Chapter Text
Nancy's freezes. Her skin seemingly catches on fire as the admission presents itself to the forefront of her mind, absolute. She releases the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding as Robin comes up behind her, immediately tensing because–
“Shit." Nancy turns, the article in her hands tearing right down the middle with the movement. She gasps as that familiar scent washes over her, nearly overwhelming. Robin is close, too close. Nancy shuts her eyes, a rough shake of her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I mean, I–"
She knows . She knows! I can’t believe I just thought that, why did I just think that? Shit, shit, she knows. Why the fuck did I just do that? This wasn’t how, this wasn’t even supposed, I didn’t even, how did, why did I just? Shit. She knows she knows she–
"Nance, I can hear you thinking a mile a minute.” Robin’s voice cuts through her stream of thoughts and Nancy bites her tongue, iron warmth immediately coating her mouth. Even with her eyes shut Nancy can see the room brighten as lightning flashes, the crash of thunder simultaneously crashing with the strike.
Robin’s hand slowly covers Nancy’s cheek, thumb making soft sweeps along Nancy’s lashes and coming away wet. Nancy hiccups on a swallow, her tongue already healed.
“Nancy.”
Yes?
“Can you open your eyes, please."
No.
Robin chuckles, her hand slipping down Nancy’s cheek to the side of her neck, her usually cold fingers searing as Robin gently presses into her skin, thumb making slow sweeps across her jaw.
Nancy shudders on an inhale, vision blurry as her lashes flutter slowly open. When her eyes open she chooses to focus on the print of leaves and is determined to not meet Robin's gaze.
“I know I can hear your thoughts but can I please hear your voice?”
"No."
A sigh made faintly of spearmint nearly clouds the smell of warm rain that has now slowly seeped into the room. Nancy resists the urge to follow the source, instead leans back into the desk, Robin's hand falling onto her shoulder.
"Nance–”
"You know." It's not a question, except it holds a plethora of other questions.
"I do. I've known ever since–"
What? "Wait, wait, you've known? How, how did you– what? " When? How? For how long?
“Nance, I really want to have this conversation with you, I really do, but I really, really need to do this first.”
“Do what?”
Robin answers with a press of her lips. Nancy hums in surprise, Robin’s lashes a blur as Robin kisses her again. When Robin moves to pull away does Nancy finally moves to follow, chasing her lips with her own.
The delighted moan that escapes her surprises even herself, but Robin only takes it as a sign to further deepen the kiss.
It takes a minute for the two to finally pull away, another to catch their breaths. When they do, Nancy starts to laugh. She laughs and so does Robin because finally. Finally.
“Finally.” Robin agrees, a final peck before leaning forward and just hugging the girl of her dreams. Nancy spins in her grasp, if only to avoid further distractions from the work before her on her desk.
Nancy’s eyes slip shut as she gets enveloped in the smell of honey lavender shampoo. Cool peppermint skirts across her cheek as Robin's arms snake around her, hands splaying over the desk as Robin's chin props over her shoulder.
Nancy wants to melt back, wants to let this feeling wash over but she doesn't. She doesn’t.
Safe. She feels safe and she wants to sink into it, let it take her under.
Why doesn't she?
Robin flicks a partially carved wooden bullet across the surface and a gasp escapes Nancy when she saves it from falling into the gap between the desk and the wall.
"Robin, you know how hard it's been to make these!" She brings it up close, eyes crossing as she inspects the poorly carved pellet, pad of her thumb smoothing over the engraving etched on the body. She can't see it but she can feel the way Robin's face pulls into a wince against her own cheek.
"Sorry, sorry!" Robin traces her nose along the exposed skin of Nancy's shoulder, lips brushing the back of her neck, earning her a shiver. "You're getting better at it at least, I can kinda read the sigil."
An unimpressed hum from Nancy as she reaches for the lockbox to put the wooden bullets, dagger, and gun away. It could be better.
