Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rio feels Agatha sink into the kiss, finally succumbing to whatever fate awaits her. For the first time in her existence, she submits to Death without struggle. 

Her body grows heavy — they called it dead weight for a reason — as Rio’s black magic curls around her, rewriting her DNA into something new and infinite. The most beautiful abomination. Someone Rio could always love and something Death will always hate.

As Agatha dies and is reborn all at once, she lets out a sound that could only be made from a combination of incredible pain and bliss alike. It’s intoxicating to Rio. And relatable, too. This decision to turn her undead and immortal has spurred both of these feelings in her as well.

And then Rio hears a noise that is far less magnificent. Far more obnoxious.

Their moment — the moment — is broken by one voice, louder than the chatter of the other Westview citizens.

The stupid fucking kid.

“Agatha!” Billy exclaims, breathing a sigh of relief. “Agatha, you’re alive!”

Rio lets out a deep sigh. “Not exactly.” 

This immediately becomes clear once Agatha opens her eyes, the whites of them a bit too pale to be fully human. One of the irises has faded from its formerly brilliant blue to a frosty grey, and her purple robe is broken open, a rigid crack slashed over her left breast — the line going through the heart Rio had carved into it on the Road. Perhaps this meant Rio was Agatha’s scar now, too.

She looks…so fucking hot, even as this psychic vampire thing. Maybe even hotter than she was as a mortal witch if that’s possible. Which means Rio is very reluctant to take her eyes off her in order to look at the irritating child, though she valiantly manages it.

“Why. Are you still. Here?” she growls. 

“I was trying to resurrect her,” Billy petulantly defends. “After you killed her. And I did.” He waves his spellbook, much too smug. 

Rio rolls her eyes. “Kid, you’ve got to stop taking credit for shit you didn’t do. Breaking her out of the Scarlet Witch’s spell? Me. Raising her dearly departed soul? Me. Person who’s going to change her mind and take yours if you don’t leave us the fuck alone? Also. Me.” 

Billy swallows hard, but he doesn’t go. “Are you okay?” he asks Agatha, voice quiet and…nervous. “You look…different. What happened?”

“Long story,” Agatha tells him with a truly insane amount of nonchalance. “I’ll be fine. Rio’s got me.”

“Rio,” he flatly repeats. “Rio, who just killed you, has got you.” 

“No, actually I didn’t just kill her,” Rio snaps. “If you’re going to be a know-it-all, you should really think about actually knowing something first. Agatha killed herself to save your abominable ass — a sacrifice that will be in vain if you don’t stop getting on my last nerve.”

“Enough,” Agatha orders. “Both of you.”

Rio wrinkles her nose. “Don’t scold me unless it’s going to lead to you bending me over something.”

Agatha slaps her ass, a warning and appeasement all at once.

“Could you please stop being gross for two seconds?! This is serious!” Billy looks at Agatha, eyes getting watery. “What does that mean, though? What’s…what’s going to happen now?”

Agatha straightens her posture, clears her throat. “Well, you obviously lack polish in the magic department. Baby witch like you is going to need an excellent teacher to whip you into shape, and it’s not like Jen or Alice fits the bill.”

Billy purses his lips, anxiety and hope both swimming in his eyes. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” Agatha pauses. “I’m saying be here at 3:30 sharp every weekday.”

Rio bites down on her tongue as hard as she as she possibly can. She did not like this — she did not like this one little fucking bit — but there’d be time to argue about it later. They had all the time in the world now.

Billy nods, a few tears coming loose and rolling onto his cheeks. “Where are you going to stay?” he asks. “Your house is…” Her house is fucked into oblivion. Not only does it not have a front door, but it’s now missing a kitchen sink and every window — among other things. “You could…stay with me,” he tentatively offers. 

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Rio answers.

Billy ignores her. “It would take some real explaining to my parents first…although, I already have a lot to explain to them…” He cringes. “I’m probably going to be, like, super grounded…” 

“Good,” Rio says unsympathetically. “I hope it’s for life. Keep you out of my hair.” 

“Maybe you could come help me explain everything to them…” he pitches with a hopeful grimace. “They might be less freaked out if a responsi—" He stops short of saying ‘responsible.’ Agatha was certainly not that. “If an adult—“ he amends. “—was there to reason with them.”

Agatha opens her mouth, no doubt to make a snarky comment. She then closes it, no doubt to narrowly avoid making said snarky comment. A side effect of this new undead nature was apparently an ounce of self-control. Fascinating. 

Agatha opens her mouth again and says, “No need. Rio’s going to put my place back to how it was.” She looks at her expectantly, expression leaving no room for argument.

With a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hand, Rio puts the house back together — extremely light work for her, though the neighbors all gawk. “Wouldn’t want any trouble with the HOA,” she deadpans to them. 

“I think Sharon’s the head of that,” Billy informs Agatha. “She came out to see the commotion when you were…temporarily deceased.”

“Sharon?” Agatha blinks. “Who’s Sharon?” She scans the crowd. “Oh, the garden woman?” 

“She’s lived right next to you for multiple years,” Billy says under his breath.

Agatha evidently doesn’t appreciate it, any softness toward him disappearing. “As far as your parents go, you’re going to have to face the music without Auntie Agatha’s help.”

“But—”

“Best of luck,” she says out loud to Billy. I need you, she says in Rio’s head. Now.

Fuck yes — finally. Then shoo your little pet away and take me.

Billy looks between them for a beat, uncertain — and maybe stalling the inevitable lecture from his parents. 

“That means scram,” Rio says, flicking a prompting green spark at him.

Billy scowls, halfheartedly flinching away from the magic, though his gaze is now fixed firmly on Agatha. There’s genuine concern etched in his features, bless his dumb heart.

Agatha’s tenderness toward him temporarily returns. “Rio and I will be here tomorrow,” she says, an undercurrent of reassurance creeping in.

“Don’t bring me into this,” Rio grumbles, still glaring at Billy. 

Billy purses his lips, matching her gaze before looking back at Agatha once more. “Fine,” he reluctantly agrees. “Call me if you need me again.” 

“She won’t,” Rio answers before Agatha can.

“Call me or need me?” 

“Either. Both. Just fucking go already before I start getting really impatient.”

Billy sighs but does eventually leave the premises. As soon as he’s out of sight, Agatha yanks Rio toward the house. They’ve barely shut the door behind them before Agatha grabs her face and kisses her hard, magicking both of their clothes off. Her magic is rust-colored now. Blood-colored.  

Agatha grins. “Look at that. Green meets purple and makes this. You’ve changed me, my love. Forever.”

Agatha’s always been strong — siphoning magic from thousands of witches for hundreds of years will do that for you — but fuck, she’s stronger now. Infinitely stronger. Rio can already tell by the ease at which she pulls her — the intensity at which she kisses her. 

She wants to keep feeling it. Feeling it everywhere. And what more efficient way to see her new muscles than to dig under her skin? 

So while Rio could tell her that she finds the idea of being bonded to her like this incredibly sexy — while she could tell her that the color suits her just as well as purple, better even — she communicates that only with her eyes. With her mouth, she quips, “You need to learn basic color theory. And you look like a knockoff Scarlet Bitch now.”

Agatha smirks. “No, I’m your bitch. But right now, you're my little brat, who I'm going to fuck some manners into.”

She lets out a little moan as Agatha pins her to the wall, the marks she’d carved into her back over the course of the Road and right before it reigniting deliciously — like activated runes. A hand comes up to tangle in Agatha’s hair, a leg to wrap around her back in a greedy attempt to pull her closer and gain some friction — much-needed already.

Agatha shoves one of her legs between Rio’s thighs, kissing and biting down her throat harder than she has in a long time. Harder than she ever has, maybe. She wasn’t a vampire in the most traditional sense, but perhaps the neck-sucking was instinctual anyway.

“You’re so fucking hot,” Agatha breathes.

“I know,” she cockily replies. Agatha punishes her arrogance by pinching one of her nipples, and Rio throws her head back, using her free hand to uselessly grip at the wall behind her. “Fuck, Agatha,” she hisses, already dripping. “If this is the result, maybe I should drive you to kill yourself more often.”

Agatha’s grip tightens in response as her other hand travels down Rio’s body, exploring. She traces the faint little lines of cellulite around Rio’s thighs — so human for an entity that is decidedly not.

Agatha is decidedly not human either anymore. And while Death positively hates that, Rio loves it. Just as she loves this feeling of Agatha touching every inch of her. Of examining her with new eyes. Of being inspected under her microscope. 

Rio manages to collect herself enough to lower her chin a bit, leaning in close. “Use me,” she whispers in her ear. “Experiment with your new magic on me. Let me be your test subject.” A test subject to the test subject. The mere thought was enough to make her even wetter.

Agatha hums in brief consideration before evidently deciding she’s too impatient to tease. She takes a finger, glowing with copper magic, and traces it down Rio’s sternum.

Rio cries out at the searing heat at first, but it quickly turns into a contented sigh as the sensation fades into a pleasant warmth. Her whole body begins to feel warm — warm and relaxed and slightly sedated, like one might feel after a few cocktails or a moderately strong edible. Her brain, too.

“You like that?” Agatha asks, continuing to burn patterns into her skin with one hand while the other slowly snakes down to play with her clit.

“Mm,” she hums, nodding with an eagerness she would find vaguely humiliating if not for the spell causing most of her shame and restraint to fly out the window. 

“I’m so glad, my love. But don’t you dare come without my permission,” she says, voice dangerously sweet. “Is that clear?”

She nods again — a little less enthusiasm at that.

“Good. I’m nowhere near finished with you.”

“Missed this,” Rio freely admits — her loose tongue another result of the spell. But she did. She missed Agatha. She missed this Agatha — powerful Agatha.

Agatha grins, summoning intricate chains with a wave so casual Rio doesn’t even notice it. She presses down on her clit. “How much?”

“So much,” Rio says, the answer coaxed from her with ease. A petulant whine escapes her throat when she goes to buck her hips and realizes the restraints. The fact she’s secured to the wall.

“Good to know, love,” Agatha chuckles. The hand that was tracing burn patterns begins to lightly roam Rio’s body, the gentle rubbing interrupted by the occasional slap to her thighs, her tits, the outside of her ass — anything she can still reach — the other working her cunt all the while. 

Rio practically mewls, squirming only instinctively — without much real protest at all — as Agatha paints her flesh with handprints.

She gradually begins to up the frequency and intensity of the hits — something Rio manages to behave through for an impressively long time. She only truly flinches after Agatha spanks her right cheek three times in quick succession. 

“Stay still,” Agatha warns, placing another harder trio in the same spot for good measure. “Take it like a good girl.”

Between the fresh blaze of Agatha’s magic and her smacks and her hand expertly stoking the building heat at her core, she feels like she’s positively on fire now — burning from the inside out. It quickly burns any remaining resistance with it. 

“How many more?” Rio pants out as Agatha lands a particularly hard strike to her inner thigh — teasingly close to her center. “Before I get to come?” 

“Hm,” she considers, harshly patting the now-tender spot a few times. “10,” she decides. “If you tell me how good I’m making you feel,” she says with a smirk, voice dripping in faux pity.

“Bitch,” Rio mutters. Okay, so maybe there was some resistance, some fight, some brat left in her.

Agatha swats her ass hard enough to make her yelp. “Pathetic. You’ll listen and take it, or I’ll make it 30.”

She’s not sure she’ll make it through 30. Frankly, she’s not sure she’ll make it through 10, either, but her odds were better. 

“So good,” Rio forces herself to whimper in compliance. She tries not to think about how Agatha had reduced her vocabulary to this — single syllables.

Agatha, evidentially, has no problem thinking about it. “That’s all you’re going to say?” she hisses. “Use,” she punctuates herself with a slap to her left tit. “Your fucking.” Right cheek. Again. Fuck, why did she love that spot so much tonight? “Words.” Right inner thigh. 

The problem is she can’t really think of any right now. Thank fucking god she didn’t make her count. “Yes. Please. Thank you," she frantically tries. "Fuck.”

Agatha administers the remaining seven, clearly enjoying the way Rio contorts under her. At 10, she pinches her clit. “You can come.”

Rio comes all right. And screams so loudly she’s sure Shannon or Sherri or whatever the fuck the neighbor’s name is surely hears it next door. Every muscle clenches tight around her before going even slacker than before, knees weakening until it’s really just the chains holding her up. “Holy shit,” she breathes.

Agatha grins again, pleased with herself. She waves a hand to disappear the chains, causing Rio to naturally fall into her. She catches her with ease, wasting no time before kissing her once more. “God, I’ve missed you.”

Rio is already having a hard time catching her breath, and Agatha’s lips on hers don’t help matters. Not that she cares. She needs Agatha more than she needs air. (Quite literally, in fact. Breathing isn’t a necessity for beings like her. Or Agatha now either, for that matter.)

After a moment, Agatha pulls back, taking Rio’s face in her hands. “Good?” she checks.

She nods vehemently. “The best.”

“Good,” Agatha repeats, thumb lightly stroking Rio’s cheek.

Rio peers up at her with wide, pleading eyes. “My turn, Madam?” She was still deep in the blissful haze of sedation and submission. And she was still hungry — starving, really — though her appetite was for something else now. “I want to touch you,” she practically begs. “Make you feel good.”

Agatha’s head jerks back the slightest bit, a little shocked but not at all upset by the title. She holds a hand to Rio’s temple, dispelling the pleasant fog she’d put her in. “There — now you have a clearer mind.”

Rio blinks a few times, shaking her head as everything comes back into sharper focus. She stares at her for a beat, adoration in her eyes. “You’re so perfect like this,” she whispers. She doesn’t specify whether she means dominant or undead, though it’s both, really. She loves those things separately, but together? Together, they're fucking mind-blowing. To Rio, at least. Death might not agree, but Death wasn’t the one driving right now.

Rio gently steers Agatha backward a few feet into the kitchen, pulling a chair out and guiding her into it. She stands in front of her for a moment, massaging her shoulders. 

“Mm.” Agatha allows herself a moment to enjoy just this. Allows her eyes to fall shut, her head to roll back. Rio used to do this for Agatha often — tend to her sore muscles after a long day of walking through the woods, of riding through the fields, of killing through the town.

“Get on your knees,” Agatha orders.

Rio pretends she doesn’t hear her, thumbs continuing to knead her shoulder blades.

Agatha cracks an eye open, righting her head once more. “You need me to help you? You need me to put you in your place?”

Rio feels a flutter in her core. “Yes, Madam.”

“Very well.” Agatha reaches up to firmly press on Rio’s shoulders, and then, once she’s situated, drapes a leg over one of them.

“Thank you, Madam,” Rio says, bending over to kiss the foot still on the floor. She slowly makes her way up — trailing her lips on her ankle, her shin, maneuvering to get her calf. She didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, any inch unattended to.

Agatha’s breath hitches in her throat. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” she praises.

“Thank you, Madam,” she says again, mouth traveling up to her knee. She knew hearing the term was driving Agatha wild. Hell, saying it was driving Rio wild, too.

Agatha lets out a low whine. “Hurry that up.”

In a rare display of obedience, Rio turns her head to the leg propped on her shoulder and begins licking up her inner thigh. Agatha bucks her hips expectantly. “Good girl.”

Agatha may be the one with the raging praise kink, but Rio certainly didn’t mind some either — especially not when she was in this headspace. She continues dragging her tongue up higher and higher.

“Faster,” Agatha desperately demands, a loud moan escaping. “More. I need you.”

“Where?” she asks, playing coy as she keeps her same slow rhythm, staying in the same spot — frustratingly close to her clit yet so, so far from it. 

Agatha scoffs and yanks her forward, straight to her center. “Stupid whore.”

Agatha’s the one with the raging degradation kink, too, but Rio certainly doesn’t mind this either. Might love it even more. She grins into her pussy, tongue exploring her folds. “Like this, Madam?”

“Don’t you dare move a fucking inch,” she hisses.

Rio doesn’t, though she does move Agatha. Without ceasing her tongue’s exploration, she reaches to lift her other leg, placing it on her free shoulder to give herself a better angle.

“Rio. Now,” Agatha urges, her voice half whine, half order. “And when you’re done with this, take control. Use me like I used you. Now that I can’t die, I’m sure I can take more.”

“Yes, Madam.” Rio nips at her clit, the request — the entire situation — making her feel almost feral. “Your wish is my fucking command.”

Chapter Text

After she’s driven Agatha to orgasm — her first of the night — Rio shoves her legs off her shoulders and presses on her knees to help herself stand. She looks down at Agatha, briefly pinching her chin between her fingers. “Hi, baby.”

Agatha glances up at her, folding almost immediately. That was rare. Then again, Agatha’s need was rarely this all-consuming, radiating off her the way it was now. “Hi, Goddess.”

She runs a hand through Agatha's hair, continuing to tower over her. Agatha liked to play fast and rough, but Rio liked to slow things down to almost agonizing speeds — test her endurance. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“Unsatisfied.”

Rio scoffs. “You’re so fucking greedy,” she accuses, pulling her chair out further before slowly circling it. “And impatient. Kissing me without permission. Dying before I tell you you’re allowed to. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“It’s not like you gave me much of a choice,” Agatha mumbles, picking at a nail.

Rio takes her chin again, tilting it back up. “Look at me,” she orders. “And take a guess. About how I felt.”

As cool as Agatha is trying to play it, Rio can feel her heart beating hard in her throat. “Out of control?” she tries.

“Keeping going,” Rio prompts, stepping to straddle the chair — hovering above her. “Out of control and what else?”

“I don’t know,” Agatha says, hips bucking up instinctively. “I’m already bored of this game.”

Rio plops down onto her lap, effectively stopping that movement, and traces the heart she’d carved on her chest. “Did you forget who you belong to? Even though the reminder was right here?”

“Nobody.”

“Try again.”

Agatha purses her lips as Rio begins to grind on top of her. “I belong to you, Goddess,” she relents.

“That’s right.” Rio arches her back, hips moving back and forth, back and forth.

“Rio!” Agatha hisses instinctively, immediately realizing she’s fucked up. “Goddess,” she corrects.

Rio plunges her nails into her back anyway — into the exposed skin right above the top of the chair. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Agatha whimpers. “Please. I need you in me.”

She slowly rakes her nails up Agatha’s back. “Fingers or tits?”

Agatha tilts her head. “What?”

“You answer questions — you don’t ask them,” Rio growls, digging her nails in deeper. “Fingers? Or tits?”

“Tits,” Agatha decides with a wince.

"So predictable." Rio removes her claws from her back — some blood under the nails — and pulls Agatha's head forward, her face falling into her breast. “Suck.”

Agatha complies and then some, Rio’s flesh no doubt bruising under her lips. Rio tilts her head back, quickening the rhythm of her hips and leaving a trail of slickness on the tops of Agatha's legs. “Now I’m in you,” she cruelly quips. “Aren’t you pleased, baby?”

Agatha groans.

“No?” Rio stops her movement, shoving Agatha’s shoulder back to look at her. “You’re not happy? Not grateful?”

“I want you to stop playing these stupid games and fuck me,” Agatha hisses.

Rio calmly gets off her lap — slides off, really, with how wet everything is down there. “Then get up.”

Agatha obeys, legs shaking the smallest bit.

“Since you have your magic now, conjure me some equipment,” Rio orders. “Whatever you think you deserve.”

Agatha huffs at the task — the sex homework Rio has assigned to delay her pleasure — but morphs the area between Rio’s hips, giving her the same thing they’d made Nicky with all those decades ago.

Rio looks down and scoffs. “That’s it? All that big talk about being able to take more now, and you give me that?”

Agatha rolls her eyes but enlarges it, making it all bigger — more intense. She even gives Rio’s nails a longer, more clawlike shape for good measure. “Happy now?”

“Better.” Rio twirls her pointer. “Now turn around.”

Once Agatha has complied, Rio wastes no time bending her over the kitchen table. One hand presses down on her lower back while the other lightly scrapes her nails over her spine, her ass, her thighs. “You know how else I felt when you chose to die on me?”

Agatha lets out a moan, cheek pressed against the wood. Rio can feel her trembling the slightest bit.

“Hurt.” Rio gives her ass a hard smack. “And scared.” Another. “And helpless.” One more. She leans in close to her ear. “You don’t get to make me feel like that,” she hisses. “Understand? Not in that way. Not ever again.”

“Yes,” Agatha agrees with a whine. 

“Good girl,” she says sweetly, sinking her claws into her sides and yanking her back, entering her harshly. Agatha lets out a strangled scream as Rio slams into her, stretching her out. “Is this what you wanted all along, baby?”

Agatha fervently nods.

Rio mockingly pouts — not that Agatha can see it. “Well, why didn’t you just say so, sweetheart?”

Agatha grips hard onto the table, knuckles going even paler than her already impossibly pale skin. “Need it. Need you.”

“Then take it.” Rio pulls her back again, bucking forward at the same time. “Take it all.”

“Fuck,” Agatha yelps. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

“Imagine if I hadn’t saved you.” She thrusts harder. “If I hadn’t fixed your mistake.” Another thrust. “You never would have gotten to feel me again.” The hardest of all.

Agatha moans as her hips slam into the edge of the table. “I was so stupid.” God, Rio was really doing a number on her. Normally, Agatha would die before she called herself stupid. Although, Rio supposed that she technically had. Died right before this.

“Don’t lie,” Rio snaps. “You were trying to outsmart me — so you could save that stupid boy.”

“No, Goddess.” Agatha shakes her head. Rio knows she’s so high on this feeling she’ll say anything to get more of it right now. “I’m your dumb whore.”

“You’re not dumb. But you are a whore. And you are mine.” With a grunt, Rio cums inside of her, cock and nails penetrating even deeper. “And now I’m really in you.”

Agatha mewls, her impossibly tight grip on the table getting even tighter. A few cracks begin to form. “You feel so good.”

Rio leans down to bite at her shoulder blade. “Show me how good.”

“How?” Agatha pants. “Tell me how.”

Promise that you’ll never see that boy again. Change your mind and tell me I can take him. Let me do my job. She’s tempted to say all of them. It’d be smart to — right here, right now — while she was vulnerable and at her mercy. Before she could get even more attached. (That’d been part of the problem last time — the fact Rio didn’t nip it in the bud from the get-go. The fact she let her get so attached for six long, short years.) 

But Rio didn’t learn her lessons. Even when she was in control like this, she wasn’t really. Agatha had power over her, and in turn, she had power over fate. Over destiny. Over the stupid fucking kid. 

“Cum for me,” Rio says instead.

Agatha does, letting it wash over her with a guttural scream that Rio feels rip through her entire body. “Fuck.”

“Yes, that is what just happened,” Rio quips, pulling out and removing her claws from Agatha’s flesh, leaving angry red crescents in her wake. She slumps down onto her, her front — scorched to hell by Agatha’s little magic demonstration earlier — to Agatha’s back, wrapping her arms around her middle. She snuggles her cheek into the back of her neck. “How did I do for you?”

“Good,” Agatha breathes. “Very good.”

In one graceful movement, Rio hops up and wraps her legs around Agatha’s stomach, her arms going up to loop around her neck. Agatha wobbles — a common side effect of being railed into oblivion — but her new and improved reflexes allow her to catch her, and her new and improved strength keeps her from dropping her.

“Take me to bed,” Rio says.

Moments later, they’re cleaned up and lying beside each other on top of the blankets. Rio lifts her hand toward the ceiling, examining the nails Agatha had made for her. They’re admittedly quite nice. The cock, too. Rio liked being a chameleon, playing around with all kinds of forms and looks. That aspect of performance was something she and Agatha had in common. Her favorite, though, had been the same for three-and-a-half centuries. Was and would always be the one Agatha first laid eyes on. The one she fell in love with. 

She drops her arm and looks over at Agatha. “Will you put me back to how I was, baby?”

Agatha nods, flicking her hand to return Rio back to her most loved form. After a moment, she rolls over, snuggling into Rio’s side. “I love you.”

Rio kisses the top of her head in response. She loves her, too. She loves her so much. She loves her too much. Rio was so in love that she’d gone and done this — let one abomination go free before making a perfect one of her own. And while Rio has never been happier, Death has never felt more ashamed. 

The weight of reality sits heavy on her chest — finally starts sinking into it without the adrenaline terror and ecstasy both bring.  

“I hate that fucking kid, Agatha, but he did pose a decent question," she quietly admits as she looks up and stares at the ceiling. “What happens next?”

Agatha hums thoughtfully for a moment. “I have to teach him,” she insists. “Leaving him to his own devices would be a fucking shitshow.” At Rio’s lack of response, she glances at her. “What’s on your mind, love?”

“How much I hate that fucking kid,” Rio mumbles. How much I hate myself.

“And? I know he’s a pain in the ass, but I also know you well enough to recognize when you’re thinking hard about something.”

She shakes her head a little. “It’s been a long day, Agatha. I mean, you literally died. You should get some rest.”

“I’m resting,” Agatha argues. Rio can still feel her eyes on her even without peering over. “If I do go to sleep, will you still be here tomorrow?”

“I should be the one with abandonment issues — you’re the one who left last time,” she reminds her. 

“I mean will you still love me enough not to regret this?” Agatha presses.

She lets out a sigh. “As long as I’m Rio, I’ll love you. And as long as I’m Death, I’ll regret this,” she answers candidly. Just as her two natures coexisted, so did her two minds about this whole thing.

“There are plenty of unnatural creatures in the world, you know — I just happen to be one created by Lady Death herself.” Agatha takes one of Rio’s hands, beginning to play with her fingers.

“You don’t understand the gravity of all this, Agatha — you can’t,” Rio pushes back, though she allows Agatha the intimacy of her little, casual touches. “Just like I can’t understand certain things about you. Your obsession with the fucking Maximoff, for one.”

Agatha sighs. “Even if you can’t understand it, can you accept it?”

Rio doesn’t answer — because, in all honesty, she’s not sure she can accept it. “What happens next, kid notwithstanding?” she asks instead. She knew what life looked like when Agatha was killing witches in 1720s Salem, but 2020s New Jersey?

“I want a life with you,” Agatha answers easily.

“But what does that actually look like?”

“We take it day by day. We live like…like people.”

Rio is quiet for a long moment. “We’re not people, Agatha.”

“We aren’t mortals. We aren’t people in the most literal sense, but you and I both know there’s much more to it than that. Your love, your guilt, even your trepidation are all painfully human, Rio.”

Part of her is irresistibly drawn to that idea — personhood. The other is downright repulsed by it. The weakness of it. She’s met billions and billions of humans over the years, and she craved and hated their naïveté and ego in equal measure. 

Rio was both too much like a person and not even in the ballpark of one. She walked among them all the time, effortlessly blending, and yet she would never, ever be truly accepted as one of them. She doesn’t know that she wants to be. 

“You’re going to have to keep killing them, you know,” Rio says. “Your fellow ‘people.’ And you might have been fine with that when it was your choice — when you were stealing power of your own volition — but that’s your job now. Draining life forces, collecting bodies for me. We’re linked. You’re essentially my employee.”

“I don’t mind this servitude. And there are plenty of people whose lives I’m still more than happy to take. There are enough awful cunts out there to sustain me forever.”

Rio didn’t get that luxury — of only taking the awful ones. Rio didn’t get to discriminate. She could switch up the experience — make the innocent ones have as gentle a process as possible — but she had to take them all. 

Rio didn’t get the luxury of being a servant either. She was a slave to the balance, sure, but it was her name that was cursed. It was she who was blamed above all else. 

It’s strange, hearing Agatha speak like this. About killing only the bad ones. About willingly serving someone. Her Agatha, who killed without discretion. Her Agatha, who wanted power and control above all else. One thing was clear — her Agatha, who she fell in love with, was different from this Agatha lying next to her, and she isn’t sure how she feels about it. 

“This whole coven thing changed you,” Rio notes.

She expects Agatha to argue — she was never one to back down even from the stupidest fight — but instead, she only says, “I know. Maybe I’m not who you want me to be anymore—”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Rio doesn’t know. Rio really doesn’t know.

“Do you love this version of me?” Agatha presses.

Rio looks at her seriously. “Of course I love this version of you,” she assures her, voice quick but quiet. “It’s just…it’s an adjustment.” She looks away again, staring at the ceiling. “And I’m not built to withstand those. I’m not built to do any of this." Especially when it had ended so fucking badly the first time.

“Well.” Agatha chews on the inside of her cheek. “You’re just going to have to take it one step at a time because you’re stuck with me, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Even if I have to take the boy?” Rio finds herself asking. 

She won’t. Not anytime soon, at least — which will inevitably make everything worse in the long run. Still, she couldn't. Not right now. Not after she gave Agatha her word. But she couldn’t lie and say his existence and Agatha’s soft spot for it didn’t scare her — didn’t scare her in more ways than one.

“I know he’ll eventually have to go,” Agatha says slowly. Choosing her words carefully — that seemed to be another advancement of this new undead nature. “I just want him to live a little first, have something of a life. When you do take him, I’ll…manage better. I’ll be good for you.”

Rio glances at her for a long moment, pursing her lips in consideration before averting her gaze once more. Part of her doesn't believe her. A bigger part has to. What choice does she have? She was in it now. They were in it. For better or for worse. They'd taken their own silent, twisted version of wedding vows in purgatory. 

“Okay,” Rio whispers.

Agatha looks at her, gaze intense. “I love you, Rio. I need you to believe me when I say it.”

Rio gently reaches out, fingertips brushing her lids closed. It was too much to look directly into her eyes — one more brilliantly blue than ever, one icy grey. It was like the sun shining on the deepest part of the ocean or a single cloud on a crisp day. The juxtaposition, the combination — it was breathtaking. “Go to sleep now, all right?”

Agatha curls closer to her, and Rio obliges her silent request to be held. For the first time in centuries, she begins to hum their song. The one Agatha sang to her, sang to Nick. 

It seemed fitting, somehow, to start Agatha’s new unlife the way Nick’s had ended. Ushering her to her first rest in this form the same way she’d ushered him to his last. Maybe she’s cursing them, or maybe they’re already cursed — have always been cursed. 

But in this moment, she lets herself believe it’s a good luck charm. In this moment, she lets herself believe that good could be part of their doomed cards at all.

Chapter Text

The next few weeks are…strange as Rio and Agatha fall into a new sense of normalcy. Agatha talks to the stupid fucking kid’s parents — something Rio isn’t invited to, for simplicity’s sake. Not that she wanted to be there anyway.

Rio doesn’t press for details, but it must go all right, as he shows up to…Agatha’s house? Their house? The house every day at 3:30 on the dot.

Agatha insists it’s because she doesn’t want him to be as reckless as his mother. Rio knows that truth — that she’s attached. That she’s always been attached and she’s only getting more so with each passing day. It’s dangerous, and it’s annoying, but it’s what’s happening. It’s what Rio had to try and make some kind of peace with the minute she turned Agatha into what she is.

It’s hard. It feels…nearly impossible a lot of the time. Rio is still so fucking afraid that the world will end due to her carelessness, her selfishness, her weakness. She couldn’t maintain the balance — and there would be consequences for that. Maybe not this year or this decade or even this century, but there would be consequences.

Rio is also still so fucking afraid that she’ll do something to make Agatha get up and leave. That she will have to go through the pain of losing her all over again.

Rio tries hard to prevent Agatha from doing that. She grows her flowers in the greenhouse every morning and eats her out twice a day and lets her sleep on her chest. 

Being Death and undead, Rio and Agatha don’t technically need to sleep, though it was a nice way to turn their brains off for a while. It tended to make them less cranky, too — something Rio is sure the stupid fucking kid appreciates. Not that she interacts with him much. She makes sure she’s at work when he’s over for lessons — for both their sakes.

They don’t technically need to eat, either — sustained by life forces — though they could. Just because she was Death didn’t mean Rio didn’t enjoy a nice glass of wine and chocolate-covered strawberry as much as the next person. (As well as wet cement and drywall and zippers and anything that felt interesting on her tongue, really.) 

And because they didn’t technically need to do either of those things, neither usually caused them any issues. Stomach flus were a petty mortal problem. Which is why it’s…bizarre for Agatha to wake up at the crack of dawn and empty the contents of hers. 

Rio follows her into the bathroom immediately, kneeling down next to her and placing a hand on her back. “Deep breaths, baby,” she encourages. They didn’t technically need to do that either — the whole oxygen thing — but it could certainly be a nice tool for regulating discomfort.

Agatha nods, taking a few deep inhales — a few long exhales. “I feel like shit,” she groans.

