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When Willow pushes Michelle’s door back open, she’s still sleeping.
Willow’s bags are already tucked over her shoulder and under her arm. She’s tidied up as best she could – if there’s anything she’s forgotten, she’ll be back tomorrow, anyways. She can grab it then.
She pads quietly across the bedroom floor to the side of the bed, intending to say goodbye, but she pauses. Michelle’s face is slack and open in sleep. Her dark curls are wild against the pillow, and her right arm is still held open where Willow had laid next to her.
They hadn’t intended to fall asleep. But after biking to the video store and back, the summer heat got to them. Willow took a quick, cool shower, and by the time she got out, Michelle had already fallen most of the way asleep. Willow hadn’t known what to do then, stepping into the room with still-wet hair. But the breeze was blowing in the open window through the screen, and cicadas buzzed outside, and Michelle in her sleepy state had scooted over on the twin-sized bed and moved her extra pillow out from under her own, patting the open spot she’d made. So there was really only one thing to do.
Willow can’t remember the last time she slept that well. Nowadays, she avoided napping, because she avoided sleeping in general. Because even though they saved the world, that didn’t mean she herself could be saved. Not entirely.
What was left of her, Michelle had been guarding carefully all summer. And while half of Willow understood that Michelle was like a border collie – that she needed a job, someone to look after and be strong for now that El was gone – the other part of her leaned in. The other part of her tucked herself under Michelle’s sheets, smiled back at Michelle’s sleepy smile, and drifted off with her legs tangled with Michelle’s own.
“Mich,” she speaks low, her fingertips only lightly grazing Michelle’s open arm.
Michelle doesn’t stir, so she presses her thumb into the inside of her forearm more, rubbing the soft skin there.
Brown eyes blink heavily, slowly awake.
“‘lo?” Michelle’s voice is rough.
“Hey,” Willow says through a small smile, her fingertips still lingering on Michelle’s arm. “There’s a storm coming in. I should get home or I’ll get drenched.” She had biked there this morning.
“Could drive you?” Michelle says in an exhale, her eyes closing again.
“Don’t be silly,” Willow replies quietly, “you should keep sleeping.”
“Mmm,” Michelle hums, “you could stay.”
“My mom will want me home,” Willow replies, pulling her hand away.
Michelle squints one eye open at her, like she’s too tired to open both. “Okay,” she says after a beat, her voice all punched out. She rolls over onto her stomach and hugs the pillow that had been Willow’s, squishing her face into it and breathing in deeply. Willow tries not to read into it. “See you tomorrow,” Michelle mumbles.
Willow’s on her way out. Before closing the door behind her, she whispers back, “See you tomorrow.”
By the time Willow throws her leg over the seat of her bike and begins to pedal, the sky is already warning violence with vibrant blue clouds. The humidity weighs heavy, like the world is holding a breath in the pit of its stomach, ready to release.
She’s passing through town and there’s almost no one on the road. The low rumble of thunder cracks overhead, and she glances up to a sky that looks like the underside of an ocean swell the moment before a wave crests. A moment later, that wave comes crashing down in a torrential downpour of rain.
“Shit,” she cusses to herself, swerving her bike towards the nearest building.
It’s an old, vacant shop, some place probably owned by a family who fled Hawkins when the town was split open. Some people hadn’t come back yet. It’s not like Hawkins was hot real estate at the moment. They might never do. And anyways, it was still far too early after everything for the losses to scab over and heal.
She stands flush against the boarded-up doorway hiding from the rain. She tugs the basket of her bike as close to her as possible, trying to save her bags from the onslaught, too, but the small awning over the entryway is old and worn, its thin, hole-riddled fabric doing little to cover her. She pushes her damp hair out of her face and sighs.
Should’ve just stayed at Michelle’s, she thinks, forlorn. But these days, she isn’t sure how much is too much, with her. The entire year of living at the Wheeler’s she spent feeling like she was overstaying her welcome. A whole year of wasted wanting she couldn’t help, could do nothing but feel guilty about. Because how else do you deal with being in love with your best friend?
But now, they saw each other constantly. It was almost like they were ten again. Almost.
