Chapter Text
“It’s not working.”
“Of course it’s not working, you’re doing it all wrong.”
“I’m doing it exactly how you told me to!”
Goddess, teenagers are such a pain in the ass to deal with. Agatha misses small, kid Billy, who would curl up against her side and fall asleep on her. But now all she has is a teenage emo twink who can’t even comprehend simple instructions.
“Your hands,” she jabs him with a finger, using extra force that makes him wince. “You gotta flick your wrists, not twirl them around like Elsa trying to make Olaf.”
Billy groans and drops his hands. “I am twirling them! I’m twirling them like I’ve never twirled before. Have you seen such twirly hands?” He twists his hands in a way that makes Agatha wonder if cuffing him up and throwing him back into a closet is an acceptable reaction.
“Alright kid, shut up.” Agatha rolls her eyes, rubbing her temple. He’s going to give her a migraine at this rate. She crosses her arm, watching him groan and flail his hands dramatically.
Emo, dramatic teenager.
She thinks of returning to the task of reorganising her spellbooks, of doing anything that’s more worth her time than babysitting a baby witch who can’t even yet grasp the basics. Billy looks at her then, and he bites his lips in a somewhat guilty expression.
“I’m… sorry, but I’m really trying–”
Manipulation. He’s definitely manipulating her.
“Fine,” she says with a groan. “One last time.”
His face brightens up, and she can see that he fights back a grin from the way the corner of his mouth twitches. She is so going to take a break from teaching after this.
“Alright, remember to flick. Movement is very important here.” Agatha steps closer, pushing his arm lightly to get his position correct. He swallows audibly, and she fights back a sigh. Nervousness will always be a limiting factor. “Relax, kiddo. You’ve got me here, nothing will go wrong.”
Billy looks like he might make a snarky remark, but she shoots him a look that shuts him up.
“Right, right,” he exhales and closes his eyes. Sparks of blue come to life at his fingertips, and the air is almost immediately filled with the burnt scent of powerful magick. Agatha nearly takes a step back, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “Okay, holding it steady…”, Billy mutters to himself.
Too much.
The surrounding space is charged with too much magick for a spell as simple as making the vase float in midair. Agatha feels something twist in her gut.
“Billy,” she reaches out, but sparks of blue shock her. “Fuck.”
Billy’s breathing quickens, his fingers trembling slightly as the glow at his fingertips intensifies–too much, too fast. His eyes snap open, panic evident in them. “Agatha–”, he looks towards her, and Agatha’s stomach drops at the look on his face.
He was just a kid. He is still a kid.
He reminds her so much of Nicky–
Then, all at once, the magick shatters like glass breaking in reverse, imploding instead of exploding. Agatha is being ripped away, like something just grabbed her by the throat and yanked her soul out of her body.
Damn it, if Billy turns her into a ghost again she is not going to forgive that kid, no matter what puppy-eyed face he shows her.
“Agatha!”
The world distorts, and then–
Nothing.
“Agatha! Agatha, holy shit, are you alright? Lilia and the others are coming over right now. Agatha, please say something…”
Her head is pounding, something in her chest thumping loudly and too quickly for her comfort. Her body is weak in a way she’s never experienced before, a weird rushing sound in her ears that reminds her of rivers.
“Shut up,” she groans and jumps a little at the sound of her voice.
Agatha?
She opens her eyes, and a face that she’d recognise anywhere is the first thing she sees. Fucking hell.
“Abomination.” She tries to get up, but her legs shake and wobble, and the world spins as she moves. Great, this is amazing.
Waking up, feeling like shit, and the first thing she sees is his face. Zero out of ten experience.
She squints, trying to get the world back in place. Billy looks at her as if she’s grown a third head, or she has forgotten to wear her human skin again.
“What do you want?” She stills. That voice again–Agatha’s voice–coming out of her mouth. “What the hell?”
“Agatha, are you okay?” Billy gets close–way too close for comfort–and grabs her arm, helping her stand. “I don’t know what happened, my magick just started swelling, I think, and I couldn’t really control it. I’m really, really sorry.”
Wrong. Too close, too much.
She snaps.
Her fingers twitch first, an automatic reaction. She moves–slower, body sluggish and limbs feeling heavier than usual, but she moves.
Her hands wrap around his neck and squeeze, shutting him up. He looks at her with wide eyes, fear and uncertainty swimming in them. He tries to say something, but she tightens her fingers and he chokes and struggles, face turning blue, and she delights when she doesn’t feel the Balance stopping her from killing this brat of an abomination–
“Let him go!”
