Work Text:
She had always assumed it was the birthmark’s fault. A jagged patch of skin at her hip that was nothing, just a blip, an accident of the womb. It’s funny really; Alice thought her curse was a birthmark and Agatha’s mother thought her birthmark was a curse. But no one is born evil. Nature doesn’t allow it. That didn’t stop them branding her as such though, from the moment she drew breath they feared and shunned her.
They kept her in the dark, kept her skills blunt and unhoned. Kept her hungry and weak to minimise the evil they believed lived within her.
She was a bloodwitch. It was her right to learn about the magic that curled inside her bones and to control the power that was within her whether they liked it or not, so she started to take what she needed. She would sneak out to read the books they kept from her, she read the ancient texts by candle light. Unable to ask her mother to translate or help with any scrawl of ink that baffled her, it was slow progress to begin with but it pushed her to know more, work harder, acquire the ancient knowledge that was her birthright.
It was there that they found her one night, back hunched over a small leather bound book she had found at the back of the shelves, pushed so far back so no one might see it there. It had called to her. The pages were rough and the spine groaned as she opened it. The words seemed to move, to speak to her and her alone. She tried to read it but the words were unfamiliar and came out warped and grotesque somehow, the Latin clumsy in her mouth. She was so engrossed she hadn’t heard her coming, but the scream when her mother entered the room, certainly caught her attention. She screamed about dark magic and the blackness of her soul but Agatha only wanted to learn. Why was the book even there if no one was supposed to read from it?
Her mother was only there for a moment, her face aghast with horror in a mask that would haunt Agatha for the rest of her days, before she ran to fetch the elders, to report her crimes to them for punishment.
When she felt the hard bite of their magic binding her wrists as they bound her to the stake, she suddenly knew what the feeling was she had felt her entire life: they had been looking for a reason and she had finally given it to them.
She had tried to run. They had hunted her down. Afraid of what she would do if she was unleashed upon the world, if the evil they believed lived inside her was allowed to flourish. They wouldn’t allow her escape. They wanted to see her burn long before the mundanes had the same idea.
It wasn’t her fault she could defend herself.
It's not her fault she was powerless and hungry and couldn't control it. She had nothing and they filled her up. When she realised what had happened it was already over. They wouldn't have stopped though.
Thinking back, she doesn't know for sure whether she would have stopped, had she known it was an option. They were her coven in name only, by birth for sure, but they never loved her. They never helped her. She wasn't their sister, she was their burden from her first breath and they never made that a secret. She wasn’t born evil, they made her that way and when she rose from the ashes of their assault, she was branded a witch killer. A covenless witch. An aberration. They were never going to walk away from there holding hands and making amends. It was her or them and they made their choices.
She didn't kill the children. They were her friends, of a sort. They showed her things she wasn't allowed to learn, teaching her incantations and basic potions that her mother wanted to deny her of. Most importantly, they didn't try to kill her. They would though, when they woke up the next morning and discovered what she'd done. There would be no questions of why.
By morning she was gone from her home, never to return.
She won't deny it felt GOOD absorbing their power. She felt like sunlight coursed through her veins. Each witch a different flavour. It would take time afterwards to tally up the new power inside her, test out all the little new skills that would emerge from it. Mostly common ones, if we're being honest, but every new feed would make those a little stronger. A glorious day when a new string was added to her bow. Usually they would come from nowhere, appearing when they're useful, a spark from a fingertip when struggling to light the campfire. A pack that becomes lighter when you don't need to carry with your back. A bolt of lightning when some wandering raider saw her in the woods and decided to try and take what was hers.
In the beginning, it didn't even occur to her that she had a choice. She couldn't stop it any more than a pot could stop itself being filled with water. It was decades before she could control the power, reached the switch that could stop the flow before every last drop if it was hers and a hollow husk remained. Long enough that she'd already caught Rio's attention and then it turned into something else.
