Work Text:
the person attached to the ‘mop of heat-frizzed deeply-faded wavy purple hair’ jerks her head up sharply from her work splayed about her desk at the sound of a voice intermingling with her best friend kent clarke’s voice. it’s an amalgamate of emotions that she’s processing at the moment ~ an air of lethargy (from this being one of her many many nights working much too late), the inkling of her inner grouch monster coming to the surface (this was an unwelcome interruption to her peaceful 27 minutes of not hearing kent’s chipper chatterbox mouth going a mile a minute at her. she adores the man, but that brief time of tranquility ended much too soon), a tic of apprehensiveness and nerves (she did not remember reading about any newbies coming up to the base so just who is this new creature?) ~ as well as a smattering of the perplexity of her always rapidly-firing brain being intrigued by the voice in the other room (why in the hell does it sound so familiar but why can’t she quite put her finger on it?)
she drags herself up out of the spinny chair paired with her desk and marches (as much as she can, anyways) towards the main room. her bare feet slap lightly against the wooden floors beneath her feet. a small smile quirks her lips when she hears two distinct movements that she have become as natural for her to listen to as breathing is for her survival.
one being the weight of kent’s body redistributing on the floor while his head shoots off to look where he thinks he can hear her nearby, as well as the tinkle of the necklace she gave to him tucked underneath his shirt, where he wears it everyday. she can only imagine the surprise and horror on the woman’s face at his movement ~ it can definitely be jarring to the untrained eye…but she is a bit used to it at this point, finely tuned to the way kent moves, as well as the way her mother joyce used to move once she completely lost her eyesight.
two being the patter of sweet dog feeties coming up to her, the woman automatically crouching down to rub madam spoons the guide dog around the ears.
“miss spoons!” she feigns surprise at the old and chubby lab, chuckling at the way her head cocks to the side at the woman before her. “your dad is gonna be so-“
“spoons!”
as if on cue, a strong and clear voice calls out to his trusty dog. she has loved his voice for basically the entire time she has known him, which has been all of a year and seven months ~ especially the sweet four months they had all to themselves before the base began picking up with more SETI scientists (but of course, nothing happened) (what a load of horseshit). it’s rich and gravelly and so commanding, but at the very same time, tender and soothing and languid. it’s basically one of her favorite noises in the world, and she has heard some good shit.
“you made him mad, spoons. time to go grovel,” she teases both the dog and kent, being sure to pitch her voice up enough to be audible by the blind man.
sure enough, the dog hops up and promptly returns to her dear father’s side where he has eased into the hallway, pressing her side against his leg. kent dips his hand down to smooth over her soft head, smiling when he feels the girl’s presence in front of him.
“she’s not supposed to do that, is she?”
“nope. very silly dog, spoons is.”
“a very silly girl, indeed. she must make the most brazen sacrifice to the master of the spoons for her title of madam spoons to be reinstated, to make all well within the universe of utensils.”
“good lord,” he laughs out before turning his head, enough so she follows his line of sight to see a bumbling band of men through the window and hear their heavy steps and loud voices, “where do you get such weird shit, woman?”
“i wouldn’t keep saying it if you weren’t eating it up,” she murmurs to him before slightly extending her arm for him to hold as the rest of the scientists come inside, his hand comfortably slotting in the familiar space above her elbow. he breathes in deeply as the sensation grounds him, like it does time and time again, and follows after her as she guides them towards the action of the room.
as the scientists introduce themselves to the new woman in the room, cleverly hidden by shoulders and hawaiian shirts but she can see a wisp of dark hair tufting up, she asks kent, “who’s the new girl, by the way? i recognize her voice from somewhere, but i don’t remember reading of any new additions, unless i’m being dreadfully forgetful again…”
her voice trails off as the sea of bodies move and she sees who it is, recognizing her within a fraction of a second.