“I can see that.”

“I’m nauseous as hell.”

“That is the leading cause of vomiting.”

“I’m dead, Rio,” Agatha impatiently points out. “Why’s that happening?”

Rio sighs. “I don’t know. I’ve never turned anyone into an undead being before, and I wasn’t exactly prepared to do it. You kind of forced me into a rush job, sweetheart.”

Agatha moans — a sound that was usually pretty sexy decidedly not in this context — as she buries the heels of her hands into her eyes and leans against Rio. “Well, don’t make me walk back to bed.” This was her version of needy. Of asking to be helped and held.

“Make sure you’re finished puking your guts out first.”

“There’s nothing left,” she insists.

Rio pushes herself off the floor, flushing the toilet before scooping Agatha up. “I’ll clean your sheets of blood and sweat and cum as much as you wish, but if you vomit on them after this, I’ll refuse out of spite,” she warns, though they both know it’s a lie.

Rio carefully sets her down on the mattress before lying next to her with a sigh. “I guess this means no morning sex.”

Agatha doesn’t waste any time curling back into her. “Maybe afternoon sex?”

“You have class,” she bitterly reminds her.

“Not until 3:30. We have time before.”

“Well…good,” Rio relents, somewhat appeased. She didn’t always like being patient, but that didn't mean she couldn’t be. “Because I’m feeling hot for teacher today,” she admits, biting her lip and playing with the tie of Agatha’s floral robe.

Agatha smirks. “Aren’t you always, love?”

Yes. Yes, she was. “But particularly hot for that particular persona,” Rio clarifies. “We haven’t christened your basement yet, you know.”  

They’d managed to fuck in every other room of the house, including the coat closet, and her makeshift classroom suddenly seemed like a gross oversight. Rio was sure it smelled like hormones and Axe body spray because of the stupid fucking kid, but she could hold her breath. A perk of that not being a necessity.

“Mm, is that our plan for the afternoon then?” Agatha asks. “You want to fuck Professor Harkness?”

Professor Harkness. Fuck, that was hot. Rio nods with a coy grin, her own stomach fluttering — though much more pleasantly than Agatha’s, she presumed — at the mere thought of Agatha swiping everything off her desk and bending her over it, smacking her around a bit before having her way with her. It was a total cliche. And totally sexy.

“Will you be very strict with me, Professor?” Rio asks, fingers walking up the robe until they reach the bare skin peeking out at her chest.

“Of course, Ms. Vidal,” Agatha replies, indulging her with a raised brow.

More flutters. Rio nods in mock seriousness, now busying herself by toying with the fabric at Agatha’s collar. “It is the only way I learn. A stern, hands-on approach.”

“I know that well.” Agatha smiles, though she shuts her eyes — presumably to try and rid herself of some residual dizziness.

“Get your strength back up, baby.” Rio plants a light, sweet kiss on the tip of her nose — both because Agatha wasn’t feeling well and because she was planning on being an absolute menace later. “I want you at your best.”

“Working on it,” Agatha confirms. “It’s helpful that you’re holding me. I think that’s the solution for everything,” she says, the fact she was ill making her uncharacteristically sentimental.

“Most things, maybe,” Rio quips.

“90%. The solution for the other part is sex. Either way, you’re the answer.”

Rio scoffs a little. “I’m glad but also a little offended sex is a measly 10%.”

“It’s a very hot, very crucial 10% if that helps,” Agatha notes. “You’re very good in bed.”

Rio gets closer to whisper in her ear. “Well, I plan on being very bad in your classroom.”

“Oh, do you?” The corner of Agatha’s mouth curves into a nearly imperceptible smile. “Then I suppose I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

The smallest little moan escapes Rio’s throat, the smallest little blush creeping into her cheeks. “You should wear that outfit again — the one you wore on the road.”

“We’ll see. I’ll at least wear a shirt you like. Sheer, a little too form fitting…”

Rio licks her lips. It was taking everything in her not to rip her robe off — see the body she was teasing right now — but she could be patient. Rio had waited for Agatha for millenniums. Had waited for her to come back for centuries. “What do you want me in?”

“Anything that makes your tits look good,” Agatha easily replies. “And I always like your hair down.”

She twirls a piece of said hair around her finger. “Skirt? Pants?” Not that it really mattered considering neither would stay on for long.

Agatha considers for a moment before cracking her eyes open again and sitting up a bit. “Do you still have that tea-length skirt? With the vines?”

She nods. Of course she did. It was one of Agatha’s favorites.

“You should wear that.”

“I’ll see to it that I show up in proper uniform,” Rio promises.

“You should do my hair for me first,” Agatha suggests. That’s one of her favorite things, Rio knows — the intimate gesture of her gently taming the wilderness sprouting from her scalp.

Rio nods, gently carding her fingers through her locks. Even with bedhead, she found it utterly perfect.

“What are you thinking?" Agatha asks.

“Bun,” she says decisively, softly pulling a few strands taut. “Sleeked back. Serious. Authoritative.”

“You don’t think I’ll look bald?” Agatha deadpans.

“Maybe. Maybe I want to imagine you’re Jen,” Rio teases with a smirk, already trying to rile her up.

“No. You don’t.” Agatha gives her a firm, possessive kiss on her jaw before holding it in her hand. “You’re mine.”

“Mm,” Rio lets her eyes fall shut as Agatha grips her face, though she forces them open a moment later. “Okay, don’t tease me. Save it for this afternoon.” She rolls out of bed. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Agatha’s expression morphs into something that sits between a scowl and a pout. “Where are you going?”

She looks over her shoulder as she makes it to the doorway. “Patience, my lady.” 

She returns a few minutes later, steaming mug in hand. “Special brew for the nausea. Freshly made.” Very freshly made, in fact. She’d gone out to the garden and quickly grown the herbs herself. Made it sweet and earthy just like she knows Agatha likes.

Agatha’s taken to lying back down, eyes closed in her absence once more. She props herself up enough to take the mug, a small but genuine smile flickering across her face. “You’re my favorite green witch.”

Rio scoffs. “I better be. All the other green witches are pale imitations of the original.”

“Of course, my love,” Agatha assures her, leaning against her as soon as Rio slides back into bed. Maybe she should feel guilty that this extra affection and clinginess was a result of Agatha feeling like shit, but Rio can’t bring herself to care. She’d been without it for 270 years — it only felt right to be making up for lost time despite the less-than-ideal reason. 

Rio gives her a satisfied smile before absentmindedly blooming and killing, blooming and killing the plant on the bedroom windowsill to entertain herself while Agatha drinks.

“Do you want to eat?” Agatha offers as she steadily sips. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“I’ll do your hair first so it’s out of the way.” Rio summons the brush and a clip to her, shifting so she’s sitting behind Agatha on the bed — the woman between her legs.

Agatha rests a hand on Rio’s thigh, absentmindedly tracing patterns with her thumb. “What do you want?”

“Seeing as you’re regrettably not on the menu until lunch, maybe eggs. Toast,” Rio suggests, beginning to comb the tangles out. “Light enough that you hopefully won’t hurl again.”

Rio doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s rolling her eyes. “I feel better now,” she insists. “I’ll make us some eggs and biscuits. We can use that fresh strawberry jam.”

“Sounds messy,” Rio muses. “You should probably wear an apron and nothing else.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She slaps her thigh before going back to rubbing it. “Maybe that and some lingerie — just for you.”

“Well, I know it’s not for the rabbit.”

Agatha snorts. “No, but Mister will certainly love getting scraps from breakfast. He loves strawberries, so I’m sure he’ll like the jam.”

Rio is silent for a moment, finishing the daunting task of detangling to begin the actual styling part. “You forget how much I know, don’t you?” she asks quietly.

Agatha mindlessly draws a question mark on her skin. “What do you mean?”

She doesn’t cease her movements. “I fed that rabbit fruit out of my palm more times than I can count, Agatha. And I know you wanted to forget — tried so hard that you might have even managed to — but I never wanted to. I never forgot.” Her voice is surprisingly factual, devoid of the bitterness that often accompanies statements like this. “And don’t apologize or say it’s not true, okay?” she adds before Agatha can open her mouth. “Please don’t. I don’t want that.”

Agatha is silent for a long moment, carefully mulling over her words. “I never forgot,” she says. “I put those memories in a box that I’m slowly reopening. But I want to remember now. I want to know you. And I…want you to know me.”

“So tell me about you,” Rio softly prompts. “Tell me normal things that you…like now.”

Agatha takes a breath, considering. “Well, now that we’re not in the fucking colonial times, I like to watch movies. I like to drink coffee. Sometimes, I like to drive somewhere — the park or the mall or some big-box store — and just walk around.”

Rio quirks a brow. “I’m fairly certain that’s exactly what Jen means when she calls things basic.”

“Well, she’s one to talk.”

Rio begins twisting her hair, another beat of quiet settling between them. Agatha was always trying to fill the space, but Rio didn’t mind it — the dead air.

After carefully smoothing Agatha’s hair back so it’s straight and smooth, she expertly maneuvers the clip into her locks, securing the bun in place. “Since you’re fulfilling my fantasy this afternoon,” Rio starts, “I suppose this evening I could fulfill yours by walking around a supermarket with you. As fucking bizarre as that is.”

“I really think you might enjoy it, you know. It’s vastly overstimulating at times. Chaotic, really.”

Rio quirks a brow again, though this time, it’s because she’s intrigued. “I do like stimulating chaos,” she admits.

“I know. As weird as it sounds, it can be a good place to just kind of… dissociate. And think.”

“I prefer to do that with your hands wrapped tightly around my throat, but whatever floats your boat.”

“What?” Agatha blinks, looking back at her. “You dissociate while I choke you?”

She shrugs. “Yeah.” 

“What the hell do you think about?"

“Nothing. That’s the point. It makes my brain nice and quiet.”

Another blink from Agatha. “Does nothing else?”

Another shrug from Rio. “I don’t know…turns me on? It does that, too — don't get me wrong — but it also makes me feel calmer. My head clearer.”

“No.” Agatha shakes her head. “No, I mean does nothing else make your head clear besides being choked?”

“Oh.” She has to think about that for a second, her hands briefly stopping in Agatha’s hair for the first time since she’d started. “When you slap me, I guess. Or burn me. Or pull my hair. Or tie me up…”

“I mean outside of sex.”

“Oh,” Rio repeats, squinting her eyes in contemplation. “No,” she casually decides, fingers deftly beginning to work through her mane again.

Agatha nods slowly, struggling to process this and maybe slightly disturbed by the revelation. “Has it…always been that way for you?”

“I guess so,” she says with a natural nonchalance. “But I didn’t really have anything to clear from my mind before I met you. I didn’t really think about anything. Or feel anything at all.”

“Mm,” Agatha hums, some strange blend of flattered and concerned. “I must be a special girl then — to get Death to learn emotions.” 

Rio rolls her eyes. “You know you are. Humility is one thing that looks terrible on you.”

“Then consider me honored.”

Rio secures the final pieces of her hair in place. “There. All done.”

Agatha turns, planting a lingering kiss on her lips before pulling back to say, “I’ll go make us breakfast.”

Chapter Text

As promised, Agatha does make them breakfast — and she does so wearing a silk nightgown that generously shows her cleavage, much to Rio’s delight. After a leisurely meal, Agatha disappears downstairs to make lesson plans for the stupid fucking kid. Usually, that would annoy the fuck out of Rio — the fact that the stupid fucking kid was distracting Agatha from her when he wasn’t even there — but she doesn’t mind it today for obvious reasons. 

She takes her time getting ready, changing into her Agatha-appointed uniform of a button-up shirt hiding a lacy green bra underneath and the vine-clad skirt hiding a pair of matching underwear. Her hair is down and framing her face, and she’s even grabbed a few books from Agatha’s shelf upstairs to really sell it — to get into character and play the role. 

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” she says as she saunters down the stairs about an hour before the stupid fucking kid is set to arrive. She tries her damndest to push him completely from her mind.

Agatha glances up from the desk, eyes scanning her — gaze slow and greedy. She’s all business on the outside, but Rio knows on the inside she’s enjoying it just as much. “I don’t tolerate tardiness. Come here.” She stands from her desk and pushes her glasses up onto her head, beckoning her with the curl of her fingers.

The commanding tone, the eyewear — it already has Rio a little weak in the knees. But she doesn’t want it all over too fast. She takes her time setting her books down on the smaller desk, making a big show of leaning over so Agatha can see through the top of her shirt, before slowly approaching the one Agatha’s sitting behind.

Agatha reaches out to play with a piece of Rio’s hair before she tucks it behind her ear. “Looks like the lesson plan today has changed, Ms. Vidal.”

She tilts her head in faux naiveté. “Oh?”

“It seems I need to teach you how to respect me.”

Her breath catches a little, but she won’t break yet. They haven’t even really started. “What are you gonna do?” she goads. “Give me detention? Make me clap erasers?”

“It’s what you’re going to do. And that’s make me feel good.” Agatha magically forces her to her knees. “Go on.”

“Mm…” She slowly walks her fingers up the inside of Agatha’s leg. “See, I think you should give me a bit more…motivation first,” she admits, playing with the button of Agatha’s pants but not undoing them. “I know I do my best when someone really lights a fire on — I mean under — my ass.”

Agatha bats her hand away. “I know exactly what you meant, you little brat. You’re certainly playing with fire with all your mouthy little commentary. All fours. Now.”

Agatha helps the process along, promptly shoving her forward before unceremoniously lifting her skirt up and yanking her panties to her thighs, leaving her ass exposed. She rubs the skin, emphasizing her vulnerable position. “You see what happens when you misbehave? You find yourself here — bent over and bared before me.”

“So you’re planning on giving me a spanking?” Rio quips. “Is that where this is going?”

Agatha chuckles lowly. “I think we both know you’d enjoy that far too much.” With a flick of her wrist, a knife materializes in her hand. 

Rio lets out a little yelp as she begins to carve crude slashes into her flesh, desperately bracing her palms against the floor. 

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Rio lets out an affirmative wince.

“Good. You’re being disciplined. Naughty things like you need a firm hand, Ms. Vidal.” She cuts an ‘A’ on the upper part of her ass, though whether it’s a brand or a play on the whole school scenario, Rio isn’t sure. All she knows is it’s higher up than the others — dangerously close to the fabric of her garment.

“Careful, Agatha,” she manages to taunt. “You might ruin the skirt you like so much.”

“Oh, I’m plenty careful,” Agatha flippantly retorts. “Now remember your manners, dear.” She emphasizes the warning with an extra deep slash.

Rio grits her teeth, back arching under the blade. “You want me to say, ‘Thank you’?”

Agatha sets the knife aside before haphazardly pulling her underwear back up — snapping the waistband. She proceeds to whisk her skirt back down and go to stand in front of her, harshly lifting her chin. “You’ll say, ‘Thank you, Professor.’ And then you’ll be a good girl and do as you were told the first time. Is that clear?”

“Yes. Thank you, Professor,” Rio says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Bratting it up, as promised.

Agatha slaps her across the face. “Insolent bitch.”

Her heart beats pleasantly fast in her chest — so hard she can feel it in her head, her core, her cunt. “How’s that? I did exactly as you asked,” she points out with a bat of her eyelashes.

“Don’t be coy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replies as coyly as she can manage, reaching up to trace light circles on Agatha’s leg. She wants to push her. She wants to be pushed. 

Agatha obliges — quite literally, in fact. She scoffs, wordlessly kicking her backward. Back in the day, Rio would’ve been able to catch herself with her elbows, but Agatha’s new strength — something she was still getting used to — knocks her flat on her back. Knocks the wind out of her. The fresh cuts on her ass burn fiercely.

Agatha gives her no time to recover, straddling her before carelessly ripping her shirt open.

“You popped one of my buttons off,” Rio petulantly sulks.

“Shut up,” Agatha warns.

“This wasn’t a cheap shirt.” Her hands go to Agatha’s shoulders in an attempt to push her off. Mostly to see if she could — to keep testing her strength.

Agatha slaps her again — harder — before pinning her arms above her head. She holds both wrists in one hand, leaving the other dangerously free. “I said shut up. You’ll learn.” With the flick of her wrist, her own pants and underwear disappear, and she moves to hover above Rio’s face.

This only eggs Rio on more. She stares up at her, unable to fully keep the adoration and awe from her eyes even through the act. “Having your perfect pussy in my face isn’t exactly what I’d call a punishment, Professor. And I’m not sure why you’re insisting on doing all of this on the filthy floor when you have a lovely desk right there.”

“You deserve the floor. You’re beneath me where you belong,” she declares before planting herself on Rio’s face. “I don’t care if you can’t breathe. You go until I tell you to stop.”

The statement brings Rio from damp to positively soaked — and she’s not the only one. With no real choice but to finally obey, she begins licking — if only so she doesn’t drown under Agatha’s cunt. She, in fact, cannot breathe, which means she sure as hell can’t speak. So she uses her mind. Do you get this wet for all your students?

"Did I tell you you could speak?"

I’m using my brain — I thought you’d be pleased. Does everyone get this kind of treatment?

"Only you, Ms. Vidal."

Rio smirks beneath her. Wow. Sounds like I’m a shoo-in to make honor roll.

"More like a shoo-in to fail if you don’t shape up."

And what exactly are the consequences of that in your class? Failing?

"No more of this."

She’d scoff if she could. Yeah, right — that’d be just as much a penalty for you. You want me so badly.

Agatha doesn’t deny it, but she doesn’t indulge it either, deciding to simply clarify her threats. "I can stop slapping you around. I know you like that, you little whore. I can make sure you don’t get to finish. Edge you until you cry."

You’ve barely slapped me, Rio points out, still expertly moving her tongue despite the telepathic sass. You mostly used a knife, which is my instrument of choice. Couldn’t find one of your little sticks, hm? Your chalkboard pointer or bell baton? she mocks. And make me cry? I’d like to see you try, she says, accompanying the bold statement by even more boldly nipping at her clit.

Agatha lets out a long groan at that, rocking her hips. Still, she stays focused on the lesson at hand. She was an excellent multitasker, after all. "Fine," she says. "As you wish."

A moment later, Rio feels a whip — also conjured from magic, no doubt — crack down hard on her cunt. She’s not sure how the fuck Agatha actually manages the hit she does from her current angle, but she’s almost impressed. 

She yells out, the sound muffled under Agatha, and frantically presses her legs together in a likely futile attempt to avoid another. She’s endlessly thankful for even the meager padding her skirt and panties provided from the strike, so, of course, Agatha promptly removes them both with the wave of her hand. 

“No, no, darling,” she tsks, spreading her legs back apart before conjuring magical chains to hold them open. “You take your medicine.”

Rio lets out a sound between a whimper and a groan, squirming in dread and desire alike. 

How many? Rio asks. She likes math and order. Likes hearing Agatha tell her exactly what she's going to dole out almost as much as she likes her actually inflicting it.

"I’ll keep going until you make me cum."

’Until you make me come’ is famously not a number, she retorts-slash-whines.

Agatha flicks her wrist again to deliver a particularly intense hit to her inner thigh. "Deal with it."

Rio writhes beneath her, crying out again — though notably not actually crying yet. Two, she counts for her own benefit. Thank you, Professor, she reluctantly adds for Agatha’s.

She falls into a rhythm of counting and thanking and licking and sucking, getting all the way up to 12 strokes on the most sensitive part of herself before she feels the telltale shudder of climax roll through Agatha’s. She screams as the orgasm rolls through her body, thighs shaking as she manages to roll off of Rio’s face.

Rio gives them each a moment to catch their breaths before glancing over at Agatha with a little smirk. “Do I get a reward now, Professor?” she asks despite knowing damn well she hasn’t earned one. “A gold star for my A-plus work on your pussy?”

“Mm, I don’t think you earned that.” 

Frankly, she’s not confident she could handle a reward right now anyway — or at least not confident it would feel much like one. She’s tender down there, whipped red and raw.

Still, Agatha leans over to kiss her hard, tasting herself on Rio’s face. She lets her mouth linger on her lips for a few moments before she starts to plant bruising kisses down her neck. 

A few short minutes of that later, there’s a knock at the door and a stupid fucking kid calling her name. 

Agatha sighs. “Well, he’s here now.” With a flick of her hand, she dispels the chains holding Rio before cleaning and redressing them both, though she reaches down to manually smooth Rio’s skirt. “Did I fulfill that fantasy?”

“Mm. Exceeded it.” She nods vehemently, wincing as she’s finally able to bring her legs together again. She’s going to be sore for days — the gift that kept on giving. She could heal it, of course, but why would she want to? “I wouldn’t mind getting one of those old-school paddles involved — or you actually making good on that promise to bring me to tears — but there’s always next time. Graduation's a long, long way away.” She holds her hand out — a silent request for Agatha to help her up. Seeking a tiny moment of aftercare before the stupid fucking kid interrupted them.

Agatha happily obliges. As soon as Rio’s standing, she wraps her in a tight hug. “You did so well, darling. And you are beautiful in that outfit.”

Rio lets her eyes fall closed for a moment, resting her head in the crook of Agatha's neck. “Thank you, Professor,” she says, somehow cheeky yet more sincere than she’s been since she stepped foot on the basement staircase.

“I’ll see you after his lesson.”

“It’s not going to be nearly as much fun for you as my lesson,” she pouts, still sunk into her embrace even as the knocks get louder and more frequent.

“I know. He needs to learn though.”

Agatha must invite him in telepathically, as he’s coming down the stairs a moment later. 

“Oh, you’re here,” he says when he spots Rio, slowing — hesitating — when he sees that she’s in Agatha’s arms. “Am I…interrupting something?” 

With a dramatic sigh and an equally dramatic roll of her eyes, Rio reluctantly steps out of her hold to glare at him. “Yes. But what’s new?”

Agatha squeezes her arm. “I’ll see you in a little bit, my love.”

Rio glowers at Billy a moment longer, hissing at him for good measure before disappearing back up the stairs. 

She really hated that stupid fucking kid.

Chapter Text

Agatha fondly watches Rio ascend the stairs before she turns to Billy, expression morphing into something decisively less fond (though notably not devoid of fondness entirely). “Well, don’t just stand there wasting my time,” she snaps. “Come sit down.”

He raises his hands innocently — valiantly biting back a comment about how she had literally all the time now, considering the whole being immortal and undead thing — as he makes his way down the rest of the stairs. “She’s never down here,” he notes, slipping into the desk and dropping his backpack beside him. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. She’s just spending time with me.”

“In my classroom?” He can’t get over how weird it is. She makes sure to never cross paths with him.

“In my classroom,” Agatha corrects. “And yes. Now, are we done playing 20 Questions?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, not sounding all that apologetic.

Agatha stares at him, weirdly pissed. The fact she seemed pissed in and of itself wasn’t weird — that was her baseline state, really — but she seems…particularly agitated today. He doesn’t know what the hell he did to deserve it. He so rarely does.

“I think we should talk about the Road,” she announces out of fucking nowhere. “Do you want to know something?”

“Okaaay,” he says slowly, tilting his head. “Are you feeling all right? You look a little…sick.”

Agatha narrows her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you look…kinda unwell. Sweaty and pale…r than usual.” Her complexion had naturally blanched ever since the whole undead advancement, but it was even more obvious today. Maybe that’s why she was especially hostile — she had vampire flu or however the hell germs worked with entities like her.

Agatha doesn’t seem to care. Doesn’t seem interested in exploring this train of thought at all. “I think we should focus on you.” She slaps her palms down on her desk. “Did you know you created the Road? With your mind? Your powers? It was you. It was aaaaall you.”

He blinks. “Okay, now I know you’re ill because you’re just saying random nonsense.” He stands from the desk. “I’m gonna go in case it’s contagious.”

Agatha steps to block him. “I’m not ill. Your powers are similar to your mother’s.”

“Wanda’s,” he corrects through gritted teeth. “They’re similar to Wanda’s.”

“Your mother’s powers create,” she says, emphasizing the phrase for obnoxious effect. “You create.” She shrugs. “It’s simple, really.” 

“No, it’s not. All of this is anything but simple. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Agatha scoffs, giving him a dismissive eye-roll. Some fucking audacity she had — getting annoyed for him not being able to solve an impossible riddle she'd sprung on him all of two seconds ago. “Oh, don’t be so obtuse.”

“I’m not being obtuse! How could I have created the Road when I read about it? When there was a whole ballad we had to sing to get to it? A whole ballad that Alice’s mom sang decades before this if you’ll remember correctly.”

“Because I made the fucking ballad!”

Usually, he’d call her bullshit — she found it fun to lie for no discernible reason — but this…doesn’t feel like one of those times. “You…you what?”

“I made up the Road. I made up the ballad.”

Billy’s brows crinkle. “But why? Why would you do that?”

“It was a con for other witches to blast me so I could take their power. The ballad came from a song I used to sing with my—” She abruptly stops herself, shakes her head. “With your magic — your inherited chaos magic — you unknowingly made it a reality.”

“No.” He shakes his head. He’s deep in denial, but there’s something that feels eerily…correct about the revelation somehow.  

He had some strange inkling every time he looked around his room for too long that perhaps he had something to do with it all, but it was a thought too complicated — and too terrible — to entertain, so he’d shoved it down. He’d shoved it as far down as it could possibly go.  

And he would continue to do so. 

“No, that’s not possible,” he insists.

“Oh, it’s more than just possible — it’s factual. We both know what your mother is capable of. Now, if you want to make any real progress, it’s a truth you’re going to have to accept.”

“No.” He shakes his head more vehemently. “You’re lying. You’re lying like you always do.”

“I’m not. Read my mind,” she challenges. 

“You’re not under truth serum,” he points out with a scowl. “It’s not like you can’t lie in your head,” 

Agatha throws her head back, impatient. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Billy. What’s it going to take to get this through your thick skull?”

“My thick skull? That’s a rich accusation coming from you.”

“Answer the question. What. Is it going. To take?”

“Nothing! Because you are!” he exclaims, slamming his hands on the desk. Blue sparks fly out of his palms, immediately turning the desk into a pile of ash. He freezes, hands now hovering in midair — resting on nothing. His eyes widen, and he swallows hard.

Agatha raises a brow. The fact she was unfazed by the outburst somehow made it more humiliating. “Are we finished throwing temper tantrums now?”

He looks up from the desk’s charred remains, dropping his hands and balling them into fists at his sides. Trying to remain in control as a new, more vulnerable emotion takes over. “I can’t have made the Road,” he repeats, though his voice is softer now.

“And yet, you did,” Agatha reiterates.

“No.”

“Why can’t you have?”

“Because that would mean I almost killed Alice!” he snaps. “That would mean I did kill Lilia! That would mean I…I…” His face crumples, his body crumpling with it. Since there’s no longer a desk for him to sit at, he sinks to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and clutching at his hair. "No, no, no, no, no."

Agatha sighs, sinking down next to him. “Take a deep breath,” she tells him. Her voice is soft — softer than it’s been toward him in a while. “Lilia’s dead — unless her kooky ass can somehow come back and fuck with us, which honestly doesn’t seem out of the question — but Alice is still alive.”

“Killing one person is bad enough,” he counters. “Hurting one person is bad enough — and I hurt so many people by doing this.”

“In our line of continued existence, some casualties are inevitable. But you survived,” Agatha points out, tone taking on a firm edge. “You survived.”

“Who cares, Agatha?” he whimpers. “Who cares?”

“Well, I’m sure Alice cares. I’m sure Jen cares. They’re still here. And you’re still here. And I’m still here.”

“You know what I’m sure about?” Billy looks up at her, some fire in his eyes. “I’m sure they have nightmares — every single night — about being poisoned and burned and nearly impaled. I mean, don’t you?”

“All of those things are exceptionally low on my nightmare list,” Agatha deadpans, though Billy doesn’t doubt that this, too, is the truth. A beat. “It’s okay, Billy.” 

“It’s not okay,” he says, though his voice is lacking any snark. “God, what is wrong with me?” He hits the side of his head with the heel of his hand. Again. And again. And again. As if it can banish all the bad from his dangerous, destructive, fucked-up mind.

Agatha grabs his wrist. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she says, her voice as serious as he’s ever heard it. “I need you to hear me. Nothing.” 

“Everything is wrong with me, Agatha. I stole someone’s body! I shouldn’t even be here! If I’d just died that day like I was supposed to, none of this would have happened!”

“But you didn’t die. And it did happen. And you can’t change that unless you quite literally kill yourself, which I would greatly appreciate you refrain from, as — I’m sure — would the Kaplans and your little boyfriend. Regardless of should haves or would haves, you’re here. And what you do with being here is what matters.”

“What I did with being here is torture people by making your stupid fake road real!”

“And you’re here so I can teach you ways to not let it happen again. But even so, you…brought people together by doing that. People who…” She searches for the words, clearly more uncomfortable with this part of her speech. “...who needed each other,” she finishes.

Billy doesn’t have a retort for that. She was right, in a way. Alice and Jen were together, and Lilia had said as much before she’d died. He’s not really clear on the details of the whole Agatha and Rio reunion — nor does he want to be — but he obviously needed Agatha. Needed her to help him guide Tommy’s soul into a body. Still needed her to help him locate where the hell exactly that body was.

“You’re not a bad person, Billy,” Agatha reiterates.

“I don’t understand how you can say that.” A beat. “Well, I understand how you can say that, but I really don’t think the others are going to be inclined to agree. I don’t.”

“Why not? Good and bad aren’t black and white, and anyone with a developed frontal lobe and without a moral superiority complex can see that. I mean, is Rio bad just because she’s death? 

“Rio is bad because she’s kind of an asshole,” he mutters — because that’s the only thing he can think to.

“I’m right,” Agatha says, voice getting marginally colder. “You can’t be so rigid, Billy. And Rio is… prickly, but she’s not bad.” 

Billy looks at her — really looks at her — for a moment, wiping a few tears from his cheeks. “Is she who you were talking about? The person you made the ballad with?”

Agatha massages the back of her neck. “No. Not exactly. The answer to that question is complicated.”

He raises a skeptical brow. “More complicated than the fact I unknowingly created a deadly obstacle course with my mind?”

“Maybe not logistically,” she responds. He can fill in the blanks from there: But emotionally, yes.

“And you’re not going to tell me,” he replies — a statement. Not a question. “You never tell me.”

Agatha scowls, though Billy is pretty sure he can see a flicker of hurt in her eyes. After a second, she huffs. “Our son,” she says. “I started the song with our son. He loved to sing it.”

“‘Our’?’”

“Oh, don’t be dense. Who do you think ‘our’ is?”

He raises his hands. “I’m just trying to make sure I understand.”

“Rio,” she responds, jaw clenched. “Rio is the other half of the ‘our.’ The woman upstairs.”

“Yeah, okay.” He glares. “I know who Rio is.”

“Then what was so confusing?”

“Nothing was confusing — I just didn’t want to assume anything.” He crosses his arms. “And, of course, you’re using that to deflect. Again.”

“I answered your question. What more do you want me to say?” She tosses her hair back in irritation. “My god — are you trying to write my biography, hm? Brujapedia not cutting it?”

“There’s a lot more you can tell me, but obviously, there’s nothing more you will, so whatever.” 

She seems to take that as a challenge. “Fucking try me, kid — door’s open for a limited time, so make it count. Today’s all about the Road and, apparently, my life.”

“Okay, then what was he like?" he presses, testing the waters. "Nicholas?"

Agatha flinches at his name, her entire demeanor changing. Her nails dig deeply into her palm, the other hand scratching at the exposed skin just above her wrist. “Well, he was…perfect,” she says, attempting to keep her voice factual as she stares down at the ground. “He loved to sing. He loved to play. He was smart, and he had the cutest little smile.” She shakes her head a bit as if trying to rid her mind of the image — still too vivid and painful to bear.

That’s more information — more honesty — than Billy usually gets from her. More vulnerability than he has, perhaps, ever gotten from her. It’s not something he takes lightly. “And he helped you write the ballad? So you could…kill…people?” he asks, his voice surprisingly free of judgment.

She shakes her head again. “We sang it for fun. I killed people as an offering to Rio. I didn’t use it like that until he—” 

She can’t finish, and Billy doesn’t need her to.

“Why did you start?” he gently pushes. “After he…” He’s not going to say it, either. Not going to hurt her like that.

“Grief,” is all she can manage. After a moment, she’s able to add, “Anger.” She focuses on the way blood is pooling on her palms. The way the undead skin is flaking off as she scratches. 

