Blind
Title: Blind
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Rating|Genre: pg-13 | angst, femslash
Characters|Pairings: Andy Sachs, Jacqueline Follet, Miranda Priestly | Andy/Jacqueline, unrequited (?) Andy/Miranda, mentions past Andy/Nate
Summary: Andy feels that Miranda is colder than ice. Jacqueline, however, is anything but cold, and a whole new world of emotions opens up to Andy. But Jacqueline has her own agenda...
Word count: 1918
Spoilers|Warnings: No | angst, evil!Jacqueline
Notes: Seriously angsty. Written for a prompt by wastedon for 2nd Poke the Dragon Comment Fic-a-thon at dvlwears_prada. This might be a little bit OOC for Andy but the prompt made me do it...
Andy had always had a thing for French accents, and Frenchwomen had a certain… something about them that made them so intriguing. Andy had always been drawn to things and people with the dark allure of the forbidden, and Jacqueline… was the essence of everything Andy knew she should stay away from.
Jacqueline Follet was well aware of her charm and power of seduction. She used her bright, flashing (and yet mysterious) smile like well-placed daggers and stabbed people’s hearts with them, just as well as her voice purred like a siren’s song in people’s eyes, while her actions stabbed people in the back.
Andy Sachs, she realized, was too perfect to resist. She was everything that Jacqueline coveted: She was young and fresh with soft creamy skin, doe-eyed and innocent, beautiful and not unintelligent, but possible to manipulate because of a thirst for attention, a desire to be needed. All these things made it so much more enjoyable to use her as a weapon to get what she had been hunting for almost as long as she could remember: Miranda Priestly’s magazine.
She’s so different, Andy thought, different from anyone else that I’ve ever met!
Andy couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at her like that. It had been over with Nate for months already and the day she came to Runway for the first time had been the beginning of the end. But she didn’t regret one single day. The only thing that had made her sad lately was that Miranda was so indifferent to her.
It didn’t matter what she did - she always did more than her best, but did Miranda ever thank her? Miranda never smiled, never noticed what she wore, and Heaven forbid their hands would ever accidently touch in the car. ‘That’s all’ was all Andy ever got from her and she was beginning to feel that adoring an ice queen made her freeze, starting from the bottom of her heart, and her hands were cold, too. So cold.
“Tu es très belle”, Jacqueline murmured against Andy’s skin, and the softest pressure of her lips made Andy feel warmer than ever before.
Andy had said almost nothing at first. It happened by looks, not-so-accidental touches; silent messages sent by the mysterious powers known as Longing and Attraction and perhaps Desperation, too.
Andy could not explain why it happened, how it happened, but she followed Jacqueline when she beckoned her closer, and before she knew it, she was in the Frenchwoman’s bedroom and in her arms.
Jacqueline enjoyed kissing those red lips that felt almost virginal in their shy but unadulterated hunger. She knew, instinctively, that this was the girl’s first time with a woman but that she wanted it, perhaps more than what she herself had known. And perhaps Jacqueline was just a filler in an empty place, a stand-in for someone who was not there and could never be there, but if so, the two of them were equals, for there was someone else in Jacqueline’s thoughts, too.
Neither of them spoke Miranda’s name.
This is beautiful, Andy thought, so beautiful, to reach out my hand and not be pushed away, to be able to touch warm skin, to be able to feel life against the palm of my hand and to be touched - like this! - oh, how come I never knew before what it feels like to be touched this way by fingers that know exactly what they are doing and are loving every second of it…
Andy was so used to her loneliness. So used to thinking that no one could ever want her that she almost had stopped thinking about it and stopped wishing for a change. She had stopped dreaming and she had stopped touching herself, for it left her hollow and empty and the void in her echoed when she came down from her moments of ecstasy; what good did it do to search for pleasure when she only had herself and nobody to give it all to?
