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Robin had done what she couldn’t, and had done it so effortlessly that Nancy suddenly found her fear of it utterly stupid. If it weren’t for Robin she would have never gotten to visit Victor Creel, she would have left with her head down in embarrassment and found another way. But maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to find another way, she could pick the path she wanted and walk it no matter what, no matter how rocky it may be, she could kick men like Anthony Hatch and the ones she worked with away like a pebble, she didn’t have to scour for divergencies or short- cuts that she didn’t want to take. She could be more like Robin. What other rules could she break?

So, as they were escorted outside of the Pennhurst Faculty, Nancy turned to Robin without a second thought.

“I think we can beat him.” She whispered, even though the adrenaline inside her longed to scream.

“To the car.” She became more confident with every word.

“Ok, I’m warning you right now I have terrible coordination, like it took me 6 months longer to walk than all the other babies.” Robin replied frantically as was usual, her voice bordering a volume where Nancy had to resist the urge to look back in case they’d been heard, but that didn’t matter anymore, they had to run.

“Follow my lead.” She grabbed Robin’s hand and started running, their hands quickly slipped apart but she could hear Robin’s complaints from right behind her, as well as her tripping over her feet every few seconds, but she never stoped hearing her so she never stopped running until they reached the car. Outraged voices rang all around her, voices that ordered her to get out of the car, bangs that threatened to get her out of it by force, she drowned them with a high pitched tire screech as she drove away.

“Holy shit, Holy shit, Holy shit!!” Robin kept breathlessly screaming, her voice cracking into a soft nervous giggle.

Holy Shit.

“You really are a weird runner.” Nancy replied just as breathless, a huge smile spread across her face, but the moment didn’t last long.

“This is a code red. I repeat, a code red!” Dustin’s voice hurried over the walkie, urgency overflowing at the end of every word, and a sharp burning pang hit Nancy across her chest, something was wrong, really really wrong.

“Please, PLEASE tell me you guys have this figured out” Dustin pleaded, and Nancy was shaking too much to utter a single word, but Robin was already on it.

“Music- music, we aren’t sure but apparently music reaches parts of the brain words can’t, if you play a song, one she likes, her favourite song maybe, it can work- work as an outlet- a rope back to reality, it’s how Victor survived- or we think so, play her favourite song, we’re on our way.” Robin speaks in a flash, the words leaving her mouth even quicker than Dustin’s, who they could already hear ruffling through something, probably in search for some music.

Then there was silence. Silence, except for their hurried breathes still resonating inside the car and Nancy could only focus on driving, to not stop driving, pushing the pedal, stirring the wheel, looking, pushing the pedal, stirring the wheel, pushing the pedal, pushing the pedal, pushing the pedal.

“NANCE!” Robin’s voice brought her back to reality.

“THE CAR!” She shouted.

It was then when she realised that the car was a bullet moving forward at its maximum capacity, she was kneeled forward, her entire weight was pressed against the wheel and pedal, speeding them dangerously through the road.

“Right, right.” She slowed down progressively as she’d been taught.

“You almost killed us there Nance.” Robin exhaled once they’d returned to a normal speed.

Since when did Robin call her Nance?

“Yeah, sorry.” Suddenly, she broke into laughter,

“Imagine if we’d gone through all of that just to end up in a car accident.”

Robin laughed but her eyes were squinted and fixed on the road, as if her gaze could control their trajectory. They fell back into an awkward silence, until Robin must’ve noticed and finally spoke.

“Sorry, I just really don’t like cars, it’s true that I don’t have a license because I’m poor but I’m actually also scared shitless of getting into an accident, my coordination is shit I feel like I wouldn’t be able to remember all the little details that you need to drive a car, so they’re like my top 6th worst fear or something.”

Robin always did that, when she was nervous she’d start ranting random facts she knew, or about things she liked or disliked. It was always accompanied by an anxious glint in her eyes and a slight curve in her lips, almost like a smile but one of fright. Nancy couldn’t help but giggle.

She liked that she didn’t have to search or dig to know what kind of person Robin was, for Nancy people were sometimes like her journalism. She had to dig into the little pieces of information and conversations people gave her, she had to ask and insist to get answers and find out who people really were, even in the little things. Robin wasn’t like that, Robin didn’t feel like work. She just gave, plain and simple. She’d only really known her for less than 48 hours but the facts she’d learnt about her, from her favourite colour (orange) to her 2nd grade teacher (Mrs Gardner) made it seem as if she’d known her for years. At first she’d rolled her eyes at Robin’s inconvenient ranting, but at some point (she wasn’t sure when) she’d gone from being annoyed to acting like she was.

“You also have weird fears.” She said,

“Yeah, and that is’t even my most stupid one you know, when I was a kid I was terrified of the number 9.”

“What??”

Robin was full on laughing now, mouth wide open as she tried to talk between bouts of laughter.

“Yeah yeah! I don’t even remember why, but I hated it, I refused to go near it, like if we ate somewhere I always made sure we didn’t sit at table 9, stupid things like that.”

That was actually kind of sweet. Her fear of whatever the situation was with Dustin and Max hadn’t subsided, so she urged to keep the conversation alive.

“Hey, how did you even come up with the music answer anyway? I guess Victor did give it a special mention but I wouldn’t have noticed it.”

“It was almost random actually, we were leaving and I got distracted by one of the patients playing some music, it was the blue Danube, and then it hit me.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.” Nancy said, with complete sincerity.

Robin seemed to shy away at that, her hands had started fighting a bit, or maybe they had been all along, Nancy wasn’t sure. Maybe she wasn’t used to compliments.

“Are you kidding me? You’re the amazing one! How did you manage to forge our papers with all of our academic information so quickly? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“I actually only had to forge yours, mine was real, except for the university part of course but for my high school one I only had to change my name.”

She watched as Robin’s jaw dropped dramatically, and something grew inside of her, she felt a kind of a childish giddiness in seeing Robin so surprised by her, she suddenly realised she somewhat cared for her approval.

“So you’re like an actual genius- you’re telling me you ACTUALLY have a 3.9 GPA?”

“Yeah I do” She was smiling just as wide as Robin now, and it felt so good to smile after everything going on, even if it also felt a little unfair.

“You’re full of surprises Nance.”

There it was again, “Nance”.

She didn’t know how to reply, so she opted for being very suddenly interested on the road and the grey sky above. Only seconds after she realised her hands had started fidgeting and she recalled how Robin had looked doing that, she must be wearing that same face. That only embarrassed her more and she felt her cheeks starting to heat up.

“Em, about the blue Danube, did you know that it’s not actually one waltz but a chain of five interlinked waltz themes? It’s also inspired by a poem by Karl Isidor where all the stanzas end with “By the Danube, beautiful blue Danube.” It’s also Austria’s second national anthem, what country needs two national anthems right? Thankfully Robin was back on her random fact ranting.

Did that mean she was nervous? Why was Robin nervous? Why was shenervous?

“Yeah, and I didn’t know that, that’s actually… really interesting.”

Robin’s eyes beamed at this and her smile grew even wider, something she hadn’t thought possible. Her eyebrows arched and she’d moved to almost completely face Nancy.

“Really? Most people just roll their eyes at 80% of what I say, I know it can be a bit boring and I talk a lot but I just know a lot of random stuff and I never really share it, when I do most people don’t listen.”

“I guess I’m not most people, and sorry if I did do that before- roll my eyes or not listen to something you said, sometimes I’m so focused on doing something that I forget I’m not doing it alone.”

“Yeah, you’re better.”

“What?”

“You’re better, than most people I mean.”

“Oh”

A strange wave of excitement ran through Nancy, it started at the curve of her smiling lips and reached her fingertips, which demanded to start fidgeting again; she controlled herself. Maybe just like Robin she wasn’t used to compliments either, that’s what made her so thrilled. Maybe it was because she was a girl, when boys gave her compliments she was never sure if they were sincere or simply had an ulterior motive, with Robin she knew it was true.

“You have facts about the blue Danube, what about Ella Fitzgerald? I want to remember her by something else that isn’t a creepy man humming her song.” Nancy tried, she felt the excitement grow as Robin’s face lighted up with her question.

“I don’t know that much about her, obviously she sounds like an angel and she actually started as a dancer! But then she realised there was too much competition and decided to start singing instead, and she was friends with Marilyn Monroe.That’s about it.”

“It’s still a lot more than I knew, schools should teach stuff like this. My mother loves Ella, so I heard her a lot while I was growing up, specially “cheek to cheek”, it brings me really happy memories of my mother humming while she read or cooked, or did anything really. Mike and I would complain, or better said Mike who was too young to really understand copied my complaints, but we both knew we’d miss it if she stopped.”

Nancy hand’t made the conscious choice to share this as she usually did with everything else, she’d just allowed her thoughts to escape her mouth.

“Cheek to Cheek IS a great song. I wouldn’t have thought that to be your favourite.”

“What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

They both fell into that mutual laughter once again, she was getting used to it, she wanted to get used to it. Suddenly she realised they’d reached the cemetery, and the pang of fear struck back just as quick is it had left, this time it was mixed with a burbling, rising shame. How could she have been laughing? Robin had stopped abruptly too, instead she was staring outside the window towards the graves on the lawn.

Rapidly they both got of the car and ran.

Chapter Text

They sprinted towards the four figures that were kneeling down on the grass, she could discern that one of them was lying down. She stopped hearing Robin, she didn’t even hear her own footsteps, she could only hear the sharp thumping beating of her heart. As they got closer in what seemed slow-motion Nancy started hearing them, were they crying? Gasping? Laughing? Oh god.

“WE’RE HERE!” Robin screamed from right behind her.

Dustin and Steve turned their heads immediately, letting out a small smile as they did, which gave Nancy enough foolish hope to believe everything was ok. However Lucas hadn’t looked, his eyes were fixed on the person laying down, her head resting on his lap, Max.

“IS SHE OK?” Nancy and Robin screamed in unison, finally reaching the group and kneeling down with them, their eyes shifting frantically between them trying to decipher the situation from their expressions.

“Yes, she is.” Steve hesitated,

“For now at least. Vecna had her, but whatever you told Dustin worked.”

“She was conscious but she just passed out, but her pulse is normal, she’s probably just in shock.” Lucas said, finally tearing his gaze away from Max.

“Thank you.” Tears were beginning to build in his eyes, stopping just at the brim as he repeated:

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He lowered his head, less to hide his tears and more to hold Max tightly in his arms. That seemed to give way to a chain reaction as Steve pulled Robin and her into a hug. Startled, Nancy didn’t know how to react at first, she hadn’t even half-processed what had just happened and suddenly she was surrounded in the warmth of a hug. An overwhelming gratitude engulfed her, it was a little silly, but she felt safe. She wrapped her arms tightly around both of them and gave in into a silent cry.

At some point Dustin had joined the hug, and all four of them stood there tightly holding onto the only people who could ever possibly understand them. Suddenly Nancy heard a small noise, a sigh.

“I think Max is waking up!”

Instantly they all kneeled down next to Max and Lucas, who had never stood up in the first place. Nancy didn’t dare to speak, as if any single noise could shatter the moment and send Max back into sleep. However instead of that, Max’s eyelids started to slowly grow apart and soon her blue eyes were looking hazily up at them.

“Oh thank god.” Steve sighed next to her.

“Did I faint?” She mumbled.

“Yes but you’re back, that’s what’s important.”

“I couldn’t let Steve loose his reputation as a babysitter.” She let out a small grin.

“Intact sense of humour is always a good sign.” Robin sighed mirroring Max’s smile.

That’s when Max seemed to notice Robin and her for the first time, her eyes growing disproportionally wide at them, she stared at them for a couple seconds as if trying to make sure her eyes didn’t deceive her.

“You figured it out, you saved me.”

“It was mostly Robin, she’s the one who cracked the case.” Nancy said, unconsciously throwing a soft smirk at Robin, who in response closed her lips restraining one of her famous wide robin-smiles. Steve seemed to notice too, and was looking at Robin with a look of disbelief and something else she couldn’t decode. Suddenly that burbling shame resurfaced within Nancy, the situation although better was still one of immense danger, no one should be smiling as wide as both her and Robin were struggling not to.

“Are you kidding me? Without you we would totally have been arrested.” Robin replied.

“ARRESTED?” Both Steve and Dustin yelled in astonishment, throwing accusatory looks at the both of them.

“We’ll explain later, we should probably go somewhere inside so we can talk and plan what to do next, we can all go to my house, Max should probably get some rest.” Nancy offered.

“Are you sure? We always go to yours and I think your father is starting to dislike us.”

“He dislikes everyone and everything, there’s nothing we can do stop that, Mike is away and my mother will let us, so we’ll stay at mine.”

So, slowly, Lucas and Steve helped Max up and they all paced to the car.

“Max, keep your headphones on and music playing, we have to be ready in case… you know.” Robin made some vague gestures, but they all understood what she meant.

“Oh and Steve you should sit behind with them, make sure nothing strange happens again.”

“Again? Why don’t you or Nancy go in the back this time.”

“Because Nancy is a better driver than you, and I get car-sick in the back.” Robin declared with a smile already claiming her place as shotgun next to Nancy.

Nancy was strangely grateful for this, driving kept her focused on something so her mind didn’t wander into all sort of horrors, and having Robin sit next to her brought a peculiar sort of calm, even if Robin’s energy seemed to overflow from her. That pang of sharp chest pain that so constantly came over her seemed to shy away when Robin was around, and so she started driving them all to safety, and whenever her mind began to swirl, or the feeling attempted to re-appear she simply glanced at Robin through the mirror and let herself feel safe.

“Remember to act like everything’s ok.” She said as she pulled up and parked right in front of her house.

“Of course, this isn’t our first rodeo remember?” Steve joked from behind, obviously trying to light up the atmosphere, which only really seemed to work on Robin who started laughing too.

Nancy was slightly struck by her laugh, by how Steve and her seemed so oddly connected. She remembered how Steve had looked at Robin in the lawn before, and how they’d spent so much time together. Robin had said, in fact, she’d insisted there was nothing between her and Steve, but Nancy couldn’t be sure and that stirred an odd annoyance in her which came completely out of nowhere. Yet, she couldn’t blame them, she too had once long ago fallen for Steve, and she couldn’t possibly blame him for falling for someone like Robin Buckley. The annoyance probably came from her own problems with Johnathan with whom she seemed the opposite of connected lately, both mentally and physically. She’d figure that out later, now they had to make sure Max was safe.

They all left the car and Nancy got her house key of and let them all in, thankfully her father was still at his cushy job at this hour, so they were only met with a wide smile from her mother.

“Oh hi Nancy, and company, come in, you can stay for as long as you want I think it’s a great idea you all stick together given the… recent events.” She greeted them.

“Hi!” Dustin met her enthusiastically,

“Hi mrs Wheeler, thank you for letting us stay.” Both Max and Lucas said as they gave her a quick smile.

Steve gave her a polite nod, and Robin was left giving her an awkward tiny wave with her hand.

“Oh hi! I’ve never seen you here before, I’m Karen I’m glad to see Nancy is making more new friends, do you work with her?”

“Oh ehm, yeah I mean no- I’m Robin I don’t work with Nance- Nancy but we were in school together.”

Something about this interaction made Nancy want to bury her head away like an ostrich, friend, that’s what her mom had called Robin, is that what they were? She’d ask Robin later.

