never not thinking about eva stratt being a history major. she has seen what can happen and she will do everything she can to make sure it does not happen again because she has also seen the love and knows it's worth saving
Just wanted to lyk I read your new Eva Stratt fic on my lunch break at work and had to go calm myself down in the bathroom and wipe away my tears before I clocked back in. This is 1000% a compliment btw it was fantastic!!
oh my i didn't expect my fic to be able to evoke such an emotion 🥹🥹 thank you so much for reading!!! i really put my all into this fic, especially given that im using an entirely new concept for the plot 🖤
You really can’t remember that night, the night all of this started.
Stratt had you bent over her desk, fingers deep as you moaned and groaned for a damn release—she’s been teasing you for the past twenty five minutes. Edging and stopping. You groan. She has no mercy tonight. Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so nice to Grace while sleeping with her every night.
You groan again, gripping her shirt tightly.
And then, another stop. Full stop.
you pant and open your eyes, Eva is staring at the entrance, Ryland freezing from outside the door immediately and accidentally tripping inside.
was he peeking? You’re not sure. You’re trying to rearrange your clothing to cover your exposed body, but Eva stops you.
“No.” She snarls, you seem confused. “Dr. Grace, come here. If you like to peek so much, you’ll get a taste.”
Eva holds your face tight as you’re kneeling in front of Ryland, squeezing and stroking his hard length. He whines, pathetically, biting his finger as his length twitches and throbs.
Stratt smirks.
“How close are you, dr. Grace?”
“Very.” He murmurs, then whimpers, “V-Very close.”
“Suck it.” Eva pats your cheek, “Help him cum, y/n. Like we practiced.”
You do as told, of course you do. As mentioned, Eva loves her strap—she loves watching you suck it, too.
You lick the sides of his throbbing cock before taking it into your mouth. He moans, it’s too good-
You suck for around 30 seconds, before Ryland moans and cums into your mouth.
“Swallow it.” Eva hummed.
you hold still, swallowing every drop as Stratt commanded, letting go after every drop slid down your throat.
“Good, so good.” She whispers, gently stroking your cheek as you pant, cleaning a drop of Grace’s cum that managed to run down the side of your lip.
“Both of you.” She glances at Ryland, her expression isn’t as soft, but she enjoys the way his cheeks flush.
-🎥
i really wanted to gatekeep this. i wanted to keep this absolute gold mine to myself, but that would be me doing a massive disservice to the public. this is by far my favorite dynamic we’re exploring on this blog. strattlandreader with eva the “puppet master” to plainly put it. gaining intel from you and ryland on what you both like about each other, loosening you guys up. plain and simple, grooming the two of you to do exactly what she asks to get what she wants. being in charge of a worldwide project to save the world is a burden enough. the least she can do is be in control of something that nowhere near brings her the same amount of stress that Project Hail Mary brings her.
summary: eva stratt manages to break out of prison and goes on to live on a boat, waiting for the beetles and to save humanity. common knowledge. she, however, stops on your doorstep before crack of dawn in the middle of all this.
pairing: eva stratt x afab!reader
rating: +18 (pls dni if you're a minor)
word count: 6.8k
warnings: probably a little canon divergent (this is based on the whole stratt breaking out of prison thing so), it's a little angsty. mentions of guns (i'm extremely anti gun pls </3). thigh riding, face sitting, fingering, mentions of religion (like one, but it's a romantic setting), overstimulation, implied situationship between them lol mentions of masturbation, eva in jail and touch starvation.
You wake up hearing the knocking.
You don’t know what time it is; there are no clocks in your house, but you look out your window and see the nearby lake glittering with the colors of that moment after the moon hides and the sun isn't quite ready to come out. You understand more about nature now than you did all these years ago, when you worked on developing the Hail Mary mission’s ship.
Ever since then, you have moved to a secluded area. There are no cities within at least eight miles, only a beautiful lake and a few animals you take care of.
When it ended, as soon as the ship launched, they told you to leave quietly and lead an inconspicuous life. All due to the nature of your relationship with the leader of the mission, and how they could make you either an accomplice to her, a scapegoat, or use you as blackmail. She told you this a day before they took her.
She packed your bags, told them to pick you up from her bedroom at the crack of dawn, kissed you goodnight, and, in the middle of the night as you slept, slipped away from the bed and never looked back. You never expected her to.
You have a rifle in your house; she taught you how to work that thing back then, even though you protested and gave her the silent treatment for a week. "I know you hate guns," she held your arms in the right position as your hands trembled, her face next to yours, adjusting your aim, "but I will be more at ease knowing you know how to shoot." You remember how confused you were at her statement, right before your thoughts were deafened by the gunshot.
You never used the rifle; it sits there as a souvenir. But, as you drag your feet across the wooden floor, moving as quietly as you could so the person on the other side of the door couldn't hear you, you grab it. Not with the intention of shooting, but as a twisted, fucked up version of a safe blanket, as if her hands still held the handguard for you.
You can't freeze; there is not a single living soul to come and rescue you if you do, and no phones, you were told to get rid of those, too. So you just go on.
The floor creaks when you arrive at the door and twist the doorknob. In slow motion, you open a smidge, just enough for the rifle to fit. You don't dare to see who's outside, but you can hear the grass ruffling with steps.
Your heart is either nearly stopping or beating at a hummingbird's heart rate; you can't feel it anymore, just the dizziness of it all. You hear what seems to be a humorless chuckle. You open the door fully now. It's one thing to try to invade your house in the middle of the night, but to laugh at you? Fuck them.
It takes some time for your brain to understand what you're seeing. You keep the rifle in your hand, on guard. It's not that you can't see it, her, you can and very clearly now. You simply weren't expecting it; you never did. You never thought she would look back.
Eva's hair is longer now. She always had long hair, you loved it. Loved twirling it when she was trying so hard to sleep, before she started telling you off for it. It tickled every time you held her, and it got in the way when you two kissed. She looks almost the same under the mist. There's not a hint of a smile on her face, only that slightly tilted head gesture she usually does when waiting for you to step aside and let her in.
