Chapter Text
Typically, when a person tells someone her mother is dead, the response is something stupidly sappy or sentimental. She’s always with you, she’ll always be in your heart, she’s watching over you. She’s sending you blessings from above. Cheesy crap straight out of a sympathy card, like they’re fumbling for a script on what to say.
Some people would find the sentiment sweet. Agatha Harkness, on the other hand, thinks it’s bullshit. No, she knows it’s bullshit. Her mother isn’t watching her from above, and she certainly isn’t sending her any blessings. If anything, Evanora Harkness is probably laughing up at her daughter from Hell, delighting in the predicament Agatha has found herself in.
Her mother can’t reach her anymore, so she sent her a traumatized kid with more space in his mind for pretty boys than common sense. She supposes she can appreciate the irony ( she’d certainly snuck her share of girls into the house when she was his age ) but come on. She was absolutely more clever about it than her young charge and his boyfriend are being right about now.
Agatha gnaws on her lip as she contemplates the boys through her window, curled up together across the roof. She almost reaches for the light switch- she can barely see them in the dim glow of her office lamp- but the overhead light is likely too bright, and there’s a decent chance they’ll see her.
Christ, when did she suddenly become the one sneaking around?
She nibbles the tip of her pen, trying to decide a course of action. A responsible parental figure would probably open the window and demand to know what they think they’re doing out there at this time of night. In all honesty, however, Agatha is almost more inclined to ask why they chose the roof in particular. Considering Teen’s room is in the basement (as opposed to hers and Jen’s, on the second floor, and Lilia’s odd little loft in the attic that she for some reason loves ) the only person he’d have to slip past is Alice. Who, last she checked, probably hasn’t slept in at least thirty-six hours. That’s usually about when Jen starts threatening to drug her, anyways.
All goes to say, much easier to pull off than sneaking out Jen’s office window and helping his boyfriend down from the tree out front- and more privacy to boot. Honestly, what was this, amateur hour?
Now, where was she? Oh, right. Responsible parenting.
She’s…more than a bit rusty.
Honestly, she has no idea why her old friend had put her of all people in her will. Wonders about it every damn day, and has for the past three years. She knows the woman was sort of lonely, sure, but did she really have no one else to leave her kid to? For crying out loud, she hadn’t even thought about that family in years when Social Services had shown up on her doorstep with a letter from Wanda and a lifetime of responsibility.
It certainly hadn’t been what she’d intended for her life. Hell, in a way, it was exactly what she’d been fleeing when she’d run to Westview. And damn it all, she actually thought she’d run far enough when she’d left again, left to a world she thought she’d pieced herself back together enough to return to.
And then they’d brought Billy to her, and she’d nearly fallen apart all over again.
But she hadn’t. Somehow, by the grace of whatever divine powers that are out there, Agatha had actually managed to keep her shit together . At least, no one has taken the kid away from her yet.
Maybe she needs to be less hard on herself about this whole parenting thing. Not as though the little critters came with a manual.
Although her rabbit certainly is easier to look after.
Agatha sighs, glancing at the clock. She’d honestly prefer to let the sweethearts be- you can only be sixteen and in love for so long, after all- but it’s nearing midnight on a Tuesday, and she gets the sense that Eddie’s parents already don’t like her. Besides, Alice has an early briefing tomorrow ( some out-of-towner that she’s not happy about- Agatha hadn’t been in the mood to pry her for specifics) that she’s no doubt going to oversleep for, and Agatha isn’t sure the house can withstand them both running late at the same time. That had happened once with Jen and had ended in a very embarrassing trip to the emergency room- not an experience she’s eager to repeat.
She considers knocking on the window- or even opening it and sticking her head out, really giving them a startling little lesson there- but dismisses the idea. As funny as their faces would be, the risk of one of the boys falling off the roof is a bit too high for her liking. Instead, she fishes her phone out from under the pile of papers she’d been grading and sends a quick text.
11:47
Big Mama Witch: oi.
Big Mama Witch: go to bed. And your “boyf” needs to go home.
Freeloader: o shit
Big Mama Witch: watch your fucking language
Freeloader: srry
Freeloader: any chance eddie can stay the night? it is kinda late to be driving home :)
Big Mama Witch: maybe when I fall off that roof and Lilia runs the house. Otherwise you’re out of luck
Freeloader: fair. he says hi btw
Big Mama Witch: bed. Or you’re both getting banned from Alice’s cooking this week. I think she’s making ribs on Saturday.
Freeloader: askdskff going! going! no need for drastic measures
Freeloader: wait does this mean eddie’s invited for dinner on Saturday?
