Work Text:
The easiest step in her most dangerous assignment to date had been securing the reservation. That in itself was laughable, given both the fact she was still not quite sure how she had managed it, as well as the near-psychotic level of exclusivity that hung about the restaurant’s door, always staffed by no less than five impeccably-attired but burly doormen, whether it be eight in the morning or nine-thirty at night - as it was now. Rationally, Andy knew that this was both to ensure the privacy of the clientele and the safety of those not privy to the interior. Vampires may have become a normal (well, relatively normal) presence in New York in recent years, but their private spaces were known to be exempt from federal law just as much as public spaces were subject to it.
Sanguine & Carmine was one such private space. And equally as rationally, Andy knew that were she to be able to gain entry for a night, her promotion from Head of Investigations at the New York Times to outright Deputy Editor was all but guaranteed. Such a long-form exposé would be media gold dust, given the unofficial outright moratorium on disclosure of the comings and goings of New York’s shadowy patrons. Not that Andy had particularly strong feelings about them in general - while she had no means to explain it, the pattern of creepy colleagues and professional rivals turning up exsanguinated as of late was not one she particularly objected to, and neither was her seeming talent for evading overt confrontations with any of the perpetrators.
She pulled her vintage Chanel fur (a necessary evil, both on account of the freezing January temperatures and for the suitably aesthetic value it provided) closer around her body and schooled her features into something she hoped approximated boredom. Appearing indifferent was crucial to gaining entry, regardless of whether one’s name appeared in delicate dark script on the guest list. Her nerves remained confined to the interior of her skull, producing inane thoughts like comparing the line’s suppressed energy to ‘a classy Berghain’ and throwing up suggestions for the title of her piece as trite as ‘Dining with the Undead.’
She instead committed to a more useful train of thought: mentally inventorising her disguise. While technically humans were not banned from entering vampiric spaces, it was universally recognised as borderline suicidal to do so. Outside, it was virtually impossible to tell who was what, given that in direct contradiction of Stoker et al’s lore, they were capable of appearing indistinguishable from Andy’s kind at will. Outright social fraternisation for pleasure was rare, if not unheard of, and certainly there was a complete ban on living together, but it went unspoken that professional collaboration happened all the time, even if unknowingly. Inside, the regulations decreeing adherence to human behaviour and harmless interpersonal interaction comprehensively did not apply. To that effect, Andy had found herself peering into her mirror as she slathered on layer after layer of military-grade foundation, growing paler with every stroke. This had been followed by donning a highly detailed black silk blouse, flowing dark trousers and matching ruby belt and heels. The final touch had been dark gloves and a ruinously expensive device in the form of a pearl necklace, which promised to silently emit silent noise-cancelling frequencies about her person to disguise the sound of her very-much present heartbeat. She had been enormously thankful to be able to put it down on The Times’ business expenses. It also allowed for her to sweep her hair into an elegant French twist, a hairstyle which she hoped would deter impressions of her wishing - or having reason - to hide her neck.
***
“Next.” The voice was low, calm and entirely devoid of emotion. Andy raised her gaze to cooly meet that of the bouncer.
“Andy Sachs.”
He ran one suspiciously neat nail down the embossed paper.
“Andy’s your name?”
She only just stopped herself from blinking, and raised an eyebrow. Surely not. Then again, this was the sort of establishment where she could believe they demanded full government names. How her full name would have ended up on the list, though, she had no idea. Not even her parents used it. The only person who had, she had not spoken to in years (even if said person was the reason she had not dated in years either, for reasons she knew very well and therefore had little wish to contemplate).
“Short for Andrea.”
He silently extended one arm behind him and cracked the door open just wide enough for her to slip through. Nodding once, she passed by him and crossed the threshold.
***
There were no guides. This was to be expected, after all. One knew where one was going here. She descended the cool stone steps to her right, following the low hum of chatter and music which sounded like a fusion of elegant classical and sax-laden jazz, only disrupted by the arrhythmic beat of her stilettos.
Perhaps she had expected the air to grow thicker, or colder, but it remained curiously the same temperature as outside. No one leered out of the darkness at her, there were no bloodstains in sight, and maybe the sheer normality of it all was what truly fuelled the overwhelming sense of wrongness that Andy found herself unable to shake.
