rio's hands shake as she reaches for her phone, grabbing it with nerve-damp fingers just before the force of its vibration can knock it off of the edge of the counter.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Nesta Williams, I'm calling from the Le Fay Famile funeral home. To whom am I speaking?"

"This is Rio Vidal's phone — can I ask what this is about?"

"… Is this Rio Vidal?" Nesta asks, instead of answering her question.

She's still a little traumatized from accidentally confirming her contact information to a collections agency two phone numbers ago, but given where this particular call is coming from, she thinks she already knows what this is about.

Taking the phone away from her ear for a moment, she clears her throat and adds a little grit to her voice, as if she's another person, then says gruffly into the receiver:

"Rio Vidal."

"Ah!" Nesta acts as though he doesn't see right through her act, which Rio thinks is rather polite of him. "Ms. Vidal, I'm glad I caught you — we've been calling you for about a week, now, but…"

"I told your assistant that I didn't ask for the body reclamation. I'm not sure how the wires got crossed, but I can't pay for—"

"The funeral costs were covered, as was the service." Nesta cuts her off smoothly but not unkindly. "We're very sorry that we missed you but you'll be pleased to know that it was well-attended. Your uncle had many good friends."

Something in Rio's heart clenches sharply and cracks her voice when she speaks again.

"What is this about, then?"

"We were having some trouble reaching you, as you know, but we thought you'd be interested to know that you were named as a beneficiary in your uncle's last will and we need your permission to proceed with the unsealing and reading."

Rio freezes.

"What do you mean 'my permission'?"

"Well, you're the sole beneficiary."

"Of everything?" Rio clarifies, feeling lightheaded.

Nesta quickly corrects her misunderstanding.

"No, I mean — well, yes, on paper. But it seems that its likely there's only a small estate package left. We'd like to know when you can come in for the reading."

"Back up, back up." Rio flicks her coffee machine on, stepping away from it when it immediately begins percolating obnoxiously and almost drowns out the phone call. "What do you mean left?"

"Several members of his community came forward at the service with stories about how, in his last months, he had donated or gifted them different possessions, money, the like. It's fair to ask that you brace yourself for the possibility that whatever he has left for you… isn't much."

Rio waved a hand dismissively as if Nesta was there to see it.

"I don't… I don't care about that," she says honestly. "He could have left me nothing. I wasn't expecting anything, actually. I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to tell me he was sucked into some kind of cult or like… cryogenics scheme when he was all… mentally deteriorated."

Nesta laughs softly, and the sound of it immediately soothes tension that Rio didn't realize was forming in her shoulders.

"Nothing like that," he assures her.

"I can be there in a few days." Rio plucks the notice of nonrenewal of lease from her fridge as she speaks, feeling less like it's a death sentence and more like an easy out, now. "You don't have any hotel recommendations, do you?"

Salem, while very charming, is not quite what Rio had been expecting. Surprisingly drenched in the witchcraft theme, though in a warmly authentic way that is somehow more deeply chilling than kitschy and tourist-y.

Rio tries not to let herself get too distracted on her way to her the funeral home; the rental car is due at the drop-off garage in just a few hours, and depending on how long this meeting takes, she may need to return it before even finding a place to stay for the night.

The funeral home itself is extremely pretty; all old time-washed white wooden plank walls and a surprisingly sturdy old-fashioned roof that looks like it can — and has — survived plenty of trials of its own over the years. It seems to tower over her as she parks in the modest lot to the west side of it, but instead of feeling intimidating or looming, it reminds her of being short next to a particularly comforting adult as a child. The windows on the top floors are each cracked open slightly, causing the wind to whistle through them hauntingly as she makes her way up to the side entrance.

"Ms. Vidal." The man who she must have spoken to on the phone, judging by the familiar accent, steps out to greet her, holding the door open for her.

"That would be me," she replies, trying not to sound too chipper. She's in a particularly good mood despite the circumstances, the coziness of her surroundings likely playing a part, but it feels inappropriate to exhibit such zen contentment in a place like this.

