Chapter Text
You learn quickly that Agatha Harkness does not let compliments pass without reflection.
She rolls them around on her tongue like coins of uncertain value. Tests their weight. Wonders what they’ll buy her if she keeps them. Or if they’re counterfeit entirely. It’s makes you sad to think of this.
You are still learning her. The way she pretends to nap but listens anyway. The way she hums when she’s pleased and goes quiet when she’s dangerous.
This trip was actually her idea.
She said it casually, like it meant nothing. Like she hadn’t already thought through the location, the protection wards she’d need to lay, the distance from other witches, the climate that would best suit her. She’d flicked her fingers at her wineglass and said, We could go away for a bit. As though she hadn’t already decided you’d say yes.
You always do.
The holiday rental is old wood and creaking floors, nestled into a hillside that smells like wet earth and pine. There’s a fireplace she insists on using even when it’s unnecessary. There are too many windows. Agatha likes to stand in front of them at night, silhouetted against the dark. You watch her breathe in the quiet, and it feels like she’s in control of even the moon’s light.
The first night, you’re feeling out of place and so you ask what she’s reading.
She lifts an eyebrow at you. “A book.”
You wait and she sighs theatrically - as usual - and marks her place. “It’s a first edition. Very rare. Very temperamental. And before you ask - no, you can’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
She looks at you, amused. “Yes you absolutely were.”
You shrug. She’s right - as usual when it comes to you - and the conversation is over when she smirks and laughs through her nose.
The days fall into a rhythm you didn’t expect. Mornings are slow. Agatha wakes early but pretends not to, just to see if you’ll catch her. She makes coffee far too strong and complains about it while drinking it anyway - you think she’s trying to get you to make it so she can lurk in more doorways watching you. You cook breakfast because she says the stove doesn’t like her, which you suspect is true.
You learn that she watches you most when she thinks you don’t notice.
Your hands when you chop vegetables. Your mouth when you talk to yourself aloud. The way you crease between your eyebrows when you’re thinking. You catch her sometimes, eyes sharp and intent, and she never looks away when you meet her gaze.
“Something on my face?” you ask.
“Always,” she says lightly. You think she won’t elaborate. Then, after a beat, “Mostly expressions.”
You think she could make telling you anything benign sound this intimate.
In the afternoons, she reads. You do other things - wander the grounds, nap, write half-finished thoughts in a journal you never show her. Sometimes you sit at her feet, back against her chair, listening to the soft sound of pages turning, her voice reading aloud to herself without realising.
You’ve never asked how old she is.
You’ve thought about it, of course. You’ve noticed the way she moves, careful but confident, like time respects her enough not to rush her. There was someone once who knew how to move around her, how to wait without pressing, and you think some of that patience has stayed with her. You’ve seen the history in her eyes, the loss she doesn’t talk about. But you don’t ask. Some things are invitations, and you aren’t ready to issue this one.
On the fourth day, it rains.
The storm rages sudden and loud, rattling the windows and stealing the light from the room. Agatha doesn’t even flinch. She just closes her book and watches the rain.
“You’re brooding,” you tell her.
She scoffs. “I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely brood.”
“I notice. I weigh. I contemplate.”
You laugh, and she watches you do it - really watches, like she said she does. You feel it like a touch, like a hand warm against your ribs. It scares you a little, the intensity of her glare in that moment.
Later, when the fire is low and the rain has softened, she pours you both a drink and sits closer than she has all week. Not touching. Just close enough that you can feel the heat from her body in the already fire-warmed house.
“You know,” she says, swirling her glass, “most people are frightened of being observed.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” she agrees. “That’s right.”
The silence stretches. Comfortable. Charged.
“You look at me like you’re trying to study me,” you say quietly.
She turns back to you then, expression unreadable. “Habit.”
“Oh yeah?”
“From losing things.”
The admission lands heavier than you expect. You don’t reach for her. You know better than that.
“I’m still here.”
She hums. Not agreement. Not denial. Something in between.
That night, in bed, you lie on opposite sides, close enough that the fabric of your pajamas brush when you turn.
“You shouldn’t waste compliments,” she says suddenly.
You blink. “What?”
She does this, says things you didn’t know you’d done anything to provoke.
“They’re powerful things. Dangerous, even. Give them to the wrong person, and they’ll use them against you.”