And that was a whole other layer of guilt, because Willow can’t help but feel the only reason she got Michelle back was because they lost El.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there. She isn’t sure if it’s rain or sweat from the humid heat of the summer storm, but she’s fully drenched again. She’ll have to take another shower. She’s thinking about this to avoid the despair of being stuck with nowhere to go when headlights cut through the haze of the deluge, and then there’s a familiar car pulling up to the curb in front of her. The person in the driver’s seat extends their long arm across the passenger seat and winds down the window halfway, shouting over the storm, “Get in!”
Michelle’s come to get her. She chokes on relieved laughter, her shoulders releasing and slumping down. She grabs her bags from the basket of her bike and makes a dash for Michelle’s passenger seat, getting in as quickly as possible. She’s dripping all over the upholstery, but Michelle only grins at her.
“Good thing I woke up,” she laughs.
“Yeah, thank god,” Willow laughs back, rolling the window back up as quickly as she can, “I wasn’t even close to making it.” She looks at her bike a second longer, abandoned under the worn awning, and feels a bit anxious, but she’ll come back for it tomorrow.
When she turns back to Michelle, their eyes lock and her breath hitches, because Michelle’s gaze on her feels like something physical. And it’s in moments like these that Willow can’t help but wonder, Does she know?
Willow looks at Michelle looking at her. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat with one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear stick. Her long fingers are loose, relaxed, her nails still sporting the same polish that’s been chipping for the past two weeks. She’s thrown a rain jacket on over the same clothes she’d fallen asleep in, and her shorts are barely visible where her long, bare legs stick out from under it. Her dark hair is frizzy, teased by the rain, and her pencil liner’s smudged a bit around her eyes, probably from the nap. And Willow can hardly breathe because she’s so beautiful. It devastates her, and she thinks maybe Michelle can feel that it seeping out of her sometimes. The sadness intermingled with the awe. The longing intermingled with the relief.
Because, really, Willow would choose to have Michelle in her life somehow rather than not at all. And that’s why she’s never managed to say anything about her feelings. She’s lost Michelle before. She’s not about to risk it again.
“Want to go somewhere?” Michelle says, her voice easy and casual, like Willow isn’t coming undone in her passenger seat. Like their eyes haven’t been locked, gazes suspended for the past thirty or more seconds, or at least that’s what it felt like.
Willow blinks and tears her eyes away to stare out the windshield, from which she can see almost nothing, the visibility is so bad.
She should say home. But truthfully, she doesn’t want to go home. She never did.
“In this weather?” she says instead.
Michelle shrugs and turns forward, her right hand tightening its grip on the gear stick to shift into drive. “I’ll drive slow,” she says, a bit petulant.
“Since when have you ever driven slow?” Willow retorts.
Michelle flashes a wicked smile at her, shifts, and presses on the gas.
Willow has no idea where they’re headed until Michelle literally pulls into the drive-thru of their local burger joint. She turns a questioning look on Michelle, but she’s busy trying to look out her rain-soaked window at the menu.
“Can’t see shit,” she quips.
“Mich, I don’t think the menu’s changed since last week.”
“Want a shake?”
“Swirl?”
Michelle leans her head back against the seat and gives Willow a teasing side-eye, “Duh.”
“And get fries,” Willow tacks on.
“Anything else, my dear?” Michelle sing-songs to her, pulling up to the window to order. The sudden silence when they pull under the cover of the drive-thru does nothing to save Willow from the awkwardness that comes over her at the pet name. Thankfully, Michelle’s focused on rolling the window down and isn’t looking at her.
“Make it a large fry,” she says, careful to keep her voice even, neutral, normal.
Michelle greets the drive-thru worker and places their order before turning to look back at Willow, squinting. “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know.”
“Was just making sure.” Willow mumbles.
Michelle’s squint turns into a teasing smile, and she reaches across the center console to poke her in the arm. “I’m just messing with you,” she says, before pulling up to the next window to wait for their food.
Willow rubs her arm where Michelle poked her.
She’s been doing that lately. Poking and prodding, but gentle touches, too. When they sit next to each other, their thighs will press together. When Michelle wants her to look at something, she’ll lightly grab her elbow and tug her to attention. Michelle’s arm is around her on the couch more than it’s not. And apparently, considering today, they nap together now.