Billy understands. He understands so intimately it’s painful. He slowly nods. 

It’s a dumb fucking idea to reach out — like putting your hand in a lion’s cage — but he does it anyway. Reaches out to uncurl her fingers, pry her other hand away from her wrist. “Please, don’t do that,” he softly requests. “Please.”

Agatha freezes, staring at him. She’s clearly not used to someone treating her with any kind of tenderness. “You’re so much like him,” she whispers as she moves her hand from her wrist, but she doesn’t unball her fist just yet.

“Please, Agatha,” he repeats. “Just…just squeeze my hand or something. As hard as you want.”

After another long moment, she manages to uncurl her fingers. With her non-bloodied hand, she pats his forearm in quiet thanks.

Billy couldn’t heal her wounds — he wasn’t the Green Witch, and he didn’t know potions like Jen — but he could clean them. With the wave of his hand, the blood clears, leaving deep scratches behind. 

“I’m sorry for being…harsh,” he says. “This is all just...a lot to process.”

Agatha clears her throat, clearly spent. “Read some of that book I assigned you. We’ll do more tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he agrees with a nod, pushing himself off the floor. He cringes at the pile of dust. “Sorry about the desk, too. Maybe someday I can create you a new one with my mind,” he half-jokes.

His eyes gravitate to the middle of the room — to the door to the Road on the floor. “I want to close it,” he declares. “If I opened it — if I made it — I want to close it. For good. So nobody else can access it ever again.”

Agatha nods. “There’s a ritual. Do you know it?”

“Not off the top of my head…” he admits, pulling out the spell book she hates so much.

Agatha goes over to one of her many shelves, grabbing an encyclopedia-sized grimoire. “Here.” She plops it in his hand. “Chapter three. Read it, and we’ll do it tomorrow.”

He rolls his eyes, putting his spell book back in his pocket and paging through the significantly larger one. “Another super heavy, super old book. Awesome.”

“Oh, I’m sorry — is your assigned reading of Catcher in the Rye more important than learning how to close the door?” she snarks.

“We’re reading The Crucible, actually,” he corrects with a mumble, shoving the book in his backpack before she can snatch it back for his attitude. “Which I’m sure you have thoughts about.”

“Plenty.” She scowls. “I’m loving this shitty attitude, though. Really. It’s such a delight.”

“As opposed to all the kindness and respect you usually treat me with?” he retorts. “Throwing my pens out of car windows and ripping my banners from your walls and making me free myself from the duct tape you tied me up with? And that was all just on the first day I met the actual you.” 

He zips his backpack and hikes it up on his shoulders, glaring at her. “Sorry you liked me better as your doting fanboy who took all your shit, but the days of me being your little pet are over. I don’t think you’re a bad person, Agatha, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to call out the bad things you’ve done.”

“You don’t know two measly percent of my story.”

“Well, you have to actually tell me your story for me to know it,” he reminds her, unable to keep some bitterness from his voice. He thought they were getting somewhere — it felt like they were getting somewhere with the Nick of it all — but that always seemed to be the way with her. One step forward, 10 steps back. “Have fun with your scary girlfriend,” he says, stomping up the stairs.

Rio’s lounging on their bed — as far away from the stupid fucking kid as possible while still being in the house — when Agatha comes in, wordlessly dropping down onto the mattress next to her. She runs a hand through Agatha's hair — still up in the bun from this morning. “Hi, baby,” she greets.

“Hi.” Agatha rolls over on her side to face her. “I missed you.”

I’ve missed you, she remembers herself saying. I hate you, Agatha had said back. She shakes her head a little, trying to clear the thought from her mind. It’s the first new drop in her freshly poured emotional bucket — the one that filled and filled until Agatha grabbed and forcibly dumped it.

“How are you feeling after what we did?” Agatha asks.

“Mm. Sore as fuck.” Rio breathes out a laugh. “But also…relaxed.” She hums contentedly, a small smirk still on her face. “It’s like you empty me out.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Are you ready to head to the store soon?”

“In a minute,” she says, nails lightly massaging Agatha’s scalp. “How was your second class of the day?”

Agatha pointedly avoids her gaze. “Fine.”

“What did you teach the little abomination?”

“We talked about the Road.”

“You didn’t brawl?” she pushes. “Didn’t magically duel?”

“No, we just talked.” A beat. “He asks too many questions,” she says, the corner of her mouth curving into a small frown.

Rio’s not stupid — she saw the cuts the second she walked in. Rio watches her, after all. She watches her just as closely as Agatha watches everyone else. “About?” she asks, waving a hand and healing all of her wounds.

Agatha’s frown morphs into a light scowl. She sometimes liked to keep her injuries when she felt she deserved them. Rio never felt she did.

“Nicky,” she finally admits.

The hand carding through Agatha’s hair momentarily freezes at the revelation, though Rio’s blood runs hot. “You should’ve kicked him out the minute he started running his mouth. That’s none of his fucking business.”

Agatha sighs. “He kept pushing, my love.”

“Then why do you keep inviting him back? I’ve told you from the beginning that I don’t want him in this house — that I don’t want him around you.”

“Because I don’t want to fail him. He’s so powerful, and he needs someone to teach him, and I—” Agatha sighs, breath heavy with defeat. “Look, can we not discuss this right now?” she practically pleads.

Rio bites the inside of her cheek. “These things are band-aids, Agatha,” she says after a moment. “If you just let me take him now, we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this anymore.”

Agatha doesn’t respond to that. “Just squeeze me tighter, would you?” she requests. “I need to feel like I can’t breathe.”

Against her better judgment, Rio caves. Rio always caves. And she understands, of course — she’s the one who has to be choked to feel anything resembling peace. 

On the bedside table, Agatha’s phone lights up with a text from Billy: Made it home. If you even care.  

Then, a few minutes later, a gentler follow-up: Thank you for letting me borrow the book.

And telling me about your son.

Chapter Text

Jen didn’t particularly want to leave her — let’s face it — mansion to move into Alice’s modest two-bedroom apartment. But Alice wanted to stay for both sentimental reasons (Lorna had lived there for a stint) and practical ones (it was where her cat, Pickles, was most comfortable), and Jen’s desire to live with Alice outweighed her desire to live with the square footage and general luxurious vibe she had grown so accustomed to since Kale Kare took off.

It turns out to be…not as bad as she fears. It turns out to be…pretty nice, actually. She quite likes the cat — who’s actually proven quite useful to Alice on a practical and emotional level as she navigates the lingering anxiety and chronic pain that even the curse’s removal didn’t rid her of — and she loves Alice. She loves her. She loves them. 

That had been a new advancement — Alice exploring her gender and experimenting with pronouns. It almost makes Jen giddy, the more Alice discovers about themself. It gives her more and more things to love.

Yes, quite a lot had changed since getting back from the Road, but some things had not, one such being Jen’s taste. She would suck it up and move into Alice’s place, but she would absolutely be making some interior design adjustments.

She promises to start small, which is why the two of them find themselves in the Westview Supercenter. Jen looks at the shelves stoically, deep in concentration — the same thing she’s been doing for going on five minutes now.

She’s snapped out of her crucial task by the sound of Alice’s voice — the one interruption she’ll accept. “Which one are you thinking now?” 

Jen knows Alice thinks it’s so simple. That she’s thinking too hard about this. But she’s not — the choice is difficult and important.

She huffs. “Well, I don’t know, Alice — none of them smell as good as my probiotic ones that were unfairly recalled. Beach Escape is nice, but the packaging is downright hideous.” She gestures at the gaudy blue wax, a clipart-ass palm tree on the sticker. She moves her hand over to a light pink one with a nice geometric pattern on the label. “Sandalwood is aesthetically pleasing, but the scent itself is pretty basic.” She’d sniffed it three times now. Or was it four…?

“Does it…matter if the scent is basic? I thought we were going for looks? Either way, I liked the peach one.”

Jen wrinkles her nose. Georgia Cobbler. She couldn't believe she was in love with someone who wanted to burn Georgia Cobbler. “We’re ideally going for both. And no offense, babe, but the peach one smells like a 13-year-old’s lip gloss. It’s artificial and unsophisticated.”

“It still smells good,” Alice insists. “But I trust you. We can get whichever one makes you happy.”

“Thank you,” Jen replies, giving them a quick kiss before locking back into candle selection.

A few more minutes pass before Alice speaks up once more. “Jen.”

“What, honey?” she replies, eyes still fixed on the myriad of rainbow in front of her.

“Turn around.” 

“What?” Jen finally pulls her gaze away to see Alice nod down the aisle. “Wh—" She looks over her shoulder, face immediately contorting into a scowl as she sees them: Agatha and Rio. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. How is this the second time my really pointed effort to avoid you has failed me?”

“Well, hello to you, too, Jen. Alice. How are you love birds?” Agatha asks with a too-wide, cat-with-a-canary grin. 

“Hi…you two,” Alice awkwardly replies.

“So glad to see you made it off the Road in one piece,” Jen deadpans, her tone making it clear she’s not all that glad at all. She wants this cursed-ass reunion over as soon as possible, but her curiosity does get the better of her. She squints at Agatha's frosty grey iris. “What the hell happened to your eye?”

Agatha waves her off. “Long story. Basically, I’m sort of undead at this point courtesy of this one.” She nods at Rio, eye catching on the cat. “Who’s this?” 

Alice smiles a little. “His name is Pickles. We’re training him to be my service cat.”

“Is that like a servant?” Rio asks, voice uncharacteristically devoid of snark. It seems to be a genuine question. A fucking weird one, but still.

“Not exactly.” Alice shakes their head, scooping Pickles up and walking him over to Rio. “Basically, I’m trying to be more aware of my mind and body and all of that. Service animals can do a lot of things. Right now, we’re teaching him to signal when I’m getting too anxious and going into a panic attack. He’s also learning ways to help me cope with my trauma.”

“How strange,” Rio notes, staring at the cat. The cat stares back. 

Jen scoffs. “You’re one to talk about strange.”

“You can pet him,” Alice encourages. “He’s friendly.”

Rio reaches a tentative hand out, the cat licking her wrist. “Sandpaper,” Rio muses as she feels Pickles’ tongue. 

Death was vaguely terrifying on the Road, but in the middle of a superstore, she was more like an odd little alien having their first day on Earth. “Have you, like, never pet a cat before?” Jen asks. 

Rio shrugs, fingers lightly running over the cat’s fur. “Been a while.”

Alice smiles a little, seemingly endeared at Pickles and Rio’s newfound friendship. “Do you get along with Agatha’s rabbit?”

Pickles leans into Rio’s touch as she pets him with shocking gentleness. She shrugs again. “Our relationship is amicable.”

Agatha snorts. “You’re so full of shit — we both know you love that rabbit. And you also seem to be enjoying the cat.” She turns to look at Jen, voice taking on that grating, artificially sweet quality. “How’s that going, Jen? Anal retentive gal like you having to live with an animal? That is, if you and your lady are, indeed, living together.”

Jen bristles a bit at ‘lady.’ She’s not sure how Alice felt about that, but she’s even less sure how she’d feel about Jen essentially outing her, so she keeps her mouth shut on that topic. “We are,” she simply confirms, voice curt. “And it’s fine. Not that it’s any of your business. I assume you two are shacking up as well?”

“But of course,” Agatha replies, putting a hand to her chest. “And no need to be so hostile, Jennifer — I was just trying to be friendly. The Road is what brought you two together after all.”

“The Road is also what nearly killed her if you remember correctly,” she says through gritted teeth. 

“Eh.” Agatha removes the hand from her chest in order to wave her off with it. “Seems you’ve gone soft for her, hm?” she baits, enjoying this much more than Jen would like.

“And you’re one to talk about soft,” she retorts. “I heard through the grapevine you’re teaching the teen?” 

“Unfortunately,” Rio mumbles.

“Yes,” Agatha says, raising her chin. “I’m keeping the boy from being a destructive hazard to the world. You’re welcome.” 

“How noble,” Jen replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I suppose you like to be the sole destructive hazard to the world,” she adds, though she takes Alice’s hand and admittedly feels marginally better. Alice had Pickles to calm her down; Jen had Alice.

Alice gives it a reassuring squeeze. “How have you two been? I know things were…rough toward the end, but it seems like you worked it out?”

“I guess. She killed herself,” Rio bluntly informs them. “Right before I was going to find a way to roundaboutly do it.” 

“Oh…my god?” Jen’s eyes widen in concern despite herself. 

“You can relax,” Rio tells her. “I unkilled her, obviously.” 

“I’m not unrelaxed — I’m just…surprised,” she defends. 

“Well, that’s what happened. And now we’re learning how…” Rio glances over at Agatha. “...to be people.”

“That’s right,” Agatha agrees.

“Well, that’s…good. I think,” Alice replies. After a moment, she tilts her head. Babe, is there something off about Agatha besides the whole undead thing? she asks in Jen’s mind.

She does look…particularly haggard, Jen telepathically sends back. 

“You might want to pick up some Kale Kare vitamin supplements while you’re out, Agatha,” Jen tells her. “Maybe some eye cream — reduce that fatigued look.” 

“Are they here?” Rio asks. “Your products?”

“Well…no,” Jen admits. “We’re still working on making this one of our trusted retailers.” 

Rio nods. “Because of the lawsuits.” 

“No,” Jen says defensively. “No. Because brokering a deal takes time, and I want to make sure I get every penny I’m owed. But we have plenty of both at my store.” 

“I’m sure you do.”

Agatha scoffs. “I’m fine. For fuck’s sake, what is going on today? First the kid, and now you…”

“I don’t know — maybe it’s because you look fucking sick,” Jen replies. “Also, Alice said it first. In my head,” she tattles, happily throwing her under the bus.

“Jen.” Alice pouts. “Don’t do that.” 

“I’m undead. What the hell could I possibly be sick with?”

Jen holds up her hands. “Don’t ask me. I’m a midwife — not a doctor for the immortal — so unless you’re pregnant…” She tilts her head. “I mean, could you be pregnant?”

Rio’s the one who feels sick now. Sick to her stomach — sick to the soul she doesn't have. She can’t do this again. She can’t go through it all over. 

Agatha glances over at her. She looks just as shaken as Rio feels, but there’s a clear undercurrent of hope. Rio can sense it. She’s pretty sure she hates it. “I— I don’t know. Love, do you know if it’s possible?”

“You know what happened last time we did it how we did that first night back,” Rio snarks, though her voice is flat, her eyes unblinking and distant. Even Pickles seems a little freaked the fuck out, and he’s trained for shit like this.

Agatha purses her lips. “It wouldn’t be human this time,” she rationalizes. “Which means you wouldn’t have to take it.”

Rio looks at her then. Glares at her, really. “No, Agatha — it’d just be yet another abomination I’d be unleashing into the world. It needs to be terminated.”

She holds up a palm, the other instinctively going to her stomach — to protect the maybe baby. “Just listen to my line of logic. And listen to me when I say that I’m not going anywhere this time. When I say that I love you.” Agatha gives her a look — one that’s maybe pathetic, maybe manipulative, maybe some combination of both. “You love me, don’t you?”

Rio has a hard time believing she’s actually asking that — that it’s an inquiry in good faith. Because of course she does. Because she’s never stopped.

“That is not the issue, Agatha — that has never been the issue with us,” Rio hisses. “My love for you is inevitable and unstoppable, as is my love for anything that is a part of you. Anything that we create together.” 

She wants every part of Agatha, and then she wants more of her — wants to multiply her and love those pieces just as wholly and fiercely. Which means she has to exterminate this thing that’s very likely growing inside her before either of them has a chance to love it — really love it. Because even the mere idea of it, Rio knows, makes Agatha happy. Even the mere idea of it is tempting Rio to stray even further from herself. Her purpose.  

“And that cannot be, Agatha,” Rio says decisively. “It cannot be. I am not supposed to love, and I’m certainly not supposed to love something whose mere existence — from the very beginning — is an enemy of the natural order.” 

Rio turns to Jen. “Can you do abortions, too?” 

Jen wrinkles her brows, caught off guard. “Uh…” 

“Is that a yes, potions bitch?” Rio snaps, the stress resorting her to old, petty nicknames. 

“I…could. Realistically,” Jen admits.

But you do love, Agatha says in Rio’s head. Despite everything, you do love. I see the way you cradle my rabbit like a baby when you think I’m not watching. I notice the way you sit in Nicky’s room when you’re overwhelmed. I hear the way you cry over him in the middle of the night. 

Rio flinches at the way Agatha notices things about her — knows things about her that Rio wishes she didn’t. That she desperately tries to hide. That soft, parental part of herself she buried deep the same day she made Agatha bury Nicky.

The rules of nature are complicated, Agatha continues — gentle but firm. But pushing. But insistent. You, of all people, know that. Don’t you see? We can love this thing. We can have what we’ve always wanted. This child would be something like a demon, yes? And demons exist. You don’t really think they can’t exist, do you? 

I think they shouldn’t exist, Rio replies. Because she doesn’t. She doesn’t think there’s any place in the world — in the balance — for demons and vampires and zombies and ghosts and Billy fucking Maximoff and this thing they potentially made together.

But they do, Rio. They do. And maybe you need to accept that.

Suddenly, they’re not in a Westview superstore but the Salem woods. Suddenly, Agatha isn’t clutching onto a plastic cart but the trunk of a tree, a lemon in her mouth. Suddenly, the year isn’t 2025 but 1750. Please, my love. Please, my love. Please, my— 

“Don’t do this to me, Agatha,” Rio says out loud this time. “Don’t fucking do this to me again.” 

A few people walking by slow down to shoot them odd, prying, disapproving looks. To peer at the car crash that is their lives. 

“Keep moving,” Jen barks, a weird protectiveness seeming to flare up. “Nothing to see here.”

Agatha looks Rio in the eyes, resting a gentle hand on her cheek. She conjures a warm, electric hum of energy — a calming one. A grounding one. “Times are different now. We’re different now.” She projects images into Rio’s mind — of their happy times in Salem, of their happy times in the past month. Pickles, still in Alice’s arms, seems to sense her distress and reaches out a paw to give her a reassuring nudge.

Agatha’s palm on her cheek, the cat’s arm on her elbow, are admittedly comforting. But Rio doesn’t know what the hell to do with comfort. Nobody comforts Death. 

So she turns her face away, shrugs the cat off, and wraps her arms tightly around herself. “We don’t even know that it’s a thing yet,” she says, knowing it’s a lie as soon as the words leave her mouth. She knows. She feels it in her gut.

Agatha untangles Rio’s arms from each other, placing one of her hands on her abdomen. “We can do this. We can do it right this time. You’re a good mother, Rio — they’ll be lucky to have you.”

Rio pulls her hand away as if Agatha’s stomach’s a hot stove. “You’re playing dirty again,” she accuses. Because people did this a lot when their time was up. If they weren’t yelling and cursing or crying and pleading, they were fawning and complimenting to try and gain her favor. To get what they wanted. Agatha herself had done it before, and it sure as hell wasn’t out of the kindness of her heart.

So it couldn’t be comfort. It had to be manipulation. She thinks she sees it now — the puzzle pieces falling into place to make a clear image of Agatha’s intentions. Of her motivations.  

Agatha did want a do-over as she’d said countless times. It’s just that Rio wasn’t the most important part of that equation. Maybe wasn’t important at all. She needed another kid, and Rio had given it to her on day fucking one. The realization cuts — it cuts deeper than Rio's knife ever could. 

“This was your master plan all along, wasn’t it?” Rio spits. “Why you had me do it? You’re using me — aren’t you, Agatha?”

Agatha’s expression morphs into one of pure…hurt. Of shock. Of betrayal. Rio has seen it — seen it on this magnitude — only a handful of other times, one of which being the catalyst for her acquiring the Darkhold. For them not speaking for 270 years.

“If you really want me to get rid of it, I will,” Agatha whispers. “For you, I will.”

Does Rio want that? Does she trust that? Was it some kind of reverse psychology, or was it as honest as it felt? 

Rio is supposed to choose logic over emotion. She has to choose logic over emotion. Even if Agatha’s flooding her with something that feels true — looking at her with something that seems an awful lot like sincerity — she has to cling to evidence. 

It’s all so convenient, isn’t it? It’s all so fucking confusing she can’t bear it. She can either do her job and break Agatha’s heart again, or she can neglect it and risk her own becoming even more compromised. Both have consequences she doesn’t know she can live with. 

She shuts her eyes to avoid Agatha’s gaze — her energy — covering her face with her hands. “Stop,” she whimpers. “Get out of my head. I have to think.” She has to try and make something certain out of all this uncertainty. Try to find black and white in the grey. Try to find the right solution in a sea of wrong.

Agatha takes a deep breath and averts her gaze, holding her phone out to Jen. “Can I have your number for…whatever comes of this?”

'You didn’t save my fucking number?' Jen would almost certainly snark at any other time. But this isn't any other time. “Uh…yeah. Sure.” Jen takes her phone, typing in the digits. “Good luck…?” she awkwardly says.

“Thanks,” Agatha softly replies, voice much more subdued than usual.

Rio’s eyes are still shut and covered when Agatha puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Rio.”

She shrugs her off, uncovering her face to give her a weak glare. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay.” 

“Maybe you two should give each other some space…” Jen tentatively suggests.

Agatha nods a little, opening a portal in the middle of the Westview fucking Supercenter and stepping through.

Rio’s nostrils flare as she looks at Jen. “Don’t ever fucking do that again,” she warns. 

Jen looks at her, genuinely puzzled. “Do what?” 

“Tell her to run away from me.” And with the flick of her wrist, she’s gone, too.

Chapter Text

Agatha is unpredictable to most people, but Rio knows her well enough to know her patterns. She’s shut herself away in the bedroom, no doubt. 

And while Rio wants to be near her — wants that always, no matter what — she doesn’t want to be around her, so she portals herself to the furthest room from it that’s still in the house: the basement. 

Ironic. She’s spent more time in there today than the rest of the time she’s lived in this stupid house combined.

After…who the hell knows how long — minutes or hours or days — she hears a noise. A rumbling under the floorboards, to be more specific, which is why she readies her knife. She knows, more than likely, it’s just the kid doing something idiotic. 

Which is why she makes sure to sharpen the blade first. 

It was kind of perfect, really. She could tell Agatha it was self-defense — that she was protecting the house. She could even mention the safety of the little demon fetus if Agatha got really touchy about it. 

She should also stab the person who actually does crawl out, but her curiosity gets the better of her. 

She drops her hand down to her side as a mop of grey curls pops out from the door to the Road. “What the fuck are you doing here, Grandma?” she growls. “Didn’t I put you to bed?”

Lilia huffs as she steps up into the basement, feebly attempting to pat some of the dirt from her clothes. “Rio,” she curtly greets. “Surprised to see me?”

“Little bit,” she seethingly deadpans.

“Why’s that?”

“Because usually when I take people to the afterlife, they fucking stay there,” she sneers.

“Well, you, of all beings, should know that time is an illusion. That things that seem black-and-white aren’t actually so,” Lilia casually replies. Much too casually for Rio’s liking. Because, unfortunately, she is quickly becoming well-acquainted with that fact, Agatha the common denominator for it all.  

She narrows her eyes. “Is that a dig? Because, if so, I’m happy to take you right back to where you came — and are supposed to be.” She raises the knife again.

Lilia gives her a look as if she’s grown that third nipple in the middle of her forehead. “What the hell is wrong with you, you psycho? It’s not a dig — it’s the truth.” She crosses her arms. “Why do you have such a problem with it?” 

Was everyone fucking stupid? “Because there are rules, you old bat — about life and death. Rules that I have to enforce. Rules that Agatha and evidently her new little coven seem intent on breaking at every turn.”

“Life and death aren’t separate,” Lilia argues. “They are forever interconnected in the fabric of time. And Death is a reflection of humanity and vice versa — how people view you, how you view people. Have you ever asked yourself why no other entities of your caliber enforce these rules to that extent?”

Rio scoffs. “Because there are no other entities of my caliber.”

“There are,” Lilia insists. “Gaea, Mother Earth, the celestials.”

“Don’t insult me by grouping me in with those nobodies.”

Lilia shakes her head. “Your ego is worse than I thought. Though I suppose I should have known whoever was with Agatha Harkness would have to be painfully arrogant.”

“Well, it’s a fact.” Rio raises her chin. “They’re not on my level, and the fact that they don’t enforce the rules as I do is exactly why they’re not. Somebody has to be the bad guy, or everything collapses into chaos. It’s the truth. It might be an ugly one to you, but it is the truth.”

“Chaos isn’t bad.”

“Oh, so you enjoyed your chaotic existence, did you?” Rio challenges. “With all your visions you couldn’t make sense of? That wasn’t bad for you?”

“I’d rather relive that a thousand times over than miss out on the wonderful things life gave me,” Lilia declares, tone laced with pride. “Maybe you should take a page out of my book. For one minute, have you considered your own happiness?”

Rio scowls. “My happiness is irrelevant. And don’t act like you give a shit about it.”

It’s Lilia’s turn to scoff. “I don’t. I care about Agatha’s. As much of a pain in the ass she is, she deserves — for once in her life — for someone to love her and treat her right. You fighting the fact you have feelings is helping nobody in any equation.” She pauses, looking at Rio for what, to her, is an uncomfortably long time. “This is what all of this is about, isn’t it?” she finally asks. “You feeling guilty for experiencing love for her.” 

“Of course, it’s about my love for Agatha,” Rio snaps. “Everything is about my love for Agatha. Are you really so stupid you haven’t figured that out yet? All of your roads lead to me, but all of mine lead to her.”

Lilia throws her hands in the air. “Then get your shit together! It’s okay to be afraid, but you can’t love her in a black-and-white way — that’s not how love works.”

“But it’s how I work! It’s how I have to work, or else everything falls apart!”

“How do you know, hm?” Lilia presses. “How do you know that everything will fall apart? Can’t you be grey for the people you love? Have you tried? Or are you just the real coward?”

Rio’s body goes stiff at that, her demeanor getting almost eerily calm. She squares her shoulders. “Yes, I have tried,” she says, voice impressively even except for the tiniest, nearly imperceptible shake. “I broke the rules to let her have a son for six years, and then she avoided me for the next 270.”

Lilia takes a step forward — somehow both tentative and determined — and places a hand on her temple. “I need you to see what this time will look like.” 

She goes to bat her hand away, but the visions start before she can. A baby’s tiny hand grasping onto her finger. The biggest smile on Agatha’s face she’s ever seen. Soft, sleepy breaths. Loud, beautiful laughs. A montage of something…of something…of something…good? Something she can’t have. Something that will end. Because she never can, and it always does. 

Lilia pulls her hand away, taking a step back.

Rio grits her teeth, tears burning in her eyes. “You have some fucking nerve, you know that?”

“Someone has to. I’m telling you: the circumstances are different this time. You should let yourself have this, Rio — fate is on your side.”

“Fate doesn’t take sides. It’s like death in that way.”

“Then objectively, your future is good with her. With that kid. If fate is objective, then you have to accept that your fate is to be a happy family.”

“I don’t have to accept anything a nutty old lady who crawled out of a hole in a basement tells me. In fact, I think that’s pretty ill-advised.”

“Nutty old woman or not, I know what I saw for you. I know the future I showed you. Now be wise, and don’t waste it,” Lilia says, and with one last look, she disappears up the stairs.

The smaller desk in the basement is noticeably gone — a pile of dust in its place — so Rio sinks into the chair behind Agatha’s. She has half a mind to pull a piece of paper and a pen from it, try and see if writing everything out will help her make sense of it all, but she knows it won’t, and she can’t muster the energy anyway. All she can do is sit there and stare at the hole in the ground, listen to the footsteps above her of the woman who crawled from it. 

How the fuck had that happened? How the fuck had any of this happened? 

Rio doesn’t hear the front door open, but she does hear Lilia ascend the next flight of stairs — to the bedroom to see Agatha, no doubt. Of course. Her and her weird-ass penchant for knowing shit. Her and her weird-ass soft spot for Agatha. Not that she has any room to talk in that department. 

Like the kid, Rio doesn’t want Lilia to come around here anymore. Come around to…her house? Their house? The house? She doesn’t even know what to call it. All of them feel wrong. All of this feels wrong — mostly because it, and the vision Lilia showed her, feels terrifyingly right if Rio’s being honest with herself.  

Rio isn’t often honest with herself.

She’s not sure how long she stays in the basement. Long enough to finally hear the front door open and close. Long enough for all the light to drain out of the sky, cast Westview in darkness.

Rio likes the darkness. Feels safe in the darkness. Maybe that’s her only home after all. 

She doesn’t know what prompts her to get up. Maybe to see if Lilia has poisoned the well against her — if Agatha is packing her bags. She’s not really conscious of doing it, but eventually, she finds herself upstairs.  

And she means to go to her/their/the bedroom, but she finds herself in the doorway of Nicholas’ instead.  

It was so fucking stupid that Agatha had built one for him in this house despite the fact that he had never and would never step foot in it. It was so fucking stupid and so fucking beautiful and it makes Rio ache in ways she can’t comprehend. 

She wants it again so badly. 

She thinks it might kill her. 

She wants it again so badly that she thinks it might kill her.  

To create a being so powerful it makes Death think she might die is irresponsible. Is irresistible. Is irrevocable. Because it’s already happened — Lilia saw it.

She hears the bedroom door open a few moments later. Hears footsteps walk the hall. Hears breathing beside her. 

She waits a beat after she feels Agatha’s presence before glancing over at her. If Jen thought she looked bad at the store, it was nothing compared to now. She’s all scraped up and bruised — from a pain-fueled rampage, no doubt. From a violent fit where she destroyed everything in that bedroom including herself. One that Rio drove her to.

Agatha could piece the bed frame back together with a snap. Could reassemble the lamp with a wave of her hand. Could look at the closet door and put it back on its hinges. But her body…her body was the tell. She could fix everything except herself.

Rio wordlessly lifts her hand, shrinking a bump on Agatha’s head down to nothing and patching the new injuries on her arms before facing forward to stare into the room again. Maybe it was hypocritical considering she was holding onto the cuts on her own back, the bruises between her own legs, but that was a perk of being The Green Witch. She could choose to heal things or not, and she always chose Agatha — no matter how she felt about being chosen.

Agatha takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispers after a moment.

“For what?” Rio asks, still looking into the room — the unhugged teddy bear and unrung alarm clock and First Place - Best Vocals - Children’s Concert Choir plaque nobody had ever won.

“I don’t know,” Agatha admits. She’d never been great at apologies. She hadn’t had a lot of practice with them. “It just felt like the right thing to say. All I know is I love you.”

“Yeah, well…that’s about all I know, too, so at least you’re in good company.”

Rio feels Agatha’s eyes on her when she asks, “What do you want me to do?”

But Rio doesn’t look back. She doesn’t respond right away either, instead walking into the room and tenderly lying back on Nicky’s bed. 

“There’s what I want you to do, and there’s what I need you to do,” she finally says. “They’re not the same thing. They almost never are.”

“Tell me both, then.”

“I need you to get rid of it,” Rio says first — the easier of the two. “I want…" She sighs. "Something I shouldn’t.”

“You want me to keep it,” Agatha interprets.

“No, what I want is for you to be happy,” Rio corrects. “It just so happens the two things are intrinsically linked.” She stares up at the ceiling for a long, long moment. “You were never happier,” she says quietly. “Than when you had him.”

“I loved being a mother. I loved seeing you be a mother, as rare as those glimpses were.” A beat. “Would you be okay if we gave it another shot?”

“I don’t know,” Rio says honestly.

Agatha walks the few steps over to the bed, lying down beside her. “I want to keep it,” she softly admits. “But I want you to be happy, too.”

“I’m only happy when you are. That’s intrinsically linked as well.”

“So you do want to give it another shot?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rio says, sounding almost resigned — defeated. “We’re going to, according to the Miraculously Risen Grandma. Someone should tell the Christians — they’d have a field day that Lilia Calderu, of all people, is evidently the second coming of their Christ.” She finally looks over at Agatha. “You and the stupid fucking kid better not have had anything to do with that."

“I didn’t do shit,” Agatha insists. “I had no idea until she showed up just now. And Billy’s got raw talent, but his technique is still amateur hour. No way he could’ve done it without her coming back with five tits and eight noses.”

“Mm,” Rio grunts. That she believes.

“The kid would be so loved,” Agatha says — thinly masked encouragement to try and get her way, though it has the opposite effect on Rio.