“Great mom, we’re going upstairs.”

“Ok, call me if you need anything.”

As soon as they got upstairs a wave of exhaustion drowned all of them, everyone sat down on the nearest soft thing they found and in a silent mutual understanding let themselves doze off for a couple minutes, but Nancy couldn’t ignore the obvious.

“Someone is going to have to do watch, to make sure nothing happens to Max again, we’ll take turns.”

“I’ll go first.” Lucas offered immediately,

“I’m not even tired, so I’ll be fine.”

He was obviously lying through his teeth but Nancy didn’t care, Lucas wouldn’t relent so she simply nodded.

“I’ll go second.” Dustin said.

And just like that they all finally comfortably settled and surrendered to exhaustion. Nancy’s head guided her through sleep, flashing images of her mother cooking while her and Mike laughed, her mother comforting her after she’d started believing the assholes she worked with, her car ride with Robin and her wide wild laughter. All while Cheek to Cheek played softly in the background.

After an incalculable amount of time a soft ray of light spread across Nancy’s cheek and she quietly woke up. It must still be very early in the morning because everyone was still sleeping. Robin was spread across the couch her face squashed against it and her mouth open leaving a small trail of saliva, it was disgusting, yet incredibly endearing. She seemed so calm, her skin so soft against the pale light that caressed her, her soft pink lipstick had started to wear off leaving her lips bare, her hair was a hue lighter in that position, her hands seemed infinitely more delicate than before. Her presence was so disproportionally large in the room that Nancy couldn’t focus on anything else. Robin Buckley really was beautiful. No wonder Steve liked her so much. If she were him she would probably- oh god how long had she been staring at Robin? While she was sleeping too? Why had she done that? God she was so creepy. That familiar shame began to plague her face, but this time it was slightly different, it was powerful and heated her entire body, as if she’d been caught doing something unspeakable. A terrifying thought started to take shape, but before it could develop into anything that Nancy actually had to face, she decided she’d go back to sleep. She’d almost managed to do so when a voice woke her up.

“Dustin, earth to Dustin.”

Shit. Eddie.

She got up and grabbed the walkie.

“Hey it’s Nancy”

“Wheeler hey! Um, I’m gonna need a food delivery like really soon. Unless you want me going out into the world.”

Shit.

“No. No, no, no don’t do that. Just stay where you are and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

There was silence for a few seconds and Nancy almost left the walkie, but then Eddie spoke again.

“Listen um… can you pick me up a six-pack?”

Fucking Christ, this dude HAD to be joking. But of course, he wasn’t. He then gave off some ranting excuse as to why drinking would do him good but Nancy had stopped listening, because everyone was asleep. Everyone. Was. Asleep. Shit, shit shit shit.

“Hey, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

She didn’t even dare to look behind her. Max wasn’t there, and everyone was asleep.

“DUSTIN! DUSTIN WAKE UP. Aren’t you supposed to be on max-watch?”

“Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Sorry.”

Did she have to do everything herself?

“Then where is she?!”

“She’s right there.”

He pointed to the place, Nancy already knew was empty and didn’t break her pointed stare away from him.

“A second ago, I swear I just dozed off for… an hour.”

Great.

The agonising pain was back, palpitating inside her chest like a rattling bird was trapped inside her lungs. She stood up and immediately headed down stairs, Dustin right behind her, she could hear her breath hurrying and her father speaking downstairs but she didn’t care. She made it down, past the corner, into the kitchen, and- there was Max, on the table, drawing next to her younger sister. Thank god.

Max heard them and gave her a small reassuring smile. They really had to step it up, how had Max woken up and gone downstairs without any of them even noticing?

“Morning, guys. Everything ok?”

Nancy finally allowed herself to breathe and unclench her jaw, and tried giving her mother the most normal voice she could,

“Yeah, yeah everything’s ok.”

Yeah she’d definitely not succeeded in that, thankfully her mother either didn’t notice or decided to not question it.

“I think it’s so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this.”

“Could try sticking together at a different house for a change.” Her father muttered, barely bothering to look up from his newspaper.

Nancy had to bite her lip to resist the urge to throw him a sarcastic “Good morning dad, I slept well, how about you?” But there were more important things to handle, so she swallowed the sarcasm and approached Max, who had the table filled with a bunch of red drawings.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Max must be so tired of sympathy, but she couldn’t help the soft tone her voice took, she’d gone through so much. As they’d drove back she’d told them Vecna showed her memories of Billy, she couldn’t possibly imagine what that was like, and hoped she never had to.

“You ok?”

“Just couldn’t sleep. People kept blasting music into my ears for some reason.”

Nancy chuckled and she could almost hear Robin’s voice in the background, saying that an intact sense of humour was always a good sign. She was right, laughter was the only thing keeping her going at this point, although this laughter was Robin's more than it was hers.

“Is this what you saw last night?” She asked, horrified as she stared at the red drawings, some of them beginning to from a gruesome image in her eyes.
“I mean, it’s supposed to be. I thought it would be easier to draw it out than explain it but… not so much.”

One of the drawings seemed to have to people, two corpses, hanging or inside a tree, and Nancy started feeling sick. Suddenly she missed Robin’s random distracting facts.

“Is that?”

“It’s like they were on display.” Max confirmed what she feared.

“And then there was this red fog everywhere. It was like a dream. A nightmare.”

“Do you think Vecna’s just trying to scare you?” She asked, selfishly more to calm down her own nerves rather than Max’s.

“With Billy? Yeah. But when I made it here.. I don’t know something was different. He seemed surprised almost, like he didn’t want me there.”

“Maybe you infiltrated his mind.” Dustin joined in,

“He invaded your mind right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?”

As crazy as it sounded, she admitted Dustin might be onto something, something about these drawings didn’t feel right, it was too messy yet too detailed to be random scribbles. The colours weren’t spread frantically, the strokes all had a clear direction. Dustin was busy terrorising poor Holly with some description of Freddy Krueger, but she didn't care because she was observing the drawing Dustin had just put down. There was something. A window. A stained glass with roses. This was the second time she’d seen that window within 24 hours. Shit-

Chapter Text

“Is that a window?” She started, desperate to reveal what had gone through her head in the last millisecond.

“Yeah.”

“Stained glass with Roses.”

“Yeah. See? I’m not so terrible after all.”

“Yeah, well, it helps that I’ve seen it before.”

There was no time to explain, everything was forming too quickly in her imagination, every section and fold, the lines, the window. So, she just started folding. The stained glass had to go in the middle, so she’d save it for last, the broken piece folded in half, the other one three-quarters, the pointy one must be the roof, and the one right next to her was one of the walls, she quickly found the other one. The rest simply came natural, fitting themselves perfectly into the larger image. She grabbed the nearest pen she found and started drawing the outline, she added the windows, the clock, and finally, the door, a stained glass with roses.

“It’s pieces of a house.” Max said mesmerised.

“Not just any house…”

“It’s Victor Creel’s house.”

She could feel their questions about to start, but her own journalist mind was already working, and if Chrissy’s, Fred’s and Max’s symptoms were indicative of anything it was that there was no time to waste. So she was already up on her feet.

“Where are you going?” Dustin mumbled with food still in his mouth.

“Waking the others.”

She barged into the room hoping to wake them up as quickly as possible, to her surprise only Lucas was still sleeping, probably tired from doing the first watch, but Steve and Robin were already awake. They were both sat on the sofa smiling as they talked, and it seemed like Robin was about to go in for a hug, but then they both jumped from the sound of the door and looked at Nancy, Robin immediately blushed. So, the “nothing between” her and Steve was obviously, an enormous amount of utter bullshit. Could no one just be honest with her? Still, there were more important things to worry about, as always. God, this was giving her a headache.

“Nancy are you ok?” Steve asked, his voice tainted with worry.

Shit, she’d been staring again, she’d been so surprised by seeing the two of them like that, that she’d totally forgot what she was there for.

“We have to go, Max was drawing what she saw and-

“Max?” Lucas woke up out of nowhere when he heard her name.

“She’s fine, don’t worry.”

Lucas didn’t seem too convinced, but he didn’t argue.

“She was drawing what she saw there, at first it looked like random red fog, but there was a window, a stained glass with roses, and when we connected the drawings together…”

“Victor Creel.” Robin said, catching up at an impressive speed, staring with her mouth wide open at Nancy.

“You’re losing me, what does Victor Creel have to do with roses, or what with Max saw?” Lucas wondered, already stood up and obviously desperate to go see Max downstairs.

“When I connected the drawings, they showed the outline of Victor Creel’s house, Robin and I know what it looks like, that’s why I recognised it. But apparently, Vecna didn’t WANT Max seeing that, seeing Victor Creel’s house, he was surprised, maybe even scared when Max got to the part of his mind where that image was. So maybe, there’s something there, something in the house that might tell us more about Vecna and how to defeat him, maybe it’s a shot in the dark but it’s definitely worth trying.”

“Your last “shot in the dark” turned out to be a genius streak, so I think we are in good hands.” Robin smirked at her, and gave her a reassuring smile.

She felt herself fill with pride at that, she was smart, and it felt so good to hear Robin acknowledge that.

“Yeah yeah, but I’m still lost, what do you mean when you say Max reached a part of his mind? And why would Vecna have Victor Creel’s house in his memories? As far as we know he killed his family years ago.”

“Max can explain the first thing better than I can, we don’t have time to lose and a car ride to take so she’ll catch you up to date during it, as for the second we’re as lost as you are.”

“So… back to the car it is, I claim shotgun!” Robin screamed, already making her way down the stairs and almost tripping with Max and Dustin who were going up at the same time.

“To the car kiddos, we’re going to Creel’s house.”

So, they were back in one of the car rides and Nancy wishes Victor Creel’s house were on the other side of the country, so she could just drive on forever while stealing glances at Robin, and watch her expressions shift as if she were talking to someone in her imagination, or see her fingers tap along to a song only she seemed to be hearing. She caught herself looking at her more and more, the last time she’d felt this safe with someone was Barb, although with her it was usually Nancy who caught Barb looking at her. For totally different reasons of course.

They all physically felt the atmosphere change right before the saw the house, you could tell in the way the sky seemed darker even though it wasn’t, in how the air seemed more solid and dense. Even before she caught the first glimpse of the horrifying structure, she could feel it. Robin got out of the car first and they all quietly followed. In front of them was a half-decayed almost mansion painted with a dull dark blue colour, wooden planks unevenly hooked onto its walls, perfectly hiding all its eye-shaped windows, but not the rotten soul behind them.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy.” Steve spoke first.

“Let’s find a way in.” Nancy said immediately, she didn’t want to waste any more time but she just as equally wanted to get over with this as soon as possible.

Steve and her approached the door and started taking off the nails of the wooden plank that blocked the entrance as her and Max tried to explain for the 1000th time why they were there, but to be honest she wasn’t completely sure either.

“We don’t think he’s in there… do we?” Lucas hesitated.

A cold shiver ran through Nancy’s spine, you’d think after so many paranormal encounters you’d become somehow unsensitised to fear, but in her case the opposite seemed to be true.

“Guess we’ll find out.” Max said just in time as Steve got the last nail out.

“Ready?”

“Mhmm.” She couldn’t even force out a full word.

The plank gave a huge thud as it fell against the floor, only to reveal… a glass door. Great.

“It’s locked.” Steve assured after trying to open it a couple of times, or rather violently clanking and rattling the knob.

“Should I knock see if anybody’s home?”

Nancy’s mind was already reeling into plan mode, trying to come up with a method to get in even though it’s the last thing she wanted, but suddenly she heard Robin’s voice from behind her.

“No need.” She had a huge brick in her hand and a smug grin in her face she’d never seen before, and when she looked at her astonished she felt Robin’s pride oozing off of her.

“I found a key.” She really needed to be more like Robin.

Everyone got out of her way immediately, and Robin’s impulse took over her as she threw the brick powerfully at the door, completely shattering the class and giving them free entry. Then, Nancy’s own impulse took over too.

“Wow, you have a powerful arm… Robin.”

Shit. She’d tried to come up with a nickname for her, the same way people called her Nance, the same way Robin called her Nance, but she hadn’t been able to come up with anything. What could you say “Robie?”, “Rob?”, “Buck?”. Now it looked like she’d forgotten her name mid-sentence, but of course Robin should know Nancy would never forget her name. Oh wait. Anyway hopefully she’d not even noticed. God, why was she overthinking so much? There was nothing to even think about, no matter overthinking. The nerves of these last few weeks were really getting to her, and Robin, well, she was the first female friend she’d really had since Barb, and she just didn’t want to fuck it up. If friends was what they were, she hadn’t asked Robin yet.

Unconsciously she wandered towards one of the rooms, and to her relief Robin closely followed. Everything was still there, the decaying furniture and dirty mirror, there was a telephone on of the table to the right, and even some food on another. Even the smells seemed to be frozen there, leaving a myriad of clashing odours around the room. Nancy was sure that if she were to stay a little longer she would smell the perfume of mrs Creel wrapping around her.

“They just left everything.”

“I guess a triple homicide isn’t good for resale value.” Robin joked in a completely serious tone right next to her, and as was custom Nancy faked being annoyed, keeping her smile and sigh of relief to herself like a secret.

“Hey guys.” Max called from behind.

“You all see that, right?” She asked, facing a disheveled antique-clock.

Nancy remembered the clock from Max’s drawing.

“Is this what you saw in your visions?”

As terrifying as this situation was, they were definitely in the right place, there were too many coincidences for this to be a dead end. Suddenly, Robin brushed passed them making her way towards it. She had the urge to hold her back, to clutch her arm and prevent her from getting even remotely closer to that thing, who knew what touching it might do?

“I mean it’s just a clock, right?” She brushed her fingertips through the glass, and Nancy could already hear the glass shattering, slashing Robin’s fingers. The glass didn’t crack. Robin laid her entire palm against it and wiped it across the clock, the only damage done was the murky dust left on her hand.

“Like a normal old clock.” She confirmed.

“Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks? Maybe he’s, like, a clockmaker or something? Steve tried. Although not entirely impossible, she doubted Vecna’s job was going to help them at all, specially given the fact that his full time job now was brutally murdering seemingly random teenagers.

“I think you cracked the case, Steve.” Dustin joked, he never missed an opportunity to mess with Steve lately.

“All I know is, the answers are here… somewhere ” And Nancy was determined to find them.

“Ok everybody, stay in groups of two.” She immediately turned to Robin.

“Robin, upstairs.”

Robin threw her a quick military- like salute with a smug face before following her lead.

They were the first up and entered a random room, Nancy wasn’t 100% sure what they were looking for, but supposed she’d know when she saw it.

“You may be a weird runner, but you’re a great thrower Robin Buckley. Maybe you could just throw bricks at Vecna and we’d win.”

Robin’s lips widened and she left out a chuckle.

“Don’t knock it till you try it right?”

“Yeah exactly.”

Now they were both chuckling, and looking at each other only made them laugh even harder, as if their amusement was even funnier than the idea of Vecna being knocked out by a brick. Actually no, that was hilarious.

“You know it’s because my mother put me in a ton of activities when I was a kid, she said I had too much energy and of course horrible coordination, so I did almost every available sport to ever exist. I never stayed too long in one, I got suuuuper bored after a while, the one I stuck with the longest was swimming, although I hated it. I guess I inevitably got some skills after so much exercise.”

