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A/N: Happy Strattland week my loves!!! This is for Day One - Body Swap. And I hope it's the shenanigans everyone craves, because I'm delighted by it!
Title from House Tour by Sabrina Carpenter. I'm on tumblr and twitter @ heavensbeehalls, so come connect! If you enjoy, leave kudos or a comment or a funny quote tweet, I treasure them all.
On with the show! And now we see whether I finish the rest of the week in time - watch this space.
Dinner in the mess hall is the usual hodge podge of madness. They’ve been on the boat for long enough that everyone is on Vat Time, not like in the earliest days of the project when everyone was on a different country’s clock and meals were not taken together. And, score one for him, he was actually out of the lab on time and able to get the broccoli for his mac and cheese when it was fresh from the boil, before it goes limp and soggy.
Annie and Martin are blatantly flirting across their plates, and Annie’s hand is not visible, and he’s grateful for the distraction of Eva standing up and the room falling silent. She doesn’t even have to do anything to get anyone’s attention. Just commands the room.
“There is a storm expected to pass over us tonight,” she says. “We are too far from land to dock and wait it out. The doors to the deck will be locked and so will the labs. I ask that you are not fools around the weather and you all stay inside and away from the windows. I have been assured the Gansu can handle a storm. If necessary, emergency evacuation will be called in.”
Olesya’s eyes are bright, and she asks, “Drink, Grace? For the storm?”
“You know I was a stormchaser at college?” Martin says.
“You haven’t told me that,” Annie says, her eyes lighting up in a way Ryland can only really describe as aroused.
“Me and some buddies,” he says. “Never quite caught up to a tornado. But saw some really good lightning strikes.”
“Adrenaline junkie,” Olesya says, shaking her head.
Martin narrows his eyes. “You bungee jump.”
“Not into storms-”
“And you’re all going to space,” Ryland cuts through the bickering, and they turn lopsided smiles to him. “No drink, I don’t think. I’ll get an early night if the labs are gonna be locked down.”
“You are capable of an early night?” Annie teases.
“I...I’m normally in bed by-”
“Normally you are burning candle at both ends writing reports for the boss,” Olesya says, wiggling her eyebrows. “You have very dark circles. Could use concealer.”
“You can’t criticise your superior’s appearance, Yukh,” Annie says, her hand now on Martin’s bicep.
“I’m not your superior,” Ryland says, and they all tilt their heads at him. “I’m not!”
“Too superior to drink with us,” Olesya teases, and kicks her chair back from the table. “I will go and start karaoke. Drown out the thunder.”
Ryland stands up with a short, “Night,” and leaves the mess hall. The evening stretches out in front of him luxuriously, nothing to do. He could actually take his time over his reports. Read one of the books he bought on their last stop at a port. Watch something mindless to forget he’s part of saving the world.
Or he could lie in bed, doing nothing, and thinking about dropping by Eva’s office like he normally does. Apparently, that’s what he chooses to do. Think about her. Worry about her.
It’s silly. But he thinks about her all the time anyway, waiting for the soft sound of her shoes against the metal floors of the Vat. Looking for the shiny twist of her hair around the corners. Listening for her talking to him, smiling when she raises her voice at politicians, melting when she softens over him.
He falls asleep listening to the distant thrum of the karaoke machine through the floor, still in his jeans. Exhausted, black, dreamless sleep.
Jerks awake to the crash of waves against the side of the ship, a ringing roll of thunder. The ship rolls hard against the water, and even with his sea legs he still feels his stomach do an unhappy turn at the violent movement.
He sits up, pries his jeans from his legs and runs his fingers over the indents left behind on his hips. Swaps into pyjamas, glad he didn’t manage to knock his glasses off the bed and break them. Irresponsible, to fall asleep with them on. If they’re out at sea in a storm for days, he’ll never be able to get a replacement.
Someone knocks on his door. Tentative. And he stumbles to answer it, and finds Eva standing there, his knuckles white on the frame.
She’s wrapped tightly in a dark blanket, her face very pale above it. Hair braided over one shoulder, loose and lovely in the night, and he asks, “You good?”
Immediately regrets it. Awkward. Stupid. She’s at his door in the middle of the night, clearly something is wrong.
“Can I come in?” she asks quietly.
