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Fig is bored. Her samples are taking so long to assay, which is maybe her fault for running so many at once. In her defense, it’s always worth testing in triplicate, and she’s got enough blood for it. She snickers to herself—yeah, she’s got the blood. To be clear, it isn’t hers—at least, not usually. If she sometimes accidentally pricks herself with an uncapped needle when the boat rocks and then runs it for her FFA count, that’s just natural human curiosity, baby!
Natural human curiosity is now leading her to leave her lab and go stick her nose into somebody else’s business. Fascinating how that works. She pokes her head out the door and looks up and down the hallway like she’s in a spy movie. Nobody to catch her, duh; it’s always so quiet when the students go home for the summer. She pulls her head back into her lab.
“Hey, Baby?”
She has no idea what her (affectionately) weird grad student’s real name is. He introduced himself day one as Baby, and she’s never seen a reason to pry further than that. To be honest, she kinda doesn’t give a fuck what he calls himself so long as he doesn’t break any of the instruments or chew her out for being chronically late to their mentorship meetings.
“Yes, Miss?” Okay, so maybe his voice is a little bit nasal, and his general countenance tends to repel people like oil from water. So what? He gets all his research in on time and his papers are some of the best in the biz. Also, he doesn’t need constant supervision or scrutiny in the lab.
“I’m gonna go chat with Adaine while these samples finish up. You fine in here for a few?”
“Of course, Figueroth.” He offers her a smile that others might consider creepy, but she finds charming.
“Sick. Don’t blow up anything without me!”
She throws open the door with abandon, trusting it to swing shut gently behind her. She might not always have it together, but she does pull in enough funding to have some kickass lab doors, and that’s what really matters.
The door next to hers is still locked, lights dark behind the blackout paper. Fig isn’t surprised. Riz has been out for nearly the entire month with his team, collecting more blind cave loach specimens and samples. She’s read some of his papers before—really fascinating stuff. Just because her fish don’t have bones doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate a good study on pectoral fin morphology when it comes her way. And you can hardly tell when you read them that he’s written them all in an incoherent, caffeine-fuelled haze. When she gets her hands on a first draft—now that’s a good day. It always becomes the topic of the group chat for the rest of the week.
A few more doors down the hallway and around the corner, she finds Adaine’s lab wide open. She pauses at the strip of caution tape on the floor directly before it to take off her shoes, slipping carefully into the lab slides on the other side. She prefers them to the thin blue shoe covers, mostly because she’s tired of almost eating shit in front of undergraduates. Her hair is already tied back, but she takes a moment to tighten up her braid and scratch a stubborn itch on her ribs before she slips on a pair of latex gloves. Then, pretty sure she hasn’t missed anything, she proceeds.
“Helloooo? Adaine?” She leans over the thin chain that suspends the CAUTION: RADIOACTIVITY RISK warning sign to try to peer around the second set of doors into the mass spectrometry room. As predicted, it is closed, another warning label plastered on its front asking people to double-check their PPE and avoid contamination risks. Fig sighs, staring up at the ceiling and tapping her foot. “I know you’re in there!”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me? Samples to babysit, perhaps?” Adaine looks grumpy when she pokes her head out, and a little more frazzled than Fig usually sees her. Her safety goggles give her a strange, bug-eyed appearance over her glasses. Strands of hair are escaping from her ponytail. She eyes Fig up and down. “That lab coat had better not have come from your lab.” Whoops.
Fig smiles angelically and Adaine rolls her eyes. “C’mon, Addy, it’s not like I’m using other isotopes in there! It’s just me and the EnzyChrom, baby.”
“I still don’t want it in here,” she says flatly, but Fig can see the smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “This batch is acting up enough as it is.”
“Huh, I was wondering what bee had gotten into your bonnet. What’s up?”
Adaine opens the door fully, allowing Fig limited visibility of the ESI-MS instrument and the computer attached to it. On its monitor is a series of graphs Fig barely understands, showing multiple peaks at different quantities.
“All of these are lower than they should be,” Adaine says, her brow furrowed. “This is a deeper sample than the last batch. There’s no way the phosphate levels should’ve dropped this much in twenty metres; they should be increasing. None of these numbers make any sense. I can’t figure it out.”
Fig hisses sympathetically. Addy hates a problem she can’t solve. “Did instrument prep go smoothly?”
Adaine gives her a dirty look. “I always run my preparation protocols.”
