A long time ago, centuries, decades, who knows, Tina was cursed.
She is a demon you see, but she never actually wanted to be an actual one, but she was born that way. She was cursed after picking a fight with a demon, they were giving a worse punishment than the one the human deserved (the human was a kid for Satan sake.)
The demon she picked a fight with was a high ranking one, and just like that she was cursed: forced to live among humans, the demons threw her in the middle of a desert cold area, with nothing to eat (she was forced to eat maggots to survive, but she tries to don't think about it)
Her horns were cut down, and only when they regrow she will be able go back to the demon realm. Or well, she would be forced to come back. But. She kinda doesn't want to come back. Everytime her horns grew, she would cut them down again, and like that she lived until-
Bagi was cursed, and she doesn't know that. If you ask her if she ever got cursed someday how would that have happened, she would say it was probably by someone she helped Cellbit kill, but well, her actual curse happened before she found him again.
You see- she needed to find informations about him, so she had to do a lot dirty work on her investigation office. Once, someone told her to deliver a package to someone in exchange to information, and the group actually had information.
So she did it, and she got information on where Cellbit ran away to in return. The guy she gave the package to? Well, he is seven foot under now. A working member from something called the Federation, a very powerful magic was threw at him because of that package.
She thinks he didn't see her, but he did, and all he knew was that she caused his downfall with the package, so he cursed her.
“When she finds the thing she wanted the most, she will find it slowly slip through her fingers.”
She finds Cellbit and his group, and they ran, and ran and ran. And then she finds Tina...
...
She always to be able to love someday, you know? She deprived herself of so many things. So she stays.
(Tina notices her horns are growing up way faster everyday, but she did not notice it started when she meet Bagi. She feels like someday, she will wake up and her horns will be fully grow, and she won't be able to cut them anymore.)
Tags: Bagi/Tina (QSMP), AU - normal life, mechanic Tinakitten, teacher OiBagi, mentioned/brief appearance of side character Cellbit, Bagi and Cellbit are siblings, mechanic cellbit, first date, meetcutes
Bagi gets ready to have lunch with Tina...
She’s not sure if it’s a date officially, but she really likes this woman.
She first met the mechanic at the auto shop her brother worked at by chance only. It just so happened she kept meeting her over the course of a few weeks of repeated random car trouble. Could Bagi have asked her brother to fix it at home, instead of going out of her way to the shop so much?
... well, yes, but somehow it always seemed more convenient to bring it directly to Tina, it just so happening to be while the auto shop was busy enough that Cellbit would be in the back. When he found out where Tina's stellar reviews had come from recently, Bagi's brother chewed her out about being so irresponsible over a crush.
“You think I raised you to hurt your poor car? It’s your responsibility to look after it, just tell me when something is broken and I've always always fixed it - for free! Everyone is fine, your wallet is fine, your car is healthy. And now what do I do? I go to work and everyone says, oh, there goes Cellbit, with the car-murdering sister, hope he doesn’t treat my cars so roughly. Bagi, you’re setting a bad example!” Bagi “yeah, yeah”ed and agreed that she should probably stop racking up so much in mechanic bills. She needs to face her subconscious motivations and ask Tina if she might like to meet outside of work.
Well, the day came, and Bagi was glad of it. She would have been happy anyway because it was the weekend, after a long week of corralling children who should really be old enough to know better but are instead only old enough to know they can cause chaos. But she spent the morning hours of light wondering what she was going to say to Tina. She didn’t often go on dates, and she really liked Tina. The mechanic was always so fun to talk to, and seemed totally engaged with her even when sticking her head shoulders-deep into the guts of her poor mistreated car. She was drawn to Tina’s personality, and felt all kinds of romantic stuff for her that she hoped could one day bloom into a relationship.
First, though, she needs to make a good impression.
Bagi wears her favorite baseball hat, because she’s going out, not going to school, so she doesn’t have to follow dress code and lead her kids by example (not that it works - the students are always wearing hats and goofing off. It's one of their endearing quirks that no matter how many hats are confiscated in class, they will always show up with another.). She picks out a “casual weekend get-together” outfit that looks nice and waits for Tina to pick her up at the scheduled time.
Tina, being holed up at the auto shop all day and tired of her greasy canvas uniform, had dressed up with style that belied the way she usually appeared to Bagi - when she has car trouble and needs it fixed in the middle of the day, Bagi comes to Tina’s work where she’s synonymous with sturdy and khaki work gloves, taupe coveralls and boots that wouldnt be harmed stepping on a lost screw. By contrast now, when she hears a beep outside her house she sees that Tina is sporting a cute, elegant dress and a makeup look that she learns during the car ride is called “mob wife makeup”, which Tina saw online as it had risen as a current trend to try. Somehow, she doesn’t feel underdressed in comparison to the high glamour influences, though she regrets her shorts a little when the summer heat leaves her peeling her legs slowly off the passenger seat upon arrival. Tina helps her out of the car and they turn to the restaurant’s menu to decide if what they discussed being hungry for in the car was really what they wanted to order.
As they take their seats, Bagi adjusts her collared shirt and finds herself looking at Tina instead of the names of the food items.
