Work Text:
“Can I ask you something?”
A sigh.
“What is it, Dr. Grace?"
Stratt sounded more than mildly annoyed at being interrupted. Which, Grace had to admit, was quite fair, seeing how it was far from the first time she’d interrupted in the past half hour. Stratt hadn’t looked up from her laptop in a long while and it was getting harder and harder to resist bothering her.
They were in her office, where they’d been working through their respective mountains of paperwork. They’d been at it for hours, and Grace had given up trying to fill out the remaining papers for the past fifteen minutes or so, putting more effort into pretending to do paperwork than doing the actual work itself. She’d finished the most pressing ones anyway, and the rest could wait till tomorrow.
“You almost done?” Grace asked, turning lazily from side to side on her rotating chair. It hadn’t been the question she was going to ask, but the weariness in Stratt’s tone had stalled her. Stratt rolled her eyes, not stopping her typing.
“If you are bored, Dr. Grace, you can always leave.”
“So you aren’t?”
Stratt sighed tiredly, jaw working.
“The more you interrupt, the longer it will take. That is a logical conclusion, no?”
Grace nodded, chewing the back of her pen, bringing the chair to a stillstand. She just observed for a moment. Stratt really did look tired, and it had been a long day, as all days seemed to be nowadays, for both of them.
She had her hair up, a casual look as usual, with her long hair in a claw clip, the few strands that had escaped it during the day now tucked behind her ears. It suited her.
Grace touched the ends of her own hair where it reached just past her shoulders. She wondered what it would be like to have it long like that, or at least long enough to put it similarly in a hairclip. How much practice would it take to make it look just as effortless as Stratt managed to? She imagined her own hair at that length, what it would be like to brush through it, or braid it maybe? Would braids suit her? Wait. Did Stratt ever braid her hair? She tried to picture what that would look like. Kind of… cute? Wait. Cute?
She must’ve stared a bit too long because Stratt looked up with an exasperated sigh, pausing her typing.
“If you are going to be disruptive you should leave.”
“Will you teach me how to do my hair?”
It was still not the one she’d meant to ask, but the question slipped out before she could stop it.
They stared at each other, Stratt’s expression giving away nothing. Grace’s face reddened immediately.
“I mean - I mean when- It isn’t long enough now but it is getting longer and uhh, I haven’t- uhm. I don’t really have much experience, you know? I tried to get it out of my neck the other day but then Carl laughed at my ponytails because they were so uneven and I really don’t know what else to do with it and you always look so nice.” Her face reddened more. “I mean your hair, uh, your hair always looks nice. Not to say that you don’t look nice, I just… never really did my hair before? I’ll just shut up now. Uh. Sorry.”
The amount of heat radiating from her cheeks could have rivaled an Astrophage. Stratt had hardly blinked.
“Okay.” She said then.
“Okay?”
“Would you rather I say no?”
“No? Uh. Now?”
“If I teach you now, will you let me work in peace after?”
“Yea- yes?”
Stratt pressed a few keys on her keyboard, saving whatever file she was working on despite autosave being on (she was always thorough like that), then stood, turned her back to Grace, and took out her clip, shaking out her hair. Grace watched, mesmerized, as it uncoiled and fell in waves down her shoulders, reaching halfway down her back. It stood out beautifully against the dark grayish-blue of her sweater. Grace clasped her hands in front of her to avoid reaching out to touch it. It looked so soft.
Stratt peered over her shoulder to make sure Grace was paying attention, then, prompt as ever, began.
“Like so.” She said, then made a show of redoing her hair. It was clear she was doing it slower than she usually would. After all, Grace had seen how quickly she could get her hair up many times, but it still was too fast to follow, even with the bare instructions of “Gather, twist, up, and clip. Easy”
“Uhh.”
Stratt looked at Grace over her shoulder again, then turned to fully face her at the genuine confusion on her face.
“Okay, come here.” she instructed, undoing her hair again. The command was as clear as ever in her tone. “Turn around.”
Grace scrambled up, obeying readily, fighting down another blush while she tried to process what was happening. Ilyukhina’s throwaway comment about her being Stratt’s little science lapdog had no business coming to mind now. And it certainly had no business making her feel all warm inside about it.
With her back turned, Grace could not see the small, pleased smile on Stratt’s lips, but she could feel the satisfaction radiating off of the woman anyway. She really could be such a pain in the-
“Jesus, Stratt!”
“Stay still.”
“Your fingers are ice!”
“I cannot help that.”
A full body shiver made its way down her back when the fingers returned. Grace told herself it was from the cold, no other reason. Her hands really were icy though. Maybe she could get her some gloves? Or she could try to knit them? Knitting couldn’t be that hard, right? Wait, she needed to pay attention.
