EVE COVEY-KAVINSKY + SHANIA ANDOR
G | COMPLETE
Eve and Shania are casually hanging out... and then suddenly end up in the past.
In addition to a long history of ambition, excessive note-taking, and strenuous academia, Eve Covey-Kavinsky also was very proudly a morning person. Her pre-med course load was extensive, because she was an overachiever who loved school, and she preferred the morning classes to the evening ones. She felt more accomplished that way, and it usually meant that her days were largely over by one or two in the afternoon. It left time for her research projects, for extra-curriculars, and for social activities. After all, Eve did have a number of friends, and she certainly wasn’t boring. She was just particular.
She’d gotten home early in the afternoon, as usual, and had gone about her usual practice of cleaning up the dorm room (mosty Shania’s side, as her own was rarely out of place to begin with). Everything tidied, she’d done her homework and stepped out to go to the gym, all before showering up and settling in to catch up on research and social networking. She sat cross-legged on her bed as the afternoon slipped into evening, her glasses on her nose and hair still drying as she peered at her laptop, music playing lightly through the otherwise quiet dorm room. It was, as she playfully called it, the calm before the storm -- the storm being Shania’s arrival back at home.
Shania had been out most of the day pretending that she was working on her final photography project for the semester - she was doing a series on weather oddities and Atlantis was just joyfully full of those with how varied the ecosystems on the island were. Of course, she wasn’t actually working on the project and she’d actually finished the series two days prior. Ugh stupid degree. Obviously, she actually enjoyed some parts of it - she enjoyed the parts where she only needed to take art courses now and she liked taking pictures. She wasn’t really the artsy sort on the surface, but whatever. She liked it, it was one of the very few things that actually made her any sort of quiet. Of course, except for her roommate-best friend-person hybrid who had a weird way of being able to put her into stunned silence at the least opportune moments.
Huffing, she grumbled as she fiddled with the door - struggling to get it open with her training bag on one shoulder, her camera bag on the other. She was weighed down and her side fucking hurt because of that punch she’d taken in training today. Training today had been fun. Granted, she always thought it was fun - but she knew everyone thought she might do just a little too much of it. Especially since she had gone to college and she was starting to get lectures again like when she’d almost flunked out of high school.
“Whatever.” She huffed quietly to herself at the thought as she got the door open and half-tumbled inside, kicking the door closed with a little backwards motion of her foot as she almost immediately destroyed the silence and cleanliness that Eve had created in the room when she dropped her bags next to her bed with a loud thud, “Look at you, being all responsible.” A very a-typical greeting between the two of them. Habits, or something, whatever.
The Storm arrived, as predicted, and Eve barely looked up from her laptop screen as Shania tumbled in, kicking up a mess and causing a lot of chaos in her wake. It wasn’t a surprise, after all. This was part of the routine.
“Look at you, being a trainwreck,” she responded, offering a smile and looking up over her glasses. She gave her a once over, noticing the bags and that they included one that would indicate that she’d trained. “Long day? You look worn out.”
Groaning, Shania practically tossed herself down on her bed as she let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding in since her fight with the door knob. “Ugh.” She vocalized, holding back a little return quip of You wouldn’t love me any other way. Well, because ugh. She haphazardly pushed her left ankle boot off, the right falling to the floor lazily beside it as she leaned up on her elbows, getting herself comfortable as she looked across the room.
“I was just working on that stupid final project.” She said, looking around for a snack or something - maybe a soda. She could totally have gone for a soda and some chips right now but, alas, nothing was within reach (because Eve managed to actually keep their space liveable, definitely not because of any contribution from the bitterly-youngest Andor child). “Why did I choose weather.” She groaned, “And yeah, whatever, I guess I trained a little.” A little was definitely hugely inaccurate, her last class had ended at 11:30AM. She’d been at the gym since.
“You literally chose a topic people use for small talk, Shania. You knew what you were getting yourself into, surely,” she said, continuing to type as she spoke. That little tip-tapping frequently accompanied these little quipping sessions, as she was an accomplished multi-tasker even in the face of her roommate being a total drama queen. Groans and ughs and all.
She looked up at the admission, an eyebrow lifting. “A little,” she echoed, clearly not believing her. She sat up more fully, diverting her attention to Shania completely. “Are you hurt anywhere?” she asked.