They were a team for a while. Death would guide her to her kind. Help her seek out the sick and old whose powers were about to end up in the ground and would become useless anyway. The ones that people would miss, sure, but they're about to shuffle off anyway. It was basically a win/win, that's lightly stacked in her direction. Or a win/win/win because Death keeps following. Thanks her for the bodies. Sits with her after, at the fire as Agatha feels the new energy coalesce within her. Makes her feel like maybe she isn’t a covenless witch if this is what it feels like to be part of a team. To not be alone anymore.
She’s rewarded for good behaviour. At first with food because for all her power, she still can’t summon up a nice meal and after taking the lives of her fellow witches, she feels degraded raiding their homes and shoving food from their pantry into her satchel for the road ahead. She took books too. She may not have had sisters to learn the craft from but she was going to become the witch she was damn well born to be.
Then Death came to her side of the fire. Death touched her and it was warm like it shouldn’t be. Or maybe it’s the fire that danced across her skin and made her feel things she’d never felt, didn’t know she had the capacity to feel. Death made her feel wanted. Needed even, which is absurd when she gorged on the lives of hundreds of souls an hour. Agatha can’t ever hope to please her that much. She only took a handful here and there, scattered over the years. But she felt the thanks for her efforts, through tongue and teeth and fingers.
She can’t take Rio’s power, she knows that, but she could feel it when she touched her, get lost in the waves of it when her fingers slid inside her and brought their reward.
She's embarrassed now, looking back. That little kitten who followed Death around, leaving corpses at her feet and getting a pat on the head.
And Death left her alone for the endless stretches in between.
The road was still long and quiet and cold in the night. The wolves still come.
Companionship didn’t come easy to someone with a reputation like hers.
The moment she became aware of the new life inside of her, Agatha stopped feeling lonely. She talked to him long before he had ears. Him she knew, somehow. Her boy. Her son. Her coven. At last.
We walked and she felt him move within her. She imagined their lives together, giving him everything she’d been denied. She would nurture him and bring him proudly into his power. She would keep him safe.
There was a moment when she arrived that day, Agatha had thought she might just want to be present at the birth of her son. Maybe Death came to ease her pain and wash her baby’s head as he arrived into the new world. It didn’t take long for her to know, and the cold ice of realisation fractured down her spine as another wave of pain took her.
No.
She can’t.
Not now.
Was she jealous? Jealous that Agatha would finally have someone at her side. Jealous that her brief moments of affection scattered across the years weren’t enough. If she did this, if she took him, it would be the end. There can be no going back from that.
Instead she’s given time. A poor bargain but she supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. She never knew if it was better or worse that she didn’t know exactly how much time.
And still there wasn’t enough power.
Not enough to fill their bellies. She didn't ever think back to those first few days. The hunger. The cries of a child who couldn't suckle as she starved and her milk turned to dust.
She only ever wanted to live. To survive. She did what she had to.
He was her one, her everything, the one light in the endless darkness. She was alone before and will be alone now until the end. She already knew somehow that there would never be another to stand by her side, so she made it so they wouldn't have to. She could become so powerful she would never need anyone again.
She embraced that as a simple fact; She was alone. The covenless witch. And maybe it was better that way.
The end would have come a long time ago if she didn't carry so much hate in her heart towards her . She marches through the years because to stop would be to give herself over to the woman who took Nicky, and took her heart along with him.
They told stories about her, awful stories that painted her as a monster. Stories she let them believe. Soon she didn't even need to goad them into a reaction. They merely heard her name and stepped up to give her their power. It was almost too easy. She became famous. Infamous. Notorious.
You get called a monster enough, you might as well become one. They treated you the same either way.
They weren't interested in her side of the story. They heard their little tales, in taverns and markets and the dark corners where people whispered, and they believed what they wanted to believe. They became judge, jury and executioner by reputation alone.
It was never her that cast the first stone. Courts these days might even call it self defence.
All she did was sing a little song. All she did was disappoint them. All she did was rile them up. Getting a rise out of people isn't a crime.
