Chapter Text
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH, 1993.
Michelle wakes up with a gasp. She quickly sits up in her bed and tries to heave a breath to use from her tired lungs. The screams of the nightmares are drifting slowly from her mind, giving her a quiet sense of ease. Will’s screams. Always Will’s. It’s like she can never escape the fact her best friend went through every horror imaginable and she couldn’t ever see it. She couldn’t save her from anything. It makes her face burn with a fury she hasn’t felt in a long while. Not since everything with Vecna and Max and.. just.. everything.
She turns her head to look at the clock’s time and it shines a bright 7:25 A.M. in her eyes. Shit. She has only 20 fucking minutes to get ready for school. She feels her body go into autopilot immediately, her brain forgetting about what her nightmare was even about as she scrambles to move from her bed. Right as she gets up and starts frantically searching through her closet for clothes to wear, she hears a sharp knock and yell from her sister Nancy behind the door.
“Michelle! I know you aren’t awake yet, so get up!”
Michelle makes a groan that's loud enough for Nancy to hear on purpose. “I know! I know! Jesus…”.
She quickly scans her fingers across her clothes. She knows if she doesn’t wear something at least a little girlish her mom will freak. Deliberating on what she wears she decides to grab her instinctual outfit. Blue sweater, white patterned skirt with her converse. As she basically throws on her clothes, she runs out her bedroom door, hurrying into the bathroom. She hurls herself into her short makeup routine, mascara, lipgloss, etc. She brushes her hair and starts to put it up into something resembling Nancy in her freshmen year. Half of her hair tied back into a nice looking clip. After she’s done, she takes a second to look at herself and make sure there aren't any imperfections. She nods. Okay.. she looks.. decent. Especially for only having 20 minutes, she’s actually proud of herself.
A harsh knocking interrupts her thoughts, “Michelle get out here! You have 5 minutes left!”
“Coming!”
Michelle’s basically a whirlwind that leaves their kitchen in just 3 minutes to run out to Will’s car, who has to drive her to school because Michelle’s been vehemently against getting her license.
“Have a good day!” she hears her mom yell in the distance.
Michelle runs out the door to find Will’s car sitting in the driveway, waiting for her already. She instinctively starts to head for the front passenger seat, but her eyes catch the sight of Elliot sitting in the backseat. What? Isn’t this supposed to be just Michelle and Will? What’s he doing here? She opens the backseat door and climbs in.
“Elliot? What are you doing here?” she says with almost a hint of annoyance.
“I’m here because.. uh Dad wouldn’t drop me off today. Said something about just going to Joyce’s early so he could “spend more time” with her today.” he says quietly in the way he always answers questions.
“Oh.” she catches Will’s reaction to the words, whose face morphed into a grimace.
“Well.. I mean. Okay cool! Yeah.. that’s totally fine. Sorry I was just confused.” She says with a slight laugh. Why is she being so weird about this? It’s just Elliot. Will and Elliot are basically siblings anyways so they are together all the time and constantly in the same car. It’s just odd because it’s a change in routine. That’s all, it’s just a change in routine.
“Alright, can you put your seatbelt on?” Will says not unkindly and with the quiet timber of her voice.
Michelle shifts into gear immediately doing as Will says, grabbing her seatbelt. “Yeah! Sorry! I’ve been all over the place this morning.” She meets Will’s green hazel eyes in the rearview mirror.
Will laughs quietly “Yeah I can tell. You seem.. frazzled.”
Michelle just sighs a laugh in response.
As they arrive at school, the car is quiet. The radio is quietly playing a song Michelle knows Will loves. ‘Good Sister - Bad Sister’ by the band Hole. Michelle really doesn’t understand Will’s obsession with their album Pretty On The Inside but she guesses she has no room to judge Will’s music taste. Michelle turns her head to face the window as they pull up to the parking lot. Will slowly backs into her designated parking spot and Michelle stares. Stares at the way Will has bags underneath her eyes and how her blue puffy jacket seems to swallow her whole. She hopes Will is okay, because it looks like she had a rough night. Though… she’s looked this way for about a month now. But she sees Will didn’t even put mascara on, which is typically her only makeup.
Will looks behind and makes eye contact with Michelle which has her scrambling to look away, which leads her to looking next to her. At her boyfriend. He smiles and she sends a reluctant responding smile back at him. Will just looks tired and sighs out “Well.. I guess we are here now.” Elliot just nods and climbs out of the car while Will turns the car off. Michelle follows in Elliot’s actions and gets out of the car. Will locks the door and immediately the cold Indiana air hits them.