Big Mama Witch: for about two more seconds
Freeloader: ok ok
Agatha rolls her eyes as she watches the boys share an overly sweet and decidedly too lengthy kiss goodbye, before scrambling back down the tree and in the window respectively. She makes a mental note to have a conversation with the kid about date safety tomorrow- both in the protection sense and in the whole get the hell off my roof and just invite your boyfriend over for a movie like normal kids, for fuck’s sake kind of sense. Hmm. Does anyone even keep condoms in the house? Should she pick some up? Should she even be encouraging that?
“Damn,” she mutters to herself. “So much for feeling like a good parent for a minute.” She sighs. It was nice while it lasted.
Oh well. These , Agatha decides as she stands from her chair and stretches, are questions for someone who had a more stable childhood than she did. She’ll have to ask Jen. Grabbing a pretty purple post-it note, she quickly scribbles down a reminder to herself. Gods, she hopes she doesn’t forget about that before work tomorrow.
Her phone chimes, effectively distracting her from her thoughts.
11:55
Freeloader: hey Agatha?
Freeloader: srry I’m on my way to bed I swear but Eddie just texted me
Freeloader: he says he saw someone in the yard
Shit .
11:56
Big Mama Witch: you sure your boyfriend isn’t just crazy?
Freeloader: no I looked too there’s def a woman in the backyard :/ should I wake up Alice?
Big Mama Witch: no, I’ll handle it. Go to sleep.
Freeloader: u sure?
Big Mama Witch: how many different ways can I say bed, kid?
Freeloader: ok. she’s down by the garden. scream if she’s a demon
Freeloader: or a cannibal
Freeloader: or an axe murderer
Freeloader: ok im going downstairs good night
~
Agatha grumbles under her breath in annoyance as she stalks downstairs into the kitchen. She snatches a jacket off of the coatrack- not caring whose it is- and tugs it on as she slips out into the cool October night. Her fingers hover briefly over the switch to the porch light, but she ultimately chooses to leave it off. May as well keep the element of surprise on her side while she still has it.
She crosses the yard, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Agatha creaks open the gate and slips into the garden, glancing around. As far as she can tell, she’s alone.
Maybe Teen was wrong. It’s late and it’s dark. Maybe he’d just seen a fox run by, or a tree swaying in the wind, or-
An arm wraps around her waist. Agatha yelps into the soft hand that snakes around to cover her mouth. She nearly tries to bite the person grabbing her before a familiar perfume drifts across her face.
She stops in her tracks, inhaling the smell. Misty pine and wet pebbles. Soil damp with rain, fresh after a storm. The smell of cool ground under her toes, of rolling down a hill in a mess of tangled limbs, of stray leaves falling from her hair as she pins her to the grass and her sweet, high laugh as she sneezes it away.
She’s only smelled it on one person in her life, and she knows exactly who it belongs to.
She swears, realizing who’s holding her. There’s that laugh, the one that stirs a painful whirl of emotions in her gut, and the hand over her mouth pulls away. One finger traces her lips (and Agatha has to actively resist the instinct to part them for her) before the hand perches on her shoulder instead. Its owner leans in close, lips brushing the curve of her ear.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” her ex-wife purrs. “I couldn’t resist.”
“You are so not sorry, ” Agatha snaps, finally gathering herself enough to wrestle away. Rio smirks at her, dark hair framed against the brilliant white of the moon. It’s a cloudless night and the stars are shining brightly, illuminating every little contour of her face. Her lips crook upwards just the slightest bit more as she gives Agatha a long look up and down, making no effort to hide the way her eyes linger on her legs.
Agatha crosses her arms and coughs loudly, suddenly feeling slightly self-conscious. She’s wearing an odd combination of the colorful striped pants she’d worn to work, a black graphic t-shirt gifted to her by Teen, and a fur lined jacket that she now recognizes as belonging to Jennifer. Compared to Rio -dressed in a creamy white button down and black suspenders that she somehow manages to make look incredibly elegant- she feels like a complete disaster. Rio, however, seems to disagree, if the way she chuckles appreciatively is any indicator.
“Peace was never an option, huh?”
Agatha glares at her. “Excuse me?”
Rio points. “Your shirt.” She tilts her head curiously. “Is that a swan?”
Oh. Right. Damn.
“It’s- erm- it’s a goose, I think,” Agatha mutters, trying to ignore the way her cheeks flush. “It’s from some game. I don’t know, my-”
She freezes, the words my kid gave it to me sticking in her throat like it’s suddenly been lined with thorns. Such a normal thing to say to her neighbors, or her students, or even her snotty coworkers- but to Rio? Suddenly she can’t get the sentence out of her mouth. The words hang heavy in the air between them, veiled by a fog of unspoken questions.
