Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

It had never really occurred to her before now, obvious as it might seem, but Nancy wasn’t much good at having fun. Someone like Steve or Mike might ask her to give something a spin - like rollerblading, that one time - and one of two things happened. Either she was so mortified at being (inevitably) bad the first time she tried something there was never a second, or she quickly became obsessed with gaining mastery. Like with art, though no one really knew about that (except Barb).

She knew other people thought of her as uptight, and they weren’t far wrong. She was deadly serious about most things in her life, to a fault, probably. Where had it come from? Did she need to be exceptional in order to be worthy of attention from her absent father (emotionally if not always physically)? Had she learned by example from her repressed mother, shoved into the role of wife and housekeeper and mom without much attention to her own needs or desires? What was certain was that she’d been reading too much Freud lately.

Freud would have told her to look to her dreams, and Nancy did dream a lot. Too vivid dreams that were too full and too everywhere when she dreamed them, but slipped her mind minutes after waking if she didn’t rush to write down what little she could remember. Sometimes the imagery was insultingly easy - she might be running, for example, and her destination rushing further and further from her the faster she went, like Sisyphus with his rock. Sometimes it was a little harder, like the dream with her teeth falling out one after another and her jaw full of blood and falling apart, then suddenly so heavy it was like deadlifting 200 pounds (and Nancy someone who could barely lift her own weight). No, her dreams weren’t very fun. The nightmares had been standard since Barb, but she hadn’t been a happy dreamer before then. A dreamer, always, but never a joyful one.

Nancy had known that Robin meant something to her when she first appeared to her in a dream. And no, they weren’t happy dreams. Most often, Robin came to her in dreams like Barb. In Nancy’s room, letting her braid her hair. Telling her she shouldn’t be with Steve (or maybe it was Jonathan). Telling her to be true to herself. Dead in a pool. 

This, though - this felt like it might be a happy dream. Sitting around a fire in the darkness, the others asleep. Robin strumming her guitar absentmindedly, and that - yes, that was it - that was what pulled her onto this train of thought. It was her closed eyes, her freckles in the flickering light like fireflies, the solemn tilt of her lip. Robin wasn’t often solemn, or at least, Nancy hadn’t seen her so. Then again, Nancy realised, she probably didn’t know her very well at all. 

That was when Robin began to sing. Her voice crackled like fire, warm and soft and a little raspy, like her speaking voice, but stronger, and a little sadder. Nancy pulled her blanket tighter around herself, as if to act out the embrace of her voice. She wasn’t sure if Robin was singing because she thought she was the only one awake, but if she heard her, she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t stir. It left Nancy feeling strange, and a bit guilty, like she was intruding on a private moment. Like she was in someone’s bedroom watching them naked when they thought they were alone.

Perhaps the dream was a little melancholy after all. But Nancy was enthralled by the way Robin sang simply to express herself, not for anyone’s ears, not for anyone’s approval. Not for a passing grade, or any reason at all. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Nancy is startled to see Robin looking at her, her mouth bearing the shape of midnight reverie. Nancy could almost taste it. She thinks about pretending not to understand - but Robin had known she was awake, and she had chosen to be vulnerable. It was intoxicating.

“I suppose I never mentioned it to you,” she says. Then, after a while, “I’m sure you heard. About Barb.” 

Robin strums softly. “I heard. But I want to hear it from you, if you want to tell it.”

“I guess… What's important is, she died, and I had been a bad friend to her. She deserved so much better. From me, from everyone.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Nancy shakes her blanket off, suddenly too warm. “It feels like it was. Even if I didn’t kill her, I let her die feeling alone, feeling like I didn’t care about her. No one has ever known me like she did, and I didn’t treat her right.”

“Do you think you deserve to suffer, then?”

Nancy looks at Robin, a little shaken. She doesn't know if it’s the dark, or the heady glow of the fire, or the chords ringing, that make her want to open up her heart.  

“Yes,” she says at last, “I think I do. I guess… I just want to make it right, somehow.”

“How does your suffering make it right?”

Nancy shifts under blue eyes. Soft and piercing all at once, like sunlight. 

“Okay, doctor, I get it. How much for the session?”

Robin’s pensive mouth erupts into that familiar toothy grin, for a minute. It assures Nancy that that Robin and this one are the same; that people can be, and in fact almost always are, more than one thing. Then Robin puts her guitar down.

“You know, I knew Barb.” 

“Really?” Nancy paused. “I don’t think she ever mentioned you.”

