A/N: I'm really in love with the idea of Laurel and Michaela together, and after tonight's episode I realized that I won't be seeing them anew on my screen again until FEBRUARY so I decided to write this little thing. Let me know what you think!
Laurel sat on the floor with her back leaned against the edge of Michaela's bed, up to her elbows in stacks of books, folders, and notepads, laptop balanced on her thighs. She shuffled through the mountain of paperwork for a specific note on Obergefell v. Hodges.
"What was… what was Chief Justice Roberts' primary point in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges? I can't find my notes on it."
"I don't care," Connor said from the other side of the room without looking up from his computer.
"Me either," Michaela agreed, running a highlighter through her textbook.
They had been researching and studying for the last eight hours without much in the way of a break, and at this point at least half of their questions were answered the same way: I don't care.
"I think I'm done for today," Connor said ten minutes later, closing his textbook. "You guys want to go down to Two Fat Bastards for a beer?
"I've still got too much to do before tomorrow," Michaela said with an absent shake of the head, and Laurel sighed.
"Me too," she agreed. "Sorry, next time."
"Alright," Connor said, shoving the last of his belongings into his bag. "I'll see you ladies tomorrow then." He walked past them, ruffling Laurel's hair and flicking the top of Michaela's ear playfully on his way out. In his absence, they continued with their work, the only sound between them the sound of pages turning, computer keys clacking, and the occasional protracted sigh.
Another hour passed them by, and Laurel was surprised to find that it was past 11 o'clock. Had they really been working for almost ten hours? It felt like they had barely covered any ground, and there were only so many hours until their Civ Law final, the one last roadblock standing between them and Christmas. Laurel leaned her head back onto Michaela's bed and closed her eyes. Michaela, who was on her stomach with her head at the end of the bed, reached forward and gave Laurel a little shove.
"Don't fall asleep," Michaela said without looking up from her textbook. Michaela was so wired on caffeine, Laurel didn't think she'd be able to sleep until sometime next week.
"I'm not," Laurel lied. "I'm just resting my eyes." Michaela scoffed, but smiled.
"Okay," she said, knowing full well that Laurel, the nap queen, would be asleep in less than five minutes. She wasn't wrong—soon Laurel's breathing became soft and quiet, mouth opening slightly. She found herself distracted, eyes tracing the gentle slope of her forehead, her small nose, the curve of her lip, around her chin and down… well, down quite far enough. She caught herself and forced her eyes back down to her notepad, twirling her pen in her fingers.
More and more lately, she found herself staring absently at Laurel's profile, or the back of her head, or traveling the length of her legs when she wore that one pleated skirt of hers. At first she thought she was admiring her outfit, or her makeup, or the way she carried herself, something. But more and more she realized that she wasn't just admiring her, she was kind of, well…
She pursed her lips together and sighed, shaking her head a little. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. In 8th grade it was Mark Bigby, a handsome mixed boy with bright green eyes that everyone called 'Swirl' as a joke. They dated for two years. Junior year, it was Sam Williams, a tall, gangly dark boy who was disappointingly terrible at basketball, but great at debate. They also dated for two years. Sophomore year of college, she met Aiden, a man in her Micro Econ class who she was sure would become president one day.
She was so sure that even though she suspected he might not be entirely straight (or attracted to women at all) she stayed. When she realized that her initial suspicions were right, she still stayed. She saw herself riding that train all the way to the White House, no matter what, and despite the quiet desperation she felt herself sinking into, she simply pushed it out of her mind and stared down at her enormous ring, imagining herself a younger Michelle Obama or Jackie O.
"Michaela, you can't stay with him just because he might become president one day," Laurel said to her from across the café table, taking a short sip of her coffee. "You deserve to be with someone who makes you happy, and you're not gonna be happy with a gay husband." Michaela new she was right, but didn't give her the satisfaction of admitting it. Laurel could tell, though, and her eyes glittered with a smile as she raised the coffee cup to her lips. Something inside Michaela stirred, though she couldn't put her finger on it then.
