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sabraeal · 11 months

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Brewed With Intent, Part 1

[Read on AO3]

Sequel to Practical Charms

It’s been three days since Shirayuki sat across from the boys on the 49, accordion seats contracting around every corner, and glowered a confession out of them. Three days since her unwitting participation in this ridiculous underground love potion scam was revealed, not only to her but to the most talented artificer in the city. And three days since Garrack has gone to ground, abandoning her shop-- and answering her texts, or phone calls-- to do city knows what. Probably wouldn’t even come to the front door either, if Obi even let her try.

Ah, now now, Miss. It’s impossible to make herself look straight at him, but she tried in that moment, only catching a glimpse of a grin. I think that might be, er, unrelated. Give it a couple days.

So she does. Three whole days of it, imagining every possible permutation of this discussion, breaking each argument down to its diction so that every word conveys the depth of her disappointment, and yet--

Yet, it could be going better.

“We went over this before you even brewed the first batch.” Garrack stretches her legs out under the table, sending her own scurrying back beneath her chair to make room. “The only active charm in the whole bottle is a perfectly legal infusion of Come-Hither. Everything else was just to fix the aftertaste.”

“I understand that.” What she doesn’t understand is how this whole conversation keeps slipping from her grip when she is the one who was wronged to begin with. “But rosehips are an amplifier of intent and a strengthener of will, which makes--”

“The whole shebang stronger, I know.” The frizzy mass of Garrack’s hair shakes with her head, like a wind rippling through autumn trees. “The whole point was to counteract the loss of potency from infusing rather than casting. At least, that was your explanation when you came up with it.”

“W-well, yes.” It’s not fair that all her pointed turns of phrase are being turned back on her, but there’s no way to say that without having to admit she’s losing ground. “But that was for a specific client, made to order.”

The girl had blown through the door soaked to the bone, umbrella turned so far inside out it looked like a crab on its back, and, well, if anyone in the shop was going to be sympathetic to the plight of a young woman with a distracted boyfriend, it was going to be Shirayuki. Especially that day.

“There’s a difference between making something like that for a person I can trust to use it on another consenting adult--” even if he was a bit preoccupied at the time “--and just...selling it to whoever walks into the shop!”

Garrack presses a hand to her sweater, fabric shifting to bare a shoulder speckled with thumbprint-sized bruises. “Now, I don’t think that’s quite fair. I’m sure plenty of those girls were also in established, consenting relationships.”

“Better be,” Obi snorts, sprawled across the sill like he’s the neighborhood cat. There’s too much of him for it to be comfortable; one leg dangles out the window to make room for the other to brace. On anyone else it would look unnatural, but on him-- well, it’s hard to look bad in black leather and dark denim. At least the way he wears it. “Don’t think any of them were looking to spend a whole Benjamin on a nice bottle.”

Shirayuki’s jaw hangs so low it might well catch flies. “You charged them a hundred dollars? For a Come Hither?”

“Oh, what are they going to do? Report me to the Better Business Bureau?” Garrack huffs, hiking her sweater over her shoulders. The little bruises dip beneath the line of her collar, tracing down past where Shirayuki thinks it’s polite to speculate. “Bought love potion from this vendor but turned out there was just tea inside. Extremely sane sounding. I’m sure they’ll follow up on that one right away.”

“The Emerald Lady might!”

It’s the sort of threat that would have had a whole room catch its breath where she came from; an audit from the Rose Court might well mean the end of a business at best, and at worse-- well, she’d lived it. But here, in Garrack’s cozy little holdout against the mundane, no one even bats an eyelash.

No, instead Garrack snorts, tossing her head like the world’s most stubborn pony. “Haki Arleon comes from a long line of charlatans and scoundrels. Her great grandfather is still cheating half-penny hacks out of their life savings, and he’s dead.”

She doesn’t so much see Obi’s mouth twitch as feel it. “Maybe it’ll keep this time.”

“Never does,” Garrack mutters. “Anyway, the City Mistress has a lot more pressing problems than pinning our ass to the cork board over some mundies spending their pocket money.”

The last time she checked, a hundred dollars was closer to her life savings than pocket money, but Shirayuki knows better than to haggle over dollar signs with someone who can still pay property taxes in Belltown. “Altogether the material components hardly cost twenty dollars. Why would you even think to--?”

“Labor.” Long fingers wrap around the handle of Garrack’s mug, thumb resting right over a honeybee as she takes a long drag from her cup. “Expertise. Time is money, Shirayuki, and the knowledge you gained during it makes it all the more dear. Charge just for components and you’re not even breaking even. Especially not with a talent like yours.”

It’s terrible how her cheeks heat, how even as she tries to tamp down on her satisfaction it just keeps crawling under the door, sending its little tendrils licking up her neck. “That’s four hundred percent profit, isn’t it? On a potion that won’t even work--”

“So you admit it.” Her eyebrows twitch up in victory. “It won’t work. So there’s no danger in selling it.”