“Too loved. I love you so much that it ruined me, and you loved him so much that it ruined us.”

“But maybe if we did it together this time—”

Rio reaches out to lightly stroke her cheek. “Where did all this optimism come from?”

“It’s not optimism,” Agatha bluntly retorts. “It’s desperation. And you know that I’d usually rather eat fucking glass than admit to that.”

Yes. Yes, Rio did.

She drops her hand, going back to staring at the ceiling.

“I just want to do it right this time,” Agatha presses. “I want them to have both of their moms and never doubt that they’re loved.”

“Nicky never doubted it,” Rio assures her. “And you were more than enough for him on your own most of the time.”

Agatha pauses, pursing her lips. “He really never doubted it?” she asks, an uncharacteristic insecurity simmering under the words.

She wishes Agatha were brave enough to face him — to see for herself. She wishes Agatha could see herself — really and truly see herself — the way Rio did.

“Not a millisecond,” Rio easily confirms.

Agatha clears her throat. “This one won’t either,” she insists. “They won’t ever doubt that either of their parents love them.”

Her subtlety was at the level of a sledgehammer tonight, playing not even dirty but sloppy trying to get Rio to cave. And still, it was beginning to work. It always did.

“Death being a real parent.” Rio breathes out a humorless laugh. “What an absurd fucking thought.”

“I don’t think so,” Agatha argues, voice some strange mix of stubborn and earnest. She rolls on her side now, fully facing Rio. “If you can love me enough to create a life with me, then you can help that life grow.”

“You think fucking you for 10 minutes qualifies me to help you raise a demon baby for eternity?"

“I think the way you love me qualifies you to help me raise a demon baby for eternity. Plus, you’ll have me to help, and as you know, I’m exceptional at everything.”

Rio’s not convinced. She’s not sure she ever will be. But they’re going in circles — just like they always seem to. Around and around and around in a vicious cycle.

“You realize keeping it would mean I can’t be rough with you, you know,” Rio points out. “Keeping it would mean that, for the next nine months, you’d have to be careful.”

“Eh,” Agatha waves her off. “Two months. First trimester will be over by then, and that’s the most crucial window.”

“Well, I’d feel weird about slapping you around during your second and third trimester, too. Though being slapped around by you…” She tilts her head. There’s something kind of hot and twisted about the idea.

The corner of Agatha’s mouth curves into a wicked grin. “I mean, I’m always happy to do that."

“Keeping it also means you’re going to have to spend a lot of time around Jen.”

Agatha’s smile promptly drops, replaced with a scowl. “Definitely a downside.”

“Their cat’s okay, I guess.”

“You can just admit you enjoy the fucking cat. And that you mind Alice the least of all of them.”

“I said the cat is fine,” Rio corrects. “Alice is the least annoying, but that’s really not much of a feat considering her insufferable competition. I cannot believe your entire fucking coven is back in our lives again.”

“Our coven.”

“No, yours — I’m not claiming them. And you owe me big time for making me deal with them.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Agatha easily accuses. “Your annoyance toward them is mild compared to most of humanity.”

“You’re one to talk,” Rio spits back.

“What does that mean?" Agatha asks, insulted at the mere suggestion of her having any kind of soft spot. At having any kind of spot that wasn’t completely rock-hard.

“I might not hate all of them with every fiber of my being, but you actually like them — all of them — at least a little bit in some way.”

“Let’s not go that far. Alice is fine. Lilia is…also fine. Jen and the kid are constantly walking thin fucking ice.”

“Well, you could always let me break it. Let them fall through into freezing waters so they either drown or catch hypothermia and die.”

Agatha shifts so her head is resting on Rio’s chest — on the black heart that beats for her — as she considers. “I like Alice just enough where I think I’d say no to that. She's attached to both of them. Speaking of Alice…”

“Oh, god — you want to have, like, a real conversation about these nobodies. Okay.”

Agatha promptly ignores her complaint. “Did you notice Jen calling Alice ‘they’? And giving me a dirtier-than-usual look when I called her ‘lady’?”

“I guess.” Rio shrugs. “Maybe she’s like that drunk person with the dead dog who fucked Lilia for some bizarre reason.”

“Non-binary?”

Rio blinks. “What?”

“Not cis?”

“I don’t…” Rio trails off, shrugging again. Human verbiage and concepts like that evolved so quickly and were mostly irrelevant to her considering she almost never interacted with people until they were, well…dead. This used to be true for Agatha, too, though she knows the stupid fucking kid had taught her more than she’d ever admit just by his nature of existing as a queer teenager and showing up in her basement every day.

“Basically, cis means someone identifies with their gender at birth,” Agatha explains. “The term itself came out specifically when white supremacy and colonialism took hold because — as you know — before that, people mostly didn't give a fuck. There are a lot of related terms, but cis and trans are the main two.”

“Mm.” Rio nods a little in understanding. “Well, I suppose by human definition, I’m probably the second one,” she reasons. “I’m everything and nothing all at once. I don’t think I fit into any easy categories."

“You are everything," Agatha agrees. "You’re my everything, and only mine. You know that?”

Rio playfully rolls her eyes, the corner of her mouth curving into a small smile despite herself. “I better be.”

“You know that you are. Don’t you, my love?”

Did she? Did she really know that? Or did she just hope it? Want to believe it? 270-year-old wounds didn’t heal so easily.

Rio takes a deep breath, the smile fading. “I better be,” she repeats more quietly.

Agatha places a gentle hand on Rio’s cheek, guiding her head so she’s forced to face her. She takes Rio’s hand in the other. “You are, Rio.” She places Rio’s palm on her chest, letting her feel the cracks down her sternum — proof of her mark. Of her change. Of Rio being her ultimate choice.

Rio sucks in a sharp inhale. “I don’t derive any pleasure from the knowledge that I broke you like that.”

“The grief broke me,” Agatha corrects. “Not you. It was grief that I needed to feel. You broke me open in a way that finally allowed me to — forced me to.”

“Trephination,” she muses, tracing down her abdomen. Sometimes, creating holes released pressure.

“Exactly. And now we have a second chance.”

Rio traces down further, letting her hand rest on Agatha’s stomach. On their…creation? Their demon? Their child?

The corner of Agatha’s mouth twitches into the smallest of smiles. “I hope they look like you.”

“No,” Rio practically whispers. “No, we already had one that looked like me.”

“Why can’t this one, too?”

“Because it’s my turn to be able to look at them and see you. It’s only fair.”

“Mm,” Agatha hums. She’d be lying, Rio knows, if she said she wouldn’t like that, too — seeing herself mirrored back. “Maybe we’ll have a girl this time. You could do her hair.”

“Nicky’s being a boy didn’t stop you from doing his,” Rio points out.

“That’s true,” Agatha admits. “I loved doing his hair — it was so like yours. But if they have mine, you’ll already be set.”

“Yours is perfect.” Rio unravels it from the bun she’d put it in that morning before pinching a few locks between her fingers. “It’s untamable — just like you.”

“I’m glad you like it so much.”

“I like everything about you, Agatha,” she says, rolling the hair between her pointer and thumb, looking at it all the while. “Even the things I shouldn’t. Even the things I wish I didn’t.”

Agatha lightly scoffs. “And those things are?”

“Your stubbornness. Your maternalness. Your undeadness.”

“Those are also the things I love about you.”

Rio rolls her eyes. “That’s cheating. Get your own material.”

“It still stands to reason that I love all those things. Plus your wit, your power, your enjoyment of certain chaos.”

“Well, don’t hold out on me.” Rio gives her hair a prompting little tug. “What else?”

“Your eyes,” Agatha says, looking into them now. “Your beautiful fucking eyes. I could stare into them all day. Your ass. Your tits. Your teeth.”

“My teeth?”

“They’re sharp — just like your nails. And when you speak Spanish. Tu ídioma favorita. Enseñáremos nos niñe la ídioma. We’ll teach our kid.”

“Sí, sí — nuestro hijo no será monolingüe.” She wrinkles her nose at the thought. She bet the stupid fucking Maximoff kid only spoke one. “But I wouldn’t say Spanish is my favorite language.”

Agatha raises a brow. “So what is, then?”

Rio gives her a sly little smirk. “One I only ever use to communicate with you.”

“Physical then?” Agatha deadpans, brow cocking higher. 

Rio shrugs, almost bashful.

Agatha rolls her eyes, though she’s clearly endeared, leaning in to kiss her. “I also enjoy that language,” she admits, voice low and sultry. “Creo que debiéramos explorar eso. I think we should explore that.”

Rio quirks an amused brow of her own. “Okay, Dora — start exploring.”

“I already explored you today. I’m sure you remember — it’s very hard to forget me.”

She scoffs. “No, but it’s very convenient for you to forget about the part where I very much explored you, too. And the fact that you’re the only one who got to cum.”

Agatha leans forward, whispering in her ear. “Then make me fuck you. Just not on Nicky’s bed.”

Rio snaps her fingers, easily transporting them to their own bed. Dramatic since it was only mere feet away? Of course. 

But if there’s one thing Agatha loves, it’s theatricality. 

And if there’s one thing Rio loves, it’s Agatha.

Chapter Text

“So are you going to finish the job?” Rio goads. “Or are you a fucking quitter? Has being part of a coven and carrying a child already made you soft?”

Agatha doesn’t take the bait. “I’m not a quitter — just a brat.” She lifts her chin defiantly. “Really, I think — in my condition — I should be taking care of myself and being taken care of.”

Rio doesn’t take the bait either, rolling her eyes. “You’re very much both. And you very much want to have this both ways, which is not how it works.” She nods toward the nightstand. “Fetch a toy for us to play with from that drawer. I’m not running the risk of magically impregnating you with a second demon.”

“That’s not how that works either, you know.”

“I’m not going to assume I know anything about this — it’s all uncharted territory. Not that I would expect you and your massively overinflated ego would ever do the same.”

Agatha scoffs. “Why do I have to get it?” she asks, fighting every step of the way for the hell of it. For the sheer joy that being as annoying as possible brings her.

“Because the drawer’s on your side of the fucking bed?” Rio deadpans.

“And?”

“Fine. Have it your way.” She climbs over her — making sure her knees and elbows dig into her as she does so — and opens the drawer. She ensures that her limbs are still pressed into Agatha uncomfortably as she takes her time rummaging through it.

Agatha grits her teeth. “Really?”

“You had your chance.” Rio shrugs, unsympathetic. She grabs a vibrator, though the thought of anything between her own legs right now wasn’t particularly enticing — this afternoon’s whip had made a lasting impression there. Still, she’d enjoy using it on Agatha. “That’s for you,” she says, handing it to her. 

She continues sifting through their collection of handcuffs and nipple clamps, of floggers and straps. “My cunt still burns like hellfire, baby,” Rio tells her before looking over her shoulder. “But I do have other…entrances if that might interest you. How adventurous are you feeling?”

Agatha raises a brow. “What are you offering?”

“The chance to explore other openings that are not necessarily my cunt or mouth.” A beat. "Do you want to peg me, Agatha?" Rio bluntly clarifies. "I feel like it's the kind of power trip you might get off on."

Agatha smirks, a gleeful, almost dangerous glint in her eye. “I’d be perfectly up for that.”

She grins, too, setting a strap and a bottle of lube on the nightstand. “We’ll save that for the finale,” she declares, shutting the drawer and grabbing the vibrator before adjusting herself so she’s lying flat on top of Agatha. Straddling her would only stoke the flames.

Agatha lets out a little whine. It doesn’t take much to get her riled up on a normal day, and after the emotional roller coaster of recent events, it takes even less. 

Rio reaches down to unbutton Agatha’s pants, sliding the vibrator underneath them and the band of her underwear. She places it directly onto her clit and turns it up high — almost as high as it will go — right away.

Agatha jolts as if she’d been shocked — a current of pure electricity running through her. “Jesus, Rio.”

“Relax.” She grabs onto her shoulder with her free hand. “Or you’re going to toss me off of you.”

“Sorry,” she mutters with approximately zero genuineness. “Just desperately needed to get fucked. Pregnancy hormones and all that.”

“So what’s your excuse for all the times you’re not pregnant then?” Rio quips.

“I’m a whore,” she retorts.

“Well, that much was obvious.” She goes from grasping her shoulder to squeezing her tit. “These already feel bigger.”

“Do they?”

“Let me make sure.” Rio flicks a wrist, disappearing Agatha’s shirt and bra before moving to explore it with her mouth instead.

“Fuck,” Agatha can’t help but groan again.

Rio turns her hand a bit, changing the angle of the vibrator just a little as her tongue circles her nipple. “Definitely bigger,” she confirms.

“You like that, don’t you?” Agatha breathes out. “That you’re the reason for it? That this is all because of you?” 

Rio would be lying if she disagreed. There was something so…intimate yet primal about it. Agatha’s clearly turned on by it, too — the fact Rio’s put a baby in her.

“And don’t you fucking forget it,” Rio says, turning the intensity on the vibrator up to the next level and sinking her teeth into her breast.

Agatha yelps in response, bucking her hips up. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” she replies, and though her words are dripping with sarcasm, Rio can tell there’s an undercurrent of sincerity there.

She reaches down to press on Agatha’s hip. “If you really felt lucky you wouldn’t be trying to throw me across the room. Do that shit again, and I’ll leave you high and dry.”

“You mean high and wet?” Agatha mumbles.

Rio bites down on her breast once more, drawing blood and taking some pressure off the vibrator.

Agatha winces at the plain and pleasure alike, quickly relenting. “Please,” she pleads. “I’ll be good, Goddess."

"How good?"

"Good enough to have your baby.”

“And good enough to be my baby.” Rio takes pity on her for once, turning the vibrator onto the highest setting and pressing it hard directly onto her clit. “Cum for me.”

Agatha lets out a long moan as she writhes against Rio’s touch, her body unsure whether it wants to lean into the overwhelming sensation or futilely attempt to escape it.

“Have you had enough?” Rio asks.

Agatha continues twitching under the vibrator. “Do I get to make that decision myself?”

“Don’t answer my question with another question,” she says, holding it steady against her clit.

Agatha whimpers in response, trying in vain to get her body to stop trembling. Still, she manages defiance. “Why not?” she snarks. Cheeky little bitch.

“Okay, fine,” Rio says, unsympathetically keeping to her task. “Two questions means you’re going two more rounds whether you want to or not.” The statement evokes a delicious flicker of panic in Agatha’s eyes. 

“Any other inquiries, sweetheart?” Rio continues, keeping her voice infuriatingly even and condescendingly sweet. “Or are you going to keep the queries to Grandma and her little cards from now on?”

“I’m sorry, Goddess,” Agatha says with an adorable yet fake-ass little pout that’s admittedly still a little difficult for Rio not to give in to.

“Glad to hear it. But that’s not going to get you out of what I’ve already decided.”

“I’m good,” Agatha presses, adding little doe eyes to the mix. “I’ll be good.”

Rio dips her head so she’s closer to her face. “Then you’ll take the two more I give you, and you’ll be grateful.”

She turns the speed down — not an edge but a frustration, to be sure. While it may offer momentary relief, it would likely — hopefully — prove a bit torturous.

After a few moments, it’s clear that it has its intended effect. Agatha lets out a string of curses as her grip on the pleasurable feeling slips out of reach. “You’re fucking evil,” she spits.

Rio is so fucking grateful she’s hearing that accusation in the context of sex for a change. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

She plays around with the speeds, the pressure at which she holds it down, the angles — the unpredictability increasing Agatha’s enjoyment and aggravation alike. She does this for a solid half an hour, slowly building her up only to abruptly crash her back down again without release. “Any time now,” Rio mocks after edging her for a fourth time.

Agatha — in no position to form coherent thoughts let alone words — simply bares her teeth, tears of fury and frustration alike burning in her eyes. She’s flushed and feral and downright beautiful — so beautiful that Rio takes mercy on her once more, building her up and giving her a small little nod of permission.

Like clockwork, she falls over the edge once more, flooding Rio’s hand.

“What do you say?” she prompts.

“Thank you, Goddess,” she forces out, a lone tear slipping out along with the words.

“You’re welcome, baby,” she replies with a small smirk. “One more. You can do one more, can’t you?”

Agatha nods as she attempts to catch her breath. Of course, Agatha nods. Her ego would never allow her not to nod.

“Now,” Rio commands. “Do it now.”

“I just came.”

“I don’t care.”

Agatha snarls, pupils so big her eyes are nearly black. “If you want me to cum on the fucking spot, you’re going to have to make me.”

Rio puts the vibrator directly onto her clit again and cranks it up high, using her other hand to plunge into her cunt. After a moment, she curls the fingers buried inside her.

It does the trick, a scream tearing from Agatha’s throat. Her body is somehow slumped from exhaustion and working frantically against Rio’s hand, at fierce odds with itself. Rio has the strange thought that this is how she feels all the time — as if two contradicting sides and wants are at war within her.

Before Agatha’s even ridden out her entire orgasm, Rio pulls her fingers out, pulling the vibrator away, too. The sudden lack of stimulation is just as jarring, she imagines, as the constant excess of it.

Agatha’s body shakes, the movement almost violent in its intensity. She heaves a few breaths, grabbing onto Rio’s shoulders for steadiness despite the fact she’s horizontal. Her cunt is swollen and visibly throbbing.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Rio says. “Have you had enough?”

Agatha, because of her inherently stubborn nature, contemplates for a few moments — or at least pretends to. It’s only when Rio reaches out, pinching her puffed-out pussy, that she nods. “Yes,” she says, caving more quickly than Rio knows she’d like to.

Rio rewards her by lightly stroking one cheek with her hand, leaning up to kiss the other. “Besides being a stupid brat, you did so well for me,” she praises.

“I think I was a pretty smart brat,” she argues, which Rio does not dignify with a response. Instead, she twirls a few pieces of Agatha’s hair around her fingers, looking at her with dark eyes — arousal pooled in them — as she waits for her to turn the tables. Flip the switch.

After a few long moments, Agatha kisses her hard — one hand gently cupping her cheek, the other digging into her shoulder. 

Rio moans into her mouth. She tastes delicious, and the fact she’s taking the reins so easily — the knowledge that she could much more easily now — immediately sinks her into a more submissive space. 

Agatha bites down on Rio’s bottom lip, sending a little sting through it, before pulling back enough to look at her. “Now, if you start being a stupid brat, I’ll stop,” she warns.

Rio pouts, pinching her fingers a small distance apart as if to ask, ‘Just a little bit bratty?’

“No,” she says firmly. “You have to be a good girl tonight.”

Rio’s lip juts out further. “I’m going to start resenting demon baby if it’s going to get in the way of my fun.”

“Demon baby’s got nothing to do with it,” Agatha flippantly replies. “Take the deal or leave it.”

“Fine,” Rio relents, leaning in closer to her ear. “Just don’t be gentle,” she whispers as she somewhat sulkily climbs off her, flopping face-down next to her instead.

Agatha practically guffaws at the absurdity. “Wasn’t planning on it. Now get up on your knees for me,” she orders, grabbing Rio’s hair and giving it a harsh tug. “And do watch.”

Rio pushes herself up, the position making it evident how weak in the knees she already is as she watches Agatha secure the strap about her hips. “I love your magic,” she says, resisting the urge to lick her lips. “But there’s something so sexy about watching you go manual.”

“Is there?” Agatha asks nonchalantly. “Tell me more. Tell me what you love about me and my magic.”

“I love that you have so much of it — and that you never stopped chasing more. I love that you always want to be the best at everything you do. That your body is matched only by your mind. You’re smart, Agatha. So fucking smart.”

“Mm,” Agatha hums, pretending not to be affected by the praise, though Rio knows she’s getting high off it. She tightens the last few straps and lubes it up before glancing at her. “How rough do you want me to be? I could take all of you at once.”

She bites her lip, both in seduction and anticipation. “I want you to give me as much as you think I can handle. And I want you to talk me through it.” 

Agatha raises a brow. “Very well,” she replies, almost with an air of performative boredom, as she positions herself behind Rio. “And you’re right, I want to be the best. And I am.” At that, her hands come to rest on either side of Rio’s hips, her breath hot on the back of her neck.

Rio lets her eyes flutter shut, butterflies fluttering around her stomach as she feels Agatha at her back. “Why do you think I’m with you? I’d never settle for someone subpar. Someone with no ambition. Someone content with mediocrity.”

“Yes, but you’re also with me because I’m astoundingly hot and very good at this.” Agatha pushes the strap in, the movement slow but steady — careful but relentless.

She sucks in a sharp breath as Agatha enters…not completely uncharted territory but a relatively unfamiliar area in comparison to most parts of her body. They’ve done this before but not in a long time, and there’s almost a strange reverence to it. 

“I also love how you’re so modest,” Rio quips — which is not technically bratting but is definitely toeing the line of it.

Agatha pushes in, notably harder and faster than before. “Do you want to correct that sarcasm for me?”

She wasn’t going to correct her tone, but she wasn’t going to dig herself a deeper hole either. She simply lets out a sound that sits somewhere between a wince and a groan, reaching forward to clutch the bed frame for support. Her fingers immediately leave small intents in the wood.

Agatha yanks her backward, causing her to lose her grip — perks of her new supernatural strength. “Answer me.”

Since the bitch wasn’t allowing her to grab in front of her, Rio reaches behind her to desperately cling onto whatever she can grasp — which happens to be Agatha, humiliatingly enough. “Sorry, Madam,” she apologizes through gritted teeth, both because she was stubborn and because — while this felt fucking incredible, being stretched and at her mercy and uniquely vulnerable — it also fucking hurt in a way she wasn’t altogether used to.

Agatha slows her movement, evidently satisfied enough with the contrition. “Good. Now, why don’t you tell your Madam the things you adore about her.”

“I did,” she whines. “And I can’t…talk right now. I can barely…oh fuck…even think straight. I thought you…were gonna talk…ah…about what you’re doing. I love it…when you do that.” A beat as she realizes she’s accidentally complied. “Does that count...Madam Praise Kink?” she half-snarks.

Agatha rolls her eyes, giving her thigh a harsh slap. “You know what I’m doing — fucking your ass and making you lose your mind. Making you take it.”

She pants out an exhale this time. Something about hearing it really drove her wild.

“Do you like this?” Rio breathes out, clutching onto her for dear life.

“Seeing you all needy? Hearing your pathetic little sounds? Oh, absolutely, darling.” She doesn’t have to see Agatha’s face to know the expression on it: a hungry and self-satisfied smirk.

Rio grips onto her harder — fingers digging into her flesh and making Agatha’s already pale flesh even whiter — and opens her mouth, tilting her head back and moaning at the ceiling. Giving her the reaction she likes.

It seems to encourage Agatha to turn it up another notch. One hand darts around Rio’s front to begin playing with her clit.

“Careful,” she hisses. “Professor Harkness did a number on me there.”

“Did she,” Agatha replies, paying her no real mind as she continues fingering her cunt and thrusting into her ass.

She releases some cross behind a sigh and a wince. “Professor Harkness…didn’t even reward me for my trouble.”

“Poor baby,” she sympathizes with faux pity. “You want Madam Harkness to take pity on you, hm? Is that it?”

“Yes,” Rio chokes out. “Please. Please. I’m so— I’m close. So close.”

“Good,” Agatha breathes into her ear, torturing her with a few more seconds of pumping into her from all angles before saying, “Cum whenever you want, baby.” 

Rio mewls, her hips unsure whether to move closer to the hand in front of her or the strap behind — unsure which she’s desperate to get more distance from. This is the only kind of confusion — of grey area — she thoroughly enjoys. It all hurts so good.

“Keep going,” Agatha encourages-slash-demands. “You can do it.”

She sucks in a breath through her teeth before a yell rips through her throat, her entire body clenching — tightening so hard she vibrates. Her eyelids squeeze together so hard she swears she sees stars.

The next few moments are a blur, really, but Rio can sense that Agatha is uncharacteristically gentle as she pulls out, as she helps her come down from her orgasm, as she cleans the both of them up.

“You did so good for me,” she whispers, running a hand through Rio’s tangled hair.

“Mm,” she hums, her body — slick with sweat — going slack against her. “Fuck,” is all she manages to say as she attempts to catch her breath. 

It always felt sort of silly considering she didn’t need oxygen, but this form — this Rio body — much preferred some air in her lungs. She can feel her black heart beating between them in her chest. Beating for Agatha faster than it ever has.

Agatha lies back, guiding Rio down with her, and she immediately turns so her head is resting on Agatha’s chest. “I never would’ve let anyone else near there, you know,” she tells her. She’s never let anyone else near any other part of her either — physically or emotionally — but still, she thinks it will make Agatha feel good to hear anyway. Special.

“Good. Because I’d kill anyone else who went near there,” Agatha says, mostly teasing though there’s a hint of protectiveness beneath it, her territorial and jealous nature flaring. “I love you.”

Rio tilts her head a little, looking up at her through her lashes. “You say that a lot,” she muses. “You didn’t used to.”

Agatha shrugs, maybe a little sheepish at being called out. It didn’t exactly fit with her brand, after all. “I realized that she didn’t ever say it, and I sure as fuck don’t want to have anything in common with her.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Can we please not allude to your cunt-ass mother while we’re naked? It's a little too...Oedipal or something."

Agatha snorts. “I love how you turned a rare moment of me showing softness into referencing an Oedipus complex.”

“Soft or not, that bitch is a total mood killer, and I don’t want her killing this mood.”

“Then I’ll just repeat the original statement, hm? I love you, Rio. I love you.”

She lets her eyes close. Lets her head rise and fall with every breath Agatha takes, the two of them melding into one.

Chapter Text

The days tick down until it’s time for Agatha’s first appointment with Jen. Rio’s not actually confident she will be able to successfully assess Agatha or the baby (sure, she was a midwife, but not for undead psychic vampire things and their demon spawn). Still, as much as Agatha loathes Jen, she’s adamant about it. Rio knows it’s because of Nicky — he was always sick, and she lost him so young, and those wounds never quite healed. 

And for that reason, Rio agrees to tag along despite the fact that she’d much rather spend the day watching Agatha kill people (she hadn’t done that for a while now) or watching movies with Agatha (on the contrary, they did that almost every night — there were a lot of Blu-rays in this house she stole) or doing anything with Agatha and Agatha alone.

Rio walks down the stairs to see her sitting on the couch, leg shaking as she stares blankly at a painting on the wall. She raises a brow, immediately concerned. “Do you feel sick again?”

“Hm?” Agatha glances up, blinking as she registers her words. “No,” she lies — badly, which is unusual for her. Usually, she’s very good at that. “Why?”

Rio rolls her eyes. “I’m not justifying that question with a response.” She bites her lip, her mind traveling back to the fact Agatha’s murder numbers had been low lately. The specific logistics of psychic vampirism were still somewhat a mystery to both of them, but she knew that the energy-sucking was a key part of things. “You need to feed again soon.”

“I just did a couple of days ago—”

“A week and a half.”

“—and I’m still eating three square meals.”

“Which doesn’t fuel you the way human life does.”

Agatha gives her a look. “I’m fine, Rio.”

“Yeah, well, you’re eating for two now. And you can’t actually lie to me about how much you’re consuming, considering I do all your metaphorical dishes.”

“All right,” Agatha relents. “If it’s that goddamn important to you.”

Rio frowns. This wasn’t like her either. Not the hostility — that was very much an Agatha staple — but the attitude toward killing. Toward stealing power. “You used to gorge yourself on people’s life forces.”

“I eat plenty,” Agatha defends.

“You’re dodging my comment.”

“About?”

She huffs, impatient. “Why you’re not hungry anymore. Hungry for the things you used to be hungry for. I mean, you used to look forward to the draining. Take pleasure in it. And now it’s just like it’s…a necessity for you.”

“It is a necessity for me, as you just pointed out. I still enjoy it, but the fact it’s a requirement has made it more work than play.” Agatha crosses her arms. “Where are you going with this?”

“Nowhere. I just…miss the passion you had for it, I guess.”

Agatha softens a little at that. “If we find some shitty man or an abusive parent to kill, I could get a kick out of that.”

Rio examines her nails. “Neither of those things are hard to come by.”

“After we see Jen and Alice, I’ll make a couple of stupid men cry and beg for mercy while I sink my teeth into them, and then you can take me home and make me cry and beg for mercy while you sink your teeth into me, hm?” Agatha proposes. She gets up from the couch, going to stand behind Rio — wrapping her arms around her middle. “Would that make you feel better, baby? Fucking me into oblivion? Because I sure think it’d make me feel better.”

Rio glances back at her. “You’re not still in oblivion from last night?”

Agatha scoffs. “I could ask the same of you.” She rests her chin on Rio’s shoulder. “I think I deserve to kill a man and get screwed like a whore for going to see Jen.”

“Then what do I deserve for going to see Killer Kale?”

“To remind your pregnant girlfriend who she belongs to?” This was all very strange and very, very tempting to Rio — and it gets even more so when Agatha leans closer to her ear to whisper, “I like being your pregnant little girlfriend. A pretty face for you to show off.”

Rio rolls her eyes. “You like being the center of attention,” she corrects.

“True,” Agatha admits with zero shame. “But I also like it when people know I’m yours. That I’m carrying your baby.”

Rio liked that, too — a whole fucking lot — though her feelings on having an abomination child were still…complex at best. “Well, we’re not having another one, so you better enjoy it while you can.”

“You should enjoy it, too. The baby — and the fact that the great Agatha Harkness is submitting so easily to you.”

“Mm,” Rio hums in disagreement, shifting out of Agatha’s grasp. She turns to face her. “What makes Agatha Harkness great is that there’s nothing easy about her. Is that she’s a fighter and a lover. A fighter to her lover.”

“Oh, come on. It’s good to submit on occasion.” Agatha reaches out to tuck a piece of hair behind Rio’s ear. “That doesn’t mean I won’t put up a good fight.”

This is so good and nice. 

This is so odd and wrong. 

This is so…not Agatha. 

“The old you never would have done that,” Rio points out. “Or said that. It’s freaking me out.”

Agatha chuckles, running her hands up Rio’s arms. “The old me didn’t realize how submitting shuts my brain off. It’s sort of nice.”

Rio decidedly does not chuckle, mouth a serious line. “But I like your brain on. Your brain is the first thing I fell in love with. Seriously, what the hell is going on with you? You’ve been acting so weird.”

Agatha arms fall, her mouth doing the same — expression turning into something colder as she smooths the nonexistent wrinkles out of her shirt and goes to sit back down. “Nothing, Rio. Just forget it.”

“It’s not nothing,” Rio argues, going to sit beside her — though she keeps an entire couch cushion between them.

“Well, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m pregnant,” Agatha says through gritted teeth.

Of course, Rio hadn’t forgotten. How could Rio have forgotten? It’s only the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to her. It’s only the biggest rule she’s ever broken. It’s only the thing that made her lose Agatha last time for nearly three centuries.

“And I’m trying not to make the same mistakes I did with him,” Agatha continues. “If that seriously makes you love me less or something, I—”

Rio cuts her off, unable to stomach even allowing her to finish that thought. “Obviously, I don’t love you less — it’s not possible to make me love you less — but I loved how you were to begin with. It’s like this demon baby and fucking coven are sucking all of the you out of you.”

“For fuck’s sake — I’m still me, Rio. I’ve just realized that maybe it’s not the worst thing to have a handful of people who aren’t enemies and that perhaps I could afford to be marginally less callous for the sake of our future child. That’s all.”

Rio folds her arms over her chest — a protective action more than an irritated one — and looks at the ground. “But I even loved your callousness,” she says, voice almost childlike somehow despite the fact she's never been one at all. She broke the rules and saved Agatha so she wouldn’t have to mourn her, but here she is, still having to — forced to grieve a version of her that no longer exists. 

What if Agatha outgrew her? What if Agatha decided she no longer needed Rio? What if Agatha left her again?

“I’ll still be a callous bitch to people who deserve it,” Agatha promises.

“You used to think everyone deserved it. I liked your indiscriminate approach to callous bitchery.”

“The list of people who don’t deserve it is very small,” Agatha assures her as she looks down at her phone, lit up with a text on the coffee table. “Jen’s throwing a fit that it’s five past.” Agatha rolls her eyes, though she pushes herself up. “I’d tell her to get fucked and look up the definition of ‘fashionably late,’ but I do actually want her to check on our baby.”

“What a convenient excuse for you to run away from the conversation,” Rio mumbles, although there’s a bit of weird comfort in it. Dodging hard discussions was an Old Agatha staple — maybe she wasn’t completely evolved after all. She lifts her hand from her lap only slightly, letting it hover in the air — forcing Agatha to grab it and pull her. To work for it.

