Chapter Text
Emmett hadn’t been lying when he’d told Callahan he was a free agent who worked for himself. But that was only outside the classroom.
Inside the classroom, however, he was still Callahan’s TA. And he was running him ragged.
He should be grateful he hadn’t been fired, Emmett rationalized, but that certainly didn’t mean he’d gotten off scott-free.
He’d never exactly been considerate of Emmett’s time before, ever since the trial, Callahan seemed intent on running him into the ground.
What used to be ten hours of class time and eight hours of unpaid out-of-classroom work a week turned into ten hours of class and nearly twenty hours just running and fetching and working for Callahan, going through papers, answering emails. Sometimes he’d even call Emmett in the dead of night, demanding some new research on a case by morning, warning him that he could have him kicked out of Harvard with a snap of his fingers – not to mention, reminding him that he still had the ability to flunk Elle Woods with even less.
So they came to an arrangement of sorts: Emmett worked himself tirelessly for Callahan, and Elle received whatever fair grade she earned. What this meant was that Emmett was still responsible for helping her study – something that he enjoyed endlessly, but cut down on his already miniscule time to himself. He still had two other jobs to hold down, after all, as well as his own classes.
Sleeping was a luxury he’d spent most of his life without – He had only been exaggerating a little when he said he hadn’t slept since 1992 – but these days he was lucky if he got an hour or two.
He’d not been so lucky for the past four days.
He’d gotten bouts – ten minutes here, a half hour there, but he hadn’t sleep for longer than forty-five minutes at a time since Tuesday when he’d fainted in the hall and missed one of his TA gigs – at least he’d had a note to report why he’d missed it and at least that professor wasn’t Callahan. He’d been out for an hour and a half. That was kind of like sleeping, wasn’t it?
He looked at the clock on his bedside table. 2:30 AM was blinking back at him.
Tomorrow was Sunday, meaning he had work at four in the morning until two, then he had his other job from two-thirty to eight-thirty (he’d have to run since he couldn’t trust the bus to be on time), after which he was due to meet up with Elle to study, which knowing them would probably go until midnight. Which meant he’d have three and a half hours to revise papers and to do all the work Callahan had assigned him before he had to run for an early four-hour shift, then back to the campus for Callahan’s class, picking up his coffee, papers, and queuing up the printer on the way.
And that was just the start of the week.
He shuffled the dozens of essays on his desk. He’d made it through roughly half of them. If he went to bed now, he could get a whole hour of sleep.
His mind was already blurring. He could hardly concentrate.
Emmett stood up. It was just a touch too fast. All the blood rushed from his head and suddenly –
His alarm was going off. He blinked, groggy, confused, disoriented.
Why was he on the floor?
He looked up at the clock – he could just see it behind his open textbook.
3:30 AM.
He felt no better rested than before. If anything, he felt worse.
Emmett pulled himself up off the floor, downed another Redbull, and got ready for work.
Everything was spinning by the time Emmett made it to Elle’s place Saturday night. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t even sure how he was still on his feet.
Work had been hell, and thanks to his hour of rest last night, he had to use both his lunch breaks finishing grading the essays for Callahan.
He weaved unsteadily like a drunk, stumbling from tree to tree, clutching trash cans to keep upright. His legs were jelly, so much so that he found himself ascending the stairs on all fours, back bent painfully, his muscles trembling beneath him.
He only had a half dozen steps – he was so close – just a few more – His foot caught on the step and suddenly his hands were striking the stair and –
“Emmett? Oh my God, Emmett!”
Someone was touching his arms, grabbing, pulling. A soft hand gently touched his face. A very distinctive perfume filled the air. He didn’t have to guess who it was.
“Emmett, open your eyes for me, baby.”
He felt groggy and muddled, his head too heavy to turn, his eyelids sticking together like someone had covered them in hot glue. He could feel his fingers twitch, though, which seemed to be enough for little miss Woods Comma Elle, who let out a breath onto his neck. His body shivered.
“There you go. Can you hear me, Emmett? Open your eyes.”
His eyelids fluttered and finally peeled apart.
He was still on the stairs, that much he could tell without seeing from the way they dug into his back. But that also meant Elle, in all her angelic glory, the only thing filling his vision, was kneeling on the floor.
He wanted to say something noble and intelligent, encouraging her to get up off the floor – insisting that he could handle himself. Or something. He really did want to.
Yet when he opened his mouth, it was like his jaw was made out of puddy, numb and uncoordinated, and all that emanated out of him was an unwilling groan from the back of his throat.
Somehow, the always-upbeat Elle managed to find something positive in that too.
“That’s it,” she encouraged, “Come back to me, baby.”
He groaned again, this time with more consciousness to what he was doing, and went to sit up. His muscles trembled with the exertion and he would’ve fallen right back over, and probably down another few steps, had Elle not caught him, scooting closer so she could let him rest easier on her, stroking through his hair with her hand.
He must have made some sort of noise because she let out a watery laugh and held him tighter.
“Hey, Em.” Her breath smelled like vanilla and mint.
“Uhh…” He blinked, his vision still swimming, making it look like there were three Elles looking down at him instead of one.
“Emmett, I think you hit your head. I’m gonna – oh my God, I should call an ambulance.”
“No – no!” It was instinctive, a knee-jerk, shaking him out of his lethargy, “No, I’m fine, I just…I just…”
He furrowed his brow to where the headache that had been pulling at his forehead all week was now drilling into his skull as he tried to think back to the reason he was now sitting on the stairs.
They weren’t his apartment stairs – they were Elle’s.
Come on, Forrest. Use those problem-solving skills that got you into Harvard Law in the first place.
“I was coming to visit you.” He deducted.
Elle nodded, not at all looking soothed by this information. In fact, she looked rather disconcerted by it.
“Yep, baby. We were going to study.”
“Right.”
She lifted her phone, and suddenly he remembered himself.
Ambulance, the ambulance.
“No, no, I don’t need an ambulance. Just…just can we go upstairs?”
He could only pray Elle wouldn’t be able to resist his meak plea. For once, it seemed fortune was on his side.
She nodded, and with his vision clearing up, he could see a tear trickling down her cheek. Something pulled painfully at his chest.
“Come on.” He’d been planning on getting up on his own, but before he could even think about trying to clamber back to his feet, Elle was grabbing his waist and pulling him upright and everything was spinning and –
Emmett went entirely limp in her arms.