AN: This is my first story! Please please please review because I've never written on here before. Vivienne's flashback is inspired by the moment in the show when Elle reaches back in Callahan's office and Emmett grabs her hand and squeezes it. It's just so cute! Aaaah! Anyway, love y'all, please read!
Emmett's apartment got cold in the winter. Like, really cold. He couldn't afford to install heaters, so despite the sporadic space heaters, (there were two, one in his bedroom and one in the living room) his apartment turned into a refrigerator.
Elle actually didn't mind, she'd grown used to it after many late nights studying at his kitchen table. Vivienne would always muse, "Elle, you have a dorm and Emmett isn't even your boyfriend, but you practically live here." With a shrug and a suppressed blush, Elle responded.
"Emmett and I are best friends. Just be glad I don't crash at your apartment every few times a week."
"Be very glad." Retorted the ratty corduroy, earning a jab in the ribs from Elle.
But Vivienne found herself staring at the shag carpet of this poor apartment, because Elle insisted on a sleepover to celebrate winter break's start. The host also insisted she host it at Emmett's place, without consoling him. (But Vivienne knew well that the graduate could never say no to Elle, even if he wanted to.)
Enid sat across from her, with Elle to her right and Emmett to her left. They played cards on the floor, a very buzzing Elle clutching her very last, two cards.
Dressed in a Red Sox T-shirt that definitely did not belong to her and pink shorts, the blonde sits up on her knees and slaps her cards down on top of the pile, face down. "Two queens! Call bullshit on me. Call it. You won't." She pointed accusingly at her friends.
"Is that a challenge?" Asks her opposite, raising an eyebrow slyly at her.
"Oh yeah."
Emmett sighs, defeated. He gestures to the pile dramatically. "Bull." On the trigger, Elle flips up the cards. Both were queens. She aggressively shoves the card pile in the direction of Emmett, doing a little dance in her place. "I won, I won. You lost, you lost, I won."
Enid wrinkles her nose. "I was so close! Damn." Commotion erupted outside of Vivienne's focus, as she dropped her remaining cards in the pile while Elle informed them that, because Emmett so stupidly fell into her bait, he had to clean up. And pour them all a glass of Rosé. As the game went later into the night the ruleset became more and more versatile.
"Okay," says Elle, buzzed on wine as she sits down again. "What now."
"I liked the part where we made Emmett do stuff." Enid jokes.
Vivienne finally speaks. "You mean the whole sleepover?"
The ladies giggle. Emmett smiles sheepishly. He's wearing a gray t-shirt and red flannel pants. On his lap is Bruiser, asleep. "I'm here all night, folks. Against my will."
Elle pokes him with her foot lightly, downing another glass and going to pour more. "You love us."
"You know what I don't love?" Emmett says, standing and taking the bottle away from her like a parent would take candy from a child. "You when you're hungover. So we're stopping right here."
"You're literally the least fun person- hic!- ever." Elle pouts. Bruiser has now leapt into her lap once Emmett stood.
"Woah woah woah- slow down." Vivienne holds up her hand. "Elle has gotten drunk here before?"
"Once, she made me watch Clueless and got blackout off of Chardonnay. I called her a wuss and she punched me in the stomach." Emmett touched his abdomen as if it still hurt, then sat back down. Enid laughs. Vivienne did not. She was tired, and her cheeks felt warm from the Rosé. Elle was either about to crash or jump off the walls like a cannon and she couldn't tell which.
Time passed and soon Enid was snoozing, Vivienne just laying with her eyes shut. She was an observer, and an observer observed. Elle and Emmett weren't dating— yet— but she knew from the day Callahan praised Elle for the last time and caught a small interaction that they were closer than she knew. When Callahan had complimented the blonde and turned to address Warner, she reached behind herself and Emmett squeezed her hand. At the time, Vivienne took this the wrong way, but—
The grandfather clock on the far wall chimed two in the morning, Elle being the first to acknowledge it. Hiccuping, she began. "Oh wow! It's three a-"
"It's two." Corrects Emmett.
"It's two! There's no time to lose! Omigod, that rhymed. FUCK Law school, I'm gonna be a poet!"
"Good luck with that." Emmett chuckled. Elle turned, thoroughly offended.
"You... don't think I could do it?" Tears well in her green eyes. "You don't.. have any faith— hic!" She ascended into a hiccup spree. "Wait, what was I talking about?"
"You wanted to go to sleep." Says Emmett, now pulling her away.
"No! I didn't! This- hic!- this is a democracy and I am- hic!- an independent- hic! hic!"
"Yeah, yeah." Emmett held her there, stroking her blonde hair. Vivienne discreetly popped an eye open to watch him rock her back and forth in his arms and coax her with quiet shushes in her ear until she fell asleep on his chest. He laid her down on top of her pink sleeping bag, fixed her pillow, and stood to leave.
The blonde stirred, grabbed at Emmett's wrist, and pulled him down.
"Elle-" he protested, in a whisper.
Now it was her turn to shush him as she drew him close, curling up beside him.
Vivienne let her eyes shut. As much as these two would never admit to each other, they were in love. Not the kind of love that Warner supplied, but a new kind. A sweet, perfect, best friend kind of love.
And all the brunette could hope for was one day, one day soon, her own Emmett would replaced the stinging memories of her Warner.
Just as the original had done for Elle.