Turning the last corner, two mahogany double-doors bracketed by soft golden light denoted the entrance, and she could have sworn she heard soft footsteps behind her. But when she looked back, all she managed to make out was a flash of scarlet and then nothing at all. Turning back, a single young woman, younger than Andy herself - at least, she appeared young - stood outside the doors. White gloved, black tuxedo, a gold and ruby brooch in place of a typical nameplate adorning her lapel. She greeted her with an identically expressionless visage to the bouncer.
“Andrea Sachs,” Andy murmured, more confidently this time.
The girl appeared to have no need of an admittance list, simply inclining her head and withdrawing a thick iron key from her pocket. The doors parted, and Andy stifled a gasp.
The room was enormous, stretching as far and wide as the eye could see, but gave an overwhelming impression of confinement, of catacombs. The ceiling was relatively low, and curved over in a mass of dark, glittering stone. The floor was of identical material. The tables, chairs and booths, varying in size and shape were all nonetheless uniformly composed of ornate oaks and upholstered in such a deep red they appeared at first sight to be black. Andy felt a profound appreciation for the litany of softly glowing reddish-gold candelabras and chandeliers that she was sure were intended as decorative rather than functional, being acutely aware of her uniquely inferior eyesight.
The waitress had taken two steps forward before Andy sprung into motion, clasping one hand over the other in front of her stomach and quietly following her. Determinedly avoiding making eye contact with any of the other patrons, she was led to a small booth in a corner. An upturned wine glass and menu solely occupied the immaculate table. Before she could be prompted, she drew off her coat and tried not to shiver as she handed it over. She noted with no small degree of relief that there was a discreet coat-rack not ten meters from her table. While she knew that if she needed to make an escape the coat would not be a priority, and her chances would be slim to nothing even if she was situated less than a metre away from the main exit, the proximity served as a comfort nonetheless.
When the waitress had walked away, her eye was drawn to the parchment-like menu. Scanning it briefly, she was glad that she had abandoned her flirtation with vegetarianism that had constituted the final brief rebellion against Runway seven years ago. Inevitably, the offerings were products involving either outright blood or meat with heavy iron content. Vegetables were as anathema to vampires as blood was to humans. Sliding a hand into the mercifully deep pocket of her trousers, she subtly withdrew the hip-flask she had sequestered into its depths in what she considered to be akin to a stroke of genius shortly before leaving her apartment. If she wished to dispel unwanted attention (that being any attention at all), she knew she had to order something she had no desire to consume. To drink, at least. Or pretend to drink. It would not do to be the only individual sans glass in the entire establishment. Very covert decanting seemed to her the most efficient route to navigate between the undesirable (consuming) and the extremely undesirable (notably not consuming).
Focusing on the more pressing task at hand, she forced her gaze to lift and lazily, idly travel across the room. The fact that the clientele were ubiquitous in adhering to dark, smart clothing, borderline black tie was unsurprising, as was the preternatural stillness that hung about their persons like fog. What was surprising was noting the sheer variety of groupings: single adults, couples, families with children. She bit back a smile at the incongruity of seeing wine glasses placed in front of those whose legs were not even long enough to brush the floor. Then the hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she knew she had to order. She hoped her revulsion did not manifest itself externally as she opted for an extremely rare steak and something appropriately mid-priced from the drinks section she would rather not think about.
The delivery was extremely quick, and she set to work first on the food. Every so often, she would turn to face away from the clientele and pour a little of her drink into the flask - which would not be getting washed and reused, but simply thrown out, as much as she typically despised waste. Perhaps the atmosphere was getting to her, but with every decant her heart increased a couple of beats in tempo, and she found her hand unconsciously drifting to her necklace as if mere touch could provide reassurance of it working. All the reassurance she needed was that she was consuming a meal and not serving as a meal, she drily reminded herself. No one looked at her twice, and yet she could not shake the sense of being watched.