“It was a long time ago,” Robin said, scratching the back of her head. Nancy feels bad for thinking aloud, because the other girl looks a little hurt. Of course she would be. “It was, uh… before middle school, even. We were just kids. But all the same I don’t think I’ve ever had a friend like her. I… I don’t think anyone’s ever known me like Barb did either.”

“Not even Steve?” Nancy asks, quietly.

And they both look at him, sat on the ground with his back against a log, fast asleep. His chest rises and falls deeply, and a small, shuddering snore occasionally escapes his nose. 

“Not even Steve,” Robin whispers. “There are some things he’ll just never get, you know?”

“I know.” 

Nancy does miss being close to a girl. Even with Jonathan she finds herself playing a role, hiding a part of herself (and of course she’s good at that). She isn’t even doing it on purpose, really. But with Barb, sometimes it was so easy it came to her as naturally as breathing. It had felt kind of like this, actually, in their bedrooms in the middle of the night, when the lights were off and they could just about make out the shape of one another and they’d whisper secrets. 

“Who knew you could be so sage?” Nancy teases, after a comfortable silence. “Is it the witching hour?”

“Absolutely it is,” Robin says, nodding and trying to play along, but with the telltale smile of a bad liar. “Only witchcraft could be responsible for this.”

She picks up her guitar again, and Nancy closes her eyes, feeling held.

Chapter Text

ii.

Robin never really talked about her mother, come to think of it. Nancy had heard her mention a mother in passing, in off-hand comments that - if she really stopped to think about it - were a little concerning. She had certainly never mentioned a father, so Nancy had assumed he was out of the picture, and sure enough it seemed the Buckley household was formed only of a disapproving mother and an eccentric child. Was he missed? Or was it a relief that he was gone? None of her business, really.

She was a short woman, Robin’s mother, quite in contrast to her skyscraper of a daughter. Her features were almost exactly like Robin’s, except she had dark, permed hair, a serious brow, and a pursed mouth. Those things reminded her more of… well. She didn’t want to think about that. 

It was clear that Nancy was never supposed to have met her, but she knew better than to take that personally. If they wanted to hang out or study together, it was usually at Nancy’s house, with her respectable middle class parents, her warm, well-meaning mother with the sad eyes and her stiff, disinterested father with the cold ones. The house was a respectable one, too, with two floors, two bathrooms, a guest room, and all the trimmings. Sometimes her brother was there, and his friends, and that made it feel a lot more like a home, with warm blood and a beating heart. Nancy didn’t have friends, really, except for Barb, and now Robin. And having boyfriends… well, that was different. 

Nancy knew she was never meant to have met Robin’s mother, or to have seen their house, because this place didn’t feel like home to Robin. She’d never told her, explicitly, but she didn’t have to. 

That was when she felt Robin reach her hand out as if to touch her shoulder, then stop, abruptly, maintaining a respectable distance. 

“This is Nancy,” she says to her mother. “We’re just going to hang out in my room, do some homework.”

“Which is it, hanging out or homework?”

Robin pauses. “Homework.”

Her mother smiles politely (or perhaps grimaces). “It’s nice to meet you, Nancy.” 

“Likewise, Mrs. Buckley.” 

Stone cold, glancing at Robin as she says it: “Yes, well, you can call me Ms. Woodhouse, dear. Buckley isn’t my name anymore.”

Nancy holds her breath. “Yes, Ms. Woodhouse. Sorry, Ms. Woodhouse.” 

The house is one floor, with four rooms: a bathroom, two bedrooms, and a kitchen, dining and lounge area all in one. The couch looks a little lived in, but not as much as it would have been if Robin was using it, surely. And the coffee table sports a few red wine stains, eclipsing one another like shallow red moons. Other than that, the place is tidy, without being clean, exactly. Like ghosts live there.

Perhaps Robin’s father, too, had lived there, once. Nancy wonders if he had made the house feel any bigger, or just the opposite. She shivers as she follows Robin into her bedroom, and she begins to close the door behind her when suddenly Robin grabs the handle too. Their fingers brush.

“Leave it ajar,” she whispers, her mouth closer than it has any right to be. Nancy nods, pulling her hand back and holding it awkwardly to her chest for a moment, as if nursing the jolt from the moment of contact. Then, clearing her throat and letting her hand fall, she looks around. 

Robin’s room is surprisingly bare, like a hotel room, or a hospital ward. No posters - that’s a surprise, as Robin loves so deeply, Nancy imagined posters of her favourite musicians and movies plastering the walls to the point of clawing each other for space. Instead the room is an off-white plaster: the colour of monotony. A bed, a closet, a dressing table, a trumpet case and a school bag, and very little else. It’s all a bit eerie, but something glaring is missing.

