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aparticularbandit · 1 year ago

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On Tea and Ghosties: Chapter Two

Summary: Many, many years ago, Agatha Harkness fell in love with Cian Masters. Some years later, Cian accepted her advances. For a time, they were happy.

Three years ago, that ended.

And Agatha is going to fixt that.

AU of The Valentines Collection.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

AO3

previous chapter

Liv should never have been given direct access to Horton Cells. No truly mad scientist should, particularly not one with such questionable morals as Doctor Octavius, but the people who have found themselves maintaining her and her research tend to believe that they have a greater control over her than Giovanni did when he gave her access to the creation of MewTwo. (It does not matter that the creature and all who have encountered them after have referred to them as Mewtwo; Liv has seen the reports – she knows that the stylization should have the second capitalization, knows that’s how the clone project was named.)

Of course, Liv couldn’t use the same genetic code to create a new human body the same way that Mewtwo’s creators crafted a new pokemon – she certainly couldn’t use Mew’s cells for that – but with all of their successful research combined with all of Professor Horton’s research combined with all of Liv’s genius—

Agatha finds herself looking down at a body that might as well be a blank slate. Genderless. Hairless. Colorless. Most of these described Cian when they were alive, to some extent – although Cian wouldn’t have called themselves genderless and they certainly weren’t colorless, no matter how pale they might have been. The body’s eyes were closed, so Agatha couldn’t see the mossy green she so loved, but if she’s honest with herself? Something says they would be just as colorless as the rest of their body.

“What is this?”

“The body.” Liv gestures with one hand, and May, her Galvantula, lifts one of her legs and sends a shock through the body, which spasms. “See? Shove enough electricity into it, and it works.”

The light from the shock glows golden in Agatha’s eyes. She wants to turn away, but doesn’t, refusing. Still, her hand runs through Ebony’s fur, tightening just enough for her Umbreon to tense beneath her. “Won’t that hurt them?”

Liv rolls her eyes and turns away from the body. “Sure, it hurts. You’re shoving a soul back into a body. A new, unfamiliar body. And then you’re using electricity and stolen life force to bring them back. It’s immeasurably painful.” She doesn’t turn back, instead shuffles a few papers together and straightens them as she says, “Still sure you want to do this?”

“Of course,” Agatha says without hesitation.

“No matter how much it hurts your Cian?”

“Of course,” Agatha repeats, again without hesitation, although she can feel something within her drawing away. Her lips press together. “Claire did this to Eve? All of this pain?”

Liv shrugs and turns back, but still doesn’t focus on Agatha, carrying her stack of papers to a nearby filing bin. “Eve’s body was her own. She wasn’t dead for years. Sure, caused her some pain, but likely not near as much as it’ll cause Cian.” Her eyes light up, and she gives a near toothy grin. “It will be a joy to see.”

Agatha stares at Liv. She takes in her grin, and one brow raises. “Claire sure found a wonder when she saved you, didn’t she, babe?”

“Didn’t you know?” Liv’s grin deepens somehow, and her glasses flash like she’s an evil anime character (and she might as well be, in Agatha’s opinion, although you will never hear her say that). “That’s precisely why Claire saved me. To do the things she and her pretty little wife won’t even consider. So that you could reap the benefits.” She leans forward, eyes lighting up. “Isn’t that just peachy?”

If she was a better person, Agatha might be filing this away to have a conversation with her sister later. But Agatha is not a better person. Knowing all of this, she’s not going to change her mind. Given the opportunity, she’s doing the same thing. So, no, she won’t breathe a word of this to Claire.

She’s not Eve, after all.

Agatha first noticed the teacup about a month after Cian’s death.

No. That’s not true.

She thought it was a dream at the time, but if she thinks about it long enough, Agatha can almost – almost – remember a Dusknoir hovering next to the teacup in the doorway to her bedroom.

It was very, very early in the morning. Agatha hadn’t been sleeping very well at all, had barely been sleeping since Cian’s death, had been afraid to sleep, although she would never admit that aloud. It was foggy outside. The sun wasn’t up yet. She’d just been drifting off.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, Agatha saw it – the Dusknoir, looming just outside of her bedroom door. She started to sit up, to brush her fingers through Ebony’s fur and wake her, too, but something kept her frozen. Maybe, in another life, she would have fought that more. Maybe, in another life, she would have been afraid.

