Chapter Text
In the case of an individual held liable for refusal to pay their federal taxes, thus defrauding the federal government, a window of 90 days is given for the plaintiff to pay the amount owed, otherwise a hearing will commence. Results of the hearing may range from fines to a prison sentence.
These are the 90 days in the case of The Internal Revenue Service vs. Agatha Harkness.
More or less.
Day 90
Sarah Proctor, as a rule, doesn’t work on weekends. She finds the habit, at best, embarrassing, and at worst, unhealthy.
But for every rule, there is an exception. And this exception involves Sarah tapping her key card into the office on a late Saturday morning, sipping her stale coffee, and starting up her computer that is long overdue for an upgrade.
“Have I mentioned you’re my fucking hero?”
Speaking of embarrassing and unhealthy, Rio Vidal is perched on Sarah’s desk, foot tapping anxiously. She doesn’t look like she’s slept in three days. (Or three months, which is more likely, knowing how certain events have played out. Sarah keeps that observation to herself. She likes gossip, but she likes Rio more.)
“It’s no problem,” Sarah says, watching the machine try to blink to life and Rio also try to blink to life.
Sarah used to think Rio was definitively the coolest person working at the IRS (a low bar), but recently, she thinks Rio might be the worst of them all. She has dark circles under her eyes and light sweat stains on her shirt, which Sarah is sure she was wearing yesterday. Sarah remembers when new employees would cower at the sight of Rio, remembers when she herself would blush when Rio paid attention to her. Now, Sarah just wants to direct Rio toward a hot bath and an uninterrupted night of sleep, the poor thing.
Sarah’s computer finally comes to life and Sarah clicks through to log in.
“So,” Rio says, “could you just check for any transfer that came in since yesterday?”
“Just any transfer?” Sarah asks, raising an eyebrow.
Rio has the grace to look embarrassed. “Any transfer from an Agatha Harkness.”
Sarah checks, out of respect for Rio, even though she knows what the answer will be.
“Nothing since yesterday,” Sarah says, the same thing she’s been saying for months now.
“Right,” Rio says. Her eyes look even more tired. “I figured. Obviously. But just in case. Noon today is the last chance she has to… so I thought maybe—It doesn’t matter. Thanks, Sarah.”
There have been times—more than Sarah would like to admit to herself, definitely more than she would admit to her husband—where she has thought that life sure would be easier if she was just born a lesbian. Women are objectively more beautiful than men, more interesting.
Watching the slow decay of Rio Vidal makes her reconsider this thought.
“Look,” Sarah says, “it’s 11:35. I can just wait another 25 minutes to see if anything comes in from Harkness.”
Rio breathes out, shoulders relaxing. A hint of that spark comes back into her eye.
“That would be amazing, Sarah,” she says, earnest and put on all at once. “Have I mentioned you’re the best?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sarah says. She really dodged a bullet on the whole lesbian thing. “Let’s see if the most notorious tax evader on the Eastern Seaboard decides to pay up in the next 25 minutes.”
Day Four
It’s not that Agatha is embarrassed, exactly. She prides herself on being above such childish things as embarrassment. But she does need an answer to a question that tragically only her painfully earnest teen neighbor can answer.
“What’s the app called again?” she asks Billy, gesturing at him to hand over his phone.
“I am not giving you my phone,” Billy insists. “Not after last time.”
“Hey,” Agatha says, “you think I liked seeing those pictures? You need to see sunlight, it was like I was blinded.”
Billy blushes bright pink, which at least temporarily solves his paleness issue.
“Anyway,” he says pointedly. “The app is called Grindr and they don’t make one for lesbians. Sorry.”
Agatha narrows her eyes at him. Billy shrugs. He’s sitting on her front steps, still wearing his dumb little backpack. Agatha ushered him over right when he came home from school, because, like it or not, he is young and gay and knows these things. And Agatha isn’t dumb enough to look up “lesbian sex app” online and get some sort of virus.
And it turns out there isn’t even a lesbian sex app, so what is the fucking point of it all?
“You could try Tinder or Hinge?” Billy suggests. “That just gives you people to match with, like any other dating app. Or Lex? I think that one’s more community based.”
“Please,” Agatha says. The last thing she needs is to date. Or, god forbid, community. “So there’s really nothing where I can just… browse? And select?”
Billy raises his eyebrows. “You know these are people, right? On the other side of the app?”
“Hey, don’t judge me. You people are the ones who made Grind-her.”
“‘You people?’” Billy says, indignant and amused all at once. “Also it’s Grind-r not grind-her. Famously, the problem is you can’t grind her.”
He laughs at his own joke. Agatha rolls her eyes.
“Ugh, sorry for asking,” she says.
“If I may—” Billy ventures.
“You may not.”
“It’s not like you’ve ever really had… trouble in that department.” Billy’s blush threatens to return. “I mean, just last weekend you had—”
“Thanks for your input,” Agatha snaps. She doesn’t need a fucking teen to tell her about her sex life.
Billy shuts his mouth, purses his lips. Then he opens them again.
“I mean, it seems like you’ve got someone at your beck and call. Unless of course…” Billy trails off purposefully. Agatha doesn’t take the bait. “Maybe you want a Grindr-type app to find someone specific. About 40. 5’6”. Dark hair. Brown Eyes. Works for the government. Hot.”
“Fuck off,” Agatha says succinctly. “She’s not even your type.”
“Hey, hot is hot, regardless of gender.”
“Tell that to Grindr,” Agatha says with a glare. Then she sighs, drawn out. She’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.