“Where’s your guitar?”

Robin looks at the space between her door and the wall, then at Nancy, her jaw clenched.

“I don’t have one. That was Steve’s.”

Nancy does remember Steve buying a guitar with every intention of appealing to girls, and little intention of actually playing it. She’s glad someone’s putting it to good use (and for the reasons it was made, not for nefarious ones). But she’s also getting the sense she should keep questions - and indeed comments - to a minimum while Ms. Woodhouse is in earshot. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t work at mine,” she says carefully. “Let’s get through this assignment, then go see a movie? Maybe Aliens?” 

Robin looks exhausted, but she smiles. “I do want to see if it’s as good as the original. Let’s do it.”

There’s a glint in her eye, and Nancy breathes deeply, relieved, like she’s solved a riddle she’d never heard before. 

They work for a couple of hours, mostly in silence, before they leave. Ms. Woodhouse is watching TV, not too loud, but just loud enough to hear from Robin’s room (and vice versa). When Robin calls to her, she nods, mumbling some formality, like a “see you later” or a “have fun”. Nancy waits till they’re in her car - firmly shuts and locks the doors, wakes the engine into roaring life, and starts driving - before she speaks.

“Are you okay?”

She keeps her eyes on the road of course. Nancy Wheeler is nothing if not careful. As much as she itches to look at Robin with the full attention she longs to give, she allows herself only the briefest glance in Robin’s direction, just after she asks, before settling for peripheral vision. She hears her shuffle in her seat, settling on one posture, then changing her mind and morphing into another. Perhaps there’s an air of discomfort in it, but Robin is also just perpetually uncomfortable and perpetually unable to sit straight. The familiarity of this behaviour in contrast to her starkly unfamiliar body language from earlier actually puts Nancy a little at ease. 

“Yeah,” Robin says at first. Then, “Who am I kidding? Definitely not Nancy Wheeler.” Nancy turns to her for a second, to see her smile. “No, I’m not okay.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, recalling the other night in the woods with the others (when it felt like it was just the two of them). Nancy can just about see Robin shifting around in the passenger seat again, to stare out the window. 

“I don’t really know how to,” she admits. And Nancy can relate - that’s why she was so surprised the other girl shook even an inch out of her the other night - but it’s funny, coming from Robin. Maybe because Nancy is the one who’s so obviously repressed. She isn’t in denial about her need for control, her desire to appear a certain way. To be normal. She recalls Robin’s mother, as she looks at herself in the rearview mirror. Permed hair, serious brow, pursed lips. She isn’t as bad as that, is she?

“That’s okay,” Nancy says, “no pressure. There’s no right or wrong thing to say, and we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Robin is a little too still. Then she speaks. 

“Dad left a long time ago, obviously. He was kind of a prick, so it wasn’t a huge loss if you ask me. Mom was always kind of uptight, and I don’t know if she ever really liked me. But when he left it was like… it was like, she started paying more attention to me, but not in a good way. Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes she couldn’t care less if I’m dead or alive, no big deal if I come home after curfew, won’t even ask where I’m going. But other times, it’s like she has to have control. Some stuff is a deal breaker for her, like how I’m not supposed to close my bedroom door. And if she lets something slide, she lets me know one way or another she doesn’t approve. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.”

“I know she’s sad, and I wish I could help. But I can’t.”

“It’s not your fault. She’s your parent, and being in pain doesn’t mean she gets to treat her daughter like that.”

Robin sits up, turning back to Nancy, who meets her gaze for a moment with an encouraging smile. 

“I’m sorry. I should have explained why I didn’t want you over. It isn’t you, I just don’t feel comfortable there.”

“You don’t have to apologise.”

Nancy thinks about reaching out, about holding her hand. Her heart is in her ears, but then she remembers Barb. She looks for Robin’s hand and takes it, before fixing her eyes back on the road. Robin weaves their fingers together and squeezes, and Nancy hopes she feels held. 

Chapter Text

iii.

Gym wasn’t exactly Nancy’s favourite class. As a general rule, she wasn’t a huge fan of anything she wasn’t good at. Gym wasn’t one of the classes she usually had with Robin, either, but today was one of those days when the teachers had merged classes to have more thralls for their agenda of supposed ‘fun’. Of course, they were only allowed to play ‘girl’ sports - something she might have been more insulted by if she cared for sports at all - so today the girls of Hawkins’ High were forced to take part in an afternoon softball tournament. Unfortunately, for as little as she cared about sports, Nancy did care about school (specifically, her performance and its implications on her future) otherwise she might have just ditched. And so, here she was. 

