Zeliglimcy

It didn't make sense otherwise. She was a UN official—a no nonsense workaholic always glued to her laptop, but with a secret indulgence toward late night lattes. You were the new barista at her favorite cafe who always took the late shift despite preferring mornings. Something in each of you diverging from the normal trajectory, on a collision course toward each other, despite having nothing in common.

The first time you made her coffee was nothing special. She noted your lovely face and soft voice, but not with anything more than a passing curiosity. That latte, though, was one of the best she'd ever had.

The next night was the first time you'd smiled at her. Not a routine customer service smile, but a real one that reached your eyes.

"Eva, right?" you'd asked while wiping down the counter. "Same thing as yesterday?"

"Yes," she'd replied, unable to keep the little note of surprise from her voice. "Do you remember everyone's orders?"

"No, but I keep tabs on pretty redheads with nice accents."

She had only blinked in response, her face turning a mortifying shade of pink. It wasn't that she disagreed—she knew she was an attractive woman, but quite frankly, she had stopped putting effort into emphasizing it years ago. Baggy black clothes, a bare face, and unstyled hair were her daily armor. It had been... quite some time since anyone had noticed her looks. Or at least told her as much.

But you only smiled and turned to make her drink. Later, while she sat back at her desk with her laptop glowing across her face, her mind had wandered back to your words. She'd glanced down, fidgeting with the hem of her shapeless top, and smiled just a little.

After that, she made a habit of stopping nightly. And, to her inner horror, she looked forward to more than just the coffee. She looked forward to you, your kind face and bright smile and the way you remembered her for things besides her job title or her capacity for intimidation.

"Hi Eva, same as usual?"

"Eva, we got a new syrup in that I think you'd like. Let me make you something new."

"Not even a downpour will stop you from getting your coffee fix, huh, Eva? That's commitment."

Eva. Just Eva. Not Stratt, not the dozen other titles she held, not the creative derogatory names her rivals thought up. It left her warm inside, and she loved and loathed it in equal measures.

You opened up to each other slowly. You showed her photos of your cat and made her laugh after days that had brought her nothing but difficulties. And she told you about things she hadn't thought of in so long—summers growing up in Germany, singing in the youth choir, her favorite books, her strong opinions on espresso versus cold brew.

It continued like that for a few months, with Eva spending more and more of her evenings sitting at the counter while you cleaned or did inventory or served the odd other customer, chatting in an easy, addicting way. Until one night when Eva did something risky, something bold and at odds with the way she normally conducted herself. She invited you back to her nearby apartment with the intention to play you an old vintage record that had come up in conversation, and... well. That was that. You stayed the night. The first of many nights, and many days.

You never properly moved in, and that, she supposed, made things easier in the end. But you did spend a lot of time there, brightening the dark, utilitarian corners of her home with something more, something warmer. In another life, she might have given you a ring. And she knew exactly the type you would like.

But in this life, roughly a year into your relationship, the world found out the sun was dying. And, inexplicably, it was up to Eva Stratt to save it.

She broke up with you the next day.

It was better this way, she reasoned. You were a good bit younger than her and had, God willing, some sort of life ahead of you. And Eva had nothing left to give you now.

She couldn't afford the distraction.

More than that: she couldn't risk dragging you wherever this job took her. Literally and metaphorically. Not only was she in for months, if not years, of living anywhere they needed her, she was also in for trouble. Work like this, it came at a cost. When the time came to answer for the choices she already knew she was going to make, the world would not look kindly upon her, no matter that it was the cost of their salvation.

Eva wanted you well away from that limelight. Safe, even if it was not with her.

And so she let you go. Even though it hurt you, and she made sure it did. Made sure it was a clean break, that you had no reason to keep holding on. No reason to come looking for her, or to tempt her into giving in to her own desperate desires.

So Eva Stratt slept at the office most nights now. When she didn't, she walked home on dark and empty streets, to a dark and empty home that was devoid of your light. She found a new coffee shop. She didn't call you, didn't text you, didn't try to fix things.

