Chapter Text
Staring at her dirtied reflection in the mirror of Hopper’s bathroom, Nancy comes to the realization that she’s lost the ability to distinguish the changing facets of herself with the passing years. There are some things that can’t change— like her smile, or her permanently furrowed brows, or the overladen weight of her own stare, suffocating everything even when it means not to, her own self not excluded— and she knows that, but the way her body moves renders itself entirely unfamiliar to her sometimes. A foreign being apart from the fixture of her mind, her bony ligaments contract just beyond her.
Nancy shifts stiffly, gaze fixed on the reflection staring back at her. She used to be gentle. She used to be caring, hands feathery light and almost afraid of leaving a real mark on anybody, even though it was really all she wanted deep down, to be remembered - and now her veins run down her arms like cracks in pavement, pulsing furiously at things and memories and burdens unbeknownst even to her. She carries herself like she might crack at any moment, either on behalf of her own actions or of those around her, and maybe she has gotten scared of touching people now. Of hurting them with these clumsy hands, these boring eyes of hers.
If anything, she can hurt herself and at least know the casualty will be confined to the confines of her own lonely, worn skin. Bruised and battered, she’ll stand victorious knowing that her mottled skin remains on one surface, felt only by her. So long as she holds only herself, and knows to touch no one, she will keep all others safe. She will not end up a reason for someone else’s demise.
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The alcohol pours in a slow-moving river down her abdomen, catching on the wounded skin and sticking to it as though trying to hold on, to brand her with its acrid blaze. The burn lingers long after it should, and she feels it beyond just the flesh wound, clawing its way towards her lungs. Alone, she sits, and it's all too familiar, the controlled reaction, the silent gasps of pain muffled by her knuckles digging themselves into her mouth. The inability to feel anything other than some distant awareness as to what will happen next in the dark of the bathroom, as it always has, and, in Nancy’s mind, always will.
Each breath aches and Nancy struggles to remain at ease. She clutches aimlessly at porcelain, hands landing on the sink, squeezing her eyes shut.
Reality has begun to slip away. Nancy inhales through her mouth in quiet, hoarse pants. The shadows behind Nancy’s eyelids sway in her peripheral vision, moving just slowly enough for her to question their existence. They’re nothing, and she knows they’re nothing, but— last time anything like this happened, she had just gotten out of the Upside-Down and tried to take a shower. Her mind, cruel and always looking to find the source of all things (even her own panic), supplies her with the image of the demogorgon that had hunted her.
She slumps forward from her spot on the toilet, head in her hands. The isopropyl alcohol clatters to the floor, splashing across the tiles. She forces her eyes open. Nothing.
Flashes of Vecna paralyze her, suddenly, even with her eyes open.
Fuck, please, not again. Not this again. She begs to whoever will listen to her— to her mind, to God, to anyone.
She closes her eyes once more. The bats, their beady eyes inches away as they swarmed her earlier in the unending twilight, barrage her mind.
At a loss, she digs her fists into her eyes, knuckles trying to burrow the memories out with desperation. All that comes of her efforts is Barbara: how her mouth hung open, and that centipede crawled out, a million legs traversing the rotting lifelessness of her forgotten carcass. Nightmare after nightmare pulses through her ruinous, crumbling mindscape, not a single thought able to calm her.
She can’t breathe. Her lungs grasp around nothingness, airflow stifled, and she tries to stay calm, to remain within control, but how can she know any of this is even happening? What if somewhere along the line Vecna has taken over Nancy’s thoughts and started showing her every horror lying out there in the warped world beyond these thin, shitty cabin walls she’s hidden in like a coward? Or, even worse—
“Nancy?”
Robin pounds on the door. Nancy hears herself choking, coughing, struggling to breathe through her panic. She doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t even try to speak— she thinks she might not be able to.
“Nancy, I heard you drop something! Are you okay?”
