Guys I love Eva Stratt she is the character of all time. She is evil she loves humanity she is a saint and a lamb being prepared for slaughter, she is everything people would praise a man for, she is wearing an unexplained ring.
Side note: this line is in chapter 10 of @evienyx ‘s fic, Discordant. I liked it a lot!
summary — a couple years after andrea sachs left runway to become a more independent journalist at the vanguard, emily charlton was left to her lonesome dealing with quickly replaced assistants every two weeks. emily wouldn’t show a hint of emotion at any given time, until one night where she got an odd notification on her computer.
pairing: andrea sachs x emily charlton
contains: hidden mutual pining, internet stalking, isolated feelings, reminiscing old times, frustration, finding each other
a/n: this is set around 2-3 after the first devil wears prada ends. (also instagram existed then for the plot.) guess who is so so obsessed with these two losers again!! it’s resurfaced and bubbling now so i have to write for them. i love them a lot, so i don’t mind one bit <33 sorreigh if the ending seemed emptyish, i am sleepy!!!!
word count: 2k
“oh for crying out loud—” emily’s catchphrase escaped her lips as a war cry, annoyed with mirandas new assistant for the fifth time. ‘are all of these women that miranda hire really that incompetent?’ the redhead thought to herself, clutching her pure black coffee cup in irritation. emily couldn’t stand these girls that walked up to this kill-to-have job and being completely unprepared for it.
emily huffed as she slumped back in her desk chair, hands holding her head up. a long sigh deflated from her chest as if someone were to squeeze out the remaining air out from a balloon. on cue, the assistant ran out of mirandas office exclaiming, ‘i’ll be back soon!’ while sprinting away in some skimpy pink heels. emilys exhausted demeanor didn’t even bother telling her to go to nigel before anything.
a fleeting thought of andrea, her former co-worker who (surprisingly) escaped runway around two years ago, passed emilys racing mind. emily grumbled to herself when she remembered that the same andrea from her thoughts didn’t return her call a week after her departure.
as much as emily tried to deny it, hate andrea and refuse to even think as andrea as a potential colleague, the woman did try to call her. what for was a reason unknown, maybe she was trying to recover from nights of insomnia with the brunette coursing through her brain nonstop, or perhaps she just wanted a pal.
emily realized she was still at work at some point, shaking her head and dragging herself away from any potential thought of the ending she wanted. she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and got back to answering countless emails from collaborators.
the sunset hued through andrea’s apartment, the windows open allowing the evening breeze to flow into the walls of the living room. she hummed contently with a mug of steaming tea in her hand. andrea sat back into her couch, taking a long sip of the hot beverage that she puts on top of the coffee table to drag her laptop to her lap.
now that andrea had finally been able to settle in with the vanguard, writing papers that she finally felt confident to print, she felt satisfied with her job. she typed in her password, clicked on her browser and dragged out a draft she hadn’t finished the night before.
andrea didn’t think a lot about runway, more about the people that surrounded her while she worked there. miranda, nigel, of course.. and emily. the redhead was a tough case for andrea, considering how she treated sachs when she first started there. but as the weeks flew by, she had evolved a soft spot for her. andrea saw how emily worked, guessing how her brain racked in that environment.
andrea shook her head and stared at the bright computer screen that bored into her eyes, starting to type away mindlessly. she had received the offer to write something interesting about a new upcoming project for the vanguard, lucky enough to write its first piece, so she immediately started working away. andrea paused only to fuel herself with tea and a chocolate bar every now and then.
before she could process it, the time now read 11:25 on the bottom right corner of the device her hands worked tiredly on. an unpredicted yawn left andrea’s mouth as she scrolled through endless words. she analyzed every paragraph, making sure everything was spelled right and not missing any information, then she sent it through to her email to save it in its finalized form.
andrea stretched her arms above her head, a small squeal erupting from her lips. she felt relieved from having finished such an important task and now being able to relax. andrea hummed as she went through some of her opened tabs, clicking on twitter and laughing to herself when she saw some stupid meme about cats.
curiosity then peaked when she clicked on the small instagram icon, looking over her posts which were up for a while now. ordinary pictures of herself with her paper, pictures of her favorite drinks and walks along central park.
andrea remembered what she was thinking of when she clicked on a picture she took of the huge building where runway stood at the top. so, of course, she decided to go through the official magazines profile.
‘run by @️mirandapriestly’ and a link to runways official website sat underneath the layout. andrea smiled and remembered how miranda mentioned some people were going to work on online testing a while back. the profile itself was only following three people, and obviously, andrea clicked on it to see @️mirandapriestly, @️nigelkipling and @️emilycharlton as the only following.
andrea immediately checked the first two profiles to only be greeted by a blank profile for miranda, and a single post from nigel of his fabulous photo shoot for dolce & gabbana. she chuckled, ‘classic them’ andrea thought to herself. then she clicked on emilys profile.
for some reason, her heart beat a little faster when she saw a total of four posts on her page. the most recent one being a mirror selfie with an all black look for dior. andrea hummed, knowing dior was a favorite of emilys. two other pictures were casual, pictures of drinks and clothes.
her heart skipped a beat when andrea scrolled to the last post, taken in 2006. a picture of emily and andrea sat before modern andrea, her mouth slightly agape. she’d never known this photo was posted by emily. it was them, a few nights before paris, testing emilys new cellphone after having dropped it on pure new york concrete. they took a quote ‘silly’ picture together in front of the office mirror, emily rolling her eyes while andrea laughed.