She hadn’t seen Robin in the changing rooms - too full of writhing bodies to see any faces, and Nancy’s eyes always downturned in changing rooms anyway - but she did see her afterwards in the gym, her short dusty hair hanging from her head in the shortest possible ponytail. With her hair pulled back, Nancy could see the shape of Robin’s face more wholly than before: the high cheekbones, the sloping jaw. The bangs falling over her blond eyebrows drew attention to her bright eyes, a sharp unclouded blue like an almost too perfect sky. Not that she didn’t think Robin was beautiful - quite the opposite - but those eyes were enthralling in an almost... unnerving way. Jonathan, and Steve before him, had brown eyes: a warm and comforting colour, like routine, like normalcy. Robin’s eyes were so blue you could hurt yourself looking at them. And Nancy knew her own eyes were blue, too. 

That was when their dangerous eyes met. Robin grins and waves, before awkwardly jogging over. In shorts, her legs are possibly the tallest Nancy has ever seen, but her thighs look surprisingly strong, like old trees, though (perhaps exactly like old trees) they aren't incredibly graceful. Nancy has seen Robin’s weird (endearing) run before, and it makes her smile.

“I get the feeling you hate gym as much as I do?”

Nancy nods. “Oh yeah. You know I’d rather have my head in a book.” She glances at the red vest draped over Robin’s shirt. “Looks like we’re on the same team.”

“God help us.”

Granted she isn’t an expert in the subject, but mandatory high school softball isn’t Nancy’s idea of fun, especially not in the hot, stale air of a school gym, heaving with swarms of sweaty teenage girls giving each other funny looks and whispering, clandestine, to one other. Spending time with Robin, though, makes it kind of enjoyable. 

There’s a lot of things Nancy likes about Robin, but one of them, without a doubt, is her sense of humour. She didn’t like it much at first - if she wasn’t inclined toward fun, she definitely wasn’t inclined toward humour, and Robin’s lighthearted air just didn’t sit right with her. It made her seem like someone who made light of everything, but the closer they became, the more Nancy realised that Robin did know when it was necessary to be serious. The humour was a way of coping, perhaps a way of trying to connect to others too, the only way she knew how. Maybe, Nancy thought, the result of a childhood spent trying to lighten the air in a house where love was spread thin and emotions were heavy. But thus far, Robin had never crossed a line - if humour was her own need, it wasn’t one that was insensitive to others. 

In fact, Robin’s sense of humour was probably something Nancy really needed. It encouraged her to be light hearted, too, when the moment called for it. Steve didn’t often take things seriously enough for Nancy’s liking, but that wasn’t because he was particularly funny, it was more because he had barely faced any hardship in his life. Jonathan was more on her level, but perhaps, like her, he was too serious. 

As Robin exaggerates her already weird little run between bases to the point of satire - for Nancy’s eyes only - she smiles so wide it feels like her face could split open, but in the loveliest way. When they stand together whispering on the sidelines, closer than they have any reason to be, Nancy’s palms are sweaty and her chest is a little tight and she feels Robin’s breath on her ear. But her belly is warm and full.

Eventually the afternoon ends, as all things do, and they return to the hell of the girls’ changing room. It’s too full and too loud, and Nancy has never known how to behave or where to look when she’s there, and she can’t see Robin anymore. She feels like she’s wearing a turtleneck in a sauna. It’s hard to breathe. 

Usually changing before and after gym is a quiet affair. She avoids others, and mostly they avoid her too. But today, with her afternoon’s safety blanket nowhere in sight, someone decides to speak to her.

“Hey Nancy,” she hears, and looks up at unfamiliar (dangerous) blue eyes, set in a long head framed by cropped red hair. 

“Yeah?”

“What were you doing hanging out with that dyke all afternoon?”

Nancy stiffens, and her heart skips a beat. Already defensive, she feels herself begin to shut down - fight or flight. “Excuse me?”

“You do know that Robin Buckley’s a dyke, right?”

“I know nothing of the sort,” Nancy replies coldly.

“Of course not, or you wouldn’t be friends with her. You don’t want her making a move on you.”

Nancy hardly knows how to process this conversation, let alone how to respond. The stranger interprets this in her own way. 

“Sorry, Nance.” She cringes at the familiarity the girl addresses her with. “I know you thought she was your friend. Just watching out for you.”