"It's not that bad. Like they say, practice makes–"
"Stop cheating, Robin Buckely, and get out of my head!" Nancy tries to harden her voice but a hint of laughter bubbles past her lips. She raises her elbows to loosen Robin's arms around her and turns on her heels. Robin's hands only trail up Nancy's arms once they're face to face and Nancy continues to try to tamper her smile.
Robin takes her face in her hands, her lips brushing across Nancy's forehead. She goes down her temple, then slowly starts to move across her cheeks. Robin's scent nearly overwhelms her, the sound of both of their hearts beating thuds loudly in her ears, she nearly misses it.
With her fingers locked around Robin's wrists while she continues to spatter kisses, Nancy catches it. Sorry, sorry, I'm not really that sorry but I’m sorry being ushered into her skin with each press of her lips.
Robin ducks her head and kisses her again. The fluttering in her chest is enough to almost leave her breathless. Nancy digs her finger around Robin's head, fingers brushing back a loose strand to tuck behind her ear.
"Now that is not fair."
—----
months later
A crack of lightning flashes across the dim sky, instantly followed by the crash of thunder.
The day had started out quite serene. Not a hint of the coming storm that currently leaves the lights flickering and the building groaning. The clear skies and beating sun had provided a false sense of security for those who otherwise couldn't pick up on the subtle hints nature had to offer. The kind of signs that are so clearly and squarely in your face they end up being too obvious, you miss it.
Before the clouds swallowed up the final rays and the heat dissipated, leaving behind a bleak grey shroud blanketing the city, it had been a beautiful morning.
Nancy knew not to trust it, knew with a quick glance outside the window. The nest of birds in the tree just outside her window sensed the looming storm before it arrived.
The sky shrieks again and the whole room shakes with it, the violence within the clouds sending a shiver down Nancy’s spine. She watches the rain spatter the windows, specks of hail snapping along the pane.
It's enough clattering to disrupt the seal of the weather striping. Slowly droplets of rain accumulate into gravity compliant beads, slowly making their way down the edge of the sill.
As the storm continues to ravage the city the gradual drip drip drip of water increases in tempo along with the changing winds, the bucket that sits at the edge of the sill collecting rainfall. It's no Once in a Lifetime Hurricane, but it does compare.
The rain spatters, the windows shake, the water drips.
And Nancy watches it, her hands idle in her lap, the wood carved bullets and blade momentarily forgotten.
drip, drip, drip
Another shiver and Nancy’s eyes slip closed and she tries to remember what the sun felt like earlier that day.
Then she smells it.
Honey.
"Hi."
Robin's cheek twitches, chest rising with a strained breath.
“What? What are you– no, no , you can’t, you can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here.”
"I don't want to fight." Robin's shoulder fall, as does any hint of a smile.
"Then why are you here? You need to leave. Go."
"That's not how this works, you know that."
The scoff that escapes Nancy is sour in her mouth, lips curling cruelly. Her fingers tremble, the wood carved bullets and the knife catching on each other as she digs the blade into the casing with practiced fingers. She tilts the blade, wrist turning expertly to etch the final line to seal the same sigil she’s been crafting since Argyle showed her.
Since–
Nancy has been doing this for days, has gotten progressively more and more efficient with each carving. She’s been working with Max, went over every trick she retained from that time she helped Mike and the kids create spears so they can duel or whatever childish thing they were doing. She’s done this enough times to know best, to know how to keep her self from nicking herself.
So when the blade skims the edge and causes her palm to sear open, it's not until the blood pools and falls does she process the pain.
Robin steps closer with a sympathetic wince, her hiss piercing through the air as her brows pinch together.
“Don’t. Please, don't come near me, it’s fine,” Nancy breathes, watching her skin slowly stitch itself together. Soon the only evidence of the slip up is the blood. She sighs, turns away. “Robin, what do you want? Why are you here, how are you here? You can’t, you can’t be here.”