When did he infiltrate her mind? When? She traces herself back to the beginning desperately, like rewinding a cassette, like looking for her own sound mind in the havoc, stray tears falling onto the ceramic. It couldn’t have been the thoughts about Vecna. It must’ve been Barbara, again. He always circles back to her, maybe because Nancy can’t move on from her. Maybe because she’s found herself another person to rely on, and it’s even scarier now knowing she could just as easily lose her again in the same way she did Barb all those years ago.
“I’m coming in!”
The door creaks open and Nancy doesn’t move.
She tastes salt on her tongue, dripping past her lips and her chin in fat, chunky streaks. She wants her mom, and the thought only worsens the ache of her own silent crying, face buried in her hands. She wants to not know anything, and she wants to be a little, defenseless thing. She wants to be held. She doesn’t know why she wants the same things she despises receiving in her worst moments, more than anything else, though. The confusion and frustration at not knowing herself like she knows all other things overtakes every sense of logic left in Nancy’s body.
Robin rushes to her. Nancy hears her come close, hands settling on her shoulders, and she jolts away. Silence, for a second. “Nance, it’s— it’s just me. What happened?”
Max had said something about things like this, not that long ago. About how Vecna warps people's realities and takes those they care about most, turns them into all that you might want most in the moment— only to disappear right when you let yourself believe something good has happened to you; or that you’ve finally stumbled across a single piece of happiness after weeks of wishing for the world to notice you. To hold you.
Nancy can feel the heat of Robin’s hands hovering around her face, unsure of whether to touch her or not, and terror flares in Nancy’s chest. Nancy’s going to hurt Robin, and Robin’s going to vanish, because Robin’s not real. Neither of them are, Nancy is beginning to think.
Nancy opens her eyes, looks up at Robin, and chokes out, “Are you real?”
At that, Robin moves almost by instinct. She kneels and pulls Nancy into an almost crushing embrace, the two of them sinking to the bathroom floor.
Nancy pushes at her, heart hammering. She’s going to hurt her, she’s going to drive her away if she touches her so tenderly. “Please, Robin, I’m begging you, stop—!”
“Nancy!” She exclaims, voice by her ear. “Nancy, I’m real, I swear to God! I don't—"
“—How am I supposed to believe that?” Nancy says, half-wailing. She’s cracked completely, spilling apart in Robin’s arms.
“Because I’m— I’m not leaving you, okay? I’m gonna stay right here with you until you know this isn’t some fucked up hallucination, and then I’m never letting you out of my sight again until this over,” Robin urges, frantic, “I promise!”
Nancy trembles in her hold, feeling as though she’s begun to ooze out of her own skin. The alcohol seeps into their clothing from the floor, cold on the skin and sharp in the nose. She heaves as her head hangs over Robin’s shoulder. A hand rests itself on the small of Nancy’s back, beginning to move up and down in rhythmic motions, smoothing over the trembling of her fragile body.
And what else can she do, really, except wait and see? Nancy, at her wit’s end, simply takes whatever blessings are offered to her and sinks into Robin. (And maybe at the end of all this, she’ll still be there. By Nancy’s side.)
“Okay. Okay, yeah. Just—” She gasps for air, swallowing down breaths as though they were broken glass, choking on them, “—I can’t…”
“That's okay, that’s okay. Don’t force yourself. I’ve dealt with these before, you’ll be alright. I’ll guide you through this,” Robin soothes Nancy in an even, gentle tone, leaning back to look at her. “I need you to be able to feel my chest rising and falling, before anything else. I’m going to breathe slowly for you, and you follow along, alright? Put your hand on my pulse, anywhere.”
Nancy listens as best as she can, black spots pulsing in her vision. She blinks through the lightheadedness, throat closing, and her hand inches forward until it's directly on her heart.
Robin nods furiously, eyebrows lifted, a worried grin breaking across her face, “Good, good! Shit, uh, okay! Now— think of the things that center you. That make you calm, or happy, or - anything positive, really. Try to focus on what's around you. Whatever it takes for you to ground yourself.”
Nancy’s nose flares, eyes shaking in their sockets as she tries not to sob barefacedly. Her vision flickers in and out of focus. Every exhale feels like it's taking away more than whatever is coming back in when she chokes though another breath, lungs giving up on her. It’s as close to death as Nancy thinks she might come, excluding hunting Demogorgans. Still, she manages a single nod, blinking away her tears.