“Tu es très belle”, Jacqueline assured her moments before she came and perhaps that was what mattered most of all; that somebody saw her, that she was not alone anymore.
Making love to Jacqueline opened a whole new world of pleasure, and of love.
To Jacqueline, making love to Andy opened a whole new world of possibilities. It was wonderful to feel that young body pressed so eagerly against hers and Andy was so hot and almost insatiable. And so docile too, submissive, and willing to do anything Jacqueline could ever ask of a lover. She could always come one more time, and she was so cute when she fell asleep with a dreamy smile on her lips.
The question was what Andy was willing to do outside of the bedroom.
“A small favor”, she said. “It would mean a lot to me”, she plead. “You are the only one whom I can trust”, she whispered. “It’s easier this way for everyone”, she explained. “Just once”, she lied, “it’s no big deal…”
Andy was too drunk on love, drunk on the thought of being in love and being loved, drunk on desire and the scent of sex and wine and dark chocolate and Jacqueline’s hair, and she didn’t see anything wrong with her lover’s small requests.
She just answered a few questions, found out a couple of things, retold something she had heard in a meeting or read in an email…
It wasn’t like it could do Miranda any harm. Miranda was invincible, she was unattainable, she did not need anyone or anything; for her, it was no big deal…
Then came the day when Andy realized that Miranda was, perhaps, not so invincible after all. There was a meeting with the staff. Questions. Deadly glares. Something in Miranda’s eyes that looked almost like desperation.
“I can’t do this anymore”, she told Jacqueline. “It’s wrong. I’d do anything for you, but I can’t do this.”
Jacqueline was more discontent than she wanted to show, at first. Why stop now? Her plan was coming along just fine, and the girl got cold feet? She couldn’t see why.
“Don’t be afraid, ma chérie”, she said and kissed Andy’s pale cheek - where was the blush of excitement and infatuation? - “it’s going to be alright. There’s no way the dragon is ever going to suspect that you’re the leak.”
“It’s not that”, Andy protested. “It’s just… I didn’t understand… I have realized that I can’t do this to Miranda. If you could see what it does to her…”
“Oh please”, Jacqueline snubbed her, “she’s a big girl, she can take it. You don’t have to worry about her feelings. What has she ever done for you?”
Nothing, Andy thought. Nothing at all, except that she gave me a chance when no one else did and she trusts me…
She does not see me as the kind of person who would do this to her.
“Please”, Andy said, “let’s not talk about this anymore. Darling, if you love me…”
“Love?” Jacqueline’s eyebrow was a perfect arc of innocent surprise. “Who said anything about love?”
Andy could almost hear the sound of something breaking inside of her. Jacqueline must have heard it, too.
“I mean”, Jacqueline added, “don’t get me wrong; you’re very sweet and I like you, but…” She laughed; that sweet, poisonous warm laugh of hers. “I wouldn’t call it ‘love’, chérie. I thought you understood. I thought we had an agreement.”
“So”, Andy whispered, “this… this is just sex? Just for fun?”
“Fun!” Jacqueline smiled and shrugged lightly. “What’s wrong with fun?”
Andy looked away.
She was never going to look at Jacqueline the same way again.
Her love for Jacqueline died, but the part of her that still wanted to love, the part that had believed in her love, was aching, and just like she had never known that such pleasure existed that she had experienced with Jacqueline, she had never known before that something could hurt that much.
Andy walked away from Jacqueline that day.
Jacqueline, however, was not ready to let Andy go. She still needed her. She had never needed anybody that much before, because Miranda Priestly’s head was ready to fall on a silver plate and she just needed a few final blows.
Andy, Jacqueline wrote, you and I are not done with each other yet. I still need a few more small favours from you. I know you know exactly what it is that I need you to do for me.
Please note that I do understand how difficult this is for you. In order to make it easier for you to make up your mind - naturally, I cannot force you to act - I shall inform you of the consequences of your actions. Should you fail me I will send an anonymous letter to Miranda Priestly. In this letter I’ll provide the necessary evidence for her to understand your part in this.