“And what about the right person?”
She rolls onto her side to face you. In the dark, her eyes are startlingly bright. “They’ll believe you.”
You swallow.
“Do you?” you ask.
She doesn’t answer right away. When she does, it’s softer than you’ve heard her before, “I’m trying.”
Sleep comes slowly after that for you, she’s seemingly out like a light.
The next morning, she’s different.
Not distant. Not cold. Just… deliberate. Every movement measured, stiff. Every word chosen with care. You catch her looking at you with something like resolve.
“You’re staring again,” you say.
“I told you,” she replies. “It’s a habit.”
She asks you to walk with her after lunch, down the path that curves into the trees. Her head is quieter out here, senses stretched thin, magic humming just beneath her skin. You can feel it. You feel unsure.
“This place is safe,” she says. “I made sure of it.”
“I didn’t say anything,” she stares at you for a moment until you continue after a sigh, “From what?”
She glances at you with a softer look. “From everyone else.”
The words shouldn’t sound like a confession. But they do.
She stops near a clearing, sunlight breaking through the canopy in soft shards. She looks almost unreal here, hair lit, shadows tracing the lines of her face.
“There’s something you should know,” she says, her face suddenly looking heavy, for any other person you would say they looked scared - but this is Agatha so you can’t be correct.
You brace yourself.
“I don’t do things halfway,” she continues. “Not power. Not loyalty. Not,” She averts her eyes. Exhales. “Affection.”
Your heart stutters.
“If you stay,” she says, “it won’t be simple. Or gentle. Or particularly sensible.”
“I didn’t think it would be.”
A smile curves her mouth. Small. Real. “Good.”
She reaches out then - not to grab, not to claim. Just fingers brushing your wrist, pulse fluttering beneath her touch. Her magic hums, curious but restrained.
“You’re watching me again,” you murmur. Honestly, you’re so enamoured that you’re not sure the words escaped you. She’s so close to you now.
“Yes,” she says. “And this time, I want you to watch back.”
The kiss is unhurried. Careful. Like it’s her first. There’s power there, but more than that, there’s attention. Intent. She pulls back first, searching your face like you might pull back and walk back to the house.
“You can still say no,” she says.
You don’t speak. You don’t move back. Just push forward a little, she responds.
The days that follow feel like a spell slowly tightening.
She reads to you in the evenings now, voice low and rich, no longer whispering to herself but to you. She even lets you touch the books now - under supervision, of course. She teaches you small things: things she thinks will make you safer, things that might make you understand her in a deeper way.
She watches you learn with fierce pride.
You watch her soften in ways she pretends aren’t happening.
Sometimes, late at night, you wake to find her awake beside you, propped on one elbow, eyes tracing your face. When you ask what she’s doing, she says, “Making sure you’re real.”
You learn not to tease her about this. It wouldn’t be kind when you can see how scared she is, because even though she is Agatha Harkness, she’s also not had this connection in decades.
On the last night, the fire burns low and the windows reflect you back at yourselves - two figures caught between shadow and light. Agatha rests her head on your shoulder, a rare, unguarded thing. You find yourself consciously breathing more delicately just in case you startle her into moving.
“I don’t know how long this can last,” she says quietly.
“I do,” you reply. “As long as we let it.”
She snorts. “Optimist.”
“Witch.”
She snorts softly.
This time, when she looks up and catches you staring, she doesn’t deflect.
She has abandoned the book without noticing. It rests open in her lap while her attention has settled elsewhere. On you. The familiar crease between her brows appears again and then smooths, as if she has decided - consciously, this time - not to think so much.
A curl slips loose and shadows her cheek. She does not correct it.
When she feels your gaze, she looks up, something open and unguarded passing across her face before she can stop it.
“You’ll wear a hole in me if you keep looking like that,” she says, but the words are gentle, almost fond.
You smile. “I thought you liked being watched.”
She considers this, the way she considers everything worth keeping. She almost makes a joke to fizzle out the deepness of the statement. Then she closes the book and sets it aside, deliberate as a benediction. Her hand finds yours, simply there.
“Well,” she says, quiet and certain, “It’s easy with you.”
The fire softens, spilling its last heat across the floor. Around you, the house exhales. She stays, steady, alive, and you can’t help smiling, thinking that she might finally not have to guard herself around you.