Chapter Text
Rio is lying in bed when she's been hearing Agatha sleep talk; she assumes it's just a fever dream, you know. Not much she can do, and plus she just hears muffles of words, nothing too crazy, you know.
Then she starts to hear sobs and cries. Between the words, she draws the line there. She gets out of bed and quietly walks into the hallway and takes a second before she decides to go through with this.
She gently twists the doorknob and opens the door when she sees the saddest sight she has seen in a while and not in an embarrassing way, in a pulling-at-her-heartstrings kind of way.
Agatha is tangled in her blankets, twisting and turning while definitely louder now, words that didn’t make much sense but now that she is listening clearly are sad. She’s crying while dreaming. She doesn’t want to invade Agatha’s private life or anything, but she needs comfort, obviously.
She’s saying things like, Mother, please, I can be good; I promise. I just want to be loved. I don’t know what I did wrong. Just things like that over and over again, but each time she gets a little more worked up over it. She walks over to Agatha’s bed, and she knows it’s probably going to startle her in any way it does, but she still tries to gently wake Agatha up without disturbing her too much.
After a few shakes and rubs, Agatha wakes up very frightened and upset. She’s pale as a ghost and looks like shit but somehow still looks amazing as if she wasn’t just woken up from a fever-induced nightmare. She just wants to rub her back and tell her everything is okay and she’s here but doesn’t want to overstep boundaries.
So she just stands by her bed and says those things while she calms down next to her. After a bit she finally is calm enough to know what’s going on, and she just lays there silently.
“Hey, I just heard you from my room and got worried, so I went to check on you, and it seemed like you were having a nasty fever nightmare.”
Agatha looks so shaken up and completely unlike herself. She’s usually this strong, confident, nothing-gets-under-her-skin kind of person, but this was raw and vulnerable. She looked so scared and small.
“Do you want to talk about it?
“I'm always here if you need me, you know, Agatha.”
Agatha looks at her with the saddest puppy dog eyes ever and hesitantly slowly nods her head.
Agatha scoots over, and she sits down next to her.
Rio can just feel the heat radiating off the woman she’s sitting next to.
She sits and waits for Agatha to start when she’s ready. She doesn’t even have to talk honestly; she would just sit here all night if it gave comfort to her.
Agatha slowly exhales and then starts to talk.
“It was a memory of when I was a little girl, around 8, back when I was still in elementary school. I overslept one morning, and my mother didn’t take kindly to that.”
“She yelled at me and didn’t let me eat breakfast, forcing me to walk to school that morning alone. Mind you, it was November, and just my luck, it was downpouring rain all the way to school.”
She sadly laughs.
“We didn’t live very close to school, so it took me forever, or at least felt like forever, for me to get to school.”
“When I did eventually get to school, I was absolutely drenched, as you can imagine.”
“My teacher was worried and made me go down to the nurse for some new clothes to wear that day. She was always nice to me.”
“The day went fine after that until I went home and got yelled at by my mother for being weak and going to the nurse when it wasn’t necessary. I guess the school called her sometime that day.”
“She made me stay in my room for the rest of the day till morning. I didn’t get dinner. I just worked on homework and took a nap. My throat was sore, so I went out to get a drink, but one of my sisters was out there, and I suppose she told my mom what I was up to, and let’s just say she wasn’t happy with me.”
“I would have fallen asleep crying that night if I could’ve.”
“I woke up the next morning with a horrible cold and could barely get up out of bed without getting dizzy. I was lucky, though; one of my sisters drove me that day to school.”
“World’s longest day ever.”
"I got to about noon before I collapsed in class, and I woke up to everyone surrounding me, and I was taken to the hospital.”
She pity laughs.
“They found out I had pneumonia and was severely dehydrated. They said if I had waited even till that night, things could’ve gone way worse than what they did.”
“My mom found out that I was in the hospital and surprise! She was pissed at me. Such a loving mother I had.” She laughs, but it looks more like a sob, to be honest.
Tears fighting not to roll down her face.
Agatha just stares ahead of her, breathing in and out slowly.
“So yeah, that was basically my nightmare I was just having, but does it even count if it actually happened to you, lmao.”