The train into the city is mostly empty on a Thursday night, the herd of commuters going the other way. Agatha looks out the window, watches the lack of scenery pass by.
Billy, for the record, is an idiot. He’s a teenager. A sensitive and gay teenager, no less. He sees the same person coming and going from Agatha’s house multiple times and his little romantic brain conjures up fanciful stories, narratives.
There are no narratives here. Agatha simply has needs. It is irrelevant how much her obnoxiously active libido has to do with a beautiful woman who woke up in her bed last weekend and then subsequently slapped her with a lawsuit.
Agatha is a grown woman. Agatha has lived her life not giving into the childish notion that you can only fuck one person at a time. Agatha spent her 20s tearing through the city of Boston, breaking hearts and eating pussy with the rest of them, and her tenure in Jersey has involved many a trip up to the city to do more of the same, even bringing a few back home. This, at least, is familiar territory.
Agatha instinctively knows the transfer of trains that gets her to the dyke bar in the East Village easily, even though, Jesus, every time she comes here, the clientele seem younger and dumber than the last time. A few of them eye her when she walks in, a comforting stroke to the ego in these trying times. They aren’t what Agatha is looking for at the moment, though, they don’t have that je ne sais quoi. They aren’t about 40, 5’6”, dark hair, brown eyes, and work for the government, an annoying voice that sounds like Billy says in her head. Agatha tries to ignore it. She sits on a dirty barstool and orders a dirty martini and looks.
An little corner of her mind, one that is almost as foolish and romantic as her teen neighbor, pictures the door to this dive bar in the Village opening and Rio Vidal walking in, suit crisp, hair up, grin wide. She would eye Agatha up and down and buy her a drink like they weren’t already acquainted. She would sit close to her, voice low and deep, and tell Agatha that she couldn’t resist her; couldn’t stay away; she would tell Agatha that it doesn’t matter what Agatha says to her, she will never give up. She would put her hand on Agatha’s leg and whisper in her ear, those sweet words she said in anger last weekend, but in earnest this time. Rio would come into this bar, tell Agatha she loves her, soft and sweet, and then she would fuck her in the bar bathroom, hard and desperate.
The door swings open, and Agatha tenses, fantasy mixing with her fickle trickle of hope.
It’s just some woman. Agatha breathes out, disgusted with herself, and uncomfortably turned on for being alone at the lesbian bar.
She looks at the woman who just came in. She’s barely 5’3”, probably not a day over 35 and has light brown hair. She’s wearing a slightly wrinkled suit. Agatha sighs, downs the rest of her drink. Desperate times.
Day 15
“I know a guy,” Lilia says. Then she immediately regrets her phrasing.
“You know a guy?” Agatha asks with laughs. “You really are so Italian sometimes. You gonna call up your buddy, Tony Soprano?”
Lilia purses her lips. She really doesn't have to put up with this. In fact, she has spent the last few weeks really considering why the hell she is putting up with this. She’s retired, for all intents and purposes. They had a party and everything, almost a decade ago, with streamers and mediocre cake and the associates cobbling together a terrible banner that read GOODBYE TO THE LAW, LILIA! She had pointed out that it looks like she was becoming a criminal, not retiring.
And well, here she is, working with Agatha Harkness again, so who can say if she’s a lawyer or a criminal? What’s the difference anyway, these days?
“So you know a guy,” Agatha prompts. She’s spread out on a chair in Lilia’s home office, legs strewn over the arm, a completely ridiculous position for a 50 year old woman who needs legal council.
“I know a person,” Lilia amends. She feels a headache coming on. “Or, I knew her mother back in the day, but she could be of help.”
Agatha looks doubtful. “So you knew a guy who knows a guy? I really expected more from my mafiosa lawyer.”
“I don’t work for the mafia,” Lilia says, for what feels like the hundredth time. She did help out a few of her uncles back in the day, made sure their paperwork was all clean. But that’s neither here nor there. “She’s a journalist.”
“Okay,” Agatha says. “And I dabble in skincare. What’s your point?”
One of the proudest moments of Lilia’s career happened ten years ago, finally winning a case after two years of fighting tooth and nail against every obstacle that the state hospital put against her. Anyone who has been in the law long enough knows that after a while, it stops being about justice, and starts being about getting paid. Or at least about doing the least harm. But this case was different, a sick kid, a mother full of a rage Lilia knew from the mirror after her sisters died. This case felt like justice for the first time in a long time.
Unfortunately, this case also stuck her with Agatha Harkness as a client. Even after she retired. Like a stray cat you feed once but then calls you a decade later because she apparently hasn’t been paying taxes for 30 years. Never mind that Lilia never even was a tax attorney. (Every March, she does help her nephews make sure their taxes are lined up with what the government thinks their real jobs are, but that’s not relevant.)
“Listen,” Lilia says, exhausted. “There are three ways this could go. One: you pay what you owe.”
Agatha laughs, a loud melodic thing. Lilia figured.
“Two: this thing goes to tax court. Which will mostly likely result in you going to jail or paying even more than what you owe now.”
“Huh,” Agatha says, “I thought I hired a lawyer to stop that from happening.”
“Third,” Lilia continues, despite the interruption. “You cut it off at the head. The court of public opinion.” She slides a business card over her desk to Agatha. “This is my guy. Give her a call.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. Soprano,” Agatha says with a grin.
“I’m not in the mafia,” Lilia says tiredly. “Just because my family is from Sicily—”
“Just like the Corleones—”
“Does not make me part of any criminal activity. You purposefully not paying your taxes—”
“Allegedly.”
“—does.”