But it was you she thought of each day as she tried to find the right minds who could save the sun from dimming. When she despaired of ever finding an answer, it was your photo on her lock screen that she turned to like a talisman, a reminder of why she had to do this. You were the thing that swam through her exhausted brain each night when she finally collapsed against her desk, screens glowing their stripes of light across her hair. She saw you somewhere she could no longer reach, but happy. Unscathed.

She wondered if you were scared right now, with all the horrible conjecture and panic in the news. She wondered if you had someone to hold you through it. Sometimes she hoped you did. And sometimes, selfishly, she hoped you didn't.

Regardless, you were her reason. You were the thing that kept her awake at all hours, fighting for humanity and searching for solutions.

Eva Stratt would save the world for you, even if it meant losing you to the fight.

I hope you enjoyed! I love exploring Stratt's character and I love complicated women so much.

If anyone wants to be added to a taglist for Stratt/PHM fics, lemme know!

I’m very fond of chapter four, I love the “do I know you” line, it’s absolutely devastating that now that she’s finally had a life where they get to know each other she has to wake up in one where they’re strangers again (six is going to turn me inside out for this same reason). I adore how much Stratts previous death haunts her, it seems like her dying before the beetles returned wasn’t something she had considered before and now that it’s happened it’s just another terrifying variable she has to factor in. I love how hard she tries not to be friends with Grace, and really that’s the whole fic, Stratt is always trying to stay away from Grace but I really like it here because she is failing so miserably and so immediately, one of her first thoughts upon waking is about him, she’s devastated that he doesn’t remember her, forgets that she shouldn’t know about the Twizzlers, she gets him the damn ice cream machine, she asks for his advice, he’s her fucking next of kin, she cannot help but be close to him and she’s beginning to see it in this chapter.

Also the contingency director meeting??? Oh my god, “you carry all this and still you love him”???? Dimitri really and truly just clocking their bullshit is so dear to me, that man is so sick of these yearning idiots. And then the end is so good, I adore Graces perspective, it’s so refreshing after spending all this time in Eva’s head with her fucked up perspective on her relationship with him, to turn around and see that he really is just as weird about her as she is about him, although without the thirty plus years of soul crushing grief and loneliness. I also love the agency Stratt takes in choosing to die, she is embracing the time loop and while it isn’t good, it is useful to her, and I think that is a potent cocktail of emotions she’s going to have to unpack when the Hail Mary succeeds and she has to come to terms with the fact that she is finally free of the loop and can no longer go back and fix things

“You taste better,” You shrug jokingly, walking around the counter, grabbing another glass and the bottle, and bringing it to her. “I’m kidding, it’s great. Thank you for getting it.”

“I bought two. Come here, we can have this one before they arrive.” She drawls, extending one hand to rest on your waist.

“Are you trying to get us drunk?” You hum with a smile, pouring her the wine, then standing between her legs.

“I think we can afford to get a little tipsy. We have an hour.” She sips into her wine and traces soft patterns on the exposed skin of your side, “You still have to get ready.”

“I can do it in less than twenty minutes,” you kiss the corner of her mouth, earning a smirk from her, “you look amazing.”

Eva murmurs a ‘thank you’, settling her empty glass on the counter next to you two, hooking her fingers on the hem of your shirt, and skimming it up until your middle is exposed to her, planting soft kisses and leaving lipstick-red marks behind. You giggle, nursing your wine as you observe her stunning, borderline mischievous blue eyes watching you. “I have to finish cooking.”

“That’s another fifteen minutes, so now I only have twenty-five minutes of tipsy you to myself.” She mutters into your skin.

“I can do twenty minutes.” You chuckle, smoothing her hair and guiding her head up so you can kiss her.

“You can’t.” She says, her words swallowed by the kiss.

You exchange a lazy kiss that tastes like tiramisu, wine, the cigarette you shared earlier while shopping, and her lipstick, and feel her fingertips ghosting over your skin, your warm hands tangled in her hair. “I promise I can.”

She looks at the clock on the wall, “Eight minutes are gone.”

“I can do ten.” You argue back with a smile, massaging her scalp as she looks at you with stern eyes and a barely contained smile.