They could have walked away and she would have let them.
She shouldn’t have used his song though. That’s one thing that weighs her heart like a millstone. Not that she had any choice in the matter really. Word got out and people filled in the blanks themselves. She thought of him always but in those times where witches would gather, their hopeful eyes on her, waiting for all their dreams to come true, the memory stung like she was breaking something fragile. A part of his memory seemed to whither and turn to ash as she watched their desiccated bodies fall to the ground.
She will admit things maybe went a little far with Wanda but those kids weren't real. They were light and energy and wishful thinking in a pretty bow, so it's probably okay to put on a leash and drag them around a little to get a rise out of the most powerful witch she's ever seen. They might look and, god forbid, sound like little boys but a week ago they were no more than a twinkle in their mother's eye. Granted, she was surprised Wanda managed to kit them out with real souls, damn that girl had some power. Still, they had no place in the natural order of things.
Yet she still didn't unleash her power on them, not really.
She would not agree that the punishment fit the crime, but at least she didn't remember most of it. It was a mercy to be spared the more agonising details of her suburban prison.
She wondered, later, if Death ever came to visit her before, dropped in on her small town hell to taunt her while humouring the delusion. Probably. There were only so many ways for a being as old as time itself to get her kicks, so the novelty would have appealed. She could have made bundt cake and chit chatted about the weather and been none the wiser. She would have loved to see Agatha weak. A sedated animal in chains that would have kicked her if it was able.
Death says she loves her. Said it all the time as though the repetition will make it true. When she was young she almost believed it. They had something, for a few decades at least, until the betrayal kicked off centuries of bad blood. The nerve to say Agatha got special treatment. She took everything.
She was grateful that witches don't age like the mundanes. She was able to keep running. Maybe a few more centuries would dull the ache that festered within her.
But one day the choice is simply taken from her. Her body is taken back to mother nature and her soul walks the long path that must lead to the afterlife, Rio at her side, closer than she would like.
“Okay, what's next then?” Agatha asked.
“The decision must be made,” said Rio, ever cryptic.
“Up or down? Clouds or fire?”
“That's very reductive. I like to think it's a much more nuanced process. But sure.” And Rio looks at her with wry amusement, smug to finally have her, to have finally won. Agatha tried not to rise to it.
“So, what precisely are we dealing with here?” Agatha said with a hair toss she hoped looked casual.
“You're not going to like it, my love.”
“Oh GOD, not more trials? You have got to be kidding me.”
Death giggled, “I'll admit it is poor timing.”
“Aren't you the boss around here? Can I skip the line or what?”
“5 minutes dead and already with the favours.” Rio's voice comes out light and singsong, like we're a married couple having a domestic.
“What can I say, there's no harm asking the question.” Agatha shrugged. More god damn trials, of course. You go your whole life avoiding them and suddenly Death and the Maximoffs turn up all at once. Can’t a woman get a break for a single second, even when she’s dead?
They reached a vast lake of lava with a stone bridge winding across it. A frustratingly inefficient route but she supposed the dead always had time to go the long way round.
“So trials. What trials are we dealing with here exactly?”
“Oh nothing really, you'll just be poked and prodded by the universe so she knows what to do with you for all of eternity. Then we get our happy ever after.” Rio reached across to her, her fingers finding Agatha’s hand and trying to claim it. She jerked away from her roughly. Agatha wasn't going to let her win that easily.
“We get to play Barbie and Ken in the dreamhouse? Perfect. That's just perfect,” she spat.
“You can't hate me forever. You don't even know what forever is. You think you're old but you're nothing. I've been here since the mountains pushed their way out of the sea. I've seen civilisations rise and fall. You're the blink of an eye. The lap of a wing. I can be patient. I simply don't wish to be.” Her cheekbones hollowed into the hard lines of a skull, her eyes dark sockets.
