Work Text:
New York City, 1925:
Andy Sachs walked along East 53rd at 11pm on a cold Saturday night in October, high on the scent of another catch. Specifically, she had received a tip-off about the illicit operation of a high-end speakeasy. Being an agent for the Bureau of Prohibition, this was a red rag to a bull.
Her motivations, she had to admit, were rather more financial than principle-based. If she were being honest - which she decidedly was not and would never be - Andy harbored no real objection to the consumption of alcohol, and thought the concept of Prohibition itself faintly nonsensical. But a job was a job, and a well paid job it was. It allowed her to live in relative peace and security.
Well. That, and ironically enough, her own flagrant breach of the law.
For anyone who looked at her - let alone interacted with her on a professional basis - would see not a woman, but a man. A slight man, that was certain, but a man nonetheless, clad in a severely tailored suit, suspenders, shiny Oxfords and silken tie, short-haired under a smart bowler hat and far from feminine in gait. A meticulously-practised gait, assisted by the sporting of a hand-carved phallus.
Such freedom, however, was bittersweet, largely on account of the circumstances around which she had been afforded it. Andrea Sachs - as had been inscribed on her birth certificate - and Andy Sachs were not the same. She had grown up with a twin brother, and her parents so spectacularly unimaginative to christen them variants of each other's names.
Yet the resentment for such a decision she had felt during childhood for such a decision had proved to be her tragic liberation. When Andy - along with his parents - had suffered a fatal collision with another motor-car, it had been a surprisingly small matter to implore the attending doctor who had pronounced his death to proclaim Andrea dead and not Andy. She suspected at the time she owed her success to her identification of Dr. Kipling as a closeted homosexual and subsequent imploring for kindness on the grounds of shared inability to live freely. Such a suspicion had since been confirmed; like her, he had moved to New York, and while his ascent through the echelons of the arts had been meteoric, treating the moneyed and notorious, they had remained firm friends.
Thus she had spent the ensuing years crafting a consummate act - from the meticulously lowered voice, usage of theatrical techniques to paint on the hint of stubble, the prosthetic appendage and personal tailoring of her own wardrobe to perfection, Andrea had become Andy to all bar Nigel.
Occasionally, she would throw on a dress, pinken her lips and adorn her wrists with jewellery - but that was for a very specific pursuit. Thanks to the years she had spent studying and replicating the visages of other women, in the papers and in books and in the pictures - she was largely uncrecognisable from the persona she inhabited by day. Oh, the pictures. Film was a great love of hers, always had been, so much so that her father had joked she should register her place of dwelling on the census as the picture-house rather than the family home. She had particularly been drawn to the female stars, although she did not quite know why at the time. However, she had since discovered a flourishing underground network of those like her, those society could not comprehend, those who the law did not conceptualise as existing at all. A night here and a night there tided her over until the next one, a rare drop of truth in the sea of lies that was her night.
Still, avoiding public morality or disorderly conduct charges were best, especially for someone such as Andy. Were she to be exposed as a member of the fairer sex, she shuddered to think of the fate which would surely await her. A lobotomy would be the merciful option.
Therefore, a tip was a tip, and she was on her way to what would with any luck be a fruitful evening.
***
Her mood was only elevated by the smooth entry she gained to the bar in question, the wholly unassuming frontage giving no indication as to what lay inside.
Inside being a room which felt rather bigger than it could conceivably have been, wood-panelled on three walls, the last on which shelves upon shelves were filled with bottles of all shapes and sizes. She mentally shook her head - at least some of the other venues she'd busted recently made an effort to conceal their wares. This, in comparison, was brazen.
Settling into a discrete corner-booth, she subtly drew out her notepad and pen and began to take notes. The date and time, a description of the room's appearance, a rough estimate of the volume of alcohol on display, and - to her veritable glee - identification of patrons. She'd known she was likely to spot more noted individuals than her usual fare, but even so. A prominent judge, multiple financiers, an editor of a city-wide newspaper, and at the bar…
Oh. Oh, shit.
A woman, perched elegantly on one of the stools. Perhaps thirty-five, perhaps forty. Well. That was the assumption Andy would have made, had she not been acutely aware of precisely how old the woman was, and utterly certain as to her identity.
Of all the stars of silent films Andy had felt inexorably drawn to throughout her late adolescence and early adulthood, none could compare to Miranda Priestly. Infamously aloof, a face carved by an ancient sculptor, shock of violently silver hair that never seemed a wisp out of place. Eyes so sharp they seemed to stab through the very camera-film itself, penetrating the audience of those watching the movie.
