Chapter Text
Rumour is quick of foot and swift on the wing, a huge and horrible monster, and under every feather of her body, strange to tell, there lies an eye that never sleeps, a mouth and tongue that are never silent, and an ear always pricked. By night she flies between earth and sky, squawking through the darkness, and never lowers her eyelids in sweet sleep. By day she keeps watch perched on top of gables or on high towers and causes fear in great cities, holding fast to her lies and distortions as often as she tells the truth.
--
Virgil’s personification of Rumour in the Aeneid
Translated by David West
For all the people who got excited about this concept back in 2019 when I first pitched it… sorry it took so long… and that I changed it so much…
PART 1: AGATHA
Achara “Agatha” Kaenthai (born 20th April 1988) is a Thai music critic and pop music producer, known for her prolific production catalogue and highly detailed music reviews. Kaenthai has written for a number of publications throughout her career, but is infamous for her stern, closely analytical, and sometimes downright biting album reviews, for which she often receives kickback. Kaenthai frequently works with pop stars across the globe, producing songs for numerous high profile acts.
Whoever coined the idea that you are your own worst critic had clearly never met Agatha.
She was everyone’s.
-- but for a sophomore album that follows hot on the heels of a genius debut, it’s a painfully mediocre copy-and-paste attempt, held down by lazy production and pop clichés that are entertaining precisely no-one, if the dismal first-week sales are anything to go by.
And that was being nice about it.
Agatha slammed her laptop shut and stood up to crack her back. At least she never had to listen to that album again. Intolerable. She prayed that one day, one of these pop stars that fancied themselves producers would figure out how to mix things properly.
She shuffled into the kitchen and retrieved her phone from the counter.
Beatrix has changed the chat name from Ted Talk to Kei Sato Hate Club
Beatrix: I want the bastard gone! GONE, you hear me?
Achara: what now
Yara: did u not watch the AMAs. You’re a music
critic aren’t you supposed to watch them?
Achara: I read the twitter live feed.
Achara: to laugh at people when they didn’t win
Yara: that’s kinda mean lmao
Achara: mm
Sophie: Why are we hating on Kei?
Beatrix: I was leaning more towards killing kei ‘by accident’
Achara: for a group chat comprised solely of Tedros’s exes I feel
that we’re WAY more invested in him than we should be
Beatrix: lmao shut up you barely made the cut for
this chat. ‘Year 13 girlfriend w no known songs abt
her’ isn’t exactly that impressive
Achara: at least he still talks to me
Beatrix: he still talks to me!!! Besides that’s a
bold claim considering you have no idea
what happened last night
Yara: he didn’t tell u himself tho, did he
Sophie: WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT
Nicholas: what’s going on
Beatrix: (img1) (img2)
Achara: wow Kei looks positively thrilled to be there
Nicholas: That’s just his face he’s like that
Beatrix: naw they had a fight look at Teddy (img)
Achara: that’s not a fight, he goes red when he’s mad. THAT is a “Kei
said smth mean so he wants to cry but he can’t bc he’s on tv”
Yara: he’s wearing makeup though
Sophie: no amount of foundation can curb Annoyed Teddy Scarlet
Yara: true
Beatrix: anyway everyone on twitter is talking about it
Nicholas: doesn’t bode well bc usually he’s at pains
to hide it if his relationships are on a downward spiral
Achara: yeah well you would know wouldn’t you
Nicholas: ha ha really funny agatha :\
Sophie: breakup within the next few months, then?
Achara: months? bit optimistic. weeks.
Achara: no one add him to
the chat once it happens tho he’s a twat
Sophie: Aric situation?
Nicholas: Aric situation. Blacklisted completely.
Messy breakups not allowed in Ted Talk.
Achara: Kei hasn’t got a screamo music career
I can sabotage with savage aggression, though
Beatrix: Oh so you DID do that on purpose
Achara: Beatrix I have no idea what you’re talking about.
(Beatrix reacted with *doubt emoji*)
Achara: anyway
Achara: I’ll text him
Yara: Agatha be tactful
Sophie: Aggie
Sophie: AGATHA BE TACTFUL
Achara: I was perfectly tactful
Achara: anyway we’re both going to that
stupid brunch on Friday so if he leaves me
on read I’ll just confront him there
Nicholas: why would he leave you on read Agatha
Nicholas: what did you say
Achara: he’s a busy man?? I didn’t
say anything that would upset him wtf
stupid bitch (affectionate)
Achara: heard you got beef w your bf
Achara: say the word and I’ll snap his
spine in half like a wishbone
Achara: metaphorically. Obviously. haha
stupid bitch (affectionate) is typing...
Agatha left him to try and formulate a response to that one, and went to make a coffee. Apart from Aric, who had been so bad that Agatha and Nicholas had cornered and “spoken to” (lightly traumatised) him at the NME Awards, Kei was definitely her least favourite of Tedros’s partners. She’d not met him many times, but every time she had, he’d been inattentive, sullen and silent. He was good looking, but Agatha always got the impression he’d rather he was somewhere else, with better company. It was a relatable enough sentiment, but if he didn’t want to hang around with Tedros, why the hell was he dating him? Agatha would never admit it to his face, but she considered Tedros perfectly good company, since he had a gift for almost single-handedly carrying conversations when she didn’t want to, and was fun to argue with. Clearly Kei hadn’t discovered the wonderful world of entertainment that was to be found in telling Tedros his left eye was lower than his right--
Her phone went off.
stupid bitch (affectionate): no it’s fine
The lack of correct punctuation or grammar indicated otherwise. He was usually so annoyingly picky about these sorts of things.
Achara: have you not seen the zoomed in
version of your teary lil face all over twitter
Agatha paused, regretting sending that.
Achara: sorry that was mean
stupid bitch (affectionate): if the tabloids knew how
you talked to me you’d get absolutely skewered, you know that right
(Achara has liked this message)
stupid bitch (affectionate): it’s fine tho
stupid bitch (affectionate): he told me I was off key
and I got embarrassed about it is all. he was right tbf
Achara: only I’m allowed to tell you when you’re
off key wtf?? I’m your mean friend??
also he doesn’t do music, how should he know
stupid bitch (affectionate): well was I??
Achara: off key? idfk I didn’t watch your performance
stupid bitch (affectionate): :/ what kind of a friend are you
Achara: your meanest one, I just said. ok I’ll watch it
(stupid bitch (affectionate) has liked this message)
Achara: no it was ok you just got kinda out
of breath & then didn’t get it back fast
enough for the last chorus.
Achara: not super noticeable tho
stupid bitch (affectionate): Oh ok ok!! Thanks x
Achara: your need for validation
is somehow getting worse with fame
stupid bitch (affectionate): Oh we’re doing that?
I hate you too! I’ll see you at the brunch thingy yeah?
Achara: mm yeah sadly
stupid bitch (affectionate): Cool love you see you then! Xx
Agatha decided not to send a really snide reply about Kei. Tedros loudly proclaimed that he loved a lot of people. It was simply how he did things.
She was right to be sceptical about the “Banger Builders Brunch”, though. Aside from having a really goddamn stupid name, it was a melting pot of one-hit wonders, rising stars who were likely to fizzle out, actual good artists who clearly didn’t want to be there, and producers who made one #1 hit and thought they were hot shit as a result.