“ Yeah, definitely, I never really did any activities, but my father always said I should do ballet, but it’s not like there’s any ballet classes in Hawkins.”

“You look like a ballet girl.”

“What does that mean?”

Robin shrugged her arms as she bent down to look at something in the floor, but ultimately she was unsuccessful in her search and came back up.

“I don’t know, you’re patient and resilient, ballerinas have to be very patient and work really hard, you’re patient with me so dance should be no challenge. Plus, it’s all about being exact with your movements and detail and as a journalist that’s like, your superpower, so yeah.”

That wasn’t at all what she’d expected. People thought she’d do ballet because she was small and not very seemingly strong, but Robin had a totally different idea. It suddenly occurred to her that Robin would actually also make a great journalist, the specificity she’d gone into about Nancy and her fit for ballet was actually quite impressive, and her distractions had actually helped them way more than held them back.

“If managing ballet is anything like talking with you I don’t think I’d have to work as hard as you say. I’m not being patient with you Robin, I’m just- I don’t know being , just existing around you like a normal human being. But thanks, you’ve convinced me, if we ever get out of this I’ll try out a few ballet moves, see how I like it.”

“That’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me Nance.”

Nancy absolutely hated the ease she’d said that with. She could think of 100 nice things to say about Robin Buckley, so why was no one seeing any of them?

“I think sometimes it’s just me, but I almost always feel like that people have to put up with me most of the time, I know I can be… intense. The only people I don’t feel like that with are you and Steve.”

Oh, true. Steve.

“Yeah, Steve’s cool.”

Silence engulfed the room, only leaving the floorboard’s small complaints and Nancy’s own breath. It was that excruciatingly obvious silence, the one you are conscious about being in and desperately long to escape.

“Did I annoy you somehow? Sorry, I just feel like I mentioned Steve and then the mood changed, and now we’re in silence, well not anymore since I’m speaking but you know what I mean.”

“It’s nothing.” She replied, way more coldly than she’d intended.

That wasn’t fair, Robin hadn’t done anything wrong, she wasn’t under any contractual obligations to tell Nancy who she liked.

“I’m sorry, that was kind of cold, I guess- I, I don’t know, I know you told me there’s nothing between you two, but this morning when I went into the room to wake you guys up, you were talking and you blushed and- I don’t know, it’s stupid. I guess I wanted you to tell me the truth, but I know realise that sounds childish, you didn’t even know me that much and I wasn’t being exactly nice to you so-

“Nance!” Robin had gotten both of Nancy’s hands on hers and was solely focused on making their eyes meet, her eyebrows raised slightly in a “Listen to me, ok?” manner (if that was even a thing).

“I don’t know how what you saw looked like, but I can assure you that Steve and I are not a thing, like AT ALL. Not even one little bit. Steve is just my friend and he’ll never be more than that, I’m sorry if it seemed like I wasn't being truthful but, I promise I was telling the truth. Steve and I are just friends, Platonic with a capital P.”

“Oh, ok, I believe you. God now I feel stupid.” And she really did.

Robin had done nothing except tell her the truth since they met, and she’d doubted their entire day together from just a simple 3 second scene she’d saw at a moment of urgency. She could have sworn she saw Robin blush, but that didn’t have to mean anything, or maybe her face just looked different under that light, just like her hair had looked a hue lighter earlier that morning.

“Don’t, I get it, Steve is like everyone’s type, he’s been telling me about his flings and desperate search for a girlfriend for weeks.”

“But he’s not your type?”

“No, I guess not…” She hesitated after that, and for the first time since she’d met her, Robin seemed to be calculating her next words.

“Is he yours ?”

Oh god, this entire time Nancy had thought Robin had a thing for Steve, but now Robin thought SHE had a thing for Steve?

“Oh no, not at all. I mean he used to be, as you already know, but not anymore. I’ve changed a lot since then, have found things that are better for me, things I like better.” Funnily enough, she hadn’t even thought of Johnathan as she said that, she’d thought about her work and her passions, the idea of making new friends like Robin and having a normal life after this all ended.

Robin was directly staring at her, her face scrunched and slightly tilted as if she were attempting to solve a particularly challenging maths question.

“Cool, they should give me a medal or something, a prize to the only girl who’s never liked Steve Harrington.” Robin shook her hands triumphantly and bowed as if she were accepting a victory along with a wave of applause.

Continuing the game, Nancy gave her a small silent clap and acted as if she were placing a medal over her head. Soon they were both laughing again, but curiosity stirred within Nancy.

“Yeah, I mean if you don’t like Steve, I’m curious Buckley, who’s your type?”

Chapter Text

“Oh, em, I don’t really know, I don’t like Steve but I don’t know who I dolike I guess, I mean I’ve had crushes and all that of course, but I don’t know, I don’t know.”

It was extremely obvious she’d made Robin nervous, she was wandering away from her, acting like she was searching for something high up on a dusty shelf. That right there. That not so subtle deflection, she’d seen it before with Barb. Half of her didn’t want to pry, the last thing she wanted was to make Robin more uncomfortable, but she couldn’t help but try one more time, just once. She could be extremely wrong, not everyone liked to talk about romance or crushes and that Robin was one of those people didn’t have mean that she was-. But if it did… Nancy just felt the overwhelming urge to tell her… well she wasn’t quite sure what she’d say, whatever it was she’d wished she’d said to Barb.

“So, tell me about a crush you had, trust me it can’t be that embarrassing.”

“It’s… actually a bit more complicated, but, I- ok.”

Robin lingered for a few seconds, licking her lips as if she were tasting the words she was about to say to make sure they were perfect. Finally, she opened her mouth, but suddenly a scream rippled through the air, then erratic footsteps.

Steve.

It wasn’t very far away, it actually sounded like he was in the room right next to them. Nancy rushed towards it immediately, leaving Robin’s words unspoken. The room was empty, but the footsteps continued, down the corridor, the other door and, BAM she bumped right into a frenetic Steve who’d been stammering backwards in panic.

“Woah, woah what’s wrong?”

“There was a spider.”

Oh my god. Steve Harrington. Afraid of spiders?

“It’s a black widow.”

Shit, now she was afraid too, those things were, to her memory, deadly.

“Don’t go in there” Steve huffed, still completely breathless.

Much to her disgust, she noticed a thin trail of sticky pale cobwebs, gripped on to Steve’s perfectly brushed hair.

“Oh, oh, wait just.” She tried reaching it.

“What? Something? Shit, ok.” His overly alarmed voice was funnier than Nancy would ever admit.

“Wait. Stop moving.”

Finally Steve stood still and allowed her to start removing the white webs off his hair, his back completely stiff.

“Thanks.”

Suddenly Robin came out of nowhere, she’d never even checked to see if she was behind her and now felt slightly guilty, they couldn’t afford to leave anyone on their own in these grim circumstances.

“If there’s a spider, you’re never gonna find it till it lays eggs and all the babies spill out.” She declared, like it was the weather forecast. Yeah, the guilt was starting to dissipate.

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve complained

“Robin, Seriously.”

But Robin was already disappearing past the corner, giggling at herself.

“She’s got problems.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” And thank god she did, or she would have gone insane by now.

“It’s cool you two are friends now.” Friends. She really hoped that’s what they were, but she still wanted to hear it from Robin herself.

“Maybe after we find Vecna, kill him, save the world and stuff, maybe we can all go out, you know? Me, you Robin and Johnathan, when he’s back.”

True. Jonathan. She’d not been able to call him in a really long time, she wondered if he’d even realised. Not that he didn’t care about her, he definitely did, he was sweet and patient and compassionate. Yet, when Steve had mentioned going out she hadn’t even remembered him. That couldn’t be a great sign could it?

“It’s not like we’re dating.”

This again. She’d really understood it by now.

“Me and Robin. Not like we’re dating. She told you? That we’re not?

“Yes, she made that very clear.”

“Platonic with a capital P.” Robin’s voice echoed from somewhere in front.

“Yep. Thank you.” Steve screamed back, before shifting into an almost- whisper directed at Nancy.

“I mean… I would date her. It’s just she’s… we’re just… never mind. We’re friends. Just friends.”

Wait. He would date her? So did Steve actually like Robin? But obviously she didn’t reciprocate, “it’s just she’s”, is what Steve had said, she’s what? Like Barbara Holland?

“Right. Right. Ok, all better.” She should find Robin.

“Great, thanks.” She wanted to find with Robin.

“Well… um great. Guess we should get back to the investigation.” Steve whispered, extremely slowly and rather awkwardly. She simply nodded back, making the awkwardness grow and expand between them.

“The obvious things are not what people observe… or Do, don’t observe, or… Sherlock Holmes.”

Then, he brushed past her and left. What? Whatever, she needed to find Robin.

From one of the three rooms in front of her she heard a rattling and clanking of things falling, normally it would have scared her, but know she knew were Robin was who most probably had tripped over them. So, she made her way towards the room and just as expected there was Robin, rather comically trying to regain her balance.

“Hey Robs, you ok?

“OH GOD! Fuck Nance that scared the shit out of me…

“Wait… Robs?”

“Well, it’s not fair I’m Nance while you get to stay Robin, is it Robs?”

“I like it.”

The weight of the unresolved conversation hung over them, so for now they both started looking for clues around but the only thing Nancy seemed to find was dust and the creepy sounds of the floorboards. What was even creepier was the lack of sounds other than the ones of their own making or the home’s breathing. In a house this old you’d expect rats, insects, a million little things, but there weren’t, there wasn’t a living thing anywhere near.

Nancy needed to tell her, she didn’t need Robin to say anything nor open up to her, but inevitably she knew that she knew much more about Robin than she did about her.

“I used to have a friend, my best friend. Her name was Barbara Holland.” It may have been the first time she’d said her full name out loud by her own will.

“Yeah, I remember her. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t a normal death, it was this- this whole upside down haunted Hawkins business. Worst of all I could have stopped it. I could have saved her but I didn’t.”

“Nance I’m sure that’s not true, I may not be the brightest around or have a 3.9 GPA but I’m 100% sure that Barb’s death wasn’t your fault, I mean look at us, look at all we had to do only to find a temporary solution, you couldn’t have possibly done all that in a few seconds, specially when you didn’t even know about the upside down and all the Haunted Hawkins business.”

She was right, partly.

“But the thing is I could have. It’s true I couldn’t have figured out how to fight the demogorgon that attacked , or how to deal with the upside down, but it didn’t have to reach that point. I could have taken her home, how she wanted. We were at a stupid party and she wanted to go home, but I wouldn’t take her. Because I was too busy thinking about making out with Steve.”

Robin felt silent after that, and Nancy immediately regretted everything, Robin would hate her now, she would see her for the horrible, selfish person that she was. She shut her eyes tight, if Robin was going to hate her she at least didn’t want to see the disappointment in her face. What a coward. Suddenly she felt a small touch on her shoulder, it was soft and cautious, not the one of a person filled with rage, so she opened her eyes to find Robin’s… crying.

“Can I hug you?” She asked.

“I- yeah?”

So Robin flung her arms around her and buried her head in her shoulder.

“You were sixteen, I’m so sorry.”

Now she was the one crying, wiping her cheeks every few seconds with no result, once the first tear had fallen the rest had dutifully followed, so she surrendered to them, burying her face deep into Robin’s jacket as they hugged, Robin was lovingly stroking her back like her mother used to do, and Nancy almost forgot where they were. After Barb’s death everyone was too busy calling her a slut to realise she’d lost her best friend. Her dad couldn’t care less, and her mom and Mike where too worried about Will, which she understood of course, but still.

“So you don’t hate me?”

“Never.”

It was small, a word, but it gave her an opening.

“I hurt her. I know it wasn’t my fault, I mean I know it but I don’t deep down, it’s complicated like I know it wasn’t my fault but I still feel like it was. I hurt her that day, I broke her heart and I knew I was doing it. Maybe if I hand’t she would have had the strength to fight back.”
“Nancy that’s not-” Robin started, her eyes open with worry and urgency, her hands holding hers.

“I know, I know, it’s not true. They’re just things I tell myself sometimes. It’s just Barb was, she- she was my best friend but I think I was more to her than that. She never said it, but I knew she felt something… for me. She may have even been in love with me, even if that’s a little egotistical for me to think. And I went and looked her in the eye as I broke her heart. “This isn’t you” were the last words she ever told me, as I went upstair with Steve.”

Finally, Nancy took a deep breath of not so fresh air, but air nonetheless. The first breath of fresh air ever having finally told someone the complete story of Barbara’s death, and even though she was almost full on sobbing, tears clouding her vision and her nose clogged making her croak as she talked, it felt wonderful.

“Wow, Holy shit.” Robin said.

“Yeah, Holy shit.”

“Thanks for telling me Nance. I- you should know that if Barb really was… in love with you, she didn’t leave this world hating you, she may have been mad for a bit, but I know that when death was upon her, if she loved you she left that anger far behind her. When you’re in love with someone you can never be more angry at them than in love with them.”

“For someone with such a “complicated” love life you sure are wise Robs. Thank you. You’re the only person who’s genuinely said something that has helped me since she passed. And you’re the only person who knows of course, I never said anything, for Barb’s sake. I do wish I’d told her that even if I didn’t love her the way she loved me, I loved her, and I always will.”

“Not many people can say that you know? You really are better than most people Nancy wheeler.”

“I think we’ve all gone through enough shit as to be stupid enough to hate someone for such a… stupid fucking reason.”

Robin chuckled lightly at this.

“Yeah totally, I wish it were that easy.”

There it was.

“Yeah, sorry.” Nancy looked at her, trying to make sure Robin knewshe understood, and truly was sorry, but Robin’s face clouded with confusion for a second.

“Oh? Oh- I”

“Hey guys, come check this out!” Max’s voice echoed through the entire house, Robin and her shared a quick glance and were immediately on their feet, they walked in silence as Nancy desperately tried to completely erase any trace left of her tears.

Shit, shit, one of two things had happened. 1) Robin hadn’t meant to say that and Nancy had just made everything terribly awkward and uncomfortable by not letting Robin tell her herself. 2) She’d horribly misinterpreted everything from the beginning and Robin wasn’t actually like Barb at all. Both were terrible, but she hoped it was the first.

“Over here.”

Wait. Why did she hope it was the first? Wouldn’t that be worse? It would mean she’d made Robin feel uncomfortable, the second was at least manageable, could be passed as a misunderstanding. But she still hoped that wasn’t the case. Maybe she wished to be close to Robin, and her sharing something like this with her would make Nance feel that? Maybe it was because she was trying to repair her past with Barb and this would be the perfect opportunity. That made sense. Huh she laughed to herself, how weird to wish that of someone, to hope for someone to be something most people hate.

“What is it?” Robin asked, as they got to where Max was, already to find Steve, Dustin and Lucas there, all staring up at the ceiling at a blinking light. Oh my god. Moments ago she’d been crying about the past but her mind was already back to the present, working, but instead of suppressing the memories she simply put them to the side, for once she didn’t want to hide them forever.

“It’s like the Christmas lights.”

Robin leaned into her ear, making Nancy suddenly incredibly aware of her surroundings.

“The Christmas lights?” She whispered.

“Yeah. When Will was in the upside down, the lights… came to life.”

They all knew what that meant but Lucas was the first to say it, loud and clear unlike Robin’s and her’s previous whispering.

“Vecna’s here. In this house. Just on the other side.”