andrea could remember that moment like it was yesterday. when it happened, emily was telling a short story about how one of mirandas last assistants managed to mix up periwinkle with pale iris, and walked out enraged when she heard miranda say her humiliating ‘that’s all’ one liner, andrea fell into a fit of laughter and emily couldn’t find that more.. irritating, by what she knew. andrea was very surprised to see it on emilys feed, nonetheless with the caption written only #ilovemyjob beneath the picture.
andrea couldn’t help but smile a little, tempted to press that little follow button. she made a promise to herself she wouldn’t contact anyone from runway after she left, however.
she didn’t realize the promise she made herself had been broken until she accidentally clicked on the little heart icon, adding her name to the liked by list. andreas heart sank and she muttered one single word, “fuck.”
emily groaned to herself after she got off a final call for the night, donatella always started to speak more than she should on work calls. charlton leaned back into her leather chair, rubbing her temples with her index and middle finger to reduce the will to throw a punch to whomever she sees first.
her computer screen was still lit up, a few unattended work emails laid unread and marked. emily hummed while lookin over the names of the unread until a small chime lightly startled her out of her internal fit of rage.
her eyes darted to the top right corner of her screen and what she read next was like a message from the angels above to her. a small gasp left her mouth as she fully processed it.
@️andreasachs liked your post.
emily did a double take, then a triple and a fourth. her eyes darted everywhere over that sentence. was someone pranking her? this couldn’t be real.
she carefully dragged her mouse onto the notification and clicked it, which directly lead her to andreas official account. emily sat there in silence, just staring at the picture of andrea with a piece of newspaper with her work on it.
“bloody hell..” emily didn’t know if she should curse herself or andrea. herself for clicking on her account or andrea for.. wait. why was andrea on emilys profile?
emily took a minute to think. was it by mistake? seems too hard to be a not-on-purpose situation. was there a fail in the system? no, it was too much of a coincidence to be a fail.
then why was andrea liking an old picture of the two of them? emily started to spiral in her mind, completely normal looking to whoever passed by her. another chime rung in her ear as she blinked, one that made the remaining air in emilys lungs run out.
@️andreasachs — “Hey Emily. I think you must’ve seen I liked your post on accident. I’m so completely sorry!!! I’ve gotten no sleep tonight and I was on a sugar peak… I know that has no correlation whatsoever but I just wanted to apologize. How are you? What do you say to drinks on Sat? Message me back if I didn’t freak you out!!!”
emily sat at her desk, mouth agape as she read andreas message. she hesitated, deeply. her finger lightly tapped over the message request, clearing her throat.
she caved, emily couldn’t stand having this feeling practically hanging over her. emily took a second to read the message again before starting to type, thinking about every word twice.
@️emilycharlton — “hi andrea, what a surprise to be hearing from you especially after that paris fiasco. i’m surprised you didn’t hide yourself away when you liked an old pic, lol. just kidding. i’d appreciate some drinks on sat, what time?”
seemed casual enough, right? emily nodded, hit send and tried not to freak out while her foot tapped restlessly against the carpeted floor. quickly, though, emilys message was read and replied to.
@️andreasachs — “Aw, Em! I’m so happy to hear back from you! I’ll book a place ASAP. Text me your cell!!”
emily allowed a dumbfounded smile to creep onto her face, immediately responding to andreas text with details.
before the two knew it, it was saturday at 7:32 pm. andrea was on point and in a booth that she reserved for drinks with emily. she felt nervous, obviously, she hadn’t seen emily in years. but this time this nervousness felt different. she couldn’t explain why.
emily stepped up the small set of stairs that laid before the bar, walking inside in search of her old co-worker. she wore the same all black look from dior andrea saw on her feed the other night. emily strutted inside the establishment as if she owned the place. her blue eyes easily spotted andrea in that god forsaken cerulean blue sweater and plaid skirt.
she breathed heavily before fully walking towards her. andrea looked over her shoulder to see the redhead approaching her. “em!” andrea exclaimed, quiet enough so emily could hear her over the commotion.
emily almost swooned internally, but maintained her cool demeanor. still cracking a smile toward andrea. the brunette stood up and immediately embraced emily in a big hug, squealing as she felt emily actually hug her back.
andrea pulled away, her eyes darting all over emilys face. “you look great.” is all she could manage to say. “oh please, don’t start with the flattery.” the brit retaliated, a small smirk on her face. “you look great too.” emily grumbled toward andrea, causing a laugh to escape the other woman.
they sat across from each other for a while. they chatted about what was going on in each others life after andrea left runway.
“i see you kept the paris clothes i gave you..?” andrea hummed, curiously analyzing emilys clothing. really, she just took it as an advantage to look at emily. “i did, yeah.” emily chirpped, blue eyes staring into brown ones.
“i missed you, em.” andrea spoke, seemingly unaware of what she just said. fault to the few martinis she drank. andrea blinked for a moment. that wasn’t what she wanted to say.
emily hesitated, a lot. her heart stopped for a second before allowing her to think about her next steps very carefully. a sheepish smile crept onto her face. “i missed you too, andy.”
the five words were enough for andrea sachs to blush in broad daylight in front of emily charlton.
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