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I think it's dark and it looks like rain, you said.
And the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world, you said.
“Stay.”
Toni knows that’s what Cheryl’s waiting to hear - knows that she doesn’t want to be the one to admit that she’d rather sleep on a sagging mattress under scratchy blankets than whatever two-hundred dollar Egyptian cotton sheets are dressing her bed on the Northside.
She watches as she presses her unstained lips together with another glance out of the window. At the edge of her lot is a pathetic excuse for a street lamp, but it casts just enough of a dull light that she can make out the gathering clouds above.
“Okay.” It’s quiet again. And then, “Thank you Toni. For everything.”
It’ll be the first time that she’s spent the night; she wants to believe that Cheryl wants to stay here more than she doesn’t want to go home, but she’s not blind enough to know that the edges must blur somewhere.
“You don’t have to thank-”
Cheryl’s hand comes to rest on her forearm. “- I do.”
Toni nods and it’s hard to swallow. She looks at her girl in that awful blue dress, her hair tied low in a ponytail and she’s so un -Cheryl-like that she’s unsure what to say. So she turns and walks the few feet to the trailer’s door in order to lock it. It’s as much a symbolic gesture as a necessity - and it must signify something to the girl in front of her, who steps closer, grazing her fingertips over Toni’s palm. The weight that had already been present before - the kind you get on a hot summer’s day as the sky is darkening and the clouds are rolling in - is now pressing down on the air so that it’s thick and heavy.
A clap of thunder echoes through the park. It’s followed by a crack of lightning and then bullets of rain which drum noisily against the thin walls. She watches Cheryl suck in a breath and then they collide.
Even now, she tastes like cherry-cola. She always tastes like cherry-cola.
Her breath is hot and it makes Toni’s skin burn in the most delicious way as they stumble blindly in the general direction of her bedroom. The light is dim in there too - dim enough that when the lightning strikes again, it lights up Cheryl’s face just long enough that she can see the darkness in her eyes. Can see the sharp angles of her cheekbones too - the place she always wants to run her fingers after shower sessions following Vixens practice.
They tumble onto the bed, but somehow it’s gentle (and they haven’t much time alone, but it almost always ends up this way - gentle - and Toni wonders if it’s as difficult as she thinks it must be to keep up the pretence of being so cold. So hard) She reaches to unwind the elastic from Cheryl’s hair, twisting it carefully around her fingers until the strands tumble loose and she can tuck a long lock of red hair behind her ear. She smiles and closes her eyes at the touch, and Toni feels her warmth literally seep out of her pores.
Such a contradiction, she thinks, and then kisses her again.
Hours later, as she’s combing through the silken strands of red and watching Cheryl’s chest rise and fall like a sleepy metronome, she hears the faint rumbling of her stomach. They haven’t eaten since their return from The Sisters’ and as much as Toni isn’t remotely hungry, she wonders whether anyone at that place fed her girl properly. She’s curled in towards her chest, lips parted and exhaling warm breaths that usually, Toni would want to steal for herself.
But not tonight.
She drops a gentle kiss to her forehead and slips out from under the sheets. The old, almost-ratty cardigan she loves is slung over one of the chairs by the kitchen table, and she pulls it around herself, shivering a little in the cool air. She’ll be grateful for the warmth of spring, she thinks, as she searches the cupboards quietly for something to make Cheryl should her hunger wake her.
There’s a box of mac and cheese, and for a moment, she doubts whether the girl in her bed has ever even glanced at it in a store before, let alone let the pasta pass her lips. Without leaving to find something at Riverdale’s late-night gas station though, it’s all she has.
(And she’s not leaving)
She’s reading the instructions on the back of the box like she hasn’t made the meal a hundred times before when her bedroom door creaks open and Cheryl appears. The expression on her face might be worse than the one Toni saw at The Sisters’. It’s so panicked and bereft of any kind of belief that she immediately sets the box down on the counter and crosses the space from the kitchen to the now-ajar door.
“I just thought -”
“- You were hungry,” she explains before she can finish the sentence where she tells Toni that she’d assumed she’d left her. “I was looking for something to make you.”
Cheryl’s lips tremble and she stills them with her thumb. “Is mac and cheese okay?”
Her eyes are watery but no tears fall. She swallows. “It’s perfect.”