Andy closed her eyes in a bid to attempt to refocus. Maybe she could think about how she would structure her article. What she would include, and what she would not. How best to convey the environment, the people, the architecture, the music, the conversation she could just about make out three feet away from her-
“- Ahn-drey-ah. Armani Winter 2009, Prada Spring 2007, Valentino Summer 2010? No?”
Her eyes flew open quicker than if she had received a physical electric shock, and the woman who stood in front of her confirmed that she had not yet begun to experience auditory hallucinations.
Miranda. Fucking Miranda. Only Miranda would start a conversation by analysing the provenance of her clothing in a fucking elite vampire restaurant - “
Shit. One look at her, at the woman who may as well have been stalking her for years given how much she haunted her consciousness, and it was obvious as day. Or night. Night being more appropriate as she took in Miranda’s somehow even paler skin, somehow even more regal features, steely eyes that were mercifully blue at the moment. Her demeanour of one who was completely and utterly at ease in a restaurant like this.
“You’ve not earned a smile yet, Andrea, so don’t even think about asking me for one. I assure you, you will find exactly what you expect.”
(Not only would she expect it, Andy would have been prepared to bet her bottom dollar on a set of very, very sharp white teeth).
Miranda may have maintained her customary aversion to smiling, but Andy could not help gaping like an ungainly guppy fish.
“Miranda,” she breathed, “what- what?”
“- If you wish to progress any further at that admittedly not a rag of a publication, you might want to think about developing a more sophisticated vocabulary."
“Sorry, “ she managed to get out, “sorry, but I wasn’t exactly expecting -”
“Obviously. I, however, was expecting you.”
And with that, Miranda ever-gracefully sank to sit next to Andy, effectively blocking her exit.
Andy blinked and decided that she had no option but to go with the flow as to the best of her ability. A prickle of defiance sparked low in her stomach, because sure, she had no right to be here, but Miranda also had no right to make her feel twenty-three again when she had just entered her fourth decade.
“How were you expecting me, Miranda? I didn’t see your name next to mine on the guest list.”
“Why on earth would one of the co-owners require inclusion on the guest list? The guest list that I approved your name on? Your actual name, not that infantile moniker you insist on going by.”
Double shit. And it was all so ludicrous - she’d been so utterly, comprehensively played, she could tell that much even if she didn’t know why, that when the laughter bubbled up in her chest she made no effort to restrain it from escaping her mouth.
“I should have known. It was way too easy. And no one else calls me that.”
“A pity.”
She waved one hand, never taking her eyes off Andy, and less than ten seconds later a near-identical glass to Andy’s own was placed down on the table.
“That was quick.”
“Of course it was. When do I accept anything less than perfect efficiency?”
Andy shook her head in disbelief, and took a bite of the steak to buy her some time before she would be obligated to respond. Unfortunately, it appeared that it was not only her powers of speech that were impaired, but also her ability to chew properly. Five seconds later, she began to cough and wheeze around the lump of meat stubbornly lodged in her throat, and she couldn’t help but think through the panic about her foundation becoming meaningless as she was bound to be turning red, and God, it just wouldn’t come out, and this was such a shitty, shitty way to die, and -
Then two insanely strong arms wrapped around her torso, underneath her ribs, thrust upwards and squeezed.
“Have you recovered the ability to breathe, Andrea?”
By all rights she should have. But Miranda’s arms had not retracted, so the little gasps of air she managed were a miracle.
“Just…about.”
The grip around her slackened, and then, to her horror, Miranda’s hands drifted upwards. Even through the thick turtleneck, they were cold. Yet the temperature was not the reason for her horror. Rather, it was because they had come to stop over her necklace.
“There’s really no excuse for wearing pearls over a blouse like this,” Miranda said casually, as casually as if she had been brushing away an errant thread on a Runway mannequin.
And she reached around and undid the clasp. The pearls hit the upholstery with a dull thud, or at least they must have. Any noise they made was drowned out by the collective murmur that swept through the room with all the force of a hundred-tonne freight train. The weight of at least a hundred and fifty eyes bore heavy on Andy’s shoulders, now bare of her most important line of defence against discovery, her mile-a-minute heartbeat surely deafening and echoing around the room.