Even now, with Caleb, she was much less happy than she thought she would be. She had pined after him throughout the entire case, and now that she had him, she still felt empty. The orgasm was good, sure, but there was no lingering softness afterwards, no real sense of affection. He had, in fact, texted her four times since they started studying, and she had not responded to any of them. She would tell him she was busy, that her phone was put away, that it was on silent and she never knew he was reaching out to her. She could be invisible. She had been invisible to Aiden, she could be invisible to Caleb. She knew how to be invisible. She was so, so good at it. Even as she stood up in front of a class of a hundred, she was invisible.
(When Laurel glanced at her, asked to borrow a pen, popped her gum, and oh, oh, in the bells of her laughter at the bar or after yoga, Michaela could not be invisible. She was dead center, she was standing at the front of the class in her underwear, she was on every screen in America, she was so, so, so visible. She could not hide.)
Michaela rubbed her eyes and looked down at her watch. It was almost midnight. She wondered whether she should wake Laurel and send her home, but truly, she didn't want to. She pushed her laptop aside and laid her head down in her arms, turned towards Laurel, watching her chest rise and fall rhythmically. Past her, out the window and across the street, the building across from hers was decked out in Christmas lights, rainbow bulbs turning into blurry pinpricks as she yawned and her eyes watered. She reasoned that the world wouldn't end if she closed her eyes for just a minute…
Laurel jerked awake with a start when something popped loudly behind her. It took her a moment to realize where she was; the room was now pitch black, save for the light from the streetlights and the Christmas lights on the deli across the street. The popping sound she heard, she slowly realized, was the lightbulb in the lamp on Michaela's bedside table blowing out. It had been flickering on and off before she fell asleep, and it seemed that it finally met its maker.
She turned to her right and saw Michaela in the dark, fast asleep, face gently illuminated by the soft glow of the lights outside. Laurel smiled; this was a way she rarely got to see Michaela, in soft light, quiet and unaffected. Usually she was constantly buzzing, on caffeine or adrenaline or just by nature of her personality. Laurel didn't know if she had ever seen her just be.
She looked down at the screen of her phone lighting up. It was Frank, again. He had texted her a few hours before, which had gone unanswered. It wasn't in his nature to text her more than once in a row, so he must have been especially horny. She turned her phone over and looked back up at Michaela's sleeping face.
Once upon a time, she would have leaped to respond to a guy's message. It was probably because of her father, the way he was, how she always had to please him. If he said jump, the only proper response was "How high?" There was a time when she would have thrown herself out of the third story window for him, he only had to ask.
In fact, she hadn't done a single thing to displease her father until she was thirteen, and that wasn't even intentional. It was midsummer and her best friend Serena had come over to play tennis. It was so insufferably hot that after the game, both girls had jumped into the pool in their tennis clothes. They climbed out and sat on the edge of the pool, laughing and chatting. Serena grabbed her hand and held it, face flushing intensely. Laurel didn't mind. After a few minutes she rested her head on Serena's shoulder, and the girl turned and kissed the top of her head. She looked up at her, and before she knew it, they were kissing. It was her first kiss—she was behind all the other girls in her grade, and had never known how to say that she just didn't like boys. Not like they did, anyway.
She had no idea how long they had been kissing, but what seemed like a moment later, she heard something glass shatter on the patio behind her. Both girls jumped up and turned to find Laurel's father standing in the patio doorway with Serena's father, who was still holding onto his glass but looked equally as mortified. Her dad started screaming in Spanish, and it wasn't until he said he wouldn't have a lesbiana for a daughter that Laurel even realized why boys had never been on her radar. After her father threw Serena out of the house Laurel had cried for hours, swearing up and down that she wasn't gay (which she didn't know was true or not), that Serena had kissed her (only half of the truth), that she wasn't attracted to women (a lie), and that she didn't even want to see Serena again (a heartbreaking lie). A few weeks later, however, Serena did not return to their private school, and when Laurel tried calling her, the phone only ever went to voicemail.
Ever since then, Laurel had done everything in her power to assure her father that she was, in his words, "a normal girl." She picked up a boyfriend, who she dated for all four years of high school—it was easy to pretend because neither of them, it turned out, actually wanted to date someone of the opposite sex. So Hasan had a boyfriend on the side, Laurel threw herself into her work, and as far as everyone else knew they were a happy, glowing couple. When she went to Brown, she threw herself into her work, and her father never knew the difference.
