Archive of Our Own ^beta

If only she were a tiny bit more spiteful, Rio would've torn those jeans with her bare hands the moment Agatha had turned her back — and if she were just reasonably considerate of the wounds littering her heart and making it so insensible to its own beat, she wouldn't even have come here in the first place.

She wouldn't have picked up the phone when Agatha called, and she wouldn't have dropped everything for her. Driven half an hour to a motel out of town — their infamous hideout; the Witches Road — and waited by the 280, on the fourth floor, until the other decided to open the door.

She wouldn't have accepted Agatha's ludicrous conditions; she wouldn't have been so understanding when her touch had been condemned to darkness for eternity, and she wouldn't have coated her own skin with shameless cowardice when Agatha prohibited her of kissing her mouth and cradling her bones in her arms — don't make it seem like it's more than it actually is, darling; that is not what we're getting from this, got it?

And she most certainly wouldn't have played by the other’s rules, with her cards. Said every damn line at the right place and time. Chosen the right shirt and wore the right smirk. Used the perfume Agatha said she liked. Figured out which rhythm she'd have to follow so Agatha would call her again — because, God forbid, she needed Agatha to call her again and use want her again, if only to scratch an itch. 

If Rio had been at least self aware enough to realize that this very situation before her is unsustainable — even when it has lasted for eleven months and two weeks now — she wouldn't be sitting on her panties in an uncomfortable armchair of a rusty motel on the outskirtsof town. Legs up on the seat and hands fidgeting with her silver lighter while her mind studies the hundred ways she could desecrate Agatha's jeans — the jeans that made her ass look amazing, and the jeans that had been gifted by Agatha's current obsession, the great Wanda Maximoff.

The woman whose form has been printed to Agatha's back — the form Rio has painfully failed to fit herself into.

The protagonist of an insufferable suburban show from the 60’s — or the 70’s, or the 80’s, or the 90’s, who cares? — that has absolutely everything a side character — a collateral damage of the script itself — could want: devastatingly honest [envious green] eyes, an incorruptible sweetness, the purest smile to ever exist and that sort of softness that makes her alluring to anyone's touch.

The one who gets to hold Agatha's hand in daylight and take her for stupidly long walks at the park; to waste an ungodly amount of time at a theatre, or a restaurant line.

Wanda Maximoff, she thinks with a scoff, she'd never be able to withstand what I do. She wouldn't drive to the Witches Road just to get a few crumbs, she's too entitled for it. She'd take everything; she wouldn't accept halves; she'd take every single crumble and ask for more.

It has been making her sour recently — how this has been happening more frequently; how she's on the verge of emaciation. 

How she'll make the smallest attempt to make this sound less… transactional. How it would inevitably fall flat the moment she looks into Agatha's eyes and finds that the bottom of her seas are much farther away than she'd first envisioned. How, in moments of despair, she wouldn't be capable of stopping the whiplash of her tongue or the sparks that buzz off her teeth like ones of a welding machine. 

(“If she's all that great, why are you laying here with me?” She asks, one day, after several hours of feasting on each other's bodies. Throat covered in bruises, a path that goes all the way down to her breasts. Back burning with angry red marks. “Can’t she make you come?”

“Rio.” Agatha growls, not bothering to open her eyes to look at her. “We've agreed there would be no unnecessary dialogue.”

“This seems pretty necessary to me.” She shrugs, holding the sheets tighter against her chest. Cursing the arm-length space between them. “Is she leaving you unsatisfied? Is that why you keep calling?”

A sigh. “I’ve told you before that she is off limits, Vidal. Back off.”

“I just asked you a question.”

“And I will not answer.” She doesn't need to see it to know Rio's pouting. She also doesn't have the right to find it sweet. “Stop pouting.”

“You're not even looking at me, how would you–”

Her eyes open at that. Serene waves and crystal clear waters . “You're quite easy to read.” A long pause. “I had you figured out the first time I saw you.”

“No, you didn't.”

“Yes, I did.” She smiles. The shape of it is always so clear even in the absence of light — the meaning, on the other hand, is something Rio hasn't learned everything about; she can't say if she's being condescending or affectionate. “What time is it?”

Rio looks at her phone, on the nightstand. “One-thirty in the morning.” 