When Nancy leaves, Robin is waiting for her, and it hurts even more. She doesn’t know what to do, or what to say. As she looks at Robin she feels paralysed by pain, and, well… love. She loves her friend, of course, and it hurts to hear her slandered. Robin senses something is wrong, even from a distance, and her smile collapses. Nancy walks over, to give her the courtesy of saying she feels unwell, and of apologising. But then she leaves. 

Later, at home, Nancy stares at her own blue eyes in the mirror. The longer she looks, the more unsettled she is. She almost thinks she begins to see her face morph into something strange. That’s when her mother walks in - her mother with the sad eyes.

“Are you alright, Nancy? You’ve seemed a little down since you got home.”

In that moment, looking at her mother’s gentle, bittersweet face in the mirror, Nancy feels like a child. Small, and vulnerable, and confused. She is overwhelmed with longing for the reassurance of a mother, and she begins to cry.

“Oh, honey,” Karen says, coming up behind Nancy and squeezing her shoulders. “How about I run you a nice warm bath, huh? I can wash your hair if you like, like I used to.” 

Perhaps another time - if she weren’t feeling so vulnerable - she might have protested. Said she was too old, acted embarrassed and affronted. But Nancy feels so tired she could collapse, so she simply nods. 

She doesn’t have it in her to feel ashamed, like she usually does, of her mother seeing her naked. Her mom’s fingers pressed into her scalp unknot her further and further. Like the middle of the night, during sleepovers with Barb. Like Robin’s voice, and her guitar. 

“Mom,” Nancy whispers, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweetie.” 

She is terrified, suddenly. A little of the adult in her comes back to life - with its apprehension, its seriousness, its walls. So Nancy asks, carefully, “Have you ever… wanted something you weren’t supposed to want?”

Karen’s fingers stop, for a moment. Nancy turns to look at her, and sees that she’s making a decision. She’s searching for something in her daughter’s face. Nancy wonders if she finds it.

“Between you and me, dear, yes. There’s nothing wrong with having those kinds of feelings, everyone has them sometimes. What’s important… what’s important is that you don’t act on them.” 

She rinses her hands, then pours cold water over Nancy’s head. 

Chapter Text

iv.

The sun through the window is harsh. Her mother’s eyes are harsher. She feels them, and it makes her restless, like always, but she knows her mom will be mad if she moves too much, so she does her best to straighten her posture. 

She says her name, but Robin doesn’t really hear it. It doesn’t sound like her name, or it doesn't feel like it belongs to her. 

“Robin, look at me when I speak to you.”

“Yes, mom. Sorry.”

It isn’t for lack of trying. Her head is splitting apart and her stomach is in knots but she’s trying to keep it together. She looks at her mother’s face, and for a moment, she sees something in it that reminds her of Nancy. Right now, that hurts more than the rest. 

“This is the last time I’m cutting your hair,” she says. “You need to start taking these things seriously. If you don’t start putting effort into your appearance and watching your mouth it’s going to bite you– you’re going to reap what you sow.”

“Yes, mom.”

Robin doesn’t exactly feel safe when her mother is holding scissors that close to her neck. It reminds her of being a kid, of her hair combed too hard, tangles undone at whatever cost, or her nails cut too short, to bleeding. She learned to do those things herself as quickly as she could. And if it were up to her, she wouldn’t shave, either, but there was no way of hiding all that skin without suffocating in summer. She had tried to cut her own hair once, but the results were catastrophic; they had both been so embarrassed they agreed that if Robin wanted it short, her mom would cut it. Amidst all this, Robin’s only small exercise of bodily autonomy, of rebellion, had been a small tattoo on her sternum. No one knew about it (except the tattooist that hadn’t batted an eye at her fake ID). It was her secret. 

She holds her mother’s stare - the blue eyes, the lines in her forehead, the tight curve of her mouth - for a moment. She waits till she looks away first, satisfied with Robin’s deference. But then again, they always have this conversation, and she’s still cutting her hair. It’s the small graces - her little pushes and the occasions they’re grudgingly accepted - that get Robin through. The truth is, she’s often too scared for the bigger acts of rebellion. Just weird enough for up-turned noses, but just repressed enough to be tolerated. Maybe her and Nancy aren’t polar opposites, in that sense. 

She watches her mom put the scissors down on the sink, and swallows as she takes the towel covered in stains and swathes of dark blonde hair from her shoulders. 

“Remember when your father is picking you up this weekend?”

“Yes, mom.” 

“Good. Now make yourself presentable before you go to school.”