“You really can’t.”

“No faith in me at all.” You sigh jokingly, bringing your lips to hers again, and suppress the fascinating chuckle bubbling up from her chest.

You begrudgingly break the kiss, ready to go back to the other side of the counter and give the dinner its finishing touches, but then you feel her lips kissing up your torso and find yourself wanting to delay it a little bit more. “You’re making it very difficult for me to go back to the kitchen, baby.”

“Finish the wine.” She muffles her voice by kissing your ribs over your shirt. Your very white lace shirt, now stained by a shade so unique you call it Eva-Stratt-red.

You scoff lightly, a smile never leaving your face, as you savor the drink. “Yes, ma’am.”

She chides you teasingly with a look, smudged lips tracing the curve of your clothed breasts, and twisting up slightly when she hears you hissing. “What do you think of it?”

“The wine?” “Of course.” “It’s delicious. Fresh. It makes me think of the beach.”

Eva confirms with a coo, satisfied with your reply. She has her arms wrapped around your hips; one holding them and the other gathering the fabric from your silk skirt upwards, then going down to stroke your outer thigh. “I can’t do five,” you joke, turning putty into her hands, forcing your knees to hold you standing up.

“I can.” She turns her kisses into nibbles, gathering more fabric in between her teeth than skin, but still enough for you to feel it and goosebumps to rise.

“Four?”

“I can do even one.” She whispers, her chin pressed against your sternum, fingernails raking over until they reach your inner thigh, “You know I can.”

“Your focus amazes me.” You say in jest, leaning down and planting a final kiss on her lips before untangling yourself from her gentle touch and heading back.

She lights up a cigarette as she watches you scattering around to finish cooking in record time. You hum to the tune on the record player as she falls into comfortable silence. She wouldn’t mind if this very minute lasted forever, if guests never arrived, and neither of you ever had to go to work, ever.

She has never been a clingy person. Eva is happy having alone time; in fact, she needs it, she thrives off it, but ever since you married, a concept that has also never appealed to her before meeting you, she feels like the moments she feels most herself are when she’s alone with you. Even better, you make her feel like she does when she’s alone.

When you’re done cooking, you come back to her, her wine, and cigarettes. “These don’t pair well,” you mumble, taking a drag off her cigarette and sitting on her lap, her hand instinctively moving to hold your waist. She snuggles her head in the crook of your neck, watching your fingers flick the ashes into the ashtray. “All done?” She asks, breathing in your perfume with a nudge of her nose into your neck.

“Yeah. Gotta get ready now.” You turn your head to her, brushing your lips on hers and blowing out a cloud of smoke, to which she inhales.

“Wash your face, it has lipstick all over it.” Her eyes scan your face, her thumb strokes your face, doing little to nothing to help with the mess.

“Whose fault is it?”

Eva shrugs with a half smile, “It takes two.”

You roll your eyes fondly, abandoning her lap to go and get ready. She walks to the balcony and sits in silence as she watches the neon lights and rain puddles on the city, perfectly content to stay still until you’re ready, to not move a limb or take a deep breath until you collect her and ask her to. It’s nice to just be, to just breathe, contrary to how she does at her work, where everything seems urgent but nothing actually is.

It feels nice until the first guest arrives earlier than expected and you’re still getting ready. You so dearly ask her to entertain them until the others arrive. She’s not an entertainer; she mopes mentally as she opens the door, only to be surprised by Dr. Grace, to whose presence she responds with a ‘thank god’.

He’s a professor at the same university as you, a lovely and very sunny professor who, when he was able to, offered to teach middle schoolers about biology. He has become a staple at your dinner parties, at first because you were desperately trying to get him to go out with one of your friends, but now simply because he has become one of the people that you and Eva both adore. He’s a talkative one, for sure, with a limited swear-word vocabulary and a tendency to bring his own terrible beer to your carefully curated dinners, but you don’t mind.

When you finish getting ready, you come say hi, and before you even see them, you hear them. You hear him, and hear her trying to be an active listener. You greet them with a chuckle as you take in the contrast between them, first noticed by his flailing arms and the circling smoke coming from her cigarette.

