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“Elesa.”
The model flicked her eyes over to him, head tilting a bit as she did. Her friend’s face was the epitome of pleading, silver eyes wide and mouth puckered into the perfect pout. It was such a genuine expression, she couldn’t help her mouth twitching up into a smirk.
Predictably, his brows furrowed, and the pout turned into more of a glower.
“It is not funny, Elesa.”
Elesa laughed.
“Sorry,” she snrk ed, bringing a perfectly manicured hand up from the wall she was leaning on to hide her mouth. “It’s just- your face was-” Trying to stifle the laughter wasn’t very effective, and she let out a few snorts. “You looked like an emoji!” She eventually managed to crow, before descending back into giggles.
Emmet blinked. His face, which had been getting progressively more and more sour throughout her fit, morphed from shock to confusion to pure bewilderment. His eyes flicked up and down her body, and all around her face. It was a behaviour that would have set her on edge had it been a rando on the street or even an interviewer, but she knew her friend well enough to know that it was just what his eyes did when his hands were otherwise too preoccupied to talk. In this case, his hands were holding the corner of a wall across from her, hence the eye movement.
“Sorry,” she tried again, wrangling her laughter under control. “What were you going to say?”
Emmet narrowed his piercingly silver eyes at her and looked her up and down again- this time, obviously trying to tell if she was going to laugh in his face again. After his scan seemed to make him sufficiently sure she wouldn’t, he turned the dramatics from earlier back on and leaned his head against the wall, hands falling to his sides as he slumped his back.
“I do not want to go out there.”
Oh. Elesa knew that tone.
Emmet excelled at body language and facial expressions- both using them and reading them on other people, yet tone tended to elude him. But she was too intimately familiar with the tone that he had painted onto his words to not immediately catch it for what it was. It was the same tone she wore when it came to the kind of crowd out there, the one that had driven them to hide in some random back alley.
“I know, Emms,” Elesa sighed, and mirrored his pose on her side of the entrance, although she went the more “crouching” route and let her lower back hit the wall, head leaning over her legs so as to not mess up her hair. She had spent too much time on her hair to risk it getting messed up so early in the day. “I know, Emms.” She repeated, eyes shutting as she mumbled the words.
A few moments passed before she heaved a sigh and opened her eyes, straightening her posture up a little as she turned her head towards her friend. “But sometimes it’s better to head straight into the lion’s den than be hunted down and cornered.”
Emmet rolled his head towards her, eyebags suddenly carrying the full weight of the past few years. He gave her a helpless look before looking back up at the sky. “I know,” he murmured, eyes and face laced with resignation.
Elesa also looked up at the sky, clear and pale blue and looking completely at odds with the mood that had settled over both of them. She wished she could give better advice, but they’d both know anything more would be false positivity. The Subway Boss knew that metaphor just as well as she and any other model knew it, had been forced to learn the hard way that willingly going to the media meant that you had a better chance of talking yourself out of being torn to shreds.
The words lingered heavy in the air for a good while before Elesa deemed they both had done enough nihilistic thinking about what being a celebrity meant.
“Hey, maybe you could hide behind me to get away from the circus for a bit. Reshiram knows how much I hide behind you.”
And Ingo , but the unsaid name carried less weight nowadays, as evidenced by Emmet catching her eye and giving her the flattest expression she’d ever seen him make.
(Actually, that title would have to go to when she spent over six months preparing to spook him on his 17th birthday, only to fail spectacularly for reasons she still didn’t know, but right now in this pleasantly clean alley was a close contender.
(Dragons, she loved Trubbish and Garbodor. She’d have to give Emmet’s some extra love and treats the next time she saw it.))
“Come on, Emms. Me and Iris use you as a shield so much, let a gal pay you back for once!”
The stink-eye worsened.
She turned her head to fully face him and arched an eyebrow. A once-over revealed he still had an air of depression about him, so she quickly dug through the blackmail she had on him, feeling her smile twist like she was the purrloin that got the cream as her brain held up the perfect thing.
Painted lips opened. “It’s not like you’re a stranger to the idea. Don’t you remember, back when the Battle Subway opened-”
A black glove covered her mouth and pressed down, Emmet hissing “ No! ” through his teeth at her. Elesa blinked up at him, impressed, because she didn’t remember seeing him move. He was getting so much faster because of her “Avoiding The Media 101” classes, she could almost shed a tear.
As it were, she just smiled against the glove, looking directly up at his face.
He flushed and pressed down a little harder. “Shut up.” Aww, he was embarrassed. Elesa gently pushed the hand off her mouth, still smiling in a too-innocent way.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dearest brother o’mine,” she said, saccharinely sweet, and Emmet narrowed his eyes at her, but made no move to cover her mouth again.
Good, because she had been about to start licking. Gloves didn’t protect him from being able to feel the saliva, as long as she used enough.
(Honestly, she didn’t even know why he was so shy about it. His uncle was built like a brick shithouse, and only a few inches shorter than Elesa in her tallest (functioning) platforms. The man hid people behind his menacing stance without even meaning to.)
They continued to stand next to each other, Emmet doing his best impression of a moody teenager, before Elesa finally relented.
“Emmet, seriously, nobody is making you do this today. The public thinks you still have another few days off work. If anyone asks, you can just say you were getting breakfast from that Kaloçais place you like and do this another time.” Her words were punctuated by one of her hands coming to gently rest on his shoulder, and she felt him deflate under the gesture.
They spent a few seconds like that, her brother in all but blood just existing under her touch, eyes closed as he breathed and relaxed and thought .
“No.”
He inhaled deeply, opening his eyes. “No,” he said again, straightening up to his full height.
Elesa was almost taken aback by how much determination she saw in his eyes- it had been a long time since she had seen them so steeled- but she found herself moving her hand from his shoulder to her hip, a self-satisfied smirk curling its way around her lips.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply once more, but this time, when he opened his eyes, he plastered on a familiar smile.
“I am Emmet. I love the paparazzi,” he said in a bright tone, and Elesa couldn’t do anything but laugh.