Chapter Text
It didn’t bother Evelyn at first. She barely noticed it.
The way Astra vied for her attention was the same way she vied for everyone’s attention. She was a natural charmer, and Evelyn believed this made her immune to it. Easy enough. Astra put up a front, charmed people for favors. Evelyn was the type of woman, the type of agent, that was never swayed by favors.
Impenetrable. A non-starter. That’s how it should have been.
It was around the same time Eve made the realization that Astra’s charm was genuine, and she cared about everyone that she wooed over, that Eve also realized she was beginning to wish Astra’s vies for her attention were fundamentally different than her vies for everyone else’s. To wish that she were different to Astra than everyone else.
“Eve, tell me our schedule is over for the day, or I shall have you hung by your toes off the Ballet Twins,” Astra voice called out, still cheery as she flopped into the back of the car and threatened her bodyguard.
Eve scoffed and rolled her eyes, before she too ducked into the car and assured, “We’ve finished the schedule for the day. And rest assured, they made tomorrow’s lighter, given the heavy investment today. We only have to meet up with the director of Storm Rivenside before lunch and then-”
A loud groan was emitted from the other woman as she slumped in her seat and crossed her arms just as the vehicle began moving. “Oh, Evie, please cancel that, I don’t want to work on that show again,” she pleaded. “They’ve killed off my character twice now, and only try to bring me back for the ratings.”
Eve hummed at the protest, but stated, “I’m afraid I do not have the authority to do so. Remy seems insistent that this could be a good opportunity for you to continue showing your acting prowess.”
“Well, Remy is only thinking about her paycheck she gets from the suits at Oduem,” Astra scoffed. “She wasn’t assigned as my manager to help me grow; she was assigned to keep me in line.”
Evelyn hummed at the accusation, having heard this outburst nearly every day for the past year. Absently, she dug some papers out of her bag to begin reviewing the safety procedures that would need to be performed for Astra’s meeting the next day.
”And you know the only reason she thinks that show is a good opportunity for me is because she’s trying to hook up with the lead actor, who — by the way — has tried to coerce me into a date at least six times now,” Astra continued, crossing her arms as she pouted.
Eve paused, her hands going still as she registered the words. “He has?” she asked, her lips downturning into a deepset frown.
Not noticing Eve’s change in demeanor, Astra threw her hands up with a roll of her eyes. “Last time he nearly kidnapped me off of the set and locked me in this little room he had set up with-”
“I’ll contact Remi to cancel the appointment,” Eve cut in, her voice light, but there was a strain to it that wasn’t there before.
Astra blinked over at her, pausing in her recounting of her tale, as she tilted her head and smiled. “Really, Evie? Would you?”
Evelyn cleared her throat and nodded shortly, ignoring the burn under her skin as her eyes turned back to the papers in her hands, now irrelevant that she was going to cancel the appointment for the next day. “I control all aspects of your safety. I’ve determined that it is not feasible for you to return to the set and be in a safe and comfortable environment, therefore there’s no reason to attend the meeting tomorrow,” she stated evenly, but her eyes flicked up to Astra’s and found that they had softened as they gazed upon her from across the car.
The air had grown thick around them. Evelyn knew she had become dangerously close to showing her cards in the recent months. To being too obvious about how seriously she took her client’s well-being.
But she was a professional. It wasn’t a boundary they could cross. It shouldn’t be a boundary she should even think about not crossing. Even barring the fact that Evelyn was betraying Astra every damn day.
She averted her eyes, staring back at the papers. It was getting worse. She knew it was getting worse because she was sabotaging Odeum’s plans for Astra without remembering that’s what she was supposed to be doing. She should have offered to cancel the meeting the moment Astra asked her to, instead she had to be obvious about it and wait for Astra to bring up-
“Can we go to that little brunch spot on Second tomorrow? I’ve been dying to try it,” Astra asked her, and Eve didn’t look, but she knew she was staring at her with wide, shining, hopeful eyes that she was oh-so weak to.
“Since when have you wanted to try a brunch place?” Eve scoffed.
“Since that nice man who helped with my sound check last week invited me,” Astra supplied, her eyes trained on Eve.