Agatha grabs her hand and yanks hard — uncomfortably so. “What else is there to say? Yes, I’ve changed a little. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is,” Rio mutters, looking down at their interlocked hands. “You shouldn’t change something that was perfect from the start.”

Agatha sighs, scraping her free hand through her hair. “I love you, Rio. Okay? That has not changed. That will never change.”

Rio briefly glances up at her before averting her gaze down once again. She’s felt that way about Agatha since the moment she met her. And she thought she wanted her to feel the same — to say it back, constant and free. But now that she does and she is, Rio…doesn’t know what to do with it. 

She is darkness. She is Death. And when the bright light of life — when the fucking sun — shines directly onto you, it’s…disorienting. Jarring.

Agatha drops Rio’s hand. “Why won’t you say it back?”

“I said it for 270 years without hearing it back,” she deflects.

She puts her hand on her hips. “So it’s just because you’re bitter? Just because you’re holding a grudge?”

“I’m worried maybe it’ll lose meaning to you after a certain point,” Rio lamely rationalizes, though it was the truth. It will lose meaning, and then I will lose meaning, and then I will lose you. Again. People only got so many breaths, so many heartbeats, so many ‘I love you’s until it was all over.  

“Well, that’s fucking absurd. Do you realize how absurd that sounds?”

Rio looks up at her, a harder look on her face. “I love you, okay? I love you. I love you. I love you. Are you happy? Are you proud that you’ve made me cave to you — again?”

A flicker of deep and undeniable hurt flashes across Agatha’s face before she manages to school it back into its nonchalant expression once more. “We should head to Jen’s.”

The mention of a coven member — the one that’s influenced Agatha a lot more than she seems to think — sets Rio off. “Could you stop thinking about Jen for two fucking seconds and think about what I was trying to do just now? And think about how you reacted? And think about the pattern we always fall into?”

“No, because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Rio.”

“I was trying to tell you something about what I was feeling, but then you pleaded — you pleaded, and you got what you wanted because I cannot say ‘no’ to you.”

Agatha buries the heel of her hands into her eyes. “This is so ridiculous. There has to be some kind of…I don’t know…compromise.” She spits the word as if it tastes bad on her tongue.

“There is no such thing as compromise with us,” Rio retorts. “That’s the whole point of us.”

“Well, we’re going to have to find it because the option to kill each other is no longer on the table,” Agatha snaps. “So I’ll figure it out — like always. Tell me exactly what you need.”

“I don’t know, Agatha! I don’t know. Everything is changing too fast for me to figure it out.”

“Then we’ll talk about it tonight.”

“I’ve been around for millenniums — I’m not sure the equivalent of milliseconds is going to cut it.”

Agatha curls her fingers as if she’s about to strangle someone. Rio, more specifically. “Jesus Christ — you’re being impossible right now.”

“Well, none of this would be happening if you didn’t change.”

“That’s not how I work, Rio. That’s not how anything works.”

“It’s how I work,” Rio argues. “That’s the whole point of me — consistency. The same throughout time. The same end result for everyone.”

“That’s what the action of death is, but who is Rio? Rio is not as immutable.” 

Agatha’s phone rings — Jen, no doubt — cutting into the furious flow of the argument.

Rio purses her lips, her heart beating hard and fast. “Rio’s just a costume I made for you,” she says softly. “Nothing more.” She looks at the phone on the table. “You should answer it.”

Agatha sighs, picking it up off the table and glancing at the screen just long enough to decline it before looking back at her. “She may have started out that way,” she says more gently. “But that’s not true anymore. Rio is a person — Rio is my person — who can do anything.”

Rio swallows hard, the conflict still raging inside her, as Agatha opens a portal. “Let’s go,” she orders.

And, of course, Rio does, following her down another road.

She would always follow any version of her anywhere.

Chapter Text

“Twenty-three minutes late,” Jen furiously greets the instant Agatha and Rio step into the living room. Alice’s living room, more precisely — evidenced by the dark orange walls, eclectic decorations, and generally edgy vibe. Though it’s clear Jen has begun to leave her mark, a few candles strewn about and some pops of pink that don't quite match the rest of the aesthetic. “Twenty-three fucking minutes.” 

“Traffic was bad,” Rio deadpans. 

“You walked through a portal!"

“Oh, would you take the stick out of your ass so we can get on with it?” Agatha asks. 

“I’ve been trying to ‘get on with it’ — you’re the one who’s almost a half an hour late after avoiding every single one of my texts and calls asking where the hell you were,” Jen snaps. “And I didn’t know you were bringing Rio. She’s going to have to wait out here.”

“What?” Agatha asks, annoyed and — from what Rio can sense — a little nervous at the prospect of going through this appointment alone. “Why?”

“Because I haven’t fully unpacked yet, and we’re storing all my boxes in my makeshift office — too cramped for three.” 

“Don’t you mean four, Princess?” Rio asks, examining all the little knick-knacks as she wanders around the living room. 

Jen grits her teeth at the nickname — and the way she’s having no problem making herself at home. “Excuse me?” 

“Four.” Rio looks over her shoulder. “There will be three with the demon baby and all.” 

Jen runs a hand over her face. “I am already so thoroughly exhausted by you two.”

“Then tell me where to go so we can get this over with,” Agatha retorts.

“Back to my makeshift office — like I just said.” She nods down the hall. “This way.” 

Rio is left to her own devices for less than a minute before Alice makes her way into the living room, her cat Pickles trailing behind. “Oh, hey,” she greets, a giant bag of pretzels in her hand.

Rio glances back at her. “Are you here to babysit me?”

“No, I’m here because I live here…” Alice pops a few pretzels into her mouth. “Why? Do you need to be babysat?” 

She shrugs before going back to surveying their shelves — almost as if she’s casing the joint.

Alice slumps down onto the couch. “You can sit down, you know. I doubt anything I have will be super interesting to you.”

“People on eBay might be interested.”

Alice rolls their eyes. “Rio, come on — don’t fucking steal our shit.” 

“Looks like all of Jen’s good stuff is still packed up anyway,” she says before taking a seat on the adjacent chair.

“So how’s it going?” Alice asks, thoughtfully nibbling on another pretzel. “The whole…thing with you two.”

Rio shrugs.

“A baby is a big adjustment,” she presses.

“Thanks for the insight, someone who doesn’t have kids.”

Alice sighs. “I’m trying to be friendly, Rio.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you two to be happy.”

The comment floods Rio with a…strange…feeling. Nobody ever cared if she was happy, besides (occasionally) Agatha. She tries to push it aside as Alice continues.

“You're right — I don't have kids — but I’m well aware it’s a big change. I also know you don’t do well with that.”

She crosses her arms. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m observant. Also, like knows like. I don’t like change either — even if it’s for the better. It’s hard.”

Rio cocks a brow. “I don’t think we’re much alike apart from maybe an affinity for heavy eyeliner and the color black.”

“We’re more similar than you think.”

There’s a beat before Rio holds her hand out, gesturing at her to elaborate. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”

Pickles must sense some kind of distress in Alice, as he climbs into their lap. “We both wish the world wouldn’t move so fast,” she finally says. “We both wish we could have done things differently in the past. Those thoughts are hard to drown out.” 

Rio bites the inside of her cheek. Once again, Alice has hit a nerve.

“I’m not playing any games here, by the way,” Alice continues. “I’m trying to find common ground. Maybe be your friend.”

Rio taps her arm, staring at the candle on the coffee table — the one Alice and Jen were shopping for at the store, she’s pretty sure. She’s observant, too, as much as she likes to put on a front of aloofness. Maybe Alice is right that their similarities went beyond aesthetic. 

“I don’t really do friends,” Rio admits. "I don't...really know how."

“I think you could. And I think I’d like it if you were.”

Alice falls silent for a moment, staring at the ground before she speaks again. “I saw you once, you know. It was right after my mom died — when I tried to die, too.”

Rio glances up at that, narrowing her eyes a little as she tries to recall it. “I don’t think I remember.” Then, a mumbled but relatively sincere, “Sorry — nothing personal; I’ve just met hundreds of millions of people since then.”

“I get it.” Alice shrugs. “I was…lucky enough to have everything flushed out of my system, but I did see you briefly. I wasn’t afraid.”

Rio shifts a little, unsure how to feel about that proclamation. “So was it like a pill thing or a bleach thing?” she asks. She’s not trying to be insensitive — it was just…her job. Small talk to her, really.

Alice picks at a hangnail for a long, long beat. “Pill,” they reply. “Took my mother’s oxy and tried to drown myself in the tub.” 

“Somebody found you?”

“Mhm.” Alice nods, still staring at their lap. “Mom’s best friend. Said she had a weird feeling.”

“So you’ve spent a lot of time around Lilia types, then.”

“You could say that.” Alice breathes out the ghost of a laugh. 

There’s another stretch of silence — one that’s surprisingly not altogether uncomfortable. “It was a hotel fire, right?”

“Yup. When I was 15.”

Rio slowly nods. She didn’t do emotions — not unless they were her own or Agatha's, and even then, she tried her best to avoid them. Only faced them by force. She wasn’t even supposed to have them, after all. “I…can imagine that could likely be difficult for a human,” she says, her best attempt at validation. She doesn’t know why she cares so much about Alice’s emotions, but in this moment, she realizes that she does.

“It fucking sucked,” Alice agrees. “I don’t wish I were dead now — now I have Jen and Pickles and the coven — but back then I did. And even now, sometimes, when things are bad, I still do wonder what it would be like. That’s part of the reason I don’t fear death. I think about it a lot.”

“Huh.” Rio continues her slow nod. “Well, I guess I should be flattered.”

“Point is, I don’t think you’re scary. Souls are immortal — I can handle this body dying.”

Rio bites the inside of her cheek once more. “Some people wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“I know, but I grew up around death. I made my peace with it early.”

“No, not—” Rio shakes her head. “What I mean is that some people wouldn’t be able to handle your body dying. Jen and the stupid fucking kid would have an aneurysm — they practically did in that cabin when it looked like you might bite the dust.” There’s a beat as she busies herself with killing and blooming a flower in a small pot next to the candle. “Plus, your mother doesn’t want to see you this soon.”

Alice’s breath catches, eyes widening as she looks at her. “Did you…did you talk to her?” they whisper. “When you took her?”

Rio shrugs. “She did most of the talking. I’m not really in the habit of chit-chatting with my clients.”

“What did she say?”

She glances at her for a moment before killing and blooming the plant once more. She wasn’t really in the habit of discussing her interactions with her clients with their loved ones either. “Usually, people beg me not to take them. Beg me to give them more time.”

“She did that?” Alice asks, voice cracking.

“No.” Kill. Bloom. Kill. Bloom. “She begged me not to take you. Begged me to give you as much time as possible.” She can’t help but flinch as a memory pops into her head and echoes there. Please, my love. Please, my love. Please, my love.

Alice takes a shaky breath, marginally more at peace. “She was such a good mom. The best, really, despite everything.”

Rio blinks, at a loss. After a moment, she reaches forward and shoves the box of tissues across the coffee table so they’re within Alice’s reach.

Alice gives her a small smile. “Thanks.” She plucks one from the box, dabbing at her eyes before blowing her nose with it. “It’s hard to talk about her.”

She nods in something close to understanding. She didn't like to utter Nick's name either. Kill. Bloom. Kill. Bloom. “What’s Gulliver?”

Alice tilts her head, absentmindedly petting Pickles. “What do you mean?” 

“Is it your father’s last name?”

“Oh. Technically, yeah. Haven’t spoken to him in years. He and my mom had a nasty divorce. It’s mostly there so I can forget ‘Wu.’”

“I don’t understand."

Alice sighs. “For a while, my mom’s last name was too painful to think about. People would always figure out I was related to her, which gets…old. Not to mention reopens old wounds. I’d rather have the last name of a deadbeat than deal with that every day.”

“Why not just pick a different one altogether?” That’s what Rio did, after all. Picked her own name.

“Well, I’m not sure what I’d pick, to be honest. Maybe if Jen and I ever—” They cut themselves off from finishing the thought.

Rio nods in solemn understanding. “Kale is a stupid last name.”

Alice laughs despite themself. “No, it’s not that. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to marry her, but I’m cursed. She’d never want to marry me.”

“You’re not cursed anymore. You faced it — killed it — in the recording studio.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel cursed. Practically everyone in my family has either met a tragic, untimely demise or been a piece of shit.”

“I really don’t think that’s going to stop Jen from sulking until you give her a ring.”

Alice looks at her, shifting in her seat — suddenly a different brand of vulnerable than when speaking about her mother. “You really think she loves me that much?”

“I mean, she moved into this place. I bet she’s already making wedding vision boards on her fucking Pinterest or whatever.”

Alice scoffs. “My place is cozy,” she defends before narrowing her eyes, turning the tables. “Are you going to propose to Agatha?”

Rio wrinkles her nose. “Marriage is a pedestrian concept. We’re already powerfully and eternally bonded by our natures.”

“I mean, sure, but there’s also the symbolism of it. I think you might enjoy that. Agatha, too.”

“We’ll see,” Rio replies, noncommittal. Kill. Bloom.

Alice continues staring at her, gaze friendly but unflinching. “Is that something that scares you?”

“No.” She scowls. “I just think it’s trivial.” 

Marriage would not keep Agatha from changing further. Marriage would not keep Agatha from running away again. Marriage would not keep Agatha from hating Rio once more.

“Your face tells me that’s not all there is to it,” Alice pushes. Rio immediately schools her expression into one of nonchalance. “I obviously don’t know your entire history with her, but I do know the Road changed her. Is that what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Rio,” Alice deadpans. “You’re using our plant as a stress ball. I’m not asking to, like…make fun of you or try and get some kind of ammunition.”

Rio balls her hands into fists, crossing them over her chest once more. “Because you know that I could beat your ass and am the last face you’re going to see before being shoved into the afterlife.”

“No,” Alice says slowly. “I’m asking because — despite my better judgment — I do actually give a shit about you.”

She squints a little, suspicious. “I’m not part of your little coven.”

“That doesn’t particularly matter to me.”

“Then why do I particularly matter to you? Especially after I took your mother? And practically everyone in your life?”

Alice runs a hand through their hair with a sigh. “Because, even if you don’t consider yourself part of the coven, we still did whatever the hell that was together. And because I know you were just doing your job. Sure, it hurts — the fact that the things and the people I love are inevitably going to disappear — but I’m not mad at you for existing. I don’t hate you for doing what you had to do.”

Everyone was always mad at her. Everyone always fucking hated her. And she’d mostly become immune to that (with the exception of Agatha), but she apparently hadn’t become immune to the opposite. Of how…intense the absence of fury could be. 

I feel lighter, Alice had said. She gets it. She gets it now. 

Rio feels her throat get sore, her eyes begin to burn. Bloom. Kill. Bloom. Kill. “It doesn’t disappear,” is all she says — voice softer than she’s sure Alice has ever heard it. Softer than almost anyone has.

Alice tilts her head again, voice equally soft when they speak. “What doesn’t?”

“You—” Rio blinks as the cat makes himself comfortable on her legs, no doubt sensing her own heightened emotional state. “Okay…” she mumbles, but she makes no move to push him off.

She looks back up at Alice. “You said that what you love disappears. It doesn’t. It just changes form. I can’t explain it to you — it’s not a concept a human could wrap their head around — but it’s true. It goes somewhere you can’t access in this state or on this plane, but it doesn’t disappear.”

Alice slowly nods. “I’m glad.”

There’s another beat of silence before Alice speaks again.

“I’ve pieced together certain things about what happened between you and Agatha,” they start. “The fact that your first kid was a big part of it.”

Rio clears her throat. She’s about to kill, bloom, kill, bloom, but her hand — for some reason — goes to stroke the cat instead, her touch shockingly gentle. 

“Does he still know he’s loved in the afterlife?” Alice asks.

Rio’s quiet for a beat, trying to figure out how to word it in a way Alice could understand. Pickles fills the silence, starting to purr at her touch. “You were a police officer, right?”

“Unfortunately.”

“So you must know one-way mirrors in interrogation rooms.”

“Yeah…” They furrow their brows. “But I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the analogy.”

“I…” She sighs. Why the fuck is she saying this? She hasn’t even told Agatha this. “I’m not allowed to talk to him.” She pets the cat. Pet. Pet. Pet, pet, pet. “Any of them. Once I lead them to their final destination, that’s it. I’m not allowed to interact.” 

The soreness in her throat intensifies. The burn in her eyes worsens. “But I can look. I always look when I have to go there. Sometimes, even when I don’t, I’ll travel there just to peek in.” She wishes she hadn’t pushed the tissues away. “Nobody is that content unless they know they’re loved.”

As if reading her mind, Alice nudges the box back toward her. “Thanks for sharing that. Seriously. I know that must have been hard. But I’m glad your son knows he’s loved. That tells me you and Agatha will be great moms to this new kid.”

Rio sniffles, plucking a Kleenex from the box.

“I think something that changed Agatha is realizing how much she loves you,” Alice continues. “In fact, I’m pretty confident that’s true. I watched it happen.”

Rio glares at them as she wipes her eyes. “You didn’t watch anything — you’ve known her for two seconds. And even if you did, that’s not the compliment you think it is. Not to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want her to change,” she snaps. “I certainly don’t want to be the one responsible for changing her. How is that so fucking hard for everyone to understand?”

Alice nods a little, impressively patient even at Rio’s outburst. They reply after a moment, “I understand that change is scary, but I don’t understand this staunch resistance. I mean, why is it so bad that she’s evolving a little?”

Rio throws her head back in frustration. “Because I fell in love with her the old way. I understood her the old way. She was like me the old way. And we didn't survive the last change."

“But circumstances are different now, right?” Alice gently presses. “You have time to understand her now. And she wouldn’t be having a kid with you or dragging you here if she weren’t determined to stick with you, Rio.”

“She left me the day she had the last kid,” Rio points out, mouth a thin, stubborn line.

Alice purses their lips. “I’m so sorry,” she says, and Rio’s pretty sure that — for some reason — she actually means it. “Have you talked to her about how you’re feeling?”

“She promises it’s not going to happen again,” Rio mumbles. “But Agatha lies all the time.”

“How do you know she’s lying about this?”

Rio shoots them a look. “Just because I know she lies doesn’t mean I always know when she’s lying. She’s very good at it.”

“Yes, she is,” Alice relents. “But you’re also very good at seeing through her bullshit. If you’re that anxious about it, maybe she’d agree to a truth spell, so you wouldn’t have any doubts.”

“Even so, we’ve established that she’s changing,” she says bitterly. “Her truth today might not be her truth tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. Her truth, her feelings, her…” she trails off. Pet. Kill. Bloom. Pet. Kill. Bloom.

“I don’t think change works like that, especially with things like this.” Alice goes back to picking at their hangnail, taking a deep breath. “There was a time when my mom had some major issues with a guy in her band. My father,” they hesitantly admit. “She wasn’t the same person I had grown up with up to that point. Then, once she finally got out of that relationship, she had to find herself again. One thing that didn’t change, though — not before or during or after — was how much she loved me. You said love never really disappears, and even if Agatha is changing, I don’t think her love for you will.”

“Love isn’t always enough,” Rio counters. “You know that.” Alice’s love wasn’t enough to save Lorna and Agatha’s love wasn’t enough to save Nicky and Rio’s love wasn’t enough to save their relationship all those years ago.

“I do know that.” Alice nods. “But I also know that she’s changing in a way that’s softer — more…compassionate. If anything, I believe that’ll make things easier for you two.”

She shakes her head. “You really don’t get it. We worked because she was hard and mean.”

“Until you fell apart,” Alice points out — a true but painful fact. One that makes Rio scowl. “Have you given this a real chance? It’s clear how she feels about you, even with her bitchy exterior. There’s real love there, Rio.”

“Until there’s not. Until I do something to piss her off again. Until she changes so much that she outgrows me, doesn’t need me, doesn’t want me.”

“Not if it’s real love — the kind that endures. If I had to take a wild guess, it was her selfishness and cruelty that drove her away from you the first time.”

“But it’s also what drove her to me. It’s the core of who we are — the key to us.”

“It might have driven her to you, but maybe what makes her stay this time is her transformation,” Alice argues. “She didn’t stay when she was like that. Maybe this is what she needs. Maybe it’s what you both do. Opposite energies have been known to complement each other.”

It was difficult to argue with that logic, which is deeply frustrating.

Alice continues, “I know you’re freaked out by all of this, and that’s okay. My mom used to tell me to take it one step at a time. It sounds stupid, but it’s helped me.”

“You’re right.” Rio reaches into Alice’s pretzel bag, helping herself. “It does sound stupid.”

“But it works.”

“For you. And for all of our alikeness, I am not you.”

“Have you actually tried it?”

“Have you actually tried not getting on my nerves?” she petulantly retorts.

Alice doesn’t take the bait. “That’s my M.O. Maybe you should give it a shot.”

She shoots her a glare. “Agatha’s the one here to see the doctor, not me. So maybe you should stop playing unlicensed therapist.”

Alice raises her palms. “Just trying to give you some friendly advice — you don’t have to take it. I understand your fears, and they make a lot of sense, but you haven’t even given this new version of her a fair chance.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Rio points out. “I haven’t run. I haven’t hidden. That’s her M.O.”

“I mean emotionally give her a chance. It’s not going to get better unless you do.”

“She has endless chances with me,” Rio defensively snaps. “But I’m still figuring out how to even have emotions. It’s a very new development for me that only started a few centuries ago.”

“They’re hard,” Alice sympathizes. “Which I’m sure you’re learning.” A beat. “It’s also wild that you were down so bad for Agatha that you learned feelings. Very lesbian of you.”

Rio scowls at her. “Oh, shut up.”

“No, it’s like…your version of U-Hauling. The fact you knocked her up? Also very lesbian.”

She rolls her eyes. “That is quite literally the opposite of lesbian. The percentage of lesbians who knock people up is not particularly high at all.”

“Yeah, but it’s the energy of it.”

“Hm.” She quirks a brow but doesn’t argue. How the hell would she know? She’s only been with Agatha — and whoever they decided they wanted to play with, of course. She’s…inexperienced in this department. In most human departments. Plus, this language and these concepts were all new, relatively speaking.

“I…have a question for you,” Alice tentatively asks after a moment.

“Okay. I might have an answer if you’re lucky.”

Alice snorts a little despite themself, maybe more out of nerves than anything. “So, you seem a little confused by human things sometimes, which makes sense, but what are your feelings on gender?”

“I don’t care if you’re not a girl, if that’s what you’re asking,” Rio bluntly replies. “I’m not really a girl either.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. I’m more curious to hear your…thoughts on it, I guess. Your interpretation. So many people are so…rigid about it.”

Rio shrugs. “Beats me. Everyone’s skeleton is more or less the same — the way you people treat each other based on the stuff covering it is very bizarre. But then again, humans have always had massive egos and an odd propensity for making shit up and pretending it’s a fact.”

“Yeah, humans are weird,” Alice agrees. “Identity can be helpful, though, as a way to build community.”

“Hm,” she hums again. Rio has never had community. Rio has never particularly craved community, either — has only ever had a taste for Agatha.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says honestly. “I’m not doubting you, but it’s not relatable to me. And I haven’t heard this perspective before. Agatha has always been a lone wolf — distrusted everyone."

Alice nods. “Makes sense. It’s not like I’ve belonged to a ton of communities, but it’s nice to be a part of a group — even when it’s a coven of dykey witches, a teenage boy, and Death herself.”

She recoils, expression souring. “Don’t lump me in with you all — especially the boy. I don’t know why I have to keep saying this.”

“Chill.” Alice puts their hands up. “I’m not saying you are or aren’t part of the coven — just that you’re in community with us.”

“What’s the difference?“

“It just means you’re around — that you interact with us and know things about us. Being in community isn’t synonymous with any particular group. Like, I wasn’t a part of my mom’s band, but I was in community with it when I went on tour with her.”

Rio wrinkles her nose. “So you don’t really have a choice about it.”

“I mean, you could try to avoid everyone, though isolation tends to make everything worse in my experience.”

“I did it for several thousand years, and it was okay,” she says earnestly.

“It was okay because you didn’t know what company was like,” Alice counters. “And I’m not saying you have to jump up and down and throw a party — just…give it a chance, you know?”

Rio looks at them intently, attempting to read them. It was…strangely difficult. “What is it that you want from me?”

Alice furrows her brows. “What do you mean? I don’t want anything.”

“Of course you do. Everybody wants something.” Even Agatha wanted something — a child, one she could keep forever.

“I want to be your friend. That’s it.”

“Why?"

“I don’t know...because I need a friend? And it seems like you could use one, too? I’m always lonely as hell, and people think I’m weird and cursed. You may think I’m annoying, but at least you don’t think I’m that.”

“So you’re essentially proposing we do charity work for each other,” Rio slowly rationalizes.

“If that’s how you want to think of it, sure.”

Rio contemplates. “Okay. We can try it, I guess — if you really want to.”

“Cool. I’m down for that.” Alice nods, mouth curving into a tiny smile as they grab another handful of pretzels. “Good to have a friend.” 

Chapter Text

Alice may already be using the ‘f’ word with Rio, but Jen’s certainly not about to do the same with Agatha. She’s definitely not that. She’s sort of her ex, she supposed, though they were never serious — never did anything but hate fuck, really. Agatha is her…patient now, she guesses. Never in a million years would she have predicted that.

Had Rio checked the temperature in hell lately?

Agatha breaks the silence a few paces into their walk down the hall. “Um, thanks,” she mumbles. “For doing this.”

Gratitude from Agatha Harkness? Even the reluctant kind? Oh, the underworld had undoubtedly frozen over.

“I’m not doing it for you,” Jen replies, which is slightly mean but fully true. Newly gracious or not, Agatha had ruined a century of her fucking life. She was allowed to be bitter — and wary of her honesty, for that matter. She was an excellent liar. “Your demon baby is going to have a hard enough time with you two as parents — it doesn’t need set up for failure in the birthing department, too.” 

Jen opens the door to her office, which does, indeed, contain a massive wall of boxes. But there’s also some old-fashioned medical equipment, various herbs and potions in small jars lined on a shelf, and a small cot, which Agatha lowers herself onto. “Plus, it’s not like you can just go to a regular hospital," Jen continues. "And even if you could, the healthcare system’s fucked. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, which is exactly what you are.”

“How sweet, already worrying about how much I’m going to screw them up. Itching to be godmother, hm? Vying for the title of Auntie Jen?”

Jen scoffs. “I’m much more concerned for the world at large. The last thing it needs is a mini either one of you running around.”

Agatha glares. “Say one more thing about my kid, and that syringe is going into your throat.”

“It's a dig at you. I’m concerned about the lessons and morals — or lack thereof — that you’re going to instill in them and the consequences that could have on society. That’s all.”

“Now, now — you know that inane little riddle about assumptions, do you not?”

“The audacity of you to call me an ass just because I’m not declaring you mother of the year after you bound me for a hundred fucking years is really something, Agatha,” Jen says, grabbing a wooden stethoscope and kneeling beside her.

Agatha sucks her teeth, the slightest bit of guilt seeming to wash over her. “For fuck’s sake, Jen — I said I didn’t know it was you. And I know it’s not enough for you, but I did apologize. Though that really has nothing to do with my parenting abilities.”

“On the contrary, I think it has absolutely everything to do with your parenting abilities,” Jen retorts. “And it’s almost worse that you didn’t know it was me. At least then, there’d be a reason. Some kind of vendetta. But no, it was random. You were willing to do that shit to anybody without a care. Without a second thought.” 

She flicks Agatha’s shirt up, holding the stethoscope to her stomach and putting her ear to it.  “And you’re right — it’s not enough. It’s not even fucking close. You had your powers stolen for three years. Multiply what you’d need to get over that by 33, and then maybe you’ll get close to understanding how I feel.”

Agatha sighs, propping herself up onto her elbows. “I was broke, and he bribed me with a small fortune.”

“So you took his blood money instead of just committing petty theft? Interesting place to draw the line.”

“I did commit petty theft.” Agatha scowls, looking down at her feet. “He caught me and threatened to kill me, gun to my head.”

“You’re quick on your feet. You’re telling me — with all that magic — you couldn’t have found a way to kill him first?”

Agatha sniffs. “Well, not when he had a line of witches brainwashed and ready to do his bidding.”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t love being surrounded by witches who want to kill you. You get off on that. Pissing them off and then taking their power — that’s your whole game.”

Agatha looks up at her with a snarl. “You weren’t there, Jen. I did what I had to do.”

“By taking his sick deal and going on your merry way.”

“I never said it was noble.”

Jen shakes her head. “You’re so full of shit. You could’ve accomplished all of that without binding anyone. The amount of power you had back then? The fucking Darkhold?”

“I am not denying it was fucked.” Agatha rolls her eyes. “I’m quite self-aware, contrary to popular belief.”

“Again, that…doesn’t actually make it better. You knew you were a piece of shit and then willingly continued to be a piece of shit. You can’t even say you didn’t know better.” She sets the stethoscope aside, grabbing a blood pressure cuff. “Arm,” she demands.

Agatha holds her arm out, and a long beat of cold silence envelops them. “I’m trying to clean some of that shit up now, you know,” Agatha finally says, gaze firmly averted. “Be better.”

Jen quirks a brow as she secures the cuff around her arm. “I really hope you mean that, if only for Billy’s sake.”

“I mean it for this one’s,” she says, free hand going to lay on her still fairly flat stomach. “I’m not making the same mistake I…” She trails off.

Jen raises her brow again, higher this time.

Agatha shakes her head, coming out of her daze a moment later. She sees Jen looking at her. “What?” she snaps.

“‘What?’ yourself — you didn’t finish your sentence.” She squeezes the cuff.

Agatha grits her teeth (potentially sharper now? Jen still isn't totally clear how this whole vampire thing works) so hard Jen thinks they might break. “Made with Nick,” she finishes in a growl.

Jen drops her brow, drops her gaze to look at the cuff as she squeezes it tighter, tighter, tighter.

“Tell me,” Agatha says, changing the subject. “How are things going with your other, much better half?”

“They’re good. Everything about Alice is good,” Jen replies, mouth twitching. It was a natural instinct, smiling when saying their name.

“Aww,” Agatha obnoxiously coos. “Is she the one?”

She’s well aware that Agatha’s making fun of her, but still she shrugs, suddenly strangely bashful. “I like her a lot.”

“Wow.” Agatha smirks. “Jennifer Kale is never this shy.”

She scowls. “Slipping back into your little nosy neighbor persona, are you?”

She holds up a defensive palm. “Just curious. I haven’t seen you this hot and bothered since the first time you saw my tits.”

“Oh, fuck off, Agatha,” Jen snarls, though it’s half-hearted — still flustered as she thinks of Alice. She bites the inside of her cheek as she jots her blood pressure — a little high — down on a notepad. 

“They’ve been great,” Jen admits after a long moment. “But it’s still been…an adjustment.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

And Agatha is maybe-slash-probably just going to humiliate her for whatever she says. And it’s maybe-slash-probably pathetic that she’s actually seriously considering confiding in her, of all people, knowing that, but she finds herself doing it anyway.

Jen gestures around at where they are. “It’s not exactly the accommodations I’ve grown accustomed to.” She unvelcros the cuff. “But their mom lived here, and it’s where they’re comfortable, so it’s not like I can ask them to move into mine. And it’s not just the apartment.”

Agatha rolls her eyes. “I’m not going to sit here and beg for more, Kale. So either tell me or don’t.”

Jen sighs. “Alice has been through a lot.” She takes probably a little too much pleasure in shoving a needle into Agatha’s vein. She didn’t really want to talk about this. “And she deserves someone who knows how to help her. Be there for her in the ways she needs.”

In what’s perhaps the nicest thing she’s ever said to her, Agatha replies, “I don’t think you’re doomed to be totally incompetent at that.”

She shakes her head as she draws some blood. It’s a very…not blood color, but she presumes that’s probably from the undeadness. “A few decades ago, I would have agreed with you. Now? I’m not so sure.”

“Why? Did Alice say something?”

“No, but…” She briefly glances from the syringe to Agatha’s face. She’s not sure why the hell she’s even considering opening up to her further considering their history, but it’s not like she could talk to Alice about it, and it’s not like she had a huge circle of friends these days. Again, Agatha certainly wasn’t that — nor could she ever be — but she was…here. Convenient. 