You stand by her side, her hand on the side of your waist, as soon as you approach her. “You look great.” She whispers discreetly in your ear as he picks up his story. Eva, in normal conditions, is not too public with her displays of affection, limiting herself to walking closely with you or, at most, her hand on the small of your back, but she’s a little tipsy, and Ryland Grace, of all people, is the most PDA-resistant person you have ever seen.

In return for her compliment, you press your lips faintly on her cheek. “I borrowed your lipstick,” you tease quietly, to which she turns her head to you, knowing she’ll be walking around with a faded Eva-Stratt-red stain for now on. She wouldn’t dare to clean it; it’s discreet and a reminder beyond the ring on the right hand, worn that way following a German tradition you picked up because of her.

People start to arrive, and the atmosphere is almost immediately filled with the sounds of clinking glasses and increasing chuckles, which turn into full-blown laughter as the night progresses. By the time you’re all set on the dining table and the food is served, Eva’s hand is glued to yours under the table and over your lap, your thumb softly stroking the back of her hand. It’s a treat to feel her warmth and see her being amused by the most ridiculous stories from your single friends, even if her comments mostly consist of some variation of “block them”.

She ends up, deservingly, being the center of attention multiple times during the dinner. Her sense of humor is dry, and she only tells a story when she knows for sure it will land, never one to bore people with stupid jokes or slapstick humor, or even fake laughter. You take each of these times as an opportunity to laugh and touch her arm, her leg, anywhere you can to be acceptably closer to her, in your best efforts to not seem desperate to send everyone home and be alone with her.

It’s something about this side of her that always makes you end the night all over her, how she makes you feel like you belong, like you have a community. How welcoming she is to your friends, how quickly she wins them over, even if she thinks of herself as being a little ‘difficult’, even if she is reserved and way too honest; how her friends love you and have memorized some of your preferences even before they met you. It’s nice to belong, you said to her one day, muffled by a kiss on her shoulder.

She notices it, of course. In the moment people start complimenting your tiramisu, she excuses herself to the balcony for a smoke break. It’s not like she needed to go outside to smoke; the room already seemed foggy from all the cigarettes, cigars, and everything in between, but no one seemed to care, nor did they care when you followed close behind.

Your balcony is neither private nor public, with large glass doors connecting the loft’s exterior and the interior, and almost brutalist in appearance, decorated with large plants and a few chairs. Its architecture was not meant for two runaway lovers, but destiny took care of it, and somehow the balcony is hidden from the warm glow from inside and the neon city’s lights.

“I think they’re all ready to leave.” You approach her from behind, hugging her waist and sheltering yourself from the cold wind, puckering your lips, asking her for a cigarette or a kiss when she turns her head to look at you. She gives you a kiss first, noticing your faded lipstick, consumed by all the chatter, food, and napkins. Only then does she place it on your lips, lighting it up with hers.

“Your nose is cold,” Eva grumbles, letting her head fall behind and rest on you, her cheek pressed close to yours.

“It’s a cold night,” you blow the smoke, soaking into her presence, “enjoying yourself?”

“I think they’re ready to leave,” she closes her eyes, a smirk playing on her lips deliciously.

“Mhm, do you think they would all deliberately leave if we started having loud sex out here?”

She huffs out a laugh, “I wouldn’t trust their judgment.”

“They better, ‘cause I want to have very loud, noisy, boisterous sex with my wife.” You laugh, kissing her cheek.

“I believe it will have to wait for at least an hour or two. Grace is in the middle of telling an odyssey, it seems.”

“What a terrible man.”

You two fall into silence, enjoying the warmth from each other and the sharp cold from the changing weather.

“Do you think there’s an alternative timeline out there where we’re not married?”

“No.” “No?” “I don’t really think about it,” she deadpans, lightheartedly.

You scoff, a soft ‘ugh’ leaving your lips. “I hope you’re not my boss in one of them.”

“I may be.”

“That would be a nightmare. I would be sent straight to HR for wanting to bang my boss.”