And then she does the strangest thing. She puts her hand on Robin’s face, gently cradles her cheek. Her eyes are a little softer, a little glassier; even her jaw unclenches for a moment. Robin feels herself leaning into the touch, without even thinking. Then, as suddenly as it begins, it’s over. She sighs, and pulls away, and Robin has goosebumps. It’s strange how one can become so accustomed to a lack of affection, then so desperate for it at even the slightest taste.

Somewhere in the back of Robin’s chest, just opposite her hidden ink, the moment stays. The longing. Later that day, when she walks into her English class and sees Nancy, it crescendos almost violently.

Robin sits at the desk beside her, like she usually does. She looks at the chalkboard, reminded of the book they’re studying.

“Eugh, Fitzgerald,” she says. She’s a bit nervous around Nancy still - they haven’t really spoken since after gym the other day - but she also genuinely has feelings about this, and Nancy is one of the only people she can talk to about this stuff. Possibly the only one, actually. Her arms wave about as she speaks, impassioned, quite as usual. “Have you read the book? Of course you have. Don’t you think his characterisation of women is just awful? And not just in Gatsby, in, like, all his stuff. No wonder, considering everything with Zelda. It’d be so much cooler to study Save Me The Waltz but no high school lit class would go for that, huh?”

Whatever was on Nancy’s mind - reflected in her downturned eyes and her closed posture - it seems to vanish. She looks at Robin, a little surprised, but with that little spark of lightning blue she always gets in her eyes when she’s engaged or even challenged intellectually. It excites Robin, always.

“There are probably even grad level lit students who don’t know that book exists. Not to sound pretentious, but you know what I mean. Makes me so angry that Fitzgerald is still canonised when there’s every proof he stole parts of his work from a woman he had locked up in an asylum.”

“Yeah, and he sure wasn’t alone in that. Wordsworth next semester, anyone?”

Robin knows there wasn’t necessarily an asylum involved in that instance, but it’s close enough. Nancy appreciates the joke anyway, as her amused snort would appear to indicate. They smile at each other for a moment - and Robin thinks, maybe it was a fluke, or her reading the situation wrong, as she often does. Maybe Nancy really was just feeling under the weather, and Robin hadn’t messed everything up somehow. But then Nancy suddenly remembers to be distant, and Robin’s sternum clenches.

“Nance, do you want to talk about–”

“Alright class, settle down,” the teacher calls.

Robin scowls, and tries to straighten up in her seat (not something she’s very good at). 

“If you haven’t already read the book, shame on you. We’re going straight into close reading today. Turn to page 11, search for Daisy’s introduction. Should be the third paragraph.”

Robin flips her notebook open and grabs her pen. With every intention of turning to page 11, she looks for the novel - on the desk, in the drawer, in her backpack, in her jacket and her pockets on the off-chance it could be there - to no avail. 

“Buckley, stop flailing and open your book.”

“I’m sorry sir, I think I forgot my copy.”

“Well, you’re in luck, to have a far more responsible neighbour. Miss Wheeler, please share your copy of the great American classic with Miss Buckley.”

She turns to Nancy, waiting for some sign of consent before moving. Sure enough, Nancy nods, awkwardly - though Robin doesn’t know if you can call it consent when it’s under duress - and Robin moves her desk over with an agonising screech against the floor. Nancy slides her copy of the book between them, holding it open to page 11. Robin looks at her hand instead of the words.

“In fact, why don’t you all get in pairs for this activity?” The slight tired smile of a teacher that’s just marginally lessened their load. “Discuss how Daisy is framed in this passage, especially in light or our narrator’s perspective. Feedback in 15 minutes.” 

The room erupts into sounds of chatter and rustling pages. 

“Well,” Robin says, “should we see what flavour of misogyny we have here?”

Nancy laughs again. “Well, he more or less describes her as magnetic but totally shallow. Beautiful, but empty.”

“Isn’t that interesting, though, when he also describes it as a calculated sort of magnetism? Like, her murmur was only to make people lean towards her.” 

Robin shifts towards the book, to read the words from the page, and feels Nancy closer. She leans in, too, till their arms touch.

“It could be that she’s perceived as calculated, but isn’t actually. Notice how Nick “heard it said” that she murmured on purpose, while she laughed “as if she said something witty”, implying that she wasn’t actually witty at all. She just thought of herself as witty.”

“Right, and this is all from his perspective, so these are the judgements he’s making about her. Women can’t be smart, you know.”

“He’s definitely a self-insert for Fitzgerald, though, isn’t he?” 

