New fic: The Righteous Dead, Part II, DWP
Title: The Righteous Dead
Rating: PG
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Author: chilly_flame
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything related to the Devil Wears Prada. Alas.
Notes: Thanks, Xander, for the read through. As the community knows, I’ve been thin on inspiration, but this short piece was ready-made for a quick turn around. I’ve also been known to recycle my own plots, and this is another one of those instances. Sad, but true.
This story is a sequel to Sick Day. It’s not necessary for you to read that story, but it might give it a little more context.
Andy is dreaming of sleeping in a delightful cocoon of feathers and cotton when a hand smoothes along her back. It isn’t touching her skin, but she can feel the pressure of it, and it’s nice. “Mm,” she hums. “That’s good.”
It doesn’t occur to her who is doing the touching until she hears the silken voice of her boss a few inches from her ear. “Andrea,” she murmurs. “Are you all right?”
Andy jerks awake and sits up fast, almost knocking Miranda’s chin with her head in the process. She feels instantly guilty, that she should have been awake and working instead of lazing the day away in Miranda’s bed, in Miranda’s townhouse, using up Miranda’s valuable air conditioning. “Hi, sorry. What is it?”
Miranda is staring at her with surprise, and a few seconds pass before she looks away and chuckles. She actually chuckles, and Andy is too taken with the sound of it before she registers the words Miranda follows it with. “You’re not wearing a shirt.”
Still partly asleep, and a lot sick, Andy thinks for a second before glancing down at herself. “Shi--I mean whoops. Sorry.” She pulls the sheet up, at least relieved that she wore one of her finer pieces of lingerie today. Her cheeks flush. “Sorry. I was asleep, I think. What time--” She glances at the timepiece on the side table, and does a rather dramatic double take. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s eight thirty. PM.” Miranda is almost smiling now. “I take it you slept well?”
Andy is too stunned to reply at first. “Well, yes, I--I only thought I’d get a few hours before I could--well, I hadn’t really made any sort of plan. I was kind of, um, sick.”
“I see that,” Miranda replies, and her voice is kinder than Andy can ever remember hearing. “The girls are home. I can’t believe you didn’t hear them when they returned from school. Cassidy tells me she checked in on you at around 4 and that you were, ‘dead to the world.’ I was very glad to hear it.”
Andy cringes. “I hope I was covered up--”
Miranda chuckles again. “Oh, I’m sure you were. I’d have heard otherwise, you can be certain of that.”
With relief, Andy relaxes. “Good. I’m--I really should go--” back to my hideously hot apartment so I can die in peace away from your laughter and smiles--
“You’ll come downstairs and have some soup before you leave. You need energy, and your fever is back.”
Andy feels her forehead but isn’t sure she’s warmer than usual. “How do you--”
“I have two children. Believe me, I know. Take some Tylenol and get dressed. The soup is ready.”
Andy feels shockingly grateful. She doesn’t deserve this. “I’m--” But before she can prostrate herself in front of Miranda, which would probably not end well, Miranda glides from the room and closes the door.
Andy glances around. “Well, shit.”
A few minutes later, she is redressed and downstairs at the little island in the kitchen, gulping down hot chicken noodle soup. And it’s not from a can, Andy is positive. “This is amazing.”
“You can tell James when you see him. He left it for you. Apparently you looked quite the disaster when you arrived this morning.”
Andy laughs a little, and is charmed by the sparkle in Miranda’s eye. They sit together in the kitchen, and Andy is reminded of a morning similar to this, when she made Miranda eat buttery toast before sending her off to bed. She stares into her soup, still impressed that she dragged Miranda into a bathroom to gargle.
“What are you smiling at?” Miranda asks.
Andy shrugs before wiping her nose with a tissue. There’s some spicy heat to the soup, and it’s making her nose run more than usual. “Nothing.”
“I remember that morning well,” Miranda says, as though Andy had spoken aloud. “You were very forward.” Miranda looks away. “I appreciated that, a great deal. I felt taken care of.” She sniffs. “More than usual, that is. It was… different.”
Andy looks up and enjoys the pale column of Miranda’s throat. She imagines tasting the pulse that throbs strongly there, imagines opening her mouth and feeling the blood rush through her body. She thinks about how good she would smell, and wonders if her skin is cool, or warm to the touch, and decides that it must be warm, or hot, even--wouldn’t it--
“Andy!” Cassidy calls out as she flies into the kitchen, and Andy drops her spoon into the bowl.
“Whoops,” she says, grabbing the spoon and covering her eyes for a moment with her other hand. “Whew. I’m still tired.”
Cassidy rolls her eyes. “That’s hard to believe. You slept for like, two days.”
“Don’t pester Andrea this evening, darling,” Miranda says. “Not when she can’t defend herself.”
“But--”
“No buts. Homework and bed. You and your sister both. Besides, you’re likely to catch a cold, she’s contagious. Scoot.”
“Oh whatev. Bye, Andy. Maybe you can help me with my math next week. I just started Algebra.”
Andy snorts into her soup. “I’ll do what I can.” When Cassidy is gone, she admits to Miranda, “Geometry, maybe, but algebra, not so much. When they need help with English, I’ll be first in line.”
Miranda waves a hand. “No need for that, They have a new tutor. But if you’re in the mood, perhaps sometime. They do--” Miranda pauses-- “seem to enjoy your company.”
