Chapter Text
2:13 am
Except of course it wasn’t the last time.
Robin was on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands as the ceiling spun. She had no idea how long the drunkenness would last, and if she would feel better or worse about the night after it had left her in a half-shriveled heap.
She’d already vomited once, on a sidewalk half a block away after she’d realized she could no longer steer her bike. She hoped the nausea would end without having to do so again.
Tears and snot ran into her mouth. Her parents’ bedroom was on the other side of the house (perhaps the only saving grace of living in a ranch) so she didn't have to worry as much about the noise of her sobs. Or the noise of knocking on her window.
At first, Robin didn’t even hear it. When she did, she took it for the wind until a half-muted voice snuck around the corners of the pane:
“Robin!”
She perked up—well, she unburied her face and let her head fall back, neck limp. It took her a minute to realize where exactly the voice was coming from.
Of course it wasn’t the last time. Of course Nancy Wheeler was standing wide-eyed outside her window.
Robin’s face was a beautiful smear of snot and tears and the little bit of mascara she’d worn to the party for some reason. She felt disgusting and graceless. She always felt like that deep down, but this time the feeling was like an active volcano instead of a small trickle. She put up one finger to Nancy and stumbled over to a box of tissues on her dresser and blew her nose noisily. She wiped the grime off—or maybe smeared it further, it was too dark to tell—before shambling over to open the window.
“Why are you here, Nancy?”
Nancy paused for a second. “...I was hoping we could have a sleepover.”
“A…” Robin blinked a few times, unsure if this was actually happening or just some side effect of being drunk ( she didn’t know, she'd never done it before!). “A sleepover? Why?”
“Just—” Nancy sighed, bags forming under her eyes. “Will you let me in? Please?”
…And really, what else was she supposed to do?
Robin silently slid the window open and watched Nancy clamber over the lip and into her bedroom.
It was dark, of course, but even the moonlight showed the parts of herself she’d rather not Nancy see. A pile of clothes greeted them from one corner, and her cluttered desk seemed to jump out. There was nowhere to sit besides the rug on the floor and her unmade, tousled bed.
Robin coughed. “Sorry it’s so… I would’ve cleaned if I had known—”
“Shhhhh.” Nancy’s finger came to her mouth, to her lips, and Robin’s brain stopped functioning altogether. Sure, she’d be quiet. She didn’t even know what she’d been saying in the first place.
But then- “Ah—” Nancy seemed to realize what she was doing and pulled her hand back and looked to the ground. “S-sorry.”
“It’s, um, alright.” Robin could still feel the pressure of her finger on her mouth. They both stood awkwardly silent. “...How did you know where I live?”
Nancy still wasn’t making eye contact. “Steve gave me your address.”
Steve? She asked Steve? After all that, after he heard almost the whole thing, after the two of them— in his bedroom?
Why would she ask him? Why would he give it to her? What did he think she was doing here?
…What was she doing here?
Robin’s stomach was lurching again. “Um, so, I know I asked this before but… Why are you here?”
“Can we talk, Robin?” Nancy’s shoulders were strung together with twine as she walked five paces to Robin’s bed, stiffly turned around, and then sat down.
She sighed from the bottom of her stomach, and it felt as if the weight on her shoulders had fallen off. If that weight was her head, of course. “I mean, sure. At this point, I guess that’s what’s going to happen.” She stepped closer to the bed. “I guess there’s no point in being all flighty and coy anymore. You already know it all. You already must resent me at least a bit.” She sat next to her, because she knew that would be the next thing requested of her. “But you’re here, so you must have more to say. So say it.”
A worried crease pressed itself into Nancy’s brow. “I don’t resent you.” She looked at her hands in her lap. “I actually… really don’t know how I feel.”
“You and me both.” Robin chuckled. “Like, yesterday I would have been thrilled, terrified, and/or gone into cardiac arrest if you were in my room at 3 am. But now my head feels stuffed full of cotton and I’m still unsure as to why you’re sitting in my bed.”
“Well, I’m…” She turned away. “I’m here
because
I don’t know how I feel.”
Robin’s brow furrowed. “...Elaborate.”