But Agatha came to these things because although they were insufferable, she liked to stand there and scare people. She was very noticeable, since much like a cartoon character, she basically only had two looks; a severely belted long black coat, or, for formal occasions like this one, a suit in an understated colour with heels. No one had caught onto the fact she only owned one pair of heels yet, or the fact that she actually hated wearing them. It was just that she liked being taller than all the executives who came to argue with her about her reviews. It made them look stupid. She was 6’4 in heels, it was a lost cause. Her mother’s genes.
She was here before Tedros, though. She knew she was, because he was tall and blonde, and people tended to gravitate towards him like paper clips to a magnet in a Year 7 Physics lesson. Hence, he was easy to spot. And when he did arrive, he’d be taking pictures with people for a good twenty minutes.
Sighing, Agatha went to the buffet. She didn’t find that she was particularly interested in talking to anyone else…
“Um, Miss Kaenthai?”
Agatha entertained the notion of throwing her plate of solely-carbohydrate snacks vaguely in the direction of the speaker and bolting, but it probably wasn’t worth it. She turned with eyebrows raised, to meet the gaze of...
“Oh, I know you.” said Agatha, rather relieved. “Nicola Pipp, isn’t it?”
Nicola, short and buxom and wearing a rather chic green pantsuit, blinked. In retrospect, Agatha thought that firmly declaring oh, I know you to an up-and-coming music industry professional was probably not very comforting.
“I was expecting to have to introduce myself.” admitted Nicola.
“Nope. You’re a songwriter.” said Agatha, crunching the end off a spring roll. It wasn’t very nice, probably bought frozen from some supermarket, but it was food, at least. “You’ve got writing credits all over the shop. Every time I listen to something and I think hmm, these lyrics are unusually good for this artist, I go and look at the credits, and lo and behold, there you are. So I googled you. You’re good.”
“...huh.” Nicola said. “Well. That makes things easier.” she cleared her throat and drew herself up, summoning some confidence. “Because I was going to ask you if you’d be able to get me any connections.”
Agatha looked at her, amused.
“Forthright. Make your case.”
Nicola looked surprised.
“I thought you were going to turn me down immediately.”
“Why’d you ask me, then?”
“Thought it was worth a try.” admitted Nicola. “See, since I broke up with my boyfriend--”
“Who’s your boyfriend?”
“Hort Scourie was my boyfriend.”
Agatha scoffed. Loudly.
“Hort?”
Hort Scourie, Neverland Corporations heir, hadn’t originally been supposed to inherit so much as a penny, but previous CEO James Hook had gotten himself run over by a lorry on a drunken escapade and had, surprisingly, left the money in his will to his estranged cousin, George Scourie. (Agatha thought it was suspicious, but she was a cynic.) Then George had died (Agatha wasn’t suspicious about that. Hort could barely order at a restaurant on his own, let alone bump off his own father), and his young son was left with more money than he knew what to do with.
“Ye-es.” conceded Nicola, as it was a painful admission. “And since everyone who’s anyone is sucking up to Hort nowadays, no one wants to hire me, as I’m no longer on his good side.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.” snapped Agatha. All that for Hort? Lord almighty. “He’s not some mafia boss, he’s newly rich and surrounded by yes men. Not the same. He’s got the vibes of a really shit lackey, not anyone actually scary.”
“Well, everyone’s treating him that way.” grumbled Nicola. “So I’ve been struggling to get work. I thought you probably wouldn’t feel the same--”
“I don’t.” confirmed Agatha. “He’s been on-and-off dating my best friend since 2015 and I am sick of the sight of him. I apologise for not knowing you’d dated him, I’ve had his name muted on Twitter. I can hook you up.”
Nicola beams, relieved.
“Oh, thank you-- wait, Sophie is your best friend? Sophie Woods?”
“Sometimes.” said Agatha, thinking Tedros would probably have something to say about that. “I have a Dance Moms type pyramid with my friends, and currently she is demoted for not liking my cooking as much as she ought to.”
Nicola’s mouth quirked wryly.
“Hort broke up with me to get back with her.”
“...of course he did.” sighed Agatha, making a mental note to send both parties an aggressive text. “I’m sor--”
“Don’t be,” said Nicola thinly, cutting her off. “Probably for the best, and I’m not dwelling on it any more than I have to. Tell me more about your Abby Lee Miller pyramid with your friends on it.”
Before Agatha could go into the intricacies of why Hester had been demoted to the bottom layer (killing her succulent, calling her cat a thumb), a new voice broke in;
“I better be at the top, because I brought you a margherita.”
“Oh, hello.” Agatha pivoted on the ball of her foot to find Tedros standing behind her, holding two drinks. She plucked the second one out of his hand. “So you did. Thanks. No, Anadil’s at the top, because she’s largely unproblematic and doesn’t date pissy models who make her cry at the AMAs.”
“Agatha.” hissed Tedros, as Agatha pulled the lime from the rim of the glass and bit it. “I know you don’t like him--”
“You’re right, I don’t. And I know he’s just over there, so I will say it to him, if I have to.” Agatha changed track, an idea striking her. “Hey, have you met Nicola Pipp? She worked with a few people from your label--”
Still looking as if he wanted to argue with her on the Kei thing, but knowing he couldn’t, Tedros wrestled his face into a pleasant expression and leaned past her to shake hands with Nicola. Agatha took a swig of her drink and leaned back to eyeball Kei, who was talking to a couple of bigshot executives near the firepit.
He wasn’t bad looking-- if Agatha was less unkind, she’d probably say he was hot-- but all he was good for, in her opinion, was looking nice and causing problems.
Well, that was probably unfair, but seeing as the two things he was known for were being rude to people, and going viral for being rude to people, Agatha would count that as causing problems. But Agatha herself, Sophie, Beatrix, and Aric were all ranged along the rude spectrum (from the mildly brash Beatrix to the slags people off for her job Agatha to the absolutely balls to the walls crazy Aric ) , so it was possible that Tedros just had a type.
But despite all her posturing and poking the bear and general scorning, Agatha would never genuinely criticise him unless it was for work, or unless he asked her to. Based on the events of the other night, Kei did not follow this same philosophy, even though everyone knew that Tedros crumpled under criticism like a coke can under a steamroller.
Agatha remembered, distinctly, the first time she had met Tedros; a random Tuesday afternoon in October, after her mother had moved them to London, and she’d been dragged from a perfectly adequate school in Bangkok to… whatever this was. (Callis had claimed it wasn’t for long, but it ended up being five years.)
They’d both been sent to the Deputy Head to get told off, and had stared at each other from the shitty plastic chairs in the hallway outside the office.
“Are you new?” Tedros had said.
Agatha had squinted confrontationally at him, as 12 year olds often did, and did not answer.
“Chaddick said you were new.” Tedros probed, when she didn’t reply. Agatha had not known who Chaddick was, so she didn’t reply, in case it was a trap. A lot of things were traps. British preteens were very unkind, apparently.
“Do you talk at all?” Tedros tried again.
“Yeah.” Agatha said sullenly.
“Oh. What you here for, then?”
“Calling a Prefect a prick whilst Manley was walking past.”
Tedros’s mouth quirked.
“Who?”
“Dunno. He had bleached hair and tried to steal my tie.” Agatha plucked demonstratively at the ugly green clip-on tie that they were bidden to wear.
“Rafal?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, I hate him.”
