#Lesbian Story

[obelisart]

My full coming-out story, comic strip 1 out of 4

Read my comics on Webtoon Canvas

Exclusive comics and early access on my Patreon

[balkanradfem]

I have an update, for people invested in the story of me vs the attractive woman who moved into the building, who I cannot figure out. I still don't know if she's interested in women, if she likes me at all. She has short hair and is 9 years older than me which makes her irresistible.

So my main point of confusion was that she always reacted extremely friendly to me, even as far as yelling my name excitedly and waving when she sees me, but then when we talk she talks to me as if I'm a small child maybe, using words you'd use with children. So I've been on the fence on whether she just sees me as a small lost child who needs attention, or if I could potentially ask her out. I've met her a few times more, only briefly, but one of those times she called my name in an iteration that means small, she added a suffix that you would add to a child's name. (She added '-ica' to my name, for croatian speakers).

And this was too much for me, I had to draw a line at the small iteration of my name, I do not enjoy being viewed as a child, and will not have a crush on someone who makes me feel like I'm not a grownup >: (. So I decided, this is a lost cause romantically, I'm no longer into her, she obviously sees me as a child. It's fair, I also see anyone 9 years younger than me as a tiny baby who I can only be friends with, but I do think that's very cool of lesbians, that we're the exact opposite of pedophiles.

So I calmed down about her, but then I thought, okay, now that I'm not having my brain scrambled by the yearning, I could actually try to ask her to come over so I can meet her and see if we could be friends. She still acted very sweet towards me, one day I opened the door of the building, she was standing right outside, and jumped when I said 'Hi!' loudly. I apologized for scaring her, and she said 'It's okay, I just wasn't even hoping for you.'

How am I supposed to deal with that. That is adorable. I had to go immediately that day, but I decided to calm down, and wait for an opportunity to see if I can get to know her better.

The opportunity came today! I stumbled on her while biking outside, got her attention, and then told her 'Hey, you seem like an interesting person, and I'd love to sit down and talk to you sometimes, I want to know more about you. Could I invite you over for tea?'. And she said, 'Okay, give me your number!', and then she realized, she didn't take her phone with, because it was raining. I grabbed my phone to take her number, but my battery was 1% and the screen was too dark to see. We were both standing there without functional phones, laughing at ourselves. Then she grabbed a pen from her bag, asked me to give her my hand, and wrote her number on it. I've never had a woman write down her number on my hand! It was a great experience. She stopped to ask if it was hurting me, and I was smiling and giggling because I was thrilled, and told her to keep writing. Her handwriting is very neat! I promised to quick-call her as soon as I got home, so her phone will have my number as well.

So now I have her number on my hand, and I did give her a very short ring, so she has my number too. Now I'm nervous! I cleaned up the place because I don't know when she's going to come over, and I'm plagued by the anxiety that I won't be able to offer her a sweet treat because I never make any. I gave her an open invitation so she can just randomly decide to come and I will seem like a person with no food in my kitchen because I only make food when I'm hungry and then eat it immediately. Do you think pan-fried apples is an acceptable treat for a guest? I'm being so normal about this.

[so-many-fandoms-here]

(English isn’t my first language so feel free to correct any mistake you notice.)

• Characters: Haley, fem!Farmer

• Genre: fluff

• Warnings: none

Sfw-Alphabet

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Affection: (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Haley is hella affectionate. Will always seek body contact by holding your hand, placing her hand on your thigh when sitting together, hugs, etc. Will run you a hot bath after a long day on the farm. And she absolutely loves to do your hair.

Beauty: (What do they find especially attractive about you)

The fact that you didn’t got irritated by her mean behavior really caught her.

She took glimpses at your body here and there since the day you moved to pelican town and really likes how toned it is from all the heavy work you do.

Comfort: (How do they comfort you? How do you comfort them)

Lots of cuddles!

Dreams: (How do they imagine their future with you)

She really likes the thought of becoming a stay at home mum and do chores around the house to help you. Since she met you the farm live grew really attractive to her and she wants to grow old with you there until your children or grandchildren maybe take over the farm like you did for your grandpa.

Ending: (How would they break up with you)

She would try to hide her tears and go back to her bitchy behavior but she wouldn’t be able to hide her shaky voice.

Fight: (How are they during an argument)

Oh fighting with her is a real pain in the ass. She’s so sassy. She will apologize properly in every way possible after tho ;)

Gentle: (How gentle are they? physically and emotionally)

Beside her being her sassy self sometimes she is very gentle. She is an angel around you and your kids.

Hugs: (Do they like hugs?What are their hugs like?)

She loves hugs. I see her with her arms wrapped around your neck, pouting when you let go of her again.

I love you: (How fast do they say the L-word?)

It took a bit for her to accept the fact that she is in love with a woman, since she thought she’s straight for her whole life. But as soon as she knew that you’re the one she told you.

Jealousy: (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Haley gets jealous very easily. Well, she’s with the hottest and kindest woman on earth, of course she thinks everyone wants you. Main reason for your fights. Please reassure her, it really bugs her.

Kisses: (Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Loves kisses on her lips and neck. Make it a bit more sensual and you have her melting in your hands.

Loves to kiss your lips.

Little ones: (How are they around children?)

Haley may seem cold with other children but with yours? She’s a different person. She’s a wonderful mother.

Marriage: (Do they want to marry?)

Absolutely! Wants a classical, big, white wedding.

Nicknames: (How do they call you)

Baby, Honey, Dear, any sweet name you can think of honestly.

Open: (When would they start revealing things about themselves)

Rather quickly. She feels that she can trust you.

Patience: (How easily angered are they)

Can get pissed quickly but will apologize right away.

Quizzes: (How much would they remember about you)

She will remember especially stuff you like. Your favorite shampoo, favorite scent, all the stuff that makes you feel good

Romantic: (Are they romantic)

Yes, very.

Security: (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Sometimes she wants to lock you inside the house when you pass out in the mines again. She’s always dead worried when she gets a call from Harvey or Marlon in the middle of the night.

You would probably throw hands if anyone would threaten Haley.

Try: (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Haley puts so much effort in literally anything she provides for you. Anything for the love of her life.

Ugly: (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Her bitchy moods.

Vanity: (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Very. It’s Haley we’re talking about.

Whole: (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

It would be pretty hard for her to move on and even when she’s over it your memories together would always have a very special place in her heart.

Xtra: (A random headcanon for them.)

Buys regularly Dessous to surprise you with them.

Yuck: (What are some things they wouldn’t like)

When you flirt with anyone else, even if you don’t mean it.

Zzz…: (Some of their sleeping habits)

Sleeps best when you two cuddle, even if it’s summer. Her mouth hangs slightly open when she sleeps.

[blushingteddy]

Precious Things: Chapter 2

Plot: Rio visits Westview after The Hex comes down and finds Agnes O'Conner in Agatha's stead. She must team up with an unlikely ally to help get her wife back and confront the past to make sense of the future ahead. (Agathario x Rio/Mrs Hart unlikely friendship)

---

The Hex had fallen a little over three weeks ago. Rio knew the proximate location without knowing the details, felt Agatha pulsate through the veil like the dull throb of a burning wick. Again, without knowing the details, Rio knew perfectly well she had lost the Darkhold—must have lost it along with her mind, Rio thought. Three weeks and no attempt at one of her swift, Agatha Harkness’ exits.

Perhaps she really was ready this time.

Rio couldn’t allow herself the grace of such a naive fantasy. 

It would be short-lived, of course. Fantasies always were when they involved Agatha.

The doorbell rings. The footsteps land steady, quick and unhesitant. Then, for the first time in over sixty years, they’re eye to eye. Rio loses her breath, then sees Agatha’s lips betray herself into a smile. A real smile. Resisting every urge, Rio doesn’t trace a finger down her cheek, doesn’t step close and bury her nose into the nook of her neck, begging wordless for something un-nameable, to be neither absolved nor forgiven but some concoction of the two.

“Have we met before?” Agatha narrows her eyes.

“How very coy of you, my darling.”

“What’s a bad girl like you doing in a nice place like this?”

Rio’s eyes flicker. 

Agatha is still smiling wide, her sparkling blue eyes firmly locked, but there’s nothing behind the waxy, frozen expression. No grief, no hatred, no self-loathing, not a single feeling detectably her own. Agatha glances down at the hand gently turning her elbow, another woman’s thumb gliding idly along a thick raised scar underneath the hem of her short lilac sweater sleeve. She observes it with strangeness, her brow furrowing at the touch, but she doesn’t pull away, and Rio feels a chill run through her.

“Either I’m about to walk into a trap or you already have.”

Rio waits for a response, waits and waits and waits. Agatha just stands there on the porch with vague conflict in her eyes, until Rio brings her hand away from the scar on her elbow, and then she smiles again.

“I have the strangest feeling we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

The windows shatter suddenly, the curtains blow inward, the lights flicker and the rage of the last two centuries exudes from Rio’s palms in graceful sheets of pearlescent black. She slams Agatha back into the house and across the living room with a flick of the finger. In her arrogance, perhaps Agatha hadn’t expected her arrival so quickly after the Hex fell, had answered the door with all the pomp and circumstance of a suburban housewife in the nice part of town because it was all a rouse—a play at the Achille’s heel. Rio strode through the guts of the living room, eyes scanning across the upheaval, searching for her wife.

She had missed Agatha.

She needed Agatha to have missed her too.

The house sat torn apart and disembowelled from the single pulse of turbulence, the cupboards and kitchen drawers and all of their contents strewn everywhere. A glint of metal catches Rio’s eye. The cutlery and utensils. Another flick of her finger, Rio instantly sends a dozen steak knives into the fortified coffee table slumped on it’s side—where Agatha was laying in wait, no doubt. They struck the wood like darts flying at a board. 

Rio waits for the parlay, for the response, for purple to ricochet around the room like a bleeding mortal wound and squeeze her so achingly tight she might never breathe again. 

Nothing happens. 

In her ecstasy and rash excitement, cackling and screeching in delight, Rio shatters every lightbulb with a gesture, the sparks and glass flying like glinting crystal at every available surface. Rio waits on baited breath, still nothing happens.

In the deep lightless dark, a terrified muffled whimper punctures the silence.

“Agatha?” Rio calls out tentatively.

Perhaps it’s a trick.

Of course it’s a trick.

Agatha always plays dirty, Rio reminds herself.

There in the corner, Agatha Harkness sits balled-up with knees pulled into her chest. She whimpers with her scarred elbow tucked around her face. There’s a cut on her head, it’s not severe, but she touches the blood and there’s unmistakable horror in her eyes.

“You’re…scared?” Rio takes a step back. “Why? Why are you frightened of me…”

“Please don’t hurt me,” Agatha hyperventilates.

Definitely a trick.

“You know it’s your time.”

“You can take anything you want…” Rio watches her insurmountable, great proud harbinger crawl on her shaking hands and knees to a leather purse by the stairs. She digs inside of it, looking for something, and Rio looks away in abject horror at the sight of her so human and vulnerable. “My. My husband Ralph. His car is in the garage…”

“It better fucking not be!”