He opens his mouth to answer, and a sharp crack of thunder shakes the ship, and he sees her jump. The pallor of her face, the obvious fear in her eyes, and he stands aside and says, “Yeah. Sure. It’s tidy.”
“You feel the need to point that out?” she asks, stepping inside. In his room. He’s so chill with this (he’s so glad he put a shirt on). “Is it usually messy?”
“I’m a little free with my belongings, yes,” he says, and she smirks.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, and he nods. “Me too.”
“No,” he gasps, just to see that little smile she sometimes turns on him. Surprised. Soft. Sweet. “I refuse to believe you’re messy.”
“I am impeccable when it comes to my work,” she says, pulling her blanket up around herself. Letting him catch a glimpse of her NASA pyjama shirt. “My life? Not so much.”
“Your life is work,” he says, and instinctively grabs for purchase on something when there’s a startling flash through the porthole. “Whoa-”
The crack of thunder shakes the ship a moment later, so loud it sounds like the walls might come down around them, and he feels very, very small under the might of the storm.
And he looks at Eva. Really looks at her. Her wide eyes, the hollow of her cheek where she’s clearly chewing on the inside of her mouth, her knuckles white on the edge of her blanket, and he gently asks, “Stratt? Are you afraid of the storm?”
“A little,” she says, clutching her blanket tighter. She swallows thickly, and her breath is coming short in a way he knows is an approaching anxiety attack. “They warned me about it days ago. It’s...not helping that I’ve had all that time to worry about it.”
Her grip on the corners of the blankets gets tighter, and he steps forward, a quiet, “Hey, what do you need? You need space? You need distraction?”
Her head thunks hard against his chest, instinct putting his arms around her. She leans into him, and he tucks his chin to the top of her head, smelling the rosemary in her hair and just sort of gently patting her back. “Why do you smell like cheese?” she asks into his chest, and he flushes.
“Spilled some sauce on myself at dinner, and fell asleep in my clothes, it must’ve soaked through,” he says, and hears her giggle into his chest. “I can go shower.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I should...I should go sleep.”
“You can stay,” he says quietly. She looks up at him, eyes like whirlpools, biting her lip, and he says, “Stratt, come on. You’re obviously scared. Just stay here. We can...chill.”
She blinks up at him, so pretty in the warm lamplight. And then she steps towards the bed, still cocooned in her blanket, and sits down.
“What are you scared of?” she asks, and he smiles.
“Birds,” he says, and she laughs. He could swallow that sound whole. “No, really. Hate them. Evil creatures.”
“I dated an ornithologist in university,” she says, and he twitches at the mention of her life before. Before Mary. Before him. “He specialised in birds of prey. Used to take me birdwatching.”
“How long did that last?” he asks.
“Two years, the sex was good,” she says, and he splutters.
“Doctor DuBois was talking about chasing storms in university,” he says to change the subject. “Don’t you think that’s nuts? Running into danger?”
“Some people like it,” she says. “The adrenaline. Being close to that kind of force. It makes them feel alive.”
“Not me,” he says.
“Well, what does make you feel alive?” she asks.
You. “Discovery,” he says, and she arches one eyebrow, a slight smile on the corner of her mouth. “What about you?”
“Music,” she says, and he feels his brows go up. “Sunset. Sunrise. The ocean. People.”
He stares at her for a moment, and says, “You really do love the world, don’t you?”
“It’s why I’m here,” she says softly. The moment is heavy, magnetic, and he wonders if leaning in would be inappropriate.
Another flash of lightning, a crash closer than before, and Eva starts so violently her grip comes free of her blanket, and he instinctively moves closer, putting an arm around her. “It’s okay,” he breathes, her eyes darting. “C’mere.”
“Doctor Grace-”
“Just...lie down, and breathe slowly,” he says. Pulls her into the narrow bed, his hand stroking down the smooth, soft material of her blanket. “This is nice.”
“Cashmere,” she says, and he strokes his whole palm down it. “Grace, I’m not a dog. Stop petting me.”
He pulls his hand back like he’s been burned, a muffled, “Sorry.”
She unravels the blanket from around herself, and throws half of it over him. “Since you like it,” she says, and he smiles.