“What are you here for?” demanded Agatha, not wanting to dwell on Rafal in Year 11 Who Stole Ties any longer.
Tedros chewed his thumbnail. Swallowed. Agatha had expected some more braggadocio from him, but by the look on his face, he didn’t seem comfortable with getting in trouble.
“Waiting for my dad. Gotta have a meeting with Lesso and him. ‘Bout my work.”
“What, not doing it?”
“Kinda. Or if I do it, it’s… it’s bad.” He forced the admission out reluctantly.
“Oh.” Agatha, forever endowed with good marks despite her surly attitude, didn’t really know what to say. “Sorry. Hope he’s not angry.”
“He won’t come.” muttered Tedros. “I told them that, but they didn’t listen.”
Agatha sensed a volatile backstory.
“...that’s stupid of them.”
“Yeah.” Tedros chewed his nail harder. “Yeah. They asked if my mum could come instead, but she ran away in the summer with her boyfriend, so I just said no.”
Agatha had come down this hallway prepared for a bollocking and then to be sent home to her mildly amused mother, not to have a trauma-dump from someone she didn’t know. She blinked.
“Sorry.” she said, again.
“‘s fine.”
They sat on the shitty plastic chairs and stared at the display board across from them. It was about aspirations and it was made of ugly blue paper. Lesso was shouting at someone inside her office.
“I’m gonna be a pop star.” said Tedros.
Agatha scoffed, in the general cynicism of a twelve year old with a supermodel mother, brought up to bemoan the fickle nature of the entertainment industry.
“And I’m gonna be the Empress of Russia.”
“You’re Russian?”
“I’m Thai, and Russia doesn’t have a monarchy anymore.”
Tedros went pink.
“Right.” his face fell as the sentiment sunk in. “You think I can’t do it?”
Agatha decided maybe being defeatist to the kid with useless parents probably wasn’t a very nice thing to do.
“...dunno.” she said. “Don’t know you. Hard, isn’t it? You any good?”
“I’m great.” said Tedros firmly. Agatha struggled not to let her doubt leak onto her face, but Tedros was still going; “I write all my stuff. I can sing. I’m Grade 7 in Guitar and 6 in Piano. I wanna learn to produce. I have nice legs and I’m charming.”
Agatha stared at him, in his ugly green school uniform. Even at the time, it had sounded like a shit resumé, not a legitimate wish that could be fulfilled. But there was a fervour lurking under it.
“I’m Grade 8 in Piano.” she said, as a little test.
Tedros scowled-- then his face cleared.
“You do music?”
“I wanna be a producer.” said Agatha, who had been holding that particular tidbit back until she decided whether she liked him or not. Tedros’s face lit up.
“Oh! We could work together!”
“I’m probably better than you.” said Agatha. The look on his face soured and she snorted. “I’m winding you up. Maybe. But we’d have to like, manage it first.”
Tedros folded his arms.
“Why--”
Lesso yanked the door open.
“Can you two be quiet?” she demanded. “I’m talking to some of my Year 11s.” she frowned at Tedros. “Tedros, is your father not here yet?”
“No, Miss.” Tedros mumbled, chastened again. Lesso frowned.
“Hmm. Achara, what are you here for?”
“Was rude to a Prefect, Miss. Mr Manley sent me here.”
Lesso sighed.
“I’ll speak to you in a minute. Keep it down, please.”
She ducked back inside and shut the door.
Tedros whipped back to her.
“Your name’s Achara?” he asked, in an exaggerated whisper.
“Yeah, but everyone calls me Agatha.”
“Oh, ok, ok-- listen, Agatha, can we go to the music rooms after school? Please?”
He beamed hopefully at her. Agatha, who had never met him before, was in no classes with him, and had only inferred his name from when Lesso said it, stared at him--
“Fine.” she said. “But don’t be mad when I’m better than you.”
Tedros had grinned.
Now, Agatha reflected that however dumb his confidence had seemed at the time, they both had managed it. Somehow. Still, if that little non-appearance from Arthur hadn’t been foreshadowing for how his shitty father had both motivated and hindered Tedros’s career, Agatha didn’t know what was--
Ooh, hang on, incoming pissy boyfriend.
Agatha quickly pretended to look at least slightly receptive as Kei came sauntering over, and it was more for Tedros’s sake than either of theirs. There was no love lost between Kei Sato and Achara Kaenthai. They had made eye contact over the table at a pizzeria and immediately knew they both highly disapproved of the other’s relationship with Tedros.
She supposed that gave them something in common.
“Achara.”
At least Kei had the sense to know Agatha would not have tolerated him calling her by her nickname. They were only on a first-name basis because Tedros introduced them like that.
“Kei.” she said frostily. They shook hands briskly, both gripping too hard. Behind them, Tedros was jabbering away to Nicola, not noticing how his ex-girlfriend / best friend was trying to break all the tiny bones in his current boyfriend’s hand. Agatha’s logic was that Kei didn’t need all of the bones in his hand, and deserved a couple of them being put out of service, but apparently Kei didn’t agree, because the handshake was broken very quickly.
“Good party.” said Kei.
“It’s fine.” said Agatha blandly. They stood and took swigs of their drinks.
“I only came because Tedros asked.” Kei admitted, finally. “Why are you here?”
Because I’m supposed to be, asshole. Unlike you.
“I was invited.”
“Ah. I always forget you actually make music, as well.”
“People tend to.” said Agatha glacially. “Guess I’m better known for other things.”
“Mm.” said Kei noncommittally. They both knew he thought Agatha was rude. He was right, but still.
Tedros glanced over at them, looked away-- then looked back, face turned to comical horror as he realised Agatha was talking to Kei unmoderated. He hustled a confused Nicola over, in clear panic.
“Um, this is my boyfriend, Kei, and-- oh, well, you know Agatha, ‘course, yeah, haha--”
He wedged himself next to Kei and stared in warning at Agatha, who did not change her expression.
“We were discussing the party.” Kei said flatly, looping his arm pointedly through Tedros’s. Agatha resisted the urge to snort. If he thought Agatha only disliked him because she’d dated Tedros back in the mists of time, he had another thing coming. Kei was just generally intolerable.
Tedros, who seemed to have been desperately searching for a topic change, seized onto this theme with mad fervour.
“Oh, speaking of parties, it’s your birthday soon, isn’t it? We should… we should do something!”
“Not something like last year, that was too chaotic.” said Kei, immediately. Tedros’s face fell slightly, but he recovered fast.
“Yeah, it was a bit… crazy. Yeah. So something more sedate, then, like… er…”
Agatha hadn’t gone to that particular party, but she’d heard about it, because someone had thrown up on Chicken, Tedros’s golden retriever. Chicken had simply been confused, but Tedros had been beside himself with fury, because he babied that dog like an actual human child, and then some. Chicken had more coats than Agatha did. He had also peed on her as a puppy and thrown up on her carpet, and cried the whole time Agatha had to dogsit him because he was scared of her cat. But he was cute and he tried to give her his stinky toys, so Agatha couldn’t really pretend to dislike him.
Agatha had also thought that Kei had both masterminded and enjoyed that party, seeing as he’d had an immense hangover the next day and Agatha had been saddled with trying to convince Tedros that Chicken just needed a bath and some fuss, not a hitman to avenge him. Apparently she had been wrong. Or, more likely, Kei simply liked to shit on everything in retrospect. At least Agatha did her criticisms immediately.