I am sure that upon reading said letter, she will not hesitate to do her part in ‘punishing’ you. In short, should you break our agreement by not giving me what I request, you’ll never come anywhere near the world of publishing again. Add to that that you’ll be subjected to public scorn and ridicule, and I also don’t doubt that Miranda Priestly will take legal measures.
Think about it. But don’t think too long.
Andy realized that she had never in her life been trapped in a worse situation. There was no way out. By being a slave to Jacqueline’s beauty and her warmth - and perhaps by being a slave to Miranda’s cold and regal posture and her silences - she had become a slave for life.
I did it for love, she told herself, but it was not an excuse.
Love, what love? She had loved being wanted, she had loved to give all her longing to Jacqueline and put it in her welcoming and accepting hands, but was that ‘love’? It had not been true. Jacqueline had not seen her, had not wanted her for her, and she had perhaps never listened to anything that Andy said to her. Andy didn’t really know her. Jacqueline certainly didn’t know Andy. All they knew was each other’s bodies and because of that Andy had betrayed the trust of a woman who had never done anything to Andy to deserve such a treatment.
Andy realized that there was only one thing to do. She confessed. She told Miranda everything.
The only parts she left out were the parts about her own heart; her longing and frustration and how the false hope of happiness had blinded her because she had felt that Miranda already was blind to her. Miranda wasn’t interested in that. The only things she wanted and needed to know were the facts. So Andy gave her the facts. Then she told Miranda that she had been a fool for being so in love that she thought of what she did as ‘no big deal’, and she said that she knew that nothing she ever did could undo it or make up for it.
Andy could see in Miranda’s eyes that she was furious even if her voice was cold when she spoke. She could see in Miranda’s eyes that she was confused, and disappointed, and hurt.
Andy knew that she was never going to be forgiven. Andy knew that her life was never going to be the same again.
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Rating|Genre: pg-13 | angst, femslash
Characters|Pairings: Andy Sachs, Jacqueline Follet, Miranda Priestly | Andy/Jacqueline, unrequited (?) Andy/Miranda, mentions past Andy/Nate
Summary: Andy feels that Miranda is colder than ice. Jacqueline, however, is anything but cold, and a whole new world of emotions opens up to Andy. But Jacqueline has her own agenda...
Word count: 1918
Spoilers|Warnings: No | angst, evil!Jacqueline
Notes: Seriously angsty. Written for a prompt by wastedon for 2nd Poke the Dragon Comment Fic-a-thon at dvlwears_prada. This might be a little bit OOC for Andy but the prompt made me do it...
Andy had always had a thing for French accents, and Frenchwomen had a certain… something about them that made them so intriguing. Andy had always been drawn to things and people with the dark allure of the forbidden, and Jacqueline… was the essence of everything Andy knew she should stay away from.
Jacqueline Follet was well aware of her charm and power of seduction. She used her bright, flashing (and yet mysterious) smile like well-placed daggers and stabbed people’s hearts with them, just as well as her voice purred like a siren’s song in people’s eyes, while her actions stabbed people in the back.
Andy Sachs, she realized, was too perfect to resist. She was everything that Jacqueline coveted: She was young and fresh with soft creamy skin, doe-eyed and innocent, beautiful and not unintelligent, but possible to manipulate because of a thirst for attention, a desire to be needed. All these things made it so much more enjoyable to use her as a weapon to get what she had been hunting for almost as long as she could remember: Miranda Priestly’s magazine.
She’s so different, Andy thought, different from anyone else that I’ve ever met!
Andy couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at her like that. It had been over with Nate for months already and the day she came to Runway for the first time had been the beginning of the end. But she didn’t regret one single day. The only thing that had made her sad lately was that Miranda was so indifferent to her.