The gentleness with which Stratt gathered her hair together contrasted with her matter-of-fact tone.
“You take your hair like this.” she said, holding it close to her scalp. “Then you twist it together around your fingers like so… Hm.” Grace felt the twisting motion, but her hair soon fell back to her neck. Stratt tried again, twisting it slightly tighter this time to keep the shorter length of her hair in place. The front pieces slipped out anyways, too short to stay put. “Then you bring it up and clip it at whatever height you want it. Easy.” The teeth of the claw clip scratched pleasantly against Grace’s scalp as it closed. She gave her head an experimental shake. A few more front strands of her hair slipped out, but it mostly stayed put.
She turned around, shrugging self consciously.
“How’s it look?”
Stratt cocked her head a little, a tiny frown line forming between her brows. Then, she reached out and tucked the loose front strands that fell in front of Grace’s eyes back behind her ears. It was such an intimate gesture, and so unexpected, that all Grace could do was stare at her. Well, stare and blush. Badly. Her face felt like it should match the Petrova line in colour.
If Stratt noticed, which she surely must have, she mercifully didn't let on.
“It suits you.” she said, nodding. “It will of course work better once your hair is longer. This length really is not very practical. Especially in your lab.”
“Yeah, uh.” She gave her a thumbs up, immediately feeling silly for it and put it back down. “Working on that.”
Stratt reached into her pocket and fished out a hair tie. In a motion so practiced she seemed to hardly put any thought into it at all, she tied her hair in a half-up, half-down bun. How did she manage to make it look so elegant in under two seconds?
“Keep the clip” She said, sitting back down at her desk. “I have more.”
“Thank you.” Grace said. “And uh, thank you.”
“No need.” Though she seemed to catch the depth of the thanks given, she had already resumed typing. There was never much time for distractions, after all. Work came first. Work always came first.
Yet the question that had been burning on her tongue all evening demanded to be asked.
“Stratt? Uhm… Eva?”
Well that for sure got her attention. Grace, still standing in the middle of her office, bravely powered on under the intimidating furrowing of her brows.
“How is it that you’re so knowledgeable and cool about it? Of, uh, me. Like this, the trans stuff, I mean.” She gestured vaguely to herself. “You seem to just know, you know. And- And I was sort of wondering, if- if you maybe, uh, you know, what it is like?”
There. The question was out. Just a normal question to ask your boss who was also pretty much the dictator of the world, late at night in her office while she clearly wanted to get back to work.
Stratt blinked.
“Are you asking me if I am transgender, Dr. Grace?”
Well… “Yes?”
Surprisingly, Stratt smiled. A rare, gentle smile that softened her entire face.
“I am not.”
“Oh.”
“I had a partner who was.” She said, and twisted the golden band around her finger that Grace had so often wondered but never dared ask about. Was? Oh.
“And besides,” she said before Grace could even come up with a response to that revelation. Her head was spinning at all this new information. “The concept is hardly something new, no?”
She sat back, taking in Grace's wide-eyed look.
“Grace, what you are experiencing, the way you feel, has been part of human nature and experience much, much further back in humanity's history than many would like to admit. Why would I not be accepting of something so ancient? You are who you are, and you will become who you want to become. You, as humans have always done, are imagining and inventing yourself. And if I can help you with that, Dr. Grace, I will.”
She smiled again, though a bit more closed off than before. A little bit less Eva and a little bit more Stratt again. Still, she spoke with humour evident in her voice.
“After all, I cannot afford to have you unnecessarily distracted. The world cannot afford it. You do much better work when you are not miserable. You were miserable living as a man. I am simply being practical.”
Grace laughed, the sound bubbling up from deep within her chest, her vision blurred from the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes. What could she even say to that?
Stratt seemed to notice that she was a bit overwhelmed, and once again took pity on her.
“Now I do really have to finish my work. Goodnight, then, Dr. Grace. I will see you in conference room 5C at 08:00 tomorrow morning.”
“Goodnight, Eva.” Grace croaked out. “Thank you. I’ll uh, see ya in the morning.”
Stratt waved her away, eyes already back on her screen. The sound of quick fingers hitting the keys followed her out of the door.
-
The next morning, like she did every morning, Grace checked her email. Among them was one from Stratt, titled lab-functional hairstyles. Intrigued, and with a warmth blooming in her chest that she didn’t really know how to feel about, she opened it. There were several jpeg files attached, all pictures of short women’s hairstyles. Twists and slender Dutch braids to keep bangs away from the face, all cute but simple styles. Practical. The email itself was, as Stratt’s communications always were, short and to the point. Grace absentmindedly patted the hairclip at the back of her head as she read it.
21:30, my office,
Will teach you how to do these.
Bring coffee.
Stratt