Evelyn blinked and fought not to react, but couldn’t help her frown. How were all of these men slipping past her notice and gaining access to Astra? Maybe she should be considering hiring extra help to have Astra always supervised.
“Obviously, I told him no,” Astra continued, still studying Eve’s reactions. “But I thought of how nice it would be to go with you.”
Now Evelyn did look up at her and the air in the car was suffocating. As her bodyguard, her mind reminded her. Maybe as a companion, she amended, for Astra was who Astra was, and she would never see Evelyn as just her bodyguard. She was too kind and open-hearted for that.
But not as a friend, and certainly not as anything more than that.
Evelyn stared at Astra, held her gaze and studied her. Astra was trying to get at something. She could tell by the way the corners of her lips squirmed. This was how Evelyn could identify any time her client was scheming or planning to make her job harder.
Well, one of her jobs harder. The job she cared about. It made her job of disrupting Odeum significantly easier on the other hand.
Evelyn cleared her throat, breaking through the tension. “If that is what you wish, Miss Yao,” she conceded, and Astra nodded in satisfaction that she had gotten her way, but Eve didn’t miss the way that a glimmer of disappointment peeked through the corners of her eyes.
By the time they retreated back to Astra’s apartment and Eve escorted her inside, Astra was making her nightly offer for Eve to stay for a nightcap, before she retreated to her own apartment the floor below.
It was rare for Eve to accept, though most days she longed to extend her time with the other woman. There were some boundaries she had to keep, lest she let her will dissolve into anarchy. The more delineation she was able to keep between her and Astra’s companionship, the more of a grip she would be able to hold onto the reality that she was here on a job.
So she turned Astra down politely and began to back away towards the door.
”You know, if you keep turning me down, I’m going to have to start inviting Eric up for a nightcap instead,” Astra mused, her eyes flitting to Evelyn’s with a leveling look.
Evelyn paused, wrinkling her nose. Eric worked the front desk at Astra’s apartment, and he was not subtle about wanting to catch Astra’s attention. Why on earth Astra would even consider inviting him up to her apartment was incorrigible.
Eve studied Astra again, and that small quiver at the ends of her lips were there again.
She was teasing her, she realized, and her face flushed as her frown deepened. Astra seemed to giggle to herself as she realized Eve had caught on.
”You think everyone in this city just fawns over you and will do whatever you want,” Eve sniffed, crossing her arms, and Astra batted her eyes innocently.
”Darling, everyone in this city does give me whatever I want,” she argued, and Eve couldn’t disagree with her. Even the execs at Odeum had a difficult time turning Astra down, even when it affected their bottom dollar. “Or, almost everyone,” Astra amended a moment later, and her eyes flashed up to Eve with a pointed look.
Evelyn rolled her eyes. “It does you good to have someone tell you no,” she stated, but her heart wasn’t in it.
”Okay fine,” Astra relented, tilting her head. “I don’t want to invite Eric up here. But I do want you to stay, Evie.”
She could feel her control, her boundaries snapping around her as she fought to remain steadfast in her decision.
”You think after a long day of talking to a bunch of people I don’t like that I want to come home and sit in silence by myself?” Astra pushed then, taking a step towards Eve, her hands gently pulling at her arms to take her hands in hers. “I just want to relax with a friend. You’re off the clock, Evie. We can be friends now, right?”
Evelyn clenched her jaw, her eyes darting around the room as if she would see something to help her in this moment, something to refortify her. The word friends echoed in her mind, and she wondered when she had missed this.
Instead, her eyes landed back on Astra’s, and she pressed her lips together.
”Fine,” she relented. “One drink.”
Astra nearly squealed at her success, a bright smile breaking out across her face, and Eve had to fight to keep her smile hidden.
She shook off her jacket and placed it on the back of one of Astra’s chairs as she followed Astra to her bar.
An hour later she found herself coerced into staying and watching a movie.
Two hours later she found herself being convinced to sleep in the guest room.
In the morning, Eve tried to shake off her nerves and the feeling of unsettledness in her stomach as she escorted Astra to brunch.
