Chapter Text
He’s not in his bedroom.
That’s the first thing Grace realises when he opens his eyes. His room on the Vat is a small, cramped box. He blinks away the light that shines in through the window, which is something his room does not have. He’s been sleeping in a glorified box for months now, and this is not his box.
Okay, where the heck is he? He doesn’t remember being anywhere other than the mess hall and then his room last night. He’d grabbed dinner with Olesya and Dimitri, so there was always the possibility he’d lost another drinking game and ended up passed out in one of their rooms, but… no, he doesn’t feel hungover.
The next thing he notices, when he goes to rub the sleepiness from his eyes and figure out how long he has to get back to his room and dressed before Stratt murders him for showing up late, is the soft and smooth skin under his hands.
His hands, which are distinctly small, feminine, and have painted nails.
Grace shoots upright, panic surging through his body, and scrambles out of bed. He rushes to the door of the ensuite bathroom and bursts in, finally catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
A distinctly high-pitched, feminine scream is heard echoing from Eva Stratt’s room, followed by the thump of an unconscious body hitting the floor.
Eva Stratt is a woman of routine, and she is awake every morning at five on the dot, so the room being dark when she jolts into consciousness doesn’t surprise her.
What does, however, is the distinct sense that she is suddenly occupying more space than she should be. There’s no other way to describe it.
Reaching over to find her tablet, she instead knocks a pile of papers off the bedside table that she doesn’t recall putting there with the sweep of an arm that should not have reached as far as it just did.
She fumbles around in the dark to find the standard-issue bedside lamp and switches it on. Which is when she sees her hands.
Or rather, not her hands.
Very distinctly not her hands, because Eva thinks she’d remember if she developed the prominent veins and body hair of a grown man.
Which, without a doubt, she currently is. Because she throws back the covers, and she’s greeted by the sight of strong, muscular legs and an oversized tee draped over a distinctly flat chest. She can’t help it; she gasps. And the sound is an octave lower than she expects.
“What the fuck?” she says, and then jumps in alarm, her heart beginning to pound loudly in her ears.
She knows that voice. It’s not her voice.
“Oh, my god,” she curses, using Ryland Grace’s mouth. “This cannot be happening.”
When Grace comes to again, he’s on the floor, and his head hurts.
“This can’t be real,” he mutters, and nearly screams again when he hears what is most definitely Stratt’s voice leave his- her- mouth. He closes his eyes and suppresses the urge to throw up, or cry. You’re a scientist, Grace. People don’t just wake up as other people. Figure it out.
“Okay…” he says slowly. When his kids are on the verge of panic, he tells them to count to ten out loud. Usually, by the time they get to the last number, a hint of a smile has already returned to their face. “One… two… nope. So not working.” Grace whimpers and puts his head between his knees, trying to quell the fear surging like ice through his veins. “Breathe, Ryland.”
He takes a long, deep breath and lifts himself off the floor. In the bathroom mirror, Stratt’s face, stretched in an expression of complete bewilderment quite unlike anything he’s ever seen on her, stares back at him. He exhales slowly, softly, watching intently as Stratt’s lips move in the mirror, forming a soft ‘O’. Tentatively, he brings his hand back up to his face, feeling the smooth contours.
Then he pulls his hand away like he’s been burned.
This is Eva Stratt’s body. And if he’s here, then where the heck is she?
A sinking feeling dawns on him and anxiety surges in his gut, bringing with it a wave of nausea. Nice to know that pure terror feels the same across all bodies, at least. He grips the sink, watching the way Stratt’s knuckles go white around the marble.
He has to find her. Him. He has to find Ryland Grace.
He’s about to storm out of the bathroom with a newfound sense of determination when he glances in the mirror again and realises that he absolutely cannot step foot outside of Stratt’s room in a tank top and sweatpants. She’d kill him, undoubtedly, and somehow the fear of her wrath outweighs the need to run into the hallway screaming for someone to fix this and put him back in his own darn body.
Oh, gosh, I have to get changed? His eyes drop quickly to the swell of his chest and then away, feeling a furious blush rise to his cheeks. No, he can’t undress her. That would be… just, no.