It’s not so much that it’s abnormal as it is a return to a normal Willow thought they couldn’t get back to. And maybe that’s exactly why it’s so weird, why it catches Willow so off guard, every time. Why she can’t believe it so easily. The easy touches disappeared from their relationship at the same time her feelings reared their ugly head. In fact, it was on a rainy day not so dissimilar to this one. Willow made it all the way home, that day. Though, she supposes, Michelle came after her on both.
R.E.M. plays faintly on the radio, and Michelle drums her fingers on the steering wheel in the quiet of the car while they wait by the drive-thru window. A minute later, the attendant opens the window to hand them their order, and there’s a shuffle of hands as they move an old, empty bottle out of the cup holder and Michelle hands Willow the warm bag of french fries. She pays, not even bothering to ask Willow to pitch in. And then they’re pulling forward, back under the thrum of the rain.
Michelle pulls into a parking spot not far from the drive-thru, just at the edge of the forest. No one else is there. The two other cars in the parking lot can only belong to the kids working. She kills the ignition, but lets the radio run.
“Right,” Michelle says, sticking her tongue out of her mouth a bit to lick her lips as she uncaps the chocolate and vanilla swirl shake. Willow does her part: she pulls the fries out of the paper bag, flattens the bag to make a little placemat, and sets the flattened bag and fries on the center console. Then the meal commences as they both start for the crispiest fries and dip them into the shake.
“Mmmmmh!” Michelle hums with exaggerated feeling, her eyes closed and mouth spread into a satisfied smile.
“Never fails,” Willow confirms, looking at Michelle’s satisfaction. It really is that good, though. The cold-and-sweet, salty-and-hot combo brings them to a shared nirvana.
Then, Michelle leans across the center console to push a drying clump of hair behind Willow’s ear, and she freezes in place, staring at Michelle’s focused expression.
“…Mich?”
“Sorry I forgot a towel. That was stupid of me,” she says, pulling back. She dips another fry in the shake, then holds it up to Willow like an apology.
It’s right in front of her mouth, but Willow’s a bit slow on the uptake, her brain not processing quickly enough that Michelle is feeding her a bite. Eventually her body catches up. She opens her mouth, breathing out ever so slightly as Michelle delivers the fry to her mouth. Willow’s lips close almost around her fingers – she can feel the edge of her nails as she takes the bite. Michelle only smiles and goes in for another bite herself.
“That’s okay,” Willow answers after she’s chewed her bite, after she trusts herself to speak, “I would’ve been so screwed if you hadn’t rescued me.” She tries for humor, but her heart is a traitor and thump-thump-thumps in her chest, and she misses the mark.
Michelle looks pleased anyways. “That’s what I’m here for,” she says, like it’s obvious.
Willow remembers all the times Michelle pulled her out of the now-memories, out of the hijacking of the hive mind, and supposes it is.
They eat quietly, savoring the late afternoon treat in the refuge of the car. The radio plays on, the DJ warning any drivers listening to take care out there on the road in the storm, and to stop on the side of the road if they feel unsafe. Then it’s back to Duran Duran.
Michelle bobs her head to the beat as she eats and listens. And Willow smiles, because even though Michelle likes to ramble and tell stories the roundabout way, when it’s just them, she’s more willing to let the silences go unfilled. It’s as if she’s more real. She’s not performing. Willow would listen to her talk and talk forever, but she prizes this sign of closeness in secret, too.
When their tray of fries dwindles to nothing, they lick their salty fingers clean and switch to sharing the shake. It’s mostly melted enough to sip through the straw now, so Willow snaps the lid back on, sticks the straw through with a horrible screech, and offers the first sip to Michelle. She tries not to stare at the hollowing out of her cheeks, at the pucker of her lips as she sucks a sip. The operative word here being ‘tries.’
Michelle seems to be none the wiser, at least. She holds out the cup to Willow, who takes it and stares out the window as she sips. The rain drones on.
“What now?” Michelle asks.
“No idea,” Willow replies, shifting in her seat. Bad idea, because while she’s half-dry, she’s still super sticky. Her thighs and arms peel uncomfortably off the seat where she’d been pressed to the leather. “I should probably change at some point.”
Michelle gets this concentrated look on her face like she’s had a thought, and suddenly pulls her jacket’s hood over her head and pops the door open.