The bed is narrow. That’s how they end up so close, and it’s uncomfortable for him to lie with his arm squished underneath himself. So he just...drapes it over her. Casually. Barely touching her, really.
She fits alongside him like measuring cups in a drawer. Wriggles back into him, her feet against his calves, her skin cool against his. “Why are you so cold?” he asks, and sees the lift of her cheek when she smiles.
“Poor circulation,” she says, rubbing her feet against his calves. “Why are you so warm?”
“Fast metabolism,” he says, and hears her breathy laugh.
“Is that why you get away with eating all that candy?”
“You keep supplying it-”
“Blaming me for your lack of control?”
“Not blaming,” he says, and resists the urge to nose through her hair, to pull her closer. They’re only so close because the bed is narrow. Only in the bed because he doesn’t want her to have a panic attack. It’s pragmatic bed sharing.
“I should go back to my room-”
“Can I keep the blanket?”
“No, it was expensive,” she says shortly.
“Well I’m emotionally attached to the blanket now, so you’ll have to stay,” he says, and she smiles in the dark.
A lightning flash close enough to the boat to feel it, and he pulls her closer, nose against her shoulder. Feeling the muscles in her back shift against his chest, curling his arm around her. The dark makes him brave enough to murmur, “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
“I know,” she breathes. Doesn’t quite lace her fingers through his. But ghosts her fingertips across his knuckles like she wants to.
Soothed by the smell of rosemary in her hair and the slow sound of her breathing, he’s asleep before a lightning strike rocks the boat, lighting the world up silver. He just grips Eva closer, their bodies pressed close enough that its hard to tell where she ends and he begins.
Watery sunlight is lighting up the room when Ryland opens his eyes, the cawing of sea birds in their usual morning chorus dragging him up from underwater. Lifting a hand to scrub sleep from his eyes, jerking when his fingers are shockingly cold. The storm must have knocked out the heating.
He starts when he feels a hand pressed against his stomach, heat rising in his cheeks. Him and Eva must have switched positions in their sleep, and now he’ll have to confront the reality of having shared a bed with his boss, holding and being held all night. Making the excuse that it was because of the storm.
A stretch, curling his arms into the air, cracking his knuckles. His body feels odd this morning, but he hasn’t shared a bed with anyone since Linda left him. He’s not used to the weight of a body next to his anymore, to the heat pouring off another person. For someone whose hands are always cold, Eva is radiating heat against his back, almost uncomfortable.
He turns over to shake Eva awake.
Right into his own sleeping face.
And screams, high-pitched, jerks back so hard he tumbles out of the bed, hitting his hip against the nightstand when he falls, the lamp rocking dangerously back and forth.
Lying on the floor, rubbing his knee, he hears a faint, “Grace?”
“Stratt?” His voice comes out accented, and he claps a hand across his mouth.
A shadow falls across his face, and he opens his eyes to see himself looking down from the bed, the blanket clutched to his chest. A tilted head, eyes blinking, and whatever the hell is happening says, “Your eyesight is awful, Grace.”
“Oh my God...oh my God-”
“Stop panicking, Grace.” Definitely Eva. No one else can snap like that, make his mouth snap shut. “Where are your glasses?”
He looks around - and wow, having perfect 20/20 vision back for the first time since he was about eight is really something - and grabs his glasses from the nightstand. Hands them to her, watching his own eyes blinking at him.
“Eva?” he asks, and she nods. “Oh my God, what happened?”
“It appears we’ve swapped bodies,” she says, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and offering him a hand. “You better not have bruised anything, Grace. I am attached to my uninjured body.”
“Why are you so calm?” he squawks.
“You act like we are not living in a world where the sun is dying,” she says, stretching. He watches his own muscles shifting under her shirt, looking down at Eva’s...his body. Feeling his hip - definitely going to bruise.
“Okay...okay, we should call Lamai-”
“Why would we call Lamai?”
“She’s the onboard doctor, she can...do something-”
“Do you think a painkiller will fix this? Because that is mostly what the medbay has-” She shudders and says, “Being sarcastic in your voice doesn’t sound right.”
“Well give me my body back-”
“I don’t know how,” she says. Tilts her head at him - God, it’s weird seeing her mannerisms on his face - and asks, “Is that really what my hair looks like in the morning?”