It didn’t matter what she did - she always did more than her best, but did Miranda ever thank her? Miranda never smiled, never noticed what she wore, and Heaven forbid their hands would ever accidently touch in the car. ‘That’s all’ was all Andy ever got from her and she was beginning to feel that adoring an ice queen made her freeze, starting from the bottom of her heart, and her hands were cold, too. So cold.
“Tu es très belle”, Jacqueline murmured against Andy’s skin, and the softest pressure of her lips made Andy feel warmer than ever before.
Andy had said almost nothing at first. It happened by looks, not-so-accidental touches; silent messages sent by the mysterious powers known as Longing and Attraction and perhaps Desperation, too.
Andy could not explain why it happened, how it happened, but she followed Jacqueline when she beckoned her closer, and before she knew it, she was in the Frenchwoman’s bedroom and in her arms.
Jacqueline enjoyed kissing those red lips that felt almost virginal in their shy but unadulterated hunger. She knew, instinctively, that this was the girl’s first time with a woman but that she wanted it, perhaps more than what she herself had known. And perhaps Jacqueline was just a filler in an empty place, a stand-in for someone who was not there and could never be there, but if so, the two of them were equals, for there was someone else in Jacqueline’s thoughts, too.
Neither of them spoke Miranda’s name.
This is beautiful, Andy thought, so beautiful, to reach out my hand and not be pushed away, to be able to touch warm skin, to be able to feel life against the palm of my hand and to be touched - like this! - oh, how come I never knew before what it feels like to be touched this way by fingers that know exactly what they are doing and are loving every second of it…
Andy was so used to her loneliness. So used to thinking that no one could ever want her that she almost had stopped thinking about it and stopped wishing for a change. She had stopped dreaming and she had stopped touching herself, for it left her hollow and empty and the void in her echoed when she came down from her moments of ecstasy; what good did it do to search for pleasure when she only had herself and nobody to give it all to?
“Tu es très belle”, Jacqueline assured her moments before she came and perhaps that was what mattered most of all; that somebody saw her, that she was not alone anymore.
Making love to Jacqueline opened a whole new world of pleasure, and of love.
To Jacqueline, making love to Andy opened a whole new world of possibilities. It was wonderful to feel that young body pressed so eagerly against hers and Andy was so hot and almost insatiable. And so docile too, submissive, and willing to do anything Jacqueline could ever ask of a lover. She could always come one more time, and she was so cute when she fell asleep with a dreamy smile on her lips.
The question was what Andy was willing to do outside of the bedroom.
“A small favor”, she said. “It would mean a lot to me”, she plead. “You are the only one whom I can trust”, she whispered. “It’s easier this way for everyone”, she explained. “Just once”, she lied, “it’s no big deal…”
Andy was too drunk on love, drunk on the thought of being in love and being loved, drunk on desire and the scent of sex and wine and dark chocolate and Jacqueline’s hair, and she didn’t see anything wrong with her lover’s small requests.
She just answered a few questions, found out a couple of things, retold something she had heard in a meeting or read in an email…
It wasn’t like it could do Miranda any harm. Miranda was invincible, she was unattainable, she did not need anyone or anything; for her, it was no big deal…
Then came the day when Andy realized that Miranda was, perhaps, not so invincible after all. There was a meeting with the staff. Questions. Deadly glares. Something in Miranda’s eyes that looked almost like desperation.
“I can’t do this anymore”, she told Jacqueline. “It’s wrong. I’d do anything for you, but I can’t do this.”
Jacqueline was more discontent than she wanted to show, at first. Why stop now? Her plan was coming along just fine, and the girl got cold feet? She couldn’t see why.
“Don’t be afraid, ma chérie”, she said and kissed Andy’s pale cheek - where was the blush of excitement and infatuation? - “it’s going to be alright. There’s no way the dragon is ever going to suspect that you’re the leak.”