“Okay, well, I don’t know, I just—” She seemed to be having trouble finding the words. “Steve initiated that.. whole thing. And that was… okay, because I liked it, and I was okay with it. I think? I was okay with it, and I think I liked it.” Her hands were flying across her lap as she tried to sort through her emotions. “But also, I don’t know, and I don’t know if Steve is good for me right now, and I know he’s changed but also I keep thinking about all that shitty stuff he did before we broke up the first time, and I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Robin’s mouth twisted into a grimace, however briefly. “...So you came here to complain to me about Steve? After everything that drunkenly spewed out of my mouth?”
“No! No, that’s…” Nancy laughed, almost morbidly. “Sorry, it does sort of sound like that’s what I came here for, doesn’t it?” Her chortles were stunted, like a creature was dying in her windpipe. “No, I’m here because I’m also unsure about you.”
“Well, I could’ve told you that.” Robin’s laugh was a real, full one. “Your friend just confessed her big gay crush to you. Ah! That’s scary. You probably don’t know if you want to pretend this never happened or just stop talking to me altogether.”
“Robin, it’s…” She shook her head. “Would you just let me finish?”
“Yeah, sure. Got it.” Where was this going?
“So when you first told me that you felt like that, it… took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it. And I think you might have mistook that surprise as… I don’t know, fear? But it wasn’t, and that’s why I chased after you. And then we started talking about Live to Tell and then you left and I couldn’t really explain myself.” Nancy huffed, her shoulders deflating. “Not that I blame you for leaving. I probably would’ve too if I were you.”
The puzzle pieces were starting to click together in Robin’s mind. “You’re here to tell me you’re not scared of me, and that you want to still be friends. Right?”
“Yes. Well, no. Uh, After you left, I started thinking more about how I felt, because my head was all fuzzy. It took a while to piece everything together. I’m still trying to, I think. I just… you, and Steve, and Jonathan still a little bit, and how I fit into all of this…” Her hands fell into her lap. “I thought back to all of our time together. Questioning Victor Creel, and sorting through the microfilm, and the days in my basement, and our sleepover, and all of it. And I started seeing things that I’d done. The way I’d smile at you, or stare at your face, or grab your hand. And none of it was conscious, of course. None of it. But…”
Nancy swallowed thickly and continued. “...I’ve been doing the same sorts of things to Steve, too. For months and months. And with him, I was at least partially conscious of what I was doing. So, um…” Her eyes turned to Robin’s face. “I think… I’ve been flirting with you?”
Robin blinked and sputtered. “W-what?”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “It’s a lot, I know. And I’m really not sure… what that means. I don’t know, like… if I like you? Because I don’t even know if I like girls…”
Robin could feel the way Nancy shook beside her, a leaf in the wind. And, to be fair, Robin was just as nervous. Her stomach was already tied in a knot from the alcohol, but this only tightened it, straining and pulling. She had no idea what each new word from Nancy’s mouth would be.
“But, uh, that whole kiss with Steve, it made things… a bit clearer? About how I feel about him? So, I was wondering if…” They locked eyes again. “...You know what I’m asking, right?”
Robin’s mouth went totally dry, which was probably the worst thing that could have happened at that moment. Yes, she knew. It was maybe the most obvious hint—subconscious flirt?—Nancy had dropped. Her palms were clammy.
…But this is what Robin had wanted when she’d gotten drunk at the party, right?
Their faces grew closer inch by hesitant inch. And, in fact, it was Nancy who closed the gap. A spark traced the length of Robin’s spine, pushing her deeper into the kiss.
Nancy tasted of strawberry and mint. Robin’s first thought was that she must’ve popped some lip gloss and gum beforehand, which meant that this was planned. But she soon lost the thought in the depth of Nancy Wheeler’s lips.
Her whole body felt alight. Their mouths seemed locked in a secret together; she wasn’t very good at this, but it was a wonderful feeling regardless. Months of worry and pining and regret and apprehension faded in those sparse seconds as she savored the taste of a girl’s mouth for the first time. As Nancy did the same.
It must have been only a handful of seconds before they pulled apart, but it felt like eons. Robin’s heart was pounding so hard that she couldn’t hear herself think. It was only a few words that managed to tumble out: “...So, better than Steve?”
Nancy thought for a second, digested her feelings. “...Yes. Yes, better than Steve.”
And everything in Hawkins made sense for a change.