“Maybe a dinner party, if you’re looking for something calmer.” said Nicola, saving Tedros’s floundering. Tedros seized gratefully onto it.
“Ooh, great idea! What do you think--”
“Yeah, sure.” said Kei, not looking particularly as if he cared either way. Was he impressed by anything? “Are you cooking?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do a whole thing--” the look that signified Tedros getting latched onto an idea had appeared, and Agatha just prayed Kei didn’t start stomping on all of his notions. “I can get some decorations, some fancy shit, all that--”
“Nothing too tacky.” said Kei.
“No, no...”
Kei eyed him sceptically.
“Teddy--” (Agatha clicked her tongue in irritation at the nickname. Kei ignored her.) “--you like tacky shit. You are tacky a lot. Don’t do it.”
Agatha frowned. Tedros made pop bangers and liked being stared at. Of course he had a lean towards tacky. It was part and parcel; any self-respecting pop artist was at least a tiny bit tacky. Didn’t mean he wasn’t a legitimate artist, just that he wore eye-watering outfits that took three hours to put on to red carpets, and could do the splits disturbingly easily.
“No, course not, I’d only do tacky for me-- what do you want? We can go and buy stuff--”
“Can’t you get one of your people to go?” snorted Kei. “Better not to risk you getting tackled by some crazy girl whilst you’re trying to buy flour.”
Tedros frowned-- then noticed Agatha staring and leapt wildly for another subject change.
“Oh-- Agatha, will you come this time?”
Agatha glanced sceptically at Kei-- and was very surprised to see him nodding.
“Yeah, you never come to anything.” he said with uncharacteristic cheerfulness. “Not fond of me?”
Oh. Bait.
“Ha ha,” said Agatha, trying to kill him with her mind. “Don’t be ridiculous, if I disliked you I would have found some way to get rid of you by now. I’ll come, sure.”
Kei smiled completely fakely. So did Agatha. Nicola snorted. Tedros looked relieved that they hadn’t tried to murder each other on the posh shiny floor.
“Great, well, we’ll text you the details! Nice meeting you, Nicola, I’ll drop you a line--”
They went off together, Agatha glaring at Kei’s back. Nicola, who looked rather pleased with her networking, glanced at her.
“So, um, you two really don’t like each other? You and Kei Sato?”
“Mm.” said Agatha, grinding her teeth. “Yeah, we’re not exactly best buds.”
“Why’s Tedros dating him? They don’t seem… compatible.”
Honestly, Agatha often wondered the same thing, since Kei was generally aloof and not particularly affectionate, and Tedros was very touchy and overemotional. Validation? Aesthetics? A thing for stoicism and abs?
“Honestly?” said Agatha. “No idea.”
A few weeks later, Tedros flung the door open in a full face of makeup and a Snoopy apron. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else (the makeup, not the apron) but Agatha knew when he was concealing the acne scars near his nose and jaw. She decided to focus on Snoopy.
“Cute apron, Gordon Ramsey.”
“It is cute, actually.” said Tedros, hugging her briskly and stepping back. “Come in, you beat everyone else--”
“Ugh, really? I’m not even on time.”
“Ah, who’s ever on time to a party? You arrive late and go home later.” Tedros snatched her coat off her and went trotting off down the corridor to hang it up. Agatha sighed, peeling her boots off and following him into the kitchen, which was festooned with balloons and confetti.
“Where’s Birthday Boy?” she asked.
“Fussing upstairs, he said he’d be down in a minute.”
Good, Agatha thought. She really was only here because Tedros had asked her to come. Otherwise, she would not have touched Kei with a bargepole, let alone come to his birthday party.
“You want a drink?” asked Tedros.
“Not yet. It’s 6pm.”
“Suit yourself.” Tedros went sauntering back to the hob. Agatha leaned on the kitchen island and fielded the approach of Chicken the dog, who was wearing a birthday-themed bandana and thankfully did not jump at her like he sometimes did. She scratched his ears and watched Tedros squinting hopefully into the oven.
“What are you making, then?”
“I made a pea soup yesterday, so I’m reheating that for starters, and then I got this recipe for this curry pie, except I’m doing it with halloumi because I couldn't find paneer at the little Tesco and the girl at the tills was looking at me like she recognised me--” He either ignored or did not see Agatha roll her eyes-- “and then I made ice cream. Myself. Good, right?”
“It does sound good.” admitted Agatha. Despite his general ineptitude in many other areas (mathematics, understanding basic science, taste in shoes, inability to stop biting his nails, too-keen fondness for idioms in his songwriting) Tedros could cook, no matter how much Agatha ribbed him for touching boiling sugar one time. It was the other half of why Agatha had turned up.
“Sure you don’t want a drink?” prodded Tedros, again. Agatha waved him off.
“I’m fine.” she squinted at him. “Are you nervous about this?”
“Nah, not at all.” said Tedros, with no conviction, squinting desperately into one of the pots on the hob. He opened it and prodded something with a serving spoon. “Do you think these are done?”
Agatha obligingly went to look, eyes scanning the setup as she went--
Her gaze fell on the table.
He’d made swans out of the napkins.
And then Agatha had a distinct premonition of impending doom. This was one of those Tedros things. One of those things where he got too into it and everything had to be perfect, and if the tiniest thing did not pass muster, he got annoyed with himself and turned really surly and…
Oh, god, she was going to have to mediate this entire thing. Fucking hell--
And then Kei appeared in the doorway.
Tedros bolted up and nearly bashed his head on the extractor fan, which Agatha saved him from by grabbing the back of his apron and yanking him away.
“Hey!” he said, as if he hadn’t nearly brained himself. “You heard from anyone else, yet?”
“I need to talk to you.” said Kei blankly. He looked more ready to go clubbing than have dinner, Agatha thought. Chicken went over to him, expecting attention, which he did not receive, so he sulkily returned to Agatha. Agatha took the dog’s bandanna and pulled him back a bit, doom premonition increasing--
“Sure.” said Tedros. “What’s up? Has someone cancelled--”
“We’re done.” said Kei.
Tedros stared at him.
“...what?”
Oh, shit...
Agatha considered trying to conceal herself behind one of Tedros’s beloved houseplants, decided it wouldn’t work, and resorted to pretending she was really, really interested in petting Chicken. Possibly it was unnecessary, because both men seemed to have forgotten she was there. But the dog seemed pleased.
There was a very pregnant pause. Tedros was smiling in a confused sort of way, as if he was expecting some sort of punchline. Agatha’s eyes narrowed. Horrible breakup technique aside, this was a bizarre change in pace. Very much so. Kei had been receptive to the idea a few weeks ago, more or less. What had happened? Why now?
Tedros spluttered some kind of choked laugh.
“But Kei, it’s-- it’s your birthday? We were gonna--”
“I have other plans.” said Kei tightly. Tedros’s face struggled to maintain the smile.
“Other plans? What? But you didn’t--” he laughed weakly. “You agreed... you didn’t tell me...”
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.” said Kei, flicking one of the (many) balloons in a haughty sort of distaste. “You’d have started trying to make a big fuss about it, and taken over. Frankly, it’s smothering.”
Tedros stared at him. Blinked hard.
“But… all your friends…”
“I texted them to tell them it was off…” he glanced at Agatha. “I forgot you were coming.”