Andy glued her eyes to her lap, willing whatever was going to happen to be quick. What happened was that Miranda covered one of her hands with her own and drew them up to rest on the table. When the lack of action became too much, she forced herself to look up, only to meet Miranda’s amused half-smile she had spent so long wishing to induce.
“No one would dare approach you while I am here, Andrea. Anyone who has interacted with you tonight has done so on my orders. I must admit, I was impressed that you detected Emily’s presence on the stairs.”
“Em- Emily?”
Oh, the red hair.
“Jesus, Miranda. How many people are like this?”
“I am going to ignore your inelegant phrasing and say, quite truthfully, less than you have been given reason to think tonight. Enough.”
“Enough?”
“Dear Irv is simply surrounded. It is…entertaining to see him so comprehensively terrified not just - justifiably - of me, but of Emily. Nigel. Serena. You may have seen Elias-Clarke stock prices have skyrocketed, entirely on Runway’s account. It is very difficult to deny sufficient budgets when the one asking for it could very easily snap your neck.”
“You - this - just to screw over Irv?”
Miranda’s expression became strained, and Andy mentally kicked herself.
“No. Although if we are introducing theories about the motivations for extreme actions, it seems time that we discuss your reason for visiting here tonight.”
Great.
“You were never skilled at deception, Andrea. That was one of your main strengths. The subtlety could use work, though.”
Her eyes flicked down to the hip flask.
“You must know why I'm here, Miranda. Surely you know.”
“I do, but I wish to hear it from you.”
Andy sighed. “Fine. You and I both know that a story about this” - she pointed to the ceiling” - “would be ground-breaking. I’m so close to making Deputy Editor. I wouldn’t even include people’s names or anything, just a description of the evening.”
“Which I cannot let you do. You must know that. It would be utterly ruinous not just for Sanguine & Carmine, but the privacy of my kind more generally.”
“Okay. But why did you let me come here in the first place, then?”
Silence.
She smiled weakly and decided if she was going to die she might as well go out jesting, and said, “maybe you just wanted to see me?”
Miranda pursed her lips and twisted her own necklace with her free hand. Andy immediately recognised this as a classic nervous tell on her part. Surely not.
“I will admit that I have followed your career with some interest.”
Against her better judgement, she beamed.
“Really?”
“You are irritatingly unforgettable.”
“You know, that’s the biggest compliment you’ve ever given me. Maybe anyone.”
Miranda rolled her eyes, and perhaps in an attempt to divert the conversation, leaned forward and stated, “I have a proposal, Andrea. I give you some information that will lead you to a story of equivalent professional value, and in return, you do not speak of what you have seen here tonight.”
She was going to let her go?
“No, Miranda. I can’t accept that. I don’t want to be Deputy Editor if I took what is functionally a bribe to get there.”
“Think about what you are saying, Andrea.”
“I am, and I have. No.”
Miranda’s eyes fluttered shut, and the hand which had been twisting her necklace rose to cup her forehead.
“I suppose doing what we believe to be correct does not always reflect how we will feel about it later on.”
Andy’s forehead scrunched, and she cocked her head inquiringly. Once upon a time, she would have adhered to the rule of never asking Miranda a question. But this was not once upon a time anymore.
“What does that mean, Miranda? Are you speaking from personal experience?”
Double no-no. Asking a question was one thing. Asking a personal question was quite another. She prepared herself for verbal - and, given the circumstances, quite possibly physical - evisceration.
Instead, Miranda let out a long, slow breath, and opened her eyes to meet Andy’s own head-on.
“Yes.”
Andy waited.
“You really are a journalist, aren’t you?” she murmured. “Fine. I suppose such…professional dedication deserves a reward.”
She shifted in her seat to angle her back to the restaurant, took a sip of her drink, then inhaled.
“My girls. Cassidy decided that she wished to spend rather longer with her boyfriend than I would have liked, and then far longer still. I did not know about it until she returned from college. It was early on, before the legalities had been properly established, so neither she nor Caroline - who was in the house when she arrived - quite knew what was going on. Like I say, what we think we want is not always the case.”
Andy squeezed her hand. “I’m really sorry, Miranda.” She didn’t know quite what else to say.