Agatha hums, and even without a single letter, she's capable of spelling out the first draft of this weird arrangement of theirs — I shouldn't have called; this was just a mistake. “Don't forget to take your watch when you leave. It's on the bathroom sink.”

She nods. Resignation and humiliation have been walking side-by-side inside her for months now — it's hard to say how many steps left there are before any of them breaks. “Is this how you're going to kick me out now?”

She waits and waits and waits for an answer, but Agatha never replies to her, so she moves out of bed.

Gathers her things.

Puts on the stupid uniform from work she didn't even think of changing before coming here.

Grabs her phone, her watch and leaves with her boots in hands.)

It has been making her salty, too — how Agatha has this way of talking her into things and stripping her off her dignity and licking her soul out of her bones when they're together. How easy it seems to be to lure her into her bed, into her arms, into her ravenous mouth. (How excusable she makes it seem when she promises to tear Rio apart — how she makes Rio beg and beg and plead for it.) How she'd look right at Rio's eyes and set fire to the silent forest of her irises — how she'd make Rio think her flora is lesser than Maximoff’s uniquely for foliage; for one is made of rough bark and wet soil, when the other's is made of lively leaves and sunlight turned into digestible energy; who even is she to compete with it? 

It has been making her salty — very much so.

Enough to have her stand in front of a mirror for hours, searching for what's missing, and what's excessive.

Enough to have her follow the woman in town once. Count her steps and turns and hide in alleys to see what it is about her that seems to make Agatha so devoted to her.

(In the end, she doesn't find anything much — nothing but the fact she waves at every single soul on the sidewalk and that she has this annoying trait of indulging conversations with young children and older people. So she figures, somehow, it must be her passiveness that has Agatha so intrigued. It must be the inherent goodness of her being — it has to be it.)

It has been making her… bitter, too — it has been plaguing her day and night, because even between her longest shifts, she still has the energy to crave one of Agatha's texts. (One of her ‘meet me at nine’, or the classic ‘i’m already here. don't make me wait c;’.) It has been shifting her senses and making her skip the reconsideration part that comes before voicing a thought — it has been making her loose-lipped and impulsive.

(“What is it with not being allowed to kiss you on the mouth?”

Agatha is straddling her; hands on her breasts and the perfect marks of her teeth an inch above Rio's rib tattoo. No immediate response is formed, but Agatha's brow creases.

“It can't possibly be because you think I'm bad at it right?” A smirk twists her lips. “You have substantial evidence that I'm very skilled with my mouth.”

“You're more of a lightweight than I thought you were,” is what she gets — a vague reference to the bottle of wine that now lies empty near the mini bar. 

“I'm not drunk.”

Agatha hums noncommittally, leaning down as she gently fondles the other's breasts — light touch and rougher rolls on her nipples. Aiming for the juncture of shoulder and neck, she dives. Biting it hard enough to almost break skin.

Rio hisses. “Why can't we kiss, Agatha? I know every inch of you except for your mouth.” 

She must sound so much like a petulant child to Agatha's ears. She hates it — feels slightly embarrassed when she hears a chuckle tickling her collarbones. 

“You've been asking a lot of questions lately.” Agatha bites her again. Sucks . “Need I remind you that this is not what I meant when I said you were expected to be vocal?”

“I know what you meant.” She conceals a moan, buried it on the back of her throat when Agatha's tongue soothes the previous injury — when her teeth tease her once more. “I'm just… I'm just asking because I want to kiss you. I want to know your lips.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Why?” And it's silly — it's reckless — of her to think she has any rights to open her mouth right now. “Are you afraid she'll taste me if she kisses you? Or is that the ultimate betrayal against her precious, golden heart?”

Agatha huffs, pulling away. Straightening her spine and never moving from Rio's lap.

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“I'm just curious.”

“Well, your curiosity is a great inconvenience.” With that, she moves away. “You keep ruining the mood.” Finds her footing out of the bed and searches for something in the rusty shelves of the mini bar. 

“What are you doing?”

“Quiet.”

Small liquor bottles are organized by brand on the door — Agatha takes one and sits on the floor; reaching for the cursed jeans Rio hates so much and taking a crumpled cigarette pack from the left pocket.

It's empty.