Jen drops her gaze back to the vial. “Being bound really fucked with me. Changed me. I stopped…trying to do anything good with my life and started selling overpriced bullshit instead.”

“Okay, but what does shitty lotion have to do with Alice?”

Alice was the reason she was trying to turn shit around. Why she’d agreed to help Agatha in the first place. She was attempting to return to her roots — to the real, important work, as Agatha had said. She hates Agatha for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one — and the one buried deepest — is that Agatha is a mirror reflecting the parts of herself she hates the most. 

Jen had gotten bitter after losing her power. Had turned into a liar, a scammer, a greedy bitch. Had turned into everything she hated. Had turned into someone her mother, her grandmother, all of her ancestors would be disappointed in. Ashamed of.

“It has everything to do with Alice,” Jen says, her voice cracking — taking her by surprise.

It apparently takes Agatha by surprise, too. She blinks and forgets to make a cruel comment. “Connect the dots for me.”

“I mean that she deserves better than me, all right?” Jen yanks the needle from Agatha’s arm and presses a cotton ball onto the tiny drop of discolored blood.

Agatha grimaces. “First of all, fucking ow. Second of all, for some bizarre reason I’ll never understand, Alice seems pretty happy with you.”

“First of all, don’t be a baby. Second of all…” Jen shakes her head. “They’re holding back with me. I can’t explain exactly how or why, but they are. I can feel it.”

“So they don’t…trust you enough to tell you things,” Agatha reasons, voice shockingly devoid of smugness.

“It’s not that — they’ve been open about…stuff.” Their gender stuff. And their anxiety. The temperature they like to keep the apartment (68) and whether they like to sleep with the door open or shut (open).

“Then what is it?“

Jen huffs in frustration. “I don’t know, Agatha — I don’t know. I told you, I can’t put it into words. It just…feels like there’s distance there, and I can’t figure out how to close it, and it breaks my fucking heart,” she blurts.

“Maybe you should tell them that," Agatha suggests. "Last time I checked, they weren’t blessed with Billy’s mind-reading skills.”

“I’ve tried — they brush it off. I don’t even know if they’re conscious they’re doing it.” She shakes her head, pulling Agatha’s shirt back up and squirting a bit of gel on it. “They just have all this…this trauma and pain, and I don’t know how to fix it. It feels…helpless.” She rubs the gel in. “Like being bound all over again. Worse, maybe,” she says softly.

She holds the ultrasound wand to Agatha’s stomach, slowly moves it around. “She still thinks there’s something wrong with her,” Jen muses. “And I don’t know how to convince her that there’s nothing wrong with her — that she’s perfect. That I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Agatha breathes out a humorless laugh. “Join the club.”

Jen looks up at her, raising a prompting brow.

“Rio,” is all Agatha says by way of explanation. “Deeply fucking insecure. Seems we’re in more similar situations than I thought.”

“Well…good luck with yours,” Jen says, tone not totally insincere.

“Thanks,” Agatha replies. Jen thinks she actually means it, but fuck, this is weird. The fact they’re willingly in a room together? Not snapping at each other? Not inflicting bodily harm on one another? Super fucking weird. 

After a few moments of silence, Agatha clears her throat. “Are they okay? The baby, I mean — or what’s developed of them.”

“They seem to be,” she says, removing the wand and wiping the jelly from her stomach. “Some of your vitals are…odd, but I’m attributing the abnormalities to the fact you're a zombie-slash-vampire thing who got knocked up by Death."

“What was the blood for?”

“Most was just for a standard prenatal panel. The rest…” Jen says, deftly concocting a potion consisting of nightshade, mandrake root, and cobwebs before stirring a few drops of the blood in. She waves a rose quartz and carnelian over the mixture and mutters an incantation before bottling some of it and handing the small container to Agatha. “Old family recipe,” Jen explains. “It’s supposed to be good for the baby. Put a drop under your tongue twice a day.” She gives her the crystals. “Alice charged them with a protection spell. You and Rio can put them under your pillow when you sleep. If you sleep. I guess I shouldn’t assume…”

“We do.” Agatha nods, examining both between her fingers. Her eyes are clouded with a strange combination of suspicion and gratefulness. “It’s not a necessary thing anymore, but it makes our lives easier.”

“Okay,” Jen says, suddenly awkward. “Well…cool, I guess.”

“Do you—” Agatha clears her throat, gaze still fixated on the objects. “Do you think the baby will be all right?”

She shrugs, beginning to clean up. “I still need to run a few tests, and you’ll need to come back every few weeks so I can check that the fetus is developing safely, but everything looks okay at the moment.”

“I mean once they’re here. With Rio and me raising them. We’re…well, we’re…damaged. In certain ways.”

Jen glances at her before continuing to put everything back in order — wipe down her equipment. “Lorna was damaged, too, and Alice still puts her on a fucking pedestal — never stops talking about how amazing of a mother she was.”

“Not me-level damaged,” she mutters.

“Oh my god, Agatha — you really have such a dramatic, fucked-up perception of yourself.” Jen rolls her eyes. “One minute, you think you’re the best ever; the next minute, you think you’re the worst. Well, guess what? Neither is fucking true. You have above-average intelligence and ambition and below-average maturity and self-control. That’s it. You’re not some doomed Greek mythology character.”

Agatha glares at her, feeling betrayed, maybe, by the lack of sympathy the first time she dared to show an ounce of vulnerability. “My life would dictate otherwise, you know. My mother attempted to murder me multiple times, starting at age five, then turned my entire community against me. I fell in love with Death. We had a son, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to save him. His loss drove a rift between me and the one person who’s ever really seen me, and I was numbing it all with dark magic when I lost my power and was forced to live under a humiliating fucking spell for three years.”

“And that all sucks!” Jen retorts. “It really does! But you’re not the only one with a tragic backstory. Lilia was confused for most of her life. Billy died and got reincarnated when he was barely a teenager. Alice’s family has been fucked for centuries, and as proud as I am to be a Black woman, that’s its own kind of generational curse in this country. I’m not saying that because it’s some kind of competition of who has it worse — I’m saying that because everyone has their shit and that maybe if you could stop being obnoxiously self-absorbed and believing the whole world is out of get you for two seconds, you’d realize you’re not alone. In any of it.”

Agatha’s head dips back a bit in surprise, and she grows very, very quiet. After a long beat, she purses her lips and narrows her eyes. “So who do I have in my corner, hm? Besides Rio? I appreciate what you’re doing for the baby, but I know for a fact you don’t like me — feeling’s extremely mutual, BTW — and I’m not sure where Alice stands.”

“Well, I don’t like almost anybody, and Alice likes almost everybody, so the two of us together even out into something neutral towards you. And neutral is still near your corner if not all the way in it.” She scoffs. “And Billy and Lilia are, like, completely up your ass, so…”

Agatha blinks. “Billy is?”

“Oh god, Agatha — I mean it’s fucked that you call him your pet, but he is loyal to you like one. He rides for you to a degree that’s borderline cultish.”

“Hm.” Agatha raises her chin. This revelation clearly touches her more deeply than she’s willing to admit, and she attempts to take the nonchalant route. “Well, I am making sure his ass stays out of trouble.”

Jen raises a brow. “Feel like you’re more likely to stir up trouble than help anyone stay out of it. Your dynamic with him is so strange — always has been.”

Agatha shrugs and shifts the slightest bit in her seat, her attachment to him far from her favorite subject. “Are we done here?”

Jen lets it go. “Yeah, we're done.”

Pickles bounds off of Rio’s lap to greet Jen the moment the two of them step back into the living room. Agatha raises a brow at the fact that Rio is mere inches away from Alice, looking at something on their phone screen.

“So?” Rio asks once she realizes she and Alice are no longer alone, ignoring the look Agatha gives her apart from self-consciously crossing her arms over her chest. “How’s the demon?”

“Fine. Healthy,” Agatha flippantly replies. “And you can call them a kid.”

“I prefer demon," Rio deadpans.

Agatha snorts, walking over to the couch in order to drape herself on Rio’s lap. “Is that what you’ll call them when they’re born?”

“Maybe,” she petulantly mumbles, pretending not to enjoy Agatha’s embrace to keep up appearances. The truth is, she’s relieved that their tiff before they came here seems to be all but forgotten.

Agatha plants a featherlight kiss on the bridge of her nose. “You want to walk or portal home?”

“Portal,” Rio decides. “You should conserve energy.”

“All right, then you make it.” Agatha orders, playfully nipping at the tip of it now. “And carry me through.”

“Nauseating,” Jen groans. “I don’t care how you leave — please just do it immediately.”

Rio rolls her eyes, standing and throwing Agatha over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes in one fell swoop. “Te veo,” she says, opening a circle of green light.

“I don’t know what that means,” Jen replies. 

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Rio retorts. She glances at Alice for a brief moment, giving her a small nod, before stepping through to her and Agatha's own living room.

Alice smiles to herself once the two are out of sight. “It means, ‘I’ll see you.’”

Chapter Text

Agatha smirks as Rio steps back into the living room. “I see you and Alice got on.”

She tosses Agatha onto the couch and climbs on top of her, careful not to put too much weight directly on her stomach. “They’re okay,” she says simply.

“From ‘slightly irritating’ to ‘okay.’ What progress,” Agatha teases before pursing her lips, uncharacteristically hesitant. “How are you feeling about our conversation?” 

Rio fiddles with the brooch around Agatha’s neck, sliding it back and forth on the chain. “What conversation are you referring to?” she asks. She’s not sure why she does. She knows damn well what Agatha means, and it’s only really buying her a few seconds of time considering she was never one to drop things or beat around the bush. Not when she wanted to discuss them, at least. When she didn’t, she was an elite avoider.

“The one we had right before I got examined by Princess and you became besties with one of the two goth nepo babies of the group,” Agatha says. “I really think you should try seeing it as a good thing — for you, for the baby—”

“The demon,” Rio mutters.

“The demon-slash-baby.” Agatha rolls her eyes. “Stop deflecting.”

“I’m not deflecting. It’s only been an hour. I don’t suddenly feel differently about everything in one hour.”

Agatha sighs. “What's scaring you so much?”

“I told you. What always scares me: losing you.” Rio glides the pendant back and forth. Back and forth. “And don’t tell me I’m not going to — because I have before. Which means it could happen again.”

“Well, I’m determined not to let that happen. And you know what happens when I’m determined to do something, don’t you?”

“Mm,” she simply hums in response, dropping the brooch and letting it fall against Agatha's chest. She uses her now free hand to gently close Agatha’s eyes and leans forward to whisper in her ear, “Hold out your hand.”

Agatha raises a brow but does as Rio requests. Rio responds by reaching into her pocket and pulling out a bunch of random shit — loose change, batteries from a remote, a tiny animal figurine, a small glass pipe — before dropping it into her palm.

Agatha opens her eyes, brow arching higher.

“I stole them for you,” Rio says, beginning to kiss her neck to hide a smirk.

Agatha chuckles, tilting her head back so Rio has more access. “From their apartment?”

She nods against her, lips still against her throat.

The chuckle turns into more of a cackle. “You’re fucking ridiculous,” she tells her, voice laced with admiration.

“Love you too,” Rio murmurs against her skin — because Agatha had begged her to before they left. She nestles into her, breathing her in. “You smell weird,” she notes. “Like Kale Kare.”

“Jen,” Agatha says, tone turning disdainful. “She did, unfortunately, have to be near me.” Rio feels her body relax underneath her, her breaths getting slower and deeper. “I like it when you lie on me. The pressure — it’s nice.”

“I like lying on you. But I also like it when you smell like you.” Rio pouts.

“Oh, don’t whine. I’ll be back to normal soon.” Agatha lets her eyes close, the two allowing themselves to be lulled into a period of silence — comfortable and light for a change. 

“Rio,” Agatha mumbles after a few moments.

“Hm?”

“I always loved the name you picked for yourself. I loved knowing that you picked it because of me.”

“Oh?” Rio asks. “How do you figure?” She’s right, of course, but she’d like to hear Agatha say it.

“You first saw me by the river,” Agatha easily replies.

Rio shifts so she can look at her, chin resting on Agatha’s chest. She reaches out to slowly trace a finger down her face — from the space between her brows down the slightly bumped bridge of her nose all the way to the top of her lip. “And Vidal means ‘full of life,’” Rio adds. “Which felt very inappropriate in a way I thought might amuse you.”

The corner of Agatha’s mouth curves into a smirk. “It does indeed. Though we did create life together, so maybe it’s not totally inappropriate after all.”

Rio’s expression does the opposite of Agatha’s — lips turning into a small frown. “Why do you always have to do that? Bring up the demon? We only have a few months left without it.”

Agatha scoffs. “Well, forgive me for looking forward to the fact I’ll actually be able to hold your hand while I’m giving birth this time instead of chomping down on a fucking lemon. Forgive me for already loving a child that’s half yours."

Rio chews on her lip. “I just don’t like to think about it the way you do. It’s going to be more change. And another thing I have to share you with.”

“Having a kid doesn’t make me less yours. That’s absurd. And a little pathetic,” she says, not particularly harsh for once despite the bluntness of the words.

“It still doesn’t mean I always want to talk about it,” she mutters. “I’m selfish, and you’re more than just a mom.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” Agatha baits.

“A slut,” Rio responds. “My little undead whore.” She places a few more kisses on her neck.

Agatha whimpers, tilting her chin up once more. “Do you want to whore me out right now?”

“More than anything.” She reaches down to dip her hand into Agatha’s waistband, starting to lazily finger her. “But I have to go to work.”

“Evil bitch,” Agatha hisses.

“The souls aren’t going to usher themselves,” Rio says, though she makes no move to get off — no move to remove her hand from her pants.

 “Fuck the souls — I need you.”

“I can tell. You’re soaked.”

“Goddess,” Agatha whines, trying a different approach.

“Motivate me to clock in late,” Rio encourages. There was something charming about using human verbiage to refer to her job, about roleplaying normal, boring people.

Agatha grinds up against her. “You can rail me however you wish. Whichever hole you want, even,” she offers.

Rio scoffs. “I can do that anyway. Try again.”

Agatha grits her teeth. “I’ll take as much as you want. And say my pleases and thank yous.”

“I don’t know. I really should get going,” she says as she continues to circle her clit — to torture her, really. It was a powerful thing, being able to reduce her to a desperate, pleading thing under her hand. And she always liked making her get creative.

“Rio,” she growls.

She responds by finally touching her clit, pinching it hard between her fingers. “That’s not my fucking name right now.”

Agatha sees it as more of an opening than a warning — an opportunity rather than a deterrent. “Then put me in my place, Rio,” she pokes, continuing to desperately buck her hips against her fingers. 

“You think you’re so important, don’t you?” Rio asks, her voice the dangerous kind of calm. She reaches her free hand up to her neck, slowly beginning to squeeze. “Always asking me to blow off my job to attend to your petty little desires.” There was more than a little truth to that, of course, and there’s a strange feeling that twists in her gut as soon as it leaves her mouth. Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this — blurring these lines. Rio always got in trouble when she mixed work and play.

Agatha starts sucking in little gasps on instinct, though Rio knows she loves it. The increasing lack of air is intoxicating, even for a body that doesn't need it. “You desire me just as much. Even more,” Agatha accuses, her pussy sloppily smashing against Rio’s hand as it looks for any sort of friction.

She digs her nails into Agatha’s throat and pulls her other hand away a little, making her work harder for it. Because she’s right, of course. She’s hit the nail right on the fucking head.

Rio doesn’t say anything back. She’s worried it will be the wrong thing again. Remind her that she was doing the wrong thing again. Breaking the rules by allowing Agatha, allowing Billy, allowing the demon.

Suddenly, Agatha stops grinding against her, putting her hand on top of Rio’s. “Something’s wrong, my love.”

She immediately lets go of her throat, pulling her hand from her pants. It wasn’t her safe word, but the tone itself might as well have been. “What?” she asks, her own voice sounding far away somehow.

“You’re not all the way here,” Agatha says, concern etched into her face. “I can see it in your eyes.”

She huffs at the realization Agatha had put a halt to this on her behalf. “I’m here. I’m fine. You seriously want me to stop?”

“I mean, no, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Well, I’m great,” she insists, shoving her hand back down Agatha's pants.

Agatha purses her lips, clearly still uncertain — having an internal debate with herself about whether to be responsible or selfish. Give into her desires. “Then take me," she finally says, the latter winning out. A piece of the old Agatha, which is weirdly comforting to Rio in some small way. 

Rio starts pumping her fingers into her hard, using her other hand to steady herself against the arm of the couch this time. Agatha’s right — she’s not all there, and that’s exactly how she wants it right now. Being in her brain was too loud, too much. At least she can still make Agatha feel good. At least one of them can feel good.

“Fuck,” Agatha hisses, arching into her.

“Tell me,” she says as she continues to roughly slide in and out of her. She’s trying to force herself into that fake box again — of being dull humans with dull jobs and dull routines. She loathed mundanity, but part of her envied it, too. Mundane people didn’t have to grapple with what she did. “How you’re going to greet me when I get home.”

Agatha whimpers, sweat beading on her brow. “On my knees."

“Go on,” she encourages, trying to cling onto the rare scrap of power she did have over Agatha, if only at this moment. Of the only kind of control in this fucking world she was still in. “What else, baby?”

“Naked,” she adds. “So you can see me, Goddess. Wet and ready for you.”

“Because you need me.” 

“Mm,” Agatha mewls, nodding vehemently.

“Then have me,” Rio permits. “Whenever you’re ready.” Agatha’s timeline always took priority, after all, and Rio has accidentally opened a box in her brain — one filled with paranoia that spread down to her tight chest, to the fingers in Agatha’s cunt, to her toes that were clenching in tension, curling in pleasure. And she couldn’t close it. The only way out was through.

Agatha responds by falling over the edge with a loud scream, her body pulsing as an orgasm wracks her body.

After Agatha’s come down enough, Rio pulls her hand away and licks her fingers clean. “I do actually have to go to work now,” she says, still lying on top of her. Because she does and also because maybe working — maybe doing the right thing — will help her feel like she’s balanced the scales a bit. Make up for some of the wrong she’d inadvertently reminded herself she was complicit in.

“Okay,” Agatha pants out, still catching her breath. “I’ll see you when you get back.” She leans up to give her cheek a kiss.

Rio responds by stroking Agatha’s own. “Promise?”

Agatha nods. “Promise.

And Rio maybe, probably, definitely, stupidly believes her. Because Rio goes to work.

But when she gets home, Agatha is not on her knees. Not wet. Not ready.

Agatha is not anything.  

Agatha is not there at all. 

Chapter Text

Rio knew it. She fucking knew it. That it would happen again. That Agatha would break her promise. That she’d leave her once more. Leave her for good. 

She had the demon. She had what she really wanted. It was inevitable. It was all fucking inevitable. 

Rio could not find her when she had the Darkhold, and she thought it was the worst thing to ever happen to her. But Rio cannot find her now that she’s undead, and she knows that this is worse. The Darkhold was temporary, but her state was forever.  

If Rio would have known she’d never see her again, she would have looked at her longer. She had it all memorized — every freckle and wrinkle — but she would have memorized it all again. And again and again. In fact, she wouldn’t have let her out of her sight at all. 

But again, Rio was stupid. And careless. And so maybe she deserved it.

For someone so slow to adapt to change, Rio sure feels her emotions fast. She’s already cycled through all the stages of grief (well, except ‘acceptance’ — Rio would never be able to accept existence without Agatha) and back again when she hears her voice say, “Rio?” Or thinks she does. Maybe it’s another trick. Her mind being cruel once again, though still not more cruel than—

“Agatha?” she replies through desperately gritted teeth, pausing the tantrum she’s currently throwing in the basement — books knocked off shelves and glass jars broken on the floor.

“Mi cariña,” Agatha greets, walking down the last few steps. She sets Scratchy down with a frown as she takes in Rio’s state. “Estoy aquí,” she soothes, going to wrap her arms around her.

The physical proof that Agatha was actually there — that she wasn’t a hallucination or figment of Rio’s hopeful imagination — is somewhat reassuring, although the relief is short-lived. She puts her palms on Agatha’s chest, shoving her away. “You left,” she accuses, voice strangled and terrified and furious. She pushes her shoulders, though it's weak — especially with Agatha's new strength. She doesn't even budge. “You left me. Again.” Another push anyway. “You were gone.” Another. “Where the hell were you? Where did you go?”

Agatha blinks. “I was just out back,” she says slowly. “I needed some air.”

“I checked the yard — I’m not an idiot,” Rio snaps.

“I was behind the tree line,” Agatha explains. “I wanted to go for a walk without risking Mrs. Hart trying to converse. The way that woman yaps and yaps about her fucking azaleas…”

“You ran there,” she insists — because that’s the narrative she told herself. Convinced herself of. Dreaded most in this world. “And hid from me.”

“Rio, I didn’t.” Agatha sighs. “Te prometo. I just wanted to clear my head, and nature tends to help with that.”

She scoffs. “It calms you down even though it’s my domain?”

“Did you ever consider that’s precisely why it calms me down?” Agatha huffs, her pride keeping her from wanting to admit that. That she couldn’t get her shit together all on her own. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Rio clenches her jaw, crossing her arms across her chest. “Yeah, well, you did. It felt like before. When you used that book so I couldn’t find you. The moment I couldn’t feel your soul moving around the earth anymore—” She cuts herself off. She doesn’t even have the words. It was the worst fucking moment of her millenniums-long existence.

“Rio.” Agatha softens. “I’m here. I know you have trouble believing it sometimes, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“But how can I believe that? How can I trust you?“

Agatha shrugs. “You just do. You just have to.”

She scowls. “I’d fucking microchip you if I didn’t think you’d rip it out of your arm.”

Agatha rubs her temples, clearly attempting to hold onto her rapidly thinning patience. “I’m not leaving you.”

Rio presses her tongue against the inside of her cheek, thinking of Alice’s suggestion of doing a truth spell. That wouldn’t work for the aforementioned reason of Agatha’s truth being a potentially fluctuating thing, but a ritual wasn’t the worst idea. “Then I need you to prove it.”

“How?”

“Blood oath.”

Agatha hesitates for a moment. A blood oath was no small deal, the consequences of breaking one ranging from immensely painful to downright excruciating. “Now?”

Rio cocks a brow. “Oh, I’m sorry — do you have something more important to do?”

“No,” Agatha asserts with stubborn quickness. “Let’s do it.” With a violent flick of her hand, she splits her palm open.

“Dramatic as always, I see,” Rio quips while making a tiny slash on her own finger.

Agatha resists the urge to roll her eyes. “What do you want me to promise?”

“That you’ll never leave me,” Rio states, her gaze intense and unflinching. “That you’ll never hate me. That you’ll never hide.”

Pity replaces the irritation in Agatha’s eyes. “I swear it, my love,” she whispers.

Rio grabs Agatha’s hand, pressing her finger to her palm. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as she lets the blood intermingle — as they become part of each other forever. More so than they already are, that is. Rio holds it there longer than necessary. Lets more of her blood drain out, lets more of Agatha’s flow in. “Nusquam exeunt. Numquam odit. Nusquam celabis,” she recites. “Per sanguinem hoc iusiurandum numquam rumpatur.”

She thought it would make her feel better, but all it does is fill her with…disgust. She hates herself for doing this. She hates Agatha for making her feel like she has to do this. She hates…this. 

Some of Rio’s fury burns off, revealing something charred and raw underneath. She opens her eyes, surprised that a few tears fall from them as she does, before uncurling Agatha’s fingers and bringing her hand to her mouth. She licks the palm better just as she did that first day they reunited, but it doesn’t feel the same. Nothing feels the same these days.

“Do you feel more secure now?” Agatha asks as Rio drops her arm.

She nods. Then shakes her head. Then shrugs before a little sob escapes her throat.

“Mi corazón,” Agatha mutters, going to wrap her arms around her once more. “What’s wrong?” 

She gives Agatha another shove — a weak one; one she doesn’t mean — so at least she could tell herself she tried. Agatha responds by tightening her grip, holding her closer. “No, Rio. Talk to me.”

She halfheartedly struggles for a few moments before giving up, collapsing against Agatha and burying her face into her chest. “You…make me feel…so crazy," she cries.

Agatha rewards the small act of submission by gently rubbing her back. “Not the first time I’ve been told that.”

“But I mean you make me feel insane. Paranoid and insecure and irrational. You break me, Agatha. My brain, my heart, my whole being. You’re the only one who can break me, and then you’re the only one who can piece me back together.”

Agatha purses her lips, quiet for a long, long moment. “I think…I think that’s just what love feels like,” she finally tells her, voice laced with rare vulnerability. “That’s how loving you makes me feel, too.”

“But I’m not supposed to love,” she whines. “I’m not even supposed to be able to feel. But you made me. You fucked me all up.” She whimpers, desperately balling Agatha’s shirt in her fists until the blood drains from her knuckles. “I don’t like it when I don’t know where you are. When I can’t find you. The magic doesn’t work the same since you became undead. Not in terms of me being able to locate you.”

“The spell we just did should help with that,” Agatha points out, fingers going to play with the bottom of her hair. “You could also, you know, step into this century and get a fucking phone.”

Rio scowls at the idea. “I don’t want a phone. I don’t want anyone else to be able to call me. Or text me. Or reach me at all. Only you.”

Agatha sighs, her shallow reservoir of patience rapidly depleting once more. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s the most practical solution.”

“Alice is going to want my number,” she points out. “Which means Jen will have my number. And she already calls and texts you too much for my liking.”

“Maybe we can work on crafting a long-distance messaging spell then,” Agatha suggests. “It’s been a while since I wrote my own. Pain in the ass to build one from scratch, but they always turn out exceptional.” She sniffs, prideful.

“When the hell are you going to have time to research how to do that between growing one demon and teaching another?”

“I will make time for you, Rio. I have a bottomless well of it now, don’t I?” 

“Yes,” Rio mumbles in agreement.

“Every day after I teach Billy, you can come down here, and we can work on it together.”

Rio lets go of her shirt and pulls back slightly — for the first time since she sunk into her embrace — in order to look at her, unable to resist biting her bottom lip at the proposal. “You want to be my professor again? Have me assist you with your research?”

“Mhm.” She traces a nail down Rio’s arm. “I’m sure the very idea of that makes you all hot and bothered, doesn’t it, Ms. Vidal?”

She nods, lust pooling in her eyes. “You can go from teaching one brat to another — except one type is a lot more fun to deal with.”

“And indeed you will be dealt with,” Agatha promises, pulling her close once more.

Rio nestles into her, not even pretending to fight this time. She breathes her in, disappointed by the results. “You still don’t smell like you.”

“Well, then what do you say we take a bath? Have the rest of the night to ourselves.”

Agatha is the one who had visitors now. If it were up to Rio, they’d have every night to themselves. Every morning and afternoon, too.

But Rio resists the urge to say that. Resists the urge to stir the pot once more. She had taken a blood oath, and she hadn’t left. She was still here, right where Rio could see her.

Chapter Text

The next couple of weeks go by about as well as they can. Rio begrudgingly gets a phone and even texts Alice a few times, a fact she hides from Agatha. She doesn’t want to give her that kind of annoying ammunition.

They work on their messaging spell every afternoon, the sessions often leading to Agatha bent over the desk getting her brains fucked out or Rio bent over her lap getting her ass smacked red. They are both, in Rio’s opinion, excellent extracurriculars.

Something has seemed…off with Agatha, though. And not just in the whole ‘occasionally trying to be a somewhat decent person’ way that freaked Rio out a few weeks ago. This was more in a ‘can’t seem to relax no matter how hard Rio rails her’ sense. In the ‘won’t eat,’ ‘sleeps constantly,’ ‘seems more zoned out than Lilia during one of her episodes on the Road’ sense.

Rio’s concerns are validated and intensified when a freshly showered Agatha walks down the stairs one morning. She’s wearing only a tank top under her untied floral robe, and when one side briefly slides off her shoulder, Rio spots a glimpse of some of the scars on her back. Normally, Agatha glamours those — they seemed, to her, to have less dignity than the ones inflicted by the Daughters of Liberty due to their source — but she’s been refraining unless the two of them go out, worried how the magic might affect the baby. Being extra careful. She slumps down onto the couch, wrapping her arms around Rio.

Rio frowns but obliges her. She loves having Agatha in her arms, of course — and Agatha had sporadic, reluctant bouts of neediness — but Rio was usually the clingy one. It’s unusual. And unusual always scares her. “What’s the matter, baby?”

“Nothing,” she mutters, burying her face into Rio and breathing her in. Rio’s sure she smells earthy, maybe with a tinge of florals, as she’d spent part of the morning in the greenhouse. She plans to spend most of the afternoon there, too. Her head tends to be...quieter there.

Agatha, on the other hand, smells vaguely of something sour. Vomit, most likely. Again. Fucking demon baby. Rio sighs and runs a hand through Agatha’s hair, her fingers getting caught in the mess of damp, tangled curls. “You’re a good liar, Agatha, but you’re not doing a very good job of it right now.”

“I’m fine,” she insists.

“I repeat: you’re a good liar, Agatha, but you’re not doing a very good job of it right now.”

Agatha groans. “You have the grip of a fucking fish right now. It’s pathetic. Squeeze me tighter — hard enough that a human’s ribs would break.”

Rio is, as always, tempted to oblige — anything to get her closer — but she holds firm, deciding to use it as a bargaining chip. Agatha was the one who taught her about leverage. “Tell me what’s going on first."

Agatha sighs, but after a second, she relents. “I hate looking like this,” she admits, keeping her voice as even and emotionless as possible. “I hate looking in the mirror and seeing what she did. Looking in the mirror and hearing her remind me I’m not good enough for you, for the baby, for Billy.”

“You are good enough for us,” Rio assures her, her grip tightening as requested. “And you’re too good for the stupid fucking kid. And your body is beautiful — every inch of it.”

Agatha scoffs. “You can see every time she hurt me.”

“No,” Rio adamantly denies. “I can see how every time you survived her. How many times you refused to let that cunt win."

“Sappy it up all you want — it’s still ugly.”

“Stop saying that,” Rio says, voice serious. “I don’t like that.”

“Well, no,” she snarks. “Sometimes you’re not going to like the truth.”

“It’s not. I’m telling you it’s not. Do you not trust me?”

“I trust that you are, by far, the most biased source I could possibly poll.”

Rio ignores her, continuing to stare at her with a firm gaze. “You’re strong, Agatha. All your scars, your calluses, your muscles — it shows you’re a fighter. That’s deeply sexy.” Agatha says nothing, and she attempts to stroke her matted hair again. “Why don’t you take the day off, hm?”

“I can’t. I’m in the middle of teaching him a spell.”

“Agatha, the spell can wait one fucking day.”

Agatha ignores her argument, sitting up a little. “Do my hair for me,” she orders.

“Take a day off for me,” Rio counters.

“I’ll make sure it’s on the shorter side,” she promises in a valiant attempt at compromise.

Rio, however, is not playing ball. “If by ‘shorter’ you mean ‘zero hours and zero minutes,’ then sure. Shorter sounds great.”

“I will be fine, Rio,” Agatha insists.

“Well, maybe I won’t be,” she whines. “I don’t like it when I can’t keep an eye on you when I know you’re not at your best.”

“Then you can sit in on the lesson,” Agatha suggests, poker-faced. “Maybe even learn something.”

Rio wrinkles her nose. “Ew, fuck no — I’m not that much of a masochist.”

Agatha knew she was going to say that, of course. Knew she’d play right into it. “Then you can hold me until then,” she says with finality. “While you do my hair. Can’t seem to keep your hands off of it.”

Rio knows she’s deflecting. Knows she’s covering her craving for tenderness and intimacy under the guise of being a bossy bitch. She doesn’t have the heart to call her out on it, nor does she have the willpower to deny her. She sighs. “I can’t do both at the same time. Your hair is definitely a two-hand job,” she points out. Her thick mane wasn’t for the weak.

“Well, then I’ll sit between your legs,” Agatha declares.

“And scoot up so you’re all the way between my thighs and grind against me a little?” she half-jokes. 

“Happily.” A beat. “I just want you,” Agatha admits, more sincerity and vulnerability creeping into her tone — the fact her mother was on the forefront of her mind making her particularly raw if Rio had to guess.

Still, she can’t keep herself from pushing back, a little sad but not accusatory like it usually would be. “That’s not true. You want the demon baby. And you want the Scarlet Spawn. The miraculously resurrected grandma.”