“Wilful memory loss, I’m sure.” drawled Agatha.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” demanded Tedros loudly. Agatha eyed his quickly reddening jawline, not sure whether he was going to burst into tears or throw something potentially deadly. “You-- you let me spend the whole day doing all this for you, and now--”
“I did tell you not to make a big fuss and not to start it at 6am. You didn’t listen.” said Kei coolly. Agatha grimaced, thinking that was probably true. Tedros had a tendency to get very single-minded about things. “Frankly, I wasn’t sure where it stopped being about me, and started being about you just trying to throw a good party.”
Tedros went pink, visible even under his foundation.
“I thought you were just being stoic--”
“No, you weren’t listening!” barked Kei, his usual cool disdain starting to buckle under his irritation. “You’re so clingy. You can’t fathom the idea that maybe I didn’t want to do anything with you, maybe I wanted to do my own thing--”
Tedros’s mouth opened wordlessly. Agatha stepped backwards slightly, not wanting to be within Tedros throws the serving spoon at Kei and it flies off at an angle range.
“Why didn’t you say?” Tedros managed. “That would have been okay--”
“Would it?” demanded Kei. “Or would you have been all mopey and weird about it?”
“I-- I, no... who were you gonna go out with?”
“See!” Kei pointed furiously at him. “You can’t cope with the idea of letting me go off on my own!”
“But-- you can’t spend your birthday alone--”
Well, you could. Agatha did it sometimes. You ordered a massive takeaway for yourself, and a cocktail or several, and woke up on the floor surrounded by prawn cracker crumbs like a battle survivor the next day at like, 1pm. But Tedros was silly and sentimental and had issues with this sort of thing, since being left alone on important days like Christmas and birthdays had been pretty standard for his childhood. Agatha had thought Kei would have known that, but apparently not. Or if he did, he didn’t care. She wasn’t sure which one was worse.
“I’m not spending it alone,” said Kei plainly. “I’m just not going with you. Because, like I just told you, we’re done.”
Tedros gawked wordlessly at him. Agatha mentally started counting down to an absolute shitshow…
“I’ll come and pick up my stuff in the morning.” said Kei, retreating. “See you around, Tedros. Sorry.”
“What? Kei-- Kei!”
“Take your shit, now, asshole!” Agatha shouted after him--
But the door slammed, and he was gone.
Agatha looked at Tedros. Tedros stared in bewilderment at the empty doorway.
Then his face crumpled, something started burning in the pan behind them, and the smoke alarm went off.
Their solution was to have all the food to themselves. And also get very drunk.
“He’s a piss-poor model, anyway.” said Agatha, later. They’d long since given up on glasses, and Tedros was drinking rosé out of the bottle. Agatha had found the least disgusting of the fancy craft beers in Tedros’s massive fridge. “My mother says his walk is like Bambi, if Bambi had his kneecaps broken for having mafia debts.”
(Chailai “Callis” Kaenthai (born October 31st, 1966) is a Thai supermodel, beauty pageant titleholder, and former Miss Universe, famously crowned whilst holding her toddler daughter, Achara Kaenthai , on her hip--)
Tedros squinted at her. There were lines drawn through his foundation from where he’d sat and cried, whilst Agatha saved the remainder of the food and either binned it or put it in the fridge; except the pie, which she’d taken half of for them to eat. Tedros had tried to refuse, but she’d stared at him until he relented. He had an orange mouth from the tomatoes. She hadn’t bothered to point it out to him.
“Your mother is mean.” he put the wine bottle to his lips again, then frowned. “Well, maybe she’s right. He was in one of those YouTube compilations, those ones where they slag off instagram model’s runway walks compared to actual supermodels. He was super mad about it.”
“The one where they put squelchy sound effects over their walks?”
“Please don’t tell me you watched it.”
“Ha ha.” said Agatha unconvincingly, hastily making a note to delete it from her watch history, since she’d watched it in the taxi earlier. “No. Course not. Just know the type of thing.” she tried to think of something reasonable to say. “P’raps he’s just not made to be a runway model. Maybe he’s better at sitting down and looking sexy.”
“Do you think he’s sexy?” asked Tedros miserably.
“What, if we ignore the veil of reprehensible twat he’s just settled over himself like an ugly bride?”
“Ye-eah.”
Agatha considered this.
“His eyes are too far apart, and he’s got weird Slenderman hands.”
“You’re a very critical family, you and your mother.”
“Yeah, but I make money off it.” said Agatha. She sat up and opened a cupboard at random. “You got any good snacks?”
“You just ate a good half of that pie.”
“So? I came here to have dinner, so I’m eating.”
Tedros huffed.
“There’s some in the slidey drawer thingy.” he said, waving the bottle vaguely to their right. “Twiglets, and... things.”
Agatha eyed him as he picked up his phone.
“Don’t text him. Or go on Twitter. Or Instagram. Or any social media, for that matter.”
“I’m playing Candy Crush to distract from the painful state of my existence.”
“Who the fuck still plays Candy Crush in 2019?”
“Me, when I’m drunk, asshole. I’m like a baby, I need visual stimulation so I don’t scream-cry. Get me something if you’re going over there.”
“Fine.” Agatha shuffled on her backside on the shiny kitchen floor to the slidey drawer thingy and rifled through the contents. Slightly (very) tipsy as she was, it took her a while to decide what she actually wanted, by which time--
“He’s with Rhian!” wailed Tedros abruptly from behind her, and burst into tears.
Agatha decided it was best not to open the Wotsits right at this second.
“Rhian--?” she spied the telltale homepage. “I told you not to go on Twitter!”
“I couldn’t help it!” sobbed Tedros. “I tried to ignore everyone tagging me, I should have logged out but I got nosey and I thought-- well, I hoped-- maybe he’d like, embarrassed himself or something and we could laugh at it but he’s at a fucking expensive Asian fusion restaurant with my half brother!”
Well that explained a lot. Everything, in fact. Rhian, ever-glorious Rhian, had swooped in with a better idea, and mean-spirited Kei had gone along with it, probably looking for an excuse to break it off with Tedros...
Agatha snatched up her own phone.
Kei Sato Hate Club
Yara: ummm
Yara: [img 1]
Yara: That’s not Tedros. Nor is that Tedros’s apartment
Nicholas: ?? what happened
Sophie: does Teddy know about this??
Achara: omg don’t even fucking ask he’s lying on the floor
drinking rosé out of the bottle and semi-hysterical
Beatrix: KEI’S CHEATING?
Achara: does it count as cheating if he
dumped Tedros like two hours ago?
Nicholas: oh shit
Beatrix: wait you’re with him? How come?
Achara: Kei “forgot” I was coming and couldn’t head
me off in time so I bore witness to the entire thing
Achara: I’ll explain later Tedros is kinda hyperventilating rn
“Mail says sources are telling them they’ve been together for months--”
“You’re gonna believe the Daily Fail?” Agatha plucked Tedros’s phone out of his hand, turned it off, and put it under the dog bed.
“My brother!” Tedros sobbed. “MY TORY BROTHER!”
“...I mean, at least he’s only your half brother?” said Agatha weakly, watching Tedros clutch Chicken like Kate Winslet on the door in Titanic.
(Rhian Pendragon (born June 12th, 1990) is a Conservative Party politician, MP for Newport West. He is the son of businessman Arthur Pendragon and scientist Evelyn Sader, and hence the half-brother of singer-songwriter Tedros Pendragon.)