She can’t help but crack jokes when she’s feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable.
Rio leans over and holds Agatha in her arms; Agatha leans down and lays in her lap.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Rio is just raking her fingers through Agatha’s hair.
“Your mom sounded terrible; you didn’t deserve any of that, Agatha.”
“You are amazing, you know that?
Agatha half laughs and sighs.
“Yeah, I know it’s just hard because she’s all I ever had.”
“Hey, it’s alright to be weak and need help sometimes. You know I’m here for you, Ags.”
“Whatever you need, I don’t mind, okay?
Agatha sighs and nods her head.
They sit there in silence together for a while, and eventually, Rio hears Agatha’s snores, and she relaxes and tries to go to sleep too.
Rio wakes up to Agatha trying to be discreet about her coughing but to no avail.
Agatha realizes she woke up Rio and quickly apologizes.
“I’m so sorry I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Rio doesn’t say anything and just reaches over and hugs Agatha.
“Hey, that’s okay. I don’t mind. I’m not the one who’s sick. I’m alright.”
“You stay here; I’ll be right back. Just relax.”
Rio gets up from the bed and walks into the kitchen. She knows she doesn’t have loads of time to make breakfast for Agatha before she eventually gets up, and the whole point is she wants to make her breakfast in bed and can't do that if she’s not in bed.
She decides on eggs and waffles. Both delicious but quick. Maybe top it off with some fruit.
She whips up the breakfast for the two of them and puts it on plates. She walks in and sees Agatha all cozied up in her blankets on her laptop watching some video.
“I made us some breakfast so we can watch a movie on your laptop and eat in bed.”
Rio climbs onto the bed and sits on top of the comforter and places the tray in front of them.
She looks over at Agatha, and she swears she almost sees tears in her eyes.
“Thanks, it looks really good.”
They both agree on Home Alone as the Christmas movie of choice, and they just sit quietly next to each other in Agatha’s bed, eating and watching the movie together, occasionally laughing and making a comment or two about the scene they just watched.
Later on in the day, Rio had convinced Agatha to come with her to the store. They were getting groceries when Rio came up with a great idea.
“You know what we should make?
Agatha knows that look, and it never means anything good. Rio is definitely up to something.
“What are you scheming, Rio?”
“So I was thinking since it’s close to Christmas, we should make Christmas cookies!”
“Oh god, Rio, that would be a disaster unless you did them yourself. You know me and cooking do not like each other; I would burn down the apartment.”
“Exactly!”
Rio convinces Agatha, and they buy the cookie ingredients and the rest of the groceries.
It’s around 3 when they start baking.
Rio got the mise en place ready, and Agatha comes in.
“So, this is the recipe, and I got all the ingredients ready for you. You make the cookies, and I’ll get started on the frosting for them.”
Agatha looks at her bewildered.
“I'm doing what. I thought we were making the cookies together. I’ll fuck these up if I do them alone.”
“You got this; besides, it’s hard to fuck up cookies, and if you need anything, I’m right here, sweetheart.”
Agatha does a double take and tries to process what she just heard.
Did Rio just call her sweetheart?
Agatha, flustered, turns away from Rio and starts to read the recipe to understand what she has to do first. She will not fuck these cookies up; trust the process.
She puts her hair into a half-ass messy ponytail.
Okay, you just need to mix together the baking powder, salt, and flour. Easy enough; she doesn’t know why she was stressed; she’s got this.
She starts pouring the flour into the bowl, and Rio comes up behind her and jabs her right in the ribs. Like directly in her side. Agatha jumps, and the flour she had in her hand goes poof everywhere.
Agatha is stunned. Now Rio, she is losing it; she can't stop giggling.
“I didn't know you were so ticklish. I'm sorry.”
“I don't know if jabbing me in the ribs counts as ticklish, but sure.”
Agatha grabs a handful of flour and throws it at Rio.
“Now we are even.”
“That's not fair. I didn't know you were going to jump; this is war.”
They both start throwing flour at each other, and by the end of it, they are both covered in flour head to toe. In their hair, face, and clothes. It's everywhere.