Robin gives her the space needed to recover, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Nancy’s fingers twitch against the soft cotton of her shirt and she feels the crescendo of her terror slow, before very, very trepidly falling in-tune with the soft thump of Robin’s heartbeat. What else could there possibly be to focus on but her? The task given to her is dreadfully easy, like waking up in the morning, like watching the clouds. Like knowing for a fact that the sun is still out there somewhere, in another world’s sky, waiting for them to return to it. It makes her stomach drop.
She smiles at her, embarrassed. Robin smiles back. Only Robin could make her afraid with nothing but her untiring patience and her soft, pearl-blue eyes.
“It’s working,” Nancy whispers, “but I don’t… I can’t trust my mind right now.”
“That's fine. Just… let go of your thoughts, instead, maybe, possibly? I don’t know.” She says, voice wavering in its high pitch. She wrings her hands in her lap as though unsure of what to do, what’s too much for them to allow themselves. If they were to hold one another, there’d be no one around to tell them it was wrong— certainly not themselves, either. Nancy knows that by the shaking of her shoulders and the fear still clinging onto her, asking to caress her in ways she’d only ever let her lovers. She’s barely holding on.
“Robin?” She asks.
“Yeah?” Her eyes flit to Nancy.
“Can you talk to me?” Nancy murmurs, eyes still not quite able to focus on her. She looks past her, slightly. “I think that might help.”
Before Robin can say anything, Nancy leans forward, hand still on her heart, and collapses inwards like a house’s foundation giving way. Robin takes her into her arms with ease, though a bit hesitant at first, hair tickling Nancy’s neck. “Sure. That’s what I do best, anyways, I think. I hope. What do you want me to talk about?”
Nancy can hear the smile in her voice. She tries to keep her eyes open despite the exhaustion beginning to weigh her down, too fearful of what might pop up again if she lets herself relax even a little bit. She’s finally starting to level out. “Anything. I don’t care, Rob.”
“Rob?” She repeats. Her cheek settles against Nancy’s temple.
“Shh, don’t make me talk.” Nancy says, chest moving up and down, up and down, up and down— right alongside hers. She thinks she might not be hallucinating, after all. Robin is too warm, too human for her to be. “I’m giving you a free pass to ramble, so don’t waste it.”
“Oh my God, you’re right! This is huge, I can’t waste this.” She exclaims, and Nancy can feel the gravelly rumble of Robin’s voice vibrate all the way through her, the two of them pressed together in the low lights, no moon in the sky, no electricity to turn on or off. All they have is the tiny window hovering over the bathtub, illuminating the two of them sprawled across the bathroom, and it feels like they’re not touching the ground at all, to Nancy— it feels more like they’re in an ocean, floating beneath the deep blues with their eyes as briny as the very waters.
“Okay! Okay, okay. I got it. So I was going to learn Russian, actually, before everything that happened last year with the Soviets— coincidental, isn’t it?— but after all that, I kind of steered away from all things slavic-related, languages included. Didn’t really wanna dip my toes in that whole… world, again. I’d had enough of it. So I thought: let's learn Chinese instead, right?”
Nancy sinks into Robin’s lap, temple against the denim of her black jeans. She can tell Robin is waiting for some sort of signal to continue, to speak about the things she loves as though they’re indulgences and something she should feel as though needs permission for. Nancy’s brows furrow at the thought of someone not letting her. She hooks her thumb through the backside of her leather bracelet and settles them there, fingers pressing against her quickening pulse. “...And?”
Robin gazes at her with those wide eyes of hers, perpetually unbelieving of everything. Nancy wishes she knew that she was smart as a whip and her ramblings were strangely charming. If she were an even slightly better person, someone more willing to give pieces of herself away, a person more whole — Nancy would tell her that. But for now, she simply tries to breathe. She holds onto Robin for however long she needs it.
“Robin?”
She smiles. Maybe they both need each other.