Well, Eve wasn’t wrong of course. But they’d been told to pick a word and it had started snowing out and so Shania had thought, well, snow but that seemed really limiting so she’d quickly snapped back that she was actually going to do weather. It was the professor’s idea of forcing them to think simply and not just about crazy out there project ideas. Or maybe he just knew that there were one too many kids in the class with imaginations even more out there than Shania’s. Whatever. “I mean, yeah, but - you know that weather here is rarely normal. I was hoping for some crazy shit to happen.” No she wasn’t, none of her photos were of any out there whether, they were just of weather intersections. Like snow falling against the horizon of the beach. Ugh, she was so lame sometimes. But it had been a pretty sunrise the other day.
“I’m fine.” She said back quickly, laughing at the idea - which of course hid a not so well hidden grimace at the feeling of her stomach muscles constricting. “You should totally see the other guy.” She added, waving off Eve’s concern and flopping back onto her back again, staring up at the ceiling as she waited on the lecture she just knew she was going to get.
Shania was impulsive, that was the real issue. Eve knew it, and so did she; it didn’t need to be said, but Eve gave a look anyway in response to the idea that it’d just happened. “Unfortunately, it’s been smooth sailing lately. No thunder-hail or anything.”
Eve’s eyes squinted at the obvious lie, watching as Shania flopped backwards. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s in rough shape,” she replied, half-heartedly, and closed her laptop. She set it aside, stretching her legs out before pulling them to the side of the bed and moving to her feet so that she could make her way to where Shania was laying. “You want to tell me where it hurts, or do I get to guess? I usually guess correctly, remember.”
The tone implied that Eve didn’t actually maybe find it as unfortunate as Shania very literally did, which just made the young woman groan again. She might have been able to figure out an alternative to the boring photos, get someone with powers to liven things up - but that may have been overextending herself and now her mind was starting to run a mile a minute about how she could actually just do the damn project better even though it was already fine. That was the problem with the way her mind worked, it was always about the next solution and the next step; even when the first was fine. “Ugh.” She repeated - leaning up on her elbows again at the sound of Eve getting up off of her bed.
Shit. She thought to herself - even though it was probably written all over her face too. “I said I’m fine!” Shania chirped back at her, with a little eyeroll and well placed smirk. “You just want me to be injured so you can practice.” She joked at her roommate as she watched her walk over. Of course, Shania’s rejection of the idea definitely had nothing to do with the fact that the idea meant she was risking a spontaneous physical.
“And I know you’re lying, because you wince when you move and I know your face too well to miss that.” Eve placed her hands on her hips, looking down at Shania from where she stood beside her bed. “And yes, you caught me. I love when you’re injured. As a doctor, it is my favorite thing to find my roommate in shambles so that I can stroke my ego by putting her back together.” Her words were sarcastic, accompanied by rolling eyes.
“Are you going to be stubborn, or are you going to let me check you out?”
Perks of living with your best friend, obviously. She knows you way too well. And that was definitely true when it came to Shania and Eve. It was true before college, but after living together the whole time? There wasn’t a whole lot that Shania got away with any more and she knew it - Shamara was the only person that knew her this well otherwise, and that was the whole twin thing. Her twin would have been giving her a whole different world of shit right now. Like about how, you know, she shouldn’t have shot at her training partner even though they weren’t real bullets and how not subtle she was and how she was always making a mess. Because she was sort of always making a mess. It wasn’t on purpose at least.
“I’m not being stubborn.” She said, ignoring her own thoughts and curtly responding to woman who now stood over her. “I’m fine.” Shania may have verbalized that she wasn’t stubborn, but that was exactly what she was being. Stubborn. Pinheaded. Stuck in her ways. Definitely a paternal trait.
Eve settled more heavily, favoring a hip in a posture she’d definitely adopted from her mother. She gave Shania a long-suffering sigh at the stubbornness, shaking her head. “Okay, if you say so,” she said, clearly not believing it at all. “Here I am, a perfectly willing healthcare professional-to-be, ready to check you over and make sure you didn’t puncture anything or bruise anything major, and you’re insisting you’re fine.”
She sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose with a finger. “And to think, it could be a crippling injury, one that could keep you from shooting and fighting or, god forbid, sneaking off with random classmates to hook up in whatever dorm is most exciting.” She shrugged. “It’s good you’re fine, right? We can avoid all of that.”
Shania knew that sigh, she knew it just way too well. She knew and kinda ignored that she frustrated Eve sometimes, but she kinda also considered it her gifted and winning personality and something that was generally a positive. She’d heard her Mother sigh at her Father like that when he was stuck on an idea. “You just want an excuse to touch my hips.” She scoffed awkwardly, a little pitch in her voice getting laughed off as she winced again. Fine, totally fine, Shania was totally fine and it had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t help but feel a certain way whenever Eve gave her little examinations (because, well, she got hurt way too often obviously).