“Truce! Truce!” Agatha finally yells.
Agatha leans forward and brushes some flour off Rios's face gently.
“You're cute when you're competitive.”
“No, I'm not.” Rio argues
“Mhmmm, yeah, you are.”
Agatha goes to walk away and clean herself up, but she forgets that the floor is covered in slippery flour, and she loses her balance. She slips but doesn't hit the hard floor like she thought she would have.
Instead she is in Rio's arms, and Rio is smirking at her.
“You have got to be more careful, Agatha, or I’ll have to be taking care of a concussed you, and we wouldn't want that, now would we?”
Agatha blushes and shakes her head, standing back up.
Back to the cookies
Using a mixer, beat together the flour and the sugar. Got it. She bends down and grabs the mixer from one of the cabinets; one of her knees pops. Damn, she didn’t think she was that old. Fuck.
It says beat until creamy. Whatever the fuck that looks like, eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Time to add the eggs and vanilla extract. She remembers cookies have a little milk in them, so she adds a dash of milk. She starts the mixer, and it was up wayyy too high. Batter starts flying out of the bowl and going everywhere. She quickly turns the mixer off, but not before it’s all over her, fuck.
Rio looks over, and it takes everything in her not to start laughing at the sight she sees.
Batter all over the counter and Agatha, oh, the urge to take a picture right now is through the roof.
She can’t resist; she pulls out her phone.
“Hey, Agatha.”
She gets a great video of Agatha turning and flipping off the camera and scrunching her face.
God, she’s so endearing sometimes, Rio thinks.
“Did you know you have a little bit of batter right here?” Rio leans over and, in one swoop, wipes the batter off her nose.
“Oh, um, well, thanks. I kind of have it everywhere, actually, if you haven’t noticed.” She says as she sticks her tongue out at her.
She knows she’s blushing, but maybe she can still blame her illness on the flushed face even if she’s feeling the best she’s felt in days.
She decided it was best if she just hand-mixed from now on. It was mostly mixed anyway, right?
She starts whisking and then adding in the dry ingredients slowly.
Okay, she takes everything she said back. Her hand is fuckin tired, and she misses the mixer. She has some flour to mix in, but the dough is getting tough to mix.
Rio notices Agatha’s frustration huffs, and looks over and decides to help.
She goes and stands behind Agatha and grabs the spatula she was using to mix the dough.
“Here, let me help you; I can tell you are getting frustrated.”
“No, I’m not; I’m doing fine, actually. Look at it. It’s dough, and I didn’t ruin anything.”
“Yet.” Rio smirks.
Agatha swats at her.
“Hey!”
Agatha looks down and sees that Rio is already finished with the dough, and all that’s left to do is put it on the sheet to bake.
They roll the dough into balls; Rio puts them in the oven and sets a timer for 10 minutes.
“Okay, we did it. You baked cookies without any major disasters, and I made the frosting with no problem. Now we just wait.”
They go and change their clothes and relax on the couch while the cookies bake.
The buzzer beeps, and they take them out and let them cool before decorating.
Rio puts on some Christmas music for the vibes.
They get the frosting in the piping bags and mix some different colors.
Agatha grabs a stocking-shaped cookie, and what did you expect her to do? Be boring and make a stocking no. She made a dick cookie. What about it? She shows Rio, and she just laughs and calls her stupid.
They decorate a lot of cookies, some with barely any frosting (thanks to running out of frosting), some with sprinkles, and by the end of it, they made some absolute masterpieces.
A stick man, a dick, and a few cookies they just dumped some frosting on after they gave up.
Rio pulls out her phone and takes a photo of the cookies.
“Agatha, hold up a cookie for the camera.”
Agatha holds up the dick cookie and pretends to lick it.
Rio snaps a photo between her giggles.
“That's too good to not post on my story.”
They grab the plate of cookies, go sit on the couch, snuggle up in their blankets, and put on a movie.
Agatha, of course, falls asleep first after a few cookies and halfway through the movie.
Rio scoots over and lets Agatha lean on her shoulder while she finishes up the movie. She is content with how her life is right now; she wouldn't change much, if anything at all.
She leans back and falls asleep too.