“Sorry.” Robin shakes her head, arms still around her, heartbeats filling the gaps between each other’s pauses in breath The silence is filled; the emptiness, diminished. Nancy breathes with newfound ease and smiles up at her. “What was I saying, again?”
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Having gone weak and boneless with the blind panic of a girl living at the end of the world, her own demons staring back at her in every direction she looks— Robin has to help her from the bathroom to the couch. Arms around her shoulders, she talks to her in gentle hymns, and Nancy wishes she could shield herself from it in the same way she used to be able to from most others’ affections. She’s lost a lot of herself in all this. She’s forgotten how to be sharp around the edges, how to let things ricochet off her like bullets caught on steel. Part of the reason why is Robin, and another part is her inability to cope with the utter silence that the Upside-Down emanates.
The usual hum-drum of life occupies her mind, in a sense. She’s always doing something, and most normally assume that it's for school, or her work, or college— and they’re not far off by any means— but at a more intrinsic level, Nancy just can’t live without the monotony. It levels her out, makes her feel like she’s something salvageable. She doesn't stop to think about much, by consequence.
But here, in the territory of death’s occupant, she’s forced to deal with an ineffable quiet. It's terrifying.
She tries not to ponder too much on it, though: there’s been more than enough anxiety for tonight as is. After Robin stumbles off into an empty bedroom and finds some clothing to give to her (all while covering her eyes despite Nancy’s assertions that she was, in fact, not naked) - she changes into something more comfortable. The fabric of Hopper’s shirt spills over her hands and when Nancy slips it over her head, the sleeves dangle from her arms loosely. She’s almost swimming in all the empty space, and it's comforting, the smell of cigarettes and coffee just barely noticeable, lingering there beneath a heavy coat of mildew.
They settle themselves by the fireplace, wanting to be close to whatever they might need, and for a long while, all is still. Robin leans into the hearth and rubs her hands together, pretending she’s bathing in the non-existent warmth, and Nancy laughs behind her hand, but aside from that— it's only them sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor and swimming through silence, heads filled with too many thoughts to count.
Their backs to the couch, Nancy drags her nails across the faded rug and looks for whatever pattern must've been there before it became a mesh of brown and gray with specks of blue. It serves as a short-lived distraction. Robin’s breath comes quietly next to her, a reminder that she's not alone. She tries not to lean too obviously against her.
It's unnaturally easy now, the silence, but then again - it always is. Robin walks into a room and Nancy unravels almost on instinct. As if it's just what they do. She admits things she never would with most others. She smiles until it aches. She extracts shards of herself from behind what used to be an ivory cage, her ribs, and presents them to Robin in the dark.
This time, Robin extends her hand without Nancy even offering anything to her. “What's your favorite song?”
Nancy frowns and contemplates, but ultimately comes up empty. “I need to think on it.”
“Really?” Robin says, twisting a ring around her finger. Nancy’s eyes follow the movement, transfixed. She tears her eyes away before they linger there too long. “I mean— I get it. Kind of important, given the situation.”
“Yeah. I don’t think the usual answer is going to save me now.” She says, a bit of a despondent smile stretched across the tired lines of her face. “Daryl Hall and John Oates can only do so much for me.”
Robin stares at Nancy.
“What?” She says.
Robin snorts into the sleeve of her shirt, bringing her knees up to her chin. “Nothing, nothing! It's just fitting, that's all.”
Nancy raises a brow, juts her chin out indignantly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“...I mean, you know.” Robin grins, dimples pressing themselves into the checkered material of her pants. “Maneater?”
Nancy’s frown splits and falls to pieces, replaced by an uncontrollable grin. It's impossible to fight, and she starts laughing, shoving at Robin just a little bit. “Oh my God, are you serious.”
“What! I don’t—” Robin doesn't even finish her sentence before dissolving into laughter again, the sound etching towards something more like giggling, and Nancy holds onto the sound desperately, hands wrapped around it like it were a glowing firefly she’d gotten ahold of. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing!”
“Is that really what you think of me?” Nancy says, crossing her arms and leaning back to glare at Robin.
