Chapter Text
She moves her mouth against his in slow, rhythmic movements, while letting him take the lead. He starts with sucking softly on her bottom lip, before tracing it with his tongue and retracting again, brushing his lips against hers again, his lip catching on hers.
She copies his movements at first, and the soft tingling behind her lips reminds her of how long it has been.
The last time she even remotely thought of her current actions was during the Petrova Task Force period with, ironically, the same man. At the time, she couldn’t imagine starting any type of relationship with anyone, knowing what was to happen, but that didn’t mean she didn’t think about it.
He was so pleased to be around her, he thrived in his return to academia, he thrived because she allowed him to. She felt satisfied as he proved his competence, even if she hadn’t really needed convincing, and she enjoyed him running after her.
She remembers how easily he followed her commands, how easily he took on the position next to her. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine him in the close vicinity of her cabin.
During the Petrova Task Force period, she was too occupied to properly imagine them together.
During the years following the launch, she was too guilt-ridden to properly imagine them together.
During the months following his return to earth, she was too ashamed to properly imagine them together.
Which is why now, she has no choice but to let him take the lead and pray he takes her where she wants to follow.
He is, frankly, inexperienced. She tries to blame his clumsy movements on the wine and its effects, but she can tell it is not entirely from his drunken haze. She recalls her earlier thoughts on the company he might have been entertaining the last couple of months, and scratches the entire idea.
If he had been entertaining company, he certainly hadn’t been with his mouth.
She doesn’t mind, though. She is not picky, not like how she was when she was younger, and she also thinks she could not care less how properly educated Grace is on the matter of kissing.
As she takes a little bit more charge in their actions, pressing into him more firmly, she starts to taste salt on his lips.
It takes her a moment to realise the source, and she pulls back slightly as she feels the wet on his cheeks with her nose.
Her eyes land on the tear tracks following the path from the corner of his eye to his chin, and eventually landing on her shirt. She brings a hand to her own face and tentatively touches the tears that have made their way onto her.
As soon as she pulls back a little further, he is chasing after her, the tears still flowing. “Don’t…”
His breath hitches and his face scrunches up into itself, his eyes still closed. He brushes his cheek against his shoulder roughly, before sighing loudly. He opens his eyes finally and she notices his pupils shrink immediately before expanding slightly again as he focuses his gaze on her.
“Please don’t stop…”, he pleads and she furrows her eyebrows at his tone.
“You’re drunk.”, she argues, pulling back even further.
“I’m always-”, he starts before cutting himself off, shaking his head and changing course. “So are you.”
He sits up a little straighter, so that he gains the advantage of towering over her. She cowers back from his height subconsciously, but he only follows her forward, not letting the distance between them gain length.
“We can do this-”, his voice jumps before he clears it. “I can do this.”
She watches his expression change from determination to pleading to something that she can’t place, something she doesn’t like. “I don’t think you can.”
He tilts his head slightly, the awful expression amplifying with a sick amount of self-pity and sadness. She notes he is not unlike a dog that has been kicked, and she figures she is the one who keeps kicking the dog. A bile-rising sense of deja-vu washes over her, and she has to swallow around the lump in her throat.
“I can.”, he exhales, like he is hoping she will just accept and give up on her stubbornness, but she finds that the bloodshot eyes and leaking nose make her temperature drop rapidly, shivers overtaking her. “What happened to believing in me?”
“I can’t.”, her breath hitches as she confesses the truth, and while she is inching back slowly, she wishes her joints would let her stand easily, away from the situation and away from him. She can forget that though, after spending hours cramped under the low table.
“Can’t what? Believe in me?”
“I can’t do this.”
He stills for a moment and the defense mechanism in her kicks in. She makes an attempt to stand, but she has to lean on the couch for longer than she would have liked to as she tries to get over the inflammatory sensation in her knees. Luckily for her, Grace doesn’t seem to be doing much better.
“Can we talk about this?”, he asks through gritted teeth, groaning as he pops his hips. “Can you not run, please?”
She doesn’t want to get into this now, she doesn’t want to get into this at all. She wants to go home and she wants to run from Ryland Grace forever, till the end of time while she withers away in some half-assed apartment that she did not get to decorate to her own liking.
She wants nothing more than that right now, and so she pushes past the burning pain and goes for the door.
“Stratt-”, he catches up to her just like last time, except that she does not stop walking now. She is not foolish enough to make the same mistakes twice.
“Eva-”, he pushes past her, though she pulls her arm back in an attempt to foresee any touching, and he blocks the path between her and the door, his arms stretched out in front of him, palms up to her. “Please-”
She actually feels the blind panic overtaking her body, and she takes a few steps back out of reflex, her eyes wide and her hands shaking uncontrollably. It hasn’t been too long since she begged to never let her find herself in a situation like this ever again, and yet she finds that no one had listened to her endless prayers.
It’s like her mind draws a blank as her lungs seize, her heart thumps loudly in her chest, and her throat dries up. She blinks harshly, willing for her vision to return to normal.