If anything, though, Tedros only cried harder.
“Is he better looking than me? Is that it?”
“No, git.”
“He has to be, he’s not got his personality going for him--”
Agatha decided not to comment on that either way, since Tedros kind of had a point.
“He doesn’t have weird ankles!” cried Tedros, grabbing at his legs. “I should have noticed he kept looking at my legs--”
“You don’t have weird ankles, Tedros.”
“I have dog ankles!”
Agatha looked at the real dog, sitting at Tedros’s feet, whose ankles did not resemble Tedros’s ankles. Chicken just looked baffled. As usual. Agatha had never seen a thought enter that sweet, hollow head.
Something about dogs being like their owners--
“No, you don’t, because you are a human man.” she squinted at him. “Are you on crack? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? You just saw me get dumped!”
“It doesn’t mean you have to throw all sense out of the window and declare you have dog ankles!”
Tedros took a deep breath, staring at himself intently in the oven door. Agatha, knowing the signs of a nitpick ready to happen, headed him off immediately.
“Tedros, I dated you, you can take it on my authority that Rhian isn’t better looking than you.”
“You dumped me!”
“I dumped you because our schedules clashed and we were eighteen and it was never a serious relationship anyway, genius. Not because you were ugly.”
Tedros sniffed. Wiped his nose on his Snoopy apron.
“Am I clingy?”
Agatha sighed deeply. Kei should have known that one would hit home. Probably why he said it. It wasn’t… fully true, because Tedros could be both notoriously flaky or extremely clingy dependent on how insecure he was feeling, but--
“Agatha?”
“Not really.” Agatha decided.
“Not really?”
“You’re funny about special occasions, which he perceived as being clingy, even though it’s not, really..”
“No, I’m not--!”
“Christmas 2006.” said Agatha.
“That was one time!” Tedros shook his head, bewildered. “I was just-- I just wanted to do something nice…”
“Mm, it was a proper dick move on his part to not head you off.” Agatha took a slug of beer. “Probably too embarrassed to tell you to stop because he didn’t wanna tell you he was gonna go to a gentrified restaurant with your ugly brother instead. His loss, that pie fucking slapped and I got it to myself.”
Tedros wiped his eyes.
“I thought it was too bland.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Agatha tapped her fingers on the rim of her can. “So he’s out with Rhian, eh? Can’t imagine that’s much fun. What do you talk about with Rhian, your lack of conscience? Do they take ‘ which megalomaniacal dictator are you?’ quizzes and compare results?”
She tended to inflate Rhian’s importance. He wasn’t actually that important, he was just rich and a prick. Wasn’t even a junior minister. Just a backbencher with a fat head.
“Bet Rhian’s not clingy.” said Tedros.
“Oh, get a grip, Tedros.”
Tedros peered miserably at her.
“You’re bad at this.”
“No, I’m excellent at this, I’m quashing all of your self-destructive notions before they can get going.”
“Can you do it in a nicer way?”
“Get a grip, please.” amended Agatha. “Want me to compose an ode to your four Grammys and sexy arms while I’m at it?”
“Yes, please.”
“Piss off.” said Agatha fondly. Tedros didn’t really smile.
“Everyone’s gonna laugh.” he mumbled. “Kei’s gonna go and tell everyone what happened. This is so embarrassing.” he pulled his knees up to his chin. “I didn’t even like him that much, but I just thought he was stoic, I didn’t think he was properly mean…” he shook his head, and tried to smile, but it buckled. “Guess I better avoid the papers for the next few days, huh? Gotta field a call from my publicist… all that fun stuff...
His voice cracked at the end. He turned away to fuss over the dog. Agatha sat, ate her snacks, and watched tears dripping onto Chicken’s head. Chicken wagged his tail and whined and tried to shove his head in Tedros’s armpit, because he and his master both had one single brain cell that they shared, apparently.
She could have said something acid, but she didn’t. She wedged herself in-between Tedros, the dog, and the kitchen island. She hugged Tedros, and clumsily smoothed his hair, and let him get snot on her jumper, and didn’t complain.
Not even once.
He bounced back quickly, or at least appeared to. Every text was punctuated with a :) or a !!!!!!! and he sounded chipper on the phone, but Ted Talk firmly concluded this was just an aggressive attempt at not wanting to look pathetic. Tabloids and paparazzi spotted him at bars, Agatha ran into him out shopping twice, and he was definitely taking people home, because he kept getting caught making out with people at clubs.
“I mean… good for him?” said Beatrix when she, Yara and Agatha met up for coffee.
“I’d say that, but I’m pretty sure this is a panic reaction to turning thirty.” Yara said. “The breakup was the catalyst.”
“What, as if he’s gonna wake up looking like Palpatine now he’s not in his 20s anymore?” snorted Agatha, but she secretly agreed. Her mother had long cursed the short shelf life models, pop stars and people of that ilk were given. Callis was only 53, with a daughter barely out of her 20s, but had been fighting with the industry for as long as Agatha could remember.
“More like Kei breaks up with him and he thinks oh god I’m too old to ever find love again I’m gonna die alone, and then he considers mortality in general and panics.” said Beatrix.
“That tracks.” admitted Agatha. “Sounds like the sort of conclusion he’d draw.”
“It’s not a very good one.” said Yara.
“Oh, it’s shit.” agreed Beatrix. “But when are they ever good?”
The next time Agatha actually saw him in person, it was a chance meeting at a London recording studio. Agatha had been working on a project, gone to buy some shit from the vending machine, turned the corner, and saw Tedros at the other end of the corridor. She considered throwing her Twix at him to get his attention, but he turned and noticed her before she could work out how hard to throw it.
“Agatha!”
“Yes, ‘tis I.” said Agatha blandly, wondering why he seemed so surprised. “What are you doing here? Last you told me, you weren’t starting a new album cycle yet.”
“Oh, I’m not, it was guest vocals for a collaboration.”' he fell into step beside her. “What are you doing?”
“Producing for a few people, as usual. On my own, because they all rushed off to a fancy party and left me to fix their shit basslines.”
“Can I sit in with you?”
Agatha squinted at him, unlocking the studio door.
“I suppose so. Why?”
The answer was delayed as they grappled childishly for a moment, trying to get through the door at the same time. Agatha stood on his fancy chelsea boot. Tedros kicked her in the shin.
“I lied.” said Tedros, slamming the door behind him. “I came in to hide from the paps and I was also hoping you’d be here.”
Agatha sighed deeply.
“I knew it was going to be something like that. Fine . I’m leaving at seven, call your fancy car for then.”
“I love you.”
“Haah. Bet you’re glad this room is sound-proof, or there’d be all sorts of rumours flying around.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Tedros flung himself down into the other chair, and started spinning in circles as Agatha went back to the desk. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Agatha eyed him narrowly. He always started preening and flirting after a breakup. It was like a defence response-- but it bounced right off her, so it was more or less a pointless reflex.
“I think your PR woman would have a stroke. Getting back together with your horrible sixth-form girlfriend who regularly drags you in the press? Nightmare. Plus, it makes it look like you haven’t grown as a person since you were eighteen, which is… bad.”
Tedros wasn’t really listening.
“We’d look hot.” he said, sailing from one side of the room to the other on the chair, wheels squeaking. Agatha decided he could pay for anything he crashed into.
“No, you’d look hot, and I would look passable by virtue of being stood next to you.”