“Sure, Lilia,” Agatha says, with an easy grin. “Tell Bruno and Luigi good luck with the shipping business next time you see them.”
Lilia regrets ever sharing personal details with this woman.
“Just call the reporter,” she says.
“Sure thing, boss,” Agatha says with a wink.
Lilia wonders if there’s any way she could retire again.
Day 29
There’s a bad energy in the weekly team meeting. Not that there’s ever a great energy in the weekly team meeting, but today is particularly rancid. A heat wave has settled in DC, making the air thick and wet and miserable, and the ancient air conditioning of the IRS building doesn’t stand a chance.
Rio sweats through her shirt as she sits and listens to John drone on and on about quarterly reviews. He’s sweating more than usual, more than even the faulty AC merits, anxiety radiating off of him and spreading to everyone else in the humid conference room.
Exactly when the meeting is scheduled to be over, John clears his throat, pulls at his collar a little.
“One more thing—sorry guys, I know you all want to get out of here—but if you get a call from The New York Times, just say ‘no comment.’”
Rio raises her eyebrows. It’s not like this is anything new, everyone who works on the high profile corporate cases has been through media training. But this must be something good, something that’s causing John to sweat.
“Is there a specific story?” Rio asks, leaning forward, elbows on the table.
She isn’t trying to get her hopes up, but she’s been kind of crushing the Amazon case recently, if she does say so herself. Ever since… ever since last month, Rio has thrown herself more than usual into her work, and she would almost love it if the media got ahold of this, if this New York Times thing exposed Bezos and the rest of them. People hate the IRS, sure, but they hate big corporations more. Maybe if there was a big story about how the IRS is actually doing great work—about how Rio is actually doing great work—certain people would pay attention. Though Rio isn’t sure if certain people even read The New York Times. Maybe Rio can send this article to certain people. Or show up like a paper boy at certain people's houses in New Jersey with an article that paints her as a very cool person who is good at her job at the IRS, and show that anyone stuck in a lawsuit with the IRS should just give it up already, pay what they owe, and return Rio’s calls.
So, whatever, she hopes it’s a good article.
“No specific story,” John says quickly. He’s sweating even more. “Just that there might be some media heading our way.”
“Sure,” Rio says.
She waits until the meeting is over to approach John one-on-one. He looks eager to leave, but she traps him in the warmest corner of the conference room.
“So what’s the deal with the Times story?” She asks again. “Come on, it's me.”
John swallows. “That’s why—Vidal, just say ‘no comment’ if they reach out, okay? Especially because it’s you.”
“So it’s Amazon? If Bezos was behind the article, it would be in The Washington Post, right? So maybe with the Times, it will be more of a positive—”
“It’s not Amazon,” John says. He sounds exhausted. He slips past her to the door, before shooting her a grimace. “It’s Harkness.”
“What?” Rio says, so loudly that some people walking the halls turn to look at her. Her heart is pounding in her throat. She might throw up.
“Jesus Christ,” John says. “Please don’t be weird about this.”
“Why would I be weird about this?” Rio asks, being weird about it.
John just shoots her a look.
“Why would Agatha go to the media?” Rio asks. The first name slips out of her unbidden. She wishes she could swallow it back in. Using Agatha’s first name makes it seem like Agatha is someone Rio knows intimately, not just another case. And well, Agatha is someone Rio knows intimately, in all definitions of the word, but John doesn’t need to know that. It's actually very important that John does not know that.
“If I were a betting man,” John says, “I would say it’s some BS human interest story to make us look bad for suing her, hoping it will drum enough press to make us drop the suit. But I’m sure it will blow over.”
Rio highly highly doubts anything to do with Agatha Harkness will blow over.
“I need to go up there again,” Rio says before she can help it.
John raises his eyebrows. “What?”
Rio swallows. She’s now the one profusely sweating.
“I mean, we established kind of a… rapport, when I was auditing her, I could maybe get intel on the story.”
“Vidal, that’s a terrible fucking idea,” John says.
“Right,” Rio says. “Yeah, of course. I didn’t—just trying to help.”
“You can help by saying ‘no comment’ and then letting comms deal with the press.”
“Comms?” Rio scoffs. “Ralph’s team? Come on.”
“Press is their job,” John reiterates. “Not yours.”
“All due respect,” Rio says, with no respect at all. “Agatha Harkness would eat someone like Ralph alive. I’m the only one in this whole agency she hasn’t eaten alive.”
(Well, she’s eaten parts of Rio alive, but that’s not exactly relevant.)
John sighs. “I know, Vidal. You’re very good at what you do. But please, for now, just stay away from the Harkness case until we know more.”
“Fine,” Rio says. She clears her throat. “Unrelated, the AC is ass in here, is it cool if I work from home for the afternoon?”
“Sure,” John says, clearly exhausted. “Whatever you need. Just get back to Amazon, okay?”
“You got it,” Rio says.
And she does get back to Amazon. For the three hours it takes for the Amtrak to make its way from DC to Jersey, Rio studiously combs over the expense reports from Amazon’s CFO. She sends a few emails. She eats a mediocre sandwich from the cafe cart. She goes to the bathroom three times to make sure her hair isn’t too greasy and her face isn’t too sweaty. It’s a very productive train ride.
It’s just as hot in Jersey as it is in DC; climate change taking its inescapable toll up and down the East Coast. Rio spends her uber ride debating whether to keep her blazer on (professional, hot, kind of her look) or take it off (she’s sweating so much, it could be nice to show some skin, she feels like she might pass out). She keeps it on.
When Rio’s car pulls up to Agatha’s house, she’s greeted with the Americana image of a teen boy with a lawnmower, burning up in the sun. Rio laughs as she gets out of the car.