Miranda Priestly - who while dressed in a more muted fashion than she was typically captured wearing by the swarm of street-photographers who followed her everywhere - could not have appeared incognito if she tried.
Andy had met the actress' first assistant once, down in the underground places that went unspoken of. Arm in arm with a glacial blonde, sarcastic in that identifiably English way. Indeed, Emily (Andy knew not her last name, to ask was not the done thing) had laughed when Andy had remarked on it. She had laughed, and said while she had come to seek her fortune in America, she still harbored a fondness for her land of origin. After all, she and her girlfriend had been able to avoid detection because a proposal to ban women sleeping with other women had been struck down by their lawmakers as a waste of time, such a pairing being simply impossible to conceive of. Andy had only realised the woman she had whiled away a jazzy evening with was an employee of her favorite actress when she had opened a society paper a week later, and spotted the redhead in the background.
And now Andy was here. Watching the woman herself sip her way through what was surely not her first drink. Speaking of drinks, Andy figured she ought to order something - anything - so that she herself remained as innocuous as possible.
So it was with enormous trepidation and a hummingbird heart that Andy made her way over to the bar. The bartender looked up, and she quickly ordered.
"Club soda and lime on the rocks? An inspired choice, truly."
Quite embarrassingly, Andy nigh on jumped out of her skin. Her palms grew sweaty as she realised who precisely had critiqued her drink selection.
"Is it illegal to want to take a break between drinks?"
The silver-haired woman let out an incongruous unladylike snort. "Well, yes, because it's illegal to be drinking in the first place. But after all, that's why you're here, isn't it?"
Andy froze. Partially because she had not expected to be so thoroughly caught out so quickly, let alone confronted. But also because the woman's voice was so utterly melodic - low, soft, silky - that she found herself momentarily unable to speak, only to think what a complete shame it was that Miranda Priestly was a silent film actress and not a theatre performer.
"What on earth do you mean?" she eventually managed to get out, aware that her internal terror was quite discernible in the tremor of her voice.
Smooth going, Sachs, she thought furiously.
"You have been taking notes in the corner this entire time. There is no reason for anyone to do that unless they are registering who is here, who is not, and what they are doing. Ergo, a Bureau Agent. While I have no doubt that the other patrons are similarly blinkered as you supposed me to be, I can assure you that I am not."
She sighed, and continued. "How much would it take for you to omit registering my presence here?"
Andy startled. "I beg your pardon? I think not."
The other woman's aquiline nose crinkled in distaste. "Would you accept an …alternative method of payment, then? Is that more to your taste?"
Okay, now she was just offended. "Hell no! I'm not a complete jerk. Just a taxpayer-funded killjoy."
Thankfully, mercifully, (if Andy was being honest with herself, attractively) the actress' shoulders dropped in what appeared to be visible relief, and the hostility in her expression gave way slightly to be replaced by wary curiosity.
"Then what do you want?"
"For one," Andy said, quite genuinely, "to know what someone like you is doing somewhere like this."
As expected, such a question was not granted a reply. Instead a ring-stacked hand flung out towards the bartender.
"Another one."
Andy mentally shook her head. But as the minutes passed, only punctuated by the delivery of a fresh scotch, she noticed that she had not been dismissed - and by dismissed, she meant commanded to get lost - which she took as implicit permission to stay right where she was.
***
Eventually the older woman broke the silence.
"You'd be driven to drink too if you had a husband like mine."
Andy blinked. She had not anticipated such candor.
"What do you mean?" she asked curiously.
Mrs Priestly narrowed her eyes. "Do you know who he is?"
"Yes. I know who you are as well, Mrs Priestly."
For she did know about Stephen Tomlinson. What self-respecting Bureau agent wouldn't recognise any Wall Street mogul worth the name?
The actress sniffed, as if such a comment was the stupidest she'd ever heard. Andy must have been imagining it, but for a moment she would have sworn she discerned a hint of disappointment in those blue eyes.
"Of course you do," she murmured. "Who doesn't? And it's Miranda. Not Mrs Priestly."
She shook her head, as if attempting to clear flies from within. "He's constantly trying to persuade me to give up my career. Says I'm past it - as if I don't know that! Really, he just hates that I'm not utterly dependent on him, that I'm more well-known than he is. I really do think his life's ambition is for his obituary in the papers to be longer than mine."