Do you know?
Are you angry?
Can you forgive me?
Agatha clears her throat, trying to regain some of her bravado. No, scratch that- to regain any of her composure.
“What the hell are you doing here? In my…my…”
She trails off, wondering how exactly she meant to end that sentence. My town makes her sound like some cowboy out of a bad Western. My yard, on the other hand, makes her feel like some prissy brunch-having Karen like Mrs. Hart from next door (Alice says she’s not that bad. Agatha always retorts that she likes Alice because she’s a cop and that she’d be much happier if the rest of them had never moved in because Agatha yells at her when she knocks on their door instead of calling 911. Then she leaves before Alice can remind her of the time she had to carry her drunk out of Mrs. Hart’s garden party). She crosses her arms- fully aware of how petulant she looks- and takes a step back, away from her ex. “Just answer the question.”
Do you hate me? For any of it?
Rio takes a step forward. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.” She produces a flower out of her pocket- a velvety black rose- and presses it into Agatha’s fingers before she can pull away. “For you. My lady. ”
Agatha grits her teeth as she steps back again. The thorns of the flower dig into her palm. “Did you take this from my garden?”
Do you miss me?
Rio steps closer. “Not yours.”
Fuck, I miss you.
“So, what,” Agatha grumbles, nearly tripping over a rock as she backs up again. Her back hits the hedge, sticks and leaves tangling in her hair. “You came all this way to steal flowers from my neighbors?”
What are you really here for? Who are you really here for?
“I caught a case in the area,” Rio murmurs. She doesn’t advance again now that Agatha’s backed up against a wall, and Agatha almost wants to pull her forward again. “The powers that be wanted one of us on it and I found it interesting.”
She chuckles. “The lead detective is some dead rockstar’s kid. You certainly don’t see that every day. Although I guess you guys do, huh?”
A cold, harsh stab of something unbidden that absolutely isn’t jealousy pulses through Agatha. “Alice Wu.”
You’re here for her. Not me.
Rio snaps her fingers. “That’s the one! With the cute sort of ‘grunge on the weekends’ look going on. So you know her then?” She taps her chin theatrically. Agatha half-wonders if she knows what she’s doing to her before she speaks again, and then she knows. “Maybe you can answer a question for me. Are those pretty red streaks in her hair real, or do they come out if you pull on them?”
Shut up.
“Shut up,” Agatha all but snarls. Rio crooks an eyebrow at her, smirking.
“What, you have dibs on her? Can’t blame you, I guess- she is pretty. Seems awfully nice, too. Sweet little thing offered to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to welcome me to town, can you believe it?”
She doesn’t step closer, but she does lean forward slightly. “Tell me, Agatha. Is she that sweet out of the uniform too?”
“Shut up, ” Agatha hisses, and yanks her in for a searing kiss.
It doesn’t matter how many years pass. How many decades pass. Rio still kisses like they’re twenty-one and broke and living out of the minivan they’d stole from her mother. Slow but fierce, muscles tensed with the effort of holding back while she waits for Agatha to make the first choice. Her touch stings and soothes at the same time, like cool water over a fresh burn.
It’s still not enough. Agatha buries her hands in thick dark hair, pulling her as close as she possibly can- as if by holding her too close to breathe, she can meld their souls together the way they were an age ago. A vivid memory flashes across her mind- Agatha on her thirtieth birthday, weeping over the marks life had left on her body. Rio, snaking her way along her skin, pressing sweet kisses to every freckle and scar she could find. “You’re so beautiful, baby.” she’d crooned . “If I could worship you forever, I would. If I could crawl into your skin and live there, I would.”
She’d accomplished it, in a way. A part of her is buried somewhere in Agatha’s chest, embedded too deep in her core to claw out. It draws her in time and time again, drags Agatha into her arms like there’s a magnet attached to her heart.
Rio starts to speak, but Agatha bites harshly at her bottom lip to quiet her. “No. If we’re going to do this, you don’t talk. You don’t get to sweet-talk your way back into my head.”
You’re already in my heart, her inner voice whispers .
Rio, to her credit, doesn’t try to talk again. Agatha rewards her by parting her lips, letting Rio slip her tongue past. It’s as much a reward to her as it is to Rio, and she knows it. She lets Rio slide their tongues together, trying not to think about how much she’d missed her.
I love you, her heart pleads.