She still felt Billy's power, bound to her soul now instead of her body. The ability to make and shape reality, to bend and fold it to her will. It coursed through her, not with an organic thrumming rhythm but something more ethereal. More like the dancing light of her purple, both there and not. It felt different, not having a body to focus and direct it, but Agatha has always been a quick study.
Soon there's a door. A hovering intangible escape from the endless bridge, that may take her back to the land of the living. Or could immediately deposit her into the liquid bubbling rock beneath. She tried not to think too much about what'd happen when she took that first step.
She turned the handle and slipped easily through the golden threads of the Fates as they weaved, and found herself on the other side an apparition. Back with him. Not her son, she knew, but a reflection of something close, a copy of a copy. A half forgotten memory.
She wanted to help the boy so maybe she’d have one good thing. Something to hold up and say maybe she wasn’t so bad afterall. Maybe she could be forgiven, because she couldn’t run forever.
She got better at it, being a ghost. Sometimes people could even see her, and look her in the eye as a real physical person standing before them.
That must be what offended her.
Death findsher one late one night, in the Croatian villa Agatha and Teen stayed in as they searched for his brother. She didn’t sleep as a ghost, but she could hold a book well enough now, curl up on the sofa to pass the time. Death’s toes wriggle under her thigh in forced intimacy.
“I thought I might make you my Queen or something, and you ran.”
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings after you killed me.”
“You came to me, Agatha. Isn’t that usually your line?”
“Well.” She was right, the choice had been hers. The ache to press their lips together had been hers but it was rude of her to argue the semantics.
“I was going to give him back, you know.”
Rio looks soft beside her. Agatha could always tell how these interactions would go based on how she first appeared and now, with no hard leathers or mottled skulls, she looks almost human.
“That’s kind of what I was worried about. I can’t. I’m not ready.”
“It’s not your choice to make, my love.”
“Isn't it? Seems like I've been making it for a long time now.”
“That time is over. But let me sweeten the pot for you.” Rio crawls into her lap, lithe as a cat, pinning her. As intermittently intangible as she was, Death has rule over her dominion and Agatha is powerless to fight her. “All this? It was just a minute. An interlude. You didn't even seem to be having a good time , I don't get why you want to be back here so much.”
Agatha’s body is frozen beneath her. She wants to flinch from her touch. She wants to fight her and push her away because this can't happen. She's spent centuries hating her, focusing all her rage until it boiled down into her bones. That can't just be shut off by some butterfly kisses and a dry frot on a sofa.
Rio's hand grips her throat, tilting her head up as she brushes her lips lightly across Agatha's face. "You're wasting this gift I've given you. I know you don't see it yet, but this was a gift." She punctuates with kisses. "It's better. I promise. You can exist as pure light. You can be everywhere and nowhere. "
"You're a liar." She spits, glad she's still allowed her voice at least.
"I am, but not about this. Let me show you, my love. Let me bring you into your power." She runs her fingers through Agatha's hair, smiling. “What's next is forever. And you'll have what you want.” She leaned in, breath hot against her ear. “Power.” Rio carries on down her body, hands marking hot trails across her skin, her power fizzing at the contact. “We can have that again. Don’t you want to rule the underworld by my side? You’d look good in a crown. You want a throne? I can get you a throne, you know.”
Her hands. Her relentless, talented hands. They slide between her thighs and knead at her. Her hips buck at the contact and it’s small relief to learn hasn’t been totally paralysed by her, she can choose to lean into this, she’s just unable to fight it. That sneaky bitch. “Don’t you ever shut up?”
“Sometimes, but only when my mouth is busy.” She removes her hands from her skirts and brings glistening fingers to her lips, painting them with wetness before licking them clean with a performative groan. “You can’t hide how much you want this, Agatha. It’s been a long time, maybe you’ve forgotten how good we are but that’s okay, I can help you remember.”
Agatha laughs, as if she could ever forget. Every moment is burned into her memory, the fires of hatred only adding power to it. She’s been alone for a long time and still the thought of those big black eyes looking up from between her legs could bring her to her peak like nothing else. And it had been so long.