“In a way, as the observer and author figure who thinks he’s better than everyone, sure. But maybe Gatsby is in a way, too, cos Daisy feels relevant to the weird way he talked about Zelda, right? Beautiful, vapid, hysterical?”

Nancy smiles. “How much of your spare time have you spent researching Zelda Fitzgerald just for kicks?”

“As much as any crazy, totally far from normal girl can be expected to!”

The smile becomes a little bittersweet, at that. “Quite a contrast to the cold, careful, Miss Baker, isn’t she?”

“I guess, but it’s just another flavour of misogyny, isn’t it? One wants men’s attention too much, the other too little, one’s too sporty, the other’s too idle… you know. Have you seen the movie?”

“Yeah. Mia Farrow is sort of heartbreaking in it.”

“Yeah, I had such a– I thought she was so good in it. Really brings out this side of Daisy that just seems lonely. Like, as much as she wants the attention of men, maybe that’s just a surface level desire. Like, she knows how men see her, that they don’t see her as a person, but maybe the attention, and the security from her marriage, are the closest she can get to what she really wants, or needs.”

“What does she really want, or need?”

“I don’t know. But I know I’m more interested in Daisy’s internal life than I am in Nick’s perception of her, or what she’s supposed to represent, or whatever. Same for Jordan. What do they feel? What do they think? How would the story read from their perspectives?”

Robin looks up at Nancy to see her face is incredibly close, and her eyes are tender. 

“You really are something else, Robin Buckley.”

Maybe if she were stronger, she’d know how to deal with these mixed signals. But she feels that longing, again, in the back of her chest. 

“You too, Nance.”

Chapter Text

v.

Robin isn’t much of a people person, definitely not much of a party person. What she is, however, is someone who goes where the weed is. She can’t really afford to be buying her own regularly, so she’s become a bit of a mastermind at showing up to parties uninvited, pretending she belongs there if anyone bothers to ask - they usually don’t - and finding somewhere to chill on her own. Maybe it was a little counterintuitive, putting herself in an environment that made her pretty much chronic anxiety worse in order to obtain a substance that relieved it for a little while, but beggars, choosers.

That was how she found herself here, at, uh… oh yeah, Vickie, it was Vickie’s party. Robin knew Vickie, actually, from band. She’d even had a crush on her for a while, before getting close to Nancy.

She’d seen Nancy at parties before. Before they were friends. She remembered hearing the whispers - that Nancy Wheeler was going out with the most popular guy in school - and she wondered how Barb must have felt. She had some idea, actually - small, insignificant, replaceable, no doubt. What her mother always made her feel, even if she never said it: that she was a mistake. (Well, maybe she was a projecting a little, but she was sure there was a nugget of truth in it.)

She also remembered seeing Nancy with said boyfriend, before she knew him. Robin felt nothing but fury when she thought of Steve, before (peppered, perhaps, with a hint of jealousy). For being the one Tammy had eyes for, sure, but more than that. He’d grown since, but a couple years ago Steve Harrington was exactly what you’d expect. Selfishness, assholery (especially to women), and an inordinate amount of confidence was the stuff he was made of, right down to every insufferable atom. These days, Robin loved Steve - really, truly, she did. She loved his loyalty, she loved his bravery, she loved that he could be accepting, and supportive, and nurturing. But she still didn’t love talking to Steve about women. 

It was really, really special that he knew she liked girls and respected it, but there was something in that, even. The way some women - like her, or Nancy - were people to Steve, and others were… well, not. And it wasn’t even in the most obvious way, just these little ways that made Robin shift in the passenger seat weakly insisting that he please stop saying “boobies”. More often than not, it was just the way he reduced a girl to one thing - physical, emotional, mental, whatever it might be - and that was all she was to him. A trope, a caricature. But there were people trapped behind that flesh. You couldn’t always see it in their marrionette smiles or their Barbie-doll bodies, but you saw it behind their eyes. People banging on glassy cages, screaming to be freed from - among other things - the gaze of others. All of them were different, all of them had their own shit. All of them were four dimensional, kaleidoscopic, infinite. And when Steve called one ugly, or boring, or stupid, and never thought of her again, it reminded her of the way he had never batted an eyelid at Tam, the way she’d go home and scream into her pillow after every history class. And if that weren’t enough, Steve did this thing - though well-meaning - where he thought that, because they both liked girls, they both related to women in the same way. They didn’t (of course they didn’t). 