“Please don’t hurt me”—Agatha turns back with paperclips strung together—“Here, take his keys. You know how to drive stick right? Most women can’t. He says that. I-I wouldn’t know…”

“Agatha it’s me.”

“I don’t know who you are!” Fear bursts through her voice.

Wounded and staggered, Rio steps back like a bleeding stag caught off-guard. Agatha scuttles back like a rabbit until her back strikes the wall. She looks twenty-five again, wide-eyed and human, true palpable terror exuding from her like liquorice Rio can taste in the air. Two centuries ago it aroused her. Now she prays for a trick.

“I’m frightened,” Agatha begins to cry. “I want Wanda.”

“Sweetheart, it’s me.” Rio croaks, a flood of tears sting her eyes, the balls of her knees land on the wood and she touches Agatha’s shaking hands. “Agatha what has she done to you?”

Agatha flinches back.

“I can handle you hating me for taking Nicky away from you.” Rio grasps her chin harder than she means, forcing Agatha to meet her eyes. “I can handle not being your wife. I can handle us doing this—the fighting—until the very end. I cannot handle you looking at me like you have no idea who I am. So please, Agatha, drop the other shoe!”

Rio watches her brow furrow in distress and confusion.

“Who is Nicky?”

Engulfed in a sudden hug, Agatha puts up no resistance. A husk. A shell of a woman. Rio tempts the idea of smothering her gently. She doesn’t have the heart, perhaps she never had it to begin with. Rio does the only thing she can. Her fingers strewn in Agatha’s long dark hair, she nuzzles her neck and holds her closer than she’s been allowed in centuries.

Rio feels tears dribble on her skin. 

They aren’t her own.

“Nicky,” Agatha’s breath warms her shoulder. “Why does that name hurt so much?”

“Because he was your son.”

“Was?”

“Yeah,” Rio swipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Forget what I said. You can forget me, okay? But don’t let her take your boy, Agatha. You made him from scratch, remember?”

“My name is Agnes.” Agatha stood, her voice devoid of warmth or emotion. “You have me confused with somebody else.”

Rio laughs bitterly, “Clearly.”

And then, she hung her head and cried.

***

Perched on grey blocks, Rio sat and watched from the adjacent lot. The curtains finally twitched open, Agatha yawned and stretched as the morning sunlight touched her sparkling blue eyes. She looked happy—happier than Rio had seen in a while.

She took it as a symptom Agatha remembered nothing strange from the night before.

The house had been left pristine and exact, better than it had been found, accounting for the azaleas and vibrant flowers trailing up and around the brickwork. Rio’s lips fidgeted, unsure of what do with herself now. She hoped she would look up and find Agatha staring down, some sense of familiarity etched in her eyes, as though the sight of Rio alone would be enough to reach through the curse the Scarlet Witch had placed over her tormented mind.

Rio glanced up at her window again and found nobody there.

She willed herself to be seen.

“So who exactly are you with, huh?” A surly older woman appeared from nowhere. “The Post? The Eastview Journal? TokTok?”

She was short and imposing, with rosy cheeks and a neat blonde bob underneath her straw gardening hat. Rio watched the woman remove her gloves one at a time, tugging at them with a frustrated snap, as though she might wrap one across Rio’s cheek like a Victorian insult. Then others came, tentatively at first, a neighbour from across the street in his cycling helmet and shorts, another two from the same front door across the road—wearing matching pyjamas. The street seemed to accumulate in dribs and drabs. Rio watched as the residents stood firm behind this small, angry woman making daggers beneath her sun hat.

“I really cannot stand you people!” The woman yapped and stomped her boat shoe. “Hand it over right now, give me the camera!” Her hand shot outward.

“The what?”

“The camera, now.” She grabbed Rio by the arm. “You journalists really cheese me, you know that. You are not welcome in our neighbourhood and you certainly will not bother Agnes on our watch. What does the sign say, bitch?” Her finger flew at one of the many red posters hung to lampposts and walls:

No loitering.

No photos.

No interviews.

No bothering Mrs. O'Conner

—Thank you, the HOA.

“Sharon you gotta cool it mama, you keep putting hands on photographers”—a larger man pulls her floral-printed shoulder gently—“Jed will have to book you overnight, you remember  him saying that, right?” His voice lowered.

“Yeah yeah,” Sharon shirked him off, straightening herself neatly. “Well, what are we going to do with her?”

“Uh-oh and what do we have here!” A familiar voice boomed loudly from behind the small gathering of neighbours. Rio would recognise it anywhere, apparently the neighbours did too if their grimaces and tight expressions were any indication. “Mrs Hart, is this lady bothering you?” Agatha slipped a protective arm around the short blonde woman.

“It’s Mrs Davis, honey. You can call me Sharon or Mrs Davis.”

“Mhm. Whose our friend, Mrs Hart?” Agatha glanced Rio up and down. “Is this the big-shot journalist from the city who knows nothing about Christmas cheer despite being born in this little humdrum town?”

Rio felt the ghost of a smile tug up her cheeks.

The man sighed, exasperated, glancing to the other neighbours. “We’re going to do  the Hallmark movie bit again? Really?” The others looked at him in commiseration, nobody challenging the order of things. “Fine. I’ll put the decorations up but I am not—I repeat not—wearing a Christmas sweater in July.” He trudged back up the street to his home.

Rio realised Agatha was still staring.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Rio.”

“I’m Agnes.” The grip of her firm hand felt the same. “Agnes O’Conner.”

“Well Agnes, aren’t you just the prettiest girl in town.” She shook her wife’s hand under Sharon’s hawk-eyed stare. “And, I guess, I’m a handsome journalist here to report on this little humdrum town I haven’t been back to since my parents divorced. Where everyday is Christmas and there is inevitably some kind of financial issue within local government?”

“So you heard. That the town might go bankrupt this year and have to cancel the Christmas barn buster.” Agatha nodded seriously. “Unless we put on the best talent show this town has ever seen, that is.”

Perhaps this was a trick.

Rio narrowed her eyes and nodded along.

“Are we sure the mayor hasn’t been embezzling—”

Sharon interjected with disapproval, “Don’t spoil the ending for her.”

“Well alright.” At a loss, Rio followed them back toward Agnes O’Conner’s make-believe home. “So she’s always like this or do you get the impression it’s…some kind of long-con?”

“A con?” Sharon’s head shook side to side as though she couldn’t imagine something further from the truth. “Agnes saved us from Wanda. And I’m-I’m so sick of everybody complaining! Like celebrating Christmas in July is such a…and cover your ears because I’m about to use some really foul language…god damn’ tragedy. Well, it isn’t.”

“Oh, cool.” Rio nodded and followed them inside. “So the HOA has assumed guardianship over Agatha Harkness, last of the Salemites. Yeah that’s cool, I guess.”

***

Rio grew awkward and uncomfortable as a wooden spoon was thrusted into her hand to stir bubbling molasses and ginger. Agnes breezed out of the kitchen, a navy blue Christmas sweater pushed up her forearms, cranking the radio as she went by. The Phil Spector Christmas album looped for the third time.

“Uh, I love the Ronettes,” Mrs Davis approved.

“What are we doing here, exactly?” Rio murmured to the neighbour.

Mrs Davis—Sharon, she insisted—rummaged on her hands and knees in the back of the bottom cupboard. She emerged triumphant, two extra aprons in her hand, then blew a piece of blonde hair out of her eyes and looked Rio up and down. 

She said nothing, shrugging awkwardly.

“Nice, well that’s helpful.” Rio grimaced.

“It’s not that hard.” Mrs Davis pushed up on to her feet and handed her an apron. “She gives you context clues.”

“For who she thinks you are?”

“No, for the recipes.” Mrs Davis rolled up her sleeves. “I think we’re making spiced cinnamon cookies. Have you made them before? You’re letting the molasses burn. Clearly not…” She rose to the challenge and took the spoon from Rio’s hand. 

“And you just let her do this to you?”

“Invite me over to make Christmas cookies?” Mrs Davis balked as though it were a strange thing to get worked up about. “So, what’s your real name anyway?”

I don’t have one, Rio wanted to reply.

“Rio,” she said.

“Lucky you.” Mrs Davis rolled her eyes. “You never did say which newspaper you were with, by the way.”

“I’m not with a newspaper.”

“Seems like you know a lot about Agnes…”

“I’m her wife.” 

Rio needed to admit it to somebody—anybody. She watched as Agnes came back in the room, all smiles and Christmas cheer, her heart aching indescribably at the pathetic sight. There was nothing remotely familiar about Agnes, nothing that felt dangerous at least, which inherently left Rio out of her skin and unsafe. A firm grip tightened around her bicep. Rio glanced down and saw Mrs Davis’ face etched with sympathy.

Rio pulled her arm away, “We were already separated.”

“Are you ladies ready for my famous barn-buster winning pistachio butterscotch eggnog,” Agnes tilted a dusted bottle of Vodka from side to side. “It was grandma’s family recipe.” 

Rio laughed at the absurdity.

Mrs Davis took down three glasses from the cupboard, “Sure Agnes, I think we could all use a drink right about now.” She turned back to the stove and stirred the bubbling sugar. “So, the talent show. Are we thinking Dottie’s backyard or mine this time? Herb says he can hardwire the Jack Frost decorations if this is going to become a regular thing…”

“We should probably call Wanda - see what her and Vision think,” Agnes nodded slowly as though it were a wise thing to say. “She had some great ideas for last year’s Christmas barn buster. If it wasn’t for Wanda, this town probably would have gone under years ago…” Agatha knocked back a healthy pour.

The molasses bubbled and burned in the undisturbed silence. 

Rio glanced and saw Mrs Davis’ white-knuckled grip tight on the wooden spoon.

“Wanda doesn’t live here anymore, Agnes,” Mrs Davis said softly through gritted molars with far-away eyes. “You were the hero of the story, remember? You saved us from Wanda.”

“Saved everybody from Wanda’s best-attempt at chocolate mint liqueur egg nog, maybe! Poor thing left the heat too high and let the eggs congeal!” Agatha cackled boisterously. “Nearly served scrambled egg to half the town!”

Sharon slumped in defeat and said nothing, Rio watched Agnes finish the drink and go back to the coffee table - a half-wrapped garden hose reel still dripping on the paper. She shook her and turned back to Sharon.

“Is she ever lucid?”

“Not in the ways that count.” Mrs Davis reached for the bottle and grimaced into a sip. She offered the bottle, gesturing it toward Rio. “Every day is Christmas and Wanda is always the best neighbour around.”

“Cool, well that’s settled then.”

“What is?”

Rio finished a third of the bottle and placed it gently back on the counter. She didn’t experience alcohol—couldn’t articulate a notion of what it must feel like to be out of control, subdued and numb. She felt all things, all of time, existed in all moments and found the grandeur completely exhausting more often than not, but the vodka tasted sharp and bitter and burned the entire way down. Rio enjoyed the burning sensation inside her body.

“Oh.” Rio glanced and saw Mrs Davis staring expectantly, waiting for an answer, which Rio had assumed was self-explanatory. “We’re going to break this curse and then kick the piss out of Wanda Maximoff. Your molasses is burning, by the way. Agatha go get your Santa suit, sweetheart, we’re going for a ride!” Rio strode into the living room.***

Salem, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply. The car idled in the parking lot of a strip mall on the outskirt of town with high beam lights staring into the windows of a gutted discount clothing store. 