Fig throws up her hands as innocently as she can. “I’m just checking! You never know. Same solvent as always? No weird elution rate?”
Adaine returns back to the monitor, shoulders tense. “It’s not column breakthrough. The instrument is running normally, there’s just something wrong with these samples.”
“Oh, shit, uh, which freezer did you store those in?” a third voice breaks into the discussion, causing Fig to squeal with joy.
“Gorgug! I missed you so fuckin’ much; where did you come from!” She practically tackles him to the floor with the force of her hug, sending him staggering back several steps.
“Good to see you too. We just got back today,” he says, laughing. “Fabian’s still at the dock unloading a bunch of gear.”
“Change your gloves, please,” Adaine says, no-nonsense, “and what do you mean, which freezer?”
Fig groans, beginning to peel her gloves off. It’s not like she’s the one handling samples. Gorgug winces apologetically as he switches his out too. “Cryo freezer on the left hasn’t been sealing properly for the last week or so,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to take a look at it; Kristen was supposed to let you know to move your samples out. I’m guessing she didn’t?”
They both inch closer together as they catch a glance of Adaine turning a truly apoplectic shade of red. “You could say that,” she grits through her teeth.
Fig winces. She almost doesn’t want to ask, but she has to know. “How many were in there?”
Adaine has her eyes closed, doing something that approximates box breathing. Fig wonders if it’s helping. “An entire crate,” she says stiffly.
“Which is about…?”
“Anywhere from three to six months’ worth of samples,” Adaine says, pained, each word seemingly dragged out of her by force. Gorgug whistles through his teeth sympathetically.
“Oh man, that sucks,” Fig says, fighting the urge to fiddle with the end of her braid. She does not want to put on a third pair of gloves today. “Do you need anything?”
Adaine has pulled off her safety goggles and taken off one of her gloves to massage the bridge of her nose. Fig takes this to be as good a sign as any that she’s done with her work for the day and steps over the chain.
“No,” she sighs as Fig gets closer, “it is what it is. The world isn’t about to end over some lost data.”
All the same, Fig can see how it burns. She can’t imagine losing that much of her work in one blow, especially over something so minor. She wishes there were some solution, but the fact of the matter is that the longer the samples have been sitting there thawing, the more likely it is that they’ve been degrading away. It’s a huge loss.
“Well,” Gorgug says awkwardly, “if it’s any consolation, Fabian grabbed you a few new bottles off the CTD casts while we were out.”
“That’s ‘cause Fabian’s the best,” Fig says, slinging her arm around Adaine’s shoulders.
“That he is,” she says exhaustedly. It’s a testament to how upset she is that she doesn’t immediately shove Fig off or give her a lecture about sample contamination. “Shall we head down there to give him a hand?”
“I guess,” Fig says faux-dramatically, pouting. “Since we’re such good friends.”
“Yeah, you’re all some real Good Samaritans in there,” Kristen’s voice floats in from the hall, projecting to be heard over the noise of several instruments at work. “Gonna get straight into heaven off those brownie points.”
“You won’t be getting into anywhere after I’m through with you, Kristen Applebees!” Adaine in a rage is truly a sight to behold. Fig retracts her arm expeditiously in the interest of keeping it attached to her body.
Kristen’s freckled face appears around the doorway. “You’ll have to catch me first,” she says cheerily. She’s clearly preparing for a trip out to the bay, already in her wetsuit and cradling a shallow box in her arms. Fig knows from long years of experience that it’s probably full of coral larvae ready to release.
“Mark my words, Kristen Applebees,” Adaine’s eyes almost seem to glow with an otherworldly light, “anywhere you go, I will find you. Any move you make, I will know. There is nowhere you will be safe from me, no solitary place you will be able to escape. And when I reach you? You will pay.”
“Okay, awesome,” she says, hefting the box in her arms. “Sooo, I’m gonna go plant these coral fragments—check ‘em out, they’re so cute!—and see how my last group is doing, but I hope you guys have fun in there. Toodles!”
“I’m going to destroy all of her Coralclips,” Adaine growls, jaw clenched.
“No you’re not,” Fig sing-songs, grabbing both of Adaine’s shoulders to push her towards the door. “Anything you need to do in here before we go down?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Adaine says primly, “and you’re going to have to change your gloves again now that you’ve touched me.”