The silence extends for whole minutes, you don't know exactly how many. Enough for the cow in the barn to moo. Probably swearing at her.
"Nice gun," she nods, her voice husky and dry. She must not have talked for the whole trip to your house.
You put it down, your lips opening and closing like a fish, gasping at the surface. Your brain is full of oxygen, and you feel like you might pass out. "I'm coming in," she informs you.
"The whole house is a mess." You step aside, despite your protest. Great first words, you think.
"That's expected. Your room always was."
She comes inside. You take a look at the sky for a minute before following her. It's cloudy and freezing. You wonder if the Hail Mary ship is somewhere up there, if Stratt's last sacrifice was successful, and if her return meant things were going to be okay.
You turn around and see her amidst the darkness of your cramped living room. Books scattered everywhere on the floor and coffee table, a used-up leather couch, a bunch of abandoned projects you grew tired of, and an acoustic guitar. And there she was. Inspecting everything as she did back when she was your boss and ventured into your lab, or when she was yours and entered your room. You suppose she was yours. You hope.
You close the door and turn on the lampshade, soft yellow light shining on her face and yours. You just stand there, looking at each other for a bit. Now you can see the tattoo on her neck and a few frown lines that weren't there before. There are too many questions to ask, many of which she won't answer.
"Okay," you inhale, putting the rifle aside and turning the heater up. "Hello." You sit down, facing her, hugging your knees.
"Hello."
"Should I ask if you were taking a stroll out in the neighborhood and ended up here?"
She stands next to the window, fiddling with the sheer, white mesh curtains. You feel weird. It's not like you could jump into her arms and kiss the shit out of her; that's not who you two are, whatever 'you two' means or meant, or if it even existed, but it's so ridiculous to not know how to conduct this conversation.
“We have a lot to talk about.”
“I think you do.”
She presses her lips together, nodding and looking around at your living room, “They sent you to live like a hermit?”
“I chose it.”
“You?” she says in disbelief, almost humorously. You always joked about what your lives would look like after the mission ended. You said you wanted to go back to a big city, teach at a university, live in a loft, and throw dinner parties for your friends. You visualized Eva there but never told her that. She would hate the dinner parties and go out on the balcony to smoke, and you would follow her. You would wake up late, brew coffee for you two, then go back to bed and sleep with your head nestled on her chest. She never told you how she saw herself after it all ended, nor whether you would be in her version of the future. You used to grumble about it, but now you see why.
“I like quiet now. I have a farm—” “That’s not a farm.” “—and a nice lake to swim.”
Eva looks out the window now, pushing the curtains away. “It’s on the other side,” you inform her. “You can see it from my bed.”
“The cow smells like shit.”
“Well, that’s how they smell.”
She looks down, then at you. “You have— I want you to move in with me.”
You look at her and try to conceal the bewildered look that creeps into your expression, your head shaking slightly as you mutter a small ‘what the fuck’.
“Eva, sit down.” You say, almost annoyed. Not at her, never at her.
She doesn’t oblige. Of course she doesn’t. So you stand up and go to the kitchen, and brew the coffee you promised yourself you would brew for you both, years ago. It’s almost morning, anyway.
She stands still until you’re back, taking the mug from your hands. Unsweetened, black, and no milk for her, two teaspoons of sugar and a lot of creamer for you. “Please.” You gesture to the couch.
It’s been a while since you two last sat down to have a proper talk. The last months of the project were frantic; you only saw her once, maybe twice a week, and most of these times you wouldn’t talk. There was no need to when your lips were locked on her skin, trying your best to relieve her tension, even if most times she would get up and continue working as soon as she was done.
“We need you for the next step of the Project. It’s almost time we receive the beetles.”
“Why would you need me? I’m an engineer.” She doesn’t respond and takes a sip of her coffee instead. “Eva, what happened? Why are you here?” You exhale, placing your mug on the coffee table.
She looks at you, tight-lipped again, a slight shrug, and the smallest eyebrow scrunch. “I escaped prison. Well, that’s obvious.” Another sip of coffee as she eyes the ring on your finger, “Are you married?”
“No.” That’s also obvious. There’s only one pair of boots, one coat hanging, one plate on the sink. She just needed to get the ring out of the way. You don’t know why you wear the ring. Maybe it’s because of her. A rifle, a ring you hoped she would give you someday, and constant dreams are all that are left from your hopeful days.
She nods, another sip. “I have a team. They helped me to get out of there, and they helped me get here.”
Your eyebrows furrowed. “When did you escape?”
“Two weeks ago. You’re difficult to locate.”
“Do you want me to believe you started looking for me as soon as you broke out?”
“No, they are different sentences. I broke out two weeks ago, and you were difficult to locate.” You chuckle at that. “I started looking for you three days ago.”
“Where are you living?”
“Nowhere, for now. On a boat as soon as possible. And if you come with me—”
“Do you want me to come, or do they need me to?”
It’s been at least eight years, and you still won’t let her finish a sentence, she thinks.
“I can’t spend my life worrying about you. It’s easier if you come.”
“It’s easier?”
She shrugs and looks at you, and then at her hands. You two stay in silence for a minute. “We can have a nice life there.”
You really look at her. There’s something in her demeanor, or her voice, that indicates she’s not the same. She’s been imprisoned, persecuted, hunted down. You weren’t there; you couldn’t. They wouldn’t let you; she would never let you. Eva is not the most powerful person in the world now, she’s on the run and, deep down, she’s hopeful. Hopeful that the mission will work, that the beetles will arrive, that you’ll accept her request, that she won’t bear the weight of the world on her shoulders in a few years, and that she will be able to just be. And she has no choice but to be hopeful.
Besides that, she’s still her. Still Eva. She made peace with it all, past and present.
