A/N: Back again, can't believe this got any response at all! Thanks a billion, straight from the heart, I truly appreciate it. And special thanks to I promise you that for suggesting I change the summary - you were totally right and I was completely foolish so good catch.
Again, I still own nothing but the vague mentions of OCs.
P.S. I think the subtitle for this chapter would be "Alex keeps alcohol in the house for whenever Emma visits", and so there are a lot of mentions of alcohol. Nothing abusive but worth a mention all the same.
Missing what's right in front of you.
His coat, which he loves dearly as it was another gift from his aunt, suddenly feels constricting. He throws it off himself like he's about to throw a tantrum, and the thought seems oddly appealing to him. Only Emma could leave him yearning to act like a six year old and pound his fists on the wooden floor.
As he plopped himself down on his couch, wrenching the tie from around his neck, he imagines what she would say if she were here. He almost feels like imitating her just to relieve the stress.
This is how Alex finds himself sitting on his leather couch, straightening his spine, and raising an eyebrow at the imaginary figure beside him. No one quite makes fun of Emma Woodhouse like her best friend, even when she wasn't around to see it.
He imagined that she would let him sigh and pout and look miserable for all of 45 seconds before saying something annoyingly idiotic like, "Was the date really that bad?"
And though the words still set him slightly on edge, he feels a bit better when he hears his own awful high-pitched imitation of his friend and business partner.
"Is that really what I sound like?" two voices ask aloud at the exact same moment. Alex practically jumps out of his skin when he turns around to see Emma behind him holding a bottle of beer and a bag of potato chips. He lets his mouth fall open, gaping at what is surely an apparition brought on by his terrible dating experience.
"You look kind of like a fish when you do that. And not even one of those cute fish."
Nope, he was definitely not imagining this. Emma Woodhouse, lifestyle coach, matchmaker, and girl he had just been mocking thirty seconds earlier, was in fact, somehow, in his condo, toting around food and beverages.
Hoping for a quick recovery, Alex shot back with, "Where exactly does one find cute fish?"
Emma shrugged as she approached his couch from the far end, "The animated ones from Disney movies, the really pretty ones people document while scuba diving, attractive merpeople," she sits on the end of his couch before turning to face him. "There's beauty all over, you just have to look around once and a while, Alex!"
He audibly hears himself swallow as he stares at her, but covers it up by stating, "Well if I see an attractive merman, I will make a point to ask him how to properly react to a friend breaking into your condo at night so that I look less awful next time."
She's rolling her eyes at him again; she's always rolling her eyes at him. "You told me your code when you first moved in. Did you expect me to forget it?"
"No, but I also didn't expect you to be here when I'm not," he begins shifting uncomfortably next to her.
"Ugh, stop whining. Is this what you're like when you go on dates? Because then I can definitely understand why Diane said what she did."
"What is it with you and constantly discussing my love life? It's like you get some sick thrill out of seeing me uncomf- wait what did Diane say, when did you talk to her?" he shifts closer to her without even realizing it, as though physically being close to her would help draw the answers out.
"Whoa slow down," she says, an easy smile spreading on her lips as she promptly presses the beer and chips into his lap, "It was just a quick SOS text. It's a girl thing, you wouldn't get it."
He looks down at the beer and snacks, realizing for the first time that they were both obviously for him. Emma hasn't drank beer since college and her go-to snack food is definitely not chips. Alex then expertly opens his beer (admittedly, it's a twist off; it wasn't like he was trying to impress anyone with his beer collection) and takes a quick sip. "I know what SOS means Emma, and I had no idea that your friend needed saving from our date."
"First whining, now pouting. God, you're a real catch," he takes another, larger swing of beer at that, "She was actually having a good time, honestly. Honestly, Alex. She just said that it was getting late and you starting doing that thing you do where you only talk about work," she scoffed.
Absorbing her words for their full meaning, Alex suddenly becomes very interested in opening his chips as he sends a silent thank you to Diane. Though stating that he was rambling about "work" wasn't that far off. In truth, she had made the mistake that a lot of women in her position have made before. She had mentioned Emma, which almost never went well where Knightley was concerned.