“Hey!” She said with a pout, “Just because I’m a serial dater doesn’t mean I’m running off to hook up - technically though I mean, totally age appropriate since I just got out of a relationship.” Or well, it’d been a little while, but close enough to make the joke. And uh, Shania definitely wasn’t going to mention the why of Marceline breaking up with her because… awkward and obviously so not true. “Fine.” She said, groaning as she laid back - looking up at the ceiling and avoiding looking even in Eve’s direction, waving a hand toward her right side, “It was over there.” She grumbled under her breath.
Eve was very good at winning these situations, and she knew it. Her smile at her victory was barely there, but very smug. It didn’t last long, though, of course. She was a professional, after all. (More than that, she was always a little concerned in checking Shania over, because she knew full well how prone to accidents her roommate actually was. Eventually, she was sure that the injury would be more serious than the usual.)
“Oh, it’s totally age appropriate, and Shania-appropriate, which is exactly why we must make sure you’re in good shape and ready to go,” she teased back. She moved a little closer, leveraging herself to the right side of Shania’s bed and resting on her knees so that she could look at her hip and side. “Can I pull your shirt up?”
Ugh. She knew that look, she shouldn’t have given in. Shania totally should have given in - but whatever, it was pretty close to vital organs and all that and if it made Eve stop mentioning her bad habits, it… whatever. And, whatever, Marce was wrong and she wasn’t avoiding anything either. God, why was she thinking about shit now - ugh. Of course she was thinking about it now, how could she not? Shit. This was the worst trope to decide to live up to. She had to live up to the gay girl falls for best friend thing? God. She was fucking tragic - and not because she got injured so often. “What! Its not Shania-appropriate.” She fought that insinuation with a huff.
It wasn’t entirely untrue though, Shania was a master of the distraction technique, obviously it only made sense she’d use it on herself. Especially if that distraction was one you know, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t want to avoid. “I-uh, yeah I mean. That’s how a physical goes, right?” She said - stuttering through the same way she always did, with the same lame joke she made just about every time she got into a situation like this. “Why do you even ask any more.” She grumbled, pursing her lips tightly in anticipation.
Eve was a mess of her own set of tropes as well, she just wasn’t as frantic about them. The very logical portion of her brain (which was all of it) meant compartmentalizing all of the sexuality-based thoughts and feelings she had, and it let her focus on friendship instead. Friendship wasn’t dangerous, after all. The fact that it was fun to tease Shania, to act unbothered by her and unflustered by all of her attempts to hit on her… well, that was just a bonus.
“I’m pretty much required to remind you this isn’t a real physical,” she said in the same way she always did, that almost tone-less, droned response that came from her textbooks. She rolled her eyes at the grumbling. “Consent!” she replied, because obviously. She was gentle in the way she pulled Shania’s shirt up, and maybe that made it worse and more intimate. Either way, she looked at the skin curiously, placing her palm on Shania’s skin and looking to her face. “Does it hurt on the surface, when I touch you like this?”
This was ridiculous, they lived together and Shania had gotten these dumb little physicals so many times from Eve. She really didn’t know why, she was never hurt that bad. She honestly just told herself that Eve liked the practice because she came with such a wide variety of injuries and of course, on top of that? She wasn’t just injured - she was the same person injured. Great comparative practice. Obviously. Shania’s brain worked too fast though, and that meant that she was a revolving door of thoughts. Lots of thoughts, not thoughts about how it felt when Eve lifted up her shirt like that. Definitely not, nope. Definitely no way. Why did she always do that? Why did she always have to lift it slowly like that - it didn’t feel like a physical it felt…
Whatever. Shania grumbled out of nowhere and tilted her head to stare at the wall. There was a light flush on her cheeks that she damn well knew was there, was going to ignore, and definitely wasn’t going to let Eve see. Fuck Marceline.”Yes.” She grimaced through the pain of the pressure, her sparring partner had actually gotten her pretty good. Which was the whole reason she’d shot him with a rubber round used for practice encounters. Even though uh, it was maybe supposed to be a hand-to-hand combat practice. You know, prepared. Or something. “The other guy looks worse.” She joked - trying to diffuse the tension she was causing herself.