She chuckles calmly, exhaling in complete peace. It’s not until the glass from the balcony makes a sharp sound that you two move, questioning what, or who, dared to burst the bubble.

It’s, unsurprisingly, Ryland, accompanied by another one of your friends, “we were sent here to see if you two were making out,” he says, a little drunker than he probably thinks he is, in the most juvenile fashion.

“I came too ‘cause he was too scared to come alone.” Your friend adds, as drunk as he is.

“Would you guys leave if we were?” You turn around to face them, one hand still holding Eva.

“I don’t know what everyone’s thought process was, honestly.” He looks puzzled, looking at the full table and then back at you.

You snicker, sending them back inside, promising you two would follow soon.

“There are people waiting for us,” she whispers in your ear, holding your hips.

“I hate them,” you grin, capturing her lips into a quick kiss, “no public sex could tear them apart from the tiramisu.”

“It was a great tiramisu,” she states, taking your hand and guiding you inside.

Eva had always been a giver, but since her start on the Taskforce she was even more so. Her favorite way to blow off steam was to sprawl you out on your shared bed and eat you out until she knew you’d had enough. She’d push you through four orgasms before coming up for air. She’d probably work four more out of you if she wasn’t on a time restraint.

On the days where she let you reciprocate, you did so eagerly. You knew your wife’s body like your own and didn’t stop chasing her pleasure until she pulled you up to her lips to lick her own taste off.

Three weeks ago she broke the news that that part of your lives was now over. The Taskforce was now to be stationed on a boat in the middle of the ocean and the two of you were to live there until the completion of her work.

“And how long will that be?” you’d asked.

“At least a year,” she’d replied.

You asked the only natural follow-up question. “Can Salem come?”

She’d smiled at that. “Yes. I wouldn’t make you leave your cat.”

So you’d packed up your life and your cat and relocated to the middle of the ocean. The things you do for love.

As much as your environment had changed, your routine really hadn’t. You started your day at 5 o’clock sharp with Salem screaming for her breakfast. After a groan and a few reassuring words from your wife, you’d prepare it.

After that, you’d crawl back into bed and into Eva’s arms until her alarm woke her at 6. Sometimes she’d pepper you with kisses, but most of the time she just held you.

When she left in the morning, you’d fill your time with whatever you could until it was time to meet her for dinner. You didn’t have the classic structure of a job anymore, so it was mostly hobbies. One crew mate had shown you how to knit, another how to sew. It gave you something to focus on other than the seemingly inevitable collapse of society. After that she was yours until the daybreak. Sometimes she was Ryland’s, too. A few days a week he’d show up at your cabin door with a few board games in hand and a child-like smile. You’d always invite him in, even if Eva would prefer you didn’t. You knew her too well, though, and she would always be enjoying herself by round three.

Salem had even grown to enjoy his company, which did not seem likely after their first meeting. The moment he’d walked through the door, she’d hissed at him, something she rarely ever did.

She did this the next three times until Eva finally grew annoyed and picked her up and deposited her in Dr. Grace’s arms. “See, not so scary, is he?” she asked the feline as she glared at Ryland. Eva scratched her head until she eventually calmed. “Scaredy cat,” she chided the poor thing. She looked up at Ryland, who looked just as frightened. “Both of you.”

Days on the ship flew by. Weeks would go by and be barely distinguishable from the last. The only real way you could tell time had passed were the dark circles under your wife’s eyes.

It didn’t matter how long she slept, she still woke up tired. She didn’t joke as much as she used to. Didn’t sing at all. The woman who laid next to you at night was a ghost of the one you’d married.

One night, long past when you both should’ve been asleep, you turn to find her wide awake. She was already staring at you. “Eva?” you ask, though you already have her attention.

“Yes, dear?”

"How come you get to bring me here? No one else really has their partners on board."

"I get to bring you because I am in charge. I could order this boat to be taken apart and reconstructed ten meters to the left and I would be obeyed. They are lucky all I ask for is my wife and her cat."

"She's your cat, too," you start, but quickly shake the thought off. "But, really, you have that much power here?"

"I have that much power anywhere.”