This is a surprise to Andy. They’ve rarely called Andy by the right name--for the last two months, at least half the time they’ve called her “First Assistant” whenever they’ve seen her in the evenings or on weekends. But they seem less horrible than they were last year, so that’s something.
Andy digs into the soup more fully, realizing that she really is hungry, and this hits the spot. Miranda doles out some saltines, which Andy nibbles as well. When she’s finished, the empty bowl seems sad to Andy, because it means this is it-she has to go home. It’s been nice to be here, even if the majority of her time was spent sleeping. And it’s been really nice to sit with Miranda again, just the two of them in the kitchen. She will hold on to these moments and shore herself up with them. Secretly she wonders if there’s a photo of Miranda somewhere in the house that she could nab with no one noticing.
Probably a bad idea. The last thing she’d want is to be caught stealing something, much less a photo of her boss.
“Well, thanks again. You really saved me, Miranda.”
Miranda clucks her tongue. “An afternoon of peace and quiet is a small price to pay. Roy will drive you home--I don’t want you picking up something worse on the subway. One never knows when consumption will make a comeback.”
Andy laughs. “I won’t say no. I appreciate it.”
She deposits her bowl in the dishwasher and climbs the stairs to get her bag. Before she leaves, she washes up in the bathroom, and wipes everything she touched, just in case. She strips the bed and leaves the sheets in the small laundry room on the second floor for James to handle in the morning. She owes him one. Or a few.
Downstairs, Miranda has settled in the study to flip through the book. Jenn must have come and gone without Andy’s knowledge. She hopes the day went smoothly enough, but she assumes she’d have heard otherwise from Miranda already if it hadn’t. Andy gives her an awkward wave, and Miranda looks up over her glasses. “Good night,” Miranda says, and Andy tries not to imagine a sweetness to her rare, faint smile.
“G’ Night. See you, hopefully tomorrow.”
Outside, it’s humid, but less hot than it has been. She hopes that somehow her apartment will be livable by the time she gets home, but it’s unlikely. Well, she’ll open the windows, jack up the fan and take a cool shower before she hits the sack. And some Tylenol PM is in the cards, without a doubt.
Roy is quiet again tonight, so Andy just watches the streetlights streak by on her way downtown. It’s awfully nice to be ferried to and from the places she needs to go. Miranda probably doesn’t realize just how good she has it, but Andy knows that she worked hard to get to where she is, and she deserves every perk she gets.
When they arrive at her apartment building, Andy lets herself out, and again she wipes down the places she touched. Miranda will be in the same car in the morning, and who knows how long germs can survive? “Bye Roy. Have a good night. Er, what’s left of it.”
“You too, Andy. Stay cool.”
“Hah.” Andy slams the door a little too hard, and regrets it. It’s not Roy’s fault she didn’t plan ahead. Slowly she slogs up the creaky steps of the building and unlocks the door. But inside, the temperature is far from hot; in fact, it’s positively cool. Cold, even. Andy’s eyes get wide, and she closes the door lest the air escape into the muggy hallway. There’s a low hum coming from across the room; a window unit is now installed there, blowing blessedly cold air. The temperature is set at 68. Andy thinks she may be hallucinating.
“Hello?” she calls out, wondering if there’s a burglar inside. She plans on thanking him for leaving this most precious of gifts behind. No one replies, so she moves through the kitchen, which is cool as well, and into the bedroom, which is cold. There’s a second unit tucked in the window a few feet from the bed. A piece of folded white paper rests on top of the machine, and Andy grabs it.
Made a copy of your key while you slept. Hope these will do-they are energy efficient and shouldn’t blow any fuses. Oh, and Miranda says you’re welcome.
James
Without considering the intelligence of her next actions, Andy whips out her phone. Her nose is burning and there are already tears in her eyes; she is awfully emotional today. She blames being sick for it, even if that’s a big fat lie.
“Yes,” Miranda answers, and Andy hears her smile.
“I-I-“ Andy is truly lost for words. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You didn’t have to-“
“I know. Consider it a Christmas bonus. Four months late.”
Andy sniffles, but laughs. “This is definitely the nicest bonus I’ve ever gotten. And one of the nicest gifts too.” She hopes that her voice doesn’t sound too affectionate, but Miranda is lucky that this is all she’s said. Andy’s about ready to confess her undying love, and she’d mean it for more than this act of generosity. Her boundaries feel invisible tonight. If Miranda asked her for anything at all, she’d do it.
“Well,” Miranda says. “I-just get well. Don’t come in tomorrow if you still have a fever. You may work from home if you’re up for it. Now that it’s cool you’ve no excuse to sleep poorly tonight.”
Andy thinks she’d rather spend her night fantasizing about Miranda instead of sleeping, but that probably wouldn’t do her any good. “You’re right. I’ll text you and let you know. Okay?”
“Mm. See you soon, then.”
“Sure thing. And thanks again.”
Miranda hangs up, and Andy does too. In the other room, she shuts off the air; she doesn’t want to imagine her power bill if she runs two air conditioners at the same time. But the bedroom unit she leaves set at a peaceful 75. After a quick shower, she puts on her pajamas, takes her drugs, and snuggles into a bed that’s a lot less cushy than the one she slept on earlier, but it’s hers, and she loves it. She thinks she can still smell Miranda’s perfume in her hair and on her skin, and the phantom scent carries her off to sleep once more.
~end
Read the sequel, Hooked.