“She better be paying you for that,” she calls to Billy, whose skinny little arms are fighting for their life against the lawnmower.
He turns around, the motion creating a circle of cut grass on the lawn.
“Rio!” He greets like they are old friends, shutting off the mower and grinning widely. “It’s been a minute.”
It’s actually been 29 days, not that Rio has been counting.
“Work’s been busy,” Rio says, shrugging.
“Doesn’t that mean you should be here more often?” Billy says with a smirk. Little shit.
“I have other work, you know,” Rio says, crossing her arms. “Kind of big deal cases.”
“Sure,” Billy says easily. “But it’s good you’re back, she’s been meaner than usual.”
Rio lets out a laugh, a small trickle of relief going through her that Agatha is affected by Rio’s absence too. That she isn’t alone in this.
“Meaner than usual, huh?” Rio says, grinning. “That’s a high bar to clear.”
“I know, right?”
“So is she home?” Rio asks. She’s pretty proud of having waited this long.
“Uh, yeah,” Billy says, his smile faltering a little. “She is, but someone else is also visiting, I think.”
“You think or you know?” Rio asks, eyes narrowing.
“I know,” Billy admits, swallowing. “She came over, like an hour ago?”
“She?” Rio asks, stomach in her throat. “Kid, if this is one of Agatha’s women—”
Billy raises his hands up. “I don’t know, I’m just mowing the lawn.”
“What does she look like?” Rio pressed.
Billy swallows. “Maybe your age, dyed hair, kind of cool vibes.”
“Dyed hair?” Rio says, appalled that some bitch with dyed hair would go into Agatha’s house in the middle of the afternoon and do god knows what. “Cool vibes?”
They both know cool vibes is code for visibly queer. Rio is going to kill her. Kill both of them. Kill Billy too if he keeps being such a deep well of awful information.
“Only partially dyed?” Billy offers. “I don’t even know if she…I shouldn’t have even said anything.”
“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t have,” Rio agrees with a glare.
Then she stalks up to the door, pounds her fist against it before she can overthink. If Agatha opens the door wearing a poorly concealing robe and there is another woman there, Rio can’t be held accountable for her actions. She rings the bell. She’s sweating right through her shirt. She shouldn’t have gone with the blazer.
After what feels like 20 minutes and is probably 20 seconds, the door swings open.
Agatha isn’t wearing a robe. Agatha is wearing a crisp white shirt and a little bit of mascara and looks far more put together than Rio does. It’s odd; Rio has been turning over the image of this woman in her head for 29 days, but seeing her in the flesh still makes Rio’s breath halt in her chest, something desperate slide up her throat.
Agatha’s eyes widen when she sees Rio. For the first time, Rio’s presence on Agatha’s doorstep seems to shock her. It makes a sick pride bloom in Rio’s chest. That these 29 days weren’t something she faced alone.
“Rio,” Agatha breathes, the first name slipping out of her as if by accident.
Rio smiles, unable to help herself. “Miss me?”
Agatha’s face curves into an answering grin, predatory, a “yes” that she will never say aloud.
“Come to drop the lawsuit?” she asks instead.
“In your dreams,” Rio says.
“Oh, Agent Vidal, my dreams are far more interesting than that.”
Rio is still smiling. Smiling even more now. She isn’t sure she would be able to stop if she tried. God, the last 29 days of her life were boring.
“Is this someone from the IRS?” Rio hears from behind Agatha, and then Rio is absolutely not smiling anymore because, from the shadows of Agatha’s living room, comes a woman with dyed hair and cool vibes that Rio instantly wants to murder.
Rio doesn’t say anything, clenching her jaw and staring down this woman. She doesn’t look at Agatha’s face—she can’t. If she saw any trace of affection in Agatha’s eyes, Rio would commit double homicide.
The woman, either unaware or purposefully ignoring Rio’s death glare, holds out her hand.
“Alice Wu-Gulliver, The New York Times,” she says, and oh fuck, maybe the only thing worse than this person being one of “Agatha’s women” is that she works for the fucking New York Times.
(Rio knows in her gut, with her twisted priorities, that this version is still preferable. But it’s still quite bad. Very bad. Lose your job bad.)
The sun beats down on Rio and she swallows down the nausea in her throat. She doesn’t take the hand of “Alice Wu-Gulliver, The New York Times” and instead, finally turns her gaze toward Agatha, who is looking at Rio with pure delight.
“Your timing couldn’t have been better,” Agatha purrs. “Sure, you interrupted an interview, but I know Alice would actually love to pick your brain, Agent—”
“Agatha.” Rio says, hard. She notices Agatha’s eyes perk up at that. Not now. “I see you’re busy. I’ll come back.”
“You sure you don’t want to come in and chat? Have a cup of coffee? Like old times?”
“No.” Rio says bluntly. She gives a tight lipped glance to the reporter. “Nice to meet you.”
“I didn’t catch your name,” Alice says.
“No, you didn’t,” Rio says, and with as much dignity as she can muster, she turns to walk up the driveway.
“Who was that?” Rio hears Alice ask Agatha.
“No one important,” Agatha says airily.
Rio clenches her fists. She’s being baited, she knows it. She knows Agatha wants her to storm back into the house and tell this reporter who she is, compromise everything. And God, Rio is tempted, the idea that she means nothing to Agatha sitting like poison in her stomach. But she won’t turn back. She’s stronger than that. She hears the door shut behind them and breathes out a frustrated sigh.
“You good?”
Rio turns. It’s just the kid, leaning on his lawnmower. Rio forgot he was there.