In the back, Agnes sat like a pre-occupied child, a garbage bag of half-wrapped utensils and homeware sprawling into the footwell. Presents for the needy, she had kept saying for miles until she had slowly stopped saying things at all. Now sat silently, her eyes were fixed out of the window staring at nothing like an imitation of deep, monastic thought. 

Rio made a mental note of the correlation between Westview and the curse.

Perhaps proximity effected the state of things.

Privately, Rio found this ordeal eery. The absence of Agatha’s soul. The uncertainty whether it was buried deep within or cast far, far away in some distant crevice unknowable to even Death herself. Wanda would have answers if required, Rio reassured herself.

She hoped she wouldn’t require them.

“You know it’s really past my bedtime,” Mrs Davis yawned at the steering wheel. “What are we waiting for exactly?”

“Those witches.” Rio nodded at the group of reprobates.

“Oh, honestly, I blame the parents!”

Rio glanced in the rearview mirror at her stalled, silent harbinger. “Me too,” she said.

“Still I loved Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched. Nicole Kidman was great, a little hammy, but remakes always are…”

“Mhm. Wait here, Mrs Davis, if this works I’ll see you in ten, maybe fifteen years. If it doesn’t we’ll take a ride back to Westview plus a better plan if you have one laying around…”

“You can call me Sharon—”

“Mrs Davis works fine,” Rio closed the door.

The witches were young, Rio noticed, and a pang of guilt went through her. She was out of better options and the scales tipped in neither direction as the decision set it’s teeth into the permanent fabric of time. She interpreted the lack of sway on the balance within herself as neutral, unbiased approval. That, or perhaps she had already been here, had already made this decision, and the balance was no longer aggrieved by the insult.

Just a few miles further up the road, covens would be dense and easy to come by, each group practically within earshot deep into the woods or dotted along some tiny, untouched wild—the cove, Highland park, the forest conservation, the light of distant row boats sparkling on the water, because perhaps The Road would open in a swirling riptide of magic. A deep blood red moon sat above the clearing, then a faint mist of clouds parting to reveal its entirety. Blood moons had always brought out the optimism in witches. And Salem, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply.

Too young to know better, selected for their otherwise lacking experience and numbers, three noviciate witches sat under a corrugated plastic awning passing a blunt between themselves. Rio heard their quiet laughter from a distance. She felt the sense of sisterhood, saw the colours of their aura, wondered briefly on their reasons, because the reasons that led witches to attempt opening The Road were always sad. Rio hesitated as she opened the rear passenger door, then decided her reasons were sadder and more important.

“Hey neighbour.” Rio unbuckled Agatha out of the car. “Wanna sing a Christmas carol and give one of your really special gifts to those poor witches in need? For old time’s sake, call it work and play in fluctuating balances…” She hoisted Agatha upright.

Agatha said nothing, simply obeyed Rio’s direction, allowing herself to be handled and guided to her feet. She walked as Rio led, staggering and mindless, a protective arm slipping firmer around her spine. 

Agatha smelled the same, Rio felt her heart ache over it as she caught it on her collar. The soft plaid shirt lingered with Agatha’s indescribably Agatha scent. She hated how lovers described one another in this way. The idea somebody could smell of vanilla, or petrichor, or warm spring cotton, or whatever other deeply personal experiences could be extrapolated from nothing, except Agatha did smell like a deeply personal experience that needed to be extrapolated and bottled. 

Something Rio did not realise she had forgotten to miss until it was there, achingly missed, faintly on Agatha’s neck. The smell of personality and skin and clean, floral soap. Rio turned toward it, resisting the urge to press her nose on her wife’s collarbone, and then looked back to the witches beneath the awning.

They walked further toward them.

“Marching ever forward ‘neath the wooden shrine,” Rio hummed loudly. “I stray not from the path, I hold Death’s hand in mine…”

“Ah, fellow sisters of the craft?” A young, vaguely stoned butch with sand blonde hair looked at them curiously. “Well you’re shit out of luck, I’m afraid. We’re already up a green witch and that one…” She pointed at Agatha, her brow furrowing oddly. “That one doesn’t have an aura…why doesn’t she have an aura? Weird.”

“No, no, she totally does.” Rio patted Agatha’s belly. “She’s just, you know, shy.”

“Shy?”

“A grower not a shower.”

“Cute,” the butch laughed, inhaling a hard pull, then passed the blunt to her coven sister. “Take it you’re trying to open The Road? Shit’s a bust, man. Either that or you’re looking for somewhere safe to lay? We can help the the latter, but like I said…” She raised her hands. “We’re up a green witch.”

Rio looked at their faces, really looked, and saw wide eyes and hollow thin cheeks. A girl sat with her back pressed to an old laundromat door had a sleeping bag beneath her. The other in shorts and scarlet red lipstick, dark black eyeliner swiped in thick batwing lines, a crescent shaped bruise on her forearm, thigh-high patent leather boots with mended high heels.

“So, you’re the green witch?” Rio nodded.

“Mhm. We hold dominion over the cycles of life and death, you know…” 

“You hold dominion over nothing.”

“Ouch.” She laughed. “I’m Theo, that’s Frieda Kahlo, and that right there”—Eyeliner gave a scowling wave—“Is Pliers.”

“Pliers?” Rio raised a brow.

Pliers shrugged, “If it can take a prick it can break a prick…”

“Aw.” Rio nodded, unbothered. “Well, I guess we solved the mystery of the protection witch. I’m Rio—Green. This is Agatha she’s…” Rio hesitated, unsure of how to categorise her swaying shell of a wife. “Seen better days,” she said. “Anyway whose ready to open The Road? Wow. I know I am. All our hopes and dreams are about to be fulfilled. Are you excited?” She forced a grimacing smile and pumped Agatha’s wrist in the air. “We’re going on The Road and nobody’s going to die!” She sing-songed.

Agatha always made this look so easy.

“Cute. You’re not just any green witch though, are you?” Theo stared acutely. “And if I didn’t know any better? I would say your roommate there looks a whole lot like fabled Persephone from your grimoire…”

Rio liked that.

That made her smile.

“Look at you with all the hot takes.” Rio tilted her head and dropped Agatha’s hand. “What gave it away?”

“Your face.” Theo took the blunt from Pliers. “Shit, I mean, my friends can’t see you but me?” She inhaled and held it. “Big fan of your work.”

Rio understood perfectly well there was only one way a person saw through her skin.

“We’ve met before.”

“Two years ago. Called on you for help. I would say you never showed but, you did, you just didn’t help how I wanted you too…” Rio’s face softened as she glanced at the silvery scars on Theo’s wrists. “Now you remember me,” Theo puffed.

“Hm, interesting.” Rio observed the stilled, perfectly balanced scales within herself and realised now why they were not fluctuating—this one was already on borrowed time. “I hate to drop in unannounced, believe it or not, I do have a soft spot for my own kin…”

“But you have need of me?”

Rio nodded her head. “Will your friends cause trouble?”

She glanced, expecting wide-eyed horrified looks, or perhaps the protection witch had already started drawing some analogue mortal conjuring to expel her. They always tried their tricks. She was greeted by the sight of two frozen, dull-eyed statues stuck in sleeping delirium—the lights were on but nobody was home. Accounting for Agatha’s condition, it left only two of them to tango.

“Datura.” Theo lifted the joint, then rolled her hand to reveal the laced joint she had switched-out behind her palm. “I always keep one up my sleeve. Better to need it and not have it than…well, you’re the green witch. I’m preaching to the gospels. Mean ol’ hangover when they come around but they will come around, right?”

Rio nodded at that.

She was not wasteful with life.

“Glad we’re on the same page. Will this hurt?” Theo boldly pushed up on to her feet.

“Yeah, this is going to suck. I need you to blast her.”

“Do something for me?”

“You had two years, I already did.”

“Okay do something else for me, anyway?”

Rio paused. “Name it.”

“My friends,” Theo glanced. “Says in the Book of Stones you’re not the only immortal—says you have sisters.”

“Brothers, actually.”

“You still count Creation on your Christmas card list?”

Rio glanced at Agatha, the irony never going amiss, then looked at Theo with a fixed expression. “Kid, if you knew the day I was having…” she sighed. “Let me guess you want fresh, clean, happy little new lives for the Olsen twins over there?” She pointed at the stoned zombies.

Theo folded her arms. “Something like that, sure.”

“Fine, whatever. I’ll do it.”

Theo nodded and narrowed her eyes at Agatha, “You’re sure this will work? I could kill her, you know…”

“Be just great if you could. I’ve been trying for two-hundred and sixty years…”

Two jolts of light pale yellow shot out from Theo’s palms and struck Agatha’s chest like sparks to a dead battery. She moaned in pain, face contorting, and then Rio saw the flicker of her aura. The most beautiful, lilac shocks of her essence exuding from her in iridescent waves. In the absence of herself, Agatha’s body knew what to do. Her feet slowly rose from the ground as her purple latched and pulled Theo’s pale yellow magic back into herself. Rio watched on baited breath, hoping for bursting shocks of laughter and swirls of unpredictable purple and chaos, she would settle for just a glimmer in her wife’s sparkling blue eyes… 

And as Theo died.

Agatha rewarded her. 

Her purple drained the very last drop of Theo’s magic and slowly Agatha came back to the ground with large, hyperventilating gasps of air. Rio knew better than to touch her—fuss over her. She tilted her chin, poised and manicured and ready for a fight. Hoped for one, desperately. She swirled her fingers and conjured a pulse of black, beautiful pearlescent death in her hand like a toy to play with—ready for the worse if it came to a quick draw.

Agatha stared with those beautiful, sparkling blue—bent over and out of breath—licking her cerise lips like a viper filled on live bait and blood. Rio saw the flicker of recognition, the grief, hatred and self-loathing in her eyes. It was beautiful, she thought, and with that she snuffed the little death in her fingers and took a step closer.

“I have missed you.”

Agatha began to blink and stumble. 

“I hate you…” she quietly hissed.

Then Rio watched her collapse backward to the floor.

***

Salem, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply. Beyond townships the population dwindled away to the rare, odd passing carriage out in the wilds and thickets. An unsustainable diet for a creature of constant consumption. A maiden defined by her hunger.

Salem sat like a sentinel against the vast emptiness of the world. In Salem covens brushed shoulders in their dozens every day—locals, travelling groups, those covenless few, the rara avis, seeking safe refuge on their journeys like foraging rabbits awaiting some great predator—and if one wanted to spend money, the witches market in Salem sold everything from sundries to sundresses to wizardbane to scented parchments and papers.

“People buy this nonsense?” She stands loftily, lifting a sample of jasmine scented parchment from the wicker basket, amusement and disapproval etched across her face. “And for such a pretty penny too! Oh dear, where are my manners. I don’t mean to…” A cawing laugh escaped her. “Well, I suppose I am making a mockery of you.”

The stall owner, an elderly woman with clouded eyes and sallow skin, pulled her face into an offended snarl. A response sits on the brink of her lips but it never comes. The light blue in her eyes grew wide, the air leaving her all at once in a stalled slow exhale, she stared straight ahead—through Agatha, through everything and everyone.