“See, now I know you’re fucking with me.” Fig lifts her hands in mock-disgust. “I’m getting outta here. Come on Big ‘Gug, it’s time to go see what Fabian is up to. If we’re lucky, Adaine will find us before we die.”
Adaine scoffs behind her. “If that's how it's going to be, it may take me years to turn all these valves.”
Gorgug chuckles and shakes his head. Fig knows he loves them. “We’ll see you later, Adaine,” he says, sweet as ever. “And I’ll bump up taking a look at the cryo freezer.”
“Thanks, Gorgug. Appreciated.” It’s real hard to walk away from Adaine when her shoulders are slumped like that.
“Love you Addy,” Fig tacks on, already folding one glove into the other. They’re all sweaty inside. Gross.
Adaine sighs, already reaching up to mess with the input flow. “I know.”
Fig snorts, grabbing Gorgug’s arm and steering both of them back to the caution tape at the lab’s entrance. She’s grateful to pop on her normal shoes, sliding them on in the hallway without bothering to tie them.
“We gotta get her a cake or something,” she tells Gorgug, who is diligently double-knotting his laces. “That’s such a bummer.”
“Yeah, it’s messed up,” he agrees. “Who do you think knows how to bake a cake?”
They start strolling to the elevator, Gorgug automatically slowing down to match his long strides to hers.
“My mom would,” she says, smacking her palm into the call button over and over. “But I kinda don’t want to call her right now.”
Gorgug’s eyes find hers, sympathetic. “Trouble at home?”
Fig sighs, tilting her head back to trace the ceiling tile. “Nooo,” she drags out, “not really. She’s just really stressed right now. Work’s being shitty and this guy she used to know just got accepted into that deanship, you know the one that was open last year? She’s pretty messed up about it, I guess.”
The elevator clatters its way up to them, chiming as it reaches their floor. Gorgug’s face is contorted into an expression of concern. “That’s rough. How’re you dealing with it?” They step in through its doors together.
“Me? Oh, I mean, I’m fine. It doesn’t really impact me at all; I don’t think the guy knows who I am. I just wish she didn’t feel so bad.”
“If you say so,” Gorgug says, rubbing his hand between her shoulder blades. “You know where to find me if you need anything.”
“Yeah,” Fig says, leaning into him. “Maybe we can just buy her a cake and ice the top?”
“What, like a ‘sorry your samples got destroyed’ type of thing?”
“I was thinking more like ‘who needs freezers when you have friends’, but we can workshop it.”
“We’ll have to if that’s the best you’ve got.”
The elevator jumps a couple of times as it reaches the parking lot level. They step out and immediately the humidity and smell of the ocean hit Fig like a wall.
“I’d like to see you do better,” she says, sliding a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket and onto her face as they head to the pier.
“I just did. Literally thirty seconds ago, did you hear it?”
“Wow, you can’t just ask a hard-of-hearing person if they heard something,” Fig says, tapping her hearing aids. “I’m going to report you. Good luck getting funding now, ableism boy.”
“You literally take those out whenever you decide I’m annoying you,” Gorgug deadpans.
Fig takes her hearing aids out. “What was that? Sorry, I must’ve missed it.”
Gorgug throws his hands up in the air in disbelief. Fig laughs herself sick, only to suffer instant karma when she has to struggle to get them back in.
By the time they reach Fabian, sweating as he finishes unloading the Niskin bottles from onboard, they’re both in a right state, Gorgug breathless from laughter while Fig swats ineffectively at his arm.
“You little bitch!” she screeches. “It’s not even that funny!”
“Ha! Yes it is; it absolutely is.”
“Whenever you two are done,” Fabian says drily. “Please, take your time.”
“Sorry Fabes,” Fig says, eying his pile of gear as Gorgug wipes a tear from his eye. God, she really doesn’t wanna haul that shit to his lab. He’s lucky she loves him. “You still need to grab anything?”
“Just the turbidity sensors and the rosette,” he says, wiping sweat off his forehead with a muscular forearm. Gorgug makes a sound like a wounded animal. Fig elbows him in the stomach.
“Wow, I really bet Gorgug here would sure love to help you lift that,” she says sweetly. “How was your cruise together, by the way?”
Fabian raises an eyebrow at her. “He’s been helping me lift it all weekend,” he says. Fig can practically see the comprehension flying away, far over his head. “It went splendidly. I’ve missed the call of the open sea! The sun above, the wind through my hair—that’s the life for me.”