“Great,” Rio deadpans.
“Hey,” Billy says, not even pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping, “being a reporter is better than being, you know…”
He’s tragically right. But it’s still pretty fucking bad.
“Hey kid,” she says, turning to him. He flinches a little at the intensity. “If that woman from The New York Times asks you anything, you say no comment, capice?”
“No problem,” the kid says easily. “The New York Times has gotten increasingly right wing in the last couple years, anyway.”
God bless this kid’s bleeding heart.
“Exactly,” Rio says. “No fucking comment. Especially if she asks about me.”
Billy raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything.
“Good job,” Rio says. “And make Agatha pay you for mowing her lawn.”
“Will I need to write it off on my taxes?” He quips.
Rio narrows her eyes. Agatha is rubbing off on this kid.
“It’s been fun,” she tells him. “See you around.”
Rio doesn't actually know if that’s true. If she knows what’s good for her, she will not see this kid around. She will get her ass back to the train station immediately, hop on an Amtrak and be back in DC in hours.
Instead, she checks into the Holiday Inn Express. Might as well use those points her work trips have gotten her.
The room is boring and bleak. The AC is also a little busted in here, Jesus Christ, Rio can’t catch a break. She sheds her layers until she’s just in a tank top and underwear, then flops onto the bed and turns on cable, absently flipping to a Seinfeld marathon.
On screen, George is just trying to park his car, but another car slides into his spot at the last second. It’s fucked up really, that George has to fight this guy about whose parking spot it is. George got there first. George was just following protocol. But now this other guy is ruining everything because he won’t follow the rules and poor George doesn’t get his damn parking spot.
Rio lies back in the bed and decides to order an obscene amount of Italian food. She doesn't think she can go back to Agatha’s tonight. Can’t bear it. Not if that reporter is still there. Rio can picture Agatha now, sitting at the kitchen table where she first talked to Rio, where she first touched Rio, and casually telling this other woman:
“Oh, Agent Vidal? She’s in love with me. She’s really pathetic about it too. Did that affect her auditing skills? Well, I’ll leave that to the public to decide.”
On the TV, the people on the street take the side of the parking spot thief. Rio throws a pillow at the screen.
Three Seinfelds and one sunset later, Rio’s phone buzzes with the notification that her food is here, then, a minute later, there’s a knock at her door. Rio groans. She thought she told them to leave it at the front desk. Seems like the whole world hates doing what Rio tells them to. She sighs, reluctantly getting up and pulling on her pants. There’s another knock.
“One second, Jesus,” she calls, buttoning her pants, and swinging the door open.
Her eyes take a second to adjust the the bright light of the hallway, and then—
“What the fuck,” is all she can manage to say, greeted with the incomprehensible image of Agatha Harkness holding a large paper bag of Italian food.
Agatha’s eyes immediately go to Rio’s chest. Rio forgot for a moment that she’s only wearing a ribbed tank top with no bra. You can essentially see full tit, and Agatha sure is looking. Rio grins, unable to help herself.
“Do you do delivery work on the side?” she asks sarcastically. “Because you’re gonna need to file a 1099 for that.”
”Funny,” Agatha says, eyes back up on Rio’s face. “You always answer the door like this?”
Rio grins wider. “Like what?”
Agatha’s eyes glance down to Rio’s tits again. This is fun.
“So are you going to invite me in or what?” Agatha asks.
“What are you, a vampire?” Rio asks. “How did you even know what room I was staying in? Or what hotel?”
Agatha rolls her eyes, and barges into the hotel room with no invite. So not a vampire.
“The IRS always puts you up at the Holiday Inn Express. And your room number’s on the receipt.” Agatha holds up the bag of food, before placing it onto the desk and investigating the contents. “Eating for a small army?”
“I was hungry,” Rio says. Then she smiles. “So you just waited in the lobby for hours until some food was dropped off for me?”
“Please,” Agatha says, “I just got here. Was about to get the front desk guy to spill.”
“You could have, you know, called me.”
“Now where’s the fun in that?” Agatha says with a sideways grin. Her eyes, like they are controlled by gravity, once again find their way to Rio’s chest.
Rio preens a little under it, she can’t help it. There’s something about the raw desire in Agatha’s face, raw desire for her, that makes Rio feel both vindicated and turned on at the same time. Agatha can play it cool all she wants, but her want is painted on her face, in her inability to keep her eyes off Rio.
It’s also a moment of vulnerability that Rio can use.
“So what’s the deal with this New York Times bullshit?” Rio asks.
“Always with the subtlety of a brick, Agent Vidal,” Agatha says, digging in the bag of Rio’s food. “Two sides of garlic bread, really?”
“Giovanni’s garlic bread is really good,” Rio says. “You know you’re going to need a better game plan than airing our… history out to a paper of record. It’s not going to stop the IRS from suing you.”
Agatha tears into a piece of garlic bread. More evidence that she’s not a vampire. The only evidence that she is a vampire is that she’s actively sucking away Rio’s life force.
“So self-centered, Vidal,” Agatha says, mouth full. “If I recall correctly, you were the one saying this whole thing is beyond you and me.”
Rio glares at her. “And you were the one who said that was bullshit.”
“Maybe I’ve changed,” Agatha says, with a little pout.
Rio rolls her eyes. “Sure you have.”
“Believe it or not, this ‘New York Times bullshit’ has nothing to do with you.” Agatha swallows the garlic bread. “My fight is with the Internal Revenue Service, not the Irritating Rio Service.”
“Funny,” Rio deadpans, “did you spend 29 days just thinking of that joke?”