The lights flickered madly, intensifying Nancy’s headache; she couldn’t look away, the static buzzing noise simply grew as the flashes became quicker, racing against each other. Until it was gone and darkness surrounded them once more.

“I think he just left the room.” Robin spoke again.

“Did he hear us?”

“Can he see us?”

“Headphones.” Lucas said immediately, turning towards Max, who was already grabbing them.

Lights, if these lights were actually anything like the Christmas lights then they could be more than just nonsensical flashing, they could be useful, and most important it granted them with Vecna’s location at all times.

“Wait wait.” She had an idea.

“Everyone, turn off your flashlights and spread out.”

Everyone reacted with the swiftness of a regime, except for Steve of course. She wasn’t ready to leave Robin just yet, wasn’t ready to leave the emotions she’d expressed or the feeling of safety and acceptance she’d felt, no matter how awkward it may had ended. So she raced behind her.

“So, you had a Nancy Wheeler idea huh?” Robin smirked at her, she had a sort of power to dissolve any awkwardness or weird silences. She realised whatever had happened, whatever the truth was, it wasn’t for now, and it didn’t have to be awkward either.

“Aaand what’s that exactly?”

“A good idea.”

“Not always.”

“I’ve yet to see a bad one.”

“If you stick around for long enough you’ll get to trust me”

“I’d love to.”

Nancy felt her cheeks go unexpectedly red at that, god all this flattery really was getting to her head. They entered one of the unexplored rooms.

“So I suppose if we catch Vecna out flashlights will-

Robin couldn’t even finish her sentence when light shot up from her own flashlight before beginning to flicker.

“I GOT HIM!! GOT HIM! I GOT HIM.” She screamed.

Everyone ran towards them and as they did, the light faded out of Robin’s flashlight.

“I, I had him.”

Suddenly Steve’s flashlight started flickering. Vecna was moving.

“Oh, woah. Oh I think he’s moving, he’s moving.”

Where was he going? Why was this house so important to him? Was it because it was the one of his first victim? Maybe that gave him some sort of power, or advantage or something, because she doubted Vecna was one for nostalgia. The light kept running away while Steve chased it with his flashlights and the rest followed, around the corner, up the stairs, dust getting so far into Nancy’s throat that she had to actively resist coughing. Even without the light they followed that unsettling buzzing noise, like the one of a malfunctioning tv. Finally they reached the top of the stair.

“Shit I lost him.” Steve’s flashlight stopped showing any signs of life.

“No, you didn’t.” Max gently pushed the door in front of them, to reveal a steady light coming from inside. Past it were… more stairs. Of course. Even Max seemed hesitant to go through, but she did so anyway. Great.

“It’s an attic. Of course it’s an attic.” Robin complained, taking Nancy’s word’s out of her mouth.

She wondered wether heights were on Robin’s list of things she didn’t like, it probably was, and she had to admit the girl truly had horrible coordination.

“Here, I’ll help you Robs.” She offered a hand to Robin.

“Thanks.” She simply smiled.

They started making their way up, Nancy stretching her hand towards Robin when she thought she might lose her balance, making sure she was close enough to hold her at any time. She thought it might be overkill but she wanted to make sure Robin new she was there for her and that everything was ok, even if Nancy had been the one to overstep or misinterpret.

The attic was by far the creepiest room they’d been in so far, and the smell was so pungent Nancy feared she might faint. Creepiest of all was the single tiny, little, flickering light bulb right above their heads.

“Flashlights.” Dustin pointed out. He was right, all their flashlights were going crazy, uniting in one central spot, and maybe it was just Nancy but the light felt stronger, more vibrant, closer.

“Ok, what’s happening?” Steve asked, there was no answer.

Chapter Text

“He’s still.”

“Is he like sleeping? Can’t we like get to him somehow while he’s like this and be all like waaaaah and murder him in his sleep? If he can even be murdered, we don’t know if that applies to him. ” Robin was starting to derail.

“I don’t think that’s how it works Robs, but we’ll figure it out.”

“We better because if not we are utterly and completely fucked.” She continued.

“We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“So, we know this house is important to Vecna, what now?” Steve asked.

“We should go see Eddie right? He said he needed a food delivery and we have to tell him whatever this is.” Dustin had already lowered his flashlight, and was obviously ready to leave, Nancy didn’t blame him.

“Yeah you’re right, let’s go.”

They were back in the car, back into their usual arrangement which had her as driver and Robin who’d been ranting for the last ten minutes as shotgun.

“Not to be a wimp but can I sit in the car for this visit, cause this is gonna totally and royally suck.”

She was right.

“It’ll be fine.”

“I just can’t stand to see those dull eyes of Eddie’s break again. I really, really can’t.”

She couldn’t help but look over at Robin to see she was genuinely upset, she tries reaching her hand towards her in comfort, but Steve’s voice made her jump and refocus on the road ahead of her.

“Well at least he can drink himself into feeling better.”

“That’s what my mom does.” Max replied monotonously.

That girl really needed help, maybe when this was all over she could help her somehow, she couldn’t keep living in her conditions, and it didn’t matter how many eyes her father rolled if it was necessary she’d bring Max to her own house. Robin hadn’t seemed to notice Max’s comment because she was still ranting.

“Why don’t we just give it a trial? Hey Eddie, uh good news first this time, we got you some Dustin-approved junk food and that six pack that you requested. Oh, and we found Vecna, only bad news is that he’s in that other, darker, much scarier dimension that we told you about, and the gate is closed, so we have no way of getting to him, he’s entirely shut off to us, so basically you’re screwed. And no, no, I know you were already screwed but now you’re like doubly triply screwed!”

“Maybe we don’t put it like that.” Lucas tried calming her down. Unsuccessfully. So Nancy tried too.

“We are one step closer to finding Vecna, that’s what we say, that’s what’s important.”

“See Robin, positive spin can make all the difference.” Steve muffled through his crisps, which she was pretty sure were supposed to be for Eddie. Oh god, they better not be some random ones he found lying around.

“Uh huh.” Robin was completely uninterested by now.

However the noise hadn’t ceased, except this time it wasn’t Robin’s ranting, or Steve’s munching, it was a myriad of voices ahead, shouting orders and muffled conversations all dripping with desperation. One familiar voice rising above the rest.

“Oh shit.”

Nancy stopped the car before they were noticed with no explanation needed, the sight of police and angry locals all congregated around Eddie’s hiding spot was enough for everyone to understand that they were in deep shit. She wasn’t going to waste a second.

“Come on this way.” She guided them slowly behind a car, close enough to hear officer Powell’s statements but hidden enough as to avoid suspicion.

“… reporting a homicide here on the lake. Officer Callahan here and myself were arrived first at the scene, we made our way to the shore of Lover’s Lake about ten yards from that house you see behind me. It was there we found the victim, an 18 year old senior from Hawkins High Patrick Mckinney.”

Lucas face dropped at the name, it must have been one of his friends.

“We’ve also identified a person of interest.” He flipped out a picture, showing it to the crowd.

“Eddie Munson.”

Shit.

“Oh man, this is not good, this is really not good.”

The police kept explaining how they were going to handle the situation, at least one thing was clear, Eddie had been able to escape, for now. They had to find him, make sure he was alive and well, they’d contact him once they left the crowd. Then they’d find him a hiding spot, and start planning on what to do with their new-found information. Yes, yes, that’s what they would do. Planning wasn’t serving them of much so far, but it helped Nancy ever so slightly to calm the rising banging in her chest. However, like so far, the planning wasn’t serving her of much because her thoughts where interrupted by an electronic voice.

“Dustin, can you hear me? Wheeler?” Well, screw being cautious.

“Holy shit Eddie, are you ok?” Dustin replied quickly crouching away attempting to hide Eddie’s voice.

“Nah, man. Pretty… pretty goddam far from ok.” His voice came out so broken that Nancy could swear that if a cop heard it they couldn’t possibly think him guilty.

“Where is he?” Robin was quick to ask.

“Where are you?”

“Skull rock, do you know it?”

Every old enough Hawkins student knew skull rock. It was a famous making out spot, Steve liked to brag about how he'd basically invented it.

“Uh yeah, that’s near Cornwallis and-

“Garret yeah I know where that is.” Steve finished Dustin’s sentence, and in matter of seconds Nancy was back behind the steering wheel, with fidgeting Robin in the corner of her eye.

“Ok Nance now you’ve got to turn lef-”

“I know where skull rock is Steve, we’ve been there together remember?” She scoffed.

“Oh shit, true.”

She kept rehearsing what she would say to Eddie over and over in her mind, what gestures and expressions they’d use. Eddie would also need a hiding spot, a hiding spot they had to get to easily in case he needed food, but also far enough that they wouldn’t find him, but it had to be safe, but not frequented. Shit, and that wasn’t even the biggest of their problems.

“It’s ok.” Robin was holding her right hand, that had at some point stopped holding the steering wheel.

“What?” Nancy looked back, still a little confused.

“You were fidgeting even more than me Nance… and last time you did almost made us crash so…” She didn’t finish her sentence, just gave her the sweetest smile Nancy had ever seen, her lips were curved up only in the slightest; her eyes wore the smile, wide and warm. She couldn’t help but feel like all smiles should look and feel like this, this was how smiles had always been predestined to be.

“You did what?” Steve brought her back to the harsh reality. Robin’s laugh mended that immediately.

“She almost made us crash!! She was staring at the road like lasers were going to shoot out of her eyes and the car was getting faster, and faster, if it wasn’t because I was getting asphyxiated by my shirt I would have screamed loud enough for you to hear, loud enough to wake up Max I bet.” That wide, wild Buckley laughter engulfed the car, her head back and teeth showing. Was everyone else restraining the smile she was?

“Nance, maybe I’ll take the car next time.” Steve said in between a half-laugh and genuine concern.

“No way, entranced-crazy Nance still drives better than a focused you.” Robin continued to laugh for a while.

It wasn’t enough, she needed Robin’s laugh to drown everyone else’s, she needed to be alone with Robin again, something about her presence and only her presence brought her a kind of energy she hadn’t felt in years, and she craved it. She was also desperate to solve the misunderstanding they’d had, it was such a stupid thing to be worried about with everything going on, but she couldn’t bare the idea of making Robin uncomfortable. Plus she had a weird tingling feeling in her chest, like the one she got when she was nervous but different. It was like… an odd type of curiosity mixed with excitement, and a little fear.

The forest was already perfectly visible, the car was noisy and even though their surroundings were deserted, she supposed it was best to stop here.

“We should walk from here, avoid suspicion with the car.”

They all unanimously agreed, rapidly Steve and Dustin got the lead, followed by her and Robin, and finally Max and Lucas.

“Thank you.”

“Huh?”

“For… calming me. I was kinda mentally derailing like a train with no tracks. I just get caught up on one thought and it gets bigger and bigger, and faster and- it’s a little difficult to explain, I honestly hadn’t even realised until recently.”

“No no, I think I understand, I mean that’s what happens to me, just externally. I get caught up in a thought and it just gets tangled like a bunch of threads and I can’t stop talking, and it gets to a point where I don’t see the start of the thread anymore and I can’t untangle it. Sometimes I need someone to do it for me.”

A massive wave of relief washed over Nancy, it was like finally unclogging your ears from water after a long day in the pool and being able to hear clearly again. Yeah, Robin was better with the similes on this one. But the point was, it felt great.

“Exactly! I didn’t think it happened to anyone else, so I guess to me it just happens internally, inside my brain, and to you it happens externally.”

“Exactly, you should try it to sometime, talking it out I mean, maybe it’ll help go away faster, saying it out loud no matter how ridiculous so it’s not there trapped bouncing inside your brain like those little images bouncing to the sides of the tv.”

“Ha! God, that’s exactly what it feels like.” Little bouncing TV thoughts, when all of this ended she had to write down Robin’s comparisons, they were pure gold.

“And I have… been expressing them more, with you. I’d never told anyone some of the things I’ve told you, I don’t know if I’m just too tired that they escape, or you have some type of wizard magic like from the games Mike plays. Either way, thank you.”

“You’re saying that a lot.”

“Yeah, suppose I am.”

Here it was, she’d mentioned the Barb conversation however vaguely, she had to ask her now. So about before? Or… Sorry if I misunderstood before… or. No. She was starting to derail, she’d say whatever came to her mind.

“So-”

Robin swinged and from a tree right above them and jumped back down scoffing.

“Oh my god they’re so adorable, I just wanna squeeze them you know?”

Nancy turned back to try understand what Robin meant. There were Max and Lucas looking at each other like they were the only people in the world.

“I see you.” She heard Lucas’ voice from behind. She had to give it to them, they were pretty darn adorable.

It was now or never, but Robin continued to talk.

“If I’m permitted to see a silver lining in this end-of-the-world doom and gloom, it would be the rekindling of old flames that should have never been snuffed out.”

What.

“I didn’t mean it as a hint or anything.” Robin added quickly. She could tell she was lying.

“Right.” Her voice came out cold and harsh, and she didn’t care to retract it.

“But, I did mean it as a hint, would that be so terrible? To wish happiness for my friends?”

She felt herself stiffen immediately. They talked frankly a couple times and Robin thought she had the right to tell her if she was happy or not, or who she should date? They’d been over this, why would she bring it back up? If she wanted to bring it up, then she’d get an answer.

“You think I’m not happy?” She didn’t regulate her cold voice, this time on purpose.

“I’m sure you are, it’s just the other day in the library I mentioned Jonathan, and you flinched or winced or something.”

Oh, Jonathan. Wait, who was she to judge how healthy or not her relationship was? What did she know?

“I didn’t flinch or wince.” She’d stopped walking now, turning her head fully towards Robin, made sure she would see her face as she talked.

“Ok.” Robin tried to resume their walking, but she wasn’t done, she had to be clear.

“Jonathan and I are fine.” Where they?

“Got it.”

“We’re good.” Where they?

Robin nodded aggressively and had started to back away. God, was she really that scary? Her rage disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced. Robin had been nothing but open with her, and she wasn’t even lying. It wasn’t her place. But she wasn’t lying. If Jonathan and her were fine why hadn’t he come for spring break? Or called, and worst of all, why didn’t she care as much as she should about it.

“It’s just…”

They began walking again, Robin pulled closer.

“He was supposed to be here for the break, and then he backed out last minute for some vague, mumbly Jonathan reason, and to be honest I’m not that surprised because I’ve been feeling him pulling away lately. (So had she) and I don’t know if it’s because we’re 2000 miles away (it wasn’t) or if he met someone new, or what. And now I can’t find out why (did she even want to?) Because apparently he’s blown up his family’s house phone or something. So yeah… if the mention of his name caused a slight muscle spasm on my face, that’s… probably why.” Robin was right, as usual, this was better than letting the thought devour her from the inside.

“Seems like a perfectly reasonable reason to flinch, wince, or something.”

Finally Nancy was smiling again, looking down as she did like a shy school-girl, and the nervousness sprouted back into her chest. Suddenly she remembered, Robin had said what she’d been waiting for.

“You said, “the happiness of your friends.” So, does that make us friends? As in… officially? "

Robin looked away for just as second, covering her face.

“Uh, yeah… I mean, right?”

“Right.”

Robin looked back at her smile as if Nancy had just given her the most incredible gift ever, could her smile possibly have the same effect on Robin than her’s on Nancy’s? The feeling in her chest did nothing but bloom, and fill her with courage.