Andy cringed. "For what it's worth," she replied, "I despise insecure men like that. Like him."
Mrs Priestly - Miranda - raised an eyebrow.
"Do you, now? I thought that rather contravened the point of male solidarity."
"Yeah, well. Pardon my language, but that's some bullshit if I ever heard it. There's some good men, some bad men. I've known my fair share of both."
"Good men?" Miranda scoffed. "They're few and far between in my experience. Wherever do you find them? Do share with the class. I'd simply love to know."
Andy found herself captivated by the other woman's presence to the point where the inclination to indulge in her instincts - those urging her to be honest - grew overwhelming. She felt slightly drunk on the atmostphere alone, even if not in body.
That could be the only explanation for why she said what she did next. Namely:
"Well. You may know one of them, actually. He treats a fair few people in your industry."
Miranda looked genuinely intrigued for the first time. "Oh?"
"A Dr. Kipling?"
Almost immediately, she chastised herself for throwing up such a link. But for some insensible reason, she found herself implicitly trusting the woman next to her. In any case, the dynamics of their interaction - let alone the nature of their respective careers - meant it would be extraordinarily difficult for Miranda to throw her under the bus in any case, whatever happened.
'Whatever happened' was that Miranda blinked in clear surprise, her overall demeanour defrosting just a bit.
"Yes," she murmured. "Yes, I know Nigel. He's become a tremendous friend of mine."
Andy dimly contemplated the possibility that Miranda said this to ingratiate herself with Andy, but almost as soon as the thought came to her, she dismissed it. She doubted such a woman as the one in front of her would speak warmly of anyone she did not genuinely feel such a way for, and she had, after all, not volunteered Nigel's Christian name..
"Me, too, actually," she replied. "I've known him for years."
"Really?" Miranda said. "You don't look old enough."
"I knew him before he came to New York," Andy replied. "I wasn't even an adult. How do you know him?"
Miranda bit her lip, and then seemed to reach a similar conclusion about the tentative, precarious, wordless trust that had begun to form between them.
"He delivered my twins."
"Oh," Andy commented, before she could help herself. "I didn't know you had children."
"Yes, I like to keep it that way. Keep them out of the spotlight. They never asked for it, you know?"
"That's really admirable," she said honestly. "I'd bet there's a lot of money to be made there, so I do respect you for that. Putting them first."
Miranda cocked her head, that famous silver forelock falling over her temples, scrutinising her as if contemplating whether to voice her next words. Evidently, she decided in the affirmative.
"Well, yes. Another reason why my good-for-nothing husband has effectively driven me to drown my sorrows here. He keeps on trying to convince me to put them in front of studio executives. Over my dead body."
Andy frowns. "Why on earth - "
" - Debts," Miranda spat. "Apparently he deems selling my girls' likenesses to the highest bidder an appropriate way to clear them."
"That's horrendous. I'm so sorry."
"Well," the older woman sniffed, "as much as I appreciate your condolences, I fail to see what can be done about it."
A flash of inspiration struck Andy, a way to both ensure continued payment of her rent and to assist Miranda in the process. She leaned forward, closer, further closing the gap between them, placing one arm to steady herself on the bar-top.
"On that," she muttered slowly, "I don't suppose he has any, ah, illicit financial dealings?"
Miranda's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself."
"Well. If your finances are indeed separate, as you say…I could omit your presence here, but file an anonymous report, a tip-off, perhaps…"
A flicker of something which might have been a contemplative smile twitched around the actress' lips.
"Fascinating. You are a fascinating man, ah…"
"Andy. Andy Sachs."
***
It transpired over the next hour that Stephen did, in fact, harbor rather a penchant for partaking in 'illicit financial dealings'. Andy's notepad had swelled with scribbles, scribbles which would undoubtedly prove far more lucrative than simply ratting out the establishment they were currently in. Eventually, Miranda drained the last of her scotch and stretched. To her shame, Andy found her eyes drawn to the way such a motion pushed her chest up and out.
To even greater embarrassment, it appeared that such an observation had not escaped the notice of the subject in question.
"If I didn't know any better," Miranda said quietly, eyes having assumed a slightly stormy quality, "I'd say you were looking at me. Unprofessionally."
Andy could just tell she flushed in response. There seemed little point in lying - indeed, proffering such an obvious untruth seemed likely to offend Miranda, clearly an intelligent woman.
"Uh, if I was, I do apologise."
Miranda inclined her head once more. "Hmm. Pity."