“Yes. Well. Anyway, Cassidy had no real guidance on what to do or how to - well, she took one look at Caroline and locked herself in her room. You know as well as I do that no matter the species, starvation only has one result. I am told - and the window repairs testify to this - that Caroline climbed up the pipes and broke the second floor window to reach her. I am sure I do not have to explain what happened next. But I returned to find - to find - “ her voice broke off, and Andy had a horrible sense of deja vu comparable only to and distinctly far worse than Paris.
“You don’t have to say, Miranda.”
“I want to. I have told no one the full story, and for some reason you appear to be my sounding-board for the exceedingly undignified emotional breakdowns I seem to suffer approximately once every five years.”
Andy fought the urge to roll her eyes at Miranda’s attempt at humour, and instead softly appraised her, silently encouraging her to continue speaking.
“Anyway, it was fairly obvious what was going to happen. I was not going to live a life separated from my girls. They could not have continued to live in the townhouse. If they ever had children, I would not have been permitted to meet them in a private space, let alone hold them. And so I made my choice.”
“I - I don’t know what to say, Miranda. Just that I’m so sorry, and, well. Fuck the boyfriend.”
Miranda’s expression darkened with a macabre sort of glee. “Oh, no, Andrea. That’s quite impossible. He no longer exists.”
She decided that while she was happy - too happy - to be Miranda’s confidant, she’d rather not lose what little steak she had managed to eat hearing about the undoubtedly brutal way Miranda dispatched him, and so she said,
“You know, since we’re on the topic of the twins, Caroline has applied to be an intern.”
“Has she now?”
“Yes. I was surprised when I saw her name, but she’s set to start in the Culture department in two weeks.”
Surprised was an understatement. Andy had triple-checked to make sure it was who she thought it was, and then spent an afternoon almost tearing her hair out over the prospect of seeing a constant reminder of the woman presently sitting next to her at work.
“I shall have to visit the premises and make sure they are fit for a modern workplace.”
“Since when are you concerned with health and safety?”
“I was referring to competence. I will not have my daughter working in an unsuitable job, surrounded by idiots.”
“Or maybe you just want to see this idiot again?”
Miranda had not bitten her head off when she had joked about wanting to see her before, so Andy deemed it worth venturing again.
Except this time, Miranda did not merely indulge her with a contemplative fidget, but smiled. A close-lipped smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Perhaps I do.”
Andy leaned forward, as if she was about to bestow a secret on the older woman.
“I hear the cafeteria does really terrible instant coffee. Shall we make it a date?”
And before she had the chance to kick herself - properly, literally this time - for her phrasing, because however many feelings she had for Miranda, even like this, they were surely unreciprocated, Miranda delicately arched a single eyebrow, and said,
“Really, Andrea. The fry cook and his ilk may have thought coffee in a cafeteria a suitable location for a first date, but you really ought to increase your standards, and I have found myself distressingly unable to consume caffeine for several years now. Might I suggest back here? We do have private rooms, you know.”
“Hold on,” Andy said. “You’re serious?”
“When am I not?”
This made no sense at all - not the Miranda miraculously having feelings for her part, because somehow that felt wonderfully, bizarrely right, but the rest of it, the sheer, glaring incompatibility not because of career, or age, but -
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
The smile quirked, ever-larger.
“Then I look forward to our future reacquaintance. Tremendously.”
Andy took a small, sharp intake of breath. ‘Future’ implied Miranda was going to let her go. But if she let her go -
“- You’ll - let me? Write the piece?”
“I will give you the other information you declined in spite of you rejecting it, and you may use it as you see fit - or not at all. You deserve the Editorial position, and I will not force you to write or not write anything.”
“You won’t stop me from writing about this? Here, I mean?”
“You may find that you wish to reconsider publishing it in the morning.”
“Why?”
Then Miranda finally smiled, open-mouthed, a rare smile, somehow just as beautiful inhuman as it had surely been otherwise, and Andy couldn’t tell whether it was melancholy, hopeful, or something in between.
“You were always very brave,” she murmured. “But coming here?…Extraordinary.”
“I was aware of the possibility that this could well be my last meal,” Andy sheepishly admitted.