The woman wept beneath her breath, “I imagined you so differently.”

“Most do,” the witch-killer confirmed suspicions only she had assumed.

An inexplicable feeling came over Agatha, one which followed her entire life up to this moment, and she understood perfectly well her reputation preceded her in this instance. 

The sensation of beating August sunlight disappearing behind thick impenetrable February clouds fell upon her cool, prickling skin. The taste of copper formed on the back of her tongue as though some unsourced part of her mouth were bleeding. Her tongue touched the backs of her teeth, gently prodding for the taste of blood, but she half-expected already there was no wound. Agatha shook her head, the feeling faded.

Then the cloyingly sweet smell of black cherry filled her nose and Agatha closed her eyes. Some said corpses smelled like sweet cherries and almonds when turning toward decay. Agatha inhaled regardless, though she knew perfectly well this woman wasn’t long for the grave, she figured cherries smelled simply of cherries—enjoyed the smell, either way.

The woman collapsed backward into her table, quills and stationary knocking outward in every direction, ink sent up into the air from mixing bowls in a collision of black and emerald green dyes against the flutter of parchments, then they floated to the ground like feathers. A crowd drew to the scene, but the elderly woman’s eyes remained fixed despite the chaos all around. Agatha looked in the same direction.

And Agatha saw her.

There behind the crowds, a woman with a bright green lantern stood completely still and flat. 

It was as though somebody had gone to the effort of painting her across the fabric of reality, etching every fine feature on to the tapestry of existence like a drawing without dimension. Agatha blinked, eyes narrowing, unsure of the sudden anxiety knotting her stomach with dread, she realised quickly she couldn’t account for perception, distance or dimension. 

The woman was closer than she appeared, or perhaps further still, like an apparition assimilating around physical laws that were unnatural and not her own. An aura of omnipotence vibrated from her slight thin figure, cloaked in garnet and emerald, the woman appeared unassuming though she wasn’t a witch nor a woman, Agatha recognised this instantly. She was a manifestation of elemental power.

A temporal embodiment.

Entropy. Eternity. Infinity. Creation. Death. The five inextricable brothers to never be seen, heard or witnessed. Agatha bowed her head, a rose by any other name, to look upon Death was to surely die, and Agatha wondered if she had stared too long. She feared Death had caught her eyes and was now looking upon her curiously in return. 

Death gently brushed past her shoulder with a perceptive smile, some inextricable part of Agatha’s soul responsively yearned and keened toward the apparition, drawn to her magnetism, and she exhaled all the air in her chest. Death stopped in stride, their shoulders still touching, then Agatha felt fear anew. A kind of fear that overwhelmed and overtook every fibre of her being.

“It’s not my time.”

Death said nothing.

Death was surprised to be seen, Agatha realised quickly.

“Oh…You are not used to being caught off-guard.” Agatha’s voice hung as a sharp, jovial whisper. “Tell me, have you ever felt it before? It kind of tickles, doesn’t it?”

A beautiful smile broke across Death’s pale face—the most beautiful smile Agatha thought she might have ever seen. The crowd, now in a fluster over the ailing woman, noticed nothing strange or unusual about the scene. There was only panic, chaos, upheaval and aid. The four mortal elements in times of strife.

Wordless, Death turned and made her way to reap and extinguish. Her distance could be felt in Agatha’s chest, her restless soul had pressed on her ribcage, now it quietened into calm. Agatha watched as Death’s long black fingertips stroked the elderly woman’s cheek softly. She was there for only a moment, then…

“She’s gone.” A coven elder shook her head gravely, fingers firm against the deceased’s pulse points. “Send for the black mistresses, for the horseman, send word to her kin…”

In shock, Agatha simply stood with her feet rooted to the ground. She became a fixed object, processing and ordering the event in her mind, until hours passed, sunlight sinking behind the treeline, and the horsemen came and eventually left, carting the elderly woman’s body away. Agatha stood there still, until her thought processes finally felt linear and whole, until she no longer wished to stand there anymore. Agatha had no remaining questions save for one. 

Did she taste as she had always smelled—were her lips cloyingly sweet and bitter like fresh cherries?

Agatha pushed the strangeness of the day aside and pulled her hood over her nape. It was time to move forward, move away, move quickly at that. Salem was overrated. A slough of mediocre bottom barrel witches and overpriced talismans, trinkets and scented parchment. No, Salem would never do.

Not for what Agatha Harkness had planned.

***

The loudness of New Orleans hummed constant in the air, a battle between French, Creole and newly forming Verlan, distinct to the avenues where old French dialects melted against one another into new parlance. An entire city in harmony, conversations carried across streets from neighbours on their doorsteps and Agatha, most days, felt as though she were ducking beneath it all. A woman out of place. A woman without roots of her own.

A hand shot out from a dimly lit alley and grabbed her wrist as she passed. Agatha froze, understanding perfectly well that to glance in the woman’s direction was to certainly go blind, she was without permission to look upon consecrated conjure doctors. Untrusted and unknown. This made working with the kanzos difficult. 

The Mambo all but impossible. 

For months, Agatha persevered. She wanted a second meeting with Death. She knew the Hodou leaders could grant her this, and perhaps only them.

“Your request has been denied,” a voice whispered sternly. “Whoever you are—whatever you are—the spirit warns you are the unquenchable thirst drying witches like summer riverbeds in your wake, that to commune with you is to surely die. Go from this place by midnight, by order of the Mambo, and if you refuse or ever return to New Orleans you will die on the thirtieth beat of your heart, Agatha Harkness.”

“Lets say, hypothetically, I stood on the border of the territory with one foot in and one foot out.” Agatha felt her eyes begin to wander toward the woman, she stopped suddenly and remembered herself, then clenched them closed. “Is it thirty beats like a warning to leave or thirty beats like a countdown that cannot be reset?” 

The grip receded from her wrist without another word, Agatha drew her hand back to her body and rubbed the tender bones beneath her gold bracelet and purple sleeve. She inhaled and nodded, then continued walking along main street.

She had her meeting. 

The afternoon whittled into early evening, Agatha camped by the border in woodlands that were obscured by thickets and rows. With her back against the bark of a proud water oak, Agatha read the Epic of Gilgamesh, sipping occasionally at her green tea, her toes pressed into the raw damp soil. She would miss New Orleans. She had become accustomed to the noise and bustle, intrigued by the magicks and works brought to this place from the distant corners of the world yet unexplored, then a flock of roseate spoonbills flew overhead in bolts of white and pink feathers, and Agatha decided she would miss that too.

Agatha winced and placed her cup, sensing she had bitten the inside of her cheek too deeply. Then the heat of sunlight disappeared from her skin and the taste of bitter cherries swelled on her tongue. Agatha sighed and lowered her book to her chest. There in the unaccountable distance, perhaps within reach or thirty feet away, Death stood with a dark linen shroud obscuring her lovely face.

“There’s my girl,” Agatha muttered and pulled herself up from her bed roll. “You’re earlier than I thought you would be?”

With the lightest flick of her finger, a powerful wind swung forward and hooked around the back of Agatha’s knees—yanking her forward on to her palms and shins like a noviciate at worship.

“Okay you don’t like over-familiar types,” Agatha bristled.

Still, Death said nothing in response.

Then Agatha felt something prod lightly against her chest bone. She glanced down, saw a paper plane skewered and trapped in the edge of her bodice, when she looked up again the sight sent her skittering back into the bark of the water oak like a rabbit startled by a predator. There in the unaccountable distance, Death stood as a deity, her visage milk pale and rotting like a corpse, her jawbone and teeth defined in calcified bone.

“Got your nose.” Agatha pushed her thumb between her fingers, shaking her hand slightly in the air, doing her best to bring her heart rate down and simmer the tension. “This for me?” She reached to her bodice and plucked the paper plane.

Death’s hollow visage tilts to the side. 

As though to say…

Who else?

And then she leaves with incorporeal flare that sets Agatha’s teeth on edge with fright. Death was not ten or fifteen paces away as Agatha anticipated, she was much closer, close enough to faintly smell of figs and persimmons as her fingers swung a blade millimetres in front of Agatha’s nose. It sliced the air into wefts of fabric. Death cut a bleeding wound in the surface of reality. It was like watching someone step through a strand of hair—disappear into broad daylight before her very eyes. 

Curiously, Agatha touched the two edges of reality with the tips of her finger and drew them back like a stage curtain. Beyond the gaping wound, Agatha observed thick sage-coloured mist and the smell of wet rotting leaves and foliage. Then Death appeared, her features marked with abject offence, she wagged her finger and Agatha nervously scrambled back into the tree bark, stayed there entirely frozen as the wound knitted itself back together on a swipe of Death’s finger. A moment passed, Agatha blinked and remembered the paper plane.

She opened it and found the territory map of Louisiana. The borders of New Orleans drawn fine and sharp. Death had marked the boundaries cleanly, crossed Agatha’s current position, which Agatha had determined based on distance as the crow flies from the centre of civilisation, but Death accounted for variables in a way that required no further conversation to extenuate her position.

Agatha’s math was off by two and a half miles.

And Death did not want to deal with her tonight.

***

Agatha finished her dirty work and snapped the girl’s neck with a stream of purple, grimacing in pain as she removed the poisoned knife lodged in her gut. Word of her power was spreading quickly, and news of Agatha’s movements and reasons—her movements, mostly—seemed to reach covens days before she did. The jagged wound felt wet beneath her fingertips, she glanced down and saw it leaking in spurts and pulses. An arterial bleed. 

She coaxes her purple into a concentrated stream, hoping to draw the last dregs of regenerative power from the bodies littered around the camp ground, but the bodies are precisely that—drained of life and magic. 

Agatha Harkness, all alone and bleeding in the woods. 

She laughs quietly.

Of course this proposal would have to be so…

High stakes.

“New plan. Here’s what I’m thinking!” Agatha remarks into empty quiet nothing, taking a rag along the blade to clean it off. “Dinner, tonight. You’re allowed a night off right?” Self-assured she isn’t alone, Agatha gestures at the slumped bodies lying at her feet. “There could be more bodies if it would…sway you.” Agatha grimaces awkwardly. “How big of a pile do you need?”

“Cute.”

Death leans against the trunk of an old oak tree, her hood shrouding her unmistakable features. Agatha nods, smiling slightly. Death returns the gesture.

“Hello,” Agatha whispers.

“Hello again.”

“I just…” Agatha stops and looks around at her dirty work. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful, that’s all.”

“I know,” her voice is tentative and light. She glances oddly. “You’re very persistent, do you know that?”

Agatha grins. “I’ve been called worse, sure. I think I…imagined you differently?”

“Oh, you did? Never heard that before…” 

Suddenly, Death became decidedly death-like. It’s petulant. A rebuttal. Her sparkling dark brown eyes recede, her beautiful smile melts into milk bone teeth and an ivory-coloured chiselled jaw. She’s trying to scare her, Agatha realises, but it doesn’t work. Agatha laughs as though it’s cute. She is suddenly taken with Death. Taken with her rum-coloured skin and dark, deep brown eyes. Taken with her black linen shrouds, chaos and upheaval.