Andy gulped. Surely not.
"Sorry?" she gasped out.
"You heard me," Miranda said. "I confess I had not expected to be assailed by a woefully transparent plainclothes fed tonight, but even less had I expected for the agent in question to treat me with, well…something approaching collaboration. Understanding, even."
The younger woman shrugged. "Like I said, I'm not a dick."
(If only Miranda knew how true that was.)
It seemed a relatively pithy statement for her to levy, but an objectively correct one, if the way Miranda discreetly slid a pale, manicured hand over to rest just above Andy's left knee was anything to go by.
"Hmm," she said. "Unusually acceptable taste in fabric construction."
"I do try," Andy said, trying to slow down the accelerated beat of her heart which had leaped into frenzy at the contact.
"I'm going to ask you again," Miranda breathed, eyes flickering from side to side to verify their continued lack of wider observation. "Just once more. Were you looking at me unprofessionally?"
Oh, to hell with it. "Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Miranda."
"Hmm."
Silence fell between them once more, but it was a silence of a very different kind, the tension of strangers replaced by the tension of strangers who might yet not be so.
"Do you," Miranda said - oddly tentatively for a woman of her stature - "happen to have plans tonight? Unless I am terribly mistaken, and I do apologise if I am, and you have a woman waiting at home?"
Shit, Andy thought. Shit, this was really happening.
"No. And no."
"How strange. You are by no means an unattractive man, Andy Sachs. There is something about you…I would have thought you would have someone, and yet I find myself immensely glad that you do not."
***
The entire motor-car - because of course Miranda would have a private motor-car - ride over to wherever it was she had directed them to be taken, Andy found herself in a thoroughly torn state of mind. Specifically, latent arousal duelled with fiery anxiety, anxiety at the imminent disclosure she would have to make. The worst case scenario would be that Miranda would be appalled, horrified even, and she hoped against hope that the older woman's desire to see her husband indicted would provide sufficient ammunition against exposing Andy.
But the best case scenario? Andy clung to it, reminding herself that Miranda's assistant was one of them, and did not seem like the type to voluntarily work for one who would despise her. That Dr. Kipling was a close friend of hers.
So Andy had hope. She lived on it. Always had.
***
Their destination turned out to be an enormous imposing townhouse on the Upper East Side, windows all dark.
As the car drew to a halt, Miranda broke the silence - comfortable, now.
"I can assure you that neither my husband or children are home."
"That's…good," Andy said weakly, knowing the moment of truth was rapidly approaching. Even more so now, as they exited the car, ascended the steps, and with a heavy groan of the clearly antique front door, stepped over the threshold, a soft click signalling their sealing against the outside world.
Apparently, Miranda's astuteness extended to picking up on her anxiety.
"You are not having second thoughts? You seem…tense."
"I need to tell you something," Andy blurted.
Miranda blinked, but quickly recovered. "A nightcap, then. Perhaps that is in order first."
Andy duly followed her into a luxurously decorated sitting room, art deco in style, illuminated with a flick of a lightswitched in a soft amber glow. She didn't think she'd ever been anywhere like it. Miranda swept over to a polished mahogany dresser and produced a bottle of ludicrously expensive-looking liquor. She turned around and raised one eyebrow at Andy, awkwardly perched on a dark blue velvet couch.
"Do you still object?"
"No," Andy replied almost immediately, because it seemed the only correct answer. "No."
"Good."
After a finger or so had been poured into each crystal tumbler, Miranda made her way back over to Andy and handed her a glass. She then - to Andy's dual consternation and exhilaration - ignored the multitude of other seating options the room offered in lieu of gracefully lowering herself to sit perhaps fifteen centimeters away.
"So," she said, voice impossibly richer, somehow, "what is it that you feel obligated to disclose?"
Andy took a sip of the smooth liquor, barely registering the burn. "Um. Ah."
How to start?
"Well, I've met your assistant before. Actually."
Miranda looked genuinely perplexed. "What? Emily?"
"Um, yes."
"Which one?"
"Sorry?"
"There are multiple Emilys. I haven't the time to learn all their names."
Andy - despite herself, despite her nerves- barely managed to suppress a bark of laughter.
"Uh, the redheaded one."
"Oh, Emily Emily. I see." Miranda's shoulders suddenly tensed up, as if an extremely unpleasant notion had just occurred to her. When she spoke again, her tone was wary.
"You're not a journalist, are you? This isn't - some set up? An exposé?"