“It’s not that”, Andy protested. “It’s just… I didn’t understand… I have realized that I can’t do this to Miranda. If you could see what it does to her…”
“Oh please”, Jacqueline snubbed her, “she’s a big girl, she can take it. You don’t have to worry about her feelings. What has she ever done for you?”
Nothing, Andy thought. Nothing at all, except that she gave me a chance when no one else did and she trusts me…
She does not see me as the kind of person who would do this to her.
“Please”, Andy said, “let’s not talk about this anymore. Darling, if you love me…”
“Love?” Jacqueline’s eyebrow was a perfect arc of innocent surprise. “Who said anything about love?”
Andy could almost hear the sound of something breaking inside of her. Jacqueline must have heard it, too.
“I mean”, Jacqueline added, “don’t get me wrong; you’re very sweet and I like you, but…” She laughed; that sweet, poisonous warm laugh of hers. “I wouldn’t call it ‘love’, chérie. I thought you understood. I thought we had an agreement.”
“So”, Andy whispered, “this… this is just sex? Just for fun?”
“Fun!” Jacqueline smiled and shrugged lightly. “What’s wrong with fun?”
Andy looked away.
She was never going to look at Jacqueline the same way again.
Her love for Jacqueline died, but the part of her that still wanted to love, the part that had believed in her love, was aching, and just like she had never known that such pleasure existed that she had experienced with Jacqueline, she had never known before that something could hurt that much.
Andy walked away from Jacqueline that day.
Jacqueline, however, was not ready to let Andy go. She still needed her. She had never needed anybody that much before, because Miranda Priestly’s head was ready to fall on a silver plate and she just needed a few final blows.
Andy, Jacqueline wrote, you and I are not done with each other yet. I still need a few more small favours from you. I know you know exactly what it is that I need you to do for me.
Please note that I do understand how difficult this is for you. In order to make it easier for you to make up your mind - naturally, I cannot force you to act - I shall inform you of the consequences of your actions. Should you fail me I will send an anonymous letter to Miranda Priestly. In this letter I’ll provide the necessary evidence for her to understand your part in this.
I am sure that upon reading said letter, she will not hesitate to do her part in ‘punishing’ you. In short, should you break our agreement by not giving me what I request, you’ll never come anywhere near the world of publishing again. Add to that that you’ll be subjected to public scorn and ridicule, and I also don’t doubt that Miranda Priestly will take legal measures.
Think about it. But don’t think too long.
Andy realized that she had never in her life been trapped in a worse situation. There was no way out. By being a slave to Jacqueline’s beauty and her warmth - and perhaps by being a slave to Miranda’s cold and regal posture and her silences - she had become a slave for life.
I did it for love, she told herself, but it was not an excuse.
Love, what love? She had loved being wanted, she had loved to give all her longing to Jacqueline and put it in her welcoming and accepting hands, but was that ‘love’? It had not been true. Jacqueline had not seen her, had not wanted her for her, and she had perhaps never listened to anything that Andy said to her. Andy didn’t really know her. Jacqueline certainly didn’t know Andy. All they knew was each other’s bodies and because of that Andy had betrayed the trust of a woman who had never done anything to Andy to deserve such a treatment.
Andy realized that there was only one thing to do. She confessed. She told Miranda everything.
The only parts she left out were the parts about her own heart; her longing and frustration and how the false hope of happiness had blinded her because she had felt that Miranda already was blind to her. Miranda wasn’t interested in that. The only things she wanted and needed to know were the facts. So Andy gave her the facts. Then she told Miranda that she had been a fool for being so in love that she thought of what she did as ‘no big deal’, and she said that she knew that nothing she ever did could undo it or make up for it.
Andy could see in Miranda’s eyes that she was furious even if her voice was cold when she spoke. She could see in Miranda’s eyes that she was confused, and disappointed, and hurt.
Andy knew that she was never going to be forgiven. Andy knew that her life was never going to be the same again.