She shakes her head, hoping to shake away the desperation and adrenaline, though the dizzy, faint feeling in her head doesn’t let up. She blinks away tears and repressed memories.
He catches her reaction effortlessly and despite his drunken haze, he runs his hands through his hair, pulling at the strands. He steps away from the door quickly, his eyes squeezed shut. “Shoot-, sorry. You can leave if you want, I just…”
He drops his hands and holds them up like he is willing an animal to stay put, carefully and gently. “Can we talk, first?”
Eva’s chest heaves as she stares him down. He keeps his distance from her now, which she has half the mind to praise him for. The ringing in her ears hasn’t quieted down, but the black spots in her vision have disappeared at least.
She feels less trapped now that she can see the clear outline of the door, but her eyes don’t fully focus on either Grace or the door, instead pointing downwards at the floor, so she can keep both of them in her peripheral vision.
She swallows another two times before exhaling shakily. She has done this before, she can do it again. Even if she doesn’t feel like it, she logically knows he is significantly less a threat than her body is preparing her for. She really wishes she was still wearing her cap right now.
“Okay…”, he starts, his arms dropping to his sides. “We can-”
“I’m sorry.”
He stares back at her with wide eyes, shuffling his feet from side to side. “For running? You don’t-”
“For sending you on the Hail Mary against your wishes.”, she says, her voice remarkably steady, against all odds. Now or never, she wills. “I’m sorry.”
He stays silent after she confesses, stays silent even the following minutes. He has dropped all the nervous habits now, the shuffling of his feet, twiddling with his thumbs, the fleeting of his eyes, he has even stopped blinking. He stands completely still, his lips pressed into a thin line.
She tries not to cower under his gaze. She wants to give him the opportunity to let him dissect her now. He should, he deserves to.
Eventually though, he can’t seem to find what he is looking for and he walks over to his couch instead, slouching down. He picks up the bottle again and drinks away at the last few swigs.
“I had a lot of time to hate you.”, he says between drinks. “A lot of years spent imagining this moment.”
She watches the back of his head from where she is standing, watches the bottle go up and down, the sloshing of the wine loud in the quiet room.
“I never hated you for it. If there was anyone I hated, it was myself.”, he grumbles. “Well, that’s not true actually. I resented you for a little while-”
He turns his head, craning his neck in her direction. He holds the hand with the bottle up over the back of the couch and points his finger at her expressly. She watches as two drops make their way down his hand and onto the carpet. “But only because you were right.”
He lets his head fall harshly against the hardwood of the couch, his face pressed into the cushions, making his voice come out muffled. “And I was wrong. Again.”
She can see the bottle in his hand fighting to stay still while his hand grows limb. It wouldn’t make much of a mess if he dropped it, but the anxious part of her wants to stop it desperately nonetheless.
She stays put until the bottle comes dangerously close to slipping out from under his fingers, then she walks over to the back of the couch, towering over him. This, she thinks, is a much more preferred position.
He glances up as she takes the bottle from him, frowning as she reaches over and sets it away on one of the couch stands. She notices the tears have started flowing from his eyes again, the couch wet under his face.
He scoots forward slightly, until he can rest his head against the junction of her hip and the underside of her stomach, her shirt bunching up against his hair. She brings a hand to his nape as he sighs, carding through the unruly hair with her fingernails.
One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of her thigh and he fits his hand around it perfectly, his thumb brushing in soothing motions. Her stomach jumps at the contact, but she doesn’t pull away. He starts slowly, tentatively, before he grows confident and squeezes the back of her thigh without real force.
She brings her second hand to his head as well, scratching against his scalp. She sees the goosebumps on his neck begin to form, a shudder making its way through his shoulders. She presses a thumb at the beginning and soothes it over his neck, into the collar of his shirt.
Her hand travels further into his shirt until she can press it between his shoulder blades. His skin feels warm underneath her hand and she turns her hand over, basking in the heat trapped between his skin and shirt.
He groans against her thigh and she feels his head lift slightly. She pulls herself back until she has created enough space to be able to look down at him, her hand still cradling the back of his neck.
He looks up at her from underneath his eyelashes, a few teardrops clinging to them. “I don’t want you to leave…”
She opens her mouth, but he interrupts before she can even begin arguing. “You can leave, It’s not… you don’t need my permission, or anything.”
He squeezes the back of her thigh again, mumbling into her jeans. “I just really don’t want to be alone.”
Even if she did know what to say, she wouldn’t answer. She lets the silence between them become thick before she cradles her head against his stomach again, hunching over him slightly.
They stay posed like that until Eva feels her joints start to prickle again, and her lower back begin to twinge. Grace had already dropped his hand from her thigh a while ago, shaking it out every once in a bit.
She doesn’t want to interrupt the careful peace that has settled around them for now, that has quieted her inner turmoil, but she doesn’t know how much longer she can keep standing like that without seriously feeling it for hours to come, so she tugs softly at his hair until he lifts his head off of her.