“Mich, what—” Willow starts to say, but then Michelle’s already running, pulling the trunk of the car open, doing something that Willow can’t see. She runs back to the driver’s seat and plops down, dripping everywhere. The waterproof might have saved her from the waist up, but droplets race down her soaked legs. Willow just stares at her in confusion.
Then, Michelle pulls a bunched up T-shirt out from under her jacket, shakes it out, and hands it to Willow.
“I have no idea how long it’s been back there, so it might not be perfectly clean, but it’s dry?”
It’s wrinkled, and it’s a horrible bright blue that only Michelle would ever wear, but it is indeed dry.
“Thanks,” Willow says slowly, but then she realizes there’s one more problem. She has nowhere but right here in the passenger seat to change. “Um. I’m not sure I should change here though, I mean…” she reaches for a better explanation than her own self consciousness. Because it’s not like they haven’t shared a locker room, or gotten dressed together in one or the other’s bedrooms during a sleepover, but this is the cab of a car. It’s… intimate.
“What? We’re the only one’s crazy enough to drive over here in this weather. No one’s around, just go for it,” Michelle supplies her with the excuse and squashes it in one go.
“Right,” Willow says. She swallows.
Well. Here goes.
She grabs the bottom of her current T-shirt and flips it over her head. Of course, there has to be a moment where her chin gets in the way and she gets stuck and has to adjust, meaning she’s basically tits out with her head swimming in the shirt for an awkwardly long time. Great. She grunts a little with effort, finally pulls the shirt off.
Her hair must be sticking every which way, and even though the car’s off, her bare, wet skin turns to goosebumps where the air touches it.
Of course, her bra is soaked through, too. So it would be kind of pointless to put the dry shirt on over it. But she can’t take the bra off too, right? She pauses for a moment, and then decides there’s no way. She starts turning the borrowed T-shirt around to put it on, sticks her arms through even, but then Michelle makes a sound.
“Are you crazy? Your bra is soaked, dude. Take it off, no one’s going to see you but me.”
Yes, that’s actually the problem! Willow retorts in her head. In real life, she just slowly starts pulling her arms back out of the sleeves and glances over to give Michelle a quizzical look.
Bad idea. She had been trying not to look at Michelle this whole time, because then the closeness would become unignorable. And she really, really needed to ignore it for her sanity. But now she’s gone and peeked, and it’s mortifying because it’s like Michelle isn’t even trying to pretend she’s not looking.
Michelle’s eyes are unmistakably on her tits. But once Willow looks at her, her eyes fly up to meet Willow’s gaze. Her pupils are oddly blown and her face rapidly turns pink, and all of it makes Willow want to die a little bit.
“Seriously? A little privacy please!”
Michelle’s whole body snaps to face forward, her eyes trained ahead.
“Sorry!” she squeaks. Then she risks another glance, and Willow glares at her because she’s literally in the middle of unclipping her bra.
“Your bra is cute,” Michelle offers quietly.
Willow is so annoyed it makes her brave, and she reaches over with her left hand to push the side of Michelle’s chin, trying to get her to face back forward. Michelle plays at pushing back, and her eyes don’t stop darting to the side, taking in the view of Willow mostly topless.
“Oh my god, you are such a pervert.” Willow says, exasperated.
Michelle laughs and rolls her eyes and dutifully returns to staring straight ahead. Willow can’t trust she won’t look again, apparently, so she pulls the bra off and the shirt on over her head as quickly as humanly possible.
Once she’s done, she hides her wet bra in the fold of her wet shirt and stuffs it in her bag.
“Okay, I’m done,” she says, still annoyed.
Michelle peers over, then, her mouth on the straw of their shared shake like she’s been biting it instead of drinking the shake.
“Are you… biting our straw?”
Michelle’s eyes had been drifting back down, again, to where Willow knows her nipples poke through the too-tight shirt, but they jerk back up when she’s accused.
Michelle pulls her mouth off the straw with a pop. “Oh, shit. Didn’t even realize. Sorry,” she says. At least she sounds a little embarrassed. She offers the shake to Willow.
Willow just shakes her head and takes it. She puts her mouth on the straw and tries not to think of it as an indirect anything.
This silence is awkward. Willow lets it be that way. Let Michelle be the embarrassed one for a change. She’s too busy trying to not overthink why she’s staring in the first place.