She mumbles a ‘ motherfucker ’ at it — Rio, who's now supporting her upper half on her elbows, has to use all her concentration to keep a tender smile off her lips. 

“Agatha.”

“I said quiet.”

She ignores it. “Do you want me to get you some?”

It takes a second of consideration, but the other eventually accepts it. Rio is out of the door in seconds — oh, always so obedient . And when she comes back — when she enters room 280 again — she finds that Agatha Harkness is gone. 

A small note is left on top of the bed — Sorry, I wasn't feeling like it anymore. / Can you keep the pack for me tho? / I'll be here tomorrow, same hour. / Bring it with you, please? x Agatha — and Rio is left wondering if she left in a rush to knock on Wanda's front door and ask from her what she was unable to give her tonight. 

If she'd hold her, look her in the eye. Bite and nibble. Caress the same places where — in Rio's undignified body — she'd cover in teeth-shaped scars. Hold her like she mattered. Stay 'till morning. Drown in her mouth. Curse Wanda with the taste of her lips. Be cursed by the redhead — offer her bed, her mid-day dreams, her intimacy.

Everything she'd never–

“Fuck!” She yells, punching the mattress and tearing apart the piece of paper. 

In less than an hour, the liquor bottle will be gone, and, by the morning — for some twisted, fucked up reason — she'll have a smile on her face when she realizes where she's at.

Their room.

She finds some comfort in the idea of it.

That it even exists.)

Now, feeling all bitter — and sour — and salty, Rio hugs her legs, resting her chin on her kneecaps as her eyes shift from the woman asleep in bed and the pants left near the door.

She has thought of getting under the sheets and cuddling her even if it ended up in a broken rib and an argument about the seriousness of each rule stipulated by their agreement.

She has thought of searching through Agatha's wallet to see if she keeps a picture of Wanda hidden somewhere — if there's something of that woman that Agatha carries around at all times, even when she comes here to undress Rio and crawl under her skin.

She has thought of finding a way to unlock Agatha's phone to text Maximoff a picture of them. Send her a detailed text about each and every encounter they've had up to this moment. Tell her she should be more grateful; she can't not know how much of a lucky woman she is — she fucks me occasionally, yes, but she keeps drawing the line around anything remotely related to you. She respects you, I think. She has never touched my lips — your kisses remain sacred; you'll never have to taste me.

She has thought of drinking whatever has been stocked in the mini bar. Laying on the floor while watching the flickering lights of the street poles outside. Tracing their fates in the ceiling. Marking down their mistakes, each other. Forever hoping for a different ending, another universe, another chance.

She has thought of putting her clothes on and walking to the parking lot. Going to her car, getting in and driving away until she felt like she's far enough to snap. Lose herself, lose her temper. Hit the wheel and scream — why am I so stupid? Why am I so careless?

And — of course — she has thought of laying on the edge of the mattress, respecting the space they always keep between their bodies when they're not actively trying to cancel physics law together. Tell Agatha about her burdens because even if she doesn't answer a single question, at least she'll listen. Somehow. She'll listen.

Rio drags out a breath, letting it fall heavy on her lap. Her phone flashes on the nightstand — it's almost two in the morning. She has three hours before going back to work. She has… this inkling that entering this room again will just get harder every time she leaves.

Then her eyes fall upon Agatha's peaceful figure.

She's beautiful.

Her bareback is marked with Rio's lipstick — since she's not allowed to touch her lips or leave marks. Her hair falls on the pillow, wild and probably too good for Rio's rough hands.

She is beautiful. Ethereal even.

And she doesn't have to conceal the curve of her lips for now — like she usually does when her chest starts warming up at the sight of the other woman. She doesn't have to pretend she's trying to copy the other's chest rise and fall by timing their breaths, restarting the exhales together. She doesn't have to wipe the shimmer off her eyes when Agatha turns in bed and exposes her breasts — the part of her body Rio has always been obsessed with. And she doesn't have to resist when, in her semi-conscious state, Agatha looks at her and beckons her with a finger.

“Why were you sitting all the way there?” Her voice is rough with sleep — she has never really allowed Rio to see her like this. 

“I couldn't…” She rethinks her whole sentence. Thinks of something less shameful to start with. “I didn't want to invade your space.”