See, this was Emma's stupid, annoying mistake that she continued to inflict on him. She always wanted to set him up with mutual friends, women they both knew, women she knew and women who knew her. Which meant that no matter how well a date was going, and this particular one with Diane had likely been the best one yet, at one point or another, his date would mention Emma and he wouldn't know how to stop himself.
He'd say something easy at first, something along the lines of "My dear friend Emma talks enough about herself, we shouldn't feed that flame any more than she already has today," at which they would both laugh. Then the laughter would die and he'd start down his slippery slope with "I remember this one time, Emma and I" or "For example, today Emma," or "It honestly drives me up the wall when she". And it would just continue to pour out of him as if all that pent up information had a mind of its own.
He used to think nothing of it; after all, Emma was involved in a big portion of his life: his family, his work, even most of his down time was spent with her doing something or other. The idea that it could be something more than that was completely foreign to him. It hit him like a freight train one evening at the end of one of his Emma-arranged dates. He had returned from the bathroom to find the bill paid and sitting on his side of the table. When he picked up the receipt, he saw in Madison's curly red script the words "Tell her!" underlined three times for good measure.
That was the day he realized that these dates were never going to get better.
Emma noticed the change immediately, of course. She once described him using the phrase "sour puss" because he had barked at her when she pulled up a picture of one of Harriet's close friends on her iPad with a single eyebrow raised. Nowadays, he only went on Emma-approved-dates when she tricked him into it.
This time with Diane had been no different. She had told him that the two of them would be catching up with an old friend. Diane had been told a very different story.
That took him back to the present as he defended, "Well your lying made that date doomed from the start and you know it," she pursed her lips at him, which was about the biggest sign of how much she'd grown since he'd know her because there was a time where that would have been her tongue sticking out. (She will deny this vehemently).
Emma groans and leans back into Knightley's couch, "Well how else was I going to get you two together again? You're refusing to take my full-proof dating advice and I'm tired of you being alone, grumpy, boring, snarky, ridicul-"
"I've caught on to your train of thought there, Emma."
"You know what I mean! You're unhappy and you won't accept my help. You know that I'm still 20/20, right?"
Alex removes his hand from the chip bag and pokes her shoulder, "Maybe I'm just the exception to the rule."
She turns to face him full on and pokes him back, "I feel inclined to tell you that I'm Emma Woodhouse and I never fail, maybe you've heard that before?"
He laughs and takes another swing of his beer, "You're impossible."
"Impossibly good," she pokes him again, clearly enjoying herself.
"Impossibly annoying," he pokes her back, more half-heartedly.
"Hey," she says, poking him to bring his eyes to hers, "Your soul mate is out there and I know I'll find her! Or him," she winks at Alex. He groans in response and puts the chip bag on the table.
"Oh Mr. Knightley, do you not remember me promising you a better life? I won't back out of that easily, you know that!"
Alex turns to look at her, seeing her usual huge smile, hands clasped together, eyes as bright as humanly possible. He remembers something he told Diane just a few hours ago. 'She's annoying as hell, Diane. But sometimes, when she's besides me and we're just there, breathing the same air, not talking, I think about how quiet my world would be without her. It would be so quiet, but so loud, you know? A silence filled with all the things, all the words and laughs and smiles, that should be there but aren't. And I know that's not what I want.'
And now he's here, sitting extremely close to her, listening to her tell him that she wants him to be happy and that she'll stop at nothing until she finds his soul mate. In all honesty, it's all very distracting and only helps to remind him that, despite drinking two glasses of wine at dinner, he didn't have nearly enough alcohol in his system for this.
"So are you staying here to dissect my dating problems or should I just get myself another beer?"
"Nope, here to stay. And while you're up, can you get me one of those bottles of spring water please?" Yes, yes Alex does in fact buy Emma's exact brand of spring water just to keep some around the house. He doesn't think about that too much because he knows if she develops a taste for Belgian chocolate in the next while he'd probably start importing that too.