Tedros’s trundling chair slowed.
“Don’t say that.”
“Just because my mother was once the most beautiful woman in the world does not mean I’m anywhere higher than about 2 billionth.” Agatha yawned, clicking about with a vocal track--
Tedros’s chair crashed into the back of hers and squished her against the desk.
“Oy!” Agatha shoved him away, and into the wall. “We’re not playing dodgems over this.”
“I think you’re hot.” said Tedros petulantly.
“Well, duh, you dated me. I do think you should wear your glasses more, though, so that might have something to do with it.”
Tedros scowled. Agatha meddled with a few settings on the board.
“You know what people online are saying? That you should find a nice girl to settle down with, because you’re thirty and that means you have to get married, apparently. Also because all of your exes are horrible.” She spun her chair to face him. “Know what that means? You don’t try and get back with me. It would be a disaster. I would get slaughtered in the press, and you would get very upset about it, and I would be horrible to them in response, and it would all go very, very wrong. I am not what you need, Tedros. I’m not risking ruining our friendship to be your rebound girlfriend. And I’m not what you want, either, because I know you’re only flirting with me because you’re trying to get me to validate you after Kei shat all over your ego.”
Tedros stared at her.
“...so, that’s a no?”
“I’m not a nice girl, am I?” snorted Agatha. “I’m not even close. My career relies on me being unkind, and the other bit on being antisocial and detail-orientated.”
“I never said that’s what I was looking for though, did I? You said that.”
“Well, it should be.” yawned Agatha, turning back to the track and viciously deleting a snare line. “Someone nice. Someone who isn’t a literal music critic. Imagine the fallout on Twitter if we dated again. Your fans hate me.”
“They don’t all hate you.” said Tedros unconvincingly.
“Mm. Don’t blame them, I’d hate me too if my only exposure to myself was how much I drag your stuff. Luckily, I’m actually very nice to you in private.”
She leaned back, patted his knee vaguely, and went to the beat maker. Tedros blew out a breath.
“You really think it’s a stupid idea? 100%?”
“Profoundly, dear heart.”
“...ok. Forget I asked.”
“I won’t.” said Agatha mildly. “But it’s ok.”
Tedros sighed deeply and put his head on the side table. Agatha patted his back.
“I know it’s hard to put yourself back out there, but you don’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel right away.”
“How can you even be critical to yourself?”
“Consider it my special skill.” Agatha looked down at him, for a minute; at the curls resting on the nape of his neck, how the back of his jacket had bunched up as he’d leaned down, at how the fabric strained at his broad shoulders. The pulse working at his jaw and the unblemished skin there--
Who was she trying to convince, here?
...don’t be stupid, she told herself.
She put her headphones on and went back to work.
The trouble was, she went home thinking about it.
Tedros wasn’t serious; he never was. If he was truly serious about something, it took him about thirty years to muster the courage to face up to it, so a random suggestion in a recording studio on a Thursday was not going to amount to anything. But it was thorny, as a concept. They’d spent so long as weird friends, and had generally dismissed their previous relationship as… well, not meaningless, exactly, but not really… relevant. It had happened, they had broken up, they had shrugged and continued to trundle along in life, bickering along the way. She wasn’t one of his heart-rending, worldview-shattering breakups. As far as she knew, he’d never written about her. They were just Tedros and Agatha. Having to re-examine that was daunting.
It was possible she’d been too harsh in shutting him down, but it was done, and he hadn’t seemed particularly upset, so where was the point in dwelling on it?
Then she made the mistake of telling her mother about it.
In town for London Fashion Week, Callis had neutrally observed the fancy lunch place as Agatha dumped the entire interaction onto her.
“--I don’t think he was serious, but he’s been super weird since that shitshow of a dinner. It’s probably his post-breakup flirt reflex, but…” she scowled and went back to her plate.
Callis raised her glass to her lips in a contemplative sort of manner. Took a sip. Delicately pressed her napkin to her lips. And in her famously deep and measured voice, she said;
“I’m gonna shove him down the stairs at the Elie Saab event and make it look like a fucking accident.”
Agatha slammed her fork down, battling amusement and exasperation.
“You are the reason I turned out like this. You know that, right? My mother is a menace--”
“Yeah, yeah.” Callis impaled her poached egg and watched as the yolk leaked out in its death throes. “I won’t actually, I’m pretty sure his head is insured for like, 100k and I don’t wanna pay that.”
“His head isn’t insured.” sighed Agatha.
“Can never be too sure.” Callis told her firmly. “If you want my honest opinion, I agree that he’s just trying to restore his vanity after Kei stomped all over it, and like you said, he probably wasn’t serious.” she fixed her daughter with the same stare she’d used whenever Agatha had broken something as a child. “But do you want him to be serious?”
“You try telling him he doesn’t have dog ankles.” Agatha muttered, stuck on the vanity bit. “If he’s looking to me for compliments, he’s got to be desperate. Can’t he just post a selfie somewhere and read the comments?”
“The first rule of fame is do not read the comments.” Callis said dryly.
“You’re a snob.”
“And you’re a holy terror.”
“Fair.” Agatha peered over at the dessert case. “Can we order dessert?”
“You’re thirty years old and you’re still asking my permission to order dessert?”
Agatha turned innocently to her.
“Because I respect you so much.”
“Ooh, don’t make me laugh.” scoffed Callis. “Dodging my questions, calling me a snob... fine, I’m gonna deliberately make it so you two have to sit together when I walk. Because you will both be coming to watch me, as penance for all the times I had to put up with you two screaming in my sitting room over some computer game--”
“You’re walking? Don’t you need a zimmer-- owww--”
Callis serenely withdrew her foot from where she’d kicked Agatha.
“I have made more money off my walk than you ever will from being rude to people in newspapers.”
“I made my peace with that decades ago, sweet mama. I assume that you don’t want dessert, then, if you’re walking?”
“I’m your mother, of course I want fucking dessert.” Callis plucked the menu from her hand and turned to flag down a waiter.
“It makes no sense for either of us to be here, you know.” Tedros said as Agatha dropped into the seat next to him.
“It’s my mother.”
Although it was true Agatha had seen Callis walk more times than she could count, it was much rarer nowadays, and Agatha didn’t like to miss them, if she could help it. Proving there was an audience for older women in modelling, and all that.
Tedros shrugged. “Yeah, but you don’t care for fashion.”
“My coat was expensive.”
“Say that again, slow, and focus on the singular form of coat.”
Agatha ignored him.
“We’re at the women’s collection.”
“I mix and match, don’t I?” sniffed Tedros.
“Congratulations on single handedly destroying toxic masculinity.” Agatha scratched her neck and glanced around at all the expensively-dressed people networking. “Listen, about the other week--”
“You’ve developed a guilty conscience about shutting me down so firmly, haven’t you?”
Agatha glanced at Tedros. His eyes weren’t visible behind his sunglasses (which were ridiculous and not suitable in any way for being inside) but she suspected he was side-eyeing her.
“Er.” said Agatha. “Maybe a bit--”
“It’s fine.” shrugged Tedros. “I suspected you were going to shut me down, anyway.”
“Why’d you bother, then?”
“...worth a try?”
Agatha grunted in a noncommittal sort of way.
“You see why I did it though, right?”
Tedros didn’t reply. Agatha turned to him, suspicious.