Hands wrap around her and pull her away from the boy, pinning her down to the floor. She struggles, growling and snarling at whoever dares to stop her from killing the boy and reclaiming a soul that doesn’t belong here.
“What the hell, Agatha?!” A familiar voice screams, but she’s suddenly too light-headed to take note. The thing in her chest, it’s pumping louder, faster, and there’s a feeling that’s rushing through her body that she’s never felt before–
Another hand presses down on her shoulder, gentle and oddly comforting. “Rio,” the person says firmly. “Calm down, you can’t kill the boy.”
The room falls silent.
Then, the boy speaks, uncertain. “...Rio?”
“Lilia, I know you’re kooky, but this is a bit too kooky.” She remembers that voice–the potions witch from the fake road that she had walked with Agatha. “Does this look like Rio to you?”
Where the hell is she?
“Shut up,” she rasps, trying to slow down the pumping in her chest–her heartbeat, she realises with a start. That’s not possible, she doesn’t have a heartbeat. “What did you do, boy?”
“I was practicing a spell with you, and it kinda went wrong,” he squeaks. “You’re, uh, not Agatha, are you?”
“No.”
“Well, shit.”
The potions witch’s (what’s her name again?) magick flares to life, pink and vibrant. “Alright, who are you and what did you do with Agatha?”
Rio scoffs and tries to get up, but the pair of hands on her press down harder. She turns and glares at the person, and oh, it’s another abomination that escaped her clutches. What a lovely day.
“Your divinations witch just told you, didn’t she?” She answers the question with a sigh when she realises that she currently doesn’t have the strength to break free. “‘Tis I, Lady Death, Bringer of Doom, bla bla bla.”
“So… you’re Rio?” Billy tries weakly. She shoots him a glare that has him taking a step back. “But you’re in Agatha’s body.”
“What?” Rio looks around her, searching for something that can show her reflection. The heart in her chest pumps faster again, and Goddess is she getting annoyed by all that thumping.
The witch that has been pressing her down finally relaxes her hold, and Rio squirms away from her, rising to her feet. She catches a glimpse of herself in a small mirror on a table full of random artifacts, and the blue eyes that stare back at her knocks all the air out of her lungs.
Agatha’s eyes.
She blinks. The reflection doesn’t change.
She lifts a hand. The woman in the mirror does the same.
Agatha is staring right back at her, but it’s not Agatha. It’s Rio looking into her love’s eyes again, yet it’s Rio looking back at herself.
She swallows.
From the corner of her eye, she notices the coven gather together, talking to each other in hushed voices. Rio is too busy staring into the mirror to pay attention.
Lilia is the one who steps closer to her, catching her attention. “It seems that Billy’s magick swapped you and Agatha’s bodies. We can assume that she’s in yours, and it’s best if she’s here with us. Where were you before the switch?”
Right, right. Agatha is still out there, in Lady Death’s body. Rio shudders–the switch for her was bad enough, she can only imagine how bad and disoriented the experience will be for Agatha.
“The In-Between,” Rio says. “I was guiding souls before the switch, she should be there right now.”
“Right, and how exactly do we get to this In-Between?” Jen asks.
Rio purses her lips. “We don’t. Death will be able to guide souls there, or souls of the deceased are able to find their own way to it. Living beings though, not exactly welcomed.”
“But, you’re Death.” Billy says, as if that’s going to solve all of their problems that he caused.
“I’m Death in a mortal body that is still very much alive, no thanks to you.” She snaps at him. A sliver of exasperation curls in her gut in an unfamiliar way, yet a feeling she can recognise. “I don’t even know if I can still be considered Death like this.”
Alice stands next to Jen, shoving her hands into her pockets. “Well, we have to find a way to get her. We can’t just leave her out there.”
“I’m not opposed to the idea,” Jen shrugs.
Rio has the urge to strangle her.
“Well…” Billy stands with his arms at his sides, utterly still. “What do we do now?”
That’s a good question, and Rio is willing to sacrifice Billy to get the answers. In fact, she’s willing to sacrifice him for nothing at all right now. He makes for a lousy pet with all the trouble he stirs up. She doesn’t think she’ll ever understand why Agatha keeps him around.
“We can all sit and calm down first, then begin thinking of a solution.” Lilia says, already making her way out of the room.
Rio follows behind the rest of them, hands pressing to her chest. The heartbeat is slowing down, settling into a rhythm that she remembers spending entire nights listening to, back when she and Agatha still slept on the same bed and in each other’s arms. Something grabs the heart in her chest and squeezes.
The others settle themselves in the living room, sitting next to each other without a second thought. Rio hesitates, but her legs are already moving her to the empty seat beside Billy.