But not right now. Not so close to losing Cian.

The sun rose, and the Dusknoir faded away, and she must have drifted off because when she woke up, nothing had changed, and she was safe and alive, and there was that little teacup, hovering at her bedside table with a first worried and then happy expression painted across it.

Agatha curled up on her side, closer to Ebony, and finally fell into the first true, deep sleep she’d had since Cian’s death.

The teacup was there ever since.

“That body looks like a suit made out of playdough.”

“That body will adapt itself to however your Cian wants it to look.” Liv settles her black and green goggles into place, fiddles with a few of the wires attached to it, and then sighs before tossing Agatha a pair of goggles identical to hers, only with purple lenses instead of green ones. “Protect your eyes or get out of my lab.”

Agatha puts the goggles on just in time for a flash of blinding light. Her sight adjusts enough to make out the edges of things, a sharp onyx black in all of the white light. She makes out Liv, with her maniacal grin; she makes out the wires connected to the body, writhing with energy from far too many sources trying to pour into them all at once; and she barely, barely makes out the outline of the body, the source of the light. Then Liv does something she can’t make out, and all of that fades.

It’s only then that she realizes that the body was hovering, only as it lands, harsh, back on the sterile metal table.

Liv nods to it as she pushes her goggles atop her head, squints, and then settles them back into place. “It almost makes you could die, doesn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“Having a body that could look however you want.” Liv looks at the body with unrepressed longing. She sighs. “Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

Agatha removes her goggles. “I guess.” She stares down at them, at the reflection of her in both of its lenses, distorted and violently violet. “How much longer,” she asks, “until you’re ready?”

Liv chuckles. She glances over, and the light flashes against her goggles, a sharp white against all of that green. “Ready whenever you are, babe.” That grin returns, that terrifying, terrifying grin, and it sends a shiver down Agatha’s spine. “Just bring your ghostie to me.”

My ghostie lies deep in their bedroom. My ghostie lies deep in their tea. My ghostie lies scared on my shoulder. Please bring back my ghostie to—

It shouldn’t take a few more days, but it does.

Agatha knows what she wants, knows what she needs to do, knows that it will cause Cian an untold amount of pain but that it will be worth it in the end. She knows all of these things, knows even more that this will fix her, that it will let her undo her mistake from that day three years ago, will let Cian live the way they might have if she’d been there. And yet, despite knowing all of this, despite being completely unhesitating when she spoke with Liv, she hesitates.

Early one morning, when the sun just begins to crest the horizon, Agatha sits up in her bed, crossed legged, and hunches over, placing her arms on either side of her legs, leaning down until she feels the stretch through her still scarred back. The teacup hovers into view just in front of her and stares up at her with wide eyes, its painted mouth contorting into a small o.

“Would you do it, my love?” Agatha asks, staring at the teacup and meeting its painted lavender eyes. “If it were me, if you knew I would be hurt, would you still…?”

The teacup looks up at her and says nothing. It doesn’t even blink.

Agatha smiles fondly at it, then lifts her finger, licks it, and runs it along the lip of the teacup. It seems to laugh, and she grins. “Ticklish, huh?”

She could, you know.

She could leave them as a Sinistea.

No one would be harmed by that.

But she won’t.

Agatha pulls the singular heal ball from her bedside table and taps it gently against the Sinistea. “I’m sorry, dear,” she murmurs as the teacup’s eyes widen in shock and surprise before the ball drags them inside. “I need you in this. For the procedure.”

The ball shakes once, and Agatha places her hand atop it to keep it still. “I know this isn’t fair, but you’re going to come back. With me.”

The ball shakes again.

“Please, just listen to me for once,” Agatha pleads, her voice turning into a whine near as painful as that she sometimes draws from the lip of the teacup itself. “It’s just for a few minutes. Then you’ll be back. It’ll be fine, Cian, please.”

The ball shakes a third time and then lays still.

Agatha takes a breath. She removes her hand from the ball and stares down at it. If she were a ghost, how would she feel about being trapped in a—

No. She isn’t trapping Cian in anything. It’s just another step on bringing them to life. That’s all. It’s important. Necessary, even.

Agatha takes another breath, sharper, and takes the ball in her hand, staring at it. Then she brushes her hand through Ebony’s hair in a gentle action to wake her, slips out of her bed onto bare feet, and murmurs, “It’s time.”