“Uh huh,” Fig says. Her coworkers are weird as fuck. “That’s great, man. Hey, do you want me to start moving these bottles up to yours?”
“I can take them,” Gorgug offers, desperate.
“Oh, no, please,” she says, saccharine, laying a hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t want to keep you two from your bonding. The rosette is practically calling your name. Shh, wait, I think I can hear it now— ‘oh Gorgug, won’t you please move me? Nobody else will do; I need your strong, manly arms—‘”
Gorgug fake-lunges at her, shooting daggers from his eyes. She dodges away with a shriek, cackling madly.
“Fabian! Help, help! I’m under siege!”
“Under siege? What are you, a castle?” he says. He’s pretending to be above the both of them, but she knows he loves their antics.
“Fewer semantics, more help!” she cries as Gorgug catches her around the waist, heaving her over his shoulder. “Let me go, you tyrant!”
She can feel Gorgug’s laugh reverberating through his shoulder and into her stomach. Her face hurts from how hard she’s grinning.
“Are you finished yet?” he asks, still giggling.
Fig goes limp in his arms. “Fine,” she sighs, only to start flailing all her limbs at once the second Gorgug goes to set her down.
“Ow, fuck!” he curses, dodging her fists and catching an elbow to the collarbone for his trouble. “What is wrong with you?”
“You want that list itemised or what?” Fig hits the ground, leaning into it as her ankle rolls and then straightening up like nothing’s happened. She brushes invisible dust off her shoulders.
“They would have to write a series for that,” Fabian says. “Catch this, won’t you?”
Gorgug stretches up a hand to catch the roll of electrical tape he’s being thrown and manages to move it to the embrace of his other arm just in time to catch a series of HOBO loggers. He snags the first without trouble, but the second gives him considerable more difficulty, and he fumbles the third. It hits the deck like a durable water temperature data logger with 12-bit resolution.
“Sheesh, careful with the tech,” Fig says. “Shouldn’t you know better than that? Don’t you play around with those all day?”
Gorgug scoffs, carefully repositioning the two in his hands to pick the third back up. “Not unless they’re going to 3,000 metres I don’t.”
Fig makes a tsking noise. “Where’s Cloaca anyways? No way you brought her inside already.”
Cloaca is, of course, his remotely operated vehicle, nearly as long as Fig is tall and heavy enough to take multiple people to lift. Or a winch mechanism, which, of course, is nearly failing on their ancient research vessel. She reaches out absentmindedly to give the ‘ol R.V. Hangvan a pat.
“That’s not her name,” Gorgug sighs, the correction mostly perfunctory at this point. “But yeah, uh, Fabian helped me lift her in.” He tries and fails to hide a growing blush.
“Aw, that’s so sweet!” Fig coos with delight. “Fabian, you’re such a gentleman, helping Gorgug bring in his equipment before you get your own.”
Fabian’s head appears out of the cabin, his brows furrowed with confusion. “Uh, yeah,” he says, “it’s the most expensive thing on the ship. Of course I was willing to help him carry it up. What else would we have done, leave it on the dock?”
Fig frowns, her fun spoiled. “Sky’s clear, bozo; it’s not like it’s gonna rain. Even if it did, that thing’s waterproof and near-indestructible.”
“Somebody could steal it, Figueroth!” The duh is implied.
“Fucking who? The invisible ROV-stealing ghost?” Fig looks around at the empty beach to either side of the pier. “I think we’d see somebody tryna’ lift something that big real easily before they could make a getaway.”
Fabian scowls. “Well I’m sorry for looking out for the best interests of our esteemed department. Watch me help you with an abstract ever again.”
“No, Fabes, please! I didn’t mean it.” Fig gives him her best puppydog eyes. “I just think it’s so considerate that you’re putting Gorgug first is all. Nothing else.”
Fabian squints at her for a little longer before he gives it up. “Ah, well,” he says, “it’s my pleasure. Now are you helping with the rosette or not?”
Fig checks her empty wrist. “Oh, would you look at the time! I actually have a date with this Niskin bottle—we’re going to dinner, her and me; you want anything?”
Gorgug gives her a strange look. “Do you usually order something for your friends when you go on a date?”
There’s a flash where Fig recalls her empty calendar and dried-up love life. She flushes. “That’s— no! I don’t! Whatever, it doesn’t matter; I’ll come back for the other ones.” She grabs the two nearest Niskin bottles and beats a top-heavy, awkward getaway across the parking lot.