“That’s not--” she should have known better than to get into this with Garrack; not even Obi tries to bargain with her, not after the first time “--there’s still a chance, if the recipient is inclined toward the, er, caster--”

“Exactly.” A smirk unfurls across her face the way red carpets do for royalty. “Both parties have to consent.”

Her fingers curl so tight the bones ache. “Attraction is hardly the same thing as consent.”

Garrack waves a hand, as if simple denial could dispel the dire moral implications of her actions the way she could a charm. “There’s no harm in giving a little push now and then.”

“A push.” The word leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

“And that’s assuming any of it worked in the first place,” she sighs airily. “Which I doubt. What’s more likely is that a bunch of silly little girls wasted some of daddy’s money finding out the hard way that the school quarterback is into blondes or whatever.”

“Not so sure about that one, Chief.” Obi splits each word like a typewriter hits a period. “Sold too much not to have at least a few happy endings.”

Garrack shifts again, sweater slumping with her, and it’s not until she mutters, “In more ways that one,” that Shirayuki realizes those dark marks aren’t bruises, but-- but--

Bites. Bites because Shidan--

“In any case,” she sighs, “all’s well that ends well. Either they got what they wanted or they walked away disappointed, but either way, it was all legally above board.”

Shirayuki frowns. “That’s a very generous interpretation.”

“What can I say?” She shrugs, a cluster of those little love bites trailing down her collar bone, and ahh, Shirayuki could have survived not knowing how personally effective it had been for her boss. “I’m a generous person.”

Anyone else might actually provide an excuse to be excused, but Garrack simply unfurls herself just a hair shy of six feet and stalks from the room with the same level of satisfaction of a cat sashaying away from an empty birdcage. There’s nothing for it but to stare after her, wondering just how it all went wrong.

Obi cocks his head, threading himself through the sill. “All right there, Miss?”

“Yes. No.” She sighs, letting her palms relax against the tabletop. “I just...I really thought that would go better. Or...anywhere, I guess.”

The scent of sulfur snakes its way through the air; she’s so used to it now it’s almost comfortable. “That’s the problem with old goats like the Chief. They’ve been at it so long the goal posts change.”

She shakes her head, catching a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye. Even that much sends her eyes skittering across the table, looking for something more knowable. “That’s not really how morals are supposed to work, Obi.”

He blinks the way human eyes don’t. Too many eyelids, for one. “Maybe.”

Shirayuki collapses onto the window seat the way so many of her potions do in the last leg of their boil: with a sigh and a tangibly foul taste in her mouth. “I get that some people might want for something to happen, or even hope it would, all out of their control, but...just because you do, doesn’t mean you’re ready for it to happen now. For her to act like all’s well that ends well...”

Obi slips from the sill to the seat, long legs stretching across the floorboards. “Doesn’t quite jive with your experience, huh?”

Even at the other end of the cushion, his heat rolls over her; not the way an open fire does, so hot that you never forget it can burn, but more like a wood-burning stove, gently radiating warmth in a way that tempts her to scoot closer. “Yeah, something like that.”

A corner of his mouth twitches; if only she could look long enough to see if it was a smirk or a smile. “It’s heavy burden to be so cute when you’re unconscious.”

“If it just happened once, I could understand!” she huffs, crossing her arms. “But twice is just weird.”

“And different guys too,” he says, like she could somehow forget. “Guess you’re just that irresistible.”

“Don’t start.” He’s lucky mortal eyes can’t bear his aura, otherwise she’d give him such a glare. “I’m half convinced it’s a spell. Raj I can understand, but Zen is an entirely reasonable person, and still he--”

The thump is so quick, so sudden, that’s she’s on her feet before her words stop, heart pounding so loud she can’t hear Obi until he repeats, louder and slower, “You alright, Miss?”

He’s half out of his seat too, body twisted to put himself between her and the window, but--

The tension huffs from him on a sigh. “Ah.”

“O-obi?” She takes one shuffling step forward, reaching out but not quite daring to touch as she peers around him, into his cupped hands. “Oh!”

There’s a pigeon in his hands-- or a dove, maybe; she’d never quite known the difference besides color-- its wings flopping limply over his fingers, head hanging at an unnatural angle. Broken, she’d guess, probably from colliding with the window.

Her fingers bury themselves into fists. The last thing she needs is her magic to go wild with sympathy. “The poor thing. It must have just missed the opening...”

Obi shakes his head. “It’s cold.”

“Cold?” She leans closer, frowning. “But it only just--?”

Its whole body shivers, and with a blink of its glassy eyes, its neck swivels. “Shirayuki?”

She doesn’t scream, but whatever strangled noise escapes from her isn’t much better. “Is that...?”

“Suzu says this should work.” Yuzuri’s voice pours from its beak, as clear as if they were face to face. “Even though it’s weird. Anyway, Shidan’s finished your order. You should swing by and get it. It looks pretty dope or fly or whatever word Obi’s using for cool today.”

“Huh.” Obi lifts the thing, poking and prodding at its feather like the charm might pop out if he tries hard enough. “That’s sick.”

“It’s...something,” she agrees, willing her stomach not to turn. “Not what I--”

“End message!” the bird shrills. “Is that how you finish this thing off? Suzu--?”