"Right this way." The man that she now recognizes as Nesta leads her down a carpeted hallway, past a large sitting room housing a rather domestic-looking set of couches and a coffee table. He instead pushes open a door to a room marked PRIVATE, and lets Rio step inside first once again.

She finds herself in what appears to be a repurposed bedroom of sorts. There's a radiator and a set of small built-ins against one wall; soft linen curtains lining the single window behind a large oak desk that houses a simple laptop and disposable coffee cup.

"Have a seat." Nesta gestures to the cushy-looking chairs nearest her, and rounds the desk to take a seat himself. He reaches for the drawer out of sight and pauses when it resists his tugging, standing up again. "Sorry, this isn't my usual office. Excuse me while I get the key."

He leaves her alone to glance around further at her surroundings, eyeing the collection of books on the built-ins. Death, Todd May; When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi; All That Remains, Prof. Sue Black; Death, Shelley Kagan—

"Got it!" Nesta's announcement startles Rio as he reenters and rounds the desk, crouching to open the drawer and then setting an unexpectedly thin envelope on the desk between them.

Rio stares hard at it, surprised at how suddenly finite the entire scenario seems. She'd mourned her uncle in private when he'd passed. She hadn't been especially close with him, but the few times she met him in her childhood had felt profoundly impactful in a way she hadn't quite yet unpacked. It had been odd to hear that he'd died from the morgue, and even odder still that she'd felt very little guilt over being unable to lay any claim to the body.

Living paycheck to paycheck already felt too much like drowning for her to open her body up to any more suffering in the form of real raw mourning or understanding.

"Alright," she breathes, watching Nesta pull a small letter opener from the drawer. "Let's do this."

Nesta eyes her curiously as he tears it open, tipping it upside-down so the papers slip neatly out onto the desk with a soft flutter. He scoops them up, straightening the edges against the surface of the desk, and then clears his throat as he flips through the first couple of pages.

"Would you like the old formal reading script?" He asks, eyes flicking up to Rio. "Some of the older clientele prefer it."

Rio shakes her head.

"No, no, that's fine."

"Alright," Nesta flips through, muttering half-sentences, sums of money and the names of what Rio assumes to be local businesses and charities. "Ah. Here we are. And to the daughter of my eldest brother, who at the time of writing this is called Rio, though keeping this name is not a condition of the gift, I leave my florist business, Vidal's, and all of my shares. The transfer of ownership of both the business itself and the property it resides on are conditional of the ownership of both being owned by Rio, or sold directly as a package to another local business owner."

Rio stares blankly. Nesta stares back before slowly speaking again.

"… Do you understand the terms?"

"…Yes. Yes, I understand."

"Would you like to see the property?"

"Please," Rio agrees, not sure what other answer would possibly suffice in this situation.

"Perfect. You're parked in the lot, right? You can follow me, or I can ride with you."

"Oh, I— I have to return the car," she says, suddenly realizing the time. "Maybe, another time, we could—"

"I'll follow you to return it, then," Nesta decides, already standing up and straightening the pages. "Then we can ride together. Let me just go get Sharon to make a copy of this for your records."

He leaves her once more, clearly expecting her to follow, but Rio lingers slightly, eyes drifting back to the built-in shelves once more as she takes her time gathering her coat.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Caitlin Dougherty; Death's Summer Coat, Brandy Schillace—

"Ms. Vidal?"

"Coming!" Hastily buttoning her coat, Rio rushes out of the office and back down the hallway toward the exit.

The shop is nothing like Rio was expecting.

She's pleasantly surprised at the mixture of trendy and fitting the vibe is: black-washed stone rounds a full corner of the street that Vidal's calls home. Unlike the Victorian style repurposed house that the funeral home occupied, this vintage storefront looks like something straight off of someone's ideal center-west European Pinterest board.

The deep golden lettering above the large window they stop in front of gleams invitingly. Vidal's, est. 1966.

Rio peers through the subtly green-tinted glass curiously, but its too dark to see much, even with the large twin window around the corner bringing in a bit of natural light.