“Hey, so,” Michelle starts, but then Willow passes her the shake back and she takes a sip before trying to talk again. “I think that… you should come back to mine. We’ll just call your mom and tell her, I’m sure it’ll be fine. And then we can watch a shitty slasher and eat leftovers. And, y’know, sleep.” She says the last bit extra casually and tries to stir the shake, but then the straw just makes a horrible sound against the plastic lid and Michelle cringes.
Willow breathes for a moment and stares ahead.
Does she know?
“You don’t even like slashers,” Willow points out, “They scare you.”
Michelle passes the shake back without looking at her.
“Yeah, but you like them, and I can deal with it if you’re there.”
Willow takes a sip, but it turns into a bit of a slurp. They’ve nearly finished it.
“You say that, but what if you can’t sleep?”
“Well, if you sleep with me,” Michelle starts to say, but then stutters and overcorrects, “I mean, like, in the same bed as me, like today, when we napped — that was nice!” Michelle pauses awkwardly. Then finishes, “I think I’ll be fine.”
Willow thinks about that for a moment. She absentmindedly passes the shake back, and when Michelle reaches for it, their fingers overlap and Willow has to ignore the electricity.
“Or we can just watch something else,” she suggests, really trying to bring the atmosphere in the car back down to reality. She really doesn’t understand why Michelle is suggesting this. It’s like she wants to sleep with her.
“But you’ve been wanting to see that new one, and Nate rented it the other day, so I know we have it right now,” Michelle explains, now picking at her nail polish.
“I can always rent it another time?”
Michelle finally turns to look at her. And to be honest, she looks a little nervous.
“Wait, was that not cool with you, earlier?”
“What?” What?
“Sleeping… together. I hope I didn’t make it, like, weird or anything.”
“What? No, it was nice.” Willow admits. “Really nice, actually.”
It just slips out, really. She looks down at her nails then, too, and begins to pick at a hangnail.
“Yeah?” Michelle says, still look at her. Her voice is soft and breathy. It gets Willow to peek back up at her. The way Michelle is looking at her…
“Yeah,” she confirms, a bit dazed.
Michelle reaches over where the empty shake cup sits in the cup holder to put her hand over Willow’s. Willow freezes. What is she doing?
“You shouldn’t pick at your nails,” Michelle says with a furrow in her brow, her voice lowering. Her fingers wiggle their way in between Willow’s. Her thumb brushes over their knuckles. “You’ll start bleeding again,” she whispers, barely audible over the rain.
Willow’s entire body is a live wire. Michelle is holding her hand. Why is Michelle holding her hand? She’s just stopping her from picking at her nails. That’s all. Why does it not feel like that’s all, though?
A moment passes before Willow realizes she’s staring at their hands. She still hasn’t replied.
“So what do you say?” Michelle says with a smile. Her hand is warm against Willow’s. She’s always so warm.
Willow peels her eyes away from their joined hands to look up, trying to make sense of the question.
“What?”
“Come home with me? Slasher, leftovers, cuddle?” Michelle says at the same time she presses her thumb lightly into Willow’s hand.
Cuddle?
“Sure,” Willow says, her voice coming out garbled. She’s physically incapable of more than one word at a time right now. She’s also incapable of saying no to this.
And then Michelle pulls their clasped fists up to her mouth and kisses the back of Willow’s hand, and the moment they make contact Willow sucks in a breath with a light gasp.
Her lips are so soft. If this isn’t real, then it’s cruel. The rain is so loud. If this isn’t real, then…
“Lo?”
Willow blinks rapidly and her eyes refocus on Michelle’s face. It’s closer than she expected.
Michelle leaning over the center console. She lets go of her hand. Willow would mourn the loss, but her hands are so sweaty at this point, and Michelle is reaching for her face. Michelle’s fingers press gently behind her ear, her thumb against the side of her cheekbone. Willow lets herself be pulled until they’re face to face, mere inches away from each other.
Michelle’s eyes flicker between her eyes and her lips. She licks her own lips. Swallows. Willow is floating somewhere above them, shock shunting her from her body.
“Can I…” Michelle’s words bring her crashing back to physical sense. And my god, is it overwhelming. Michelle’s fingers have curled into her hair now. She can taste her breath.
“…what?” Willow pushes the word out. It sounds horribly forlorn, devastated, white flag hoisted and surrender already called.