“So you’ve been counting the days,” Agatha says smugly.
“I like numbers,” Rio says, a poor defense.
“Oh, I know,” Agatha says, with a smile. “So if you’re such a numbers girl, can you answer a question for me? How many miles did you travel today? How much money did you spend? Just to come knocking on my door again?”
“You knocked on my door,” Rio says, pointing to the door in question. “You tracked me down.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Agatha says, even as, once again, her eyes flick down to Rio’s nipples through her shirt.
“Please,” Rio says, flattering herself, “you haven’t been able to stop staring at my tits for the past ten minutes.”
“Well, why the fuck did you answer the door like that?” Agatha says, waving a hand in the general direction of said tits. “The delivery guy would have drooled.”
“You’re drooling,” Rio says, practically beaming.
“Please,” Agatha says, but she makes no attempt to hide her staring. Her eyes are blatantly hungry, lingering not just on Rio’s chest, but down the slope of her stomach to where her pants fall on her hips. She looks at Rio’s shoulders, her collarbone, the curve of her neck. Rio feels warm all over, not just from the hotel’s shitty AC.
Rio leans her hip against the desk, picks up her own piece of garlic bread, tears her teeth into it.
“You can admit it,” she says casually, licking her fingers. “How much you’ve thought about me for the last 29 days.”
Agatha’s eyes slowly trace from Rio’s breasts to her mouth, back up to her eyes. Rio smiles at her.
“Oh Rio,” Agatha says, something icy in her tone that makes Rio immediately stop smiling. “You know I can find other ways to keep my bed warm. With people who aren’t suing me.”
There’s a second of nothing. Agatha’s eyebrow minutely shifts up. Rio’s heart beats hard in her chest. Then, in a flash, she’s pushing Agatha against the hotel desk, hands on her hips, nails digging in.
“You’re lying,” Rio hisses, hoping to god she is.
Agatha blinks up at her, doe-eyed and evil. “Am I?”
“You better be,” Rio says through her teeth, breath hot on Agatha’s face.
Agatha sucks in a gasp. Her hips lean up into Rio’s.
“You have garlic breath,” she says, the insult not quite landing with her eyes dark and her body pressed to Rio’s.
“So do you,” Rio counters.
Agatha swallows, then grins, plays her winning card that both of them know she has simply been waiting for the right time to pull out.
“Still in love with me, Vidal?”
It’s an objectively stupid question. Rio has felt more in the past ten minutes in this hotel room than she felt in the 29 days back in her real life. Rio wants to tear Agatha apart at even the idea of being with someone else. Then she wants to put her back together again, kiss her wounds. Rio craves proximity to this woman like she’s never craved anything else, this pulse between them intoxicating and addictive.
“Of course I am,” Rio says bluntly, knowing that her honesty will unsettle Agatha more than any avoidance. She presses a light kiss to the shell of Agatha’s ear, and whispers, “of course I am, baby.”
Agatha breathes in a shaky breath, her hands twitching at her sides. Rio smiles. She loves being right. She kisses Agatha’s neck gently, a brush of lips on Agatha’s skin, then a barely there press of her tongue.
The taste of Agatha’s skin after all this time makes Rio’s whole body clench, makes a sharp wanting shoot down her spine. God, she missed her. Unbidden, her hands dig harder into Agatha’s hips, her mouth opening further on Agatha’s neck, kissing her harder, needing to taste more of her, all of her, teeth pressing in.
“Rio,” Agatha moans, loud and uncontrolled, legs spreading, pulling Rio closer.
Rio sucks a bruise into Agatha’s neck, steps in between her legs, pulls her shirt open, palms pressing to warm skin, mouth tasting sweat. Agatha is as loud as ever, grunting and panting and gasping, sweet sounds that Rio wants to remember forever, wants to keep inside of her.
And maybe none of the rest of it matters. Maybe the article and the alleged other women and the 29 days of waiting doesn’t matter at all in comparison to this, to Agatha Harkness spread out at the mercy of Rio’s hands and mouth, alive and animal and moaning her name.
Rio pulls back, just a little, just enough to look at Agatha’s face, red and desperate and sweaty. Her mouth is open, lips wet with her own spit, brow pinched in pleasure.
“You’re beautiful,” Rio tells her, both because it’s true and because, at this point, Rio knows that her own earnestness pisses Agatha off.
Sure enough, Agatha’s eyes narrow, and she spits out a, “fuck you,” before kissing Rio hard on the mouth.
God, Rio loves being right. She groans into Agatha’s mouth, bites down on her lip, licks the hard muscle of her tongue. Agatha’s hands are on Rio’s face, pulling her closer until, much like her eyes earlier, Agatha’s hands find their way down to the front of Rio’s shirt, palming her breasts, thumbs swiping over her nipples through her shirt.
“Fuck,” Rio gasps, pulling away from the kiss just so she can breathe, “Agatha.”
Agatha grins, mouth red and wet from Rio’s tongue.
“How dare you answer the door like this,” Agatha says, pressing her nail into Rio’s nipple through her shirt. Rio almost forgets how to stand. “Taunting me.”
“It was hot in here,” Rio says, not really sure why she’s defending herself. She is loving the results of her answering the door like this. “And I didn’t even know—oh, holy fuck.”
Agatha mouth has now found Rio’s nipple through the cloth of her shirt and Rio is suddenly speechless, breathless, unable to do anything but clutch onto Agatha’s hair and revel in the press of Agatha’s tongue through the wet fabric of her shirt, the extra friction driving Rio a little crazy. She presses her hips forward involuntarily, desperate for more of Agatha’s touch, desperate for a release that’s been building for 29 days.