“oh shit! hello!” she blurted out, cursing to herself when she feels the man jolt beside her, both at her louder voice and sudden movement. “ah! so sorry! here, take a wall, babe, any wall is your wall,” she quickly says, guiding the startled man to the wall nearest to them. once ensuring he’s settled, she scampers off to glomp the woman in a way that practically leaves a dust cloud after her.
“ellie! why are you here? shit, hello!” she rambles out at the same time that doctor eleanor ‘ellie’ arroway is chattering ferociously, “donna-jean! hello, hello! i didn’t know you were down here after graduating!”
the pair continue to gab as the surrounding male scientists glance unimpressed (sans kent, but he has the same perturbed look on his face he gets when everything is too loud).
“i take it they know each other, huh?” fish says to willie incredulously.
“apparently so, jesus christ.”
“their voices are so pitchy, oh my god, deej, please!”
they burst apart at the loudest voice having spoken, that being kent. donna-jean, also called dj and deej, looks her over at the man.
“shit, sorry, didn’t think about it, kent,” she apologizes upon seeing the near-pained look on his face, momentarily feeling like a dick for being part of the source of his overwhelm.
he grits out a grim smile and nods, clearly not all that worried.
“not a bother, dj. how do you guys know each other?” kent asks as he presses his back up against the wall behind him for better support.
“oh! yeah, we were roommates at m.i.t.,” she happily says as she looks over at her former partner-in-crime, fondly remembering all of the stupid shit they did in the midst of madly studying the sky.
“we sure were,” ellie says before smugly looking at deej “speaking of which, you didn’t tell me your boobs came in. i’m so proud of you.”
she yelps at the light poke against her upper chest before retaliating with a much sharper upwards swat to her chest, smirking at the nearly identical noise she makes. “you didn’t tell me about yours either, so we are even. we were both children, for the record, me not even being 14. me more than you, so i don’t know what your excuse is at this point.”
“oh sweet god, don’t get going again,” kent quickly says, a smile in his voice creeping up at the laughter he hears coming from ellie and deej ~ he also doesn’t want anymore mental images of what deej’s chest looks like, considering he already has a good idea with how he grabs atop her shoulder for guidance and can normally feel the lack of a bra beneath her thin tshirt. it drives him fucking insane every time.
not to mention he thinks he would spontaneously combust if he had to witness the pair of them being a colossal pain in the ass with hands entwined. with what drumlin said about ellie, and what he knows to be true about deej from personal testimony, he’s petrified of their joined forces.
“so! you never answered me, what’re you doing here?” ellie inquires as she ventures over to where fish is holding up some paperwork for her to finish, assumedly for whatever human resources shindig is rigged up in the middle of puerto rico.
“needless to say, doctor donna-jean thomas! currently working on analyzing the flare radius and nailing an average on the variability of red dwarf stars and flare stars. she wants to do something really weird…”
he trails off as he startles, though pleasantly, at the feeling of her body pressed against him. he loves when she wraps her hand around his bicep as if to memorize the rivets and curvatures, wondering why she’s doing it so reverently when it’s just…him. her top two fingers and thumb are on his shirt and her bottom two are lightly resting on his sweat-sticky skin with her front leaning against his side. her chin rests on his shoulder, her opposite hand drifts up to flick a finger against his wide neck, and her warm breath fans over his skin as she hisses out, though teasingly, “don’t be a dick, doctor clarke.”
“just doing my job, dearest.”
and with that, she feels her metaphorical panties fly out into the universe.
she can’t stand the way he calls her that…but would give anything to hear him calling her that for the rest of eternity. she had told
him all about her family at some point when they were both drinking (she was definitely drunk and he was barely tipsy), including her birth name and the way her middle name from her adoptive family makes her twitch. she thinks it’s precious, of course, but so impractical ~ and yet, he has managed to make her feel like someone is actually, finally calling her his.
she continues to lean against him as he introduces the rest of the research team habitating the premises, though she perks up considerably at the words that ellie says she is searching for “little green men.”
huh. interesting.