chainofclovers

Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada (film)
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Rating: PG to M
Prompts: Kiss, Letter, Mayhem, Narrow, Oil
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Devil Wears Prada



Title: Proximity
Rating: PG
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt: Kiss
Word Count: 250
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.

They’re in trouble, though there’s a perfectly good reason why they’re sitting so close together on the sofa in Miranda’s study. Andy had been dictating Miranda’s comments on photos from a recent shoot; they’d run out of time at Runway, so they had to work here, late, and Andy needed to be able to see the photographs in question. But they’ve been done for over a minute and neither has moved. To move first would be to acknowledge that there’s something uncomfortable about their bodies being so close, but the problem isn’t only awkwardness and how to delay its communication. They’re both exhausted and lonely, and they know that about each other.

“You look miserable,” Miranda observes, for once using words instead of lingering eyes to address Andy’s appearance.

Andy answers with a wan smile. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, it’s been such a long—”

“None of that,” Miranda interrupts, petulant. “You’re boring when you’re apologetic. You’ve been like this since we got back from Paris.”

“Fine. I’m miserable. You’re miserable, so everyone else is too.” Her voice shakes with the terror of saying in December what she’s wanted to say since October but didn’t because Miranda let her come back.

Miranda is silent, so Andy continues, wordless this time. It isn’t a far journey for her head to bend toward Miranda’s shoulder, to place a kiss there and breathe in perfume and a longing for sleep. They stay like that, still and quiet, for a long time.

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Title: Safe from Harm
Rating: R
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt: Letter
Word Count: 249
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.

From time to time, Andy’s articles generated some activity in the “Letters to the Editor” section of The Mirror, but she’d never had a problem with anonymous mail, certainly not of a threatening variety. That changed after the paper published her series on Planned Parenthood. She’d interviewed medical professionals, volunteers, patients, and a group of right-to-lifers who protested outside the center nearly everyday. The first couple of pieces of mail arrived at her apartment, scrawled with “baby-killer” and other typical epithets, and she brushed them off with characteristic aplomb. Her reporting had been fair and measured.

When a letter addressed to “Andy Sachs c/o Miranda Priestly” arrived at the townhouse, she started to get scared. I know all about you, bitch. She doubted that, but it was true that someone knew a whole hell of a lot more than made her comfortable. Miranda’s divorce wasn’t final yet; no one aside from Andy’s closest friends, Miranda’s daughters, and a couple of people at Runway had been told about their relationship, which wasn’t exactly a done deal, a steady thing.

Andy was near tears when Miranda handed her the letter. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. I’m putting you and the girls in a terrible position.”

“Nonsense. We’ll take precautions against this…zealot, but none of this is your fault. Your story was excellent.” Miranda wrapped her arms around Andy and kissed her forehead.

Miranda didn’t typically inspire feelings of safety in people, but in that moment Andy felt very, very far from danger.

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Title: Nightcap
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt: Mayhem
Word Count: 250
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.

Sometimes people who are lonely or newly single or who need to feel needed start volunteering, serving meals at a shelter or bathing stray dogs. Maybe they occupy their hands with a craft project, producing scarves and potholders to be given as gifts. Others get a cat.

Miranda gets an Andrea, and Andrea gets a Miranda. For companionship. For, quite literally, getting to sleep at night. Andrea comes over late, after the girls have gone to bed, almost nightly. They sit in the kitchen drinking whiskey nightcaps, which they probably shouldn’t do, and crawl into bed together.

In bed they take a quick moment to decide whose day was worst, and that person gets to be spooned that night. They’ve each been having a lot of bad days lately--tense meetings, Mirror and Runway deadlines, burnout, utter mayhem--but the time they spend holding versus being held evens out pretty well. They’re generous, at least when it comes to awarding “worst day” to the one who needs it most.

Andrea falls asleep right away on her worst days. She’s the one who must get up extra early to sneak out, but she never seems to worry about that when Miranda’s arms are around her and Miranda’s lips are as close to her neck as they can be without turning the closeness into a kiss. Miranda stays awake as long as she can on her worst days, because she doesn’t see the point in sleeping through her only calm among chaos.

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Title: Exile
Rating: M
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt: Narrow
Word Count: 160
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.

It’s gotten to the point where just entering a public restroom—at the movie theater, in a bar, and certainly at work—reminds her of Miranda’s fingers everywhere at once, of tongues and teeth, of making Miranda come. It isn’t that having sex standing up in a cramped stall, listening for intruders, and having to stay quiet is their idea of good atmosphere; it just happens. Over and over. Other places—marriage beds, workspaces, couches, to name a few—aren’t available (or safe, or ready for them) all that often.

It’s as if she and Miranda are in exile from the entire world save for those narrow little rooms, painted in such an array of hideous colors, scrawled with such unsavory messages. Public bathrooms are like tiny, ugly, free hotels. They have their downsides, but when the upsides are Miranda gasping helplessly and kissing Andy’s breasts and whimpering apologies for every wrong she’s ever done, Andy can overlook many inconveniences.

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Title: Diligence
Rating: PG
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt: Oil
Word Count: 249
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.

“Burning the midnight oil,” Andy muses aloud, almost surprised to hear her own voice after an hour of virtual silence. She glances up from her computer to see if Miranda has heard her. Miranda is at her desk and Andy is at the nearby table, but when they work late like this they stay in their own worlds.

“What was that?” Miranda responds awkwardly late.

“Burning the midnight oil,” Andy repeats. “I’ve always thought that was such a pretty phrase.”

“More poetic than the thing itself.”

“Really? I kind of like this. I like what I’m writing about.”

Miranda smiles. She’d been surprised when Andy suggested that they work in the same place sometimes on late nights. She can’t imagine Stephen managing a portfolio from the little table in her Runway office, but this works. She stands up, and goes to sit next to Andy at the table. “Want to get going soon?”

“Mm, I should probably try to hammer out a few hundred more words. Maybe thirty minutes?”

There’s no one waiting for them at home—the girls are with their father—and who would she be to say “no” to more time at the office? She’s tempted to distract Andy with kisses, but hesitates when she sees that Andy has already turned her attention back to the screen, lips moving slightly as she re-reads what she’s written. Miranda moves to get up, but a hand pressed against her thigh stops her. “Give me a kiss,” Andy says.