Agatha actually giggles, pressing the heel of her hand on her eye. Yawning. “Don't be ridiculous, this bed is huge.”

She must be exhausted, is her first conclusion.

“It's almost two in the morning.” For some unknown reason, Rio figures it's wise to warn her. “What time do you have to go? Do you need a ride?”

“We can just… stay here tonight.”

Those drinks are still talking over her own better judgment, is the second.

Rio regards her for a second. Thinks of the twelve most inappropriate questions and scraps all of them. Goes for casual and natural.

“You seemed tired when you arrived tonight.” She waits for a moment. Lets her gaze search Agatha's suspiciously retreating waters. “You had never fallen asleep here before.”

Agatha's lip tilts up ever so slightly. “I have.”

Rio frowns. “When?”

“Sometimes, after you left.”

Memories of her own night here flash through her mind rapidly enough to give Rio a mild headache. (Like blurry photographs or damaged films, she sees herself getting into the tub in her underwear with all the liquor bottles in hand. Lengthy soliloquies leave her lips between sips of alcohol. Aimless gestures occupy her hands as she tries to explain to herself the dynamics of this doomed system they've created together, and the possible outcomes in case one of them decides to abandon it before its ultimate collapse.) She makes a face.

Sour — she thinks of lively forests and decaying, ungraceful bark.

“Can I ask you a question?” Her chances are dire, and the morality of asking anything from Agatha when she's clearly not as guarded as she always is, is dubious at best. But still– “A single question and I'll even leave if you want me to.”

With a small spark in her eyes and a funny wrinkle in her nose, Rio braces herself for a bite or a spit of venom. Instead, what she gets is a quiet, “what is it?”

So, obviously, she needs a moment to catch her breath. To recover even when there was no harm. To recount her words to assure herself she can do this in one simple sentence and then let it go.

“I…” Why did the best criminal lawyer in the whole East Coast chose me of all people? What will happen when you decide that you're done and I keep thinking about your body thrashing beneath me? What's my expiring date? Where am I going to hide after you leave? Who will I wait for after you forget about this? “Are you dating her?”

Salty — she has always been fond of it, hasn't she? 

Holding the knife so close to her fragile organs — way past her soft tissues — and placing both of her hands on the handle with a white-knuckled grip as she twists.

Agatha regards her with utter concentration for a handful of seconds. Rio hates it. (She fears this is her way of calculating what she wants to hear, since she's so easy; her personal formula to make the most unscrupulous lies seem truthful.) “Not yet.”

And twists.

“Why?”

“I want to ask her properly.” She pauses. Shrugs. Covers her eyes with her arm — a dangerous move when her chest isn't covered and the lines accentuated by it are nothing but mouth-watering. “She seems like the type of girl that likes that.”

She tries — really, really does — to sound nonchalant when mumbles a ‘got it', but the bad taste it leaves on her mouth is almost enough to make her vomit. The small lacerations it left on its wake along her lungs, trachea and throat — small crimson beds start to form; it stings every time she swallows. “Can I ask one more?”

Agatha turns her head to her. Turns her whole body in her direction and smiles a smile Rio has never seen her wearing before.

“Yeah, sure,” it's hushed. So abnormal to her.

But even then, Rio follows. Her tone is just as silent. “Do you like me? Even if it's just a little bit. Even if it's for a bad reason like…,” and it's sad how, right now, as she searches for any motive to want her in such a way, and save some affection for her, she can't find anything but a thick layer of humor like ice on a lake, “...like how many times I can make you come.”

She sounds nervous — she is nervous. Her eyes drift downwards, to their limbs — to the possibility of running away as soon as she gets her answer. Her eyes drift back upwards, to Agatha's hypnotizing oceans — the sudden light that seems to be emanating from its depths and how harmonic the movement of the waves are; dancing and crumbling on top of each other. 

It's inescapable.

And she doesn't even pretend it is.

(She could try to escape the current and swim away. She could scream for help or scramble to the shore, but– God, she can't even lie to herself — she can't convince herself this is what she should want.)

“I don't dislike you, Rio.” She sings. “Despite the attitude. And your taste for tequila. And… well, everything else.” Glows. Her mouth curving in such a wide curve it forces her eyes to squint. “And making me come could never be a bad reason, you idiot — it's the top one.”