You don’t dare to ask how things were in prison, how the trials happened, how she feels now. “They never let me testify.”
“I know.” She tells you quietly with a gentle smile, gentler than you have seen before. You can’t help but blame yourself for the way things turned out, even though it was inevitable. There’s a type of resentment beneath your voice, and it refuses to let you look her in the eyes: resentment towards yourself for not fighting for her, and towards her for not letting you beat yourself up for that.
You two sit in silence for a while. The sun is not as shy now, but it is still partially hidden by the thick mist. She seems to enjoy the peaceful view outside your windows, and you wonder how many days she has spent without having the choice of appreciating the rising sun or the awakening of the animals. “I missed you.” You murmur in the quietest voice you can muster, trying not to bother her.
She looks back at you, breaking a small smile as she touches your hand. It’s the first touch you've felt for a long time. Eva murmurs something similar to ‘I know’.
You take her hand, hesitant to entwine your fingers together, but you do it anyway. Her hands were always cold and clammy, ‘You feel like a frog, ’ you laughed about it one day, and she grinned, shaking her head. It feels the same now as you tug it for her to come closer, but you don’t joke about it this time. You would take her hand even if it were made of ammonia.
She does come closer to you. Not a lot, just enough so you can feel the warmth radiating off her, so you can understand she’s really there. “Where do we stand, Eva?” You start, quietly, one hand still in hers and the other supporting your head over the couch’s back.
“That’s not the time to ask this.”
“You ask me to move with you—”
“I break out of prison, and I come looking for you. Isn’t it enough?” She says as a matter of fact, a small frown is present, not from anger, but from feeling misunderstood. You always needed her words, the steadiness, the land. To Eva, the facts were enough, so was shooting in the dark, and the fluctuation of waves.
“I need more.” You mirror her frown, reaching for her face, brushing away a strand of hair. There she is.
“I can’t give you more.”
“Why?”
She answers with a reluctant smile and a deep breath. “There’s no future.” And you don’t know if she’s talking about you two, her, or Earth. You bring her hand to your lips, kissing it softly for a moment. She looks at you, “But I would enjoy spending my present and my freedom on you.”
“Eva.” You whisper, closing your eyes for a moment.
You have the same feeling you had when you agreed to work for her, or when you chose which university to attend, when you fell in love for the first time, when you woke up for the last day of middle school. It’s a never-be-the-same feeling, the softest punch in the gut, the perception of life happening and never slowing down. You were never easily convinced by anyone, which was mainly why Eva first gravitated towards you. She, however, is one of those moments personified. After she came into your life, you’re in a constant state of change. It’s uncomfortable.
‘What is love if not changing yourself?’, Ilyukhina said once, when you were both tipsy, and you decided to open up to your friend about your very, very secret relationship. Eva wasn’t happy about it, for numerous reasons. You always wanted to declare your love by shouting from rooftops. You guessed this had to change, too. It was only when Eva first took your hand in hers during a casual hangout with other people that you noticed she, too, had changed.
You nod only once. She won’t beg for more. You can’t physically offer more.
Eva knows it’s a lot to ask, and it’s borderline egotistical to ask you to leave your life and follow her. She already did it once, but to save humanity. This time, it’s purely to herself. For once, she’s doing it for herself.
You two exchange a look; there’s much more to do than that, but you pause to look at each other. You notice that’s your fucked up version of a romantic proposal. The woman you once had an undefined relationship with breaks out of jail, appears on your doorstep, asks you to run away with her, and live in the middle of the ocean for god knows how long. You might die there, you might not. ‘Til death do us part, in a way. Very The Notebook, if you may ask. You chuckle at the thought.
“Are you laughing at me?” She seems amused that’s your reaction to accepting her terrible, almost catastrophic deal.
“No.” She takes your hand again, and it’s her turn to tug you closer. You scoot with your knees, nearing the proximity of those older days. “I’m repeating myself here, but where do we stand, Eva?”
“That’s your question? Not when we are leaving, or if there are rooms on the boat?”
“Logistics were always your thing.”
“Okay.” A deep breath again. When she exhales, it faintly touches your face. How good it feels to be affected by her presence again. “You— I stand where we left off. About us, that is.”
“Well, I left off being dragged away from your room, so I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
“If it comes to this, it will. If that’s what it takes to keep you away from the consequences I earned.”
“I am, also, a consequence you earned.”
There’s a silence, and she looks at your hands resting on your lap, then back at you. “The best of them.”
“I would hope so.” She blows air out of her nose as a laugh, and there’s silence again.
She engulfs every detail of you; how your hair looks now compared to then, how you seem more tired, how your fingernails have no nail polish even though you loved to paint them. She takes in the soft skin of your neck and your arms, and how your lips still look so soft, even though the climate is colder and drier than it was eight years ago.
“What are you looking at?” You ask. If it were anyone else, you would squirm under that intense gaze. When it comes to her, you want her to stare, and you notice yourself desiring her gaze even more than you did back then, when you were younger and more insecure.
“You. Can you blame me?”
And there is a shift in the atmosphere. “You still want me?”
“I thought it was implied.”
“I don’t work with hints, you know this.”
She gives you a low chuckle.
“Come here, dear.”
And so you do. Scooting over to close the last remaining centimeters of distance between you, you begin to wonder if eight years were enough to make it awkward. Funnily enough, you don’t get the same feeling of utter jitteriness you did when you first kissed her. You do, however, get a feeling of coming home after a long, annoying trip, and, at the same time, peacefully drowning.
You don’t kiss instantly, instead taking some time to breathe each other in. She holds each side of your face, and you hold her forearms. So close, you can see the darker spots of blue near her pupil and the stray eyebrow hairs. It’s, surprisingly, Eva who falters first, slightly tilting her head to touch your lips, uncharacteristically hesitant.
You close the distance for her. A small peck, two, three, and then you notice how much softer and pliant she seems on your hand than she did back then. On the fourth, she reaches for your neck, one hand buried in your hair.