"It's been closed since he passed," Nesta tells her. "A couple trusted neighboring businesses said they had spare keys, in case they ever saw the place burning down, but they've mostly all returned them. A couple people made sure to come shut off the water and check the mouse traps, but otherwise they've minded their own. Electricity should be back up, too. I'll check the breaker once we're inside."

Nesta approaches the door and pulls a key from his pocket, unlocking the wood-and-glass door carefully, as if it were delicate, and steps inside.

There's a level of reverence to all of his movements that makes Rio feel almost nervous, light on her feet as she steps into the shop after him as if its a just-unsealed tomb and she's the first person alive inside of it for centuries. Nesta crosses the shop floor to the counter opposite and rounds it, flicking the lightswitch. The instant illumination from the several stained-glass hanging lamps adds even more glowy magic to the space, dulled slightly when he flicks a second switch and the two glass-panelled cabinets lining a couple of the walls are brightened by a combination of fluorescent bulbs and cool-toned grow lights. Rio peers into the cases, but they seem to be mostly empty, save for a few straggling bouquets. Nesta follows her gaze and clears his throat to explain.

"Most everyone picked up their arrangements already. A couple of these are probably just from regulars who had a running order going and forgot."

Rio crosses to the farthest corner where there are no windows nor the till counter, and opens the cabinet next to a large unmarked wooden door.

A small arrangement sits alone on the top shelf: sunflowers, baby's breath, a few loose yellow carnations that have been cut extra-short to add a little dynamic height to the look of the whole piece. She runs her fingers over the sunflower curiously, then glances back at Nesta, who stands by the till watching her curiously.

"Do you know where he keeps — kept his order forms?"

Nesta shakes his head apologetically.

"No, sorry. I am not especially familiar with the shop, but of course you're welcome to do what you will with whatever you find."

He steps out from behind the till and hands her the key.

"What do you think?"

"It's… lovely," Rio admits, glancing around the somewhat spooky space once more. "I'll, uhm… I'll get everything in order, then. You wouldn't happen to know the number for me to call to get the water back on, would you?"

Rio returns to the shop after firing its sole remaining member of staff, arms laden with two massive brown paper bags from the liquor store three blocks east. She's pleasantly surprised to see that said fired florist wasn't lying about taking the news well and hadn't come back in her absence to torch the place.

Nearly dropping one of the bags as she wrestles with the key, she shoves messily into the shop and forgoes the lights altogether, already having somehow programmed the muscle memory for herself to navigate the space in the dark. Hearing the lock 'click' behind her, she heads to the opposite corner where she's left the door open for herself, and then carefully and slowly begins up the stairs to the loft.

Yellow light filters in from the streetlight directly outside the uncurtained window on the wall opposite the staircase, casting an eerie glow into the otherwise cool-toned space. Flicking on the overhead light makes the walls seem to shift from green back to their true-painted blue, the retrofitted fluorescents cancelling out the warm hues from outside. Crossing the small front room towards the kitchenette, Rio uses the toe of her boot to jimmy the fridge open and then sinks down to a crouch to begin unpacking the couple of bottles of cheap wine and six pack of something local and hoppy that the kid at the till managed to upsell her on.

A dozen strangers' faces greet her as she shuts the fridge again, eyes glazing over as she stares at the door of it. Photos, greeting cards, a single hand-drawn sketch litter the space, held up by a combination of worn down cellotape and mismatched magnets. It hadn't felt right, to take them down — or anything else of her uncle's, for that matter. His dresser drawers had been emptied out, probably during his hospital stay, but the side-table next to the futon still had half a pack of cigarettes and an unopened box of incense in the top drawer. She'd left those untouched, just like the memories on the fridge.

She's become to used to the photos of strangers littered around the tiny loft that they're familiar now, popping up in her dreams in passing like old friends. While visiting a local craft shop the day prior, she'd run into a young woman that she swore she knew, only to realize she was only so familiar because of a Chirstmas card tucked into a photo box that Rio had found while exploring the space for the first time.