He stares as she sinks in next to him.
Rio looks around her, taking in the space. It’s been cleaned up since the last time she came in and wrecked the place, the walls and furniture replaced with ones that she’s sure Agatha has picked out herself. It’s familiar, grounding.
Agatha stares at her with a grand grin, her hands resting on her swollen belly. “I want a big shelf, flowers carved into it. Oh, and a space for my studies. And– and we need a cradle for the baby–”
“Calm down, mi amor,” Rio chuckles. “We still have time to plan it however you want.”
“You better be taking notes, Rio. I want our home to be perfect.”
“It will be, I swear.”
She blinks, snapping herself out of the memory. The squeezing feeling in her chest grows stronger, and she wonders if she’ll begin to suffocate if it persists.
“So,” Alice begins, “what spell did you use, Teen?”
Billy stiffens. His fingers twitch, and his gaze drifts from the ground to the ceiling, then to the door.
Rio narrows her eyes. “Billy,” she says, low and dangerous.
He swallows. “I was trying to levitate a vase.”
Silence.
“You body-swapped a powerful witch and Death because you were trying to levitate a vase?” Jen asks, shooting him an exasperated look.
He nods, curling into himself. The guilty expression on his face makes something curl in Rio’s gut, and she has the sudden urge to reach out and comfort him.
Her hand pats on his back once, then twice, before she quickly returns it to her lap. She ignores his wide-eyed look of awe and something more emotional.
“Maybe the spell isn’t permanent,” Alice suggests. “They might return to normal once it wears off.”
Lilia considers it for a moment, then nods. “That is likely. If Teen didn’t have the intention of switching Agatha and Rio, his magick might not hold onto the spell for as long.”
Billy breathes an audible sigh of relief. “So, we just have to wait?”
“No,” Rio shakes her head. “We don’t know how long it’ll last. Agatha isn’t Death, whether she is in my body or not. She won’t be able to perform my duties.”
Not to mention that she must be confused and all alone. The In-Between is a dark, lonely place. Nothing stays there for long, and the only one who keeps returning to it is Rio herself. Agatha shouldn’t have to experience it.
“It’s not like we can reach her right now,” Jen scoffs.
Rio tries to. She feels her soul–out of place in Agatha’s body, too dull for a mortal full of life–and tries to reach for the connection that ties them both together. Their soulbond that Agatha had muted and hid away centuries ago.
“Fuck,” she gasps, feeling nothing there. Not a single thing.
No presence, no flicker, not even the muted feeling that she had grown so used to. Absolutely nothing.
“Rio?” Alice turns to her, concern evident in her eyes.
Rio swallows. She stares at the wall, panic gripping at her. “I can’t– We have to find her, now.”
“Alright,” Billy clasps his hands together. “A séance, maybe? Lilia probably knows how to do it.”
“Sure, let’s just summon Agatha like a Victorian ghost.” Lilia deadpans. “And for the record, I don’t know how.”
“You don’t?” Jen asks, surprised. “I would assume you do, seems like it fits with your whole aesthetic.”
“I’m a divinations witch, we don’t commune with the dead!”
“Wait, wait,” Alice cuts in. “It might work, though. We can try a tiny little ritual–”
“Enough!” Rio ends up screaming, her voice cracking at the last syllable. She’s breathing weirdly, a ringing sound in her ears that she can’t seem to get rid of. She hates it, hates all of this.
She needs to know Agatha is safe. She needs Agatha here.
Billy stands abruptly. “I think she’s having a panic attack.”
A beat.
“I’m not–” Rio tries, but her breath stutters in her throat.
The ringing in her ears get louder, drowning out the world. Her hands curl into fists, nails digging into palms. There’s something pressing down on her chest, something reaching inside and squeezing the fragile heart.
“Okay, okay, you need to breathe.” Billy says quickly.
“I’m fine,” Rio growls, but her voice is shaky. Something cold crawls down her spine.
“No, you’re not,” Alice says firmly, her voice cutting through the noise. Rio barely noticed it getting noisy. Is it noisy? Maybe it’s just the ringing. “You need to slow down your breathing before you pass out.”
“I don’t need to breathe,” Rio forces out.
Rio doesn’t need to breathe, but Agatha’s body does, and it currently needs air. She squeezes her fists tighter.
She’s never felt like this before, not even when Agatha turned away and ran from, when she screamed herself hoarse as she felt Agatha burry their soulbond away.
A hand presses against her wrist, warm and solid. “Rio,” Lilia says, kneeling in front of her. “Can you feel my hand?”
Rio blinks rapidly. She nods, once.
“I need you to squeeze my hand. Breathe in with me, and count to four.”