“I don’t know, Stratt, we’ve never shared a bed before-”
“I know what we have to do,” she says, scratching idly at her stomach. He sees a very slight widening to her eyes, doesn’t get a second to wonder before she says, “We just have to pretend to be each other.”
“I literally can’t be you, I don’t even speak German-”
“What happened to your language learning app I saw you with?” she asks, and he feels his face heat.
“You know about that?”
“I know everything.”
“It kept telling me my pronunciation was bad,” he says meekly, and looks up at her smirking. His mouth looks odd in a smirk. Her smirk. On his face.
“Maybe with my voice you can fix it,” she says, and stands up. “My meeting this morning is with the UK anyway. You will be fine.”
“I can’t lead your meeting, they’ll kill me-”
“Grace,” she snaps, and he looks up. Looking up at himself, his set face, her expression, God, this is weird. “You have to.”
“Can’t we just...like, say we’re sick?”
“I am never too sick to work, I have had pneumonia and still worked-”
“We have to talk about your dangerous dedication-”
“How many days have you taken off teaching?”
“That’s different, it’s hard to take sick days as a teacher, your work is-”
“Quite literally saving the world,” she says sharply, and pushes him. “Go. Make sure no one sees you.”
“This is my room-”
“Grace,” she says, withering expression firmly in place. “No it isn’t.”
“Oh...right, right.” He tugs at her - his - NASA shirt, shifting on his feet, and says, “Then...I’ll go change.”
“I will come find you in twenty minutes,” she says, and shoves him out of the room.
He does, mercifully, know the way to her room. Lets himself in and finds himself blushing looking around. His cheeks hot, running his fingers through his hair, startled by the long copper strands that break off between his fingers. Rolling it around his palm until it tangles.
Should he shower? He thinks about seeing Eva’s body naked, water rolling down the curves occasionally suggested under her baggy clothes, and feels his entire head get hot.
Okay. No shower. But he can’t go to meetings in pyjamas, so he opens her drawers of clothes. A tangle of sweaters and shirts, in varying shades of neutral.
One yellow cuff pokes out, and he tugs. A soft knit, bright yellow, and when he turns to the mirror he sees it held up against himself.
Eva’s eyes blink back at him, and he strangles another scream. One thing to understand, quite another to see it. To see her body in the mirror, leaning closer and inspecting her face closer than he’s ever been allowed to. She’ll never know.
And the yellow looks nice against red hair. So he’ll wear this.
The next obstacle is underwear. Trying not to look for too long at practical cotton things in her drawer, flushing at the poke of bra wires against his fingers. He’ll be fine. He can do this and not make it weird.
He closes his eyes to get dressed, not opening them until he has to. To see where the neck hole in her sweater is. Looking straight up, not letting himself even notice the soft jiggle of her bra-clad breasts in his periphery. Definitely not.
When Eva knocks at the door, he opens it. And she immediately sweeps her gaze up and down him, mouth thinning, shoves him back and steps inside and immediately says, “No.”
“What-”
“You are not wearing yellow, I do not wear yellow-”
“But it’s a nice sweater!” he wheedles. “Why do you have it on the boat if you don’t wanna wear it anyway?”
“It was a present-”
“It looks nice on you-”
“Change it,” she snaps.
“Why are you wearing a black shirt? Stratt, everyone knows I wear goofy science shirts, it’s my thing-”
“Fine, fine!” she snaps. “Put on something different.”
He swaps the yellow sweater for a black one, trying not to pout, and follows her back to his room. Throws his THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE at her, glaring at each other. “Now what?” he asks.
“I have a meeting this morning about financing with the UK,” she says. “And a meeting this afternoon about energy consumption with China. You are expected in the labs to supervise Dubois and the new junior scientists.”
“You’re very good at supervising,” he says, and it comes out sharper than he means it to. “Stratt...Eva, I can’t go to meetings, I say stupid stuff-”
“Suck it up,” she snaps.
“Why are you mad at me-”
“I’m not mad at you!” she shouts, crossing her arms across her T-shirt. “I am frustrated by the situation, but we have to put up with it!” Her - his...God, this is confusing - stomach rumbles loud enough for them both to hear, and she puts a hand to her abdomen “Grace? Why am I hungry?”
