Chapter Text
*Thwoorp*
Trixie blinks slowly.
She tries to take in, to understand, the scene in front of her. She shakes her head, closes her eyes, and counts to ten. One deep breath in. Then one out. Repeat. This is a dream. A very weird dream conjured by the stress she has been under recently. That has got to be the case.
Yet, when she slowly opens her eyes again, nothing has changed. She's still in her classroom at her beauty school. She's still standing in front of a tall makeup stool, with a fluffy brush in her hand. And most frighteningly, on the stool there is still a tiny jar of honey. This would be slightly odd under any circumstances, but is now very suspicious, considering that just a couple of seconds ago a fellow classmate had sat on that very stool.
*Thwoorp**Flap**Flap**Flap*
That sound again. Trixie looks around and tries to spot where the sound is coming from. She suddenly notices to her surprise that it's coming from a young woman standing in front of her. The woman is holding a big, red fan which is likely the cause of the sound. And Trixie could have sworn that that woman wasn't there three seconds ago. The woman is short, but still intimidating. She's looking at the honey jar with her piercing green-blue eyes, seemingly unfazed, but with a slight interest. Now she pulls her phone out of her bra and dials a number. She sends Trixie an apologetic smile while she waits for the person to pick up.
"Yeah, Shea, you better come over here," she says into the phone while she flaps her fan calmly. Her beautiful half-long, blonde hair stirs with each flap.
"No, I'm not going to panic, because um- I don't do that anymore," is the last thing Trixie hears before everything turns black.
***
Dreams are wonderful, aren't they? Sometimes they give you everything you never dared to wish for. Sometimes they give you something you always knew you wanted. And sometimes they give you honey. Oh honey. Lots of honey. Golden and sweet. And then the satisfaction of watching it drip. The miracle bees manage to pull off. The sweetness and the softness on your tongue. Opening a cute tiny jar of the magical substance. And-
Andrew?!
Trixie is driven out of her sickeningly sweet dream when a picture of her classmate Andrew suddenly takes over her subconsciousness. And now it’s all coming back to her. She just screwed up. She screwed up beyond the laws of nature. She turned her classmate into a jar of fucking honey. Shit.
She opens her eyes and peels off her now dangling false lashes. She’s sitting on an old, purple velvet sofa that is sinking slightly under her weight. The room around her is dimly lit by an abundance of wax candles. The light flickers across the old wooden floor and barely illuminates the rest of the room. The walls are made of weathered bricks and all rise up towards a domed ceiling. Right across from the velvet sofa is a chair, in which a-
"Shit!"
Trixie can't stop herself from yelling.
"What is this, the international day of jump scares?"
The woman Trixie just noticed sitting in the chair opposite of her gives her a rueful smile. She has long, wavy orange hair that looks slightly wet and she is wearing a long, shapeless black dress that almost touches the floorboards. Trixie is quite sure the woman is barefoot. Strange.
"Hi, there, Trixie," the woman says and straightens her back.
Trixie turns around on the plump pillows of the sofa so that she faces the woman.
"Why am I not surprised that you know my name?" Trixie asks her candidly. "Never mind, the real question is what the fuck happened and where am I?"
The woman smiles at her, and there is a beautiful twink in her eyes.
"My name is Jinkx Monsoon, and I am- well let’s just say I’m the boss here,” she laughs to herself before she points a finger at Trixie. “And you're gonna have an epiphany. You’ve felt like you’ve never fitted in. For sure, right?” She doesn’t show any sign that Trixie should respond, and goes on. “And there’s a reason for that, Trixie,” she folds her hands and looks intensely into Trixie’s eyes. Her eyes just linger on hers for a moment before she continues.
“You’re a witch, Trixie.”
***
"Wait a second—what did you call me?"
Trixie is staring at this Jinkx-woman now and considers her situation for a moment. Who does this woman think she is? You can't just kidnap people and then offend them straight to their faces. Trixie rises from the couch.
"This is a whole load of bullshit. And also quite illegal, I imagine," she says as she makes her way towards the door of the room. Enough is enough. She grips the door handle.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jinkx days with a trace of laughter in her voice.
“Why should I listen to you?” Trixie says through gritted teeth as she brings down the door handle. It won’t budge.
Jinkx snaps her fingers where she sits and suddenly the door disappears altogether.
“Because you’ll be in big trouble without my help.”
***
“So I’m a witch? As a sorta-adult-grown woman I’ve just turned into a witch?” Trixie says in disbelief and rubs her eyes. Her makeup must be ruined by now.
“No, no, you’ve always had the magic in you, you’ve always been a witch, something just triggered the magic, and now you will be able to use your power at will,” Jinkx pauses and takes a look at Trixie, who is struggling to figure out which incident might have triggered this.
“Which incident doesn’t matter to us, you can figure that out for yourself."
"This is some real-life Harry Potter shit, isn't it?" Trixie asks, half-jokingly.
"There are a lot of facts in Harry Potter, Trixie. We don't use wands though, that was a bit silly." Jinkx answers, dead serious.