“I have no idea how, not a single fucking clue, but I’m not really going to complain because I’m here. It’s me, not some weird hallucination or one of Henry’s mind fucks, I’m me. Honestly, Nance, there are truly worse things.”
“Did you seriously just fucking say that?“ Nancy spins on her heel with an icy glare, one that leaves Robin’s throat closing on the words she no longer feels she can say. Nancy laughs, a bitter thing ringing hollow throughout the room and it hits Robin’s ears harshly, making her wince.
“Worse things? She really just said there are worse, worse –” Nancy scoffs again as she presses the heel of her hands to her eyes, chuckling hysterically before raking her fingers cruelly through her hair. She grabs a fistfull and tugs, skin going taunt across her forehead as her eyes search the room, darting from corner to corner, not really seeing, only looking.
For what feels like the first time, Robin can’t find the words. She watches as Nancy's gaze bounces around the room, looking anywhere but Robin who sits there disheartened. Nancy’s breath catches on a thready chuckle, no longer laughing. Instead her chest rises and falls speradiocaly, each breath inadequate, muttering half uttered unintelligible phrases.
“Nancy, you need to breathe.”
“Breathe? I’m– I am breathing, okay. I’m fucking breathing."
“Well, then, you need to breathe slower. Take slower, deeper–” She gets cut off by another maniacal bark of laughter and it cuts through her, digging into her chest and nestling deep, leaving nothing but a sharpness that threatens to crawl up along her throat. If Robin swallows, she's nearly sure she'll choke on it.
“She tells me to breathe, to breathe slower, deeper.” Robin blinks, a line digging between her brows as Nancy closes the distance she created, marching across the room until she’s close, closer than she's been since Robin first appeared. Close enough to see the specks of green she’d almost forgotten were in Robin's eyes.
Almost forgotten since she died.
And the reminder further breaks her.
“Robin, I can't breathe without you crowding my lungs. I can’t take a single fucking breath without you in here, trying to suffocate me."
Robin’s heart breaks all over again. "But Nancy, we have this. We have this, what ever this is, what could be worse than this?"
Nancy's drops to her knees, the heaviness inside her chest having worked its way through her bones, directly into her veins. She falls, and she falls hard.
“What is worse than seeing you, and hearing you, but not being able to feel you?” She sobs, the ache in her heart folding her over her knees. “Robin, please, please, I can’t– I can’t do this, you need to go. Please, please, just go.”
“If you don't want me, you have to stop thinking about me, Nance."
"Then stop!” Nancy gasps. She uncurls herself and begs, begs on her knees with every final dreg of energy she has left. “You said it yourself, that I know how this works, right? So stop, I need you to stop. I need you to be the one to stop this. Because trying to not think of you is like trying not to take in air."
"I will never not think of you Nancy Wheeler. I won’t ever stop–"
"And you think I can?" Nancy breathes. "You are the air that drowns me. I need you to stop because every time I fill my lungs you're there. The very thing that keeps me alive and it kills me, it's killing me. I can't stop thinking about you because this hole, this space in my chest is too big, it's heavy. It's heavy and I'm drowning from it. Drowning from you.
"So please, please stop thinking about me because I can't stop. How can I stop thinking about you when you're every bit of emptiness that surrounds me? The silence, the noise, the color, the dullness, the nothing, the everything, it's all you,” Nancy is sobbing again, can’t catch her breath.
Robin's hand cups her face, thumb sweeping over her cheek. Nancy's fingers close around her wrists, eyes falling closed. Robin's thumb makes an instinctive sweep, her own eyes welling as the track of tears continues to slip down to Nancy's chin, unaffected.
Nancy's lips tremble. The once soft now chapped of her bottom lip darkening, threatening to split as her teeth dig in deep.
"I can't." Robin mutters.
Nancy falls forward, lays her head in Robin's lap, pretends she can feel her heat. She tries to remember what she smelled like.
She smelled like honey. And lavender.
"I know."