Chapter Text
It was a Sunday evening, so the vibes were really low. Bored, Andy sat in front of her laptop, finishing up work left over from Friday because, at the time, it had seemed like a great idea. Now, of course, she deeply regretted it. It was nearing 11PM, proofreading the final article was going incredibly slowly. She was yawning, dreaming of going to bed. Normally, she’d probably still be operating at full speed, but when it came to work, her body suddenly hit the "sleep, please" button.
Everything probably would have gone faster if she hadn't kept reaching for her phone every few minutes to scroll through the exact same Instagram feed, or checking Twitter to see what people were saying about the latest fashion show organized by Runway. It had been a massive event, months in the making. It was the only event where Tom Ford presented his latest collection, drawing the absolute elite of both the fashion world and Hollywood.
Now, as the dust was finally settling, Andy felt the full weight of how hard she had worked over the last few weeks. She had been skipping meals, sleeping only a few hours a night, and hadn't even had time for a proper catch-up with Emily, even though they had grown so close after their big return to the magazine. She caught herself wishing she could spend just one evening with Charlton where they didn't talk about work and didn't have to go in the next day. Just the two of them, watching some trashy reality show in one of their living rooms, sipping cheap wine.
She yawned again and opened a Twitter tab in her browser. Her algorithm was completely consumed by fashion, Runway, Miranda, and everything orbiting the magazine. She didn't even have to type anything into the search bar to find content. It was also strange, in a way, seeing paparazzi photos of herself, as if she were actually someone famous.
She scrolled down, and a photo of her and Emily from Friday's event popped up on her screen. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. But what caught her attention was a zoomed-in, heavily cropped image of Emily's hand resting on Andy's waist. She looked up at the caption.
i wrote a thing! the yearning is breaking me so i had to fix it. friends to lovers, emily charlton completely losing her mind over andy sachs on a friday night.
the subtext [explicit/smut]; tags: mutual yearning, competence porn, idiots in love, archiveofourown.org/works/3923849284
She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at. The tweet had over five hundred likes, dozens of retweets, and a mountain of replies. She felt a sudden wave of heat wash over her. When she clicked on it, a flood of comments poured out, raving about how good the piece was and how badly people had needed it.
"What the fuck..." she muttered to herself.
She clicked the link, which took her to the Archive of Our Own website. A message popped up informing her that the fanfiction was only available to registered users. Andy still had no idea what was going on. She opened another tab and googled "What is fanfiction." She felt like a total boomer.
Fanfiction is an amateur or unofficial story written by fans (or critics) using the characters, settings, and lore of an existing copyrighted work, such as a movie, book, television show, anime, or video game.
She felt even more confused: they were people. They were real, living human beings.
For a moment, she wondered if she should make an account just to see what was written. She hovered her cursor over the description again and noticed the tags were hyperlinked. On an impulse, she clicked on Emily Charlton/Andrea Sachs. It felt like the page took ages to load. Finally, it began to open, and a bold heading met her eyes: 1 - 20 of 58 Works in Emily Charlton/Andrea Sachs.
She realized her mouth was hanging open, and her throat had gone completely dry. Swallowing hard, she clicked on the first title that caught her eye.
Invisible String Rating: Explicit/Smut
Tags: There Was Only One Bed, Friends to Lovers, Emily is Whining but it’s Hot, Breathless Confessions, Sexual Tension you could cut with a knife, Bisexual Andrea Sachs
It’s the way Emily’s hands don’t shake when she unbuttons her own coat, but they tremble the second they touch the collar of Andy’s shirt.
The fanfiction had three long chapters and nearly a hundred comments. Andy still didn't understand what any of this meant. Her head began to ache. Was this even legal? Should she report it? Did she need to be worried about something?
She reached for her phone to text Lily.
Hey, you awake? FaceTime me ASAP.
She set the phone back on the desk and skimmed the text. To her surprise, the story was actually pretty well-written. Her mind was spinning with a dizzying overload of thoughts. People were writing fictional stories about her and Emily? About them having an affair? And someone was actually reading this? Was she dreaming? Had she lost her mind?
She heard her phone ring and answered without even looking at the screen.
"You need to listen to me very seriously right now, Lily" she began.
"Oh, hi Andy, nice to hear from you too."
"Listen, I'm sorry, but... I'll just get straight to the point. I was scrolling through Twitter and... and... fuck, I don't even know what to call it. A post popped up with a photo of me and Emily, and the second photo was a close-up of her holding her hand on my hip, and it turns out... that someone wrote a fucking fanfiction about us?" She didn't even notice at what point her voice had risen.
"FANFICTION? OH MY GOD, ANDY? ARE WE LIVING IN A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE?"
"Don't tell me you know what that is" she said into the phone, sounding worried.
"Andy, wake up. It’s like those fictional stories from Bravo magazine back in 2000, just online and like... a hundred times better. But oh god! Girl! Send me the link, I have to read it."
"Lily... there are literally 58 works on this site... I... I don't know what to think about this. Why are people writing made-up stories about us? For whom? We aren't even that popular."
Her friend went silent for a long moment.
"Okay, never mind, I found it."
"What the fuck, Lily. How did you even know where and how to look for it?"
"Maybe I'm not as old and un-cool as you might think. OMG Andy, people are writing straight-up smut about you guys."
"What on earth is smut?"
"Well... how can I put this... it's basically... kind of like porn, erotic scenes, and..."
"A-WHAT??? LILY, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING, PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN’T REAL."
"Andy, chill out. It's a niche. Twitter is a bubble, you're safe."
"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHILL OUT WHEN PEOPLE ARE WRITING AN ACTUAL PORN ABOUT ME AND MY FRIEND, UNDER MY ACTUAL FIRST AND LAST NAME, THAT ANYONE CAN JUST READ LIKE THAT???"
She slumped back in her chair, closed her eyes, and let out a heavy breath. Lily was saying something to her, but Andy had stopped listening. She had to read it. Or no, she couldn't read it. Though, was there even a way back from this? She didn't know what to do.
"I don't know if I want to read this" she muttered at last.
"It's not bad, but... I don't know. It depends on how much distance you can put between yourself and it, and what about... Emily."
Right, Emily. Would she ever be able to look at her the same way again? Should she tell her about it? Would something change between them? A barrage of questions swirled through her head; she felt completely detached from reality.
"Okay, listen. I need to go to sleep, this is too much. I'm sorry, but... I- I can't do this right now."
Without waiting for a response, she hung up and slammed her laptop shut. She paced around the living room and opened the window. Cool air rushed into the room. She focused on her breathing, feeling how heavily her feet were planted on the ground.
Her. And Emily. Friends to lovers. 58 works. Kissing, fucking, and God knows what else. How did anyone even come up with this? They weren't even close to looking like a couple. God.