In part, it definitely was good practice. Shania was so healthy, but so terrible to herself. Those injuries provided some mystery (what the fuck had she done this time) and she knew Shania’s body well enough to tell when something was off. Mostly, though, she just… knew Shania, and wanted to make sure she wasn’t stubbornly ignoring a bigger injury. Eve was a careful person, by nature, and so it was rare that she ever injured herself worse than a stubbed toe or a hand cramp. She worried over Shania because she cared about Shania, and the ease of access to tending to her made it easy to do so regularly.
Eve smiled to herself, aware that Shania was definitely looking away (on purpose) and definitely wouldn’t see the smile that her actions were evoking. The grimace brought her back to professionalism, though. “I’m sure, they always do,” she said. “Does the whole area hurt, or--” she pressed lightly, with two fingers, on a spot that seemed to be coloring the fastest “is it all radiating from here?”
Shania was damn hard to embarrass, but this managed to full embarrass her. Along with, apparently, being the only person who could actually get any sort of quiet out of her - Eve was frustratingly good at pulling Shania out of her head, out of her element, and making her grumble her way through feelings and emotions she was pretty sure she preferred ignoring with her little flings. Ugh, she should have just listened to Marceline. But of course she hadn’t, no way. The breakup was messy because Shania had denied everything and it was her roommate and her best friend and Eve was so much more important than that and like, if she was going to make a move - she’d have responded by now. So now, Shania was just of the opinion that clearly Eve wasn’t bothered by her flirting and just thought nothing of it. So she didn’t stop.
Which of course just made the flush in her cheeks redden more as she let out a huff. “Ugh.” She mumbled again, “Radiating, I guess.” She quietly grumbled under her breath as she shifted under Eve’s touch. “Its not that bad.” She huffed out, definitely. For whatever reason. Obviously.
Eve really wasn’t trying to embarrass Shania, but she’d have been lying (and she wasn’t opposed to doing so) if she said that there wasn’t a little pleasure in being the one to make her roommate flush and squirm like this. Of course, that in itself was telling, all things considered, but Eve mostly didn’t acknowledge it.
She did a little more pressing and questioning, finally pin-pointing the source of the pain and ensuring that it wasn’t anything too worrisome. “Fortunately, you’re not going to die,” she said, pulling Shania’s shirt back into place and sitting back a bit on the bed. “I’d say you should take it easy until the bruise heals, but I know better than to believe you’ll actually do so. So maybe just… try not to get hit in the same place?”
There was a little moment of bittersweet relief when Eve pulled her shirt back down, it hadn’t even really been up that high - ugh, it had just been the way she’d pulled it up. That had put Shania in a totally wild place that she thought was stupid and clearly it was just that she hadn’t gotten laid in a bit and had nothing to do with anything else. But of course, that was just more loops that her mind basically always had to do when it came to Eve. Anything that involved her and ya know. Damn it.
Forcing herself to roll her eyes she shifted on the bed after a moment, leaning up on her elbows and looking over at Eve - annoyed was the look she was at least trying to pull off, “I told you I was fine.” Chuckling, she diffused her own awkwardness with a little bit of, you know, her trademark on the nose humour. “Obviously I was right about you just wanting to touch me.” She quipped at her friend. Tilting her head to the side, her long brown ponytail falling over her shoulder as she arched an eyebrow at the other woman. Maybe it wasn’t subtle, but she’d always been taught that it was better to hide the truth in an adjacent truth, rather than an outright lie. Easier to keep up with.
They painted a pretty picture, Shania up on her elbows in the bed and Eve sitting beside her. Close enough to be intimate without actually being so, which made for an excellent metaphor. “You say a lot of things that are only half-true,” she pointed out, pushing her hand through her damp hair.
At the quip, she shrugged. “I wouldn’t need an excuse. You’re not unlike a cat in the way you preen for attention,” she responded, nonchalant but smiling. It was that casual disinterest that served as a decent coping mechanism for real feelings.
They sure as hell painted a pretty picture and that was something that Shania acknowledge internally and deep, deep down in her consciousness more than she would have ever admitted. She recognized it even now. Those cheekbones, their curves, both of them were blessed with great hair. A hell of a picture that was for damn sure. She may have yelled something to that effect at Marceline during the break up. Something about her assuming just because her and Eve looked good together, looked that close, that Marce was reading into it. That Marce was wrong. Something like that.
“What!” She said - shooting up to a sitting position way too fast for her growing bruise, but she bit back the reaction as best she could, “I don’t preen! I’m not some stupid little attention whore.” She snapped at Eve, definitely. Of course, her twin said she was louder, said she was the seeker between them all the time. But it stung more coming from Eve, that was for damn sure. And it caused an immediate reaction.