"No," Andy said hurriedly. "No, absolutely not."
"Because I should warn you - "
"- Miranda," Andy said firmly. "I'm no journalist. That is not what this is about."
The older woman looked wary, crossing her arms. "Do explain what it *is* about, then."
Andy inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "Right. So, um, I met Emily. At a…particular kind of space." She felt no uncertain degree of guilt for potentially exposing the assistant, but figured that she might not have to elaborate on what the 'particular kind' of space actually was.
The wariness did not intensify, but shifted into an altogether different kind of curiosity. "I take by particular space, you mean one where, ahem, clandestine meetings which might not be wise to conduct in public may occur?"
"...Yes."
"Hmm. I was aware she frequented such establishments, but I confess myself surprised that you do as well. You do realise I am no man?"
Andy gaped incredulously. "I would have to be blind to think otherwise. And deaf."
Miranda's lip quirked upwards again, which Andy took to be a good sign. "Quite."
"I'm glad you were already aware, though. I - I know it's not exactly…"
" - The sort of knowledge which is meant for the wrong ears? Why, yes."
"Both that, and not too many people know about them. I wasn't sure if you would, hence the…vagueness."
"I can assure you I do know," Miranda said slightly haughtily. Then she subjected Andy to another one of those enigmatic, roving stares, and sighed.
"While I know of them, I confess I have never patronised one myself. That…that is not to say that I would be totally opposed to the prospect, however."
A spark struck into bloom somewhere behind Andy's ribs. A smoulder of hope. "No?"
"No. I generally…generally believe that charm is contained between one's ears, and not - if you will forgive me for being so crass - between one's legs."
Andy bit her lip.
"I note that you have not, however, enlightened me as to whatever it was that gave you pause upon our entering my home."
Twisting her fingers together, Andy gathered all her courage. Then she wordlessly reached out to grasp one of Miranda's hands in her own, meeting no resistance save for a quizzical look, and brought their joined fingers to brush over her neck, up and down, searching for a protrusion which she did not possess.
"What - " Miranda breathed, and then the penny dropped. She did not reel back as if burned, or look upon Andy as if she was the antichrist, or react in any of the ways Andy had feared she might. Instead, her eyes widened, and the pressure of her fingers increased.
"Yes," Andy said, allowing the register of her voice to rise to its natural placement. "That's what I had to tell you."
"You - you - " Miranda seemed genuinely lost for words. "Why?"
"My twin passed away in a motorcade accident," Andy said. "I convinced the attending doctor to proclaim Andrea dead and not Andy. Moved states soon after. The act's grown easy enough, and it lets me control my own finances, hold down a job, that sort of thing."
"Nigel." It was not a question but a statement. Andy figured her silence constituted admission, but was loath to give verbal affirmation.
Then Miranda laughed, and it was delightfully throaty. "No wonder you did not exhibit male solidarity."
Andy shrugged. "What can I say?"
"What, indeed." The look in her eyes had grown smoky again, and Andy felt a tug low in her gut.
"Perhaps it would be best if you did not say too much from now on."
A statement which, taken in isolation, could have been interpreted several ways. But the positively smouldering expression shadowing Miranda's features better than any film lighting had achieved made all but one interpretation collapse into dust.
"You still," Andy asked hesitantly, "want to - "
"Ahn-drey-ah," Miranda breathed, stretching out her name so it sounded like an exotic variety of French parfum, sliding her free hand up Andy's leg, "tell me with those investigative eyes of yours what you think."
A slow, irrepressible smile stole over Andy's lips.
"I think we want the same thing, Miranda. If you're sure, that is."
"Let's retire upstairs, shall we?"
***
"You're certain?" Andy asked, looking around the vast bedroom. "In here? Don't get me wrong, I want to. Very much."
"Believe me," Miranda said drily, "the pleasure yet to come will undoubtedly be multiplied by the fact it is Stephen's bed we will be defiling."
Andy giggled, and wondered when the last time she had expressed gaiety in such a carefree way, unburdened by the impetus to modify her voice.
Yet as they approached the bed, Andy shrugging off her suit jacket and tie as she went, she noticed Miranda was trailing behind her with notable slowness.
"Miranda," she asked quietly, "are you alright?"
"I've just never done this before," the actress replied. "With a woman. And - and - I am older than you are, Andrea. I do not wish to disappoint you."