“Because my body eats breakfast every morning,” he says, and smirks. “Finally. You know you can’t survive on coffee and cigarettes, Eva.”
“You will find my body can,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “If you go up on the deck now, you’ll see a very nice sunrise.”
“I haven’t smoked since college-”
“It’s like riding a bike,” she says, and pats his shoulder. “You are being me. Keep to my routine.”
So he does. Goes up onto the deck with the wind in his hair, trying not to be too bothered by long copper strands sticking to his face. Finds Lokken and Dmitri already up there, Dmitri lifting a hand and a polite, “Доброе утро, Director.”
He nods, lights his cigarette, and tries very hard not to cough as he pulls smoke into his lungs. It tastes bad. Somehow, four beers in and hanging around the back of a sticky college bar, it always tasted okay.
He lets the sound of Dmitri and Lokken’s conversation wash over him - he thinks they’re speaking Norwegian, but it could be anything - and then waves when he returns down the stairs. Lets out his series of explosive coughs once he gets to Eva’s office, a drink of water and opening her laptop. Pretending that it doesn’t mean anything that he knows her password.
The British financiers talk a lot. Men who like the sound of their own voices, suits and ties, and he hopes that his silence comes across as Eva’s sort of natural intimidation. And not that he has no idea what to say.
“Ms. Stratt,” one says, and he sits up. “You are quiet.”
“It’s Director Stratt,” he corrects immediately, and the man looks chastened. Good. “I...” He clenches Eva’s hands beneath the table, notices the red rawness around her nails, and says, “If you want your people to survive, Project Hail Mary needs money. No one said this would be cheap.”
“But-”
“Do you want the human race to live, or do you want everyone to die in an Ice Age?” he asks sharply. It comes out sharper in Eva’s voice. Downright brutal.
“Ms. Stratt-”
“Director,” he snaps, and now the other end of the call looks scared. “We have been sitting here for three hours and all you’ve done is talk about all the ways you can’t help. Come to me with solutions, and don’t waste my time.”
“Would you like to reschedule this meeting, Director?” the greyest man asks. “You seem...passionate today.”
He wants to gratefully say yes. But he thinks about Eva putting up with this, these small moments, never her correct title, people wasting her time when she is kind and good and trying to save the world, and snaps, “No. Give me a solution.”
One of the younger-looking ones pipes up with something, and he leans back in his chair. It feels good, standing up for Eva. Being her. Making people take her seriously.
Power could go to his head like this. He doesn’t understand how it hasn’t gone to Eva’s, how she remains soft.
A young scientist passes him in the corridor, and he looks up, says, “Shouldn’t you be in the lab with Doctor DuBois?”
The young woman jumps, squeaks, “Director Stratt, I was...just...”
“Please be where you’re supposed to be,” he says, and the young woman starts crying. “Wait, wait, oh my God, don’t cry, you’re not in trouble, I-”
“I’m sorry,” she rasps. “I...I’ll be where I’m supposed to be. Please don’t fire me.”
“You’re not fired, just...follow the schedule,” he says, and tacks on, “Please.” Winces, because that’s out of character. Eva doesn’t say please, she gives orders and waits for them to be followed.
“Okay...okay ma’am,” the young woman says, and scrambles away, her sobs echoing down the corridor.
When Ryland gets to the mess hall, he tries desperately to catch Eva’s eyes, to get her alone and tell her that he might have angered the UK, and he made one of the new recruits cry even though he didn’t mean to.
But she, in his body, is holding court amongst the team. Olesya is staring at her, smiling, and Ryland watches her for a moment. Leaning against the wall, folding his arms across his chest, watching her smile spread across his face. Wondering how he can tell the difference.
He can hear the conversation, just. Hears Olesya asks, “Grace, tell us the truth - you are Stratt’s number two, yes?”
“Yes,” Eva says, and he can hear her softer way of speaking coming through in his voice. Maybe they’ll have to practice more, if they’ll be stuck like this.
“So why?” Olesya asks, pillowing her chin in her hand. “Why you?”
“I know,” Martin says. “It’s because you discovered astrophage, right? And how to breed it? Obviously you become number two.”
“And because he has charming personality,” Olesya says, bumping her elbow into Eva.