Rio knows the odds are that she won’t get it. Last time she had Agatha this close to her, last time Agatha touched her like this, Agatha held back, didn’t let Rio get where she needed to go, cruel and gorgeous woman that she is. Rio isn’t stupid; she knows that it will likely happen again, Agatha building her up and then leaving.
But, god does she love the build. She loves Agatha’s teeth sucking on Rio’s nipple through her shirt, she loves Agatha’s moans catching in her throat as she pleasures Rio. She loves the pulse of her own cunt, the way the need builds in her higher and faster at every single touch.
Rio fumbles for the button on her slacks, desperate to be touched, desperate to have Agatha inside her before Agatha remembers that she’s pretending to hate her. She takes Agatha’s wrist and drags it lower, between her legs, not bothering for slow or subtle.
“Wow,” Agatha drawls, removing her head from Rio’s breast just to make fun of her. God, Rio loves her. “So impatient. So needy.”
“Yeah,” Rio says, “duh.”
Agatha laughs a little at that, like she can’t help herself. Mercifully, she lets her hand be guided by Rio’s until her fingers are sliding into Rio’s pants, under her underwear, but not quite touching. She hovers there, because of course she does; this woman would never actually just give Rio what she wants.
“I can feel how wet you are just from this,” Agatha says, grinning, but her voice is almost breaking, something like awe coming through. “I can feel how much you want me.”
Rio swallows, nods. She doens’t know what to say, in search of the perfect phrase to get Agatha to touch her in earnest, to fuck her so hard that Rio forgets they were ever apart.
“Twenty-nine days,” Agatha muses, like she has all the time in the world. Her fingers play with the wetness gathered in Rio’s pubic hair. “Must have been hard.”
“No shit,” Rio says, trying to press up into Agatha’s hand. It doesn’t work.
“So did you fuck anyone else?” Agatha asks.
The question throws Rio off guard so much that she barely comprehends it, too confused and turned on for her brain to fully work.
“What?”
“Has there been anyone else?” Agatha asks, harder, her hand pressing minutely closer.
“No,” Rio says. Her breath is coming out rapidly; Agatha is so close to touching her; the last thing Rio would think about is lying. “I don’t want anyone else.”
“Good,” Agatha growls.
Rio’s breath catches. She wants—she wants with her entire being just to have this conversation end, for her mind to go blissfully blank with Agatha’s touch. But there’s a thought in the back of her brain, a desperation to know, to settle this ugly creature that rose in her chest at Agatha’s earlier words.
“Have you?” She asks before she can lose her nerve.
“Have I…?” Agatha asks, playing dumb.
“Have you fucked anyone else?” Rio asks. “Kept your bed warm?” The words taste sour in her mouth. “Be honest with me. Please.”
“Yes,” Agatha says bluntly, and everything stops for a minute. The arousal in Rio’s whole body becomes infused with hot rage bordering on nausea.
Then Agatha takes a deep breath in, eyes searching Rio’s, and lets it out with, “but I thought of you.”
Before Rio can process that, Agatha’s fingers are inside of her and Rio can’t do anything but give in. Her whole body presses into Agatha, hips desperately moving against Agatha’s hand, breathing harsh and ragged as Agatha presses deep and hard into her.
Rio almost cries with it. She might be actually crying, she doesn’t know, doesn’t care, all she knows is that this was worth the wait, Agatha inside of her, surrounding her, moaning when she touches Rio, like she can feel what Rio is feeling.
“Fuck,” Agatha lets out. Her face is red and alight. “God, I missed how you feel.”
Rio groans with it, desperate both for Agatha to keep touching her and to keep talking to her. Her head falls on Agatha’s shoulder.
“Do you know how fucking annoying it is,” Agatha says roughly in Rio’s ear, “to not get you out of my head.”
Rio can barely breathe, but she still manages to grin against Agatha’s shoulder.
“Good,” she says, breathless, thrilled. Thrilled that even if Agatha was with other women (a disgusting and terrible thought), Rio was the only one she wanted.
Agatha curls her fingers inside of Rio and Rio is so close now, almost convinced she’ll make it. That maybe Agatha loves this so much that she’ll let Rio finish this time.
“You’re close, aren’t you?” Agatha asks.
“Yeah,” Rio breathes, “please Agatha, please, I need—”
“I know, baby,” Agatha says, soft and mean all at once. “I can feel how desperate you are for me.”
Her fingers slow just a little and Rio moans, because it still feels so good, the stretch of it, the angle, Agatha pressing slow and intentional into parts of Rio that are only for her. But Rio also knows this could be it.
Then Agatha says, “tell me you love me again.”
Rio is so surprised that she jerks her head up to look into Agatha’s face. Agatha is still flushed, but Rio wonders how much of that is due to arousal and how much is due to embarrassment. Agatha’s eyes are dark, guarded, like she can’t believe she just asked for this. Rio takes a hand up and touches Agatha’s face, thumb gently sliding over her cheekbone, down the slope of her jaw. Agatha inhales sharply at the touch.
“I love you,” Rio says easily.
Agatha exhales a shaky breath. Rio kisses her, softer than earlier, closing her eyes, breathing her in. Agatha sighs into it, her fingers still slowly moving inside Rio.
“I love you,” Rio breathes into her mouth. “Now please let me come.”
Agatha laughs into Rio’s mouth and then her fingers slide up to Rio’s clit, firm and intentional, and then it’s all over. It builds and explodes so fast that Rio would be embarrassed if it didn’t feel so good.