Her heart in a flutter, Agatha stood poised and manicured - determined to be alluring too. 

Then, Agatha’s eyes wander. For some reason, despite the skeletal visage, Death’s figure is still… 

Death’s mask tilts in confusion. “Are you staring at my breasts?”

“Well, you look beautiful.” Agatha shrugs, guilty of the charge. “I mean an entity of abject cosmic horror, sure, but your breasts are…” She wisely stops. “You look lovely, I mean. And, I think you’re fond of me too.”

“Ah.” Death finally notices the blade. “So you got hurt this time too?”

“I suppose I wanted to look my best for you.” Agatha lifts her cupped palm to reveal the drooling wound. “Of course, you could always change me out of this old thing. You’re the original green witch, right? You could…fix me up before dinner?”

“You know I can’t do that, Agatha.”

“Why? Have you lost your touch?”

Death leans forward, all sparkling brown eyes and obsidian smile again. “No, it would simply be against the rules.” She inhales and sweeps her hands along Agatha’s biceps. “I know it must be hard for you to envision rules and boundaries, Agatha, but there are laws even you must observe. Mine, mostly. I’m sorry.”

“Big talk.” Agatha lifts her chin. “I think you’re scared you’ve lost your touch.”

“I haven’t lost my touch.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite.”

“Prove it.”

“Agatha,” Death grins weakly. “I see what you’re doing. You are such a beautiful woman, and truly I’m flattered, but intervening in matters of life and death is against the rule of balance. Perhaps in another life?”

“Oh fuck the rules!” Agatha challenges boldly as her legs start to wobble. “I-I. I kill eleven witches just to ask you for dinner and you’re telling me you. You…” A pained expression - then Agatha collapses backward.

“I told you, Agatha, I am flattered…”

The stars are clear enough through branches to make out the constellations. Orion’s belt. Cassiopeia. Ursa Major. Agatha blinks and feels her sweat run cool. Death comes into focus above her, but Death’s face is still a face, and Agatha takes it as progress she might make it out of this thing alive.

Might.

Death seems to be considering her options.

“You should break the rules,” Agatha whispers. “You. You should…” She draws a breath and feels her heart slowing. Agatha blinks and nods, knowing she is dying. “You should consider it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Agatha furrows her brow as though it’s ridiculous. “How could you possibly bear it if you didn’t break the rules? You’re Death. They’re your rules.”

Death likes that. 

That makes her smile.

She crouches down, her fingers feel cool and gentle either side of Agatha’s jawline and temples. Death hesitates with a certain look in her eyes that lingers.

“You’re beautiful when you’re dying, Agatha. Maybe I prefer you like this?”

“Oh, honey.” Agatha trails her fingertips along Death’s shin, resting them on the ball of her knee. “You should see how often I come close to dying. This doesn’t have to be a one time thing. You’ll see, baby.”

“Alright, Agatha.” Death cranes her neck, unbuttoning Agatha’s blouse. “You get one dinner.” Her brown eyes sparkle.

“What’s your name?”

“I have many.”

“I have time - I could learn?”

“You’re so cock sure of that?” Death stares.

Agatha grins exuberantly, bare chested and bleeding with her blouse undone. “Yeah baby, I’m so sure.”

Death pauses in consideration, her cold fingers resting on warm wet ribs, then she shakes her head in exasperation and sucks the wound.

“Ah, so you’re a power bottom.” Agatha observes - more relieved than she wanted to let on. “Love that for me. You and I are going to be thick as thieves…”

***

Sharon finally grabbed the cassette tape that had been alluding her for the last five minutes, hidden beneath her car seat out of reach, she sprung up and exhaled a sigh of relief, then fed it into the player. A moment later, The Ronettes. 

She turned and then looked again as Agnes and her special friend trudged back over to the car. Agnes was walking by herself unaided this time, smiling that lovely friendly smile, waving excitedly as though they hadn’t seen one another in days—if not weeks. 

Her special friend looked as though she had been crying.

“Did it work?” Sharon asked as the car door opened.

“Nope,” Rio replied, bundling Agatha into the back a little rough. “Can you, er…take her back to Westview? Just some loose ends I need to tie up. I’ll be around. Can you keep her safe for me until I’m back, Mrs Davis? In fact, forget the safe part. Just keep her in Westview?”

Sharon thought that was a strange thing to say.

“Mrs Hart!” Agnes wailed in exuberant delight—her blue eyes growing wide and pleased. “Where have you been! And what is with all this garbage in the back of your car…” she murmured, examining a half-wrapped garden hose handle.

Sharon bit her tongue, hating that name. 

“Those are Christmas presents, Agnes,” she said diplomatically.

Agnes turned indiscreetly as Rio buckled her in the seat, “Gee willickers, I sure would hate to be on Mrs Hart’s naughty list this year. Am I right, sister?” She lightly elbowed.

“Fuck off,” Rio whispered under her breath and fussed over the straps. “Whole thing was a fucking disaster, Mrs Davis.”

“Well she doesn’t think it’s Christmas anymore,” Sharon reasoned.

Rio paused and glanced oddly.

“You’re right,” she observed. “Maybe not an entire disaster, then.”

[rosebudprincess]

inspired by my recent binge of murder mysteries, i present private investigator femme and detective butch.

the matriarch of a wealth old money family has mysteriously passed away and to no surprise, the local police department has sent our detective to the scene of the crime where they meet personally hired private investigator. banter ensues and the two butt heads, both with their own styles of uncovering the mystery present.

obviously no flirting allowed because it’s improper to find pleasure while on the job but the two must work together rather than against in order to get to the bottom of this.

inspired by my personal favorite mystery show: miss fisher’s murder mysteries!! but honorable mentions include: knives out, agatha christie’s poirot series, 7 women and a mystery

[imagines-ahs]

Chapter Fifty: Amaranth.

Summary: Wilhemina Venable felt it was finally time to leave Kineros Robotics and get a job with people who weren’t such morons like Jeff and Mutt. What she didn’t expect, however, was for her new boss to be so damn insufferable. She didn’t expect to fall in love with her, either.

Tag List: @mayfair-fleur @mistysswampmud @paulsonsratched @msvenablx @notmeellaannyy @rwoolfe @golddustdykes​ @lovingsarah @slut-for-sarah @geinobinarie​ (message me to be added if interested!)

“I said no, of course.” Venable watched how Billie’s chest had begun to move a little faster. She’s nervous. Wilhemina could feel herself starting to grow overwhelmed, and Billie Dean’s fingers no longer felt right tangled in her own. As gentle as she could, Venable pulled her hand away. Billie blinked once, glancing down at their hands. The look that settled on Billie Dean’s face caused Wilhemina to feel even more disappointed in herself. I’m hurting her. But her whole body refused to allow itself to be touched, to be felt, to be noticed as something that existed in physical form. Billie only nodded, waiting for Venable to say something else, anything else. Wilhemina’s jaw was tense again. “B-Billie, what happened between you and Terry?”

For a second, everything Billie Dean could hear was a faint buzz. Slowly, her body recovered from the sudden rush of adrenaline that had just washed down. She licked her dry lips, blinking once or twice. “What did she tell you?” I should have talked to her about it. I should have done it before she had the chance. Venable didn’t answer, she only looked away. Billie frowned a little more, holding her emotions back the best she could. “Wilhie, what did she tell you?”

Wilhie. Venable stared down at the floor, body refusing to allow her voice to come out. She pushed it through. “She just… she told me y-you did the same to her— to Terry… d-date her, I m-mean. And then you—you got tired and just… discarded her.”

“I never dated her,” Billie quickly said. “We went out a few times, but we—we never dated.” Her heart had accelerated its pace, for Billie Dean knew where this was going. “There w-were no feelings, and she was not fired b-because of that. It had nothing to do with o-our so called relationship.” She saw right there in Venable’s eyes how she didn’t seem to believe her. Fuck! Honey eyes filled up with tears. “Wilhemina, I d-don’t know what she told you, b-but it was nothing l-like us. Nothing. It was never serious. We only—we hooked up a few times, but we never even went out on a proper date.”

“Will you get tired of me, too?” It was barely a whisper, but one that came in a strong tone and as cold as ice. Venable hated herself for allowing it to come out like that, for allowing her walls to control her like that. Her posture was rigid again, both hands on the cane and head up high. Defensive. Scared.

“I will not.” There was no doubt in that. Billie gulped the lump in her throat. “I d-didn’t get tired of h-her. No one k-knows what happened.” A tear slid down. Billie Dean paid no attention to it. Her hands ached to just hold the woman in front of her. “W-Wilhie… Wilhie, please… I—I don’t k-know what else to tell y-you.” Another tear slipped down, followed by another, and another. She sniffled, never once looking away from Venable. Stop crying, for fuck’s sake!

“Tell me w-what happened.” Wilhemina’s voice trembled, betraying the coldness of her posture. Too many things went through her mind, each one of them taking her to a worst place.

With her eyebrows drawing close together, Billie Dean sniffled. She nodded as she took a deep breath. “Not here.” Venable frowned. “Meet me in the garage in five minutes.”

“Why?”

“T-trust me?”

Wilhemina bit her inner cheek. Staring at those honey oceans that always carried so much kindness, she wondered how could she ever say no to Billie Dean. How could she ever deny her anything when she stared at her with eyes so full of tears and so full of fear. She nodded, and in a gush of even more trust, reached to squeeze one of Billie’s hands. I never meant to hurt her. “I do.”

Taking another deep breath, Billie squeezed Venable’s hand back. “I p-promise I’ll give you a-all the answers.”

Wilhemina nodded. The sight was breaking her heart. Hesitantly, she let Billie Dean’s hand go and followed back to her table, heart beating fast.

Alone in her office, Billie Dean sat back down on her chair. She tried taking a deep breath, but a sob cut through. She felt ashamed. She felt judged by something Venable hadn’t even seen yet. Covering her eyes with her palms, Billie forced her body to calm down; this time, air filled her lungs slowly, completely. Her body craved for nicotine yet again, and she didn’t have another choice but to give in. Reaching for her purse, Billie Dean grabbed a cigarette from the pack she had there along with a lighter and walked to the huge window of her office, opening it carefully. She took drag after drag with eyes staring at nothing at all, focused on blurring colors as she kept herself trapped in all the thoughts that ran through her mind. What if she decides I’m too much for her? Finding someone like Venable had been so hard… it wouldn’t have been anyone but Wilhemina.

It didn’t take long for Venable to get up and walk to the elevator, nail picking on the skin of her thumb— an unconscious, nervous habit. She did notice how Emma stared at her, clearly curious, clearly angry, clearly wanting to get up and follow her to know what was happening. She wouldn’t have the nerve. As Wilhemina stepped into the elevator and the doors closed, she sighed in relief for being the only one there. Her stomach turned as the floors started to go down, mind on Billie, focus on Billie, heart on Billie. What could be so bad? What even could have happened that could be so bad? Why am I so scared? Venable knew why… what if she were being used? What if the Billie Dean she knew was a lie carefully constructed to play some sort of trick on her? I knew it was too good to be true. Billie gave her no reason to think that way, but the part of Wilhemina that refused to see any good on herself screamed louder. As the elevator stopped and the doors opened again, Venable hesitantly followed into a more secluded area of the garage. She hadn’t seen Billie Dean pass through the main office, which meant she wasn’t there yet. She stood there waiting, nibbling on her inner cheek at the same pace her nail dug on her skin. Not even five minutes later, the doors to the elevator opened to reveal Billie, with her sunglasses on and purse in hand. Venable watched her from the corner of her eye, hand squeezing the cane harshly.