Just as Grace decides to go searching through Stratt’s dresser for an appropriate turtleneck or something, he hears a knock at the door, and his stomach plummets to his feet.
No, no, no…
“Dr. Grace?” He hears his own voice, quiet, muffled, and almost melts with relief. He rushes to the door, almost tripping over himself, unused to the much shorter pair of legs, and opens it to see…
Himself.
Well, that’s not totally and completely freaky.
“Quick,” the other Grace hisses, and he steps aside.
Stratt is greeted by the sight of herself wearing a completely unbecoming expression of terror, and quickly forces her way into the room, closing the door behind her with an unexpected slam. She’d have to get used to the new strength in her muscles.
“What the heck is going on?” Grace whimpers in her voice, and she’s very certain now that it is Grace, because she’d recognise those mannerisms anywhere.
She strides over to her own bed, sitting on the edge. “We appear to have… swapped, somehow.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s happening. Let’s not waste time debating it.”
“Okay. Wh- wait,” he narrows her eyes, regarding his body. “You’re… dressed.” She’s in jeans and a sweater, which he knows for a fact he didn’t go to sleep in.
“I am.”
Grace covers his face with his hands, his cheeks reddening. “You… dressed me?!” It comes out almost as a squeak, an undignified sound Stratt does not think her vocal cords have ever produced willingly.
“I apologise. It was necessary. Now, we need to work out-”
“You saw me naked?”
Stratt pinches the bridge of her nose and huffs. “Jesus, Grace, get a grip!”
The scientist is pacing back and forth, hands twisting together in a gesture she recognises well. It’s incredibly strange to watch her body behave so differently, lacking all the poise and calm she wears like a second skin. The knot in her chest loosens, and she sits back. “I’m sorry, Grace.”
He stops moving, coming to rest with his arms folded across his chest, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“This is so messed up,” he mutters. It’s incredibly jarring, to hear the hint of his American accent in her own voice. Stratt watches her- Grace’s- face contort. “Oh, my gosh. We have a meeting today. I can’t be you. Oh my gosh. Stratt, what do we do?!”
“We have to switch back,” she says simply.
Tears well in Grace’s eyes, and he runs his hands through his long, copper hair. “How?”
“You’re a scientist,” she shrugs, and the motion feels heavier and less graceful than she’s used to. The clipped edges of her words sound all wrong in Grace’s voice. Too harsh, somehow. “We’ll figure it out.”
-
“I absolutely cannot do this.”
Stratt sighs, running her hand through her short, unkempt hair. It’s… fluffier than she expected. Soft. Not important, Eva. “You have to. It’s just a staff meeting. Go in, tell them exactly what I told you to say, and don’t ramble.”
“What if they ask me stuff? Stuff I should know? And then I don’t know? What if they figure it out? What if-”
“Grace.” She cuts him off, fixing him with a look of annoyance that is so classically Stratt it’s incredibly jarring to see it on his own face. “You’re rambling.”
“… Dang it,” he mutters. He stares at himself in the mirror, again, trying to blink away his confusion and accept this weird new reality. He’s wearing a dark green turtleneck and a pair of slacks that Stratt picked out for him.
He’d stripped and pulled the pants on as quickly as possible, stumbling as he tried desperately not to look down at Stratt’s bare legs.
“We’re not teenagers, Grace. We all have naked bodies. It won’t kill you to see mine,” she’d said. Grace had felt his entire body heat up near to the point of combustion. Right. Just Eva Stratt’s body. That’s no big deal. Yep. He’d nearly fainted when she handed him a simple black bra, telling him to hurry up and not to stare.
Right. No problem. At all.
So here he is, dressed and about to go run a Vat meeting. As her.
He shoots one more pleading glance at Stratt, who wears an entirely unimpressed expression on Grace’s face. “Wait,” he says. “What are you gonna do?”
Stratt shrugs. “I’ll be you.”
“You can’t be me. There’s no way.”
“Sure, I can.” She morphs her face into Grace’s typical friendly grin. It’s entirely uncanny. “Whoomp- there it is,” she says, mimicking his exact tone.
“Oh my gosh,” Grace mutters. “I am so, so screwed.”
“No,” Stratt returns. “You’re going to be fine.” She looks him up and down. “I’m screwed.”