She'd been a little startled to find a photo of herself, once, clipped from a local — to her, not her uncle — newspaper. She remembered it being taken: she was sixteen and looked very uninterested, having just won a high school science fair and knowing that her classmates were only going to goodnaturedly tease her about her fifteen minutes of celebrity status.

Rio pauses in the quiet, listening to the soft twin buzzing from the fridge and the lights, then swings the door open to retrieve one of the beers.

Making her way over to the futon, she sinks down onto it and winces as it creaks and groans in protest of being forced to do its job. Fishing blindly around under the edge of it for her laptop on the floor, she pulls it into her lap and cracks it open, watching the startup loading screen flutter to life as she opens the beer and takes a small, thoughtful sip. Not bad at all. These spooky hipsters really knew their shit.

Her email screen appears, reopening from where she'd left it mid-draft that morning. A response email to the estate lawyer about the successful transfer of the business license stares back at her. It was so inconsequential, but it felt difficult to find the words to appropriately thank someone for this strange situation.

Minimizing the window, she pulls up a fresh tab and clicks through a few of her bookmarks to find the wholesale flower supplier she'd been given the contact information for in the process of taking over the shop. The prices and amounts read like Greek to her. She recognizes the names of each flower, something that her botany education had at least somewhat prepared her for, but the varying seasonal surges and discounts make her head spin.

She knows she'll have to properly dig through all of her uncle's paperwork at some point to figure out what his best patterns were. She's lucky he kept hard copies of everything, even if the mountain of invoices and receipts are a little intimidating to tackle.

Deciding it can wait another day at least — there is one more prepaid order coming in this next Friday that Rio hopes will hold her over enough to get the doors open — she instead opens Google Maps and types in the shop's address, scrolling aimlessly through a slew of positive reviews. It calms her a little, seeing so many locals speaking so highly of the shop. They'll probably help her keep the lights on while she decides if she needs to sell or not.

Clicking out of the reviews, she lets her eyes trail down the flat map of the road in each direction. With a scroll back to zoom out a little, she can see the liquor store she'd just been to. Scrolling back in until it vanishes from view, she peers at each new shop name that pops up around her. A few cafes, an exorbitant amount of crystal and metaphorical shops in such close range of each other, a whimsical gothic boutique across the road, and a tattoo shop sandwiched between what looks like a year-round Halloween store and a tiny, standing-room-only pub.

Working almost a stones-throw away from a tattoo shop doesn't bode well for her savings account.

It's been at least three months since she's added anything to the rather massive collection she's been building up over the decades. Her fingers itch with a long-forgotten temptation as she hovers over the outline of the shop on the map and watches the photo of the front door load in.

Coven Ink. According to the quick blurb, it's an older institution than most of the shops on the street, with the exception of just a few, Vidal's included. Rio lets the temptation get the best of her and clicks through to their website, settling in with another long sip from her beer.

The 'meet the artists' page calls to her from the top-bar navigation, seeming to glow and stand out among the tasteful, dark web design.

Rio assumes the order of the artists is based on seniority, since it clearly isn't alphabetical. She clicks on the first name — Lilia — and the message at the top of the page immediately tells her that she is not currently accepting appointments. Still, Rio scrolls, curious, through a smattering of photos and flash scans that seem to resemble a rare combination of fine-line and heavy-detail, closer to anatomical than photo-real. She scrolls down to a rather large, intricate back piece and squints at the tiny caption in the corner of the JPEG that informs her the entire piece was hand-poked.

Curious, she clicks back to the list of artists and chooses the second name on the list — Agatha. This page is much more bare, with only a few brightly-lit photos. A surprisingly brightly colored piece of two silverback gorillas wrapping around a thick bicep draw her eye first, a high-contrast and extremely realistic bundle of flowers on a slender ankle dragging her gaze in next.

Two more photos — the linework of and finished colors of the same piece, a smattering of tarot cards wrapping up and around an arm marked by lines and age spots — and Agatha's page ends there.