You smirk. “Kinda hot, I have to admit.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Is that so?”

You nod. “Hot.”

She sits up a bit. “You like that your wife has armies at her command?”

You push yourself lower, aching to be underneath her. With sultry eyes, you look up at her. “I like that the world bends at my wife’s will.”

She uses both hands to pin your hands above your head, using her hips to hold yours in place. She leans into your space, crowding you, before grazing her teeth across your ear. “And I bend at yours, my love.”

You moan at her words, warmth filling your belly. “Fuck, Eva. Need you,” you whine.

“I know. You’ll have me.”

She takes her time. Her lips touch every bit of exposed skin you have, suckling and nipping the parts she knows are most sensitive.

You groan when she licks a stripe from your collarbone to the back of your ear. She holds your face in place as she does, contorting you to her will.

“Eva, please sit on my face,” you beg.

“That’s what you want, pretty girl?” she asks, twirling a lock of your hair in her fingers. You nod frantically.

“Please.”

“If that’s what you want.”

She climbs on top of you gracefully, slowly lowering her core to your mouth. You lick stripes over her warmth, immediately drawing out moans from the woman above you.

You’re far more precise when she’s underneath you. Every bit of precision is out the window when she sits on your face. Your entire being is focused on keeping her right where she is. Both of your hands hold her hips down as she grinds on your face. She chases her own high on you, uses you as a toy to get herself off. The thought of being used by her sends a new surge of slick to your thighs and a new set of moans from your lips to her core. You clench your thighs together, aching for friction. Eva instantly notices, slinking a hand back to rub your clit. The pleasure overwhelms you and you buck your hips further into her hand, desperate for her.

Her face is unguarded and blissed out as she rides you. She’s so beautiful like that, head thrown back in pleasure and chest heaving. Your thighs open wider to her as her fingers make quick work of your clit. You’re already soaked and she knows exactly how to get you off. Years of exploration had made her an expert of your body. Her movements grow frantic and sloppy as she gets close. You quicken the pace of your tongue against her pussy as she works herself to release.

You feel her cum against your tongue; her entire body clenches around you as she grinds into your face. The feeling of her coming apart on top of you brings you to your edge. You’re high on her, drunk on the taste of her pussy on your tongue. “Fuck,” she cries as she slides off of you, teetering on overstimulation.

Your pupils are blown as you stare up at her, desperate for her to touch you. “Such a good girl for me,” she praises as she crawls over your body to lay beside you. “Let me take care of you, baby.”

You nod, far too eager. “Please.”

She sinks two fingers into you, easily, letting out a moan of her own as you push your hips against her. “Good girl, taking me so well,” she murmurs. She sets an easy rhythm with her fingers as she uses her other hand to caress your head. “Need you to look at me.”

You whimper as you look at her - her eyes are locked on your face, measuring every reaction and adjusting her movements to reflect. Her pace quickens. “Are you close, baby?”

You nod, tears stinging your eyes as you arch yourself further into her. Every inch of you is screaming for her touch, for release. “Fuck, please, Eva. Please,” you beg.

Her lips connect with your neck and you fall over the edge. You fall for what feels like an eternity, until slowly your breathing calms and your heart rate slows. Aftershocks of your orgasm pulse through you as you settle against Eva’s sweat-slicked body.

“Love you,” you murmur against her chest.

She kisses the top of your head. “Love you.”

You’d almost fallen asleep when the banging on the door starts. “Mrs. Stratt?” a loud voice booms.

“What is it?” she asks, though she doesn’t move. Her head rests atop yours as her fingers comb through your hair. Your nerves are still electric from the way she touched you earlier and the movement sends chills down your body.

“You’re needed in your office,” the voice answers.

She groans before pulling herself upright. She’s still bare before you and the dim light makes her look ethereal. You know she doesn’t want to leave, can see it in the way she looks at you with sheer longing.

“Go,” you whisper. She drags a lazy hand across her face, rubbing the sleep from it. You smile as the tease rolls of your tongue, “Command.”

She rolls her eyes as she grabs your face in her hand. “Such a brat.”