Rio slides to her knees.
“Open your legs for me and in exchange, I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted. That seems like a very fair deal, don’t you think?”
“Seems too good to be true.”
“That would be fair if it was anyone but me saying it. But, in case you’re forgetting, I am the great leveller. I am the natural order of things. I am the most ancient universal truth. You could never out run me, but I know you didn't want to really. Just playing hard to get and that's okay, you know I love the chase.” Rio strokes a possessive hand up her thigh. “I have you now.”
“What do you want from me, Rio? Are we going to be holding hands and staring at our white picket fence for eternity? Three years of that was long enough thanks, no deal.”
“Look, I do... get it. But I didn't have a choice. There is order to the natural order of things, that's kind of its whole deal. I can bend it but even I can't break it.”
“6 years. Six. Did you even try?”
“You have no idea. but hey, only six years here.” She waves her arm around vaguely gesturing to the entire world. “He's had hundreds there. Well. He's not, technically, an adult. I mean he is. But he's also a child. And an old man. The whole time thing is a bit screwy but you'll get used to it.
"Damn, remind me to look Lilia up for some tips." Agnes smirks.
Rio's eyes drop to her hand at Agatha's thigh. “Don't you want to meet him?”
She'd mused, of course, over the years about what her Nicky would be like had he been allowed to blossom into a man. But he was so young, there were too many blanks to fill in and her imagined adulthood of him was blurry and vague. The idea she can meet Nicky as a man, sends an involuntary tear running down her cheek. Where would his goodness take him? Was he powerful? Did he have the villainous gene that poisoned her blood or did he have a coven of his own? Could he ever forgive her?
“Yes.” The word sounds small, like it escaped before she had the chance to stop it.
“I can't hear you.”
“Yes, I want to meet him.”
“I. Can't. Hear. You.” She sounds dry and humourless like she's losing patience. Agatha hates how much she loves that edge of danger in her voice.
“Fine, I'll be your queen.” She opens her legs in invitation, giving in to the terms of their agreement.
“Yes?” A hand on her thigh, creeping.
“Do you need written invitation via carrier pigeon or what? Yes!”
“That's my girl.”
She arranges herself quickly, rubs her nose against Agatha’s slick thigh. “Mmm feels like you knew I was coming.” The wave of a hand and her underwear disappears into nothing. She groans at the contact of those clever hands that know her body better than anyone. Rio moves to taste her, licking up her wetness and gazing at her, eyes heavy-lidded, as her tongue makes contact, meeting her with a broad stroke and dipping inside greedily.
Desperate hips meet her hungry mouth as Agatha chases her pleasure greedily. It's been so long and fuck, she was always so good at this.
It isn't gentle. She holds nothing back, using all her old tricks to remind her; I know you. I know how to please you, and now you're mine again .
There's no teasing as Rio takes what's hers, and soon her muscles are twitching and tensing with an orgasm that arches her spine from the sofa and has her crying out into the night as it rips through her. The lights in the room flare and subside with it.
Rio laps up her reward, smiling smugly up at her. Agatha breathes through the last of it, her limbs heavy and sated.
“So, was any of that true?” Agatha says, trying to regroup and bring herself into more comfortable ground.
Rio crawls to sit beside her, a hand at her neck moves their heads together, foreheads touching.
“You didn't just die, Agatha. You took my power. Kissed it right out of me, remember?" She breaks off suddenly, distracted from her own train of thought. "I didn't know you could do it that way. Maybe I wouldn't have let you run around with all of those witches back in the day if I'd known this was going on." she cackles, writhing with her laugh before coming back to herself and rubbing a smooth thumb across Agatha's bottom lip. "Your body died but you were reborn as something new. This is just the beginning."
“I guess I can find some time to be your queen.”
“I think it'll suit you.”
“I've always thought so.”
Agatha kissed her again, in earnest this time.
This bitch better not be lying.