Ryland watches them. And he hears the words, lets them land, looks at Eva’s face. His face. Smooth expression. Not arguing with anyone about these presumptions.
The young woman from the corridor opens the door, her face still red, and Annie looks up with a gentle, “Luisa, what happened?”
“Nothing,” Luisa squeaks, but her eyes dart to Ryland.
He sees Eva look. Notice the fact that the young woman has obviously been crying. And her face hardens.
She stands up, knocking her chair backwards. Right into the table, the whole thing jolting, and he sees her face go red, her sharp, “Ha. Clumsy me.”
Ryland sees red, and shouts, “Doctor Grace! My office!”
He feels cool for about half a second. Before the staring starts, and he sees people’s eyes following Eva. Fondness on their faces like he’s a child, like some mascot, and he turns away and marches down the corridor.
When he closes the door to Eva’s office behind them, she immediately snaps, “Why was that girl crying?”
“I think I scared her-”
“I don’t make people cry, Grace, that’s not what we’re about-”
“Apparently we’re about making people our number two and not telling them-”
She blinks at him, rolls her eyes. “What about being invited everywhere with me made you believe you weren’t number two?”
“Lots of things-”
“Like what?”
“Is this how you see me?” he asks, gesturing at her with one small hand. Feeling his eyes stinging with frustrated tears. “Some clumsy idiot you keep around because he discovered astrophage breeding?”
“Do you see me as your cold bitch boss who stands around giving orders and makes people cry?” she snaps, folding her arms. Drawing herself tall, and oh, that is a little intimidating. Huh. When he gets his body back, he’ll make a note of how nerve-wracking it is when he takes up space.
“No-”
“Well I don’t see you as an idiot, Grace!”
“Well good!” he snaps, frustration prickling along his back. “Can you act like it?”
“When I stand still people stare at me, if we are in this situation then we have to be convincing,” she says shortly, folding her arms tighter. Her biceps bulging out of the T-shirt she chose, and he takes a moment to admire it. The regime Carl made for him is really working.
“If you’re going to be me then can you not ruin my professional reputation, I just got it back-”
“Grace, you are the first person to make contact with alien life and discover how to breed it, I am the one who empowered you to get that reputation back-”
“So you’re taking credit for the reinvention of Ryland Grace-”
“No!” she shouts, and he’s blasted by the sound of his own voice. It’s been a long time since he heard himself angry like that. “I’m saying that you allowing yourself to think I see you as nothing more than a bumbling clumsy scientist is insulting, Ryland!”
“Then how do you see me?” he snaps, German accent coming out sharp.
“I…” She blinks at him behind her glasses, and he sees her picking at the skin around her nails. Ruining his hands. “Do you truly not understand how much I believe in you? Have I not made that clear?”
“Eva…” He trails away, and instinctively moves closer to her. “But I’m just…me.”
“You are not just anything,” she says quietly. “My God, Grace, I’ve been you for a day and I see how good you are. How everyone lights up when you walk into the room. You…” She bites her lip, and glances down at her feet. “You’re the sun, Ryland.”
“But that’s you,” he blurts out, and clamps his mouth shut, his face heating.
She looks down at him, blinking, and asks, “Me?”
“You know…everyone orbits you,” he says quietly. Gulps. “Especially me.”
“I…Ryland-”
“I just think you’re incredible,” he says quietly. “I don’t know what I’m doing and the people in your meetings still listen because they think it’s you. And you’re smart, and brave, and funny, and my God you’re so gorgeous-”
“That’s enough,” she says sharply.
And then she kisses him.
It’s very weird. Feeling the sting of stubble, the broad hand on his back, warmth tingling up his spine.
The world spins around them kissing, a swirl of colour, and when he blinks his eyes open and breaks the kiss he’s looking down at her again.
Her eyes flicker open, and they both step back, and he pats himself down and groans, “Oh thank God. I really didn’t want to go to your meeting with China.”
She laughs, her face open and pink and sweet, her whirlpool eyes focused on him. “You can sit in if you want,” she says softly, gazing at him.
“I think I need to lie down and process the last day,” he says, and she smiles.
“I’ll give you something to process,” she breathes, and crosses the gap between them to kiss him again. Her lips so soft, the taste of Skittles in her mouth when he slips his tongue past her teeth, the small of her back beneath his palm as he spreads his fingers out across her rucked-up sweater.