“Tedros--”
The lights went down, the first model turned the corner, and they were interrupted.
Then Tedros made the fatal mistake of Talking To One Of The Models, Once.
Ted Talk
Beatrix: who the hell is Valentina and why are all the
tabloids convinced she’s going out w Tedros
Achara: for god’s sake
Achara: he talked to her Once at fashion
week bc she liked his last album idfk
Nicholas: no truth to it then?
Achara: don’t think so. He didn’t know her before or
anything, and he’s a weird romantic bastard so he
doesn’t rly do spontaneous dating
Nicholas: well maybe it’s another quarter life crisis
thing. Like the clubs. And the green tea thing.
Beatrix: the green tea thing was so fucking stupid hahaha
Yara: it took me SO long to convince him that buying every green tea related cosmetic product wasn’t going to stop him from maybe getting One Wrinkle
Achara: sophie why are you liking these messages.
you were the one who recommended it to him.
Achara: IT’S YOUR FAULT
Sophie: ...anyway, are we SURE
he’s not dating her??
Achara: YES I was at fashion week with him!!
I saw them! Talking like normal people
She tossed her phone down, uncertain why she was so annoyed. It wasn’t as if it was the first time Tedros had run into dating rumours. It definitely wasn’t. So…
I’m not what you want.
Agatha drafted a very unkind review.
I’m not a nice girl, am I?
She deleted half of it. Babied Reaper and let him have some of the chicken from the fridge. Called her mother. Bit her nails. Picked up her phone to check a message from Hester and found herself googling Valentina, who was 26 and very tall and very beautiful and--
She flung her phone down, scowling. What was wrong with her? Why was she acting like she was 16?
Who was she trying to convince, here?
“Do you want him to be serious?”
...maybe. Maybe she’d shut him down so hard because she was trying to convince herself, just as much as him.
But either way, he hadn’t been serious.
So did it matter?
Whether it actually mattered or not, it goddamn well felt like it did, and that was what made the impact. Much to her horror, Agatha found herself moping, which was a horrible thing she did not usually partake in. She paid embarrassingly close attention when he came on TV, or the radio, and replied to his texts very quickly. She glared at herself in the mirror and wished a few more of her mother’s genes had been kind enough to be passed down. Maybe she could get a new haircut?
Maybe you should stop being a pathetic git.
Or that.
They texted back and forth, a bit, but only about superficial things. Agatha didn’t summon the courage to ask about Valentina-- instead, she wrote a couple of exceptionally cynical reviews and bashed on a few albums’ stupidly moony concepts of love. No one thought it was out of character for her, which stung slightly. She had experienced emotions like love and admiration before, thank you very much. But apparently she didn’t let that show. Another strike against her, she supposed.
Not that she cared.
Hmph.
Three or so weeks went by, and Agatha had finished a sulky dinner and was on her way to bed when her phone rang, and she’d already bad-naturedly swiped to accept it before she’d really registered who was calling her...
Then it was too late.
Agatha grimaced as Tedros immediately started spluttering something down the phone--
“Bea, I can’t fucking take this. I wasted my last chance and now I’m on the way to the airport, I’m going back to NYC to start working on my next project and I should have tried something this week but I didn’t--”
God, he always did this. It was because Agatha was at the end of his A contacts and Beatrix was at the beginning of the B, he always called or texted the wrong one because he never checked. Agatha took a breath to say something along the lines of hey, idiot, not Beatrix-- but Tedros didn’t wait for a response.
“I thought I could just keep it quiet and if I didn’t mention it again it would go away but it won’t! She won’t have me again, I brought it up with her and she laughed and brushed me off so I didn’t-- fucking hell--”
“What?” Agatha couldn’t help but splutter. If he does like Valentina after all-- but no, he said again, to her knowledge he’d never met her before, let alone dated h--
“I told you!” Tedros moaned. “I told you I was in love with Agatha and didn’t know what to do about it!”
...what? Wh--
Agatha’s brain snapped into crisp, clinical focus.
I told you I was in love with Agatha and didn’t know what to do about it.
She found herself completely winded, but it didn’t matter, because Tedros was still jabbering desperately on;
“You believed me, right? Right? I wasn’t joking, I-- it’s always been her, but I know she doesn’t like me like that anymore, she turned me down, even if she was n--”
The phone slipped in Agatha’s sweaty palm, and she scrabbled to retain purchase on it, catching her nails on the case. She-- what? She must have heard wrong, she...
“Tedros?”
It came out confused and croaky, and she was surprised he understood her.
“...huh?” Tedros sounded just as baffled as her. “Bea, don’t take the piss--”
She had to tell him, she couldn’t not… she had to...
“Tedros, you called me.” said Agatha hoarsely. Each word sounds very strange to her. Isolated. “Not… not Beatrix.”
And she knew he knew it. He’d realised it the first time she’d said his name, but he’d tried to convince himself he was wrong. She pronounced his name differently to everyone else, did the r differently.
There was only phone static and Tedros’s confused breathing. Agatha tried again;
“Tedros--”
A beat. Tedros took a sharp breath--
And hung up.
Agatha ripped the phone away from her ear, heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her back. She felt as if her brain had simply stopped. How can he-- but he never--
He was serious?
An incredulous sort of triumph spread through her. He was serious. She’d not thought he had been, of course she hadn’t, but… but she’d seen the disappointment on his face, hadn’t she? And she’d been the one who’d sat on the kitchen floor with him at that disastrous dinner, and texted him all the time. She’d savaged Aric’s music career in retribution for how he’d treated Tedros, and a million other things besides, not Kei or Valentina or anyone else…
Starting to smile, Agatha tentatively picked up her phone and called him back--
Call declined.
Bastard. Maybe he was somewhere people could overhear him. Well, she’d try a couple more times, and then maybe she’d text him, and they could talk about it later--
Call declined. Call declined. In quick succession, they came. Call declined.
Agatha stared at her phone, smile slipping slightly. As if on cue, it buzzed, and lit up.
New messages from stupid bitch (affectionate):
fuckc
Oh fycjm
Agatayh forget it
Agatah
Achara foegt I ever said anything please. please!! Forget about it
(…)
(…)
Agatha please I don’t wanna ruin ayythignlk youwere rihtg
Rite
Right
Please omfg
Don’t say anything abiottub it I’m so sorry I didnt;m mean to don’t be mad
She’d been right? About what? She’d said so much…
But it had always come back to one thing.
“I’m not a nice girl though, am I?”
...so that was it, was it?
She was actually too unkind for his image? Too infamous? Too likely to tarnish his golden reputation? She’d said it, but she’d not truly thought he’d agreed, he’d argued with her... hadn’t he?
Well. He’d not said it, but… Agatha combed back through her memory, trying to find an instance of Tedros actually disagreeing with her. There… there had to be one. Right? There had to be one.
You’re a very critical family, you and your mother.
“How can you even be critical to yourself?”
Agatha stared at the cluster of chaotic, desperate texts on the screen. She felt slightly ill.
His concern over the newspapers after Kei dumped him...
Well.
Well.
I didn’t mean to.
Agatha hurled her phone at the wall. It struck the paint with a sickening crack and smacked pathetically to the floor.
Then she picked it up and changed his contact name to Tedros Pendragon.
Achara: Sure.
Achara: We’ll forget it.
Achara: Safe flight back to NY.
Then she hunched over her cracked phone and sobbed.