As Billie Dean looked around in search of Wilhemina, she caught herself still sniffling the remaining of her tears. Her eyes had grown red and swollen, and her mascara had been all smudged—she tried wiping it off, and at least it got somewhat presentable. Sunglasses were always a lifesaver, though. Her head picked up as she saw a hint of purple, and she watched as Venable stood there so nervous she couldn’t hide it this time. Billie sighed. Please, don’t change your mind. “Hi,” she said softly as she approached Wilhemina.

Turning around, Venable smiled a little. “Hi. She’s wearing glasses. Wilhemina wanted to lean closer and kiss her lips; wanted to hold her hand, comfort her and caress her fingers. But her body refused to allow it, standing on the ground with feet glued on it and refusing to draw closer.

Billie gulped again, eyes falling down. “My car is—is to the left.”

“Your car?” Venable frowned.

Billie Dean nodded. “I need—I want to show you the whole thing.” Her eyes hesitantly moved back to brown ones. Wilhemina looked even more confused. I won’t be able to wait until we get there. Every second that Venable stared at her like that broke her heart a tiny bit more. But also, what was the best to do? Wilhemina was a very logical person, and so perhaps the best was, indeed, to wait.

Venable’s first reaction was to deny getting away from the workplace while she was, technically, working. But Billie Dean was the boss, and even if she weren’t, Billie Dean was her priority right now. So she nodded and followed Billie along until they got to her car. “Thank you,” she nearly whispered as she got in, holding her cane on her lap as Billie Dean closed the door.

“Of course.” Billie walked to the driver’s side and got in as well. She took a deep breath as she buckled up, and then she took her glasses off and turned on the car. Wilhemina watched her closely, eyes tracing each and every line of her. I’m so embarrassed.

Her eyes are blotchy. Venable’s thumb was back at picking on her skin. “Where are we going?” She asked after a second. The car was already moving, and as Wilhemina took a deep breath she realized just how much it smelled like Billie Dean. I want to hold her.

“My house.” Billie licked her lips as she looked over to the sides before moving forward.

“Your house?” What could they possibly do at Billie Dean’s house? Venable was lost; completely lost. She watched as Billie nodded. “Why?”

Billie bit her inner cheek, fingers silently drumming on the wheel. Her stomach kept on twirling. “The… the documents are a-all there.” Her eyes started to grow teary again. She sniffled.

Documents? Wilhemina was starting to grow worried—not for her feelings, not for her trauma, but for Billie Dean. She had seen Billie worried and nervous like that before, and it was never something good. Reach for her hand. Venable eyed them on the wheel. “Billie, you’re worrying me.”

Wiping a tear away, Billie Dean sighed. After a minute or two, she finally gathered the courage to speak again. “I’m scared,” she breathed out. They stopped at a red light, so she was able to look at Venable.

Oh no. Wilhemina didn’t know what to do, how to react, how to comfort Billie when she herself needed comfort. “W-why?” Her voice trembled. Her nerves started to grow agitated. Hiding her feelings had become hard all of a sudden.

“B-because.” Billie Dean sniffled again. Her eyes refused to stay dry. “Terry, she… no one k-knows about i-it. I’ve been d-dealing with that alone, n-no one knows. And I’m scared y-you’ll look at me differently when you f-find out.”Gulping yet again, Venable shook her head. The light turned green, they moved forward. Billie kept on sniffling as she drove, wiping the running tears away the best she could.

Wilhemina had grown quiet again. Would anything be able to make me look at her differently? It wasn’t fair to think something could; not with how Billie Dean had treated her so far, not with the amount of comfort that woman brought to her. She wouldn’t do something that could cause me to look at her differently. Struggling to pass through the walls, Venable began to dig a hole. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes, thumb now bleeding. I don’t want to lose her. Haven’t my ways taken too much from me already? Every single time Wilhemina happened to be struggling around Billie, she had been anything but kind, loving, sweet. It’s not fair I don’t do the same. Venable wanted to do the same. She dug and dug and dug until she could see a small amount of the outside, and then she opened her eyes again. Billie Dean kept her waterfall eyes on the road. “B-Billie,” she barely managed to whisper. They stopped at a red light again. Their eyes met. She’s terrified. “I… I l-like you for who you a-are. That’s n-not changing.” Taking all the strength she could, Wilhemina reached for Billie Dean’s free hand. She tangled their fingers and caressed it, feeling the soft skin against her own.

With her face scrunching up with tears, Billie shook her head. Her eyes fell down to their hands, and she squeezed Venable’s back as if it were the last time she would be able to do so. “I-I’m ashamed of what happened,” that was all she managed to whisper.

Wilhemina’s frown grew. She knew that feeling well… almost too well. She kept on caressing the fingers tangled in hers, watching as Billie Dean cried more and more. I should stop talking. She’s driving. Billie had to calm down. “Just… just know I’m here with y-you.”

With another nod, Billie Dean got back to driving. She sniffled nonstop, trying to bring her nerves down. With her hand tangled in Venable’s, her chest filled with air a tiny bit easier.

The rest of the ride was quiet. Billie used the time to calm herself down as best as she could, and Wilhemina never once let her hand go; it was the best she could do right now. When they got to Billie Dean’s house, her eyes were dry and only slightly red. She reached for her purse and opened the garage, gently letting go of Venable’s hand as she parked the car. When the engine stopped, Billie took a deep breath. So did Wilhemina.

“Eleanor must be here,” Billie Dean broke the silence. It took a minute for Venable to remember whom Eleanor was, but she nodded anyways. Billie got out of the car and walked to the other side, ready to open the door for Wilhemina; she was already getting out. I need another cigarette. As they followed inside, Venable caught herself regretting not bringing her purse along. She had her bottle of Valium there, and even though she had already taken one today, the fear of a panic attack raising was very much present right now. Billie Dean didn’t dare offering a hand to Wilhemina. Right now, she honestly didn’t feel like she deserved to be held by anyone. The living room was substantially tidier this time Venable noticed, and the whole house smelled like a flower she couldn’t quite point to. “Eleanor?” Billie called. In no more than five minutes, a blonde, pale woman walked into the living room holding a cloth.

“Hello, Ms. Howard. I didn’t expect you here so early.”

Ms. Howard. Billie Dean had already asked Eleanor not to call her like that, but she didn’t have the energy to bring that up right now. “It’s alright. Is everything okay? Could you get settled well?”

“Yes. Thank you, Ms. Howard.” The woman smiled. Wilhemina watched how she eyed her once, smile never leaving her lips. She also took notice of how, even though very much distressed, Billie Dean was still as nice as always. How can I ever see her differently? “I’m cleaning the downstairs bathroom and the pool area right now. Should I clean something else first? Would you like me to prepare you lunch?”

Billie shook her head. “It’s perfect as it is, Eleanor. Thank you so much. There’s no need to prepare us lunch, and when you feel like eating, use the house phone and order whatever you’d like, as always.”

“Right.” Eleanor nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Howard. I’ll go back to doing my job, if you need anything just call me.”

“Alright.” Billie Dean offered her the best smile she could. Excusing herself, Eleanor disappeared on the back door. Taking another deep breath, Billie turned to Venable. Going upstairs is hard for her. “I’ll go grab the documents.”

Wilhemina nodded; her chest clenched from how defeated Billie Dean looked. As Billie disappeared upstairs, Venable caught herself sighing. She walked to the couch and took a seat, hands nervously squeezing the cane. Her eyes scanned the room she had seen only once before, trying to distract herself with the details she could capture: the awards on the shelf, the TV that could almost be mistaken by a painting of birds, the beautiful chandelier. It’s all Billie Dean. Venable adored everything. She looked down at her hands and noticed dry blood on the thumb she had been picking on. She bit her lower lip. I should wash it. But Eleanor had said she was cleaning the bathroom, and she didn’t even know where it was. Plus, she didn’t feel comfortable just walking around Billie Dean’s house. I wouldn’t mind if she did so in mine. Somehow it felt different. Footsteps took her away from her thoughts, and so Wilhemina looked up from her hands to watch as Billie approached her with a folder in hand, head down. She gulped.

Here we go. Billie took a deep breath as she sat down next to Venable. Without saying anything, she just handed her the folder. Wilhemina stared at her in confusion. Billie Dean licked her dry lips. “It’s all there,” she said quietly.

It was hesitant, but Venable slowly began to read the papers. Honey eyes watched her closely, already wanting to grow teary again. Fiery eyebrows kept on drawing closer together. I should have brought my glasses. Taking a deep breath as she read the first document, her eyes grew in size as she realized what she was reading. “She’s blackmailing you?!” Wilhemina turned to look at Billie Dean, whom only nodded with her head down. Venable’s frown grew. “Why are you ashamed of it? She’s the one who should be ashamed.”

“Keep—keep on going…”

Instantly, Wilhemina did so. As she turned to the next page, a few screenshots were printed there, along with chunks of texts explaining the context of them. Venable kept on reading further, and suddenly, when she moved to another page, explicit pictures of Billie—clearly taken without her consent—were printed right there, in color and all. Wilhemina’s eyes grew even more and she quickly closed the file. As she moved to look at Billie Dean, she found her still looking down at the floor, lip trembling as she held back the tears. Venable shook her head. “Billie… Billie, look at me.” She saw the way Billie Dean squeezed her eyes shut, tears cascading down. Venable bit her lip harshly. Just grab her hand already. Hesitantly and ignoring the voices in her head that screamed Billie would get mad at her somehow, Venable reached for one of her hands. Billie Dean opened her eyes and slowly looked at Wilhemina. She offered her a sad smile. “Angel… this is not y-your fault.” Too many things spiraled through her mind, but Wilhemina was determined to keep her focus on Billie. What if she’s lying? There was no way Billie Dean would lie about that, with proof and everything. And Venable knew it. Still, her mind tried taking what was good from her, as it always did. Not this time. Not Billie Dean. Trusting was so fucking hard… but Billie deserved it. She had deserved every single leap of faith she had taken for her.

Seeing Wilhemina through the tears was hard, and so Billie Dean clenched her hand for dear life. Her ears buzzed with adrenaline and shame, body shaking slightly. “Those p-pictures… I’ve… she is threatening t-to sell t-them—“ a sob cut through. Billie shook her head and covered her eyes with her palm, sniffling deeply.