She sighed. Frank was a good man—he was kind and handsome and had even brought her to meet his family. There was no good reason not to love him, but she just didn't. She tried to make herself feel the attraction, she really did, but it simply wasn't there. She could see that he was attractive, but he didn't make her all tingly, didn't make her heart flutter, didn't make her feel all the things she felt when Serena kissed her at the pool over ten years ago. She was sure that if she just found the right man, she would feel it, but she never did. And now Frank was so into her, and she was so not into him, and it weighed on her more and more by the day.
Then there was Michaela. She was beautiful, and smart, and sharp, and passionate, and Laurel simply loved everything about her, in a way she never loved everything about Frank, or Hasan, or any boy she had ever kissed in a corner at a party to keep up the ruse that she was "normal." She loved to listen to her debate in class, to watch her as she flipped through case notes at the office, to stare at her back when they did yoga, the way she arched and stretched into the moves, the way her mouth opened slightly when she threw her weight into it, the quiet moan deep in her throat. It was enough to make Laurel infinitely thankful that you can't see a lady-boner through a girl's pants.
And sometimes, lately, she felt like she could feel Michaela's eyes on the back of her neck, but when she turned around, she was staring resolutely at her notebook. Sometimes, in the midst of fluttering pages as the Keating Five worked a case, they would make eye contact across the room and just stare at each other. Eventually one of them would smile, and the other would smile back, then they would look back down again. Laurel couldn't believe she was the only one who felt something, but she was sure Michaela had to be straight—she had only ever shown interest in men before, though Laurel's subconscious was quick to point out that so had she. She was, for all intents and purposes, as straight as Michaela seemed, and that was clearly not true in the slightest.
But how could she know otherwise? How could she ever segue into asking Michaela if she was into women? The closest she had ever come to talking about her own sexuality was when she drunkenly told Connor to back off Michaela because she wanted her, and everyone thought that was an off the cuff drunk remark, not anything serious. If only they knew she had been wanting to say that since the day they met.
Suddenly, Michaela's eyes opened. Laurel jumped and threw her hands up.
"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," she whispered, though she wasn't sure why. Michaela gave a sleepy laugh.
"Sorry," she said, stretching her arms out in front of her. "How long was I out?"
"I dunno, you were asleep when I woke up. The lightbulb popped," Laurel said, explaining the darkness. Michaela nodded and rolled over to the edge of the bed, rising to her feet.
"I figured, it was about to go," she said. "You want more coffee?"
"Sure," Laurel said, eager for any reason to stick around. Michaela disappeared around the corner, then came back a minute later with two mugs in her hands.
"Black, right?" she said, and Laurel nodded, taking the one offered to her.
"Thanks," she said. Michaela crawled up into bed and sat with her back against the wall, patting the mattress next to her. Laurel was happy to acquiesce, feeling (and hearing) her joints crack as she stood up. She had been sitting cross-legged for hours, and didn't realize how stiff she was until she tried to move.
"God, you sound like rice krispies," Michaela said as Laurel scooted up next to her on the bed.
"I'm an old woman, what can I say?" Laurel joked, to which Michaela responded with a grin. Laurel looked down at Michaela's lips, and it took her a moment to realize she was staring. She cleared her throat and turned back to her coffee, staring down into the mug nervously. Michaela also turned her gaze back down to her coffee, and they sat in silence for a minute, neither of them drinking, just staring, caught in their individual thoughts. Laurel realized they were still sitting in the dark, as neither one had thought to turn on another light.
Michaela's phone buzzed between them, shocking them both into the present.
"Caleb?" Laurel asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
"Yeah," Michaela said, not hiding her disappointment at all. Laurel looked up at her with intrigue.
"What does that mean?" she asked. Michaela sighed.
"I just… I guess I'm just not feeling it," she said.
"Really? I thought you were happy you two were finally together," Laurel asked. Michaela shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "I thought I would be, and don't get me wrong, the sex was great, but I just… I thought I'd feel more, you know? I thought it would be like, wow, and it's not. It felt like a one-night stand, I just didn't care at all."
"Oh," Laurel said, not knowing how to respond. She assumed that cheering would be a bad reaction, even though that was sort of how she felt inside.