Eve hadn’t actually been expecting that she’d offend Shania with her words, but rather just tease her with them. Shania popping up the way she did made her eyebrows lift, and she raised her hands as well. “I didn’t call you an attention whore, Shania,” she said. “I called you a cat and that you liked being touched.”
Shania was pouting at Eve in a way that would have been adorable in any situation where they were being fully honest with each other, but right now? They clearly still weren’t so now it was just a half-scowl, half-pout and she didn’t like it, “Cats are mean.” She said - in a voice that indicated both her discomfort with the idea that Eve might think something even adjacent of attention whore or her and the fact that she thought cats being mean was fucking obvious. “I don’t get why Shamara likes cats so much.” She said with a grouchiness that was evident as she shifted, pulling her legs towards her and moving to sit crossed-legged on her bed, just sort of playing with the bit of comforter in front of her.
She didn’t deal well with being put on the spot emotionally, especially when she let her emotions slip and this was exactly what that felt like. Slipping. Silly. Stupid. A bunch of other words that she could have listed for practically an eternity.
Eve’s brow furrowed some at this, and she gave Shania long, curious look before speaking again. “What’s going on, Shania? You’re acting… different than you usually do,” she said finally. “I mean… cats are fine, and Shamara’s fine too. You, apparently, aren’t. You okay?”
She settled more solidly on the bed, crossing her legs beneath her and giving Shania that same curious look, just with some patience and concern mixed in equally.
Forcing a very cross look on her face Shania looked at Eve as if she had no idea what she was talking about, or at least did her best to fake it. Deep down, obviously she knew that she’d been petulant since Eve had first lifted her shirt up. How come she’d had to do it so fucking slow, ugh. Ugh. Of course, ugh. Why did Eve always try and doctor her? This wasn’t even doctoring, wrong type of doctor. Whatever. She didn’t want the questions and it showed on her face. Shania was good at shutting down when it was convenient, completely turning off - a skill she’d inherited from Cassian. Something he’d gotten better at not allowing to disrupt his life with age, something she was still a fair ways off from.
“I’m fine.” She said, openly mocking the whole idea as she looked over at Eve, “If its not one things, its another!” She continued to chirp at her as if nothing was wrong, as if she hadn’t scowled and pouted and avoided at all.
Eve’s expression shifted to amusement at that, and she sighed again, rolling her eyes. “You’re absolutely ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for her, she loved Shania despite these ridiculous traits. (And by that, of course, she meant a platonic love, like one felt for a best friend and roommate. Not the kind of love that had lasted a long while or ignited self-discovery at 18.)
“I suppose that’s that, then,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “What are you doing tonight?”
Shania was staring Eve down as her roommate changed the subject, continued on her path to figure out what was actually wrong with her. Of course, plenty of other people had figured it out over the years - they just hadn’t, at least, they hadn’t actively figured it out in a way that actually benefited them. “I’m not--” A weird look crossed over the youngest Andor’s face as she swore to fuck she saw some sort of elf in the corner of her room, her face scrunching up as she tried to focus in on it, “I’m not doing any--” She didn’t get out the last word before… everything felt odd, everything felt odd and she suddenly realized she was in a very different place…
Eve felt the same, and had reached out to grab Shania’s arm when everything began to shift. She closed her eyes for a dizzying moment, trying to ground herself again, and was surprised to find that when she opened them again, they weren’t in their room anymore. In fact, where they were was infinitely busier and… perhaps a little familiar?
“What the hell is going on…” she breathed, alarmed and confused by the sudden shift in their location.
Shania just sort of stared around her and then sort of kinda just gawked at Eve, holy shit, she thought to herself. She had heard stories and everything from her parents and they both knew that Atlantis was full of weird shit - especially before the war had been won but… the only thing she could think of was… “Holy shit.” She repeated, outloud this time.
She looked over at Eve, “Are you - wait are you-” She stuttered out, trying to make sure that she was okay and then all-of-a-sudden she had a moment of clarity, “We’re still on Atlantis.” She said, looking around as tings became familiar and she realized she knew some of the people close to them, “I totally kriffing take back anything I said about the lack of Atlantis weirdness…”
Eve nodded to the stuttered question, and came to the same clarifying realization simultaneously. She looked around as well, gears turning in her mind as she began to recognize what must be occurring. “This must be Intake,” she said. She’d never had reason to be here before now, but she knew it from pictures and descriptions.
“Well, it looks like our day just got a little more interesting…” she added, sighing as she looked back to Shania.