Michelle squeezes her eyes shut a second and then opens them again, breathing out a shaky breath. Their noses bump. Michelle’s eyes drop to her mouth again.
Willow is too terrified to move. She can feel every beat of her heart vibrating through her whole body. And even that is too much movement.
“Tell me no,” Michelle says, like a warning.
Willow’s lips part.
“Willow,” like she’s begging.
Willow breathes out.
“Yeah.”
And then Michelle’s lips touch hers, and everything from there is pure sensation.
She tastes like the shake they’d just finished and rainwater. Her lips are cold and wet, but her mouth is warm. Her hands, both of them, are immediately cradling the back of Willow’s head. And Willow submits entirely to her ministrations, to the steady press of her fingers tilting her head for a better angle. Michelle kisses like she talks, active and eager, and she’s good at it, too. Willow does her best to enter the conversation and Michelle makes space for her, like she always does. Slows down, drags her teeth gently over her bottom lip like a last word before opening her mouth wider and letting Willow do what she wants. Like she’s listening.
And Willow wants. She’s been wanting. She lets it take the reins, finally. Finally. She can’t overthink this with the taste of Michelle in her mouth. She would eat her alive if she could. And if this kiss is anything to go by, she might have permission to do that.
They both have to breathe, though, and when Willow pulls back, the amount of air she needs is embarrassing as she basically gasps for it.
Michelle surfaces with a laugh and flops back against the driver’s seat. Actually, she’s visibly shaking.
“You…” Willow tries, but words are still hard. She swallows. “You’re shaking.”
Michelle is trying to breathe, but laughter still comes sputtering out.
“That was,” Michelle says between giggles, “so scary.”
“Scary?”
“Yeah,” Michelle says, lolling her head to the side to stare over at Willow through those thick dark eyelashes. “You’re terrifying.”
Willow just looks back at her, new truths opening before her. There’s no manual for this feeling. There’s no proper sequence. They can only make it up as they go.
“Get over here.”
Michelle obliges.
This time, Willow kisses her. This time, it’s less hot and heavy, more sweet. She takes her time. She feels out the contours of Michelle’s face with her hands, traces the corner of her jawline, then sticks her fingers into her curls, pulling lightly. Michelle moans into her mouth and she feels the clutch of warmth at her center.
“Fuck,” she says into Michelle’s mouth with a vicious smile on her face.
Michelle laughs into her mouth in return and nothing has ever been better. Ever.
Then Michelle pushes her head back and drops her face to the underside of her chin, the soft, exposed skin of her throat. Willow can feel Michelle’s lips against her vibrate as she lets out a needy sound of her own.
“You,” Michelle says in between sucking lightly on her throat, “drive me fucking crazy.”
“You have no idea,” Willow replies, her voice deep, an utter wreck.
Michelle pulls back. And then they’re face to face again, both leaning in and resisting at once the gravity of each other’s lips.
When Willow glances at Michelle’s face, she sees something sad there.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, confused. This is good. Everything about this is good. Why is she sad?
“I’m sorry,” Michelle says. And it’s so sincere, it breaks Willow’s heart. “I didn’t— I was so scared I was too late.”
Willow presses a finger to Michelle’s lips and shushes her quietly, harmonizing with the rain.
“No, no, none of that. Not right now.” Kisses her.
Because they can talk about it later. Tonight she wants to hold Michelle through the slasher that she really has no right to be afraid of after all of the very real horror they’ve faced. She wants to eat shitty leftover lasagna and taste the tomato sauce on her tongue. She wants to get into bed with her and maybe do something a little more than sleep.
All of that is already more than enough. She just wants Michelle next to her. To stay there, by her side. She never thought she’d have this. She places a kiss on Michelle’s temple, her nose, her chin.
The rain drums on. The low rumble of thunder in the distance warns them it won't abate any time soon.
Some years ago, Willow tore down her sanctuary, sobbing in the rain. Back then, she’d thought that to grow up, she had to give everything up. Accept her circumstances. Experience loving Michelle only as grief.
Kissing Michelle here, safe from the downpour inside the car, feels like building a new sanctuary. Now, she can imagine a future. Now, she can dream. And really, in hindsight? Michelle’s something she never could have figured out how to quit.