Venable shook her head as her blood started to boil. Who the fuck does she think she is? She clenched her jaw harshly. Wilhemina saw red. She wanted to let Billie Dean know just what she thought about that woman, and she almost started to speak before she forced herself to stop: Saturday morning slipped in her mind, how she had exploded when she heard about the threats from Emma, and how that had made Billie uncomfortable, scared. And that was the last thing she wanted right now. So Venable took a deep breath and found a way to shove her rage aside somewhere—anywhere. And then her mind got quiet. And her body stopped trembling. And she found herself… sad. Sad for seeing what the world did to Billie Dean despite it being cruel to herself, too. And her eyes grew misty, so misty they slowly overflowed. But she didn’t care; not now, not with a person she cared so much. What were emotions if not rage? For the first time in a long time, Wilhemina simply felt. “Billie…” She moved closer, because she trusted Billie Dean would never scream at her for showing affection. “Billie Dean… come h-here.” She let her hand go to wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer until Billie laid her head on her chest. And then she cradled her tightly, lovingly, fingers tangling in blonde hair and caressing it. Billie Dean kept on sobbing loudly while she clenched everything Wilhemina she could reach. Venable felt her cheeks getting wetter and wetter, but she simply let it be. Her nose buried into Billie’s hair, taking a deep breath. “It’s okay,” she whispered. The sound of Billie Dean’s sobs was one she didn’t think she had ever heard before, and it caused Venable to wonder just how long had she been holding them back, how long had she been postponing all these emotions she was meant to let go so long ago. Billie had always told Wilhemina she needed a break, and perhaps the break was not only physical. The urge to protect something wasn’t usual for Venable—it had happened only twice her whole life, first with Olivia, and then with Purpura—but it was undeniable how it had been growing with Billie Dean; perhaps now it had reached its peak.

As much as Billie tried, she just couldn’t take a proper breath, she just couldn’t stop the sobs from cutting through—so she accepted it. She accepted the fear, the shame, the anger at herself and whatever else and simply cried. She cried and cried as she held onto Wilhemina, trying to trade all her pain for lavender so only the purple crowded her senses and emotions. Her eyes hurt, her nose had grown red, and her body had finally stopped shaking after what seemed to be hours. When she finally gathered enough strength to look up at Venable again, she found her cheeks wet as well, eyes caring concern, comfort, worry and care. She sniffled the best she could and pulled away to properly look at her. “I f-feel like a whore,” she murmured lowly. Wilhemina blinked twice, clearly surprised by the words. “I feel s-so stupid with t-these pictures… how could I not see w-what she was doing?” Hadn’t she cried all she had inside, more tears would for sure come one more time. Billie Dean took a deep, shaky breath. She reached for one of Venable’s hands again, caressing it between her own. “I-I’m so ashamed of it all… I’m so scared y-you’ll think I-I do that with everyone.”

Instantly, Wilhemina shook her head. “Don’t say that, Billie…” Only now she reached to wipe her cheeks clean. “She took advantage of you, none of that is your fault.”

“B-but I did sleep with her because I wanted to.”

Ouch. The thought bothered Venable. She focused on logic. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. But she chose to take advantage, she chose to take those pictures without your consent, and that was entirely on her.” Wilhemina did her best to keep her voice caring, soft.

Billie Dean sighed. “We never e-even went out on a date… it was p-purely sex… meaningless… stupid.” She shook her head and looked away, back at the floor. Venable gulped uncomfortably; it was definitely not pleasant to think about Billie kissing someone else, let alone having sex with them. It was a tough realization for Wilhemina, to understand that she was, in fact, jealous. Not that it mattered right now, not that it mattered at all. So many forgotten emotions rolled through her body, making it hard to think clearly. “I think w-we saw each other maybe f-four or five times… in s-six months. I d-didn’t feel good about it anymore… about feeling u-used the next day, every t-time.” Slowly, honey eyes moved back to brown ones. Venable squeezed her hand gently, encouraging her to keep going. “I t-told her I’d love t-to remain friends, b-but I didn’t want the sex anymore. She g-got really mad at me, told me I had been leaning her on, that I s-should have been honest from day one. I w-was… I t-told her after it h-happened the first time, after a p-party for wrapping up the last season of the show, we w-were both drunk… I barely remember it.” Billie shook her head. “I t-told her it h-had been a mistake, she offered for u-us to be casual… I figured i-it wouldn’t be a problem, s-she saw other people, she seemed nice e-enough even though I k-knew there was nothing romantic there for m-me…” A low, bitter chuckle left Billie Dean’s lips. She sighed. “Her w-work had never been the b-best, but she d-did the job and that w-was sufficient… or so I thought. I e-ended up finding numerous mistakes some time later, two o-or three months after w-we stopped seeing each other. I tried t-talking to her, a-asked her to be more careful… she i-insisted I was punishing her for s-some reason… so I h-had to fire her. She told everyone i-it had to do with our relationship—we d-didn’t even have a relationship, n-not in the way she implied, and she was aware of that. Gosh, she tried sleeping w-with Jenny for fuck’s sake!” Wilhemina watched Billie quietly, giving her the time she needed to let it all out. “A day a-after many accusatory t-texts, she sent me t-the first picture. A week later, I h-had all of them along w-with threats of selling them t-to the media if I d-didn’t agree t-to pay her a fee for f-firing her—which had already b-been paid, but she demanded for more. I g-gave in at first… she kept on asking for more… finally, I c-contacted my lawyer. We are… we’re building a c-case…” Billie Dean looked down again. It was all laid out now, clear as day for Venable to see and understand and judge as she pleased. Billie had nothing else to lose. I should have never slept with her, Billie’s mind shouted, I should have contacted my lawyer before, I should have stopped after the first time, I should have, I should have, I should have, I should have…

Digesting everything would take some time, but Wilhemina certainly would. She kept on caressing Billie Dean’s hand, heart beating fast, eyes glossy. What could she even say to that? Billie stared at her as if she were waiting for Venable to decide her faith on death penalty or not, eyes big, lip trapped between her teeth. Wilhemina blinked once, causing matching tears to slip down. Billie frowned in fear. “I d-don’t know what t-to tell you,” she began, slow and gentle and caring and just so unsure of how to word all these foreign emotions. “But I’m here for you. I’m h-here with you. This is not your fault, Billie Dean… none of it is your fault. You did nothing w-wrong, and it breaks m-my heart to see how much that woman i-is causing you to suffer.” Another tear slipped down. “You don’t deserve it,” she nearly breathed out, cheeks getting drenched again. She fought not to allow her eyes to overflow too much, but it was useless.

I’ve never seen her cry before. It shouldn’t, but it caused Billie to worry even more. In her nervous state, comprehending the size of the intimacy she had just reached was nearly impossible. “Don’t c-cry…” With her free hand, Billie Dean carefully wiped a tear away from Venable’s cheeks.

“Why were you so a-shamed of telling me that?” Wilhemina leaned her cheek on Billie’s palm, eyes and hand never leaving hers.

Billie Dean gulped. Her thumb caressed Venable’s cheekbone, stomach twisting and turning in nervous patterns still. “Because I j-judge myself… so I was s-scared you’d judge me, too… and I would l-lose you…”

“I would never judge y-you for that, angel…” The worry dimple was back between Wilhemina’s eyebrows. She turned her head to place a kiss on Billie Dean’s hand.

“I-it’s not just that… I just… you are so—so classy and so intelligent and absolutely captivating and I…” Billie sighed. “I’ve slept w-with women I barely k-knew because I decided a relationship was n-not for me. I went to bars, I had o-one-night stands, I had given up on love because h-how could anyone decide my ways were worth it? And n-now that you’re here I just… I feel so ashamed.”

Oh. The voices inside Venable’s head wanted to start talking again, whispering all kinds of degrading things towards herself. Wilhemina fought hard, refusing to allow them to win; they wouldn’t this time, for now she was not alone anymore, for now she had Billie Dean. She’ll stop liking you as soon as she realizes you have no experience in anything. She probably saw hundreds of bodies that are better than yours. Did Billie even do something worth the crucifying her mind always did? Wasn’t she a single, grown woman who felt comfortable enough to explore a thing society deemed as so absolutely wrong? And for what reason? Why was it wrong? It was definitely not Billie’s fault that she didn’t have experiences as such, that she felt so uncomfortable in her own skin. “You don’t have to be ashamed for h-having a life, Billie.” She sat up straight. Honey eyes looked away as Billie Dean brought her hand back towards herself, nervously playing with her fingers that previously caressed Wilhemina’s cheek. “So what you had one-night stands? So what y-you’ve slept with women you met at bars? That doesn’t make you less of a person, Billie. It doesn’t make you unworthy of love. You could have slept with a different woman a day for all I care, and that wouldn’t make a difference to how I feel towards you.” She hadn’t slept with anyone in years, and she still felt unworthy of love, too… why did it even matter, after all?

“It was—it wasn’t even one per week, probably one-night stand a month,” Billie Dean murmured.

“It’s just an example,” Venable said softly. Billie nodded. Wilhemina smiled sadly. I love her. She nibbled on her lip as she thought, pondering her words. “O-of course I don’t enjoy thinking a-about you sleeping with other people… but it’s because—it’s because I…” I want you to myself. I want to be good enough for you. “I imagine you don’t enjoy thinking about me and Emma, either.” Logic. Logic was good.

Billie Dean instantly shook her head as she grimaced slightly. The corners of Wilhemina’s lips turned up, and for a second all the weight on Billie’s shoulders disappeared. The world could end and she would not give a damn as long as she had that woman with her. Leaning closer, Billie Dean kissed Venable right on the lips, lingering there as she felt a hand caressing her cheek. “I don’t ever want to kiss anyone else,” she whispered.

“Me either.” Wilhemina kissed her again, smiling to herself as she held Billie as close as she could, as tight as she could manage.

Breaking the kiss after a moment, Billie Dean stared at brown eyes. Her heart was still beating fast, and her eyes still threatened to grow teary. After a second, she spoke again. “So… do you still wanna be with me?” She murmured.

“What have I just said, silly?”

Billie Dean’s cheeks tinted pink. “I’m just making sure…”

“You’re cute.” Venable leaned to kiss her on the nose, just like Billie did to her. “Yes, I do.” Will she when she sees just how fucked up I am when it comes to intimacy?

[dreamingofpotatos]

felt cute, took a selfie and actually liked how it came out.

[mayamidnightmelody]

Amid the soft glow of fairy lights and the distant hum of city life, two women found solace in each other's embrace. Their connection was electric, a fusion of passion and gentleness that ignited the room like a fireworks display. These women, both stunningly beautiful, moved together with a fluidity that was almost otherworldly.

Their eyes met, and an unspoken understanding passed between them. It was more than just a glance; it was a promise of what was to come. As their bodies gravitated towards each other, the air around them seemed to thrum with anticipation.

"You're so beautiful," whispered Ava, her voice barely audible over the pounding of her own heart. She reached out, her fingertips tracing the delicate curve of Lena's jawline. Lena's lips parted slightly, a soft sigh escaping as she leaned into the touch.

Lena's response was a whisper, her breath warm against Ava's skin. "So are you." The words were simple, but they carried a weight of sincerity that made Ava's heart flutter.

They closed the distance between them, their lips meeting in a kiss that was at once tender and fierce. It was a kiss that spoke of longing and desire, of nights spent dreaming of this very moment. Their bodies pressed together, fitting perfectly as if they were two halves of a whole.

Ava's hands roamed freely, exploring the contours of Lena's body with a reverence that made Lena's skin tingle. She could feel the gentle rise and fall of Lena's chest, the steady beat of her heart echoing her own. Each touch was a promise, each caress a declaration of the feelings that words could never fully capture.