Oh, bring back my ghostie to—

Agatha hands the ball over to Liv. “It’ll only hurt for a minute,” she whispers, though the Sinistea can’t hear her through the heal ball. “Then everything will…everything will be fine. It will be right. And—”

“Oh, stop that.” Liv shoves the ball into a long tube like they use at the Poke Center. “They can’t hear you.” The tube sucks the ball in without a second thought, just a sharp whooshing noise, and it’s gone. She hands Agatha the same pair of black and purple goggles she’d given them before. “You’re going to want these.”

For a moment, just a moment, as Agatha places the goggles back on her face, she catches sight of that Dusknoir again, looming just in the entryway of the lab. But no sooner has she put them on, then that same blinding light, that same whitening of everything, that same change where she can only see the sharp outlines of everything around her, only now the lab is filled with the mangled sounds of screaming, of machine whirring whining grinding, of various pokemon cries layered on top of each other in what is clearly pain.

In that same moment, the Dusknoir disappears, and Cian is left standing in its place.

“Stop!” Agatha cries out, turning away from Liv and the body. “I’ve got the wrong—”

Cian turns from her and runs.

Agatha runs after them.

Because she runs, Agatha doesn’t see it, but she doesn’t need to.

Liv’s grin grows ever brighter.

You know this as well as I do.

Liv doesn’t stop the machine.

(Why would she? Bring whatever this thing is to life, and then do it again for Agatha’s Cian. Why stop? She can keep this one and play around with it. Claire won’t let her check Eve, after all, and Agatha certainly won’t let her check Cian, although Cian probably would be fine with it.

But this? This is just free gain.

Why would she stop?)

“Cian!”

Agatha reaches out as though to grab them, and they turn, they whirl beneath her grasp, their golden and purple robes fluttering around them, and they stop, just out of reach. She stares up at them – this far away from the machine, they’re more than just an outline (even with the effects of the machine, they were more than just an outline, but she doesn’t catch that now). “Come back,” she says, voice soft. “I can save you. We can bring you back. We can—”

Cian looks down at her. They give her that lopsided not quite smile that always told her how amused they were with her.

“Please, Cian.”

But Cian doesn’t come any closer. They hover in place, as though waiting for something.

Agatha doesn’t have a ball, but something tells her even if she did, even if she threw one, they would break out without even one shake. She steps closer, and this time, they don’t leave. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I should have been there. If I’d been there, I would have saved you, someone would have gotten to you in time, you wouldn’t have died—”

Cian just stares at her. They don’t say anything.

“Cian, angel, I’m—”

Their gaze flits away, down the hallway, back to the lab, but Agatha doesn’t turn away from them.

Ebony comes to a halt just next to her, finally, and looks up at Cian. Their fur prickles, they tense, and they open their mouth in a hiss as the blue circles around their body glow with a bright neon light. To them, Cian crouches down and speaks something that Agatha can neither hear nor understand. Then they reach out, brush a hand through Ebony’s fur, and look up at Agatha with a look of such love.

Agatha shakes her head. “I don’t under—”

Ebony headbutts her so hard that Agatha stumbles. She glares down at her partner. “What was that for?” Then she starts to turn to Cian. “What did you tell her to—”

Except that Cian is gone.

Agatha stares into the emptiness where they once hovered, clinches her hands into fists, and takes a deep breath in, steadying herself. Then she turns and stalks back to the lab.

The body isn’t a body anymore.

Well, technically speaking, it is, it is a body, but it’s not an empty one anymore.

And, of course, it doesn’t look like Cian.

It doesn’t look like anyone Agatha has ever seen, and as she peers closer, pushing her goggles up, she notes that whoever it is…they’re just a child. Barely even thirteen—

Oh.

The girl pushes her dark auburn hair out of her lavender-green eyes, showing off a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looks up and meets Agatha’s eyes with a pale face. “Dad said,” she rasps, lips forming words she understands but has never used before, “Dad said to tell you they love you.” She tucks her hair behind one ear. “And that…and that they’re sorry but that…that they’ve moved on and…and you should, too.”

Agatha steps closer and asks, gentle, “Lily?” She searches the girl’s eyes. “Lillian Rose?”

“Hey, Mom.” Lillian Rose gives her mom a wary, awkward sort of smile. “It’s…it’s nice to finally be here.”