There’s no fifth; you part your mouth, and she slides her tongue. Eva hums, releasing a soft sigh into the kiss, she furrows her eyebrows. You both slow down, savoring the taste of each other’s lips, languid strokes, and careful pauses just to bring the other impossibly closer. Your pulse is hard beneath your skin, thundering in your ears as she stops the kiss only to glide her hand to your legs, a string of saliva connecting both of your lips, broken only by a hitch of your breath when her grip turns featherlike on your naked leg, she fiddles with the hem of the cotton nightgown you wear, which was so easily hiked up by your movements.
You move to place one of your legs across her lap, knocking down the mug you set earlier on the coffee table. You murmur a soft “fuck” and feel a grin stretching open on her lips before she tilts her head and kisses you bruisingly, her hands slipping to hold your waist. You melt when you feel her shift her body to cage yours, driving you to recline on the couch, your legs on each side of her body.
She gasps when you suck her tongue and nibble on her bottom lip with your teeth, “Are we leaving today?”
“A little kissing made you excited to exile yourself with me?” Eva nudges your jawline with her nose, lazily leaving open-mouthed kisses on the skin there. Her body weight provides just enough pressure and not enough friction for you to feel your core pulsing.
“Yeah. Can I have you all over me every day?” You rasp as you reach between your bodies to slide your hand on her abdomen, nails raking and leaving a red path. “Don’t know how I spent all these years away from you.”
She kisses the corner of your mouth, her hips moving as you lower your hand, back arching on you. It’s unconscious, but you spread your legs wider to accommodate her. “I still have to work.”
You undo the buttons of her denim pants. “I don’t care. There’s a lot of shit I learned during all these years, and I have to try them out with you.”
Eva never expected you to stay celibate after she went to prison. ‘I want you to find someone and marry them’ is something she would never say, but she knew you should do it. She wouldn’t blame you. “Someone has been riding your pretty face?” She teases, half seriously and with the calmest tone, grasping your face with her free hand while the other bunches up your nightgown around your waist.
“Wanna ride it too?” You sit up slightly to take off her black turtleneck, brushing her smooth skin with your lips before kissing it. You look up to see her eyes closed, eyebrows knitted together, and mouth parted, so inviting, warm, and erotic that you can’t help but breathlessly trail kisses and licks on her sternum, pushing her bra out of the way, and mutter, “kiss me, please.”
She does, looking down to properly see you and pulling you into a devouring kiss, pressing herself against you, and moving her legs to straddle your lap. You hold her hair out of the way, just in case. Eva is hungry for it, for you, and you reciprocate every groan, whine, and pant. Even the smallest ‘humph’ she let seep into the kiss is so mouthwatering to you, it causes muscle memory to kick in and your hips to grind up on hers.
Eva doesn’t pause to breathe, indulging as she rarely does on the mess of a kiss, and it’s all urgent whimpers, saliva, and teeth clashing. She grinds down on you, too, grabbing a fistful of your hair to command you to keep the rhythm up. You feel lightheaded, so needy and desperate, and clinging to you, not only physically. You feel her movements and touch on your heart; her presence floods your lungs and sends shivers down your spine. For a moment, it’s all her, and she’s everywhere, as if it has continuously been.
“Take this shit off.” You clumsily tug down her pants, your breath ghosting over her swollen lips.
“I missed you.” She confesses so quietly you almost can’t hear, and you wonder if you’re supposed to hear it or if she hasn’t noticed she said it out loud. You brush your lips against her neck as you lay her down to discard her pants and your nightgown, and as soon as they’re both gone, she pulls your head back to the kiss, her other hand alternating between massaging your breasts and pinching your nipples.
She’s half reclined, her head on the armrest of the couch, and you find the opportunity to fit one leg in between her legs when she instinctively opens them to welcome you. “Did you ever think of me?” You exhale, creating marks on her collarbones, each one darker than the previous as her grip on your legs tightens. “I thought of you all the time. Thought about you fucking me dumb whenever I wanted to cum.”
She grinds on your leg, her underwear with an obvious wet patch, just as obvious as yours, and you notice it when she forces your hips down to grind on her thigh. “Mhm. Look at you. All wet on my thigh.” Eva’s words ghost on your lips as she keeps your face mere centimeters away from hers, blue eyes unfocused and half-lidded.
You two move at the pace she establishes, her hand guiding your hips at the same rhythm her hips roll. She flexes her thigh under you and taps you softly so you do the same. Tilting your head, you wordlessly ask for another kiss, needing more of her touch desperately. You press your chests together and curse her bra for creating a barrier between you.
She keeps one hand planted firmly on your hip and the other on your cheek, her nails graze the skin, creating a path, a faint sting reminding you of her burning touch. You brace yourself over her with one arm, the other takes off the annoying piece of undergarment from her, before you press yourself flush to her again, recommitting to her speed.
You exhale directly on her mouth, both of your breathing uneven as moans bubble up your throats. She quickens the pace, rutting her hips harshly on your thigh whenever she feels your legs trying to close, whimpers fall off your lips, and she drinks them, drowning them with her choked-up groans.
The friction between your bodies feels delicious on your sensitive nipples, heightening your need for her, so you try to kiss her, and she harshly tugs your hair, “I need to see you when you cum.” Eva whispers, a pained, whiny voice betraying her restrained order.
“Ride my face.” You plead, fluttering eyelashes begging for her and diving, contrary to her orders, to kiss her jawline. She pulls a fistful of your hair only to feel the faltering of your hips on her soaked thigh, “Please, ride my face, baby.” You suck her skin more fervently, murmuring against it, “Please, please. I want you to ride it.”
“Do you want me to soak your pretty face?” She says in a shaky exhale, “Look at me. You’re so close, dear.”