Alex finishes his first beer on the way to the kitchen, pulls two more out of the fridge as soon as he gets there and drinks half of one on the spot. He returns to the lounge where Emma is with a bottle and a half of beer and her glass of spring water.
She looks up when he comes back into the room and smiles brightly as she takes the glass. Their hands brush over each other's for a second and once everything is set comfortably on the table, Alex finds himself finishing his second bottle.
He doesn't get drunk off beer easily, and Emma doesn't know that there was wine with dinner, so she doesn't question it when he opens his third bottle, besides cocking her head slightly at the display.
"Can I turn on the television?" Alex asks as he does the action anyway.
"Alex, we're supposed to be talking," he refuses to turn and look at her expression.
"Yes, I'm a terrible date and I'm sure you have a list of ways in which I can improve so read them out while I pretend to laugh at bad sitcoms."
She swats him with her hand, and he notices that after he distinctly sat in the middle of the couch rather than the end she had been occupying, she had moved closer to him to close the distance between them. Alex was genuinely afraid that he did not have enough alcohol to get through this night.
"You're not a bad date! Talking about work shows that you're passionate and have ambition. You just need to balance that with all your other great traits!"
He positively hates himself for turning to look at her with a raised brow, "You think I have great traits?"
She rolls her eyes and he thinks about all those dumb moments in movies where the guy kisses the girl to get her to stop talking. He wonders if there's an equivalent of that for eye rolling. He finishes his third beer in the same moment that thought really resonates in his head.
"What I think doesn't matter, in this one particularly instance," she says, narrowing his eyes at him, "what matters is that Diane thinks you have good traits."
Alex gets up from the couch to get another beer while throwing "Why are we back on Diane?" over his shoulder.
And naturally, because the universe is devoid of any form of hope whatsoever, Emma follows him through his condo stating "Because you two would be good together!"
He yanks the fridge door open, and searches for another beer, apparently having finished the pack with the last one. "What exactly are you basing that on?" he says to the mustard bottle as he continues to search. He hears Emma looking through one of his cupboards before her response drifts to him, "She went to school for business, she reads those awful fantasy novels you like, and she is the only person in the universe - other than you - that actually craves black licorice."
Finally finding a can at the back of the fridge, Alex reaches for it slowly because he really doesn't want to have to face Emma during this conversation, no matter how many beers he's had. "So we have stuff in common, that doesn't make her my soul mate, Emma."
"No, but she listens when you talk, Alex. She likes those awful walks you go on during the fall down in New England where you just walk around looking at the leaves, and don't utter a word. She laughs when you're happy, she worries for you when you're sad. No matter what state you're in, she cares about you, isn't that worth exploring?"
For a second, she sounds a little desperate. Not in her usual, Alex you're ruining my 20/20 reputation kind of desperation, but a genuine I care about my friend's happiness desperation. And even though Alex escapes the fridge, opens the can, and drinks the majority of it in one gulp, he knows that no amount of alcohol is going to make it stop hurting. The fact that if he could just say three words to her, she would stop looking sorry for him. Or, at least, have a different reason to.
Instead, he shrugs. She rolls her eyes.
"Plus, she finds you attractive so I mean you've really got to choose this one." And just like that, Emma uses her ridiculous abilities to diffuse the tension, both in the room and his heart.
"So first you think I don't have any good traits and now you're saying I'm not attractive?" he questions, in mock hurt.
"I never said anything about you not having good traits," she can barely contain the laughter that's occupying her entire face at the moment. Alex decides to laugh first as he moves over to her by the pantry. When he reaches her, she lets her own giggles escape.
"Now that's just cruel," he puts a hand over his heart, "what is it? Is it the khakis again?" She's laughing harder and he loves the sound so much that he doesn't stop his teasing as quickly as he normally would.
"Or the hair," he pats his head lovingly, "please tell me it's not the hair?" She's biting her lip but the laughs are still coming and she's trying to say something but he's talking over her, quite loudly.
"It's not even like you have nice hair," he says, rolling his eyes at her mock, or perhaps real, indignation, before he twirls a lock of her hair between his fingers.