Nothing had changed. Not really.
But the smirk at the edge of Astra’s lips seemed to be permanent now when she looked at Eve, and her eyes seemed to be more focused on her now than ever before.
As the days passed, Eve found herself being cajoled into staying over at Astra’s more and more, and she knew Astra was planning something, had some sort of end goal she was working towards, but Eve for the life of her couldn’t figure out what it was.
She wasn’t stupid. She was an intelligence agent after all. Astra was trying to break down her walls to get something from her. She had been too obvious; Astra had spotted her jealousy. She had spotted the way that her protective nature wasn’t stemming from a job or a sense of professionalism anymore, but rather from an inadvisable sense of possessiveness over the other woman. And Astra was intrigued by this. Wanted to see how far she could push it until her bodyguard snapped.
No, Evelyn was aware of this. She just couldn’t figure out to what end. Did she just want Eve to admit it? To hold it over her head to make her grip on her stronger? Or did she want Eve to take her? Fuck her? Did she want to just add a layer of physicality between the two? Was it just sex then? Or was it more? Did she want a dramatic love declaration, or a swoon-worthy date? Did she want to be doted over, made love to, taken care of and worshipped day in and day out?
What did Astra want from her? And would it matter either way?
Evelyn couldn’t afford to be blackmailed. Not like this. She wouldn’t recover from the humiliation.
And she couldn’t fathom having Astra, tasting her, taking her, making her melt under her, and not wanting more from her than just sex. In fact, she was so sure of this, she couldn’t even consider having Astra in that way, lest her mind increase its possessiveness to a degree she would never be able to pull herself out of. And she couldn’t hope that Astra was wanting more from this than just sex because she was on a job. It would ruin her credibility as a spy to engage in such a relationship, let alone her cover as her bodyguard.
There was no way to satisfy the itch that was building between the two of them. Evelyn knew she needed to shut it down. The longer she allowed this to continue, the worse the end result was going to be.
She set her resolve every day, determined that this would be the day she would refuse Astra’s offer to stay for the night.
She woke up in Astra’s guest room every morning after.
“Darling, please don’t abandon me,” Astra whispered, her hand gripping Evelyn’s wrist as she stared straight ahead at where the line for the meet and greet was beginning.
Evelyn glanced towards where the crowd was forming, and she knew it wasn’t the sheer size of the crowd that was making Astra hesitate. It was her manager. Remy. Who was glaring daggers at her right now and would force her to recite the company line time after time to all her fans to push their agenda, rather than allowing Astra to make a genuine connection with anyone.
“I’ll only be gone for a moment, Miss Yao,” Evelyn promised, slipping her wrist out of Astra’s grips, but squeezing her fingers before she cut contact entirely. “I have to check in with the event security.”
Astra pouted at her words, but Evelyn didn’t let it discourage her. This was the one area in which she was very capable of keeping her boundaries with the other woman. When it came to Astra’s safety, there was nothing Astra could do to convince her to do less.
“Hurry back,” Astra whispered, her eyes darting to Eve’s just before they both heard Remy calling out for Astra across the room.
Evelyn nodded at Astra, encouraging the woman before she began to receive her debrief from her manager. The moment Astra sighed and turned towards Remy, Evelyn backed away, slipping into the back event space where she had been informed event security would be waiting to meet.
Just as she was told, she retreated into the back room and found half a dozen burly men standing around and drinking from small water cups as they chatted. Eve cleared her throat upon her arrival.
“Hello, everyone. I’m Evelyn, Astra Yao’s personal bodyguard. I appreciate your cooperation this afternoon to make sure this event goes off without a hitch,” she greeted, and only half of the eyes in the room turned to her. The ones who did still seemed tired. As if they had heard this all before and weren’t particularly fond of having to go above and beyond for any client.
“You sent the coverage assignments?” one of the men asked, his voice gruff as he spoke above the other men.
Evelyn crossed her arms, sensing she wasn’t going to enjoy where this line of questioning led. “Indeed.”
“It’s stupid as fuck. We never have that many people guarding the perimeter at one time,” he scoffed. “You’re wasting our time, lady.”