She was honestly stunning, slaying the house down, and Bagi hardly tasted the first few bites of her pasta when their food arrived until…
“Here,” says Tina, “try mine.” She put a few different pieces on her fork and held it out to Bagi.
Bagi felt like she was in a painting as she leaned forward and accepted the bite of food from Tina’s fork. Either that or on a prank channel. Something was playing in slow motion, and all she could do was hope she didn't look stupid.
The food was delicious. Bagi chewed and watched Tina take some from her plate to try.
“It’s good shrimp, right?” Tina says before taking a bite of pasta. “Hey, that’s pretty good too!”
Bagi smiles. “Yeah, tastes great.” She privately debates whether she’s brave enough to say “You look great, too," without it sounding stupid and cliche.
The decision is left unmade as Tina responds in the pause. Bagi likes hearing Tina talk. Her voice is nice, even when it’s not explaining her car to her for the third time in a week. She might be a little nervous about this possibly-date still, but at least they’re in it together. Their sides arrive, and they clear a bit of space on the table.
“I want you.”
“Huh?” she says stupidly.
Tina clears her throat and looks up at the menu on the wall again. “I said do you want anything for dessert?”
Bagi might be losing her hearing, then. “I usually go for a chocolate cheesecake for a dessert, but that’s usually for a dinner, so it’s a little early in the day.” She looks to the menu too. “Maybe a fruit soda float?”
“Yeah? Awesome. I wasn’t trying to have a date hinging on dinner right now either,” Tina says, and Bagi’s heart skips. So it is a date! Has been, even. “- because I heard from my cousin that he got food poisoning at the last dinner he ate out for. Man, that sucks cuz he’s a yapper too so he was real in-depth about it. This lunch is great though. I guess there wasn’t really a risk of it relating, cuz he was at a Chili’s in a different state, which really doesn’t say anything about the possible, like, quality of the food here. I dunno, it was on my mind though. Whatever.” Tina’s face is so pretty, but the makeup doesn’t hide her ears going pink.
“I think food should never poison you.” Bagi facepalmed mentally, and kept going to make it make sense. “I mean, it’s - food. We’ve had it for all of history, or we wouldn’t be alive, no? We should have figured out a way to make it not poison you. Food poisoning should never exist. Just take out the poison!”
Tina cackles, agreeing. “You’re so smart, Bagi. They need to make you President!”
The date goes well. Lunch at the restaurant turned out to be less expensive than two mechanic jobs, but not by that much, so they resolve to try a different restaurant next time to try to save their wallets from this becoming just as regular an expense. Tina drives with a steady hand, humming along to the song on the radio, and Bagi notices that the tiny stuffed animal hanging from the windshield is not just decoration, but also scented. It smells like sweet tea and candy fruits. Tina tells her she started buying scented plushies for the car after the time she rescued a stray kitten on the street and it immediately peed inside, laughing. Bagi might be in love.
Tina stops in front of her door and walks her up to the house, chivalrous. Bagi unlocks the door with the key around her neck and then pauses in the doorway, unsure but not wanting to see Tina leave yet.
“Do you wanna come in?” Bagi asks, scuffing her sneakers on the welcome mat. The afternoon sun brings out the teal highlight contrasts in Tina’s shining dress. She looks good standing in front of Bagi's house. She thinks she'd like to see her in this place every day, wherever her home is.
Tina takes the invitation and Bagi brings her in to sit on the couch and keep talking. She tells her about the board games in the living room closet and Tina tells her which ones she knows how to play and which ones she never got the hang of, or just haven't tried yet. “Maybe we could have a game night one of these days.”
That makes Bagi smile. “I always hear about themed times, like some kid’s family will have a dedicated Thursday night is Spaghetti Night or something. It seems cute, and I don't do enough activities. We should do that someday.”
She doesn’t feel brave enough for a first-date cuddle or kiss, but when the hour gets late she microwaves a bowl of Cellbit’s boyfriend’s soup that he brought over in a big container the other day, and they clink spoons and make airplane noises and look at the neighbor’s dog playing in their yard with fallen leaves and golden hour daylight.
“I hope that just because we have another date to plan doesn't stop you from coming to my shop after school in the meantime,” Tina tells Bagi at the door. “You’re allowed to come and talk to me, keep me company. You don't need to break your car every time, or it’ll be too long in between. I’ll miss youuuu.”
“No, don’t come,” Cellbit says, having come home from work while they were having dinner. "Let my mechanics focus on their work!”
“-youuuuur food, I’ll miss her coffee and bringing snacks, Cellbit, jeez.” Tina spins the words. “Aren't we allowed food breaks?”
“No, starve!” Cellbit says, laughing from the kitchen. “Fine, keep distracting Tina.”
Bagi laughs and laughs. In a flurry of bravery, she holds Tina's arm and kisses her face under the early moonlight. All blush now, she stands back and waves as Tina winks at her before driving off. She stands by the door for a few minutes, daydreaming about their next date, before Cell yells at her to come inside and stop staring at the road like a crazy person.
And maybe she is crazy. A little bit crazy in love.