Lena responded in kind, her hands tangling in Ava's hair, pulling her closer. Their kiss deepened, becoming more urgent, more desperate. There was a raw, unfiltered passion between them that left them both breathless. But even in their fervor, there was a tenderness that spoke of a deep and abiding love.

Their bodies moved together like a dance, a rhythm that was both ancient and new. They were lost in each other, in the sensations that coursed through their veins like fire. Every touch, every kiss was a testament to their connection, a celebration of the love they shared.

As their lips parted, they gazed into each other's eyes, their breaths mingling in the space between them. Ava brushed a strand of hair from Lena's face, her touch light as a feather. "I've wanted this for so long," she admitted, her voice raw with emotion.

Lena smiled, a radiant expression that lit up her entire face. "Me too," she replied, her hand resting gently on Ava's cheek. "Me too."

They kissed again, slower this time, savoring the sweetness of the moment. It was a kiss that spoke of forever, of a love that was as timeless as the stars. In each other's arms, they found a peace that had eluded them for so long.

The night stretched on, but they were in no hurry. They had all the time in the world, and they intended to make the most of it. Together, they explored the depths of their passion, their love, and their connection. And as they held each other close, they knew that this was only the beginning.

In the glow of the fairy lights, with the world outside fading into the background, Ava and Lena found something truly magical. They found each other, and in doing so, they discovered a love that was both passionate and gentle, fierce and tender. It was a love that would carry them through the darkest of nights and the brightest of days, a love that was as beautiful as it was profound.

[succubus-interactivefiction]

Oops, I did it again

or rather my crazy sleep schedule and a sheer number of cups of coffee meant I didn't get much sleep last night, especially after this idea popped into my head and refused to leave until I jotted it down. So here's yet another Witching Hour Story Idea, yes that's what I call these weird story plots that slip into my mind. Anywhoooo, below the cut...Gods Im tired

Hellfire

Ten years ago the world as you knew it ended. It has come to be known as The Scouring, wherein a twenty four hour period, as the dawn swept across the face of the world, people simply vanished leaving no trace behind. In a single day ninety percent of the world's population had disappeared. Those who had advanced warning tried to outrun the morning light, world leaders took to the skies chasing the night in the hope that as long as they outran the day they would survive, there are tales of some planes and their crews who are still chasing that thin line in the belief that they can stay safe.

For the rest of the world however, life quickly devolved into a mad scramble for survival as survivors turned on one another in an effort to secure whatever remained of the world, that first year saw an even greater decrease in the remaining population. However those survivors did not have the peace of simply vanishing, no they died in brutal, bloody fights for survival. You are one of those who survived that bloody time.

Five years ago the world seemed to have come to some sense of equilibrium as something resembling society was carved from the ruins by warlords and peacekeepers across the globe, but whatever fragile peace the world had settled into was again destroyed when the veil fell. Across the world random survivors suddenly found themselves mutating traits many religions attributed to other worldly beings, in essence, over night, demons and angels became manifest.

The world was again thrown into turmoil as cults and fanatics rose to worship those who have, what they believe, is divine blood. It is only in the last year that things have finally settled into a new state of semi balance.

But for you, one of the Cambion, the simple life you have managed to scrape out of the apocalypse will be torn apart because of a simple reunion with someone you have long thought dead. You will now have to decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of lives along the west coast of North America as you become the central focus of a continent spanning conflict that has the potential to, once again, throw the world into turmoil.

Features

Play as a Cis or Trans woman, with full customization over your physical appearance.

Customize your daemonic appearance with options that allow you to seem almost human, or simply embrace your daemonic essence and make yourself a walking war machine. Be warned however that not everyone responds well to such beings.

Play with literal hellfire as you wield unholy abilities on the field of battle, or use your minor reality warping abilities to ensure that cute dress fits your towering daemonic frame.

Manage your new fortress city of Portland after ripping it from the claws of a former employer to save an old flame and try to make life better for the humans living under your rule.

Befriend and/or romance your former girlfriend whom you thought died in The Scouring, a Nephilim fanatic who needs to learn to not judge a book by its cover, or both at the same time in a polyamorous triad.

Wage war against a fanatical cult led by a pair of Nephilim twins hell bent on recreating the world in their own image.

Romance Options

Misty May | Human | Your Former Girlfriend Age: 27 Height: 5’7” Build: Athletic Eye Color: Hazel Hair Color: Black Skin Tone: Coffee Notable Features: Multiple scars from struggling to survive the last ten years Character Traits: Quiet, Easily startled, Secretive Tropes: Trauma, First Love, Return From The Dead, Second Chances

Your first girlfriend, you assumed Misty had died during The Scouring while she was on the east coast visiting family. This is a belief you have held to in the ten years since the apocalypse. The two of you had been inseparable from the first moment she shoved a bully away from you in the first grade, that was Misty, always standing up for others and putting herself in harm's way if it meant someone else would be spared pain. You remember her near constant smile and quick wit with fondness and despite everything that has happened in the past ten years just the memory of her helps you go on.

Arial | Nephilim | The Stubborn Nephilim Age: 22 Height: 6’3” Build: Voluptuous Eye Color: Gold Hair Color: Silver Skin Tone: Olive Notable Features: Four large angelic wings, glowing eyes Character Traits: Stubborn, Dense, Loving Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Love, Coming Out

One of the humans who became a Nephilim, Arial was seventeen when her change occurred to the shock of her parents and the small community they had joined. Of the hundred members of the town only one other person changed, a seven year old boy manifested Cambion traits and these two distinct changes sent shockwaves through the people and seemed to send most of them into some form of madness. While Arial was uplifted and worshiped the young boy was locked away, beaten, tortured, and to Arial’s horror one morning he was sacrificed in front of her as the townsfolk believed she was an avatar of God. Arial ran away the next day but was soon found by a cult led by two Nephilim twins. Taking her in they manipulated her, twisting her mind to their belief system and eventually sent her out on her own to hunt Cambion, she was captured and imprisoned almost immediately. This is where you find her, locked away in a cell in the Portland fortress city.

Others

Gabriella | Nephilim | Cult Leader

The insane leader of a militant cult spreading from Salt Lake City, Gabriella, along with her demented brother Michael, believe that it is their divine duty to rid the world of all Cambion as well as any Nephilim who will not bend the knee. Unlike her brother, Gabriella at first seems to have full control of her faculties, but her frequent lapses into inane and uncontrolled giggling seem to suggest otherwise.

Michael | Nephilim | Cult General

The de facto General of the cult's growing army, Michael spends more of his time engaging in incestuous relations with his sister than actually leading troops on the field of battle. Being just as insane as his sister, if not even more unstable, he believes that no one can defeat him in combat. His explosive outbursts when someone proves better than him at anything are well known among the cult.

Rubidor | Cambion | Your Aide-de-camp

Someone you could consider a friend, if you use the bare minimum of the meaning, Rubidor was your point of contact for jobs when passing through the area, that was before your unintended coup however. Now he is the only one you trust to see your orders are relayed to their respective recipients and even more importantly obeyed.

Lohi | Human | Rebel Leader

Lohi had spent four years building up his rebel group in the fortress city of Portland before you simply swept in and cut the head off the former ruler, taking his place as leader. All his plans have been disrupted because of this, but he is undeterred and is adamant that humanity will be free of the daemonic scourge that enslaves them.

Marky | Human | Insane Seeress

One of the few truly free humans living in Portland, Marky is nearly blind and each vision brings her closer to nevering being able to see light again. Despite this she remains relatively upbeat and is more than willing to lend her abilities to someone she considers worthy of her visions. Of course she did consider the former ruler of Portland worthy, so her definition may differ from most others.

Gram | Daemon | Your Multi-Great Grandmother

The only true daemon currently roaming the surface of the planet. Loves life in all its forms, but will burn it all to ash for her only grandchild. Bakes cupcakes in her spare time.

[readmypaws]

Announcement!

Well folks,

Y’all are gonna be seeing a lot more written content soon cause I am participating in the 2024 Yuri Olympics. It’ll be a mild break from the usual writing, but in the spirit of pride as a lesbian myself why not spend the month of June competing in a media contest for wlw ships! Aka… Prepare for lots of new queer characters to enter the TGMP canon (Art by Camthemad)

[obelisart]

The Goat and the Sheep (part 12)

Read my comics in order on Webtoon Canvas

[storynprogress]

ShortStory

I'm looking for some beta readers for a spooky lesbian short story I wrote.

It's about a hunter who stumbles upon a seemingly abandoned town while tracking a monster. Only to discover there is one occupant still holding out against the monster outbreak.

Here's a quick mood board I put together for it.

[worldscheeriestemo]

A Sapphic Vignette

“Nothing of hers would ever need to be mine but she exists there, in the light, by the tree, in the palm of the world and that knowledge makes a little piece of sun inside of me.”

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

Agony of Promises Kept

(Edited title to Depths of Promises Sworn)

By Irene Fray

By order of the Vylian Castellan, forever may she reign.

Prince Ayre - Fourteenth of Her Unholiness's Brood, has been dispatched to your territories in order to complete a binding ritual to the Lunarian Seed Seers Cerya Waning-Moon and Theriya Frost-Crescent within no less than ten moons. It has been communicated that the Prince shall be expected to remain as a token of good faith that your interests remain aligned with the Castellan's and worthy of our direct protection.

As communicated in prior correspondence, the Prince travels with Astraea Wyrmsbane. The Castellan deems this more than adequate to ensure a steady production of Moonwrought Implements for our needs.

The Third Sister and I eagerly await your arrival so that the covenant between our nations can be properly renewed.

Faithfully yours until the thrones of old are bled dry and our vile moon is satiated,

Prince Morganth - Second of Her Unholiness's Brood.

I. Um. Was not sure how to write a description for my fantasy lesbian arranged marriage story between a largely disposable and traumatized main cast who are prisoners of their stations within evil families.

But an in-universe message that treats the main cast as fucking bargaining chips in their own story makes me feel a kind of way.

Lil clarifications. Ayre does not have a gender but I built an entire oppressive world where gender is forced upon them.

They are surrounded by girls and monster girls because I am a lesbian.

Every Prince, Seed Prince, and worse masculine title I come up with is for Ayre is meant to hurt.

That said.

Ayre and Cerya spend four whole chapters gently and slowly figuring out whether they are willing to show any intimacy and interest in each other at all.

And then a trans moon elf girl barges into the story with a steel chair to bash Ayre and the readers over where this story is going from here. But all that setup is so Ayre can receive one fucking hug and... genuinely want better for themselves.

This is going to have an absurd amount of smut that goes into varying amounts of detail. Some of it with monsters. Some of it bloody. A lot of it with trans girls in the central polycule.

I am literally just waiting on commissioned art of Cerya and Theriya to slap on the cover before sharing it. I average a 2,000 word chapter a day w/ writing that just constantly delights me.

[lechantdesmouettes]

Bonne journée de visibilité des lesbiennes ‼️ Pour encore plus de lesbiennes problématiques n'hesitez pas à lire ma bd des 23h 👌 (c'est la deuxième partie, il faut lire celle de 2023 pour la première partie )