“Oh, Andrea,” Miranda sighed, and tightened her grip on her hand. “Of the conventional variety, it came very close to being so.”
“Hmm…and whose fault was it that it wasn’t?”
“Careful now. Anyone might think that you are accusing me of having gone soft.”
“Would they be onto something?”
“It appears that a small but significant portion of my personality was inextricably tied to the consumption of caffeine. Rest assured I am as dismayed by these developments as you are undoubtedly pleased.”
“Maybe. I bet you miss coffee more than you miss food.”
“That, Andrea, is where you truly are, as you put it, onto something.”
“You don’t get hungry? Like, at all? I don’t mean as a euphemism for thirst, by the way.”
“Not for food.”
If Andy shivered in that moment, it was not on account of the temperature of the air, but that of Miranda’s gaze, fixated squarely upon her with laser-sharp intensity.
“And just what do you plan to do about that?”
“That rather depends on what you are minded to agree to.”
“If I didn’t know you before, I’d assume the forwardness was a…new development. An imminent date and an even more imminent proposition? Pretty brave yourself.”
Miranda sniffed, but Andy had the sneaking suspicion that had the older woman still possessed the ability to blush, crimson would have manifested itself at full force across her cheekbones.
“I have never cared for conventions. I certainly don’t intend to start now.”
Andy allowed a slow, intentional smile to conquer her lips. As she did so, her eyes alighted on the grandfather clock in the corner. The hands read ten fifty-three.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
When it chimed seven minutes later, their table was empty.
***
Andy’s first thought upon waking was that the alarm was not her own.
Her first words?
“...God, Miranda. When you said I’d reconsider publishing it in the morning, I thought it’d be because of a bite.”
“I distinctly recall biting you.”
“Not like that, and you know it.”
“Ought I to take that as a complaint?”
“No. Might need a repeat performance to be sure, though. Sample sizes of one aren’t enough to draw conclusions from.”
“And yet you were willing to draw conclusions from a single visit to my -”
“- shh. Semantics. By the way, I’m correct in thinking you weren’t always able to move your fingers that fast, right?”
“My, my, the deflection - oh! Oh!”
***
It had been three months since Andy’s ill-advised but terribly fortuitous excursion. That was by no means to say she had not returned. She had, no less than sixteen times - but after all, she had ample cause to do so. Her presence, resolutely bare-necked (at Miranda’s insistence, which Andy thought more borne of a desire for the patrons to observe the homemade decorations on her neck - in the form of a constellation of hickies - than anything else) still consistently aroused stares, but not only did they no longer bother her, she hardly noticed them at all. Her eyes were only for Miranda, and Miranda’s only for her, both within and outside the establishment at which they had reunited.
If this was a source of eternal embarrassment for Caroline and Cassidy - who had welcomed Andy back into their lives like a long-lost relative thought to have perished at sea - then that was merely an unfortunate byproduct.
***
It had been six months, and Miranda dared to venture a question which had evidently been eating away at her consciousness for quite some time.
“Why, may I ask, did you consent to accompany me to the townhouse after our initial reacquaintance? If, and I quote, you thought I was going to bite you - in that way?”
Andy sighed, and decided this was as good a time as any to voice the growing conviction - scratch that, request - that she had been working up the courage to voice.
“I’ve been thinking about this myself. The best and truest answer I can give you is that, however unconsciously, I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep you in my life. I still am. Consciously, now, though.”
Miranda blinked.
“You surely cannot be saying - ”
“ - I am.”
“You are certain? Absolutely sure? That this is what you want? That you won’t resent me?”
“Yes” - she placed her hands on each side of Miranda’s cool face - “yes” - she rose up onto her knees, a head higher than the other woman - "yes" - she inhaled the scent of the splay of snowy hair - and “no”. She punctuated the final word with a soft kiss to the crown of Miranda’s head.
“In that case,” came the soft breath from beneath her, light against her neck, “you appear to have perfectly positioned yourself.”
***
The following weekend, Andy walked into Sanguine & Carmine. Once again, she wore no necklace. Yet this time, it was not due to an indulgence of Miranda’s exhibitionism, but rather because she had no need for one.
The only stare she attracted was the one of deep blue at her side.
FIN