(Agatha doesn’t try and find Cian again.

Liv doesn’t to run tests on Lillian Rose past what’s needed.

They still don’t know if this is actually Lillian Rose or if this is a new form of pokemon, but like Claire, Agatha doesn’t care.

But Agatha, unlike Claire, has that vision of Cian, looking after their daughter’s rebirth. Liv might not believe her, but she’ll hold onto that anyway. And eventually, when she, too, dies, maybe Cian will be the one who guides her ever on.)

#bandit fic #on tea and ghosties with agatha harkness #mcu #agatha harkness #cian masters #agathian #itsv #spiderverse #olivia octavius #liv octavius #claire debella #eve fletcher #the valentines #(mentioned)#it be done! huzzah!#the valentines collection #pokemon au

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aparticularbandit · 1 year ago

Text

On Tea and Ghosties: Chapter One

Summary: Many, many years ago, Agatha Harkness fell in love with Cian Masters. Some years later, Cian accepted her advances. For a time, they were happy.

Three years ago, that ended.

And Agatha is going to fix that.

AU of The Valentines Collection.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

AO3

next chapter

She runs a finger around the lip of her wine glass, pulling out an incessant, eerie whine, and smiles drearily at the sound while her Umbreon, Ebony, the sole partner she lets roam about outside of her ball, curls up near to purring at her bare feet. Outside, the sky is studded with stars; when she was younger, she thought they were holes in the black expanse like holes in a lampshade, but she knows better now. She still likes to imagine them as holes, however, still likes to think if she soared up into the sky with a large enough needle and long enough thread she could sew them all up and leave the sky ebony black. The very idea makes her smile with self-amusement.

A smile that drops as soon as the door behind her creaks open, as soon as she hears the scuttling of insectoid feet along the floor.

Ebony sits up all at once, her purring silenced, bright blue rings along her fur lighting up in trepidation. She searches the room, ruby red eyes scanning here there and everywhere. Then she catches sight of it, the fuzzy yellow and purple, and her fur stands on end. She’s not a cat, so she doesn’t hiss, but she jumps into an attack position, protective of her partner.

“Hush, Ebony.” Agatha brushes a hand along Ebony’s back, threading her fingers through her partner’s fur. “She’s not an enemy.”

Not this time.

A smaller, yellow-green fuzzball of a spider jumps onto the back of the couch, just next to Agatha, and when she reaches up her free hand to brush her fingers along its back, it zaps her with the static built between its strands of fur. She leaves her hand outstretched for it; it nibbles on her fingertips.

“If Liv ever gets tired of you—”

“I won’t.” Liv speaks amidst the chattering of spiders, the shadow she casts eclipsed by her bodyguard, a Grappleoct she’s never named who hovers behind her with its four long arm-like limbs crossed. Her husky voice carries even more weariness than normal, possibly due to the late hour. “What do you want, Agatha?”

Agatha stares at Liv’s reflection in the window across from her. She’s tired, dark bags under her eyes, but another Joltik rests atop her shoulder, nuzzles her neck, shocks her with the same subtle static the other gave Agatha. It takes another moment before Agatha’s gaze drops. “C’mon, Ebony.” She pats the couch cushion next to her, and Ebony jumps up, turns about in a circle, and then curls up. Unlike before, though, Ebony does not begin to purr; everything under her skin lies tense, taut, ready for whatever Agatha needs.

“Agatha.” Now Liv sounds frustrated. Snappish. “What do you want?”

She wets her finger and runs it along the lip of her wine glass again, pulling that same sharp whine out, one that causes the spiders – the Grappleoct – to flinch, a reaction that brings a smile to Agatha’s lips. “Not much, hon,” she murmurs. “What you did for my sister…I want you to do that for me.”

Many, many years ago, Agatha Harkness fell in love with Cian Masters.

Some years later, Cian accepted her advances.

For a time, they were happy.

Three years ago, that ended.

“This isn’t like Eve.” Liv states upright from the beginning. “I can’t fix Cian’s body. And I don’t want you dragging a corpse into my lab and dumping it on me with the sort of expectations—”

“Of course not, hon.”