“But I want you in a very specific way. You make me feel safe.”

Rio breathes out a soft, almost humorless laugh. “You’re a strange woman, Agatha Harkness — to feel safe with Death.”

“Then fuck it — I’m a strange woman.” Agatha absentmindedly traces a finger over Rio’s knee. “You’re the first person who ever made me feel that way,” she confesses. “The only one, really.”

Rio bites the inside of her cheek. “When you say shit like that, I’m torn between feeling flattered and depressed as fuck.”

“What do you mean?”

“It makes me feel special but also…upset. I think.” Emotions were still relatively new and difficult to pinpoint at times. “There were a lot of years I wasn’t around you.” Agatha was at fault for some of the years — and some of the people she didn’t feel safe around, of course — but not all. Not the first 18. Not her own mother.

Agatha shrugs, averting her gaze and silent for a long, long moment. “You’re here now,” she finally says. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ve never wanted to go,” Rio reminds her, not harsh but factual. “I’m never the one who went.”

They’re enveloped by another period of quietness until Agatha clears her throat. “You’d better get started on the hair. The more it dries, the more difficulty you’re going to have untangling it.”

“In order for me to do that, you’re first going to have to untangle yourself from me and fetch a brush.”

Agatha whines but begrudgingly obliges, Rio’s gaze following her intently as she leaves the room. Though she can’t pinpoint exactly why, she has a bad fucking feeling about today.

“It’ll be a bit of a short lesson today,” Agatha tells Billy by way of greeting as she opens the door the minute the clock strikes 3:30. He always makes sure he’s prompt, not imagining she has much of a tolerance for tardiness considering she doesn’t seem to have much of a tolerance for anything.

“Oh.” He blinks. “Okay.” That was a bit surprising. He presumes she wouldn’t be cool with starting late, but he knows for sure she’s not chill with ending early — a stickler for utilizing every planned minute even when he mentioned he had a lot of homework or plans with Eddie or anything at all, really. In fact, she usually made sure they went over when she knew he was in a rush, likely just to torture him. 

He steps inside and follows her down the stairs, backpack slung over his shoulder. “Are you guys doing something tonight?”

“I just need some Rio time — not that it’s any of your business,” she vaguely replies, going behind her desk. “Sit. We’ll pick up where we left off.”

“Gross,” he mumbles at the phrase ‘Rio time.’ Frankly, he thought any time with Rio was too much. Still, he complies, dropping down into the chair.

It’s a mild, run-of-the-mill barb — a standard exchange in their dynamic — but it seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve. “Don’t talk about her like that,” she snaps, glaring at him.

“I was talking about you and your girlfriend together, which I think is perfectly reasonable, all things considered.” They were gross, and they weren’t subtle about it. 

He wrinkles his brow. Something seems…off with her. Her hunched posture, gruff voice — it isn’t right. It isn’t her. “Agatha? You good?”

She blinks, almost startled for a second before she gets her bearings and goes back to glowering at him. “How the hell did you get into my house again? I arrested you, you little punk.”

“You…what?” His brow furrows deeper until it clicks. He gives her an unamused look. One of her tricks again. One of her pranks. “Ha ha, Agatha — very funny.”

“What’s funny?” she barks, voice so serious and gaze so unflinching it plants a seed of doubt that she’s acting. She was a talented performer, but this? This is hard to fake.

His expression shifts again, giving her an odd look. “Wait, are you…being serious right now?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she spits, beginning to pace. “What’s happening here? Who let you out of your cell?”

“Uh…I don’t know…” he admits, growing…concerned. The last time made sense — she was under a spell. But now? “But I’m not trying to poke the bear, okay?” he blurts. That seemed to be a big thing last time. "I'm just going to tell you that right now. Upfront."

“Good to hear,” she grumbles. “Still doesn’t answer my questions.” She picks up a book on her desk, squinting at the cover as if she can’t read it. As if the letters are shifting before her eyes.

“I got into your house because you let me in,” Billy says, answering her first question. His voice is slow and patient in an attempt to reason with her. “You, Agatha Harkness, teach me magic every day at 3:30.”

She doesn’t have a retort for that. Her body language is pissed off, but her eyes are almost blank, as if he’s speaking a different language.

Since the truth — reality — doesn’t seem to work, he racks his brain for another angle. Maybe he should play along? They told you to do that sometimes, right? “Detective, I’m happy to fully cooperate with your investigation,” he tries.

She averts her gaze, looking back down at the book, the potion shelves, the vines creeping up the wall. “Where am I?” she asks, voice weak. It’s scarier, somehow, than when it was booming and angry. “What happened to my house?” 

“You’re…in your house,” he says gently. “In the basement.”

She slowly begins to walk the space, hesitantly poking at random items she normally wouldn’t give a second look. It sort of reminds him of when his friend Kate got super high at a party. She had been anxious and confused, saying everything looked different — was morphing before her eyes. Each new discovery seems to agitate Agatha more, growling as she touches a jar of dried snake skin.

Billy stands from the desk, hesitantly stepping in front of her and putting up his palms in a soothing motion. Maybe seeing another person will ground her somehow. “Ag—" He stops, unsure at this point whether ‘Agnes’ or ‘Agatha’ will be less…triggering to her seemingly scrambled brain. “Can you…talk to me? Please? I…I just want to help.”

Her gaze snaps over to him, wide and wild-eyed, almost as if she’d forgotten he was there. “It’s not— Fuck.” She turns on her heel, charging the other way.

“What’s not what?” he asks, his eyes following her as she goes back and forth, back and forth. He wants to reach out and stop her, but he doesn’t dare touch her. Instead, he discreetly slides the spell book from his pocket. "What's not what?"

She doesn’t reply except for a little grunt of frustration, her nails digging hard into her palm as she keeps investigating the room.

He takes a deep breath, using the fact she’s distracted to hastily flip through his book and desperately cast the same spell that seemed to help work last time. “Exsolve hanc feminam defixam,” he starts. “Meo carmine exsolve hanc feminam defixam.”

“Stop,” she orders, the incantation enough to direct her attention to him again. “Stop.”

He keeps going — he has to keep going. It’s the only way. “Exsolve hanc feminam defixam. Meo carmine exsolve hanc feminam defixam.”

“I said stop!” she yells, ripping the book from his hand and throwing it across the room.

He can’t help but recoil. She’d snapped at him before, of course — countless times — but this felt…different somehow. “I’m not trying to hurt you,” he softly promises.

But he’s not even sure that she hears him. Her eyes have that vacant, faraway look in them again as she stares at the wall the book had hit.

“Agatha?” he tries. No response. “Agnes?” Still nothing. “Hey.” He trepidatiously waves a hand in front of her face. “Hello? Can you…can you hear me?”

She responds by squeezing her eyes shut, hands flying up to cover her eyes.

Billy squeezes his eyes shut, too. It’s becoming clear he’s not going to be able to handle this on his own, which means he has no other choice. “I’m going to get Rio,” he reluctantly mutters, fleeing up the stairs and out to the greenhouse.

“You better have a good reason for disrupting my gardening, annoying boy, or I’ll be more than happy to make you into plant fertilizer,” Rio says without turning from tending to her feverfew the instant he rips the door open.

He takes a millisecond to catch his breath. “It’s Agatha.”

Chapter Text

Rio whips around to face Billy now, with a glare so intense it actually wilts a few flowers. “What did you do?” her voice booms.  

“Nothing, nothing — I swear!” he insists. “She’s…confused again.” 

“Confused?” she snaps, storming through the backyard. 

He has to speed-walk to keep up with her, which is not helping the whole ‘out of breath’ thing. “Like she was under the spell.” She turns her head again to glower at him. “I didn’t put her under anything!” he defends. “I tried to do the incantation I used to break it last time.” 

“For the five millionth time, you didn’t do jack shit.” Rio throws open the door to the basement, causing Agatha to flinch, her eyes to jerk open.

“R— Rio?” she manages, voice bleeding distress.

“I’m here,” Rio assures her, immediately going to her. She puts a hand on either side of her face. “I’m here, baby.”

“Rio,” she repeats. “Help. Please. I don’t know what’s real—”

“I’m real,” she tells her, her voice as calm as Agatha's is frantic. She gently strokes her cheeks with her thumbs. “I’m real. Just focus on that. On me.”

Agatha forces herself to take a deep breath, wincing like the action hurts her lungs. “I don’t know what happened.” Her right hand moves to her left forearm, and she begins to absentmindedly scratch at it in an attempt to ground herself.

“No,” Rio says, voice retaining its evenness but adopting a firm edge. Her hands move down to her arms, pinning them to her sides. “You can claw your way out without clawing at yourself. You’ve done it before.”

“My head is on fucking fire,” she says. Her eyes must be, too, tears burning in them. “Nothing makes sense. I can’t—” 

“Focus, Agatha. One step at a time. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

Agatha purses her lips before giving her a small nod.

Rio sighs, wrapping her arms around her. “I got you,” she said, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back. “I got you.” There's a beat before she’s unable to resist. “I told you that you should’ve taken the day off from the abomination.” 

“I’m right here,” Billy grumbles from his place on the bottom stair.

Rio cranes her neck back to shoot him a menacing look. There’s a hint of surprise in her eyes as if she hadn’t even realized he’d followed her back down. “Yes, why is that exactly?” 

He folds his arms over his chest, equal parts irritated and insecure. “I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

Agatha manages to calm in Rio’s arms, her breaths getting closer, and the haze she was trapped in seems to lift — enough to deflect, at least. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just a flukey reactivation of that bitch’s dormant spell or a weird, magical bout of pregnancy brain.”

Billy blinks. “Of what brain?”

“Fuck,” he hears her curse under her breath before lifting her head from Rio’s chest. She straightens her posture, squaring her shoulders as she announces, very matter-of-factly, “I’m pregnant. Rio and I are having a baby.”

It’s almost comical, really — cartoonish — the way he feels his jaw literally drop. “H— How?” 

“You haven’t taught him the birds and the bees yet, Agatha?” Rio says dryly. “Some teacher you are.”

“If you’re wondering about the mechanics of it—” Agatha says.

“I’m not,” Billy vehemently assures her.

“—you have the internet. The other part to your supposed inquiry is simple: magic.”

“Okay, but I still have many inquiries.” 

“Well, you see, when two people love each other very much—" Rio starts, voice faux sweet as if she’s talking to a small child.

“Would you shut up?!” Billy snaps. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this!”

Agatha sighs, inconvenienced by his questions as per usual. “What exactly are you so confused by?”

“I don’t know! It’s all just a lot! I mean, she’s Death, and you’re undead. Is it, like…like..." He racks his brain trying to think of a comparison. "Like a Twilight situation?”

Agatha blinks, then asks, slowly, “Are you comparing my life to a ridiculous vampire movie created by an insufferable Mormon?”

“It was actually a book fi— Wait, you know Twilight but not The Devil Wears Prada? That should be a crime.”

“I don’t know either one,” Rio unhelpfully chimes in.

“Well, it really doesn’t sound that different!” Billy justifies-slash-explains for Rio’s sake. “Edward, who’s a vampire, knocks up Bella, who’s not at the time, and they miraculously have this baby: Renesmee.” 

“What a stupid name,” Rio muses.

“We’re not naming our kid anything that ridiculous,” Agatha agrees.

“Forget about the name! The point of the analogy had nothing to do with the name!” Billy puts his hands over his face, thoroughly exhausted by both of them. After his blood pressure drops a few levels, he uncovers it once more, looking at Agatha. “How long have you known?”

“A few weeks,” Agatha says. “I’m almost through my first trimester.”

In another cartoonish move, he feels like his eyes might pop out of his head. “Weeks? First trimester? You really buried the lede there, don’t you think?”

“We’ve only told Lilia” Agatha defends. “And Jen because she’s the one who figured it out. And Alice because she was there.”

She probably means it to be comforting, but it has the opposite effect on Billy. “The entire coven knew before me?!”

Agatha shrugs, clearly not seeing this as a big deal — or any deal at all. “I suppose so.”

Deeming it safe enough to do so — although it was still a risk, to be sure — Billy steps down the last stair and goes to sulkily slump down onto this desk. (Agatha had taught him how to conjure a new one after the whole “turning the other one to dust thing” and still made him reimburse her for the price of one she’d found at IKEA. It cost a whole week’s worth of his Hokey Pokey Bowl wages.)

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Rio warns Billy as he sits. 

“Oh, don’t worry — I’m never comfortable with you around,” he snarks.

“Good.”

Billy looks at Agatha, who does, admittedly, look to be in rather rough shape. He supposed a spell that flared up from out of the blue and made you confused about your own identity could do that to a person. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks her, voice coming out more hurt than he wants it to — more hurt than he knew he was. 

“Always,” Rio retorts.

He grits his teeth. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“No, it’s fine, Billy. I’m…” Agatha clears the embarrassment from her throat, straightening her posture and smoothing out her shirt. “I’m sorry if witnessing that upset you.”

He lets out a light scoff. “I’m not upset about the spell — you couldn’t help the spell. I spend two hours a day with you, and you didn’t once think to mention you were having a kid?”

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not like we formally announced it to anyone. Lilia found out because of her…visions, and Jen is acting as my midwife. Alice lives with Jen, so there’s no real way to hide it from them.”

Billy stares down at his desk. “You could have just come out and said it, you know,” he mumbles. “So I wasn’t the only one out of the loop.”

“Okay, I’m not sticking around for a whole after-school special thing,” Rio announces, putting her palms up and heading toward the stairs. “If he’s staying, I’m not. I’ll be in the shed.”

“Rio,” Agatha whines.

“No.” It’s clearly not a word Rio often says to Agatha, but she evidently feels she needs to draw the line somewhere. “I’m already reminded of my broken rules every time I look at you — someone I love. I’m not about to put myself through that for a boy I hate. You can fetch me when he’s gone.” She turns to Billy, nose wrinkled in disdain. “And you can fetch me if that happens again, but that’s it,” she says before turning and walking back up the stairs.

Agatha rubs her temples as she exits. “I wasn’t trying to leave you out of the loop.”

“You did, though,” Billy says softly. “You did leave me out of the loop.”

She leans against her desk. “I was…independent, to put it mildly, throughout my entire first pregnancy. This is all quite new to me.”

Billy nods slowly. “I just…I thought we were going to start telling each other stuff." 

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

“I guess.” He chews on his bottom lip.  “So you’re...happy about it then?"

“Mm.” Agatha nods in confirmation.

“And she’s…happy about it?” Rio didn’t seem particularly…parental. Agatha didn’t either, but he could at least sense some maternal instinct simmering deep under her surface.

“She is. She doesn’t love change, but…she was always so gentle with him.” She gets a wistful look in her eyes as her hand goes to her stomach. “She won’t let any harm come to this one.”

Billy taps his fingers on the desk, processing all of this. From the Agnes of it all to the vampire baby, it was a lot to take in. “I won’t either if that matters to you at all.”

The space between her brow creases slightly, in surprise maybe, as she looks at him. “I…appreciate that,” she says after a moment, voice awkward but earnest. “I want this kid to have everyone they can in their corner.”

“Lilia already has the ‘Grandma’ title thanks to Rio,” he weakly jokes.

“She does. And she had one of her nutso visions that saw the kid happy,” she points out, seemingly to reassure herself as much as to inform Billy. “I hope she’s right.”

“She usually is.”

Agatha raises a brow. “You have a lot of faith in her.”

“I mean, she did die for us.”

Agatha sniffs, reluctantly relenting. “I’m still not big on trusting randos.”

He scoffs. “First of all, who taught you ‘rando?’ Because I know it wasn’t me. Second, I’d hardly call Lilia a random person.”

Agatha ignores his first inquiry entirely, addressing his second with an obnoxious vagueness. “I’ve known her for a very small percentage of my life.

“But she’s part of your coven. If you can’t trust your own coven, who can you trust?”

“Rio,” Agatha answers easily.

“That’s one person…entity…thing.”

“Well.” She crosses her arms and shrugs as if to say, ‘Not my fault.’

The wounded feeling bubbles up in Billy again. “Maybe she’s the only person you let yourself trust. The only person you let see you," he challenges, though snark is absent from his voice.

She stares at him for another long moment. “Usually, people seem highly uninterested in seeing me. Usually, people don’t even stick around long enough to.”

“I’m around,” he points out. “Lilia came back from the dead to be around. Alice and Jen are around, as much as you maybe wish they weren’t most of the time.”

Agatha huffs, scraping a frustrated hand through her hair. “I’m trying. Am I somehow not making that clear, or are you just being a particularly poor pupil today?”

He sucks on the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t love the insult, but he knows it’s not a battle worth picking. She was being vulnerable, and she was physically unable to do that without also being a cranky bitch. Plus, there was worse. A lot worse. “Well, that makes one,” he says under his breath without really realizing he’s doing it. 

Of course, Agatha catches it, brow arching once more. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry — did you mistake that question as being optional?”

He sinks down into his chair, having some pretty immediate and intense regrets. “You’ll just yell at me even though I’m right,” he mutters.

“Yes, that seems likely,” she coolly agrees, walking over so she’s directly in front of his desk, her position almost comically imposing. “Elaborate,” she demands.

He looks at her towering above him, swallowing hard. “Well, Rio doesn’t seem to be trying very hard,” he quietly points out. “Not with me, at least.”

He expects her to yell — she was fucking scary always, but she had seemed particularly defensive of Rio since they had gotten back from the Road — so it comes as a shock when the comment causes her to soften instead. “I know,” she admits.

He relaxes a bit, taking this as permission to proceed, albeit with extreme caution. “I mean, she still wants to kill me. And would quite literally do so if a) she was allowed to and b) she didn’t promise you that she wouldn’t. So.”

Agatha sighs, pacing around the room — what she typically did when she taught him on a normal day. “It’s not personal. She sees the world very black-and-white, which means she sees you as an abominable rule-breaker. She isn’t attached to you the way she is to the baby or me, which is why she can’t overlook it. Some days, she struggles to even overlook it with the two of us,” she says, hand going to rest on her belly again.

Billy quirks a brow, picking at a small chip in the wood of the desk. God, he hated Rio. Because she was consistently nasty to him, obviously, but also because there was more than a kernel of truth to what she said. She constantly made him confront things he’d rather forget. “She’s not…wrong,” he mumbles. “I did steal a body. And then stole another one for Tommy. And created the Road. It is…objectively pretty fucked.”

Agatha waves him off. “Well, that’s witchcraft for you.”

“Okay, sure, but…maybe she’s right — that it’s a lot more black than white. Maybe it’s a lot more not okay than okay even when you take the extenuating circumstances into account.”

“Magic doesn’t work like that.”

“But maybe I do.” He glances up at her once more. “Maybe I’m a bad person, Agatha," he says, voice soft and frank, "and the world would be better off had I just gone with her that day."

Agatha stops walking then, gaze stern as she looks at him. “No. I won’t hear it. My sacri— calculated risk was not in vain.”

“Maybe it was.”

“No,” Agatha firmly insists, striding back over to his desk. She places her palms on it and stares down at him. “We have been over this, and you know I don’t enjoy repeating myself. You are not a bad person. You are making the most of your situation after doing what you had to in order to survive.” 

“I survived but at what cost? Huh? At the cost of lying to William’s parents by impersonating their dead kid? At the cost of forcing Tommy to do the same by placing his soul into some horrible life — into some body that I haven’t even managed to find yet? At the cost of creating some…some torture trap by making your fake road real and helping lure Lilia and Jen and Alice down there? That’s messed up. I’m messed up.”

“We’re all fucking messed up, Billy! We’re selfish creatures! But underneath all your messed-upness, there is good. There is good in you, Billy. I need you to hear me.”

“Well, I have a hard time seeing it! And I’m not okay with being messed up and selfish! That’s not okay with me. That’s not what I think witches should be.”

Agatha lifts her hands off the desk, throwing them up in exasperation. “But that’s what they are! That’s what they have been since the beginning! You need to get okay with it somehow.”

“I can’t,” he insists — his eyes, his throat, his whole being seem to burn with irritation at her and the world and, most strongly, himself. “I won’t.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, kid, but that is the only way you move forward. You need to get your head out of your morally dualistic ass and listen to me.”

“No, you need to listen to me!” he argues, standing from the desk and stepping so he’s face-to-face with her. “I’m telling you that I don’t think I should move forward,” he says, voice calm and clear now. “I’m telling you that I think you made a big mistake that day. I’m telling you that I think we should give your girlfriend what she wants. It’d be a win-win for everyone, really. Especially you.”

Agatha’s brows furrow, her head dipping back at the accusation. “What the hell do you mean by that? The end bit?”

“Well, it’d make her happy, wouldn’t it? Rio? Handing me to her on a silver platter would be the ultimate act of devotion in her book. Happy wife, happy life.”

Agatha blinks. “You’re suicidal,” she realizes after a beat. “You’re suicidal, and you think that’s a convenience for me.”

“It’s sacrificial — not suicidal,” he says. Because there’s a difference, isn’t there? It’s because he loves the world and not because he hates himself, isn’t it? And how is it any different from her ‘calculated risk’ anyway? “Don’t you give more of a shit about her happiness than my survival?”

“Oh, believe me, I’m extremely capable of wanting more than one thing at once, and I’m usually very good at getting all of it. Greed is my third-favorite sin after pride and lust.”

“Oh my god.” Billy covers his face. “You are actually incapable of having a serious conversation, aren’t you?”

“Fine.” She puts her hands on her hips. “You want me to get serious? My turn to ask a question: do you think the world would be better off with me dead?”

“You are dead,” he mutters.

“I’m undead,” she clarifies. “And you’re deflecting. Who’s incapable of serious conversation now?”

He grits his teeth. “It’s different. You’re not the son of a nexus being who’s destined to destroy the world. You’re not fated to bring chaos and destruction like I am.”

“And yet I’ve done it anyway,” she points out. “Sown plenty of delicious chaos and destruction.”

“That’s not the point! The point is that my mother is a harbinger of doom — yours is just a random raging bitch!”

“But that doesn’t make you a harbinger of doom, too. Do you not even know the basics of genetics? Who the fuck is in charge of your school’s biology program?”

“Well, it seems like I’m pretty destined for it if I’m already body-snatching at age 13 and making deadly roads out of nothing at 16! What’s 19 going to bring — exploding the entire fucking universe? I personally don’t really want to find out! And the only way to not do that is to take me off the map before it’s very possibly too late.”

“No!” Agatha finally screams. “I’m not losing you, too, goddamn it!”

She’s yelled at him — obviously, she’s yelled at him; many, many times, in fact — but this feels…different somehow. He feels his face grow hot from…fear at how deeply fucking serious she sounds? Embarrassment at the fact she was essentially scolding him? Emotion at the depths of her concern or affinity or whatever the fuck it was she felt toward him? He’s not sure. He’s so unsure and caught off guard that he doesn’t even know how to respond, simply staring at her — frozen.

Agatha stares back, a flicker of panic shining in her eyes at the vulnerability. 

The two stand there for a long, long moment before he swallows hard, sinking back down into the chair. “Okay,” he relents — barely audible. “Okay, fine.”

“Go to…therapy or whatever,” she manages with a flippant wave of her hand.

He scoffs. “I’ve been in therapy since I was 13. I hate to break it to you, but while the mental health professionals of Eastview, New Jersey were decent at helping me figure out the gay stuff, they aren’t particularly equipped to handle the anxieties of being tangentially related to an Eldritch Terror.”

“I mean…new therapist?”

“Do you have a referral, Agatha?” he asks dryly.

Agatha scowls. “I’m trying to help.”

“Yourself? Are you trying to help yourself? I mean, do you go to therapy?”

Agatha scoffs, awkwardly crossing her arms. “When did this get turned back to me?”

“Right now.”

She scoffs again. “Well, no. I mean, what therapist would want to see me?” She lifts her chin. “Every client would pale in comparison after me. It’d ruin the whole thing for them.”

“Um, I don’t really think it’s about whether therapists want to see you. It’s literally, like, their job?”

“They can refuse your case. Plus, I’ve been alive 350 years — they’d die before they heard everything. Who wants to start a story knowing they’ll never get to see how it ends?”

“I sincerely doubt every single therapist in the tristate area would turn down your case,” Billy counters. “Or your money, for that matter. The longer you go, the more they make.”

Agatha considers this with an unreadable expression, flicking a small piece of fuzz off her shirt. “So do you…like yours? Your therapist?” she asks.

“I mean, I guess, but like I said, she doesn’t really…get a lot of it.” There’s a beat as he considers whether or not to say the formerly unspoken part aloud. He ultimately figures that he doesn’t have a whole lot to lose at this point — he had sort of inadvertently requested that Agatha help him die, after all. “Not…like you seem to.”

There’s a flash of surprise in Agatha’s eyes, followed by another stretch of silence so heavy that Billy’s forced to duck his head, stare down at his desk.

“In a way,” Agatha finally replies. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he quietly echoes. He feels her gaze on him, the intensity of it eventually getting too uncomfortable to ignore. He peers up with his eyes. “Has it been an hour?”

Her eyes don’t leave him. “Do you want to leave?”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t answer mine.”

“I asked first,” Agatha says, voice getting snappy with annoyance. “Stop being a petulant teenager and answer.”

“I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your 'Rio time,'” he says, the sarcasm hiding the fact that, no, maybe he doesn’t want to leave. But he certainly doesn’t want to be a burden either. Overstay his welcome.

“Yeah,” Agatha says slowly, narrowing her eyes. “Listen, your parents mentioned having Rio and me over for dinner sometime. Ask them when.”

He raises a brow. “Seriously? You’d…want to do that?” She gives him an ambivalent shrug. “Rio would want to do that?”

Agatha purses her lips, which he interprets as a vehement, ‘No.’ “I’ll talk to her about it.”

He suppresses a snort. “Good luck with that.”

Agatha glances at her watch. “I should check on her.” 

Billy nods. “I’ll talk to my parents and let you know,” he promises, pushing himself up from the desk. He hovers there for a moment, pursing his lips. “Hey, Agatha?”

“Hm?” she hums, organizing her papers.

“Could you…maybe not tell them about this conversation?” He fiddles with the straps of his backpack. “I don’t want them to worry more than they already do.”

“If you promise to deal with your infuriating morality complex in a more productive way — one that doesn’t involve trying to feed yourself to my girlfriend and me.”

“First of all, absolute grossest way you could have possibly worded that. Second of all, what exactly would this more productive way be?”

She looks up at him. “That’s your homework. Brainstorm it.”

“Are you serious?” he deadpans. 

“Do I not look serious?” she asks, mouth a thin line, before shuffling more papers on her desk.

“Can’t you just give me more Latin translations?” he whines.

“No,” she replies, voice unsympathetic. “Brainstorm ways not to kill yourself.”

“In Latin?” he snarks before immediately regretting it.

She stops her task again to give him a challenging look. “Do you want to do it in Latin? Because I’m more happy to assign that.”

“No,” he quickly says. “No. I’ll…do it in English,” he mumbles.

“That’s what I thought.” She wipes a bit of dust off the surface of her desk. “Text me when you’re home.”

“Okay,” he promises, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he steps onto the first stair. He already had too many moms — the last thing he needed was another.

He knows it’s a lie as soon as he thinks it. He did need Agatha. He needed her more than anything.

Chapter Text

Rio’s in the shed again when Agatha finds her — though, really, it’s more like a greenhouse now. Or a mad scientist’s laboratory. Or some combination of both. “My love?” she greets from the doorway.

Rio looks up from her soil. “My lady?”

Agatha steps inside, peering around at her various pots and plants. “What are you growing in here?”

She shrugs, some dirt falling from her shoulder to the bench she’s sitting on as she does. “Weed and violets, mostly.”

Agatha puts her hands in her pockets, nodding at a few small sprouts. “What about those?”

They are definitely not rare herbs Jen needs to make a migraine potion for Alice. The fact Rio is working on growing the exact herbs is mere coincidence, thank you very much. She doesn’t give a fuck about Alice, even if they do text almost every day now. She doesn’t. At all. Rio swears.

With a flick of her wrist, Rio kills them — hiding the evidence. “Nothing.” Agatha cocks a brow, and she doubles down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tell me,” she orders, plopping onto the bench next to her and laying her head in Rio’s lap.

“Make me,” she cheekily responds, lightly scraping her nails on Agatha’s scalp.

“I’m the one who just had a terrifying hallucination,” she points out, attempting to guilt-trip.

Rio doesn’t take the bait. “I did, too. I imagined that your annoying little pet interrupted my precious me time. Oh, wait — no. That actually happened.”

“Then maybe you should punish me for annoying you,” Agatha purrs. 

Once again, Rio holds firm. She wants to fuck Agatha, of course — there has never been a single solitary moment when she hasn’t wanted to fuck Agatha — but it would be irresponsible in her condition: freshly traumatized and apparently capable of slipping into Agnes once more. “Your punishment is that you’re going to take it easy for the rest of the day — you know, like I told you to do from the beginning?”

“What good are you if you refuse to indulge me and my whims?” Agatha huffs.

“Daddy’s working,” she tells her, continuing to massage her head. “But you can stay out here. The fresh air might do you good.”

“You’re the Green Witch. You can grow plants any time.”

“And you’re the Agatha Harkness. You can have me at any time, too — even when I’m working. I am capable of multitasking, you know. I just have to tend to this feverfew.” She cringes as soon as the word leaves her mouth. Having Agatha in this close of proximity made her so fucking stupid.

Never one to miss a detail, Agatha exploits the slip-up immediately. “Definitely for Alice, then.”

“No,” Rio lies.

“You can have a friend, you know.”

“Thanks for the permission.”

Agatha smirks, obnoxiously reaching up to poke Rio in the stomach. “They’re your friend.”

Rio scowls. “How would you feel if I went around accusing you of having friends?”

“Well, I don’t have any, so we needn’t ponder such silly queries,” she replies, sticking up her nose.

"I'm only growing it so she'll agree to do her most powerful protection spell on you — try to keep you from dipping into Agnes mode again." It's not the only reason, but it is a good one. So what if she pulled it out of her ass just now?

"Mhm," Agatha hums, not convinced but not pushing the subject, likely because she'd prefer to keep from falling victim to Little Red Riding Witch's fucked-up mind games once more.

The two are engulfed in a comfortable silence for a few moments as Agatha watches Rio magically sprout a few stems and trim a couple of leaves. “You know,” she finally muses, “you’re so beautiful like this. When you’re just…you.”

“But I’m not just me,” Rio says quietly, continuing to tend to her plants. “I’m the me I showed you — the one you fell in love with — but it’s not the…original,” she reminds her.

“What were you like before?”

She hums, considering. “A black hole,” she settles on. “No flesh — all bones.”

“All bones,” Agatha repeats, reaching up to trace Rio’s knuckle. “And what about me was so special that you became you?”

She’s fishing for flattery, and Rio’s more than happy to give it to her. “Everything,” she says, the answer coming quick and without a hint of facetiousness as she begins to weave vines with small flowers through Agatha’s hair. “Everything about you was — is — special. The way you look and sound and smell and taste and feel and move and think and breathe.”

Agatha’s bright blue eyes seem to shine with the compliment. Rio loves it — the way happiness looks on her. “What do you want the baby to call you?” she asks. 

Rio tilts her head. “Rio? Green Witch? Death?”

“I was thinking something a bit more intimate,” Agatha replies. Normally, she loved making people feel stupid, but she seems to take extra care not to do that to Rio in this moment. “Do you want to be Mom or something else?”

“Something else like what?” she asks softly, running Agatha's hair between her fingers.

Her shoulder lifts slightly, giving her a small shrug. “Whatever you want.”

Rio purses her lips. “Are you going to be Mama?” she asks after a beat. “Or will it be too difficult for you to hear it again — hear it in a different voice?”

Agatha swallows hard, averting her gaze to some daisies. “It might be difficult the first time,” she quietly admits. “But I’d like to think he’d be happy I’m not retiring it.”

She nods a little in genuine, solemn agreement. “So what pairs best with Mama, then, do you think? Mom? Dad? Papá?

“It depends — do you want something more masculine?”

“I have no preference on the degree of masculinity or femininity,” Rio says with a wave of her hand. “I just want it to sound good next to yours. I want it to be whatever you want to hear."

“Well, I want you to be comfortable with it, too, though something Spanish could be nice.”