You look at her glazed eyes and glistening lips, her pupils blown wide and her staggering breath denounces she’s also so, so close. You flex your thigh, feeling the soft material of her panties and the sloppy sliding sound of both of your slick. She arches her back, hand gripping strongly on your hair, and knees going weak as your hand grips the flesh of her hip to guide you as feverishly as she did.
She feels it coming at almost the same time you do, and as much as you want to close your eyes, you simply can’t. Eva tightens the grip on your hair as she cums, wavering moans breaking the panting sounds, and the sting on your scalp feels so good accompanied by her furrowed brows, open lips letting escape the prettiest sounds you’ve ever heard, blue eyes trying so hard not to roll back. Her eyes don’t shy away from yours as your orgasm comes, your nails dig deep into her flesh, and high-pitched cries echo from your lips.
It’s the most beautiful sight to see her fall apart and her body go limp as you ride out your orgasms. You notice it’s morning now when her hands travel down to your breasts, caressing them before helping you out of your panties. “We have the whole day ahead.” She mutters against your shoulder, pressing soft kisses.
“That’s a first.”
“Don’t get used to it.” You’re bare now, and end up discarding hers too. You dive into a slow kiss, lazy tongue movements against hers.
You’re lying sideways next to her now on the cramped couch, the memories of a rushed time, where simply kissing and being at each other’s mercy would never be possible, come like waves. She takes her time, reexploring your body with soft fingertips, discovering new freckles and reminding herself of the velvety touch of you against her. You stroke her cheek with your thumb as the lingering kiss extends itself for what seems both a lifetime and never enough, cleaning any fugitive spit from your lips.
Her hand guides yours to her torso, hers traveling to your lower abdomen, spiraling downwards. “How things worked around here before I came back, mhm?” A sly question comes laced in with her tender tone.
“I have two hands. And a few toys.” You joke, and she gives you a disbelieving look. “I’m not telling you about other women when I have my hand on your breast, Eva.”
“I’m asking you to.”
You lower your face to toy with her nipple with your tongue, sucking it and releasing with a pop from you and a hiss from her. You scrape your teeth down the skin before sucking a mark while looking at her, and then taking it into your hand. You press a quick kiss into her parted mouth, “I tried a few things. Never long-term, though. I tried a lot of people, some from the town.”
She hums in acknowledgment, hand parting your thighs and tracing your slit with her middle finger. She wants to ask you if you have fallen in love. She won’t. You hitch your breath at her teasing strokes. “They won’t be happy when I whisk you away from here.”
“It’s for a greater good.” Your eyes flutter closed, hands searching for her face.
She chuckles, lips closed. She never had laughter easily falling from her lips, nor was she one to effortlessly smile, but it was never easier to breathe than when she was with you. In prison, she remembered how you would turn her, even for a fraction of a moment, carefree. How much easier it was to feel the breeze in your presence, or to notice the ground beneath her feet. Eva notices the sun shining and the shimmering on the curtains, the sounds of nothing outside of you two. “Which would be?”
“Having you sit on my face, every morning, forever.”
She closes her eyes to conceal her amusement, hiding it in an expression of neutrality. It doesn’t work; you know her too well. “Unless you wake up at 5am, then it won’t happen in the morning.”
“I can sacrifice an hour or two of sleep.” The last word goes away with a sound almost like a purr when she enters you with a finger.
“Feels good?” She asks, a mocking lilt in her voice, but with a serious expression.
You nod, rocking your hips on her hand as she inserts another finger, her palm brushing against your clit. “Go on.” She brushes a strand of hair away from your face with her other hand, reaching over to place a kiss on your lips.
You adjust your position so it’s easier for you to ride her hand. You hide your face in the crook of her neck, and this time she doesn’t complain about not looking at you, merely because you’re sending out the sweetest noises straight into her ear and your lips are glued to her neck.
You breathe in the scent of her skin and swear it makes you dizzy as she presses more of her palm to your clit. Your skin glistens with sweat as she watches your up and down movements, and she swears she could eat you up. You look delicious like this, and she feels ravenous feeling your head dipping further into the safety of her.
“Will you ride my face, baby?” You ask again. She would, and she could so easily, tease you more and more about it, drawing out your begging, but you sound so pretty, so titillating. “Will you let me eat you out? Please? Will you use my face?”
“Sure”, she murmurs into your hair, so nonchalant you can almost think she’s bored. Eva is not. She would do anything you asked her to in this state, sounding so much like a personal pornstar for her, but especially this. Especially riding your face, the thing that many days, alone in the cell, she had caught herself daydreaming about.
It’s almost as if you’re just waiting for her confirmation to cum. And so you do, cumming with a high-pitched, drawn-out moan, squeezing your eyes shut and brushing your core on her palm, your legs shaking, and no other thought on your head other than the overwhelming pleasure and need to kiss her. “There you go. You want more of this?” She indulges you, taking her fingers off of you and circling them on your oversensitive clit.
You hiss, dropping your head on her chest as you stifle whimpers caused by the overstimulation. “Enough, enough.” You murmur into her skin.
She retreats her hand and unhurriedly caresses your scalp, “Will you clean me up, dear?”
You nod fervently, pressing a searing kiss to her lips and whispering ‘thank you’s. She gets on her knees, waiting for you to adjust your position and lie down comfortably, before lowering herself into your face.
You grip her thighs, nodding, mouth open and tongue out, waiting for her. Her hand soothes your hair as she starts rocking her hips to your tongue. She looks at you the whole time, and oh, she looks gorgeous.
The sun hits her skin and her eyes in such a unique way, her slightly messy hair cascades, and Eva looks so soft, so vulnerable, and it’s all for you, and just for you. As she moans and grinds on your mouth, you’re so grateful to be spending possibly the rest of your days locked up on a boat with her. You realize you sound insane, but again, Ilyukhina, in her immense wisdom, once said ‘whatever rocks your boat’, and refused to be corrected.