The curve is contagious. Her heart burns. She can't breathe. 

(I can't even pretend–)

“Yeah?” It's small. Foolish.

“Yeah.” It feels like a borrowed moment. Like something Rio shouldn't have; shouldn't even dream of possessing. “You're kind of bearable when we're drinking, and…”

“When I go down on you?”

Agatha dares to chuckle.

Rio dares to reach out — take her hand.

(They look at each other.

Their eyes look for each other.

I like when you laugh. 

I hate when I snort — it used to happen so often.

I wish I could hear it more.

A soundless conversation takes place. Natural as if they've been communicating for ages.

You're going to hate me in the morning for making you talk.

Probably.

I'm sorry. I needed to hear you say it.

It's okay.

It has been bugging me for weeks now.

I could tell.

I'm sorry.

I won't care by the time we come back here next week.)

“We don't do much but that, do we? Drinking and fucking.” Rio doesn't let go of Agatha's hand. Part of her wants to bring it to her mouth and kiss each of her fingers; each of her knuckles — take her time with her palm, and wrist, if she's lucky. The other is wiser — she knows that acts of fondness that aren't essentially rooted to sex aren't welcomed — so she doesn't.

“We share cigarettes sometimes.”

They split a smile in half. It feels like inhaling mist.

“We had chocolate once. From that vending machine outside. Do you remember it?”

A glimpse of the sun after years crawling in the bottom of the ocean.

“I do.” 

They go quiet again.

Their eyes know exactly where the intersection is.

(Does she know you smoke?

Yes. She hates it.)

And they can't help it.

(Does she make you brush your teeth before kissing her?

Sometimes. Not always.)

Can't look away.

(I never minded the ashes on your breath.

We never kissed.

I wouldn't mind it if we had.)

At a certain moment, Rio's hand starts to wander, and Agatha simply lets her have it.

(Why won't you kiss me anyway?)

(I can't let you ruin anything else.)

She plays with Agatha's fingers, and she traces the curves of her ribs. She caresses her breastbone, and when she gets to her breast, she's delighted to act as if this is her very first time doing it.

(What's left to ruin when we've already had sex?

Plenty.

Like what?

I'm done with the questions.)

She takes Agatha's approving hums as a concession, and she repeats the first trajectory twice before she pulls her hand away. (Pulls away.) Brings it to her own chest in the hopes she could imprint on her skin the organizational pattern of the other's epithelial cells. (Imprint on herself as evidence of the other's existence; something she won't have forever.)

“Agatha.”

“Yes?”

Rio saves a breath beneath her ribs. She knows the moment the knife is driven even deeper, she'll swallow sobs and whimpers, and she'll forbid her hands from shaking and sweating.

“Do you really want to make her your girlfriend?”

The clear waters darken for a moment. The currents change directions — a sigh stumbles out of Agatha's mouth.

“Rio.”

“Just answer it.” She'll hold onto the handle. White-knuckled. She’ll twist it and twist it until she feels the blade coming back to slice her palm. “I'm a big girl, I can take it.”

Agatha looks away. Rio can't.

“Yes,” she drags out. “I do.”

“Alright.” Her lips tremble. Her heart deflates in her ribcage as her lungs are set on fire. She nods her head a couple of times — okay, okay, okay. “Lucky girl, I guess.”

“Don't do this.”

Rio says something her own ears are unable to comprehend. Her limbs start to move on their own, and when she finally opens her eyes to process her surroundings, she's fully dressed — except for her shoes and underwear. Standing outside, in front of the door, near the railing.

Her hands tremble excessively.

She's drenched in sweat.

Her heart is too big and too small for an adult.

Her body is too far away to be own.

The cigarette she tries to place on her lips falls the four floors down to the parking lot. “Shit, shit, fuck,” she curses under her breath. 

She takes another.

Lights it up after a couple shameful tries and, when she finally takes a drag, she realizes two things.

First, this is Agatha's pack, not hers.

Second, the smoke isn't the nicotine she's used to, no. (A crooked line twists her lips.) It's bittersweet.

Oh…

If only Rio were a tiny bit smarter, she'd have known it immediately — this is her best escape route; this is her sign to leave.

(Which is a waste, isn't?)

She knows she'll be back next week.