"Yeah," Michaela said. "So I guess I'm going to end that. No use staying in a relationship that you know is doomed from the start, right?"
"Uh," Laurel said, suddenly feeling a little panicky. "Yeah, yeah you're right, there's no point in that." Michaela looked up and met her eyes, and Laurel was surprised to see that she looked just as nervous. They both quickly looked back down at their coffee.
They drank it in silence for a few minutes, when Laurel suddenly felt like she might be sick. She knew the feeling well—it was the feeling she usually got right before she was about to blurt something out. She had felt it in the first day of class when she cut Wes off and got chewed out by Annalise in front of everyone, and now it was coming again…
"I'm gay."
Yep, there it was.
Michaela looked up, shocked.
"Wait, what? Really?" Laurel took a few steadying breaths and nodded, reaching out to set her coffee on the nightstand. She felt like she would drop it if she kept it in her hands.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I am. I'm gay." The feeling was gone now, and it was being replaced by something that felt like redemption. Something she had worked so hard to shove down into the depths of her twelve years ago was finally free. There was no hiding anymore, and she felt freer than she had in years. Maybe in her entire life.
"Wow," Michaela said, setting her drink on top of the book case next to her. "Well, wow, okay. Does anyone else know?"
"No," Laurel said, voice shaking even though she wasn't nervous anymore. It was more out of excitement than anything. "You're the first person I've told." She saw Michaela smiling at her out of the corner of her eye; she shimmied in close to Laurel and and rested her head on her shoulder.
"I'm really glad you told me," she said quietly, rubbing Laurel's arm comfortingly. "When are you going to tell Frank?"
"Oh God," Laurel said, not realizing the full extent of what admitting this actually meant. "I have to tell Frank now, oh God, ohhhh God…"
"Hey," Michaela said, picking up her head so she could look Laurel in the eye. She reached out and grabbed Laurel's hand in her lap, squeezing it tight. "You don't have to tell anyone you don't want to. You can just tell Frank you aren't feeling it anymore. You don't owe him, or anyone, any kind of explanation." Laurel nodded, slowly and then more vigorously.
"You're right," she said. "I don't have to tell him why, I can just tell him I don't think it's going to work out. And that's not a lie, I mean, it's definitely not going to work out."
"Exactly," Michaela said. Laurel used her free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. "But you know, when you're ready, I think telling people might be a good idea. You shouldn't feel like you have to hide who you are from anybody. You're great, being into girls doesn't change that." Laurel opened her eyes and turned to see her properly; Michaela was giving her an uncharacteristically sweet smile.
"You're right," Laurel said, unable to help herself from smiling back. It was so infectious, like her laugh. "I will, when I'm ready."
"When you're ready," Michaela repeated. The girls looked at each other for a few seconds, then Michaela set her head back down on Laurel's shoulder, still holding onto her hand. Neither of them wanted to let go, though neither one knew that of the other. They sat in silence for a while; without the passing of the sun, Laurel didn't know how long. It was so long that, for a moment, Laurel wondered if Michaela had fallen asleep. She did not know that Michaela was wondering the same thing.
"It's late," Laurel whispered.
"Yeah," Michaela said, not contributing anything further.
"I… I don't want to go," Laurel barely squeaked. Michaela intensified her grip on Laurel's hand.
"I don't want you to," she said.
"Good," was all Laurel could think to say.
"I do want to lay down though," Michaela whispered. "I'm getting really tired, and we have Civ Law in the morning." It took Laurel a second to realize this was a sideways offer to stay the night. She nodded and Michaela hesitantly let go of her hand, scooting off the bed and walking across the room to the dresser, where she pulled out two t-shirts and two pairs of shorts. She tossed one of each to Laurel, who realized she was expected to change. She didn't know if she should offer to leave the room or not—what's the expectation when you tell your friend you're gay and then you have to change clothes? But Michaela pulled off her shirt and flung it across the room into the hamper before Laurel could worry further about it.
She tried not to stare as Michaela undressed, but it was extraordinarily difficult not to do. She turned slightly so she wouldn't be looking directly at her, but followed the curves of her body out of the corner of her eye. Her bra was green and incredibly sparse; her underwear were purple, and ditto. She unbuttoned the front of her shirt slowly, and realized that Michaela had stopped moving. She was just standing in the middle of the room, and though she appeared to be staring out the window, Laurel realized that Michaela was giving her a sidelong look, following her hands as they moved down the front of her shirt. She blushed intensely, and was thankful that they were in the dark.