Your hands hold her waist, cradling the soft skin and begging for this moment to never end. Your unremitting tongue makes her exhale, and you flatten it, suckle on her clit, lick her folds, and do whatever you did eight years ago that was enough to make her come back to you today. “That’s it,” she says hoarsely, a tainted and weepy sound coming from her, and you feel her trembling. “That’s it,” Eva repeats over and over breathlessly, restraining herself, looking up and tangling her fingers deeper into your strands.
Eva looks at you, and you notice she’s coming. That’s all she has to do. She bites her lip and indulges in a long whimper, her thighs closing around your head, feeling your hot cheeks and panting your name, your surname, anything she has ever called you. She’s too sensitive, she’s always been, so you stop and wait for her to lie back down.
She kisses you first, your face glistening with her slick, and your eyes shining with adoration. She always thought she could handle love and compliments, but she never thought she would be the target of the amount you offer her. So she doesn’t handle the utter devotion, choosing to close her eyes and kiss you deeply. You taste like her, and you smell like her. She smells like you and tastes like a religion.
When she lies back down, you bury your head in the crook of her neck again, sleepily kissing the marks you left. Then, there’s silence, and you hear the birds outside, the leaves on the ground being crunched by the steps of the dogs, and a few water sounds, possibly the cow drinking water. You know you can’t dream, your life won’t allow you to, but if you could give yourself the luxury of choosing how to live, you would choose this.
You wouldn’t choose the dinner parties, teaching, or smoking on the balcony. You would keep the coffee and Eva. And this, the quiet, the sun. She doesn’t ask you what you’re thinking about; she doesn’t need to, she’s seen the same look in your face over and over the years, had nightmares about it, and the sweetest dreams, too. She knows this is the same expression she saw when she changed your life, in one way or another. How ridiculous it is to ask for someone to blindly follow you, your ideals, and your hopes. How absurd it is for you to agree, even without a single word from her, without a future and all the things you deserve. She’s fully aware of it, but she kept you safe, she redeemed herself, and, when the whole Hail Mary mission is over, she will redeem herself again. And only then will you two have a life like this moment again.
“That’s an awfully quiet place.” She says, enamoured by the beautiful sky seen through the window and the sight of the sun hitting the wooden floors.
“I have to sell the cow.”
Eva looks at you. You do have to sell the cow.
“I won’t take the shit-smelling cow to the boat.”
You pout to yourself. Your house feels like paradise now that she’s here. You’ll miss your life, the quiet and undetectable life, but you had given up on it once; you could do it a second time, now that you know she’ll be there. You wonder if this is how it feels to have a soulmate, like an eternal post-sex pre-coffee morning.
“Are you too different from who you were?”
“What do you think?” She asks you with nothing but curiosity.
“I think I’ll have to find out.”
She nods. She doesn’t think she’s profoundly changed by anything that happened to her over the past years. There’s shared guilt, isolation, and paranoia, so much of it. She always knew it was coming her way, but she hoped the people she had abandoned, sacrificed, or hid forgave her, or at least understood her now.
“When are we leaving?”
“Whenever you want.”
“It’s up to me?” You sound surprised. She shrugs.
“Partially.” It always is, she thinks. When it comes to both of you, she always hopes she has some say, but it is always up to you, even when she takes control. To her, it’s up to your safety, your needs, and then your wants. This time, the first two are granted for now. “But I am on the most wanted list. So they would probably swarm the whole place before you even hear them coming.” She deadpans.
You look at her, and she looks back. “I have to sell the cow.”
“Are you aware it’s an animal surrounded by food?”
“She won’t be loved, though.”
She stifles a laugh with a scoffed ‘oh my god’. You don’t stifle yours, getting up from the couch. “Where are you going?” Eva speaks up, feeling the chill breeze when you crack the window open.
“Getting you some coffee.” You warn her as you enter the kitchen.
She eyes the animal outside as she retrieves her panties and turtleneck, putting them on again. Eva makes a mental note to get her team to give your house to a biologist or a veterinarian who can take care of it. “Put one sugar on it.” She requests, walking over to the kitchen, to you, just like past, present, and future.
Prompt: What it's like to sleep next to Eva Stratt
“Scoot over, dear,” Eva orders. An overwhelming tiredness radiates from her. Still half asleep, you comply to her instructions, giving her enough room to slide in.
She lets out a deep exhale and her body visibly relaxes. She lays flat on her back, arms crossed over her chest as she stares at the ceiling. If you let her, she would do this for hours.
“Roll over.” She doesn’t even try to argue. She immediately turns to face the doorway, notching her hands under her head. You fit easily into her back, wrapping both an arm and leg around her. One of her hands moves to wrap around your calf, holding you in place. You’re both most comfortable like this.
You know Eva is the most important person in the world. As of late, you can’t seem to escape that fact. But in this moment, like all the nights you’d shared before, she was just yours. The world wasn’t ending and the weight of it wasn’t on her shoulders. Only your lips were. They were gentle and repetitive and the only thing that could relax Eva Stratt after a long day.
She was asleep quickly, hand still tight over your leg even when the rest of her body relaxed. When the nightmares started, as they often did, her fingers would twitch. You’d use your own to draw light circles onto the cool skin of her back. Sometimes it would soothe her, sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes she’d wake up in a panic and shoot up in bed, holding a hand to her chest as she caught her breath.
It was impossible to calm her on those nights. She would simply press a kiss onto your forehead before pulling on a jacket and retreating back to her office.
You followed her once, far earlier on. She made it all the way to her office before realizing she had a shadow. She’d asked what you were doing; you’d shrugged. She had let you stay but you’d grown bored quickly. In the hour you’d stayed, she hadn’t said a single word. She just moved between physical folders and her computer every few minutes, writing notes on both.
You didn’t follow her again. She did insist you had security after that, though. She did not like that you made it so far without her noticing. An armed guard was with you whenever she wasn’t from that point on.