“Oh god,” Rio moans, “fuck, Agatha,” and then she can’t really speak anymore, just expel sounds as Agatha’s fingers wreck her, body coiling and releasing, mouth open and moaning, dripping onto Agatha’s hand as she jerks into her.
“That’s right,” Agatha says softly as she touches her. Her other arm wraps around Rio’s waist, holding her upright as she keeps fucking her, fingers slowing then speeding up again, driving Rio hard and urgent into a second climax. “That’s right, baby.”
Rio takes a minute to come back to herself, her senses returning one by one. She feels the strength and warmth of Agatha’s arms holding her up, then she smells the aroma of marinara sauce mixed with sex, then she hears the laughter and familiar bass line of the TV, still on.
“Did I just fuck you to Seinfeld?” Agatha asks, apparently registering her surroundings at the same time as Rio.
“There’s a marathon on cable.” Rio says, starting to laugh. “And honestly, Elaine was kind of a sexual awakening for me back in the day.”
Agatha rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing too. “Of course she was.”
“She’s hot.” Rio says. “I love a woman who’s always pissed off.” She grins, then rises to her feet, pushing herself off Agatha so she can look at her, see her face when she’s laughing. “Anyway, I’m starving.”
“You’re starving?” Agatha asks. “I just did all the work here.”
Rio grins. “That’s a very Elaine thing to say, you know.”
Agatha rolls her eyes. Rio loves her.
They split the food on the bed watching Seinfeld. They eat it messily, in the way you only can in a hotel room. Some sauce gets on the sheets. Some more sauce gets on Agatha’s chest, her shirt still unbuttoned, and Rio licks it off. Then they stop eating for a while.
Seinfeld turns into Friends at some point while Rio is fucking Agatha in the shower, on her knees as she watches the water dripping down Agatha’s breasts, as she spreads Agatha’s legs and tastes her, willing to drown for this.
“Does this hotel not have robes?” Agatha asks as they leave the shower.
“This is a Holiday Inn Express,” Rio says blankly. “And what’s your deal with robes anyway?”
“So I like to be comfortable. Sue me.”
“You’re already being sued. Famously.”
Agatha smacks Rio in the stomach with one of the hotel towels and Rio laughs, joyous with it. There’s something in this hotel room, beyond stale sweat and now empty takeout containers, some freedom. This always happens, this window of time after they reunite, after they ravage each other, this bubble of ease and comfort that feels impenetrable, but Rio knows will burst at some point. She savors it while she can.
They lie naked on the bed, absently watching Friends. Agatha, weirdly, has encyclopedic knowledge of the show, something that Rio finds endlessly amusing.
“What?” Agatha says, when Rio laughs at her. “It was always on TV. When I first moved to Boston, I was living in this shitty little apartment in Southie and had the tiniest fucking TV in my kitchen. But if I set it up just right, I could steal the neighbors cable and watch Friends every Thursday night. Didn’t pay a cent.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Rio says fondly.
She likes picturing it, the image of a 20-something Agatha Harkness, standing in her kitchen, watching a sitcom on a cheap TV on cable she didn’t pay for. Rio always gets a little warmth in her chest when Agatha shares something from her personal life, some anecdote that Rio doubts anyone else is privileged to.
On screen, Monica is chastising Rachel for something she didn’t do around the apartment.
“I always thought Monica was more interesting than Rachel,” Agatha says. “She was a bitch who knew what she wanted.”
“Hmm,” Rio says. “I always liked Monica too. But mostly she was hot.”
Agatha looks over to Rio, grins. “Yeah, there’s something about a brunette with a stick up her ass.”
And Rio laughs and laughs, warm inside.
Eventually, when Friends turns into The Office, they fall asleep. Well, Agatha falls asleep, graceless as always, drooling a little on the pillow. Rio watches her for a little bit, the way her chest rises and falls with her breathing, the way her forehead relaxes only in sleep. Rio feels her eyes start to drift shut as well, when the sound of Agatha’s phone ringing pulls her awake.
It’s inhumanely loud, but of course Agatha sleeps right through it. Rio grumbles, gets off the bed, and takes Agatha’s phone from her pants pocket to silence it.
And well, Rio isn’t going to not look at who's calling. The name that flashes up is Alice NYT and for a brief second, Rio considers answering it and telling her to fuck off. But she resists. Instead, she lets the call go to voicemail then takes the phone over to Agatha, dead asleep, and holds it up to her face to unlock.
It would be a certifiably insane thing to do, if Agatha hadn’t done the exact same thing to Rio months ago.
Rio grins when Agatha’s phone clicks open. She quickly goes to Agatha’s texts (Rio chuckles a little; Agatha’s font is comically large) with this Alice NYT and screenshots all of them, airdrops them to herself, and then deletes the pictures. Then she does the same thing with Agatha’s emails to Alice. Rio goes through Agatha’s contacts and until she finds who she assumes is Agatha’s lawyer, due to the contact name being Lilia Lawyer.
(Agatha’s contact naming system has never heard of a last name, and barely a first — Billy is in there as Teen Neighbor and Rio feels a little burst of pride that she is in there as IRS Agent Hot.)
After Rio screenshots, airdrops and deletes all of Agatha’s communication with her lawyer, she yawns, puts the phone back into Agatha’s pocket, and crawls into bed. She’ll deal with her intel tomorrow. She’ll go back to it all tomorrow, DC, her job, Agatha’s newest scheme to avoid a simple payment. But tonight, she lays her head on Agatha’s chest, puts an arm around her waist and breathes her in.
Tonight, she is at peace.
Tomorrow, the war will resume.