A frisson of fury at the older woman's husband once again burned through her gut. Unbuttoning her own shirt and casting it behind her, not stopping to see where it landed, she walked until she stood behind Miranda, placing her hands on rounded shoulders and leaning in to whisper in her ear.
"None of that. You're beautiful. Surely you must know that."
Miranda scoffed, but it was muted.
"No," Andy reiterated, more seriously this time, "I mean it." She reached up and reverently detached the long pearl-drops from the older woman's earlobes.
"Forgive me if I have trouble believing you. No one has described me in such a way for quite some time." It was so quietly pronounced that Andy had to strain to hear her. But hear her she did, and her resolve duly stiffened in turn.
The earrings clinked as she placed them in a small crystal bowl by the bedside, the only sound in the room save for their breathing. She turned around and held up two fingers.
"One. That anonymous report is going to be the most comprehensive one to ever exist. Two, and more importantly, let me show you how strongly I believe it."
"Alright," Miranda whispered, faint vestiges of hope and arousal beginning to bloom a lovely pink on her cheeks. "Alright."
***
Kissing Miranda was every bit as wonderful as she had imagined it to be. While the older woman was tentative at first, it was the kind of cautiousness innate to novices. But then, all of a sudden, it was if a great fire had swept through her veins, and Andy delighted in the fact that she was not the one to deepen their contact.
Eventually, both mostly disrobed, having shed clothing in between increasingly passionate connections of their lips, Andy resolved to sweep away any residual self-consciousness on the part of her soon-to-be lover. She knew how such business with men tended to be conducted, hurried and rushed, and resolved to demonstrate the opposite.
Thus she encouraged the lazy roving over one another's bodies, stroking and caressing, licking and kissing and biting ever so gently. Andy leisurely made her way down Miranda's body, licking a stripe down the regal white column of her throat, down further, suckling in places which Miranda evidently liked to be suckled.
When she reached Miranda's abdomen, pearly white as the rest of her body but softer, an unwelcome stiffness began to steal over her form.
"What is it?" Andy breathed, and then alighted on a long silvery scar, surely the source of the swell of insecurity. Glancing up, she saw the beginnings of consternation beginning to steal over the sculptural features, and knew her assumption to be accurate.
So instead of conducting any course of action which might give Miranda reason to confirm her aversion, Andy traced it reverently.
"Shh. None of that." She bent down closer to plant a series of feather-light kisses along the length of the scar.
Miranda offered her a distressingly wateringly smile at at her.
"He hates it," came the barely audible admission.
"All the more reason for me to not, then."
A soft gasp which sounded suspiciously like a repressed sob emboldened her to continue her odyssey across the exquisite form laid bare before her.
Andy gently parted shapely legs and moved in, beginning to worship Miranda the way she deserved to be worshipped. She knew she was succeeding, as a steady stream of gasps and moans which sounded more like mewls swirled in the air surrounding them. When Miranda's entire form froze, tensed exquisitely, pearly skin immortalised in the moonlight creeping through the curtain-cracks, Andy had never felt so content.
It appeared that Miranda had other ideas, however. Upon recovering sufficiently to move, she spun them over so that Andy was pinned beneath her. The confidence of her movements was not necessarily reflected in her expression, however, which appeared almost shy.
"I - uh," Miranda whispered, "I might need a little guidance."
Andy winked. "Alright. Although I suspect the emphasis will be on 'little.'"
She was right.
Miranda was perhaps initially slightly uncoordinated, but her enthusiasm more than made up for it.
Andy sank into the exquisite sheets, riding the waves, swept along with the stars into an exceptionally bright night.
***
When it was all over and both had caught their breath, Andy smoothed back Miranda's sweat-slickened hair from her forehead, smiling fondly at the way it now stuck up in adorable tufts along her hairline.
"You're very soft," she observed.
"I spend a thousand a year on cosmetic products. I should hope so." The words were sardonic, the tone the very opposite of it.
Andy playfully swatted her rear.
"Oh!" Miranda gasped, then mock-pouted at her. Andy grinned back.
After a while of lazy embracing, Miranda drew back and raised an eyebrow.
"Have you ever considered becoming a private investigator?"
"Huh?"
"You're wasted on busting speakeasies for the god-damned government. You would not believe how useful I would find your, ahem, services. Both professional…"
(The 'and not' did not need to be specified.)
Andy smirked.
"I'd have to see a business proposal. It might take some…convincing. Got to make sure I'd really be useful, you know?"
"Let me convince you, then," Miranda whispered, and cupped her face in one hand.
FIN