You’d had arguments about it at first. She’d shut them down quickly. “I am too critical to this mission to suffer a heartbreak right now. The United States Army can spare an officer to keep you safe,” she’d said, no room for arguments from you or anyone else.
She was right, of course. No reason to add any more stress to her life when countries were begging to send her their armed forces.
Tonight though, she just slept.
You burrowed deeper into her. There was nowhere on the planet you felt safer than behind her. Nowhere you felt more complete.
So when the day came when she had to make an impossible choice to trade one life for the rest of the world’s, she made it. And when she finally laid her head down to rest, you comforted her.
eva stratt falling for two disaster scientists and being so happy to get the tapes that they kept each other safe and company when she couldn’t protect them anymore
Safe And Sound.
Ryland Grace x reader x Eva Stratt
summary: reader the request above!
yaps!: nasaktan ako dine ah.. p.s for the other anons who have requested, both works are currently in progress rn!! im making it xtra angsty ehuehuehehehehehe.... listened to "Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift and the PHM soundtrack by Daniel Pemberton while writing!
(written in Eva's point of view ish? idk)
The bulkheads of the Project Hail Mary task force headquarters always smelled faintly of ionized air and expensive, high-efficiency filtration systems. It was a sterile smell, the scent of the end of the world being managed by bureaucracy and sheer, terrifying willpower.
Eva Stratt lived in that sterile air. She commanded it, even. She moved through the corridors of the converted aircraft carrier like a lioness, a woman who had traded her humanity for the authority to save the human race. She didn’t have time for soft things. She didn’t have time for sentiment. Atleast that's what she told herself.
And she certainly didn't have time for the two walking, talking scientific disasters currently occupying the primary astrophysics lab.
"I’m just saying, Ryland, if we inject the polymer directly into the containment seal, we risk a localized thermal runaway. And by localized, I mean your eyebrows will cease to exist, just like Iron Man."
"And I'm saying, [Name], that the data from the last telemetry run explicitly shows the Astrophage is stabilizing at that specific threshold! My eyebrows are a small sacrifice for a stable fuel line! And don't bring him up ever again!"
Eva paused outside the automatic glass doors. Through the transparent pane, she watched them. Ryland Grace was currently standing on a swivel chair—a blatant safety violation she had reprimanded him for at least three times that week—waving a digital stylus like a conductor's baton. His hair was a wild, static-charged nest, and his lab coat was missing two buttons.
You weren't much better. You were sitting cross-legged on the lab bench itself, surrounded by three half-empty mugs of lukewarm coffee, a stray screwdriver tucked behind your ear, and a smear of dry-erase marker across your left cheek. You were leaning forward, eyes bright, arguing with him with a fierce, brilliant intensity that made Eva’s chest tighten in a way she found deeply inconvenient.
They were brilliant. They were indispensable. And they were, without a doubt, the most chaotic, frustrating, and utterly endearing human beings Eva had ever encountered.
She didn't want to love them. In her position, loving anyone was a liability. Loving the people you might have to send to their deaths was a tragedy in the making. But somewhere between Ryland’s panicked, caffeine-fueled late-night breakthroughs and your quiet, stubborn insistence on making sure Eva actually ate a real meal at least once a day, the ice around her heart hadn't just melted—it had evaporated completely.
Eva pressed the door control. The hiss of the pneumatic seal cutting through their bickering.
"Dr. Grace, get off the chair before you break your neck. [Name], off the bench," Eva said, her voice carrying its usual cool, unyielding authority.
Ryland scrambled down, nearly tripping over his own feet, while you slid off the counter with a sheepish grin, instantly wiping the marker smear across your cheek, only succeeding in smudging it further.
"Stratt! Just the woman we needed to see," Ryland said, offering a nervous but genuine smile. "Tell [Name] that my fuel line calculations are flawless."
"They are a fire hazard, Ryland," you countered, stepping closer to Eva. The proximity brought the faint scent of old paper, green tea and peppermint—your signature scent—into Eva's orbit. You looked up at her, your expression softening. "You look exhausted, Eva. Did you actually sleep last night, or did you just stare at the global shipping manifests until your eyes bled?"
"The manifests were vital, [Name]," Eva replied smoothly, though her eyes lingered on the way your hand brushed against Ryland’s sleeve, a natural, unconscious gesture of comfort. They had become a unit, the two of them. And slowly, agonizingly, Eva had found herself drawn into their orbit, a secret, silent third planetary body locked in their gravity.
She walked over to the main terminal, pretending to examine their data just so she could stand between them. Ryland immediately leaned in over her left shoulder, pointing at the screen, his breath warm against her neck. You leaned over her right, your shoulder pressing gently against hers, offering a grounding warmth that Eva rarely permitted herself to feel.
For a single, fleeting moment, surrounded by the flashing red lights of a dying planet's final hope, Eva closed her eyes and let herself feel it. The sheer, overwhelming affection she had for these two disaster scientists. She loved Ryland’s frantic, passionate mind. She loved your steady, fiercely protective heart. She loved the way they looked out for each other, and the way they looked out for her, even when she made it as difficult as humanly possible.
"You both need to finish this report by 22:00 hours," Eva said, her voice dropping a fraction of its steel, turning softer, laced with a rare tenderness she only ever showed them when the doors were shut. She reached out, her fingers catching the edge of Ryland’s frayed cuff, while her other hand gently brushed a stray lock of hair from your forehead. "Please. Just... try not to blow up the lab before then."
Ryland caught her hand, his fingers squeezing hers. "We promise, Eva. No explosions. Mostly."
You smiled, placing your hand over hers, sealing the connection between the three of them. "We've got this. And we've got you."
Eva swallowed the lump in her throat, nodding once before pulling away. She had to be strong. She had to be the monster so they could be the saviors.
Then came the betrayal. Then came the forced sedation.
When the time came, and Ryland’s cowardice—a beautifully human, terrifyingly relatable cowardice—reared its heed, Eva did what she had always known she would have to do. She broke her own heart. She put Ryland on that ship in chains, and she put you right beside him, knowing damn well that the Hail Mary was a one-way trip.