Changed into nightclothes, Laurel stood up and pulled back the covers. They crawled into bed and both laid on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. It took everything Laurel had in her not to reach out and grab Michaela by the face and plant one on her. Feeling her lying next to her, breathing deep, lips pressed together, it was driving her crazy. Michaela suddenly turned on her side to face Laurel, propping her head up on one arm.
"So why did you start dating Frank in the first place if you weren't attracted to him?" she asked. Laurel faced her, arm under her head, looking up into Michaela's dark eyes. They were incredibly close now, their faces, less than a foot apart. She could almost feel Michaela's breath.
"I don't know," Laurel admitted. "I guess I thought that if I found a great guy and just tried hard enough, I could make it work." Michaela sighed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That must have been hard."
"It was," Laurel admitted, tracing small figure-8's on the sheets between them. "I've always tried so hard to be perfect for my dad, and I didn't realize until, well, until just now, that I was losing so much of myself in the process." Michaela reached out and put her hand over Laurel's, stilling her movement.
"I think… I think you're perfect just the way you are." Laurel smiled, and Michaela, who looked terrified by the words that had just come out of her mouth, smiled back.
"You're just saying that," Laurel teased, and Michaela gave her a would-be insulted look before bursting into laughter.
"I'm not!" she said. She gave a brief pause before continuing. "I do. I really do, Laurel. I think you're… incredible." She finally landed on the last word with a sigh. Laurel took her hand out from underneath Michaela's and reached out to brush a piece of hair out of Michaela's face, tucking it gently behind her ear. She looked down at the mattress, no longer able to maintain eye contact with Laurel.
"I think you're really, really incredible too," Laurel admitted. Michaela looked up, something like surprise playing across her face. Laurel had to take a deep breath before she could force the next words out. "I have since the day we met."
"In Keating's class?" Michaela asked. Laurel shook her head.
"The day before class started, you were in line behind me at Starbucks. I dropped my change and you bent down and picked it up for me." Michaela thought back, then memory dawned on her face.
"Oh my gosh, you're right!" she said. "I didn't even realize that." Laurel nodded with a smile.
"Yep," she said. "So that, that was when I saw you and thought, wow, she's something." Michaela locked eyes with her and Laurel suddenly felt very embarrassed. She looked down, but Michaela reached out and put a finger beneath her chin, gently forcing Laurel's gaze back up.
"You don't have to look away," she said softly. The look between them was now so intense that Laurel could barely stand it. She had never felt this way before, this intense, like she was buzzing with it. Michaela clearly felt it too, because she scooted forward, closing the gap between them, and with her hand on Laurel's cheek, kissed her forehead gently. She pulled her face back slightly and Laurel looked up so that they were nose to nose, breath mingling between them, Michaela's hand still on her cheek. Laurel didn't know what to do with her hands—she didn't know what to do at all.
Fuck it.
She bridged the space between their lips and kissed Michaela, first softly, then with increasing fervor. It was like falling out of the sky; her stomach was in her throat, her tongue was in Michaela's mouth, and her hands had moved on their own to pull the other girl nearly on top of her. They carried on like that for a minute, before Michaela pulled back and looked down at Laurel. She was grinning, and Laurel was too, without even trying. She always had to make herself smile at Frank when he pulled back to survey her; with Michaela, there was no effort involved, it was as natural as breathing.
"I've wanted to do that for a long time," Laurel said. Michaela laughed.
"I've wanted you to do that for a long time," she admitted.
"I had no idea," Laurel said.
"Me either," Michaela echoed.
"Think of how much earlier we could've done that if we hadn't been such idiots," Laurel mused aloud. Michaela ran her fingers through the hair fanning out around her face and sighed.
"Well, I think we can make up for lost time," she said, leaning in to nip Laurel's bottom lip playfully. She rested her thumbs beneath the waistband of Michaela's boxers.
"Oh yeah?" she said. Michaela reached down and placed her hand on Laurel's stomach, then under her shirt on her stomach, casually walking her fingers north.
"Oh yeah."