“What’s gotten into her today?” she hears Fabian ask Gorgug, voices faint behind her.
Fig hates carrying these damn Niskin bottles. She barely makes it to the elevator with the stupid things, setting them down too early and rolling them the last couple of inches to the doors. There’s already sweat slicking down her hair and sticking it to the back of her neck. She raises her arm to wipe a bead away before it can roll down her face.
“You’re welcome Gorgug,” she whispers under her breath, waiting impatiently for the elevator to open.
The process of getting the bottles into and out of the elevator again is less graceful than it probably should be. They’re not heavy, there’s just no good way for her to carry them both at once. The doors almost close on her more times than she wants to admit.
She and her cargo make a hollow thumping noise as she stomps her way down the hall, one bottle under each arm. She’ll go back and get more—and maybe even help carry one of the coolers of water samples—because she loves her friends, but they’re gonna owe her for it.
“Is there still equipment they need carried up?” Adaine asks, pulling off shoe covers at her door. Show-off.
“Yeah, there are a bunch more of these down there and nobody’s brought up the coolers yet. ROV’s in, though. Fabian helped with that one.” Fig wiggles her eyebrows for emphasis.
“Fascinating,” Adaine says, ghost of a smile across her face. “Go drop those off and I’ll help you with the next round.”
In lieu of a better place to put them, Fig just starts a new pile of crap on the floor of Fabian’s office. He can figure out where everything goes from there, surely. She dusts her hands off, then turns on her heel. Not her circus, not her monkeys.
“How are your samples looking?” Adaine asks politely as they make their way together down the hall.
“Oh shit, they’re probably done processing.” Fig weighs whether or not they’ll be fine to sit a little longer. “Eh, I’ll go check on ‘em after the next round. Haven’t run total cholesterol yet, but getting some interesting stuff for triglycerides and free fatty acids.”
“Oh?” Adaine asks, holding her arm over the elevator door like a gentleman. “Do tell.”
“How much time you got?” Fig asks, aware that once she gets started it’s difficult for her to stop.
“At least as long as this elevator ride,” Adaine says drily. “Maybe even longer if I like you.”
“Guess we’ll find out based on when I get cut off,” Fig jokes. “Uh, long and short of it is that triglycerides so far are higher in the nurse and tiger sharks and free fatty acids higher in the blacktips and bulls. Still haven’t done a correlation for any temporal patterns,” she winces, “whoops, but just from eyeballing it they’re both way higher in summer across all species.”
“What does that mean?” Adaine asks, stepping off the elevator before her.
“Basically tells us that nurse sharks and tiger sharks do jack-all compared to the blacktips and bulls. And probably means that they’re all more active during warmer months. Nothing revolutionary, but it might be useful in combination with some tracking data.”
She turns it over in her mind as they approach Gorgug and Fabian, wondering what the spin could be. Biological data in support of patterns that are already suspected is always nice, but she wonders if she can’t get more out of her research. Maybe a protected policy angle if she can definitively find certain times of the year the sharks are expending more energy? It would have to be in combination with migration data, she suspects, but at least for fishing permit purposes it might be worth looking into.
“Very exciting,” Adaine says, breaking her out of her reverie. “When do you get the cholesterol test kits in?”
“They’re ordered already, so should be any day now. I’m excited to see if the CHOL levels add anything new.”
Adaine nods, thoughtful. “Well, I wish you the best of luck.”
Fig laughs a little. “I shouldn’t need any luck from here, hopefully. All of my samples are perfectly well-behaved.”
“Hmm,” Adaine sticks her nose up a little bit, imperious. “Well, some of us can’t always rely on biological tissue to provide us with reliable results.”
“Doesn’t most of your phosphorus come from literal fish shit?” Fig deadpans. “Is that not biological in nature?”
“That’s a grievous oversimplification and you know it. Also: not tissue. And furthermore: suck it.”
“Woah, woah, take me out to dinner first. I never suck it before the first date.”
Adaine’s nose wrinkles. “Gross.”
“What is?” asks Fabian, checking over each of his turbidity sensors. The rosette sits beside the rest of the Niskin bottles. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“No you do not,” Adaine agrees primly. “What can I take for you?”
“D’you and Fig want to grab one of those coolers?” Gorgug asks. “Some of your bottles should be in there if you’re interested in going through them once they’re upstairs. Fabes and I were thinking of bringing in the rosette.”