She moves around the couch, his eyes tracking her movements, moving his body with her, his face always turned to her.
It takes courage, it takes a whole lot of courage for what she is about to do, and she had bitterly thought that all courage she had left had been spent the last few months, but apparently she still has a few tricks up her sleeve, ones she expertly hid from herself.
She has trouble fully lowering herself over his hips, her own cracking sickly, and she has to keep most of her weight on her knees. Grace does not mind, he does not mind at all. He holds her steady, hovering just slightly above.
She sees his eyes fall down to her lips, but she doesn’t follow his expectations. Or rather his hopes, maybe.
She drops her head next to his ear, nosing against the junction where his shoulder meets his neck. She doesn’t particularly enjoy the feeling of his beard against her cheek, but he smells nice, something fresh with a hint of vanilla, and she manages not to tense up when he cages her in with his arms.
She doesn’t know when he got so good at reading her, or why he remembered all that he learned for so many years, but it’s evident in how easily he manages to trap her without the panic attack this time. It doesn’t even feel like entrapment, she muses. She almost enjoys it.
She slumps her shoulders down, and she’s not really sure she wants to see what her posture looks like from an outsider’s point of view. One of his large hands has moved to touch under her shirt, tracing over the protruding bones of her spine gently.
“Are you going to fall asleep like this?”, he whispers against her ear and she instinctively turns her head towards his mouth slightly.
“No.”, she mumbles against his shoulder. “My hips hurt.”
“Ah…”, he exhales, his hand continuing its path on her back. “Do you want to…”
He doesn’t finish his question but he gives her plenty of time to react, to draw back, or to push him off as he carefully lowers them on the couch, his eyes never leaving hers.
They end up faced to each other and she instantly feels the tension in her joints lift at the change of position, now only throbbing with a comfortable pain.
He lifts her head to push one of the throw pillows under it, sharing it with her. She feels the air from his nose hit her upper lip and his nose twitch as her hair tickles him. Their legs are intertwined, her foot on the back of his calf, moving up and down.
He is smiling at her, tentatively, like he can’t show too much or he is afraid she’ll run again. She watches his face as he bites back the smile. She isn’t smiling herself, but that doesn’t seem to stop him.
She falls asleep next to him, too close on his couch, his breath fanning over her face. The wine has amplified her exhaustion from all the commotion tonight, and she finds that sleep doesn’t struggle with her now. The anxiety settles on a low hum in the back of her mind, but she is too exhausted to listen.
Grace is a smart man, and he has proven his knowledge of her countless times already this evening, so she’ll trust he will prove himself to her once more during the night. She sleeps with a heavy heart these days, but this is not something she has to worry about. He will know what to do and what not to do, and she won’t have to tell him.
It’s a comfort that doesn’t come easy to her, but one she would like to get used to.
She doesn’t let that bother her though, all that she has to focus on is dozing off next to Grace. That is something she can do. She barely even registers the soft-spoken ‘goodnight’ whispered in front of her as her mind draws black.
The following morning, she wakes as soon as the first rays of sunlight shine through his windows, basking the apartment in an early-morning golden-glow. She blinks against the light as the rough feeling inside her becomes evident.
Her head doesn’t pound as much as she thinks it should have, but she can’t reason against the dead crows in her mouth or greasy, sweaty feeling on her body.
Grace is still out cold, snoring softly with his mouth open, his hands tucked under his head. She watches the drool that has pooled in the corner of his mouth and fights the urge to wipe it clean.
She hoists herself up from the couch, wincing against the spinning world as she stands. She is careful not to make too much noise as she gathers what she has left scattered around the apartment.
She already dreads having to go the entire three hours back with the public transit, and she doesn’t know if she can do it with her wine-stained, drool-covered, sweaty shirt. She glances at Grace’s bedroom. It’s only fair.
She picks the first thing sees hanging in closet and doesn’t bother to look down at the, undoubtedly, horrible pun that is written across the shirt. All she cares about at the moment is that it fits nicely, hanging half off her shoulder, and smells like him and his laundry detergent.
She watches Grace’s sleeping form as she walks back into the living room, and the morally righteous part of her brain can’t leave him with her usual Irish-goodbye. She sighs as she gets a bright-pink sticky note from his kitchen counter.
A week seeing Grace and she is already turning soft again, she grumbles.
She posts the sticky note with her phone number on his forehead softly, for old times’ sake, before leaving the apartment without looking back.
She imagines him waking up to find the bright pink in his face as she boards the train together with the dozen men in suits, commuting themselves to work. She feels almost like a teenager again as she assesses how vastly different their reasons for commuting are. It makes her smile underneath her cap.
She hopes Grace will smile, or grumble and roll his eyes, or brush his teeth, and then text her. She hopes he will see it as an offer. Her own invitation to a coffee date, just a little less direct and sappy. She has slowly begun to realise that he knows her, though, and she has always been confident in his abilities.
This should be easy. For the both of them.