“By the way, before… at Victor Creel’s house… Look I’m so so sorry if I misunderstood, we were just talking about Barb and I wasn’t really 100% conscious of what I was saying and probably not listening correctly, and I for some reason assumed that- you know. I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable it’s not what-”

“Nance it’s ok.” Robin’s face was indecipherable, she was calming her but she looked like she needed the comfort even more.

“I, I didn’t mean what I said in that way-”

“I know, I know that’s why, I don’t know why I jumped to that it’s-”

“ Wait. I didn’t mean it like that, I wasn’t trying to say anything, but… you weren’t. You weren’t wrong.”

“Oh.”

The silence was insufferable, a headache, heavy and encompassing. She had to say something, why was she so scared to? Robin should be the scared one, god she probably was. She had to say something. Fear, excitement.

“Well, I didmean what I said, about Barb, I loved her no less, and I regret not telling her. I guess this is all to say that, I don’t care, like not even the tiniest bit, and I’m sorry if I somehow forced you to say anything. Just, it’s ok that-” She couldn’t say it, why couldn’t she say it?

“That I’m, gay?” Robin whispered, her voice slightly trembling, as if she wasn’t sure Nancy had understood.

“Exactly, that you’re… gay. It’s a stupid thing to care about, and I’m not stupid.”

“No you’re not.” Robin giggled, in a half breath.

“It feels good you know? To say it, it’s really scary, like mega-scary. Thank you.”

“You can practice with me, a wise friend once told me that it’s better to say things that let them bounce like little TV images.”

“Yeah… this one is a little more difficult to practice with people.”

“Have you… told anyone else?” She was slowly starting to become more comfortable with the conversation, or least was starting to make her place in the awkwardness.

“Only Steve. Couldn’t let the poor guy think he had a chance with me."

“Oh my god, did he try ask you out?”

“Yeah, we were high from Russian drugs… long story. We were recovering from it in the bathrooms in the mall, right before everything happened. He started talking about this girl he had a crush on, and he was describing me. We were in different stalls, and he… came into mine and basically asked me if I liked him back. I don’t know if it was the drugs or his puppy eyes but I told him… kinda. I didn’t flat out say the word like with you, I was too scared of it, still am, but way less. Steve has actually helped me a LOT with that. I told him about how I was jealous of him in class… not because I liked him, but because the girls wouldn’t stop looking at him, and being in love with him.”

She laughed internally, she'd been one of those girls at the end of the day, it felt so far away now.

“So… girls like me?” Well, shit, that definitely sounded wrong out loud. Why the hell had she asked that? The goal was make Robin feel secure not the other way around.

“Yeah I suppose, although- not specifically you, of course- at the time I had a crush on Tammy Thompson, god I was a mess.”

“So I suppose Steve took it well, I’m really happy he did.”

“Yeah, me too, he’s really grown to be honest.”

“Yeah, he has.” Frankly she wasn’t sure if 16 year old Steve would have been so understanding.

“And you have too Nance.”

“What?”

“You’ve grown, I mean we all have, but you were popular when dating Steve at least. You wouldn’t even look at me, probably didn’t even remember my name, you didn’t tell Barb what you wish you had. You’ve changed that, and I know Barb is proud of you.”

She felt the tears start to swell into her eyes, she grabbed Robin’s hand. She needed to say it again.

“One last time.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

She smiled. She smiled.

They continued walking, Nancy didn’t let go of Robin’s hand. Not yet.

Chapter Text

“Oh Boom!! Bada Bing Bada Boom. There she is Henderson, Skull Rock.” Steve shouted.

It looked like they’d reached their destination. Nancy felt strangely prepared. As Robin had said she’d changed. Steve and Dustin continued bickering like petty twelve year olds, when suddenly Eddie Munson flung down right in front of them.

“I concur, you, Dustin Henderson, are a total butthead.”

“Jesus we though you were a goner.” Dustin sighed in utter relief, and although maybe stupid, Nancy was starting to realise just how much Eddie meant to him.

“Me too.” Eddie hugged him back.

Right as they reached the opening where Skull Rock sat in, Nancy suddenly realised she was still holding Robin’s hand, and gently parted it, leaving her palm cold and immediately wanting to go back to the safety of Robin’s calm.

“So, what exactly happened man?” Steve didn’t waste time with introductions, simply eyed Eddie up and down waiting for an answer.

“Food first.” Eddie begged rather than demanded.

Obviously no one could possibly deny it to him, if he’d called Nancy before they went to Vecna’s house and had tried earlier, he might have gone 24 hours without any food. So after he eagerly ate the fast food as if it were gourmet delicacies, he started mumbling through his story. How Jason and his crew had found him, how he escaped with a tiny rowboat, and how Vecna had attacked Patrick. Not once throughout the entire story, did his voice lose the terrified tremble that rose from his throat, something about him made Nancy want to hug him, but time was of the essence, and if she wasn’t straightforward there weren’t going to get anywhere.

“When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh, my walkie was busted man. Drenched. So, uh I did the thing I do now, apparently. I ran.” He chuckled and shrugged, the way people who are losing their minds do.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” She asked, desperate for a coincidence, which in many instances were sources of knowledge and hidden truth.

“Yeah no, I know exactly what time it was. My walkie wasn’t the only thing that got soaked.” He fiddled with the black watch on his wrist, until finally ripping it away and throwing it right at her.

“9:27.” she read.

“Same time our flashlights went kabolooey.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick.” Nancy confirmed.

“ We’re one step closer, we know how Vecna attacks.” Robin echoed her previous words.

“And where he attacks from.” Lucas raised.

“So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the upside down and drive a stake through his heart.” Max finished off.

“If he even has a heart.”

“A stake? Is he like a vamp- is he a vampire?” Steve might not have lost them in the woods, but he was certainly lost in his own Harrington way.

“It was a metaphor.”

“A bullet should work on him right? Asked Eddie.

“I say we chop his head off.” Lucas suggested.

“I’d say all of the above, but we can’t do any of that til we find a way into the upside down.” Nancy valued objectivity ,hope wasn’t necessarily foolish, but it was distracting.

“We need El to get her powers back.” Max sighed.

“Everything was WAY easier.” Steve turned to Eddie. “We had this girl, she had superpowers-”

“Superpowers yeah you mentioned her.” Eddie took it surprisingly well, when had Steve and Eddie talked about El?”

“Hey, umm, Henderson’s not cursed is he?”

Their heads rotated collectively towards a frantically pacing Dustin.

“No, he’s totally fine. Mental? Absolutely.” Steve turned back to Eddie, who’s nervousness was causing him to smile the entire time.

“BOOM!” Dustin’s scream echoed through the trees. Robin jumped beside her, instinctively reaching for Steve’s arm, as Nancy reached for hers.

“Bada… bada… BOOM.” He enunciated, quietly, while menacingly approaching Steve with a pointing finger.

“I was right. Skull Rock was NORTH.”

Oh god. Not this again.

“Seriously, you’re serious?” Steve was rolling his eyes so aggressively Nancy feared they’d never come back.

“THIS is Skull Rock ok? You’re totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now.”

The bickering was quick reminding Nancy of her imminent headache.

“Yes. AND no.”

“Oh my god.” Steve threw his hands at his face, as he bit his lip slightly, all while maintaining a comically alarming look.

Yet something was off, Dustin had figured something out, there was no doubt in her mind. Or maybe it was some of that distracting hope.

“This compass was working correctly when we left the Wheeler’s, it was correct when we got in the car on Curly, but it started to slip the further east we went. Now, it’s WAY off. When I was leading us here, I wasn’t wrong. The compass was.”

More coincidences.

“So what, you are using faulty equipment dude you’re still wrong.” Steve insisted.

“Except it isn’t faulty. Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?”

Of course. An electromagnetic field.

“An electromagnetic field.” Lucas replied, his eyes widened just like Nancy’s.

“Sorry, I must have skipped that class.” Robin wore a different kind of widened eyes.

“In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So, either there’s some super big magnet around here… or.” Dustin began to explain

“Or there’s a gate.” Lucas took the thoughts out of her head. Still it didn’t make any sense.

“But we’re nowhere near the lab.” She pointed out.

“But what if, somehow there’s another gate? A gate we don’t know about. It’d have to be smaller, way less powerful.”

“Snack-sized gate.” Robin as always, gave one of her useful comparison-metaphors which smoothed over anything.

“How? Why?” To be fair, Steve was asking some essential questions.

“No idea. All I know, is something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we’ve seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is because then we’d have a way to Vecna, and a shot at freeing Max from this curse.” As soon as he was done, Dustin didn’t spare a second to their reaction, and walked right towards the continuing forest path. And without sparing a second Steve was stopping him.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey where are you going? Eddie is still a wanted man, we can’t just go hike in the woods.”

“This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max AND Eddie.” He turned to the latter opening his arms.

“So what say you Eddie the banished?”

This was followed by a series of references (or so she thought) that meant absolutely nothing in Nancy’s head, 80% of Eddie’s words being completely nonsensical. Yet, it soon had Dustin jumping up and down like the child he was, followed by Eddie getting up with a mixture of resignation and that distracting premature hope. So, they resumed.

Either the trees were getting taller or the sky was getting darker, what time was it? She couldn’t control or change any of these things, so maybe the answer didn’t really matter. Nancy wasn’t sure if to agree with herself or not. Robin only a few meters away felt too far away, so she quickly caught up, leaving Max and Lucas behind them, Steve besides, and Eddie and Dustin slightly ahead, leading the party.

“This is pretty crazy huh?” Steve half-chuckled to neither of them specifically.

“Yeah.” Robin and her replied in unison. Sharing a small smile at the coincidence.

“So, you two really became friends huh, you left me alone with Henderson the entire time Buckley, not fair.”

“From the looks of it I think I left Henderson alone with you.” Robin snapped back, her head slightly tilted, her lips restrained.

“Yeah yeah sure, well at least now he’s ahead with Eddie, talking about whatever fantasy thing they both like.”

“Jealous Harrington?” Nancy teased, amused by the slight hint of truth to it.

“Never! But you better not steal Robin away, Eddie already got Dustin.”

“Hey! I’m right here, no one is stealing me from anyone to anywhere!”

“Oh no of course not, I wouldn’t dare come between this expert, adorable bickering you have. ” Nancy continued to tease, her eyebrow raised at Steve, a sly smile across her face. It felt good to laugh with him again, no strings attached.

“Platonic bickering Nance.”

“Don’t worry Harrington I know that, I think I understood approximately the 4th time you told me, I was just teasing, you make it too easy.”

“Can you believe her? We are trying to find a super dimensional gate, which will most likely be filled with monsters who want us dead, and she’s laughing at me! She’s exactly like you Buckley.” He chuckled giving her a gentle nudge on the shoulder, making her lose her balance temporarily, needing to hold on to Nancy’s shoulder for a flash of a second.

“Full of surprises, isn’t she? Can’t believe I used to think you were a priss.”

Nancy felt her jaw drop, most people thought it, they weren’t totally wrong, but hearing Robin say it so lightly and deny it made her feel a rush of excitement, making her want to foolishly jump up and down like Dustin had.

“EXCUSE ME??” Robs when was this?”

Steve’s head was already shying away.

“It was a long time ago Nance, it was the day of the bathrooms in the mall, high from Russian drugs all that good stuff, he mentioned you and I called you a priss.”

“Oh my god.” She laughed. Fully, brightly and loudly. Letting her laugh echo through the trees, Robin seeing her laugh relaxed, and started doing it too. Her wide Robin laugh, teeth out, head back, eyes almost closed. Even Steve who was now suddenly paying attention let himself laugh too. Dustin, Eddie, Max and Lucas all turned to look at them in disbelief, which only made them laugh more, at one point Nancy couldn’t tell what laugh was hers.

“And why were you mentioning me may I ask?” Nancy asked, traces of her laugh still staining her voice.

“Oh it was stupid, I don’t even remember it all correctly because we were so high. I mentioned how I’d… you know, fallen for you basically, but how that had now changed because I’d met someone else- but that doesn’t matter it was no one and-” Steve’s voice started to hurry, and whatever explanation he was about to come out with was probably comedy gold, but he didn’t get to say it.

“It’s ok Steve, she knows.” Robin whispered, a hand on Steve’s shoulder, who’s face of confusion was way more rewarding than anything he could have previously come up with.

“Oh? OH. So… she knows knows” He insisted, his eyes completely fixed on Robin transmitting a hidden message, to which with a softening of the brows Robin responded. It was honestly incredible seeing how they communicated.

“Oh, ok.” He turned to Nancy immediately.

“And there isn’t a problem is there?” Steve glared at her like a disapproving parent, any remains of laughter completely dissipated. How could he think that? At the end of the day it had been him would insulted Jonathan with some… words; it was nice seeing him so grown up.

“Of course not!!” Nancy replied hurriedly.

“It’s ok Steve, she actually kinda figured it out herself, but she didn’t force me or anything, it feels good… having more people around me that know.” She started the sentence as a whisper but slowly transitioned to a normal volume, she was safe.

“Oh my god now I can finally talk about your embarrassing crushes with someone else!! I have SO MANY jokes inside, now they won’t go unnoticed, unheard, unappreciated…”

He swayed his hands around dramatically.

“HA.HA. Well , they’re staying that way, Nance is too smart for them anyway, she figured out everything all on her own I basically had to spell it out for you!” The laugh was making its comeback.

“In my defence we were high!! From Russian drugs! Who knows what those things do to your brain and stuff.”

“Yeah sure…”

“Ok ok, in any case I wasn’t stupid, Nancy is just a 3.9 GPA genius, I can’t go against that!”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m not a genius Steve. Actually I don’t think I would have even thought about if it wasn’t because-”

Before even thinking about it, Nancy caught herself almost talking about Barb again, was it fair? Steve’s eyes had gotten impossible open, his pupils gauging at her, his mouth starting to open.

“For Barb.”

Steve’s face relaxed, but immediately tensed up again.

“What about her?”

“She was like Robin.” The word was still stung on her lips.

“Oooh ok. Actually yeah, that makes sense.” His face relaxed all the way towards a frown, probably remembering Barb, memories long drowned floating back to the surface.

“Well, I’m gonna check up on Henderson, make sure he’s not getting us all lost. Again. ” His eye -rolling was back.

“I thought you didn’t wanna be stuck with him.” Robin said.

“You shouldn’t listen to me Buckley, you know that. Or should I call you “Robs”?” He smirked before turning his back completely and leaving them behind (not without almost tripping over a stick first.) “Robs”, oh god, it probably slipped out during the conversation, Steve wasn’t going to let her forget it. Suddenly, she felt a little flushed, childishly embarrassed.

Finally Nancy looked back at Robin, dying to see her reaction. Thankfully, Robin wasn’t only smiling, she was blushing. she probably was too. Apparently it didn’t matter how much time one spent with Steve Harrington, his comments had the same effect every time.

“Well, you can now both officially stop repeating you’re just friends every two seconds.”

“Yeah, it was getting a little tiring even for me, and honestly I don't know how long he was going to be able to keep it up.

" It’s actually kinda funny now.”