When they eventually break apart, her face is pink, and he nudges his nose into the smile curve of her cheek and says, “You blush very easily.”
“No I don’t-”
“I’ll be running some experiments,” he says, and kisses the top of her head. “Stratt...Eva...”
“Take your own body back to the lab, Doctor Grace,” she says softly, and kisses him again. Her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, her smile soft.
He knows he’s smiling like an idiot the whole afternoon. Dmitri comments, “You don’t have to look so happy about it,” when he’s reporting the less than ideal figures for astrophage breeding, and he clamps his lips together, trying to be serious.
When he gets to the mess hall for dinner, Eva is waiting for him. It’s rare she beats him there, rarer still that she pats the chair next to her and gives him a halo smile, hair loose around her shoulders. Wearing the yellow sweater he pulled out and was forced to put back.
He can feel everyone staring at them when he slips into the seat next to her, fingers pressing sweaty prints into the tabletop. Clears his throat and turns to her, and gets out a soft, “Come here often?”
“You’re ridiculous,” she breathes, and pulls him by the collar of his T-shirt into a kiss, in front of God and everybody.
They break apart to silence, and then Olesya raises her glass and shouts, “Again!” and the whole room rings with laughter.
Eva nudges her chair closer to Ryland’s, the room loud with what seems to be a fond but passionate argument in perfect Russian between Yao, Olesya and Dmitri, and she looks up at him and quietly says, “I have to say, Doctor Grace, that I did not expect you to be as...endowed as you are.”
He chokes on his salad, tines of his fork rattling against his teeth, and she gives him a concerned, soft look, hand sliding down his back. “You looked?” he gasps after a slug of water, and she smiles angelically.
“Scientific curiosity,” she says. “You didn’t look?”
“No, I...I was being respectful-”
“Shame,” she says softly. “I have perfect breasts.”
And of course his eyes drop. Of course they do. And she smirks, and asks, “Shall we go back to my room, Doctor Grace?”
What else can he say but, “Yes, Director.”
Annie watches Stratt and Grace leave the mess hall together, hands linked. Their head scientist looking like he’s been hit over the head with something heavy, their director looking like the cat that got the cream. Or is about to get the cream.
She kisses Martin on the cheek and leaves him engaged in passionate conversation about weather phenomena with the junior scientists, crossing the room and tapping Olesya on the shoulder. Gesturing with an incline of her head for them to talk in the corner, and Dmitri raises his eyebrows and says, “DuBois got competition.”
“I should be so lucky,” Annie says, and Dmitri cackles, and she drags Olesya into the corner and hisses, “Did you see the boss?”
“I did,” Olesya says, shifting on her feet.
“Well...you don’t think it’s all too much of a coincidence?” Annie hisses. “Storm last night, they act weird all morning, and now tonight they’re kissing?”
“Who cares?” Olesya says, waving her hand. “They are happy, we are happy, whole ship happy we do not have to watch annoying sexual tension.”
“But if we get caught-”
“Etsy spells are not real,” she says dismissively, and Annie looks around like someone will hear them and take it seriously. “It is coincidence. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”
“But the reviews-”
“You can believe we truly cast body swap curse on the bosses if you want,” Olesya says, shaking her head. “Stranger things happen. Like seeing scary boss blushing at her boy toy.”
“They have access to our internet history-”
“Baby girl, stop worrying,” Olesya says, shaking her head. “Come on. We get drink.”
“Early experiment-”
“And your room down the hall from Grace, you think you want to overhear?”
Annie snaps her mouth shut and follows the usual gang to the bar. Sits in the cradle of Martin’s arm, leaning back against him, and tries to put all thoughts of a disciplinary for casting an Etsy spell on her bosses out of her head.
They don’t have HR anyway. Or their supreme leader sleeping with her subordinate would be the real story.
So she keeps her head down, says nothing, and texts Olesya a fist bump emoji in the Vat chat when Grace rolls into the lab ten minutes late the next morning, neck purple and black with hickies and smile so smug he looks deranged.
While he lectures, Annie stares at the faint scratch marks on the back of his neck, and is glad she spent the night in Martin’s bed instead of hers.