Gritting her teeth together, Evelyn plastered her face with her practiced smile. “Well, you’ve never had Astra Yao onsite, have you?” she inquired, but the question was rhetorical.
“Plenty of other big wig clients have hosted events here,” the man argued back with a roll of his eyes. “You don’t see them dead, splashed on the front page of the news.
Evelyn sniffed, “Well, I’m not charged with the safety of other big wig clients. I only care for the safety of Astra Yao. And we’re all going to put forth a strong effort today, understood?”
The man backed down at this, letting out a scoff before he all but whispered. “I’ll put forth the effort when I get a little something on the side from Astra Yao as well.”
All the men in the circle let out chuckles at the statement, and Evenly froze as she turned to leave. The men were all facing each other now, reassuming their form from before Evelyn had arrived. It was clear they expected her to leave post-haste to go tend to her client. She gritted her jaw and took calm, measured steps into the middle of their circle.
The men became eerily still as she entered their circle, all of the quieting and becoming serious except for the one that was giving her trouble.
“What did you say?” she inquired, her voice light, but an edge present that could cut through steel.
The man scoffed at her. “We all know the reason you care so much about little miss perfect ass and tits is because at the end of the day, she rewards you by-”
“I believe you’re correct, now that I think about it,” Evelyn cut him off with a murderous smile. “I overbooked the rounds. We won’t be needing your services today. I’ll ensure to tell the venue coordinator that you aren’t to be scheduled on any Odeum events in the future either.”
This got the man’s attention as he stood a little straighter. “Now listen here-”
“Push further and you’ll lose a lot more,” she threatened, her voice finally releasing its anger. “Miss Yao is my client. Our relationship has always and will always be professional, so long as that remains true, unlike your display here. If I ever hear any of you speak of my client in this way again, I will personally see to you losing every career you could ever dream of in this industry. Am I understood?”
She was greeted with dead silence. She took it as an affirmative.
When she turned to leave, she saw Astra standing in the entrance of the backroom. Her expression seemed a bit distracted, and Evelyn felt heat crawling under her skin. She wondered how much, if any, she had heard. If she had heard what the disgusting, deplorable man had said about her, she would turn on her heel and kick his ass in a moment.
This was the issue with her client being the most adored figure in New Eridu. Many people loved her for her charms and kind-heartedness, or perhaps even her talent and musicality. But there were a handful of people, far too many for Evelyn’s liking, that only saw her for her beauty. And because she was a public figure, they felt entitled to speak far too candidly on it. Evelyn saw how it affected Astra when they did.
She hurried over to Astra, her eyes narrowing in concern as Astra’s eyes widened. Eve opened her mouth to apologize to Astra for the outburst and assure her that man would not be in charge of any sense of her security for the rest of the afternoon, but Astra greeted her before she had the chance.
“Remy’s told everyone that my next album is coming next quarter,” she announced, a frown swallowing her lips as she crossed her arms. “I haven’t even written half of the songs for it.”
Evelyn took a steadying breath. If that’s what had Astra upset, perhaps she had been too distracted to have heard any of the conversation in the backroom. “Do you want me to go make her correct it?” she asked, knowing full well Odeum had expected Astra newest album last quarter, and this was likely just an attempt from her manager to guilt her into having it done by promising it to the fans.
Astra sighed and hung her head back. “No, it’s fine,” she relented. “The damage is already done. I saw some posts about it on the Interknot. The fans would be disappointed either way now. I’ll just have to meet that deadline.”
Biting back a smirk, Evelyn rubbed comforting circles into Astra's wrist and murmured, “We can go to the studio early in the mornings, before anyone else is there to ruin your process.”
Astra blinked up at her gratefully and squeezed Evelyn’s hand. “Thank you, Evie,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much I love you.”
The words seemed to prickle through Eve’s skin as Astra turned to return to her manager, and Eve followed after her, fighting to maintain a neutral blank voice.
The event was long and tedious, but Astra seemed to be enjoying herself as she interacted with all of her fans, going off script so often that Remy had given up and left to scrounge up some coffee for herself halfway through the event.