“You know, it might sound a bit selfish but, despite this whole monsters-curse thing, I’ve never felt more safe in my life. I feel like I’m finally, finally, allowing myself to be a bit more of the mess I am. I’ve always felt the need to apologise when I rant, or when I do anything really. I know I can be annoying, or do weird things because I don’t have a strong grasp of social cues, but, you and Steve are still… here? I’ve been what is probably my most annoying self with you, and you’re not even sighing or ignoring me, you’re not asking me to apologise and- I’m not feeling like I need to as much. Instead you’re listening to me, and I’m actually having… fun? I don’t know if I’m phrasing it correctly, I’m like having fun in a way were I’m not controlling what I do, my face, hands or expressions to make everyone else comfortable, because I don’t need to, not around you. I mean it as a compliment.”

Robin’s mind was fascinating. The way she spoke, and made her feel appreciated in a way she’d unknowingly, deeply, longed for. She was fascinating.

“I take is a compliment. You’re not annoying, you’re you, and yeah you might say or do weird things, but those things are what have gotten us to where we are now, those are the things that made me feel safe enough to tell you about Barb. I’m having fun too (she realised that was true as she said it). I’m glad you… feel like that… with me.” The warmth was back in her chest, but it didn’t pang or bang, it beat in symphony with Robin’s breath, as Nancy lost hers. Why? Well, She couldn’t control or change any of these things, so maybe the answer didn’t really matter. Yet.

“Hello ladieees, Harrington up there just stole that little shit Henderson from me, so I thought I’d see what you two are laughing and gossiping about. If we’re all gonna die, let it be with some shared secrets, huh?” Eddie joined them on Robin’s side, his nervous smile completely stuck onto his face, solely changing to variations of itself.

For a few seconds there was only silence, the murmurs of the rest and the small creaks from the forest filling the space between them. Until, Robin spoke. Or rather, giggled.

“Nice handkerchief Eddie.” She pointed to the black handkerchief that showed from Eddie’s back- pocket with her head. Her amused expression, left obvious Nancy was missing something; she copied Robin’s expression in attempt to be involved.

“Huh.” Eddie grinned back at Robin.

“Thought so. Hunt the freak right?” He asked.

“Exactly.” She replied.

What the hell was going on? Had everyone had a secret conversation with Eddie except for her? Suddenly his face turned towards hers, which was still trying to mirror Robin’s.

“Wait… are you two?” He wagged a finger between them, instead of finishing the question. Nancy was starting to catch up. She thought. Was he asking… if Robin and her… oh.

“No no no.” Robin corrected briskly.

“I am, she’s not, but she knows.” Robin explained, in a code Nancy obviously lacked practice in. So, this meant Eddie was gay too? A day and a half ago she couldn’t even say out loud what she knew of Barb, and now it seemed to be all around her.

“Got it, you I expected, her I was gonna be surprised.”

Nancy felt weirdly offended by that, what did he know? Well, more than her actually. At least Eddie’s face had finally morphed from that unnerving smile to a thinking expression, as he studied Nancy.

“If… you don’t mind me asking, what does the handkerchief have to do with it?”

“It’s a code, we use it so we can recognise and find each other… and other things.”

Wow. She’d never even imagined something like this existed, nor that there were so many gay people in a town like Hawkins, for some reason she now found foolish she’d thought it to be something way more uncommon. It dawned it her it wasn’t. People just hid it well, or resorted to coded messages, how did they even learn them? How did they even figure it out, how did they know? Nancy had never stopped to think about it, and the pang in her chest advised her not to.

“Don’t tell a soul Wheeler, code is code for a reason.” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“No no of course not, I wouldn’t.” She hurried, her mind still processing the shattering of her old perception, making space for the new point view of the world and people she knew that was starting to form in her mind. It was embarrassingly overwhelming, a door she didn’t know existed had been smashed open into her face.

“Who would have thought, perfect miss Wheeler in on gay codes.”

The word still surprised her.

“I don’t get tired of saying it, she’s full of surprises.” Robin chanted like a proud mother, beaming at Nancy, followed by a small twitch of the head, a question. You ok? It said. A small twitch of the lips, a response. Of course. Her mind was reeling, it must be obvious, or at least to Robin who’d gotten to know her so eerily well.

“What can I say? It’s hard to get away from the priss reputation.” Was all she managed to say, before going back into her thoughts.

Both Robin and Eddie chuckled at this, both for different reasons.
“Yeah, same thing with Harrington, it’s infuriating. He’s like the popular, sporty, cool ladies- man guy, and now I find out he’s also a pretty decent dude? Not fair dude.” Eddie seemed genuinely annoyed.

“He’s grown quite a lot, I mean not a single soul could have ever convinced me I’d be best friends with Steve Harrington. He knows too, first person to actually. I owe him a lot.”

“Damn, nice dude and an ally, no wonder Henderson worships him.”

Just in cue Steve’s and Dustin’s laughter echoed from ahead, followed by a not so subtle “shut up Henderson.”

“I better go up there, can’t let them have fun without me.” He half started making some obscure reference but instantly realise it’d fall on deaf ears, so he simply ran, the black handkerchief waving.

“Damn, I’m gonna be honest I didn’t expect that.” She finally sighed.

“You ok? I feel like I threw everything on you suddenly, it’s totally ok if you’re not used to it, I guess I got kind caught up in the moment of relief and went full ahead.”

“Oh no not all, I mean yes, but no. I guess I just never realised, it’s all a bit new, but cool? I guess I’m just a bit shocked, but not a bad shocked or anything. I just never realised it was so… common? God that sounds so wrong, I’m just so used to whispers and secrets and this is so open suddenly. It’s cool. Really cool.” As soon as she finished rambling, Nancy didn’t remember a single one of her words, yet she was 100% certain they’d all been wrong.

“Yeah I understand, you’re so cool Nancy.” Her name sounded so soft on Robin’s lips.

This was a feeling Nancy had never remotely imagined she could ever feel. The opened door’s bruise still on her cheek.

Chapter Text

The day was almost ending, the dawn hovering over them, orange swallowing blue, blue swallowing Nancy. She wasn’t like Robin, Eddie or Barb, but she could be, she wasn’t of course, but she could have been, what would her life be like if it had been the case? What would that have meant for her? Would she have realised? If it weren’t because she’d loved- because she loved Johnathan so intensely, she couldn’t have been sure. She would be questioning everything right this second. Terrifying. Lucky she wasn’t then. What a dumb word. None of them were lucky. This wasn’t worth getting hung up on, she was just new to all this, that’s what this panic was.

“Can I ask you a question?” Nancy surprised herself, her voice low. She wasn’t sure what she was going to ask exactly.

“Yeah?” Robin’s voice still adopting that soft tone.

“After all this is over, if it ever is, we could like hang out, right?”

“Oh, yeah of course! To more fun together, you, Steve and I can all go to-“

“No. I mean, Steve is great, but I meant just us two. It’s been so long since I’ve had a girl-friend, and since we are officially friends, you know all my secrets and I know yours, it would make sense we could hang out together, alone.”

Robin definitelyblushed that time, Nancy was sure of it. She couldn’t blame her, and knowing it didn’t mean anything she didn’t point it out.

“Yeah of course, saving the world, incredibly deep conversations and secrets first, then go out to watch a movie, I guess we really are doing everything upside down. Get it? Upside down.”

“Hah, yeah, good one.”

“What kind of movies do you like? Not to brag but I know quite a lot about them, only because of my work but still.”

“Well, I’ve always loved mysteries but I feel like I need a break from those.” Nancy was pretty sure her avid mystery watching Saturdays had actually helped her quite a lot through all of this, but she would never admit it out loud, of course.

“Yeah, definitely. I’ve always thought you’d be a rom-com kinda girl.”

“Oh yeah I am, I love them, but not too many in a row, I like to have balance.”

“Did you know Edgar Allan Poe basically invented the mystery genre?” Robin said.

“Ha! That one I do know, I am a journalist you know? I quite like literature.”

She hesitated on her next words.

“I also like… musicals.”

“MUSICALS?” Robin’s voice echoed through the trees.

“Don’t laugh ok! I can explain!” She tried frantically, her hands almost on Robin’s face, in a shushing motion.

“Ooooh yes I’m sure, do you sing along? Favourite one? Can you actually sing? How did this come to be? I have so many questions Nance.”

“I guess we’ll have to see one together so you can find out.” Nancy teased, her hands moving between her hair and Robin’s jacket.

“Oh, are you going to sing for me Wheeler? I’m sure you have a beautiful voice…I mean, if you want to of course, I hate people that make me sing, it’s not like I’m gonna force you or anything.”

“Oh?” Nancy ignored the first part of Robin’s sentence, and the way the warmth in her chest wasn’t going anywhere, the way it wasn’t panic.

“I can’t sing on command, I mean it it’s horrible, that’s why I’m in band and not choir, I think I’m an ok singer, you know, average, but if someone tells me to do it with their eyes all on me; I sound like a poor hyena being asphyxiated.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Nancy chuckled.

“It is trust me, but, if you sing for me I’ll sing for you.” Robin’s confidence was back.

“Deal.”

They shook hands as if making business, like that same morning, with the ray of light hitting Robin’s face, Robin’s hands suddenly seemed so much more delicate, they fit so perfectly into Nancy’s handshake, she couldn’t help but think that this is what everything is supposed to feel like. Couldn’t help but think back to that morning, the thought she’d left unfinished. Suddenly, Nancy realised her surroundings had become totally strange to her, she didn’t recognise when the forest’s appearance had shifted, when the trees had become shorter and darker, the path narrower. She’d been looking at Robin the entire time, entranced in conversation and hadn’t even realised where she was going. It was basically night now.

“Wow, I didn’t even notice it got to so dark.” Robin noted.

“Same, I didn’t notice… like at all.” She agreed, more to herself than to Robin.

“A little longer and we’ll be able to see the stars!” Robin exclaimed, as if they weren’t literally walking towards a supernatural gate possibly filled with blood thirsty monsters.

Dustin’s voice echoed from ahead, not only had they been entranced by conversation, but they’d fallen quite behind, and from the loose words Nancy was able to catch they’d apparently reached said supernatural-blood thirsty -monster filled gate.

Robin and her made it just in time to hear an exasperating,

“You gotta be shitting me.”

They were standing in front of an expansion of water, they all knew as…

“Lover’s Lake.” Robin sighed, her voice raspy.

“This is confounding.”

Dustin was right, but it had to mean something, judging by the patterns of the previous monsters they’d encountered it would be logical for all of them to have something in common.

“There’s a gate at Lovers Lake?” Max asked.

“Every time the demogorgon attacked he left an opening, maybe Vecna’s the same way.” Nancy pointed out, trying out her theory.

“Yeah only one way to find out.” Steve took her theory to a more literal level, as he started taking out a small row boat of the 3 seen around the small coast. He and Eddie tried to put it into the water safely, bickering in whispers. Robin without wasting a second, used both their heads to balance herself as she got first on the boat, followed by Steve and Eddie. The latter extended a hand to her, to help her on.

“Wheeler.” He said theatrically as if he were a gentleman at a ball as he took her hand.

Dustin, tried to go after.

“Hey, hey, hey , are you trying to sink us?” Eddie stopped him immediately.

“This thing holds three people, tops, ok?”

Nancy refrained from pointing out there were four people on the boat, and backed him up.

“It’s better this way, ok? You guys stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

“YOU keep an eye out.” He repeated mockingly.

“It’s my goddam theory.”

“You heard Nance.” Robin’s voice appeared from behind her, Nancy restrained a smile.

“Who put her in charge? He protested.

“I did.” She replied swiftly, this time Nancy didn’t bother restraining it.

“Compass.” She demanded, her arm extended towards Dustin, who begrudgingly handed her the artefact.

Finally, Steve pushed the boat away, and before she Nancy could process any of the things she’d thought or felt in the last 24 hours they were in the middle of the lake, only water surrounding the four sides of their tiny structure.

“BED TIME AT 9 KIDDOS.” Robin shouted, waving at the rest, who stood wearing annoyed faces on the shore.

Everyone on the boat chuckled as Robin continued.

“MISS YOU ALREADYYY.”

Robin and Eddie rowed, Robin’s arms were stronger that Nancy had expected, but now with her jacket all sleeved up she could- the compass. It was going wild, I mean, it was going wild before, but now it was going absolutely and completely crazy.

“Woah woah, slow down guys, slow down.”

Eddie and Robin stopped rowing, they stayed, floating above the water, the compass going round and round too quick for the human eye to completely discern. As expected Dustin’s voice immediately boombed through the walkie talky.

“Guys talk to me, what’s going on?

“Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital wahhhh.”

After that Dustin went quiet, but the boat started to move a little, wait, it wasn't, Steve was moving it.

“Steve, what are you doing?”

He looked at her briefly as he took his shoes and socks of.

“Someone’s gotta go down and check this thing out. Unless one of you can top being a Hawkins swim team co-captain, and a certified life guard for three years, it’s gotta be me, no complaints, all right?” Steve was already standing up ready to take his shirt off and jump into the water, god he was absolutely crazy. He also had a point. But still, so dumb.

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” Eddie admitted.

“I do not wanna go down there.”

Nancy stared at Steve as he took of his shirt, she could feel Robin’s eyes fixated on her, and she feared that if she looked at her she would blush… for all the wrong reasons. So, at a stalemate she decided to turn to Eddie. Eddie however, was also staring at Steve, wide eyed, his hands scrambling for a cigarette that he should have definitely not have brought, his eyes however did not falter. She had to resist a chuckle, she couldn’t blame the guy, it actually kinda made her feel weirdly better.

“Hey, good luck.” Eddie said, slightly breathless if Nancy was correct, that could have also been because of the smoking, she doubted it.

“Thanks, Steve looked back at him.”

Thankfully, just as Eddie was about to light that disgusting cigarette, Robin snatched it it right out of his hand and flicked it into the water.

“Gross.” She said simply.

“Steve?” Nancy called his attention for a last time, she couldn’t help but get nervous, the last time a close friend was near water and she hadn’t said anything, it hadn’t ended well.
“Be careful.”

His eyes fixated on her a little longer than they should, then casting a quick glance at Eddie and Robin, giving the latter a smile before going back to facing the water, and finally, jumping.

For a while they all se Steve’s figure being slowly swallowed by the gloomy waters, until, there’s nothing. They all stare in complete silence, Eddie, is frantically bitting his nails, Nancy’s hands are twitching uncontrollably and so are Robin’s, maybe out of fear or of pure instinct Nancy grabs Robin’s hand, and clutches it, Robin immediately reciprocates, and while they’re still both shaking at least Nancy isn’t alone. They stay like that, until Robin can’t with it anymore.

“Wheeler were we at?”

How did she know she was counting?

“Closing in on a minute.” She replied, giving Robin’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

Even though Nancy knows exactly how much time that has passed (one minute and 27 seconds) it felt like hours, and she’s never been so on edge, waiting for Steve’s head to pop up, by now her foot was aggressively tapping, Robin was biting her lip too hard and Eddie looked like he might faint.

A sudden splash of water waked them all up immediately, as Steve finally made it to the surface, safe and sound.

“I found it.”

“You found it?”

“I found it, yeah, I found it.” He repeated.

Finally they were all back to grinning like idiots, Nancy tried to help Steve back up (it was more difficult than it seemed ) while Robin exclaimed onto the walkie.

“Henderson you are goddam Einstein!”

“It’s pretty wild, it’s more of a snack size gate than the mama get, but still, it’s pretty damn big.” Steve explains through pants. Then he’s gone.