“Well. Yeah, kinda.” Robin admits, shrugging her shoulders. Her grin widens.
She wants to wipe the look right off her face and she can think of a few ways how.
She can think of only one way, actually.
Something to do with the breaking of Nancy Wheeler, again, this time a different sort of fracture— the kind that leaves her less empty than before. With something tangible to hold onto between her hands.
Fireflies. Sparks. The quiet afterglow.
But there’s too much hanging in the air between worlds, and it has nothing to do with Robin or what any of the thoughts emerging from the depths of Nancy’s mind mean. Nancy knows who she is, and she has for a long time. It’s not unfamiliar, these emotions. The distant endearment towards people at certain points in her life she forbade herself to indulge in. The ebb and the flow and the eventual fade to obsoletion. She has Jonathan somewhere on the other side, too, and they’ve got something between them that just won’t allow her to let go like she usually does, even though there’s nothing there anymore.
It’s too much, and she’s not ready to face any of those problems. She can investigate, instead. Hide behind her mind.
“You never tell me anything about you.”
Robin bristles, suddenly being put on the spot. Her expression dampens. “What?”
“Well, what’s your favorite song?” Nancy tilts her head.
Robin’s stare flickers down, distracted. She makes a sound in the back of her throat. “Uh…”
Nancy lifts her brows at her. Not so easy, is it?
“Shut up.” Robin groans, rolling her eyes. Nancy laughs.
A moment of contemplation passes. Nancy momentarily wonders what happened to Hopper’s old box of records in this timeline, hoping it's still there under his bed. He had a surprisingly large collection that Nancy enjoyed parsing through on long, humid summer days.
“...Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat.” Robin utters. “Yeah, that might save me.”
Oh. Nancy listened to that song once in Jonathan’s bedroom when it came on the radio. It had an eerie drawl to it, familiar and haunting, and something filled the space in his poster-filled room like a piece of Nancy that had been missing for a while, that late morning. The words amounted to love and danger and the hope for better days, where people could accept themselves, and love whomever they please, and— and that was the moment when something severed between Jonathan and her, she realizes. His quiet slumber and her rude awakening.
“That’s…”
Robin looks up at Nancy through her lashes, furtive. “You’ve heard it before?”
“I… have,” She murmurs, tries to say something more, but can’t really get anything out.
“I don’t listen to it much anymore. I liked it a lot more when I was younger. It was nice, then. Reminded me that things would get better when I thought they would never, sometimes. I...” She trails off, unsaid words stagnant in the ill-lit space between them.
Nancy doesn’t know what to do with this.
If this were Steve, she’d call him an idiot and graze her nails against his jaw, letting him put the pieces together at the rather sluggish pace he always takes. If this were Jonathan, well— she doesn’t know what she’d do anymore. It seemed like they were always at different places, no matter what their feelings were about one another during any given time. If it had been earlier on, she’d just smile at him, she thinks. She’d tell him that maybe they could listen to the song together, when they got out of this mess.
But this is different. This is Robin, and this is fragile - for both of them. If Nancy acts on her thoughts, it means she can’t avoid herself anymore. There would be no way out.
“Sorry. If I— overstepped.” Nancy manages, the muscles in her throat constricting.
Robin shakes her head, eyes distant, inching away. “It’s fine, Nancy.”
Nancy’s heart sinks.
They’re both drowning, and they have been for a while, Nancy’s starting to realize, their heads barely above the current; she doesn’t know what emerging from the waters would mean for them. She doesn’t know what drowning would mean, either. All she knows is that they both need to focus on surviving, and they need each other. Nancy knows that for a fact now, looking at Robin’s avoidant gaze in the blue-tinted dusk. For now, they’ll stay afloat.
“Okay. Just tell me if you want me to forget about it. I really— it’s no problem,” Nancy says, eyebrows pinched together.