"For now, I think I’ll show you around the building if you don’t mind?”
Trixie, currently both alarmed and mystified nods and follows Jinkx as she sets off toward the now reappearing door.
***
They step into a corridor that resembles the room they just left. The floor is of the same wooden material, but the walls are made of a cream coloured stone. The walls seem slightly uneven, like they’re considering caving in at any moment now. The same wax candles flicker where they stand in small niches. The corridor is lined with doors, leading off to who knows what.
Jinkx turns right and at the end of the corridor she starts ascending a rickety staircase. She barely touches the stairs, and almost floats upwards, while Trixie has to cling to the railing not to fall. She tries to avoid looking down as they go higher and higher. When they finally reach the top, after passing a couple of floors, Trixie lets out a long breath.
They are standing in a small circular room, and in front of them are five different doors. Jinkx turns around and smiles at Trixie.
“All right, so this house is the base of the organisation AQW+, which stands for Association for Queer Witches+,” she goes on, and clearly doesn’t notice Trixie’s nonplussed expression. “We have several different departments to help out, and also give work to, queer witches and the magic people who make out the plus in our name.”
After finishing her long sentence she turns around and beckons Trixie to follow her. She opens the door second from the left and they pass through together.
The room they have contrasts the other rooms Trixie has visited strongly. The ceiling is low, and the walls are painted a light yellow. The walls are covered with a bunch of small windows, placed seemingly at random. The room between the windows are covered by children’s drawings. Two large wooden desks take up most of the floor space, but brightly coloured toys lie around.
Behind one of the desks sits a large dark skinned woman, who, even though she’s just reading through some papers, seems lovely. Behind the other desk sits a much younger woman, about Trixie’s age. The girl is talking to a woman seated on an old scrawny chair that barely fits between the desks.
“-and as a witch who is a MOTHER, I think I deserve this resting aid! Won’t you young lady stop it with the shenanigans, buffoonery and rigamores.”
The woman in the chair looks very invested in the conversation.
Jinkx coughs loudly and the three women look up simultaneously.
“Hello, women! I’m showing Trixie around a bit. Thought I’d start in this beautiful department!”
“This is the family and marriage department. This is Latrice,” Jinkx points to the lovely woman, who gives Trixie a warm smile. “And this is Pearl, who is more of an all-around employee. She has a gift for-um- sleep, you see.” Pearl smiles lazily and pulls her hand through her short, blonde hair.
“Usually, Tempest is here, but she’s taking some days of. Family time!”
“And this is Alyssa Edwards. An old friend of ours.”
The woman in the chair Jinkx is referring to looks Trixie up and down and nods thoughtfully. She looks regal, yet not very serious.
“Yes,” Alyssa says and nods her chin back a bit while she points her finger at Pearl, “and you are going to give this old friend some sleeping aid,” she says is her Texan accent.
Jinkx laughs to herself as she starts crossing the room to a short door at the far end.
When they’ve entered the room beyond, Trixie turns around to close the door behind her. To her surprise, the door is now tall, black and modern. The “new” door shuts and the noise from the conversation they just left is instantly muted.
The ceiling of this room is a lot higher than in the family department, Trixie notices. The room is also a lot more modern. One of the walls is made of glass, and through it Trixie can see the late March sun almost setting behind the buildings surrounding this one. Two big desks of black, polished wood are facing the window-wall. On the desks are normal desk stuff; computers, filers, succulents, pens, and such. Behind the desks are two light grey office chairs. One of them is occupied by a person, and Jinkx is moving towards them.
"Hi, Bob! I hope you're doing okay! This is Trixie, I'm showing her around." Jinkx turns to Trixie. "Trixie, this is Bob. They're non-binary, one of our amazing magic-people. They work at this department, obviously. This is the law-aid department, and Bob here is an excellent lawyer!"
Bob smiles at Trixie. They're bald, with a somehow masculine, yet androgynous face. Trixie smiles back at them.
"Where's Max, Bob?" Jinkx asks.
"Ah, she's gone home. She's probably watchin' some law and order right now."
Trixie notes to herself that Bob probably will make her laugh a lot. They seem like they've got some jokes up their sleeve.
"You'll meet Max someday soon, I expect," Jinkx says to Trixie, as she starts making it for the second door in the room.
"Good working, Bob! Go home before it gets too late, though! We don't want you to get overworked again!" Jinkx yells over her shoulder as they pass through to the next room.
***
The next room they enter is slightly chaotic.
The walls are three different colours, so Trixie concentrates on focusing her attention to one corner of the room at a time.
Trixie is immediately drawn to the first corner they turn to, since it's painted a light pink colour. Sure, Trixie would rock a hotter pink, but it's still nice. The floor is covered in a soft carpet. There is a high-fashion wooden desk with golden legs, and behind it is a furry, white office chair. An incredibly beautiful young woman is lounging behind the desk. She's painting her nails white, and her dark, long hair is falling carelessly around her. Her desk space is taken up by old-fashioned pink and white phones, and Trixie notices that a baseball bat is leaned against a pouf beside her chair.