Rio clicks through the others — Alice, with a scrawling and impressive portfolio made up of old Asian traditional, brightly colored pop-art, gothic script, cybersigilism, and everything in between that Rio could possibly imagine. She's almost overwhelmed by the expanse of her range, feeling curious as she clicks finally through to the page labelled 'Jen'.

Detail-oriented fine line pieces with side-by-side well-healed and well-aged photos to back up the skill light up Rio's computer screen. Between delicate glyphs of nature — resting deer, blooming flowers — an image of the moon so real it almost seems to glow, despite being a black and grey piece on a patch of a darker-skinned client's shoulder.

Rio's mind drifts back to the photos on Agatha's page. She reopens the page back in a separate tab and returns to the homepage to click idly through the other pages, not entirely sure what she's looking for. Their hours of operation, address, and mission statement all pass through Rio's vision, being unconsciously tucked into her memory as she navigates to their accolades and press page.

Brightly lit photos from conventions, varying women holding plaques and trophies, and quotes with links to various local and national publications litter the page. Rio counts five different women across the varying pictures, despite the shop boasting four artists. Before she can question the inconsistency, she notes the link to the shop's official Instagram handle and pulls it up on her phone.

She flicks through the highlights — shop policies; artists' individual rules; a few outdated flash sheets for special events. Scrolling and sipping, Rio becomes accidentally acquainted with the artists — as well as the fresh-faced apprentice — and the overall vibe of the shop. 'Bookings in person or phone only' sticks out at her from the bio and she hazards a glance at the time. Later than she'd realized.

She can go in herself, the next afternoon.

Afternoon creeps up on Rio, bringing dehydration and a jaw ache.

Rain patters against the scratched window next to the futon, and Rio immediately clocks the combination of the weather and her own idea to have a beer as her bedside beverage as the dual reason she must have been grinding her teeth all night.

Forcing herself out of bed — if her poor excuse for one can be called that — and trudging over to the coffee maker, she yawns and waits for her body to get the memo that she's starting her day. The four-models-old Keurig sputters disgustingly as it percolates and fills the small kitchenette with the bliss-inducing scent of hot coffee.

Before she even manages her first sip, her phone buzzes from its spot on the floor, plugged in by the futon. She shuffles over to it tiredly and squints at the screen from her standing position, trying to decide if it's worth it to bend down and pick it up.

[3:31] Dottie: did you actually move to fucking SALEM?

[3:31] Dottie: when can i come visit you're so much closer now

Rio snorts, sinking down to the floor and deciding to sit there with her coffee instead of trying to get up again on precipitation-affected knees.

I did.

My uncle left me his flower shop.

[3:33] Dottie: rip to him but ok goth hallmark movie

[3:33] Dottie: sorry. were you close?

Rio snorts out loud, shaking her head in amusement as she types out her response.

No, we weren't. It's actually kind of a cool spot. And I actually really wouldn't mind some company, you're welcome any time.

[3:34] Dottie: i WILL hold you to that.

[3:34] Dottie: guess i'd better hurry, too. it's probably a nightmare around halloween.

Yeah, Rio replies, smirking at her screen. Plus, I haven't quite figured out which of my neighbors are witches yet, so you'll have to be on your best behavior.

Rio tucks the phone into her pocket as she forces herself up and brings her coffee with her to the small bathroom off the kitchenette — which she's sure must be an illegal build — to wash her face and dig through her small train case of makeup perched on the top of the toilet tank.

It's a nice, quiet ritual. Her phone continues to buzz in her pocket — likely Dottie with some ideas for dates to come out — but Rio ignores it for the time being to give herself her undivided attention. The look is simple, clean, and daytime appropriate. The smell of the rain creeping in through the tiny stained window in the shower makes her feel immediate 'with' the nature outside, and downstairs the flowers and greenery waiting for her seem to be waking up as well, the scent of bright clean life sneaking up through the worn floorboards and poor insulation.