Agatha cuts Liv off before she can continue, in part because the irritation already evident in Liv’s tone is causing the Joltik on the back of Agatha’s couch to grow more and more staticky, sending small jolts into Agatha’s skin. She doesn’t mind. She’s had worse. Years ago, when she’d still been running the trainer circuit, when she and Cian were both employed in the Elite Four, an errant thunderbolt hit her instead of her partner. The trainer was removed from the program immediately, and Agatha spent months in a hospital, healing, undergoing rehab, until she was finally allowed to go home. She would never be able to dance again, not like she had before.

In the end, that was fine. It meant she got more time with Cian when they got sick. And the pay…. Well, that wasn’t too bad either. Sure, she agreed to the risks when she joined the Elite Four, but the loss of an entire form of income – they covered that. Mostly.

Agatha took a deep breath in, considering her words before she said them, until Ebony butted her head against her thigh. “I propose,” she says, finally, “that we create them a new one.”

Liv remains silent for a few moments. In her reflection in the window, Agatha can see her jaw working, but she can’t tell if that’s her teeth gritting together in frustration or chewing on her cheek in thoughtful consideration. Whatever it is, Liv stops just in time to ask, “Have you found them, then? Do you have a mon in mind?”

A chuckle breaks through Agatha’s lips. In the earlier days, it might have sounded merry or dark, but now it just sounds maniacal. More a cackle than a chuckle. “You really think,” she says between bursts of laughter, “that I would ask if I didn’t already know?”

Three years ago, Cian lost their life to a sudden, unexpected heart attack.

On that day, Agatha was meant to meet them for their morning tea. It was one of the best parts of both their days, a good way to center and meditate and discuss with each other before parting. Even when Agatha wasn’t there, off on one of her tours, Cian maintained the practice. They were, in fact, the one who started it, roping Agatha into it with them when she first began to live with them.

But Agatha was awake far too late on this particular day, not getting to sleep until nearly four in the morning. If asked later, she couldn’t say just why. Something didn’t sit well with her. Her brain wouldn’t shut down. At one point, she remembered kissing Cian on their forehead before getting up on bare feet and cleaning. A bit here. A bit there. Something she thought would exhaust her, but didn’t.

Agatha slept through their morning tea, and Cian died because she was not there, and the little teacup they always used for their tea went missing.

That doesn’t mean that Agatha hasn’t seen the cup again.

Here’s the thing about ghost pokemon.

A good chunk of them are either lost souls fused together with some form of item or they absorb the life force of those around them, whether intentionally to make their flames shine brighter or unintentionally by stealing away small children and simply existing around people.

Now, only a few short months ago, Liv was able to successfully pull a stolen soul from the pokemon who nabbed it and settle it back into the body it once inhabited. Her studies into ghost pokemon and their interactions and abilities allowed her to reverse what had been done, not just to that soul but also to drain life force back from them or from other living creatures around her – pokemon, human, whatever she could find – and bring back what had been lost.

Eve was the first successful use of Liv’s research.

(Eve was the first human use of Liv’s research. Liv said it wasn’t time. Claire pushed her to do it anyway. They were all very excited when she succeeded.)

((They think she succeeded. It’s equally as possible she simply created a new form of ghost pokemon, one that fused with human bodies instead of with inanimate objects and was a much better mimic than a Mimikyu, seeing as it had its predecessor’s brain and memories to draw on. But Claire won’t let Liv run all of the tests on Eve that she wants, so there’s no way of truly knowing for sure.))

It is precisely that research Agatha intends to draw on.

It is precisely that research Agatha intends to use to bring Cian back.

The problem is that Liv hasn’t created a fully functional human body from scratch before.

But given everything else she’s done, how hard could it be?

After Liv leaves, the little teacup hovers into place. It smiles at Agatha as much as it can, even though she doesn’t look at it, even though she only sees its reflection in the window, hovering just above Ebony, who glances up at it, gives it a soft scuff of a sniff, and then lays her head back down atop her paws.

“Good to see you again, my love.”

Agatha crooks a finger, and the teacup hovers down to her lap but takes care not to touch her. She smiles, hums, and then wets her finger before running it around the cup’s lip. A high-pitched whine, similar to that from her wine glass, comes forth, mixed with another, subtler humming made in harmony with the sound. It’s like singing. Just not quite. It’s too inhuman for that.

Still, it brings a deeper smile to Agatha’s lips, one that slips away as she says, “Not much longer, angel. I’ll get you out of there soon.”

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