"See mine's at least one colour," he demonstrates by pulling the lock of hair up to his own scalp, bringing their faces dangerously close. "All the shades in yours, is it even brown? No, see it's just shiny. Shiny and soft," and then he's looking into her eyes with her hair between his fingers and the effects of all the alcohol in his system seem to catch up to him at once. His knees buckle and he feels like that freight train is hitting him again as he says "You're amazing."
Her eyes widen, as though she's not expecting it. Emma had taken note of the alcohol he was consuming so she'd figure he'd make some passing comment about her being pretty. But somehow, he'd surprised her. The word 'amazing' isn't even particularly special on its own, but it's the fact that he chose to see so much more than, well, as he once put it, her 'shiny hair and great teeth.' Amazing meant more than pretty or any other derivative of that word.
A beat afterwards, Alex bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking. To keep from screaming. But the words that came next seemed to force themselves out of him regardless.
"I'm going to kiss you, Emma," he says, because he thinks his mind was made up since he saw her standing in his lounge doorway with a bottle of beer in hand. In fact, he thinks his mind was made up the night he came back from his date with Madison and Emma said 'She's a smart one, isn't she?'
All can he think is She really is, Emma, before he's leaning in to kiss his best friend.
At first, he thinks this must be a mistake. He practically cornered the poor girl in his kitchen and told her he was going to kiss her. The first few seconds of the kiss aren't even blissful because he's waiting for her to push him away.
Then, her hands find his jacket and the small space between them shrinks even farther. The motivation is like a shot of caffeine as he moves his hands up to slip his fingers into her hair. He smiles against her lips, thinking of all the times he'd offered her backhanded compliments about her hair only to find himself in this position. He feels her mouth reciprocate the smile and he thinks he may actual short-circuit; his body isn't used to this level of happiness.
Suddenly, the warmth is gone, the smile a ghost, and Emma's face is reforming as he blinks himself into full focus.
"We can't!" she sputters, her hands still wrapped in his lapels.
He doesn't know what to say, knows if he tries talking his voice will break. So he just shakes his head.
"I can't do this, you just went on a date with Diane, this is so wrong Alex!" He waits for the shove, yearns for it because he can't imagine moving away from her of his own free will when he'd finally gotten that close. But none comes, so he just keeps absorbing her words.
"She's crazy about you and you're drunk!"
He meets her eyes then and smiles, "I'm not drunk, Emma."
"Really? Because you almost wrote poetry about the shades in my hair a few minutes ago!"
"Tipsy. Very emotional. Not drunk," at her visible protest, he continued, "I'm going to embarrass myself for five seconds so listen carefully when I say you smell fantastic and you look great and I am generally not this close to you so you add even a drop of alcohol to that mix and I'm surprised I can even speak at all."
Oddly enough, it was a wide-eyed Emma who was speechless at that.
"As for Diane, she knows. Every girl you've ever set me up with knows. Most of them try to set me up with you," he runs a hand down his face as those, rather embarrassing, memories resurface. "My point is, I don't want to hurt anyone either, but I know how I feel about you. And if you care about me, and Diane, I'm sure you can find her someone better suited for all her incredible traits."
Emma takes a deep breath before, unexpectedly, pressing her forehead to his. "So work," she asks, "work is what?"
He tries to look at her confused, which is hard with their faces so close, before it clicks in his head. "When I talk about work, I talk about you. You, you're work, it's actually a pretty good cover," he chuckles slightly and Emma offers a soft smile.
"That explains a lot of text messages," she replies with a sigh, and he chuckles harder until she's laughing with him.
She lifts her forehead off his and studies him for a minute. Worried about her scrutiny, he asks "So, can we try?"
She makes a face as though she's trying to solve a really hard problem. And seems to find the solution by kissing him again, which is really fine by him.
It's later on, when Emma's asleep on his shoulder as the tv continues to blare obnoxious sitcoms, that Alex amends something he said to Diane. He still doesn't like the silence of a life without Emma, but he has a new silence to appreciate. The perfect sound of absolutely nothing when his lips meet Emma's and everything else fades away.
Hope this soothes the pain left by episode 18, because that was just cruel...