Will quickly wraps her arms up around herself and fast walks inside. “Oh my god it’s cold today.” Elliot snorts. “Im surprised you can even feel the cold especially with how many layers you have on.” Will just makes a side glance at him, and her eyes drift towards Michelle’s. “How are you not freezing? You are wearing a skirt and one sweater.”
Michelle just smiles and does a slight shrug. “I’m just better than you guys I guess. But it’s honestly not that cold.. Are you like okay?” She says with genuine concern. Will just stares at her, like the sudden asking if she’s okay had her mind buffering like one of their school computers. Michelle waits for a response, but as they enter the building, Will’s response is drowned out by the immediate change of noise level from everybody chatting. Elliot then takes her hand and Michelle feels her mind immediately alter to adjust to his behavior. She wraps her hand around his and gives him a smile, but she can feel the clamminess and sweat already starting to form. She wants to pull away so badly, but she knows that if she does it’ll just be awkward and make problems. She also.. doesn’t want Will to notice her doing that. She doesn’t really understand why it matters that Will sees it, but it does matter so.
They walk together as a trio going to Will’s locker where they find 3 other people waiting on them. Lucas, Dustin and Max. They quickly spot the other 3 and start to wave in unison. Will lets out a slight smile as she walks up to her locker. “Hey guys.” Will says soft and gentle. Like she always does. The tenseness of her voice from “the cold” is gone and now only the low soft sound is left. It’s like music to Michelle’s ears to hear it so close to her. She feels lucky to know somebody who is so gentle and kind and.. What the fuck. Stop it.
“Hey!” Lucas answers back way louder and brighter. Dustin also waves a hello, while Max nods. “So why is there a meet and greet at my locker?” Will says sarcastically. “Obviously because everybody is just dying to get inside the infamous Willow Byer’s head duh?” Max snorts. Will lets out a sigh and moves to get into the middle of the group to open her locker.
“Seriously though.. Why are you guys just sitting here?”
“Well because.. We saw somebody.. slip something into your locker.” Dustin grins manically. Will side eyes him and then opens the locker. A note falls out and quickly falls to the floor. Lucas and Dustin make a grab for it before Will’s tired brain can even seem to catch up, which makes Michelle concerned for her. Will’s an extremely anxious person, especially when learning somebody put something in her locker. She’s a fast but quiet person, most of the time people don’t even realize she was there until she left. But Michelle always notices, and that’s why she notices how long it took for Will to even process the fact that the note fell on the ground. By the time Lucas and Dustin had lifted their heads and bodies back up, Will had begun her descent to pick it up.
Lucas and Dustin are like hyenas opening this letter. They immediately start giggling and Max quickly cranes her head and smiles viciously. “Oooooo… somebody’s got an invite to a house tonight.” Max and Lucas simultaneously wiggle their eyebrows. Will frowns slightly and sighs. “Is it another party invite from Chance?” Michelle wishes she could move from her spot but Elliot’s hand feels like it's holding her still. Like she can’t move yet, not until they let go of each other.
Elliot just smiles. “That's so exciting Will! You should totally go this time.” Will just looks away awkwardly. Obviously Will doesn’t want to go, and she never will want to in Michelle’s eyes. “This guy seriously needs to learn how to take no for an answer. You obviously don’t want to go.” Michelle snarks out. Losing control of herself for a moment.
Lucas gives Michelle a look, which she responds to. “What! Will obviously doesn’t want to go and he has no need to even send her anything anymore. He’s being creepy at this point.”
“Ignoring that part, can we talk about this as a chance for all of us to go to a party?” Dustin grins. Elliot’s eyes brighten and so does Lucas. Max has an indifferent reaction towards the party and was more excited about the fact Will has once again another infamous note in her locker. “Will! Come on, we have to go now! This is finally something we can all go to.” Elliot says excitedly.
Michelle finally truly looks at her friend. She takes in her friend's appearance. The eye bags, the frown, the thinness of her face that wasn’t there at the beginning of October. Michelle furrows her eyebrows as she has the opportunity to take in her friend for the first time in a while. She guesses she hasn’t really looked at her. She’s been busy with spending time with her boyfriend. Trying to have fun and live normally, but now all she does is feel concerned about the obvious rapid decline of her best friend. Will’s eyes become shifty as she struggles to form words against the party’s united front. “I.. I guess it’s fine. Maybe just this one time will be okay?”
Michelle starts to shake her head no, but she gets interrupted by the school bell. Indicating their time to leave and go. Elliot finally lets go of her hand and she feels like she can move again. However, by the time that Michelle starts to ask Will about her general okayness, Will’s already gone. Walking away from them towards her class. So Michelle follows suit. Drifting along in the hallways and trying to erase the feeling of Elliot’s hand clamping around hers as she enters her first class of the day.