“I’m taking my sensors in first,” Fabian says. “God only knows what could happen to them out here.”
“Yeah, lots of people out stealing niche marine biology equipment these days,” Fig says, sarcastic. “Next they’ll be publishing papers on the local increase in total suspended solids and then Fabes’ll be out of a job for good.”
“Tragic,” Adaine says, missing the context but happy to jump on the bandwagon. “Who will leave their coffee cups in the break room sink without him?”
Fabian scoffs. “I wash them.”
“No the fuck you do not,” Fig says, at the same time as Gorgug asks “Didn’t you use only disposable cups for your first three years on staff because you were afraid of washing a mug?”
“In his defense, there was more mold in there than coffee,” calls Kristen, approaching the dock with another pair of plastic bins, one stacked carefully atop the other.
“Where did you come from, Kris? We thought you were gone by now.” Gorgug’s brow furrows in confusion.
“Ha! Got you! It’s KT, silly.” She slips back into her unplaceable British accent, laughing raucously.
They all groan. Fig drops her forehead into her palm, then rolls it around a couple times. She loves Kristen’s weird cousin, probably, maybe, sometimes, but they look so alike that it kills her. She needs Kayleigyhanne Twoo Applebees’ sabbatical to end sooner rather than later, for her own sake.
“How are you doing, Kay,” Fabian asks stiffly and without inflection. Fig has to disguise a laugh as a cough. Adaine reaches over to grab her bicep in a death-grip.
“Better now you’re here,” KT purrs. Luckily for them all, she can’t reach out to caress his arm. Fig can tell she’s thinking about it based on the way her hand jerks on the bins, aborted, in his direction. Fig’s trying so hard not to laugh she thinks she might spontaneously combust.
“Hey, no love for the rest of us?” she chokes out through sheer force of will. Gorgug sputters to her right. She absolutely cannot turn to look at him right now or she knows she’ll break.
“Of course it’s incredible to see the lot of you,” KT tacks on, finally tearing her gaze off Fabian. “Blimey, what’s all this then?”
“Uh, you mean the CTD equipment…?” Gorgug asks, baffled.
“Cee-tee-dee… no, I’ve never ‘eard of it. Truly mystifying, innit?”
Fig’s eyes start watering involuntarily. She’s going to die.
“Is it? It seems fairly straightforward, actually,” Adaine says. “It sends most of the data directly to a computer. Do you not ever study conductivity, temperature, or depth at your university?”
KT shrugs her shoulders and makes a face that conveys a frightening lack of knowledge. “Dunno, I ‘aven’t ever had to do that. I’m on sabbatical, you know.”
“Trust me, we know,” Fabian says.
Gorgug leans in towards Fig. “Is she somehow getting more British the longer we stand here?”
Fig has to fully turn away to hide the silent, full-body, convulsive laughter that possesses her.
“Well, would love to stay and chat, but if I wait five more minutes all the corals will spontaneously die off. I’ll be on my way then. Toodles!”
Fig manages to straighten back up just in time to watch KT strip to only a bikini and jump off the pier into the ocean. Her jaw drops. Adaine squeezes her bicep even tighter.
“What the fuck,” Gorgug says. There’s a moment of silence. They watch the ripples from KT’s exit disappear.
They all break at once. Adaine is laughing so hard she’s doubled over into Fig, leaning her head on Fig’s shoulder. Fig is in no better state, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m gonna— I’m gonna throw up,” Gorgug wheezes, which sets them all off again.
“Corals can’t even— cor— corals—“ Fabian is laughing too hard to get anything out. He has to take a breather before he can make another attempt. “Corals can’t even die like that!”
“Oh, and you should know! She was practically all over you—“
“Fucking you with her eyes, Fabes, yeah, where’d you get all that coral knowledge from—“
“It’s not like that,” Fabian cries, indignant. “I would never be caught with a British woman.”
“Woah, woah, now what’s that supposed to mean!” Adaine cries, puffing her chest out.
“—Reporting you for misogyny—“
“—You can’t just say that, man, that’s so not cool—“
Fig has spent the last decade of her life fighting to make a name for herself from her research. But the sun is starting to drop in the sky, and a breeze whips the ocean into a spray beside her, and her stomach hurts from laughing, and she knows that this is undeniably true: that someday, the thing she will remember most is not the science at all, but the love of her friends.