By the time they were heading home that night, Astra's eyes were drooping from the exhaustion of interacting with so many, that Evelyn thought perhaps she wouldn’t even have to strengthen her resolve that night. Astra may be so tired, she would forget about inviting Eve to stay over altogether.
They slipped into their car together, Astra sinking onto the long seat Eve usually took, and curled into herself as she waited for Eve to join her. When Eve sidled up next to her on the seat, Astra scooted an inch closer to her and rested her head on Eve’s shoulder.
Eve let her. She was tired. Who was she to stop her? As the car pulled away from the event space and through the busy streets of the bustling city, Evelyn found a soft sort of peace takeover her, finding herself enjoying the quiet and companionship after the long day. Her eyes too fluttered closed as she settled in for the twenty minute ride across the city.
“Perhaps you should find work elsewhere.”
The words were whispered into the silent back of the car from the woman below her, and Eve couldn’t control her reaction enough to not stiffen. Her eyes blinked open alert, and she could feel a sputtering sense of questions bubbling up from her lungs.
What? Her mind ran back through the day. The security had been flawless. There hadn’t even been a weird fan interaction that Eve had to step into. Had she missed something? Was there another one of those incidents where someone was able to access Astra to ask her on a date and Eve hadn’t caught it again?
“Astra?” she strangled out, fighting back the panic that was building in her chest. “Is my work unsatisfactory?”
Astra shot up at the implication, facing Eve in horror. “No, not at all!” she promised. “I’ll write you a reference and everything.”
Evelyn held her breath. She studied Astra as she tried to figure out what the fuck was going on, but she couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think of anything but that she had disappointed Astra somehow.
“You just don’t want me to be your bodyguard anymore,” she stated, the words thick and she was surprised to find that there was a burning sensation pressing behind her eyes. She had been betrayed before, but this felt like a new sensation. Because she knew Astra would never betray her. Which could only mean that she had betrayed herself. She had ruined this somehow for herself.
“No, I love you as my bodyguard,” Astra pressed on, her hands reaching for Evelyn’s and squeezing as her eyes searched her bodyguard’s for something. “I just thought you would be happier if I weren’t-“
“Astra, let me be very clear,” Eve cut her off, pausing to close her eyes and let out a long breath. She felt herself recentering as she realized what was going on. She had been tired and in a mood after her confrontation with the event’s security. She had given Astra the impression that she was unhappy at her post. This was nothing more than a miscommunication.
“I am happiest right here, protecting you,” she murmured, her face leaning into Astra’s as her hand grazed through the side of Astra’s hair to keep it out of her face. “I don’t want to go anywhere, okay? I don’t want anything to change.”
Her hand rested on Astra’s cheek, thumb rubbing over her soft skin, and Astra still seemed tense, poised to start arguing, but eventually the fight left her body, and she relented, leaning into Eve’s touch.
“Okay,” she answered, but her eyes didn’t meet Eve’s. “Yeah, sure, if you say so.”
Eve frowned at her response and watched Astra curl back into herself, but not resting on Eve anymore as she pulled out of her bodyguard’s grasp. Eve kept her hand held out, as if she meant to reach out and caress Astra more. To comfort her and pull her out of her mood.
Instead, she turned towards the window of the car and frowned.
She was correct, Astra forgot to invite her up that night.
When she settled into her own apartment for the first time in weeks, she felt an unsettled pinch in her stomach, like she had done something wrong. Like she couldn’t shake the feeling she had upset Astra in some way.
But that would be preposterous. She had cleared the air. Made it clear how much she valued being close to the other woman, protecting her, serving her every day.
It had just been an odd day, she convinced herself. They both just needed sleep.
It wasn’t until her heart stopped racing, until her mind calmed and the panic seeped out of her body as she lay in bed that night, that Evelyn realized she hadn’t even thought of her assignment, or the implications of her mark wanting her to be reassigned.
She hadn’t thought of Scheele’s Green at all today. She had approached every conflict and resolution as if she were just Evelyn.
She swallowed thickly and rolled over in her bed. She just needed sleep, she told herself. Everything would right itself in the morning.