Only his hands remain, gripping fiercely onto the boat, tipping it with the pressure and weight of it, as Steve completely drowns, being dragged down by something. They all scream, hands shooting next to Steve’s, trying to keep him there, keep him alive. But whatever it was, it was strong. This can’t be happening, it just can’t, not again. Nancy’s breath hurry so quickly, that for a split second she thought she was dying.

“STEVE STEVE.” They all shouted uselessly, their screams blending together.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Eddie screamed.

Not again. Not fucking again. She couldn’t loose another friend. She wasn’t going to loose another friend. Not now, not ever, not anywhere, but specially not in the water. She wasn’t going to stand there doing nothing like she’d done with Barb. Not this fucking time she wasn’t. Her breath had become completely steady, her mind had gone somewhere outside of herself, focused on only one thing, everything else could go to shit.

So, she stood up,

“Wait wait wait, you’re not going in there, are you?” Eddie guessed first.

“Just. Wait here.”

She jumped, just in time to hear one last gut wrenching “NANCY” from Robin. The water was probably freezing, clawing at every inch of skin in her body filling her with shivers, but she felt none of it, not even a little bit. There was only one goal, and her body was not hers anymore. She quickly distinguished a red glow in the bottom she recognised as the gate, it was really far down, she’d already been swimming for a bit, yet she wasn’t even close to out of breath. A faint noise came from it, she couldn’t tell if it was Steve or a monster.

Finally she was getting close, and suddenly she felt a strong wave behind her, she turned around to see Robin, swimming right behind her. Shit. Was she friends with a bunch of idiots? Oh no. Eddie was only a bit behind. Well, she couldn’t stop them now, at least she knew were all of them were, she could keep them controlled, she was not going to let any of her friends die. She was almost inside the red glow, in a swift motion she fell hard on her back on a bunch of vines and dirty floor. Now the screams were clear.

A bunch of demonic things with wings had Steve on the floor, strangling him, biting him. She located some poor row boat that had been previously dragged down there, and grabbed one of the rowing bats.

“Hey there.” She whispered, all her fury and determination spilled onto those two words.

So without hesitation, she whipped on of the creatures off of Steve in a perfect motion, sending it flying, before she knew it she was giving orders.

“Hold it Robin.” She commanded to stamp on one the things tails, trapping it, allowing Nancy to bash it to death.

They were coming from all around them, came in waves, and soon Nancy was waving her bat frantically without direction, until Robin screamed, the second half of her cry muffled out by one the disgusting bats, strangling her. Oh no, now way. She ran to Robin, smashing her bat right across the creature, in a precise swing, not even grazing Robin’s neck. She then took care of one crawling right up her boots and another that was flying towards them. Then, her breath was gone. She felt claws digging onto her back, her eyes widening in pain, then teeth, right above her neck.

“Get off her.” She heard Robin’s voice behind her, her hands ripping the bat from her back and stomping it onto the floor, before hitting it repeatedly with a commending ferociousness.

“Go. To. Hell!” Nancy screamed as she smashed another one, as Robin trapped it with her foot.

At some point the screaming stopped, they’d stopped. Steve was spitting out blood.

“Steve!” Nancy ran towards him.

“Jesus Christ, JESUS H. CHRIST!!” Eddie cursed to the skies, or whatever disturbing thing hovered above them.

“Are you ok?” Nancy asked, taking a look at Steve’s wounds, he was… bad, really bad, they needed a doctor, urgently.

“Well, they took a punt of flesh, but other than that, yeah, never better.” He grunted through the pain, ignoring Nancy’s worried expression.

“Uh, do you think these bats have rabies?” Robin asked, her flashlight which somehow miraculously worked after being soaked, helping her examine one of the dead animals.

“What?”

“It’s just that rabies are like, my number one greatest fear, and I think we should get you a doctor like really soon, because once the symptoms set in, it’s too late, you’re already dead.”

That was something Nancy could agree on. Well, not the rabies part, but a doctor was a good idea. She was slowly coming back to her senses, the cold and pain gradually coming back to her after the surge of adrenaline and pure fury at nothing and everything in particular. She looked back at the gate, they should go back, find Max and the rest, come back when they’d seen a doctor and were more prepared.

Yet, like the spawns of the devil they were, a group of murderous bats were soon circling around the crimson glow of their only escape.

“It’s not that many, we can’t take them.” Steve tried, yet it ended up sounding more like a question rather than words of encouragement.

As if these horrendous creatures were spawned by their thoughts, they all looked up, looking for the source of the piercing shrieking coming from ahead. The sky was black, not because of the sky itself, the incoming hoard of bats covered every little bit of colour around them, they moved in unison, a black nightmare coming to haunt them. They had to leave or they’d die, and as she’d promised herself earlier, that was not happening.

“You were saying?” Robin exhaled.

“The Woods. Come on.” Nancy urged them, and making sure to grab Robin firmly, they started running.

“Great. More running.” The girl complained, but she was sensible enough to keep up the pace, at one point Nancy was sure Robin had tripped and possibly twisted her ankle, but they couldn’t stop now.

The murky trees “protected” them slightly on their sides, but above them it did nothing, the black cloud was quickly catching up, and trees are no opponent to the sky. They couldn’t just keep running from them, they either had to… face them, or hide.

“That rock!” Steve caught their attention, not stopping he pointed at a huge rock, not unlike Skull Rock with a narrow slant that was big enough to hide the four of them for now. None of them hesitated and quickly stashed themselves together. They waited, Nancy somehow made her breathing internal, methodic, every sound was everywhere all at once, she dared no let out a single breath here, it didn’t feel right.

As the creatures still screeched and searched above and around them Nancy focused her gaze on a lump of the mud only a few steps away. It didn’t quite intertwine with the rest of the vines, it looked so out of place. Suddenly, the lump twitched, and Nancy realised it wasn’t a lump at all, it was a bird. A completely dark brown bird, with the exception of a red glowing eye, popping out grotesquely way more below than it should be, brown, wet feathers squirming inside of it, the beak gaping and shutting in a futile motion that only allowed a strangled scream. Nancy was sick to her stomach, unlike the rest of the world, the bird had a smell, a putrid, rotten, smell. It must have been from their world once, it wasn’t anymore, then again it looked out of place even here, but what other place did it have to belong to?

The screeching hadn’t ceased, but it was now far, far away.

“That was close.” Robin muttered, she was holding onto Eddie who had ended up winding up next to her.

“Yeah too close.” He agreed, his voice cracking.

Finally, they all panted and sighed, letting the exhaustion set in, she was already running to Robin urging to ask about her ankle, when Steve thudded against another rock.

“Oh s- shit.” He whispered brokenly, struggling on every syllable. His entire body was ravaged by open wounds and unhealed scars, his eyes were somewhere in between wide with pain and closed from fatigue, his hand over his head, his teeth grated against each other, blood dripping from him like sweat.

“Steve? Jesus.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” He lied.

“No no no no, you’re not, you’re losing blood.”

Being a studious priss sometimes played in her favour, because she knew precisely what to do.

“Come on, sit, alright?” She guided him down as he grunted, gave a quick nod at Robin, and starting tearing fabric of her clothes.

Instantly, having understood her, Robin was swiftly next to her, distracting Steve as she prepared to do what was necessary.

“So the good news is I’m pretty sure wooziness is not a symptom of rabies, but if you start to have hallucinations or muscle spams or you start feeling aggressive like you wanna punch me, let me know.”

“Robin?”

“Yeah?”

“I kinda wanna punch you.”

“Sense of humour’s still intact, that’s a good sign.”

With some final tying, Nancy had assembled a strong enough gauze like fabric to cover Steve’s main wound, a pound of red, open flesh. This was gonna hurt.

“Ready?”

“Just do it.”

She gripped it tightly and felt Steve’s entire body stiffen.

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok.” He said through his teeth, his hands had gone up to his head, pulling from it towards the sky.

“Too tight?”

“Nah, that’s good.”

“Ok”

“Thanks.”

Thunder had started rumbling in the distance, Eddie watching it as closely as you can watch a sound.

“So, this place is like Hawkins but with monsters and nasty shit?” He asked.

“Pretty much.” Nancy confirmed, it was a simple way of saying it, she couldn’t have said it much better herself, she had to give it to Eddie, he was taking everything surprisingly sanely.
He walked back towards them.

“WAIT!” Nancy shouted.

“Watch out for the vines. It’s all a hive mind.”

“It’s all a what?”

“All the creepy crawlies around here dude, they’re like one or something. Step on a vine, you’re stepping on a bat, you’re stepping on Vecna.” Steve clarified.

Eddie simply nodded as if he should have expected it, because why wouldn’t everything have to be more complicated than it needed to be?

“But everything from our world is still here, right? Except people.” Robin questioned.

“As far as I understand it, yes.” Nancy replied, she could telll Robin was already formulating an idea in that crazy, brilliant mind of hers.

“So, theoretically, we could go to the police station and steal guns, and grenades, and whatever we need, to blow up those bats that are guarding the gate.”

Nancy was actually surprised Robin would suggest something like that, the girl was anxious enough, how would she be around guns? To be fair however, it was a good idea, Nancy especially liked the part where she could be holding a gun herself. But she didn’t need the police station for that.

“I doubt the Hawkins P.D has grenades Robin, but guns, yeah, sure.”

Nancy was already stepping in before anyone else said anything else.

“We don’t have to go the whole way downtown for guns, I have guns, in my bedroom.”

“You. Nancy Wheeler. Have guns, plural, in your bedroom?”

“Full of surprises, isn’t she?” Robin repeated, this time sounding the most genuinely surprised she had.

“A Russian Makarov, and a revolver.”

“Yeah you almost shot me with that one.” Steve, approached them.

“You almost deserved it.”

Robin chuckled and Nancy automatically smiled, but she was still looking at Steve. That was over in a flash of denim and a loud thud, that sent Steve a few steps back. Eddie nodded his head at him, he’d thrown his denim jacket at him.

“For your modesty dude.” He noted talk joking, half legitimately annoyed.

Another flash. Much stronger this time, it came from all around. The ground shook and grumbled, the fall was inevitable, she just had to make sure she fell in a way that wouldn’t break her bones. Oh no, Robin. Remembering her clumsiness she tried to shift towards Robin, but Steve was quicker, grabbing Nancy for behind pulling her to safety, thankfully Nancy caught how Eddie did the same with Robin. She was starting to really like this Eddie guy. Her entire body seemed to aggressively shake all around, the earth pounding harder with every thrust, until finally, the shakes became manageable, steady. The screeching, however, was back. They had to keep moving.

“So yeah, guns seem like a pretty good idea to me.” Eddie panted.

“Yeah, me too.” Robin agreed.

“So what are we waiting for?” Steve turned on his flashlight and walked away, ahead of all of them, Robin and Eddie rushing to get up, still shaken. Eddie seemed in a rush to catch up with Steve, Nancy could imagine why. That left her with Robin, thank god.

“Are earthquakes on your list of things you don’t like?” Nancy asked.

“Of course they are! Number 2 on my list, I’m unsteady enough as it is.”

“True, what about Bats?”

“Yeah, but not that high, they’re not really common in Hawkins that I know of, so it’s like at number 20 or something.”

“Is that above or below the number 9?” She chuckled.

“Ha-ha the list has changed since I was 7 you know? Actually now that I think about it, after all this crazy bullshit I really should update it. Same with the list of things I do like.”

“I don’t know if in all of this there's possibly anything new to like.”

“Yeah there is.”

Robin was looking at her so calmly that Nancy’s thoughts felt completely outlandish, impossible, but it was simply a fleeting moment, as Steve’s voice saved her from herself.

“Hey Eddie, wait Eddie.”

In a turn of events it now seemed to be Steve who wanted to catch up with Eddie, who gave him a delighted smile as they started to walk together. Nancy gave Robin a sheepish look, whom at first was surprised, yet quickly replied with a sly grin. Apparently it was true no one could resist Steve Harrington.

“NANCY!”

Nancy heard Robin’s cry before she felt the next earthquake, even stronger than the last, so much so that Nancy found it impossible to get close to Robin, instead she was thrown towards the nearest branch, her hands gripped around it, her nails begging not to be separated from security. There, she saw it, her house in the distance.

Chapter Text

The sight of it was enough to push Nancy back into gear, the desperate need for the protection of everyone but her kicking in.

“NANCY!” Robin stumbled towards her, the earthquake was starting to relent and everyone rushed up to her, to see what the hell had her so focused, she hadn’t even realised how far she’d gone. The sight explained it well enough.

“Come on.”

They all started walking towards her house, the red strikes of thunders keeping it visible, she led the party and could obviously notice they were struggling to match her pace, still, she refused to slow down, her guns were in that house, she was going to get them, and end all of this madness once and for all, and after all that she’d sing musicals with Robin Buckley goddamit.

Finally, they reached the hellish structure, the only way she could possibly recognise this as her own house was the distinct shape of it, one corner of the roof preposterously higher than the other. In terms of the rest, it didn’t feel or look like her house at all, let alone a home. It wasn’t just because of the vines, darkness, and mud like earth, if it were that it shouldn’t have felt any different than any average abandoned warehouse. Yet it did, the vines dripped in murky, slimy green tears, coiling inwards as if eternally trying to devour themselves, the “mud” twitched and crawled around the rotten floorboards, and most importantly, the silence fit. With two younger siblings, Nancy’s house had never been comfortable with silence, and yet, it was totally at peace with it, revelled in it even. They all bathed in that silence for a few seconds, staring. Nancy approached the door knob, a huge, thick vine diving the door diagonally, all across it. It opened, but it didn’t creak.

The inside was even worse, and an unsettling feeling was growing possessive of her, there was something so disturbing about knowing this was her house, but wasn’t. Something so, unnerving about how familiar it felt, in how her body recognised her surroundings as home, as safety, and yet, her eyes and brain were screaming in horror at the sight and reality of it. Robin made a joke that she didn’t hear.

“Come on. I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.” Nancy rushed, her breathing starting to tighten around her throat. She ran up the stairs towards her room, Robin close behind her.

She barged in, flung open her closet with shaky breath, and shot up for the highest shelf, where theshoe box was secured. It rattled as she brought it to her desk, finally bringing some relief to her. She took the lid off carefully, and removed the paper to finally find her… shoes. Where were her guns? Why were those shitty heels there. Instead. Of. Her. Guns. She kept rummaging through it as if they might magically appear. What the fuck was happening.

“Those aren’t guns.” Eddie pointed out, making Nancy want to snap at him, as if she hadn’t fucking noticed already.

“These heels are a bit pointy but I was hoping for more of a deadly projectile.” Robin added, unhelpfully.

“I don’t understand.” Was as all she could manage.

“Maybe you left them somewhere else?” Eddie proposed, now she really was mad.

“There’s a six year old in the house (you idiot) I know were I keep my guns.” She turned quickly towards him with a brutal tone.

“And also, I threw these away years ago.” She turned her gaze back at those old, and quite frankly horrendous heels.

Then, her eyes shifted to the flashcards also on the desk, carefully stacked up on top of a chemistry book. She could almost hear Steve’s voice in her head, that night, them studying on her bed.

“I get that grades are important to you but perhaps studying can wait until we get out of here?” Robin said.

“These are from sophomore chemistry.” She clarified, hoping the rest would catch on. She kept looking, there had to be more sings, something on the wall maybe… the walls.

“And this wallpaper, this is old wallpaper.” She rapidly scanned the entire room, out of place things popping up every second.