The entire situation still makes Rio a bit uncomfortable, and she sincerely doubts choosing a name for herself is going to fix that. “Mamá feels too close to Mama. It could get confusing for the demon when it’s small.”

“Mamí isn’t,” Agatha points out. “Papá’s definitely not.”

Rio takes her bottom lip between her teeth, considering. “Mamí, I think,” she finally says. “Mama and Mamí.”

“Mama and Mamí,” Agatha repeats, hand going to her stomach. “Our love created you from scratch,” she tells it.

“Yes, our love created an abomination,” Rio deadpans, unable to help herself. “How romantic.”

“They’re an abnormality,” Agatha corrects.

“They’re very much both.”

Agatha promptly ignores her insistence, moving on to a subject that apparently interests her more. “You’re staying with me the entire time,” she insists. “Even when I’m being a massive cunt from all the pain.”

She purses her lips, not responding for a long, long moment. “Yes,” she finally says, voice nearly a whisper. She resists the urge to remind Agatha that she had wanted to stay the whole time in 1750, too. Instead, she runs a hand through Agatha's hair — now a garden unto itself — killing and blooming the tiny blossoms fanning out of it. 

Agatha can sense this — that she’s holding back. “What’s going on in your head?” she confronts.

“Noise.”

“What kind of noise?”

“Loud.” Kill, bloom. Kill, bloom.

Agatha sighs, an undercurrent of frustration in it that she’s valiantly trying to suppress. “Rio, my love, I know you have a full sentence in you.”

“Echoes,” Rio admits. “From things you said when you didn’t stay. Over and over all at the same time. They’ve always been there. They're always going to be there. Sometimes, they’re just more like whispers.”

Another hard swallow. Another moment of Agatha fixing her eyes on the daisies. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes. It’s one of the most genuine things Rio’s ever heard her say. Rio nods and kills and blooms and focuses on the reassuring weight of Agatha’s head on her lap. “Do you want to go in?” Agatha asks. “We can lie in bed.”

“I haven’t finished the herb. The one for my…friend.” She forces the word from her lips, awkwardly trying it out.

Agatha’s guilt keeps her from poking at the subject. “All right,” she says simply, a small wince escaping her throat as she shifts to get more comfortable on the bench.

Rio frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Agatha promises. “Just my back.”

Her frown deepens. “Because of the demon? Do we need to call Jen?”

“Yes, it’s because of the baby, but keep Dr. Kale off the line. It’s perfectly normal. Happened all the time the first go-around.”

Rio’s hand travels from Agatha’s hair down to the small bump of her stomach. “Don’t hurt Mama,” she orders.

The corner of Agatha’s mouth flicks into a smile. “They can’t help it. They’re growing.”

“They need to grow more gently.”

Agatha tilts her chin down to speak to the small bump. “You hear that? Mamí says you should be more gentle.”

It’s weird, hearing herself be referred to like that. Rio feels so detached from the term. Yet somehow, it feels correct, too. Hardly fazes her at all. She rubs Agatha’s belly. “Maybe it’s the horns coming in — poking into your spine.”

Agatha laughs. “You think they’ll have horns?”

She shrugs. “Maybe. Or a third eye or scales or something.”

“Out of all those options, I think horns would be the most fun.”

“Agreed.” Rio nods. “Though, the third eye could have its perks.”

“Especially if they inherit yours.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “We’ve been over this. This one looks like you,” she firmly asserts. “That includes your beautiful blues.”

“My DNA would make them extremely attractive,” Agatha agrees. “But I really wouldn’t mind your eyes.”

“Maybe they’ll have both,” Rio compromises. “Like a husky. But I want to be able to look into at least one of them and see an ocean. A lake. A river. That’s another reason I picked the name I did.”

“Wait, really?” The space between Agatha’s brow creases. “You’ve never told me that part.”

Rio shrugs. “The first place I saw you was by the river, and it’s the first thing I saw in you, too.”

Agatha nods, more impressed than she’s willing to admit. “Who knew my love was such a poet?”

“I think Emily Dickinson suspected as much."

“Oh? All those verses about you go to your head?”

Rio smirks and gives her a shrug. Because, yes, maybe they did. “She was quite talented with the pen.”

“Quite talented with her tongue, too. Her fingers…”

“We get it. You fucked Emily Dickinson.”

“Should’ve killed her, too,” Agatha muses. “For writing about my woman.” She looks up at Rio through her lashes. “Maybe you should try writing about your woman. Or anything, really.”

Rio rolls her eyes. “I am not keeping a diary.”

“I didn’t fucking say diary, now did I?”

Rio gives her a look. “I know what you’re doing, you know.”

“What am I doing?” she asks, blinking innocently.

“You’re trying to figure out how to get my head quiet. I told you that the only way I’d ever managed to clear it was having you hurt me, and it totally freaked you out. I could tell.”

Agatha’s tongue pokes the inside of her cheek, the outside of them pinking ever so slightly. She hated getting caught. It was an embarrassing ordeal for her. “Your head shouldn’t be painfully loud unless I’m hurting you.”

“But that’s how it is. Sometimes, things just are the way they are.” Rio shrugs. Then, off her look of vague concern, “It’s okay, Agatha. I like the way we do it now. I enjoy it. It feels good.”

“But it might be nice to have multiple ways.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re the only way. You're always the only way."

“It can still be me. I can do other things besides hurt you,” Agatha insists, and it sounds like she’s partially trying to convince herself.

Rio frowns. She doesn’t know why she feels the need to, considering Rio had no problem with her penchant for being rough. Unless… “You don’t like it, too?”

Agatha lets out a sigh. “I just don’t want that to be the only reason you want it.”

“It’s not,” Rio promises. “I want you, too — I want you more — it’s just…a pleasant side effect. The quiet."

“But maybe there are other ways to find that side effect.”

Rio furrows her brows. “Why are you trying to fix something I’m telling you isn’t broken?”

“Because I’m fucking concerned, Rio,” Agatha bluntly responds. “It’s concerning.”

“I’m still failing to see why. Unless, for some reason, you plan on not being around when I need you…” she mutters, beginning to sulk at the mere thought.

“I’ll be there, but It’s probably not exactly healthy for me to literally enact violence on you every single time you need your head to be quiet.”

So the new and improved Agatha cared about what was 'healthy.' How obnoxiously inconvenient. “Disagree.” Rio crosses her arms. “It’s my favorite medicine.”

“Rio,” Agatha snaps before taking a breath and rubbing her temples, ironically to stop herself from getting violent at this very moment. “We need to find you another way. I’ll be there with you, but you need something else, too.”

Rio rolls her eyes. “‘Too.’ Which better mean ‘in addition to’ instead of ‘as a replacement for.’”

“Yes,” Agatha confirms. "That is the basic fucking definition of the word. You’re much too spankable to stop smacking around entirely.”

Hearing the mere word drops Rio down to a marginally more agreeable, submissive state. She sucks on the inside of her cheek and tries not to think about the small damp patch now on her underwear. “Fine,” she reluctantly agrees. “But it’s not going to be fucking journaling.”

“Never said it had to be, you insufferable little brat.”

She slips her phone from her pocket, turning the front-facing camera on to show Agatha her flowery hair. “Look.”

Agatha softens at that, which — in turn — makes Rio soften, too. They could go from burning hot to pleasantly balmy in milliseconds. “You’re the whole world,” Rio points out. 

“To you,” Agatha replies, a strange sort of sadness underneath it.

“Why do you care if it’s just to me?” she asks earnestly. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

Agatha’s eyes go to the daisy once more. “It can get a little exhausting, is all. Being hated.”

Rio tilts her head. “You used to feed off that. Literally. Pissing people off so badly they blasted you.”

“I know,” she says simply. “Which is why it’s so stupid.”

Rio’s nose twitches. “It’s not…stupid exactly,” she reasons, playing with Agatha’s hair — the vines threaded through them. “Just pointless. You’re so much better than all of them — and you used to know that.” A beat. “This is all that stupid fucking kid’s fault, isn’t it? You always get weird right after he leaves.”

Agatha shrugs, which is as close to a confession as Rio is going to get. “He’s suicidal.”

She doesn’t have to say the quiet part aloud for Rio to get it — that Agatha has been there, has felt that, has had the urge, maybe even recently. She squints. “Well, you can’t die — you’re undead,” she slowly reasons. “But he can. And should.”

Agatha’s head snaps back at her now — giving Rio a look she doesn’t particularly like. “I know you have feelings about the state of his existence, but he’s just a boy, Rio. He doesn’t deserve to feel like that.”

“‘Deserve’ isn’t the exact word I’d use, but it’s in the ballpark...”

“He’s a kid. He didn’t ask for this. He’s just trying to survive.”

“But he shouldn’t be surviving, Agatha,” Rio rationalizes. “He shouldn’t have survived his mother taking the hex down. It’s strictly business — not personal.”

“Business isn’t cut and dry,” Agatha points out. “We both know that.”

“It should be,” Rio points out. She runs her tongue over her teeth in frustration. “It used to be before you.”

“Well, it’s after me now, and things have changed.”

Rio clenches her jaw. “So I’m constantly reminded.”

“You need to take a different approach with him.”

She raises a brow. “Meaning what?”

“Acceptance?” Agatha suggests. “Neutrality?”

“I’m already being neutral. All I’m asking is for him to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

“You hate him,” Agatha argues.

“I hate that he exists. It’s not the same thing.” Though she admittedly didn’t like his…influence on Agatha either.

Agatha huffs out a sigh. “You have to be less hostile.”

“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

“You hiss at him.”

“So do you,” Rio counters.

“You make him feel guilty for finding a way to live.”

“Sounds like I’ve been very naughty."

“Rio, I mean it.”

“I do, too.” She traces light, teasing circles on Agatha’s arm. “Maybe with a little discipline, I’d be more inclined to behave towards him.”

“No,” Agatha shakes her head, shoving her hand away. “I’m serious. You aren’t to upset him anymore — not about that. You aren’t to make him feel shitty for his ability to survive.”

Rio crosses her arms, clenches her jaw. “Well, seeing him — period — is upsetting to me. He constantly contributes to how shitty I feel.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Agatha says with an irritating lack of sympathy. “He’s still here. Nothing we can do to change that.”

“Yes, Agatha — we can absolutely and easily change that if you would agree to it. It sounds like, at this point, you are the only one not agreeing to it,” she says through gritted teeth. “He is a constant reminder of my weakness. Of my failure to keep things in order.”

Agatha throws her hands up, exasperated. “Look around, Rio. Has the world collapsed? Have people at large stopped dying? You are not the only primordial force out there — the weight of the universe isn’t entirely on your shoulders. Even the most rigid systems in the universe have exceptions. Have anomalies.”

Rio shakes her head. There it was — the impenetrable brick wall between them that they constantly found themselves talking at. “You don’t understand,” she whispers. “And you will never be able to. Time is long. We may not see the repercussions of what I have done — or rather what I have failed to do — for centuries, but make no mistake: we will see them. We will see them, and they will be catastrophic.”

“Then we deal with that then,” Agatha stubbornly reasons. “And we deal with what’s right in front of us now. When it gets rough, we will find a way to handle it.”

“It’s already rough, Agatha. I already can’t protect you from his mother’s spell that’s somehow still seeped in your brain even after I helped you claw your way out. After we went down the Road. After you died. The cracks his mother made are already showing — already showing on you. I won’t risk you breaking. I can’t risk him breaking you.”

“I’m right here,” Agatha insists. “I’m here, and I’m whole, and I’m home with you.”

Rio purses her lips — the idea of being her home hitting her unexpectedly hard, unexpectedly deep. She puts her fingertips to Agatha’s forehead, lightly running them over her beautiful, fucked-up brain.

“I will…try to be more civil when he comes here,” Rio reluctantly caves. “But I’m not about to call him ‘son’ and have family dinners with him,” she jokes, though Agatha’s expression makes her immediately regret that. “Agatha, don’t tell me you said I would have dinner with him…” 

“It’s one meal.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” She lifts her hand from Agatha’s head to rub her own.

“His parents want to meet you."

“His parents, Agatha?! His parents. Mr. and Mrs. Abomination."

“The Kaplans,” she corrects. “But yes.” Rio lets out a petulant moan. “Oh, enough. I don’t get to show you off nearly as often as I’d like. This gives me an excuse.”

She closes her eyes as she continues to massage her temples. After a long moment, she opens them, glaring at Agatha. “You owe me. Big time. Before we leave, you are going to fuck me so hard, and I am going to get all of the bratty behavior out of my system.”

“Deal.” Agatha coolly lifts her chin. “And when we get home, you can take all your pent-up frustration out on me.”

“No, I think I’ll do that in the Kaplan bathroom between courses.”

“When we get home.”

“But I want to fuck you in the stupid fucking kid’s house,” she whines. “And what if I have so much fun during dessert I’m not still pissed off by the time we get home?”

“That is absolutely not going to happen.”

She has a point. “But I want to fuck you in the stupid fucking kid’s house,” Rio repeats.

“Not this time.”

“Well, there’s not going to be a next time. I don’t plan on making this a regular thing.”

“Those are my terms,” Agatha states, holding firm. “Do we have a deal or not?”

Rio presses her tongue against the inside of her cheek, considering. “Fine.”

“Good girl,” Agatha praises with a condescending pat to her head.

“Mhm,” she mumbles. She’s still not thrilled with this dinner plan, but she is looking forward to the sex before and after. She’s too distracted to do any more real work in the greenhouse, and she is still sort of secretly fretting over Agatha’s back pain, so she waves her hand to transport them both to bed.

Agatha immediately seems to relax, shifting to curl up against Rio — get more comfortable. “You should sing to me,” she says, eyes drifting shut.

“You’re the one with the voice,” she points out.

“True,” she admits. “But I like yours, too.”

“You like my pretend one.” Death’s real one was…well, it was a lot deeper and throatier and more sinister. It tended to scare a lot of birds away.

“I like both. Both are real.”

Rio tilts her head and suddenly, inexplicably feels like she wants to cry.

Agatha is evidently able to sense this, too, as she opens her eyes and looks up at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I guess it always just feels like I’m faking it — faking everything but my love for you. How can I be both things when there are so many contradictions between the two? When they’re always…competing? Fighting? Trying to kill the other?"

“I don’t know,” Agatha admits. “But you are. You’re both, and you’re mine.”

Rio can’t do this — can’t think about it too hard. Not right now. Not when her mind is already so jumbled. Instead, she pulls a Spanish lullaby from the back of her brain, voice quiet — almost shy.

Agatha hums in contentment, eyes falling closed once more. Rio watches over her. Rio has always watched over her — even when Agatha didn’t want her there at all.

Chapter Text

Rio holds up a jar as she steps through a portal into Alice’s (and unfortunately now also Jen’s) apartment, shaking the weed and feverfew inside. She mentions only the first at the moment. It seemed the more casual gift of the two. “I grew us some good shit.”

Alice grins from their place on the couch. “Fuck yeah. Perks of green witchery.”

“Emphasis on 'green.'” She slumps down next to her. “I need a protection witch perk in return.”

Alice wrinkles her brows. “On you?”

Rio scoffs. “No, obviously not on me. On Agatha.”

“Okay…” they slowly agree. “What happened?”

“Long story,” Rio replies as nonchalantly as possible. She doesn’t want to get into the Agnes of it all. Doesn’t want to accidentally show how freaked out it makes her in front of Alice.

Luckily, Alice doesn’t press. “Okay,” she repeats before nodding to Rio’s shoe choice. “Nice Crocs.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rio says, kicking the right one off. It flies up and hits Alice in the face. “Wow. Can’t even protect yourself from my very comfortable and practical footwear.”

“I think they’re comfy, too,” Alice defends. “Just never pinned you as a bright yellow person. Jen, on the other hand, would pass out knowing they were in the house.” They snort, tossing the shoe to the side.

“I’m experimenting with more color in my wardrobe,” Rio explains. “And I’ll make sure to buy Princess a pair for Christmas. Maybe I’ll even get those little things that go in the holes.” She promptly kicks the left one at Alice.

"Jibbitz." They manage to catch this one before throwing it next to its mate. “She’d lose it, but it would be hilarious. I would end up taking them, though, so just make sure the color’s not hideous.”

“Reddish-orange maybe,” Rio muses. “Bring out your highlights.”

“Actually, I was thinking of changing it up.”

“To what?” she asks, leaning forward and spilling the contents of the jar onto the coffee table.

“Pink, maybe.”

“Jen’s color.”

“Yeah.” Alice looks down, a little bashful as they begin to load their pipe. “She’s…I don’t know. I love her.”

“Well…you wouldn’t look totally stupid like most people would,” Rio says, which is about as close to a compliment as she’s ever given her.

“Thanks. You ever dyed your hair?”

Rio shrugs. “I’ve taken on millions of different forms, so…kind of?”

Alice grins before inhaling a long drag. “You should let me do it.”

“What?” she asks, snatching the pipe from her hand. “Why?”

“Could be fun.” Alice shrugs. “Magic can work wonders, but sometimes it’s nice to just fuck around.”

Rio takes a hit, considering. “I do like fucking around,” she admits.

“Agatha would probably think it’s hot,” Alice adds, holding her hand out for the pipe again. “Is there a color you think you’d like?”

She bats their hand away, hogging it for another moment as she inhales once more. “I like whatever Agatha likes.”

“Oh, come on,” Alice urges. “I know you have opinions, too. And I know she’s going to be attracted to you no matter what. It’s, like…borderline disturbing how into each other you two are.” She rolls her eyes, though her lips threaten to twitch into a small smile.

Rio decidedly doesn’t smile, her expression almost gravely serious. “This is how she fell in love with me. With my hair like this.”

Alice tilts her head. “Has she made any indication she won’t love you if you change it?”

“No, but I don’t want to give her any reason not to. Not if I can help it.”

“That’s…not how love works.”

“The love Agatha and I share is different.” Rio squints, blowing smoke out in an irritated puff. “And I’d appreciate it if you weren’t acting so cavalier. Is the only reason you’re so hellbent on this because Jen doesn't have any hair to dye?”

Alice doesn’t take the bait, steadfast in her self-assigned mission to get Rio to cave. "You’re being paranoid.”

“I’m not fucking paranoid." She scowls, taking another inhale out of spite — so there was less for Alice to partake in.

Alice’s reflexes aren’t half-bad, as she manages to pluck the pipe back right after. “You are,” she insists. “I’ve seen it firsthand.”

Her scowl deepens. “I had valid reasons. For all of it.”

“The fear is only going to get worse if you don’t challenge it.”

Rio grabs the pipe back from Alice before she has a chance to enjoy any of it. “Do you know a lot about that?” she asks, feigning disinterest, though there’s an undeniable undercurrent of sincerity. “Paranoia?”

Alice’s muscles clearly extend beyond her abs, as she manages to wrestle the pipe back and hold herself at a truly awkward angle so it’s out of Rio’s reach. In her weird-ass, contortionist-like position, she takes two long, slow hits before she confesses, “Yeah. Been that way pretty much my whole life.”

“Cool. Thanks for the zero elaboration.”

Alice takes a third hit, staring at the smoke as they exhale. “I grew up around it. Inherited it from my mom. She tried to hide just how anxious she was about the curse, but I could tell something was off. We fought about it a lot until she leveled with me when I was about 13.” She takes a fourth hit. “Knowing didn’t help much. I just lived my life believing there was something wrong with me. Like I was a…bomb or some…disease that ruined everything around me.” She purses her lips. “Honestly, I still feel that way sometimes." A beat. "A lot of the time, really.”

Rio takes the pipe back, though not as aggressively this go-around. She mulls all of this over in her head, trying to find the right thing to say. She was still new to emotion, so logic would have to do. “You thought Agatha’s mom was a crazy fucking cunt, right? For saying her daughter was born evil?”

“God, yeah.” Alice lets out a breath, shaking her head. “What kind of parent says that to their kid? It’s royally fucked.”

“And yet you spend your life believing you are. That you’ve always been a bomb. A disease.”

“That’s…different.” Alice shifts on the couch, clearly uncomfortable with the turn this conversation has taken. “I know I’m capable of loving people — I just don’t want them to love me back so hard that I hurt them.”

“That’s…not how that works.”

“For me it is.”

“You think you’re so special that you have a different rule than over 100 billion people that have lived on this planet?”

Alice gives her a look. “Tell me, then. How does it work?”

Rio shrugs. “People aren’t born good or bad — they’re just born. And people don’t die because they’re good or bad — they just die. It’s the simplest thing in the world, but everyone tries to make it so complicated for some reason.”

“Because we can’t handle the idea that it’s an amoral thing. Plus, it doesn’t take away the feelings of it all.” Alice looks back down at their lap. “I just don’t want to hurt Jen,” they say softly. “Or you, for that matter.”

“Me?” Rio scoffs, taking another hit. Her head was getting pleasantly fuzzy — almost floaty. “Bold of you to assume you’re capable of that.”

“Not physically, maybe, but I know you have emotions,” Alice insists. Rio wrinkles her nose. It was true. She did now. “And I know you give at least one tiny shit about me.”

The wrinkles get deeper as she takes yet another inhale from the pipe. “You have no proof of such a thing.”

“Sure I do. Our texts. That herb you grew. Agatha has a big mouth. So does Jen.”

Another hit. She had a high tolerance, but she was really feeling it now. “I have to stay entertained somehow,” Rio reasons. “It can get boring, being around all those millenniums.”

“Sure. If that’s the story you want to go with.”

“The truth? Yes.”

”You’re delusional, but all right.” Alice holds her hand out for the pipe.

“You don’t just get to call me delusional and then demand I give you weed.” She rolls her eyes, taking another hit out of pure spite.

Alice sighs, hand dropping back to her side. “You know, this started with us discussing your paranoia and how I was going to dye your hair. How did we get here?”

“You mean the paranoia that doesn’t exist and the hair dye I never agreed to? Good question — I’m not sure.”

“You should let me do it.”

She’s grateful Alice doesn’t push back on the paranoia front and decides to throw her a bone. “Fine. Whatever.”

Alice’s face breaks into a grin that’s much too big for the occasion, in Rio’s opinion. “Pick a color then.”

Rio considers. “I would say green, but that feels too…Oompa Loompa.” They’d been slowly working their way through Agatha-slash-Ralph’s extensive Blu-ray collection. Rio liked how unhinged the chocolate factory owner was.

Alice tilts her head, contemplating as well. “How would you feel about a muted blonde?”

“Won’t I look like Death Barbie?”

“I don’t think so. Blonde could look hot with your eye color.”

“Gay.”

Alice rolls her eyes. “Says the most lesbian bitch I know.”

“Well, I’m not moving, so you’re gonna have to do it right here,” Rio stubbornly insists. She also kinda maybe sort of is so high she doesn’t feel like she can move.

“No, we have to go into the bathroom,” Alice insists, standing and holding out her hand. “Come on — get up.”

Rio ignores it, curling up on the cushion. “I shan’t.”

“Fine.” Alice leans down and picks Rio up in a fireman's carry. “We’ll do it this way.”

“Alice,” she groans, punching their back — though without a lot of strength or coordination. Only Agatha was allowed to carry Death around.

“Easy, tiger,” Alice quips, making her way down the hall. The combination of being quite high herself and attempting to wrangle a rather wriggly Rio makes her nearly run into Jen as she steps out of her makeshift office. “Oh,” she says, stopping right before they collide. “Sorry.”

Jen wrinkles her nose. “What the fuck are you guys doing?” 

“Being kidnapped,” Rio sulks, squirming and struggling against Alice before quickly giving up, going limp over their shoulder with a huff. Their muscles really were fucking insane.

“Dramatic much?” Alice tosses over their shoulder before looking at Jen. “I’m dyeing her hair, and she’s too stoned to walk."

“Yeah, that much I could’ve guessed — it reeks in here.” Jen waves a hand in front of her face. “You don’t know how to crack a window?”

“I’m sorry,” Alice says, lip jutting into a small pout.

Jen softens — she always softens toward Alice — giving them a peck on the cheek. “Please, for the love of god, just remember to open the bathroom one during your weed-fueled hair salon shenanigans. So ironic you’re doing this when I’m the beauty guru.” 

“Well, I’d like to keep my hair, so…” Rio quips, causing Alice to swat her thigh. “Ow,” she complains despite the fact it didn’t hurt or even really tickle.

Alice ignores her. “She’s about to be a blonde,” she tells Jen.

“Blonde, huh?” She cocks a brow. “Green Witch Barbie?” 

“I fucking told you,” Rio grumbles, resuming her sloppy hits to Alice’s back.

Alice huffs. “It is nothing like Barbie! She has brown eyes, for one, and it’s not like we’re going full platinum.”

“Okay.” Jen shrugs. “You do you. Help yourself to the Kale Kale in there.” 

“I will help myself to pouring it down the sink,” Rio informs her.

Alice does not scold Rio this time, instead giving Jen a look. “You walked right into that one,” she accuses. “She has zero filter right now.”

“Oh, whatever.” Jen waves her off. “Stoned Rio is no more of a rude bitch than unstoned Rio. She’s just…floppier.” 

“Floppier?” Rio asks. 

“You know, looser.” 

“You wish. I’m not going to fuck you again — that window has closed.” 

“I couldn’t actually give less of a shit just as long as the bathroom one is open so it doesn’t stink of bleach." Jen catches sight of the abandoned Crocs in the living room. "Maybe you could throw those disgusting shoes out of it, too.”

Alice can’t help but laugh. “You’re the only one who’s anti-Croc, Jen, and I happen to think bleach smells kind of nice.”

“Anyone with an ounce of taste is anti-Croc,” she corrects. “And you’re not huffing bleach fumes on my watch. You want something that smells good, light a probiotic candle.” 

“God, you make the insults so easy it’s not even fun anymore,” Rio says instead of making a dig.

“She’s Death — I highly doubt a little bleach is going to harm her,” Alice points out.

“I’m not concerned about her wellbeing,” Jen corrects. “I'm concerned about yours. And your fashion sense, or lack thereof, because Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Oh, Jen — I’ll be fine. I don’t even want to think about the stuff I must have breathed in while I was on tour with my mom.”

Jen shifts her gaze from Alice to Rio, narrowing her eyes. “If you hurt them, I’ll never forgive you.” 

“If you hurt them, I’ll kill you,” Rio retorts, though there’s an unquestionable seriousness to the threat. It would probably be pretty terrifying if she wasn’t currently slung over Alice’s shoulder like a sack of enraged potatoes.

Alice pats one of Rio’s thighs with a smirk. “We’ll be fine,” she promises Jen. “I love you.”

“I don’t,” Rio informs Jen as she attempts to kick in response to Alice's very demeaning pat — an impossible task considering the way she has her leg pinned down. “This is humiliating,” she mumbles.

Alice pays Rio’s mini tantrum no mind, leaning in to give Jen a kiss. “You look so pretty today.”

“I know.” She kisses them back. “But thank you, honey.”  

“I will throw up on you guys,” Rio warns. "And I will take so much pleasure in it."

Alice rolls their eyes. “Okay, drama queen — let’s get started.” She glances at Jen. “See you in a bit,” she promises before slipping into the bathroom and plopping Rio down on the counter.

“If I don’t see you, Rio, send Agatha my hate!” Jen calls after them.

Rio crosses her arms, glaring at Alice as she’s perched on the sink. “I’m having flashbacks to Agatha and me in the beach house. Except that was a lot more fun.”

“You guys fucked at the beach house?” Alice asks as she begins gathering supplies. 

“We fucked at almost every trial — you didn’t notice? We treated that stupid road like a sex punchcard.”

“Oh, we all noticed. You two were horny as hell the whole time.” She holds a brush out to Rio. “Run this through your hair.”

Rio slumps back against the mirror, batting it away. “Mm, no. I’m putting zero effort into this. That way, if Agatha hates it, I can honestly say I played no part in it.”

Alice sighs, pulling Rio forward again and beginning to do it herself.

Rio scowls as she’s unceremoniously yanked. “Why is it that you feel so comfortable manhandling me?” Alice doesn’t reply, the bristles getting caught in a tangle. “Ow. Be careful, would you? I don’t want the Jen cut.”

“Well, then don’t move while I’m working.”

“You’re so fucking bossy. Are you trying to, like, platonically dom me? Make up for when I very non-platonically dommed you in that cabin’s game closet?” She smirks, pleased that she’d found a way to turn the tables and gain the upper hand again — or at least feel like she had.

Alice rolls their eyes. “You enjoyed yourself then, did you?”

Rio shrugs. “You were fun to toy with.”

“Thanks,” Alice deadpans, opening a bottle of bleach. “Maybe the four of us can do it again sometime.”

Rio blinks a few times. “Are you proposing we have an orgy, or am I just baked?”

“Orgy, but you’re also very high.”

“‘Very,'" Rio repeats with a scoff. "You’re the real drama queen. I’m just regular high,” she insists.

“Mhm. Sure.”

Rio gives them a dirty look before allowing her eyes to discreetly travel around the room, looking for more little trinkets she could steal for Agatha. It’d become a little game every time she came over here.

Alice works for a bit in silence. They’ve clearly done this before — many times — their movements deft. “What are you thinking about?” she asks after a few moments.

“Nothing,” Rio replies. For once, it’s the truth. Her brain is TV static, the combination of the weed and, okay, Alice’s hands running through her hair currently making all the normal anxieties too swirled and mushy to fixate on. The sound’s there just…blurry. “What are you thinking about?”

“Mostly, how much we need to tone this once it bleaches. You have a warm undertone, which is beautiful, but cool colors will wash you out, so I’m trying my best to think ahead.”

Rio squints at her. “You were an art loser in school, weren’t you?”

“I was not a loser, but yes, I did art. I still do.”

“Oh, that’s right — famous mom and then dead mom probably kept you from getting bullied,” she says, the statement matter-of-fact. “Were you a suck-up teacher's pet or a burnout who skipped class to do drugs under the bleachers?” She was pretty proud of herself for knowing all these terms. She and Agatha had been watching a lot of films that took place in American high schools, too. 

“Mm, both. Just depended on the class. I liked math and history.”

“Hm.” Rio lets out a short hum. “Math is nice,” she muses.

“I liked it,” Alice agrees. “I was always best at it and art.”

“That’s kind of weird. Usually, people are one or the other. Math is so objective and clear and straightforward, and art…isn’t.”

“I like the contrast.” Alice shrugs. “Plus, math is useful in art sometimes.” Rio can’t necessarily argue with that, but still, the more she learned about humanity — the longer she knew individual humans — the more complicated they seemed to get. “You know I did a tattoo apprenticeship?”

Rio cocks a brow. “The one you were forced to get at 13 inspired you?”

She rolls her eyes, giving Rio’s arm a shove. “I wanted to make people feel good about themselves — give them confidence. I loved it, but I fell out of the program because I was…struggling. Mental health-wise,” she admits.

“Hm,” Rio hums again, looking down at her hands. After a long beat, “Do you have the equipment here?”

“Yeah…” she says slowly. “I think it’s in the closet of Jen’s office. Why?”

Another long beat as she picks at a cuticle. “You can do one on me. If you want.”

Alice blinks in surprise. That makes two of us, Rio’s tempted to say. “That would be fun. What do you want?”

Rio shrugs. But then, like she’s thought about this before, “A geranium.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re Scorpio’s birth flower.”

Alice tilts their head. “Scorpio?”

“Agatha’s birthday is October 31st.”

“Ah.” She nods. “Of course, she’s a Scorpio. And that’s really gay.”

Rio glares. “If you’re going to be annoying about it, I’m taking back my offer.”

“Calling you gay is a fact, but I think the tattoo is sweet. Where do you want it?"

“Left collarbone.” Over her heart. Her black, beating heart.

“What style are you thinking?” 

She shrugs again. “What are you best at?”

“I’m pretty good at realism. Or things that are a little whimsical.”

“Do that then.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Whichever one you—" Like to do better. “—suck at less. Especially since you’re rusty by now.”  

“All right,” Alice agrees, not even bothering to get offended. “I’m done with the bleach, by the way. We just have to wait, then rinse, then tone. I can draw in the meantime.” Rio turns to look at herself in the mirror, nose wrinkling. “That’s not what the end product is going to be,” Alice assures her.

“Good, because it looks like shit.” 

“Yeah, because it’s just bleach.” She strips off her stained gloves, tossing them in the trash can. “I’m gonna grab my sketchbook — I’ll be right back,” she says before disappearing out of the room.

“Bring food!” Rio calls after her.

She didn’t have to eat, but even Death wasn’t immune to the munchies.