“If you want to take a shower while I make it,” Toni offers. “There are clean towels in the closet.”
She doesn’t respond with anything more than a nod, and then allows herself to be led down the short hallway to the trailer’s only bathroom. It’s a far cry from Cheryl’s own house, Toni thinks, with its numerous decadent tubs and underfloor heating, but it’s safe.
She makes to head back out to the kitchen but Cheryl takes her hand, squeezing her fingers in a silent thank you. She nods, forces her lips into the smallest of smiles, and then says,
“I won’t let anybody take you from me.”
It’s startling in its possessiveness; in its simplicity.
Neither of them say anything else and Toni leaves as the water begins to splash the tiles.
Toni tips the cooked pasta into a single bowl and grabs two forks. Briefly, she wonders whether she should boil the kettle to fill a hot water bottle: it’s damn near freezing and she refuses to let the girl changing into one of her t-shirts and wearing a pair of her black panties in order to climb into her bed, catch a cold.
(And then she thinks about how she might generate enough heat to warm her bones in other ways, and the kettle remains unused atop the stove)
She remembers the day Jughead broke up with Betty - or, more accurately, Archie broke up with Jughead for Betty. She remembers the look in his eyes: complete emptiness existing beneath bruised skin, but it didn’t compare to this.
And yet. And yet, Cheryl can still smile at her with such warmth that it makes Toni’s throat ache around the lump that’s sitting there.
“You’re so tiny ChaCha,” she says quietly, a hint of amusement ghosting at her lips. “Not much fits my body.”
“I think,” Toni begins, attempting to keep her voice level. “I think you look perfect like that.”
They both settle on the mattress, propped up by the slightly lumpy pillows, with the bowl resting between them. They spear the macaroni without the need for talking. When a rogue crack of thunder interrupts the sound of forks against the stoneware, Cheryl shifts a little closer, and Toni lifts the bowl so that their sides are touching.
“Tell me they didn’t do anything to you,” she whispers once she’s moved the bowl and forks to the single nightstand. The rain starts up again outside, rattling against the window like it’s seeking out the warmth of the bed too.
Cheryl rests her cheek on the flip side of her palm and blinks in the lamplight. “I’m okay.”
“Cheryl -”
“- Please don’t,” she pleads. “I can block it out.”
Toni closes her eyes against the pricking sensation and feels the girl beside her lace their fingers together. They sigh on the same beat, and when her eyelids lift, she sees Cheryl moving to close what little space is left between them.
Her lips are pillow-soft and that creamy-white skin of hers is smooth as silk under her fingertips, which inch beneath the dark t-shirt. Lightly, she grazes them over the flat expanse of Cheryl’s stomach, higher and higher until they reach the curve of her breast.
They roll gently - Cheryl onto her back and Toni so she’s settled over her. It’s further than they’ve ever gone before but it’s nowhere near far enough. Toni continues to kiss her, and then, with the pad of her thumb, strokes inwards towards the pebble of her nipple.
She hears her soft sigh as she rolls her thumb over the hardened peak, and swallows it inside of her own mouth - greedy for as much as her as she can get. Their other hands are still joined, resting beside Cheryl’s damp hair, and Toni carefully extracts her fingers so that she can stroke the ridge of her cheekbone.
“I haven’t…” Cheryl breaks their kiss to gasp, her body arching upwards into Toni’s touch.
“I know.”
She wants to say something about how she’s so glad she gets to be her first, but she’d rather show her appreciation; save the words for all the questions she has about everything before their worlds collided.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” Toni instructs in a whisper. Cheryl nods and raises her arms so that she can lift the shirt over her head. Her mouth waters in anticipation, and she’s never been so glad of the soft lamplight as she is now. She pauses right before she’s about to dip her head to Cheryl’s chest, and one of her long fingers reaches to trace her face.
“I never told you how beautiful you are,” Cheryl says quietly, fingering a lock of her hair. She tucks it gently behind Toni’s ear and suddenly, that lump from earlier is back and threatening to starve her of oxygen.
In the end, she closes her eyes and drops her lips to Cheryl’s collarbone.
Everything after that is instinct.
Sometimes you make me feel
Like I'm living at the edge of the world
It's just the way I smile, you said.