“No, It’s not…” Robin exhales shortly, then groans. She puts her head in her hands, her right knee beginning to jitter. “Shit! This is hard to…”
Nancy feels the need to apologize again. She offers a watery laugh that tapers off into a worried sound when she catches a glimpse of Robin’s crooked smile through her fingers. It looks off, the sharp, almost forced curve to it, and before Nancy can catch onto what's happening, her fingers curl inwards slightly, beginning to etch themselves into her skin. Shit, Nancy needs to distract Robin before she spirals out of control like she herself did not that long ago.
Nancy leans forward until her cheek is pressed against Robin’s shoulder. It feels selfish, at first, acting on what she’d been wanting to do the whole time and being close to her— but then Robin stills, and her hands stop moving. So Nancy places a hand on her wrist, placant. “Is this okay?”
Robin’s throat moves, swallowing around nothing. She squeezes her eyes shut like she’s bracing for impact. Nancy doesn’t move.
“Yeah. Yes.” She shakes her head, the words barely audible.
Nancy moves her hand up, and up, and up, until they’re on her palm, fingers sprawled across her palm. Her hands twitch in her hold, and Nancy very delicately plies them from her face, with methodical intent, until they’re settled in her lap. Nancy inspects Robin’s face, thumb swiping at the red crescent-shaped indents scattered across her features. Her chest rises quickly, but not at an alarming rate. She must be regulating herself like it’s clock-work, and with disquieting remembrance, Nancy considers her earlier affirmations: I’ve dealt with these before, you’ll be alright.
“What helps?” Nancy whispers.
Robin opens and closes her mouth, body gone stiff in her spot on the floor. Her eyes refuse to leave Nancy’s face, stricken with faint gratitude and, beneath that, fear. She breathes in the same measured way Nancy had been just earlier, timing her words with each individual rise and fall, “I don’t know. I’ve—” she breathes in, “—never had one of these with—” she breathes out, “—other people around before.”
Nancy stares at her. How long has she had to deal with this alone?
Robin begins to inch away again, expression crumbling, eyes glued to her hands in Nancy’s. She follows her stare. Instinctively, Nancy drags her finger around her palm, beginning to form shapes and lines and letters. She leans against her with all her weight, acting as an anchor, the other hand traveling mindlessly across the expanse of her space, looking for a way to bring Robin back to her.
Robin doesn’t understand it at first, eyes glassy and lips wobbly with well-disguised panic: but then the rhythmic motion of her hands on her— one circling the deep lines of Robin’s hand, the other kneading her scalp— coaxes her into relaxing. Nancy’s hands traverse her, wandering down her wrist, brushing against the ends of her neck. She watches her, looks for what she likes and what makes the planes of her body go taut. Robin’s shoulders relax soon enough, and with the passing minutes, her knee knocks against Nancy’s, body giving way like a fallen tower of cards.
Nancy snorts, watching Robin’s head sink into the cushions behind them.
“I think I’m tired,” Robin’s voice comes quietly after a minute, muddled with fatigue, “Very tired.”
Nancy gazes up at Robin from her spot on her shoulder, blinking away the haze of a long day gone by in a quick-moving blur. “Yeah, me too.”
They don’t move. Robin only extends her foot to kick the blankets up, the washed-out woolen patterns pooling around their waists. She closes her eyes and eventually Robin shifts until they’re side by side, her cheek on the crown of her head. Nancy would take this as some sort of challenge if she were sharper, more acutely aware of what an admittance of stalemate meant after everything they’ve barely divulged in the last hour. She’d see how far she could push herself. How far she could push Robin.
It’s been like this a lot though, lately: them settling on something, leaving it all to hide in the shadows while the sun doesn't shine. If Nancy’s learned anything from her continuous errors, it’s that she just wants to find a piece of herself to give to Robin that won’t be meaningless. It doesn’t matter how small, as long as Robin holds onto it and keeps it within her. Nancy wants her to know how she glows, how much she means to her. How much she wants things she shouldn't. She can't let herself go in circles like this, distancing herself and reaching out when she can’t bear the quiet anymore again and again instead of being there for Robin in the same way she’s been for her.
“If you ever want to talk about your favorite song again…” Nancy whispers.
Robin hums. There’s a warm light in her eyes, someway, somehow— and Nancy’s going to start chasing after it.
“I know. I will.”