She couldn't protect them anymore. She had thrown them into the cold, never-ending void of space, sentencing the two people she loved most to a lonely death in the dark, all for the sake of a world that didn't even know their names yet.
The years that followed were a blur of ash, falling temperatures, and a global population slipping into panic. Eva stayed at the helm, almost like a captain refusing to leave a sinking ship, growing colder, grayer, and more isolated with every passing season. She lived in the silence of a world waiting to die.
Until the day the Beetles returned.
The automated recovery systems fished the small, robust data pods out of the ocean, and within hours, the encryption keys were fed into the secure servers at the remnants of the task force headquarters.
Eva sat alone in her dark office. The monitor in front of her blinked with a notification: Data Retrieval Complete. Video Logs Found.
Her hands, usually steady enough to hold a scalpel, were shaking. She clicked the mouse.
The screen flickered, static giving way to the interior of the Hail Mary. The lighting was soft, a stark contrast to the harsh fluorescent glow Eva remembered oh so clearly. And there they were.
Ryland was sitting in one of the pilot chairs, a massive, multi-limbed, spider-like creature made of stone sitting right next to him. But Eva barely registered the alien. Her eyes were locked on Ryland, who looked older, with silver-gray dusting his temples, but healthier than she could have ever dared to hope.
And then, you walked into the camera frame.
You were wearing a faded, oversized jumpsuit, holding two insulated flasks. You slung an arm naturally over Ryland’s shoulders, leaning down to press a soft kiss to the side of his head before setting a flask down in front of the rocky creature. You looked directly into the camera lens, as if you could see through the decades of time and space straight into Eva’s soul.
"Hey, Stratt," Ryland started, his voice thick with emotion, a nervous laugh escaping his lips. "If you're watching this... it means the Astrophage is cured. We did it. And—that's the alien next to me, his name is Rocky, he’s a long story—anyway, we saved Earth. And we saved Erid."
You leaned into Ryland's side, and Eva watched as his arm instantly came around your waist, pulling you close with a practiced, effortless familiarity.
"We know what you did, Eva," you said softly, your voice carrying that same rich, comforting warmth that had haunted Eva’s dreams for years. "We know why you had to do it. Ryland forgave you a long time ago. And I never blamed you. We knew the stakes."
Ryland looked up at you, his eyes full of a deep, profound affection that made Eva's chest ache, but for the first time, it wasn't a painful ache. It was a beautiful, overwhelming relief.
"We wanted to show you this," Ryland continued, flipping a switch to overlay a montage of video logs. "So you wouldn't worry. We know you, Eva. We know you've been sitting in that office, carrying the weight of the world, thinking you sent us out here to suffer alone."
The screen shifted to a series of short, candid clips.
There was a video of you and Ryland floating in zero gravity, covered in some kind of lab sludge, laughing so hard that neither of you could properly use the lines you both previously set up to untangle yourselves.
Another clip showed Ryland fast asleep at a console, and you gently draping a blanket over his shoulders, lingering to stroke his hair before sitting down next to him to finish his calculations—just like the old days.
There was a clip filmed by Rocky, the camera panning across the laboratory to show you and Ryland curled up together on a single cot, limbs tangled, sleeping peacefully in the quiet safety of the ship's hull.
"We kept each other sane, Eva," your voice echoed over the footage, soft and deeply tender. "When the science got too frustrating, when the isolation felt too heavy, we had each other. Ryland kept me laughing. I kept him fed. We built a life out here in the dark. We weren't alone."
The video cut back to the live message. You and Ryland were holding hands now, looking into the lens together.
"We love you, Eva," Ryland said, his voice cracking slightly at the edges. "We survived because of each other. But we did it for you. Sleep well, Stratt. You saved the world. Let's take care of each other now." followed by the motion of the 'Eridian Goodbye' which consisted with the motion of using one arm to rub it up the other.
Then the screen faded to black.
Eva Stratt sat in the silence of her office. For a long, silent minute, she didn't move. Then, a single, hot tear broke free, tracing a line down her lined cheek, followed by another, until the iron wall she had built around herself completely collapsed.
She collapsed back in her chair, burying her face in her hands, and let out a ragged, sobbing breath. But for the first time in her life, she wasn't crying from despair.
They were alive. They were safe and soundf. They had found a way to love each other through the worst of it, carrying a piece of her with them across the stars.
She couldn't protect them, so they protected each other. And as the distant, dying sun outside her window began to feel just a little bit warmer, Eva finally, truly, let herself smile.
I like to think Eva was a thriving academic weapon. She did a lot of projects, academic writing, and gained recognition from her professors. Even so she didn't forget to 'live' and be a reckless adolescent. She had a male best friend and a girlfriend whom were also best friends. They were her anchor, and accompanying her in her many firsts (drinking, smoking, sliding off a stair railing). I think Eva was the type to try many things purely out of curiosity.
Eva is a lesbian #tome. She had a male ex who was exactly the reason why she discovered that she was strictly into girls (kissing him felt disgusting and turns out dating a guy filled her with an impossible amount of annoyance).
I feel like Eva also had a childhood dog. A big fluffy one, either a husky or a border collie. She took him walking during her morning jog. She had a pet bird too once, a small one, but the bird didn't survive long because of a sickness :( which was her first encounter with grief.
Eva LOVES wearing black since she was a teenager. She thought it made her hair color pop, and she just loved feeling intimidating and classy at the same time. She's not too fond of skirts, though. During her university years, you would often find her in a long-sleeved black turtle neck, a silver necklace, and brown trousers. She would often fancy it up with an outer (can be a sweater, coat, blazer)
She dreamt of making a difference in the world, to at least put a tiny mark in this world that left her name permanently even long after she died. Little did she know..........
That's it for now. I love Eva Stratt so much guys 💔