“And this mirror went to a yard sale.”

She spotted her old stuffed toy, a dog with large floppy ears she'd called Mr Fluff, she picked it up and immediately regretted it as it was completely infested by that oily texture of the coiling
mud.

“And you, you’re not supposed to be here. I gave you to cousin Joanna two years ago.”

Her diary. That could be the answer to whatever was going on. She quickly located it under another book by her bedside table and flipped it open. Half of the pages were blank, she flicked through the pages trying to find the last entry. November 1983.

“What is it?” Eddie asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Nancy, you’re freaking me out.” Robin tried, her voice shaking slightly.

“I think the reason my guns aren’t here is because… they don’t exist yet.”

“They don’t… exist? Eddie sounded like he was struggling not to scream every word.

“This diary should be full of entries. It’s not. The last entry is November 6th 1983. The day Will went missing.The day the gate opened.” She clarified, looking at Robin, Eddie probably hadn’t been explained the whole Will thing, not that they’d had time to.

“We’re in the past.” She finished.

Eddie and Robin turned to look at each other, then back at Nancy, eyes wide, expectant, as if waiting for Nancy to come up with some sort of magic explanation.

“DUSTIN! DUSTIN!” That’s when she realised, Steve wasn’t there with them, he was downstairs shouting Dustin’s name like a maniac, oh no, had Dustin followed them into the lake? There had been other boats there, fuck fuck. If that kid was in danger, if she'd let him come here and- and if he-

They all ran downstairs towards Steve’s voice, to find him, pacing around the living room, his eyes and flashlight up.

“Dustin, Hello? Hello! Dustin? DUSTIN!”

“Maybe he really does have rabies.” Robin leaned into her ear and whispered, Nancy feared she might actually be right.

“HELLO? HELLO!” Steve continued to yell, completely out of his mind.

“STEVE! What the hell are you doing?” She yelled back.

Steve rushed to them, pointing the flashlight right to their faces, making the flinch, he looked ecstatic, like he was high. Nancy’s pulse was starting to rush once again, there was only so much she could take.

“He’s here, Henderson that little shit, he’s here, he’s like… he’s like in the walls or something, just listen.” He gazed at them, gasping for air, his eyes wide.

Silence. Just silence. Yet Steve cried out like he was hearing the calling of God.

“DUSTIN! DUSTIN! DUSTIN CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

And just when Nancy was about to turn to Robin, and make some snarky comment, she heard it, the faint tones of Dustin’s voice. He sounded like we was under water, but the more she listened the more she started to catch loose words. Was he there? Or were they somehow hearing his voice coming from their world?

“DUSTIN, DUSTIN!!” She started screaming too, Eddie and Robin rapidly turning towards her in surprise.

“You too Wheeler?” Eddie asked.

“Steve’s right, I can hear him.”

“Wait, I think I hear something too.” Robin agreed.

Soon all four of them were wandering around the rooms, shouting the name of someone who’d never hear them ; it was better than doing nothing, it allowed Nancy to subside the unsettling contrast of her house, and it allowed Nancy some more time to think for an actual solution while they still weren’t begging her for one.

“All right, either this kid can’t hear us or he’s being a total douchebag.” Steve concluded.

Well, Steve had given up, and Nancy still didn’t have what you’d call a plan, but she an idea.

“Will found a way.” She said.

“What?”

“Will. He found a way to speak to Joyce, through the lights!”

She heard a fading trail of questions as she rushed to next room, she couldn’t just wait for the rest to understand, she’d just show them. She frantically ran through every little lamp and switch, turning them off and on with no results.

“It’s not working.” She flicked one of the switches more aggressively, wanting to rip it completely apart from the wall.

“Guys? Are you seeing this?” Steve pointed his flashlight to some dust above them.

No, not dust, specks, of light. They were floating around an old lamp that Nancy knew as a fact had never been inside her house, she could almost hear her mother’s voice, complaining about how the medieval design was giving her a headache. And, even though it shouldn’t have surprised her it was… upside down. If this wasn’t her lamp, then why was it there? Was it some sort of crack? A sliver of their world leaking into this one?

The specks glowed in an almost golden quality, some bronze, carefully floating all around the structure, flickering like tiny lamps themselves. Their glow was unnatural just like everything else around them, but unlike the rest it was inviting, unconsciously Nancy had already brought her hand up towards the dust, as her finger slightly grazed the light, the glow intensified, and the light seemed to become liquid in Nancy’s hands.

“Woah.” Eddie’s amazed voice approached from behind her, and so did Robin’s familiar footsteps.

Eddie was the rest to follow in her actions, wandering to trace the golden light through his fingers, Steve followed, and finally, Robin.

“It tickles.” Eddie said, Nancy tried to find a better way to describe it but she couldn’t really find one.

“It kinda feels good.” Robin sighed, the way she said it, with her voice so raspy and her hands flowing made Nancy snap out of something, or in to it, she wasn’t really sure, but it made her react, but what reactions were or weren’t appropriate to someone’s voice? Oh god, her brain was filling with nonsense, things that couldn’t possibly fit in there but were forcing to squeeze their way in, giving her a headache. Back to the lights, she had to focus on the lights, on getting to Dustin to-. Wait.

“Do any of you know morse code?”

“No.” They all replied in unison.

Well, fuck.

“Wait, does SOS count? Is, is that good?” Eddie hesitated.

Nancy turned slowly to him, well of course it was good, that was literally the message they were trying to get across in the first place. Her look must have been successful, because instead of waiting for a reply Eddie immediately began to flicker the lights sporadically, attempting to send their message.

“It’s working.” Robin marvelled at the sight.

For a few minutes nothing happened. Eddie keep sending the same message in a loop, yet Dustin’s voice wasn’t getting any nearer.

“Erica-” Steve gasped.

“What?”

“I hear Erica. I think she’s near us, she’s speaking to Dustin.”

If Erica was there, that meant Lucas must be too, why ? Still, it was perfect. Then, complete silence.

“GUYS?” Dustin’s voice echoed.

Everyone erupted into cheers, Nancy turned instinctively to hug Robin and Steve, and ended up pulling Eddie into the fleeting hug as well. Nancy wanted nothing more than to be drowned in that hope. Preferably outside of this version of her house.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Dustin’s voice echoed once more.

“YES, YES, WE CAN.” They all shouted variations of the same thing.

“GUYS? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Dustin continued.

Shit, it was obvious that the hearing was only a one way thing, that’s how Vecna was so easily creeping up on them without them even noticing.

“GUYS, FLICKER TWICE IF YOU CAN HEAR ME.”

Nancy ran to the lamp, and gave to clear flickers.

“HOLY SHIT!” This time, Dustin’s, Lucas’ and Erica’s voices all resonated through the space.

“OK OK, HOLLY WAS PLAYING WITH A LIGHTS THINGY BEFORE, WE’LL USE THAT TO COMMUNICATE OK?”

Once again, they all exclaimed in victory, Robin even flapping her hands happily about as they all let out a collective exhale.

“Holy shit, I don’t really believe in god if I’m honest, even if I did I don’t think it would really matter that much, but God thank you for Dustin fucking Henderson.” Robin chanted, throwing her hands up , making her sleeves roll all the way down, the specks of light creating a wave of light across her face, across her dark blue eyes.

“That little shit has done it again.” Eddie agreed.

Steve simply nodded over and over again, elated, and Nancy hadn’t even realised she’d said nothing, and simply stood there, mesmerised at their struck of fortune. And maybe Robin’s smile. No, not really. That was a joke. Obviously. They all stood there, staring at nothings, waiting for somethingto light up, for holy specks of light to bring their salvation. She kept one hand on her flashlight, pointing to the space Dustin’s voice had guided them to, the other one intertwined with Robin’s.

“OK OK, YOU GUYS SEEING THIS?” Dustin’s voice finally returned, at them same time as thousands of tiny glowing lights appeared in front of them, forming an almost perfect rectangle. Nancy was already waving her hands through them, feeling the soft tingle of it through her fingers, like small discharges of electricity, it must have been something characteristic of the upside down as a whole, because she’d been feeling it even before touching the lights, maybe even before reaching the house. Yet, as nice as it felt it was completely overpowered by the crippling fear that stretched through her, urging her to run and never look back.

“WE’RE NOT MOVING IT BUT WE’RE GONNA UNPLUG IT, STAY PUT OK?” Dustin warned.

And just like that, the glowing disappeared, but the specks remained.

“OK TRY IT NOW.”

Everyone turned to her, and to be fair, she was the one closest to the lights.

“I um, uhm…” She thought frantically of something to say, on how to possibly explain anything.

They might as well check it worked first. So, slowly, she started to draw the letters H I across the space, the dots lighting up as they grazed her finger tips.

“HI! THAT WORKED!” Dustin cheered from above.

“YES, YES!! HI!” They all joined it, Robin full out chuckling from relief as she usually did.

Nancy started on the next word, it should be easy enough. S-T-U-C-K.”

Eddie nodded and hummed aggressively next to her.

“Mhm mhm, yes.”

“We are.” Robin agreed, even her stupid approval felt nice.

“YOU CAN’T GET BACK THROUGH WATERGATE?” Dustin asked.

“What the hell is Watergate?”

Nancy rolled her eyes internally at Steve, but Robin did it externally.

“Cause it’s in water, and it’s a gate.”

“Oh.”

“That’s cute.” Eddie added, and if it weren’t because of the stress of the situation she would have laughed.

G-U-A-R-D-E-D, she spelt.

“Ok ok, watergate is guarded.” Dustin understood the message perfectly.

“WE THINK WE HAVE A THEORY THAT CAN HELP WITH THAT.”

“Genius child.” Robin muttered.

“WE THINK WATERGATE ISN’T THE ONLY GATE, THAT THERE’S A GATE AT EVERY MURDER SITE.”

“Does anybody know what he’s talking about?”

Everyone pulled confused expressions, and shook their heads. If what Dustin said was true, wouldn’t the police have noticed it at Eddie’s trailer?

“No”

“No idea.”

She drew a big question mark across the lights.

“SERIOUSLY? HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO BE RIGHT ON THE MONEY BEFORE YOU GUYS JUST TRUST ME.” Dustin yelled, louder than all the previous times his tone almost as frustrated as Nancy felt.

“Jesus Christ, this kid’s gotta get his ego in check.”

“It’s his tone, right ?”

Steve and Eddie, nodded and complained to each other like concerned parents, and no matter how funny it might have been at literally any other time, it wasn’t helping her get out of this rotten, devil-sent place.

“Ok, so how far is your trailer?” She asked Eddie.

“Seven miles.” He replied instantly.

“Nancy?” Robin began,

“I know your house here is like, weirdly, creepily frozen in time and shit, but, haven’t you always had bikes?”

“Finally a good idea.”

“Hey what’s that supposed to mean?” Both Steve and Eddie started to complain, but Nancy was already guiding Robin outside, towards the bikes. Thankfully, at that time they still had four of them.

“God Wheeler, I thought you were gonna leave us trapped in here.” Eddie panted as he followed them outside.

“I just want to get out of here ok?”

“You ok Nance?”

Merely 30 minutes ago, she’d been so determined she couldn’t have even remembered what fear felt like, she wanted that Nancy back. Something about the house had messed with her, something about those lights, and the electricity, the happiness of their discovery was fading as the cold was settling in, her clothes sticking onto her skin, her breath quickening.

“Nance?” Robin said again, grabbing her hand tightly, her head lowered to her height. The warmth made her feel better, but the tight feeling in her chest worsened everything.

“Yes, come on.”

She got onto one of the bikes and urged the other preoccupied three to do the same, Eddie took the lead, following the route towards his trailer, Steve was close behind, but Robin stayed behind with her, glancing in her direction every five seconds. Nancy ignored her and pedalled on. The glowing red thunder was worse in this part of town, strikes of crimson followed by that horrible sound were becoming more and more frequent, so much so that her headache starter to bang in unison with them. Screeches surrounded them, but the bats didn’t near them, instead they all swarmed around Victor Creel’s houses house could now be seen in the distance.

“Right here.” Eddie pointed to a tiny trailer, made even smaller by the vines compressing it from every side, squeezing it like an insignificant metal can.

“That’s gotta be a Guinness World Record, most miles traveled interdimensionally.” Robin remarked as they all threw their bikes onto the lawn.

As soon as they opened the door an inch they were faced with it. The glow, the tiny little vines, all filled with tiny holes warping one on top of each other, squirming and twitching, sticking to each other making a chewing noise as they did. And in the centre, a huge red opening, the vines hung upside down from it, even the thinnest strand clutching to it desperately, intertwining with the red, like veins, slimy, sick veins. The sight of it made Nancy horribly nauseous.

“Goddam.”

“This is where Chrissy died . Like right where she died.” Eddie’s face had gone completely pale, his entire body stiff as he said it.

“I think there’s something in there.” Robin, stepped back slightly.

The squirming noises were getting more aggressive, and then, the red glow started stretching downwards, like a plastic droplet, the vines twitching and snapping away.

BANG.

The whole opening broke away completely, light vomiting through it, vines screaming. BANG BANG BANG. This was it, Vecna had found them, he’d felt them, in here. This was their fault for going to the gates they knew for a fact Vecna created, this was their fault for even going in here in the first place, this was her fault for letting Steve dive in into the stupid lake, this was her fault. And this was it.

Suddenly, the banging stopped. Steve started approaching the hole, and Nancy wanted to yell, but her headache was so loud it barely let her open her mouth.

“No way.”

Laughter. Dustin’s laughter, Dustin.

“Hi there!”

Dustin. Dustin, Lucas and Max were all waving at them from the opening, their entire beings upside down, but there. Nancy managed a soft exhale, but she still wasn’t convinced.

“Hi” She let out delicately.

“Holy shit this is trippy.” Robin sighed next to her. It really was. So so trippy.

“We’re gonna bring you a rope and something soft to land on!” Lucas told them, him and Erica wandering away.

They were soon back, with what must have been Eddie’s mattress, except it had three large stains across it, Nancy was too exhausted and in pain to ask.

“Those stains are uh… I dunno what those stains are.” He clarified, not.

“Hmm.” Robin smiled cheekily at him.

Then, somehow, someway, one that Nancy failed to comprehend completely, a rope made up of sheet rolled in front of them, directly connecting them to the normal world, their world.

“ALL RIGHT, PULL ON IT, SEE IF IT HOLDS.” Dustin yelled.

Robin pulled down the rope with force, which stayed completely unmoved.

“Guess I’m the guinea pig.” Robin declared, as she prepared to climb, or fall, or whatever, up or down that rope. The physics were complete incomprehensible. Nancy felt a twinge of fear as Robin started to get close, so feeling a little bit stupid she put her hands up behind her, just in case she fell. However, not only did Robin not fall, she landed perfectly on the improvised landing spot, her face elated. Thank god.

“All right guess I’ll go.” Eddie was next to hold onto the rope, and just like Robin he struggled upwards until he fell onto the mattress, a mixture of shock and wonder in his face as Robin helped him up.

“That was fun.” He chuckled.

“See you on the other side.” Steve proclaimed.

“On the other side.”

Nancy curled her fingers tightly across the sheets, and started making her way up, the struggle was making her headache even worse, but it didn’t matter, because she was almost there, and Robin was smiling. Only a little more. She made a last single push, shutting here eyes tight, waiting for the thud of her back against the disgusting mattress.

It didn’t come.