It’s a clean cut that severs the sound from its beak. The body falls limp again, as if it had never moved.

“You don’t think...?” Shirayuki peers down at the grotesque display cradled in his palm, desperately trying not to think too hard about...any of it. “They didn’t...?”

“Ah, don’t worry, Miss.” Only Obi could sound positively jaunty in the face of questionably legal-- let alone moral-- magicks. “Pretty sure it was already dead.”

It’s a strange mental exercise, trying to decide whether reanimation is better than body borrowing, but she’s saved from having to think any further by Garrack sweeping in, Ryuu following resignedly in her wake. “Oh, is that one of Shidan’s creepy little messengers? I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them”

Shirayuki blinks, trying to sweep frizzy blonde from her vision. “Oh, is he, ah, known for this?”

“No.” Garrack rocks back on her heels. “At least, not until recently. But one of his students has a talent for them, and it saves him having to dig in his pockets to put a charm on a dime or something.”

“On a dime?” She can see it now, Roosevelt’s profile turning to face her, serious as he says, the time is now. “Did it...talk?”

“I wish,” she huffs. “It would just glow, and do you know how easy it is to lose those things? Half the time I’d just go swing by myself just so I didn’t have to keep track of it. And he tells me that I need to learn responsibility and--”

“Couldn’t he just...text?” Shirayuki suggests, strained. “Or, er, call, I guess?”

Garrack frowns. “Where’s the drama in that?”

“Is this for the glamour?” Ryuu asks, pitched just loud enough to hear. “That’s...”

“Good?” Shirayuki supplies, when he doesn’t.

He nods. “Quick. I would have expected a week, at least. A month even, for his advanced charms.”

Obi’s brows hike toward his hairline. “It’s only been three days.”

Garrack grins, insufferable. “You’re welcome.”

It’s not until Shirayuki tugs her jacket off the hook, pulling the denim taut across her shoulders, that she dares to ask, “You don’t really think that, er...?”

Obi doesn’t answer so much as look attentive, all of his baleful gaze bent on her.

“It’s just...I know he’s the best artificer in the city.” She tugs the jacket tight over her chest, more from nerves than chill. “But not everyone wants to make the hike up to Capitol Hill and have to deal with, ah, mundanes. So surely...?”

He hums, a token display of support.

“He was probably already working on it.” She glances at him, as much as she can bear. “So it’s probably not that she...I mean, you don’t really think...?”

“Oh!” A wide flash of white hints at a grin. “That Garrack fucked us up the list? Absolutely.”

“Ahhh!” She claps her hands to her face. “You don’t have to say it that way. Maybe--?”

“Oh, my my. Is my favorite apprentice and her hellish escort on their way out?” Garrack turns the corner, a smile flanked by two ceramic cups. “Going to go reap the fruits of my labor?”

It’s no use, Shirayuki slumps. “Please don’t call it that.”

Her mouth sharps to a smirk. “A spade’s a spade, sweetheart.”

“Well, we’re not just doing that.” She infuses her tone with a sharp edge of officiousness, as if that might go some way in reminding anyone in this front hall that this is all supposed to be business, not-- not--

“Miss is gonna take us on our rounds too.” Shirayuki may not be able to bear his unholy aura long enough to see his expression, but she knows it must be a jaunty one from the way he kicks one leg over another and leans. “Put Shidan’s work through its paces, you know how it is.”

Garrack’s thick brows twitch, too suggestive for what amounts to a work meeting. “Mm, don’t I.”

Shirayuki fails stifle her sigh.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Garrack clucks, and if she’s the one disappointed with the turn of this conversation. “Here, I know things got a little heated today. Have an olive branch.”

Shirayuki stares as the cup fits into her grip, Garrack giving her knuckles a small pat for good measure. The smell of something sweet and floral wafts up from the lid’s vent. “You made...tea?”

“Hey!” she huffs. “I know how to boil water!”

Obi snorts. “Experience says different.”

Garrack may fold her arms over her chest, may tilt her chin, all high-handed and cool, it only takes a single quirked brow for her to admit, “At least the electric kettle does.”

“Ah,” Obi sighs, flipping open the lid. “There it is.”

“All right, all right, if you’re quite done, why don’t you two head out already.” She watches him take sip, mouth curling. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she catches the twitch of Obi’s eyebrows. “That’s a short list.”

It’s with a strange satisfaction that Garrack says, “It sure is.”

The door closes behind them, close enough that the displaced air shoots up her jacket, sending her shivering.

“Huh.” Obi takes another sip. “Well, that’s ominous.”

#obiyukibingo23 #obiyuki #snow white with the red hair #akagami no shirayukihime #urban fantasy AU #my fic #ans #i have been dying to flesh out this world for YEARS and finally I have an excuse 🤣#for those who are wondering Obi was a demon Haruka summoned to harass Shirayuki #and then he had gone through a series of contract changes #Zen used to hold it but now I believe Shirayuki does #I MIGHT CHANGE MY MIND ON THAT LATER we'll see

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