She clenches her jaw. This is stupid. Never in her entire existence has this ever happened to her.
But she breathes in. One, two, three, four.
The air still feels wrong in her lungs, but it no longer burns.
“Good,” Lilia says softly. “Now out. One, two, three, four…”
She exhales shakily. The ringing in her ears begin to fade away, and her gaze sharpens. The coven hovers by, each with a frown on their faces. She unclenches her fists, feeling the way the muscles and skin burn.
“Well, at least the usual tactics we use to deal with Agatha still works.” Jen says after a beat of silence.
“Usual tactics?” Oh Goddess, she hates how weak her voice is.
“Agatha experiences them sometimes.” Alice explains. “It has been a while since she had one, though.”
Billy drops back onto the couch. “So, the séance idea?”
Rio tries–really tries–to keep her urge to murder the Maximoff boy to a minimum, but he’s not making it any easier with his incessant chatting. He goes from talking about school and homework to his boyfriend, then to Agatha and the coven and every other damn thing in his life.
“Agatha is apparently more of a tea person,” he says as he pulls out a few more books from Agatha’s shelves. “I always imagined her to be the type that survives on coffee. She just gives off the vibe, you know?”
She ignores him, fingers lighting up with a purple hue as she pulls a book to her from across the room. It comes flying, nearly hitting Billy in the face.
He jumps out of the way with a squeak. “Is that your magick, or is it Agatha’s? Since, ya know, it’s purple.”
“I don’t know.” She replies tersely. It doesn’t feel like her own green magick, not entirely at least, but it’s familiar with traces of herself within. She can wield it, albeit a bit shakily.
“So, what’s it like being in Agatha’s body? Is it weird? She barely sleeps sometimes, I can only imagine being super tired twenty-four-seven in her body.”
It’s weird in a way that she’s feeling so, so much all of a sudden. The irritation, the fear, the anger the pain the noise the everything–
“It’s okay.”
“Really?” He gives her a look. “You looked like you were zoning out weirdly just now. Agatha does that, and it’s usually when she thinks about Nicky.”
Rio puts the book down. “She talks about him?”
“No, not really.” Billy doesn’t look at her, busy with flipping through the spellbooks. He hums, before continuing, “She doesn’t talk about him, but I’m around her more now, enough to tell. She thinks about you too,” his voice turns quieter. “I’ve seen her stare at the azaleas outside with a look.”
Oh.
That’s somewhat comforting, she supposes, to know that Agatha hasn’t forgotten about her.
“I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
“But this is the face you fell in love with.”
“And I don’t want to see it. Not any more.”
She breathes through her nose, slow and measured.
Rio buries herself in the books, scouring through the pages for any possible way to get Agatha back.
Rio is about to kill Billy.
“It’s been twenty four hours, Teenager, and we still haven’t switched back.” She twirls a knife around in her hand, extra careful with her movements to not injure Agatha’s body. “And not to mention we still haven’t reach Agatha.”
Billy at the very least looks guilty about the whole ordeal. But if guilt is enough to bring Agatha back then she would’ve had Agatha in her arms again ages ago.
“We can try a summoning spell,” he says weakly.
Tch.
They both know it won’t work. They’re grasping at straws here–actually, straws is her being generous. They’re grasping at nothing.
The other coven members are trying their best to remain calm as they watch Rio glare holes into Billy. Agatha, as much of a bitch she is most of the time, is still a part of their coven and thus family. None of them are particularly eager to lose her, asshole or not.
“We can try to look at positive side of things,” Billy says. His nails pick at the seams of his shirt, and Rio can see his fingertips turning red. “Like, the world hasn’t collapsed yet. So that means Agatha is doing something right.”
“That’s a low bar, Billy.” Alice smiles wryly at him.
Rio grasps the knife in her hand firmly, pointing it at Billy. “Maybe the spell will end on its own if you’re dead. No more magick to keep it running.”
“Whoa–” Jen raises her hands. “No killing the boy, Agatha won’t be happy to come back to a dead teenager.”
“It might work, theorectically,” Lilia adds, and Rio shoots her an approving look.
At least someone here has some common sense.
Billy swallows hard. His eyes flick to the knife in her hand, then back to her face. The expression on his face morphs into somewhat of a pout, but Rio recognises the panic behind his eyes. She wonders how many times he’s managed to manipulate Agatha with that stupid look of his.
“You’re joking,” he laughs dryly, but his voice wavers.
Rio tilts her head.
“Alright then,” she stands with the knife in hand, a tone of finality in her voice. “Don’t move too much, Teenager. I’ll make sure to be quick.”