“I hate you,” she hisses instead. Rio nips at her jaw in response. Her hands slide under Agatha’s t-shirt, tracing an achingly familiar pattern along her ribcage. Agatha’s body arches in response, remembering an old sting from years ago. The marks have faded somewhat, but she still sees them every time she looks in the mirror.
Rio tugs at the clips of her bra, and it’s enough to stir Agatha from her lipgloss-induced stupor. God, kissing Rio is like a drug. She pushes on Rio’s shoulders. “Not in the- mmm…”
Rio pushes back stubbornly, pressing their breasts together. She’s warm and soft, and it takes everything she has not to let her hands wander. Still, what little sense Agatha has left kicks like a mule and she shoves her again insistently.
“I’m serious,” she snaps. “We can’t do it out here, my neighbors are insanely nosy.”
Rio pouts, but obediently removes her hands. Resisting the urge to groan at the loss, Agatha wraps an arm around her shoulders and drags her back to the house alongside her. She has the brief thought that she’ll have to buy Jen an apology coffee tomorrow for everything she’s about to hear tonight, but is promptly distracted by Rio kissing at her neck.
“ Fuck!”
She stumbles slightly when Rio nibbles at the junction of her neck and collarbone, growling at the way she giggles.
“Stop that,” she hisses. “Or we’re going to-”
As if to prove the point she doesn’t get to make, a rock promptly pops out of nowhere (at least, that’s what she tells herself). Agatha yelps, yanking Rio in close to her chest as they topple over together.
“ Shitfuck ass -!”
She hits the porch with a grunt, ex-wife clutched safely in her arms. Agatha groans, wincing at the way her bones crackle in protest. Damn it, she’s definitely going to feel that tomorrow.
Rio props herself up on her elbows, hovering over her. “Aw, aren’t you sweet? Breaking my fall like a true gentlewoman.” She hums, brushing some of Agatha’s hair away from her face. “And I do like the position it’s gotten us into.”
Agatha stares up at her, briefly lost in the view. Forget lust and desire for a moment. Rio is one of the most beautiful women she’s ever seen. She reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, admiring the way the warm glow of the porch light frames her pretty pale face like a halo.
Wait.
“ Fuck! ” Agatha hisses as the realization hits her. She sits bolt upright, ignoring Rio’s questioning look. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She makes a futile attempt to dust herself off as she hauls herself to her feet and swings the porch door open, trying her best to act casual. Rio peeks in over her shoulder, her own eyes widening slightly.
“Oh. Whoops!”
Agatha grins awkwardly, trying in vain to block her from the sight of the woman sitting at the kitchen table. Rio simply leans around her, waving as though she’s simply making a new friend on the street.
“Hi! I’m Rio. Agatha’s- well, Agatha’s something, anyways.”
“Ex-wife,” Agatha snaps through gritted teeth. “My ex-wife. Rio, this is-”
“I think you two kind of already established who I am,” Alice interrupts dryly. Agatha winces.
“Well that answers that question, I guess.”
“Mmhm. Yep.” Alice stirs her mug of tea, determinedly looking somewhere very interesting between Agatha and Rio. “By the way, you need to tell Teen to just invite Eddie over. He’s freaking Sharon out.”
Agatha groans, momentarily annoyed out of her mortification. “Did she seriously call 911 on him again? She’s got to get blocked or something one of these days, right?”
“She called because she saw a suspicious woman lurking in our backyard,” Alice replies pointedly. “So you two should consider yourselves lucky that Lucy happened to be on patrol in the area tonight, because I don’t think anyone else on my squad would have thought to call me before they responded.”
“Well, I can’t wait to thank her in person!” Rio chirps. “On that note…”
Before Agatha can stop her, she spins her around and kisses her on each cheek. “ Te veo.”
She pulls away and actually skips out the door, waving on her way out. Agatha glares, wiping the lipgloss off her cheek. Alice gives a halfhearted wave in return, glancing tiredly at Agatha.
“ Ex- wife, huh?”
Agatha gives a noncommittal flick of the wrist, still grouchily staring out the door. “Something like that. So how much do I have to pay you to make sure the kid never finds out about that?”
“You make sure my name never comes up in… whatever that was again, and I won’t breathe a word to him.”
“Are you lying?”
“Probably.” Alice shrugs, getting up from the counter to rinse her mug off in the sink. “But seriously, never again. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your ex-wife is good looking, but I don’t like that look in her eyes. Something about that spells crazy .”
“You have no idea,” Agatha mutters under her breath, watching Rio disappear down the road.
“No goddamn idea.”