After an hour of careful but minimal application, she juggles between two different flavours of lip balm for several moments before finally choosing, and then tosses everything back into the case as she flicks off the lights and heads for the door.

She'd been right about the plants seeming to wake up in response to the weather. She heads down past the shop floor to the small, cramped basement storage, and digs out a box of calla lilies that she'd spotted the morning prior. They're looking a little worse for wear, but the discounted price and timing of poor weather are a serendipitous combination, and Rio has a freshly-emptied wooden planter bed outside just begging for some new tenants.

Just as she steps out, she has another one of her increasingly frequent moments of confused familiarity. A man — a boy, really — who can't be any older than twenty, maybe twenty-one, nearly bumps into her as he passes by.

He turns her way, interrupting the older woman with him.

"Sorry!" He says quickly, shooting her a quick, apologetic smile before continuing his conversation with his companion next to him, who is fussing over him in a way that makes Rio immediately clock her as his mother, even without the striking similarities in their features suddenly registering to her.

The woman is following him with a small cafe napkin, stippled with rain drops, and trying desperately to wipe the slight sheen of wetness from his face as he pulls his hood up over his already-damp hair. He steadies the tray he's holding housing two coffees, a third steaming cup in the woman's free hand. The scent of it fills the small space between them, and Rio considers asking where the cups are from, considering having her second of the day already.

"Mom," The boy scoffs, blushing as he steps back away from the woman and laughing in good-natured embarrassment. "Stop it, I have to get back."

The tray of coffees tilts precariously in his hand and he adjusts his grip.

"Don't work too hard," the woman insists, her arm extending out to him unconsciously even as he steps out of her reach. "And take that sweater off as soon as you get in — you'll catch your death. I'll bring you something warm and dry when I pick you up."

"Thank you," he sighs, smiling genuinely and then glancing both ways before jogging across the street.

The woman turns and Rio blushes, suddenly feeling a little like she's interrupting something that she shouldn't have. Before she can apologize, the other woman speaks first.

"Hi!"

Rio, stunned, blinks in response and then finds herself smiling in return.

"Hey."

"Those are gorgeous," the woman says, nodding to the small box of flowers in Rio's arms. Rio drops her gaze to them and beams proudly.

"Thanks."

The woman heads off without another word and Rio tries to push down the warm fuzzy feeling in her chest. She can't tell if she's just been lonely the last few days, or if everyone in the neighborhood really is that nice and friendly.

She spots the boy slow his steps to peer into the window of the gothic boutique a few doors down from the tattoo shop. Setting the flowers into their new bed under her display window, Rio overtakes him as she crosses the road on the diagonal and ducks out of the misting rain quickly into Coven Ink.

Soft, thrumming dark-pop echoes softly from the back area of the shop, with a large desk and fish tank flanking either side of a small, saloon-style gate that separates the front from the back of the building. Hanging plants cover most of the ceiling surface, and below Rio's feet she notes the artisan-style tiles, every few steps featuring a moon phase or what Rio recognizes vaguely as runes, though she's not familiar enough to have any more information about what they each symbolize.

A woman she recognizes as Agatha from the website sits alone at the reception desk. Kismet, Rio thinks, surprised by her own luck. Agatha doesn't say anything as the bell above the door rings and it shuts behind Rio. She doesn't look up from whatever she's doing on the surface of the desk, hidden by the raised edge of the counter.

Giving herself a moment to take in the space with a flick of her eyes, Rio makes a split-second decision that the vibes seem adequate, even despite the icy welcome, or lack thereof. Agatha's hair, even longer still than it had been in the photos, curtains around one side of her head, shadowing half of her face. Her jaw is set in slight concentration, fine lines between her furrowed brows and at the corners of her focused eyes becoming more visible as Rio steps quietly closer to the desk.

"D'you do realism?" She asks.

The bluest eyes she's ever seen jerk up to take Rio in properly for the first time, narrowed but no less bright than an island-warm sea. Rio's breath catches but she doesn't waver, and the other woman doesn't seem to notice, her voice gruff and low as she responds.

"Come again?"