She looks up, and she doesn't seem surprised in the slightest that Trixie and Jinkx are now in her office space.
She "Hey-s" at them and manages to be nonchalant without seeming hostile.
"So, Trixie, this is Shea. Shea, this is Trixie," Jinkx gestures between them.
"Yeah, I know, I transported her drooling ass over here," Shea says and smirks a little.
Trixie feels a little self-conscious about this, but Shea doesn't seem judgemental.
"Hi there, you must be Trixie."
Trixie jumps a little, for what must be the 17th time today, as she notices another woman who has just come up behind her.
“I’m Sasha!”
The woman who just spoke to Trixie is bald and looks like a wonderful piece of art. Her makeup is on point, her winged eyeliner dangerously sharp. She holds her hand out, and Trixie shakes it.
“Don’t listen to Shea, she’s just jealous of your beautiful hair!” She smiles and walks over to her co-worker, who laughs at her with warmth in her eyes.
Trixie looks to her left, at what she gathers must be Sasha's office. The colours from this part of the room are basically screaming for attention. The walls are deep red and covered in paintings and drawings. Behind the mahogany desk is a hot pink chair that looks like some super-villain could have rested in in some bond movie. A super villain with a pink taste, that is. Sasha's office isn't as neat as Shea's, there are papers and pens and even paintbrushes (why? Trixie has no idea) lying between more old-fashioned phones. A bouquet of roses is placed randomly at the middle of the desk. Still the whole office looks like a painting.
"Are you enjoying the sight?" Sasha calls out from where she is resting on Shea's pouf.
Trixie smiles and nods. She's usually not this bashful. She's a leo, she can handle new people. Still something about this day is making her head very dizzy. Well, she does realise that isn't really that weird.
"SASHA YOU STOLE MY REDBULL YOU BITCH!"
This time Trixie almost topples over.
How come she didn't expect this?
Oh wait, maybe because it's not that common to suddenly have another person you don't know appear 10 inches in front of you.
"Fuck. Sorry. I'm not that precise at this teleporting-jush," the woman in front of her says.
That is the same woman from earlier, Trixie realizes.
And she is very. Hot.
***
The hot woman rants to Sasha about her redbull for a solid ten minutes before returning to Trixie.
"I'm Krista Ball, by the way," she says with a careless flick of her hair. Her expression is dead serious, almost cold.
Then she wheezes loudly and takes Trixie's hand in hers.
"I'm kidding, that's my drag name. My real name's Katya."
“But- can women do drag?” Trixie asks before she’s able to stop herself.
“Yes gawd! Everyone can do drag! It’s art, bitch!” Katya answers enthusiastically.
Trixie is so mesmerised by this woman in her short mesh dress and her weird ice-cream cone shoes that she doesn’t notice when Jinkx comes over to them.
“This is Krisis Kontrol, and they were the ones who helped you out.” Jinkx says. Trixie drops Katya’s hand, just now realising that she’s been holding it for a little long.
“Oh-hm- yeah thanks.” Trixie feels her cheeks burn. All of a sudden she’s very self conscious about how she looks. Her makeup is definitely dead. Does this pink dress hug her curves too much? Her nail polish is chipped some places. At least her long, blonde hair usually looks flawless.
Jinkx looks at her with a concerned look.
“Honey, I think you’re a little bit tired. This is a lot to take in. I think we’ll take you to a place where you can rest. You probably have an apartment-"
Trixie almost laughs, because her "place" can barely be called an apartment, but she shuts her mouth.
"-but we want to take extra care of you for some days. We rent a back-up room twenty minutes from here. Should these girls take you there?”
Trixie is a little bit intimidated by the idea of these super hot, literally magical, young women taking her anywhere, but she nods.
“Wait, Trixie, come here, I need to get my fan!”
Katya hurries over to the corner of the room Trixie has yet to discover. Trixie hesitates for a moment and then decides to follow her.
Katya’s office is a beautiful chaos.
First of all, Trixie has to step between a tiny jungle of plants to get to the real office space. There is no desk, but on the floor is a large pillow and a bright purple yoga mat. Drawing supplies, files, folders and crumpled up papers are lying all over. On the light green wall is a poster for some movie Trixie hasn’t seen called Contact.
There are also a bunch of weird caricatures taped besides a triangular window. On the windowsill lies, oddly enough, a rubber chicken. A cabinet is standing near the wall with packs of cigarettes and what looks suspiciously like tarot cards placed on top of it.
Katya scrambles gracefully around in the cabinet before she draws out a black lace fan.
"Yes, this is fun! Let's go, Honey!" Katya smiles, the sight of her perfect, white teeth against her red lipstick sending a jolt of energy through Trixie.
"I think Honey is your new nickname," Katya says and gives Trixie a wink.
And just like that they're caught in a maelstrom of puffy clouds leading who knows where.