When Robin thought of men, she thought of strange, more often than not monstrous creatures, with far more power and far more confidence that anyone deserved. She thought of carelessness, of condescension, and of absence (physical and emotional). A lot like her father, she knew. But her father wasn’t a black hole by coincidence. He was a black hole because most men were - they took, and took, and when you emerged from the other side (if you emerged at all) you were changed. Damaged. That was the role this world had given, to men. Even the good ones. Even with all their other qualities. It wasn’t personal - it was much, much bigger than any single man.

Robin loved Steve. But loving Steve was nothing like loving Nancy, or loving Barb. There were things Steve would never understand, hardships he’d never have to face. Granted, on some level, there were things Nancy two-storey-house Wheeler might never understand, either. Things that, liking boys, she’d never understand. But hell, there were things that she, Robin Buckley, a white girl living in an actual house in small town Indiana, would never understand either. It wasn’t that she wanted bad things to happen to Steve or Nancy. It was just that this world we live in needed to change, and she was too young, too afraid, too alone to figure out how to change it. In the meantime this supernova of a world - beautiful and electric, violent and destructive - would alienate. Categorise. Conquer. And Robin felt all too much the weight of it. She just didn’t know how to take responsibility. 

So she’s a little high, and a little alone with her thoughts. Tiring of seriousness, Robin looks upon the legions of high schoolers below. On this balcony, she can fancy herself above it all, for a minute. Queen of the deviants, she thinks gleefully, before unease washes over her. No, she’d rather not be queen of anything. She’d rather no queens, certainly no kings. Not even a king of Hawkins’ High. 

She knows this is the kind of thing that Steve wouldn’t like, or at least wouldn’t get (not that she’d ever tried, but she didn’t care to test the theory). Different relationships are different, you don’t have to tell all your friends everything. (That was true enough, but maybe she hid behind it, to keep herself safe. Just a little.) 

She wonders if Nancy versed-in-the-misogyny-of-classic-authors Wheeler would understand, or if it’d be a step too far for her. Robin was always pleasantly surprised by Nancy - finding herself more and more able to be vulnerable with her - but she was always also a little afraid that one day she’d find the line she couldn’t cross. The deal breaker. The thing Nancy would leave her for. 

Speak of the devil. Robin sees Nancy in the crowd below, amongst the kids that stumble zombie-like about the pool. She’s talking to Vickie, though she doesn’t look much like she wants to be. When she manages to get away, she looks up, almost as if she feels Robin’s gaze. She smiles, but her brow is creased under the weight of whatever she’s thinking, whatever she’s feeling. Robin didn’t know if that was anything to do with her, but considering how strange Nancy had been acting lately, she thought maybe it did. Robin gestures in what she hopes is legible as ‘come up here’, watches Nancy nod, then disappear. She prays.

Time is a little difficult to grasp, but she imagines it’s a few minutes later that Nancy bursts through the balcony door. Robin watches her adjust her skirt, and she fiddles with her rings.

“Fancy seeing you here, Wheeler.”

“I could say the same to you,” Nancy replies, in more earnest tones than Robin’s. She moves toward her, leaning on the balcony.

“What else is there to do on a Friday night?”

Robin looks at the joint in her hand, too lethargic to even attempt to hide it. 

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Only weed. I can stop if you’re uncomfortable.”

Nancy pauses for a moment, considering. 

“Actually, would you be up for sharing?”

Robin blinks. “You’ve never smoked before have you?”

Nancy shifts, catching her skirt between her thumb and forefinger again. 

“That obvious?”

“Just, don’t feel like you have to. No pressure from me. But if you do, don’t be afraid of asking for guidance. Oh, and also you can change your mind.”

Nancy is smiling at her a little like before, but softer. She looks like that, sometimes - like her head is heavy but her eyes are weightless - and it makes her heart ache. Robin wonders if she can tell the world is moving in slow motion. If she can’t, she will soon enough.

“Here.” She hands Nancy the joint. “Inhale deeply, so deep you feel it in your chest, and hold your breath a minute before letting go. It’ll hit you pretty quickly, so you’ll know if it doesn't work.”

Nancy nods, solemnly, and follows her instructions. She coughs and splutters a bit the first time, and Robin puts a hand between her shoulder blades, unthinkingly. Nancy shifts a little, and so do her eyes. 

“I don’t think it’s working,” she says eventually, a little raspy.

“Not feeling any different?”

“Just a scratchy throat.”

And later, Robin will be sure it was the weed that made her inhibitions disappear just long enough to say it.

“There’s another way we can try if you feel comfortable with it. Do you know about shotgunning?”

“I know about shotguns,” Nancy quips.

“Noted, and I will not be getting on your bad side,” Robin laughs. She motions for Nancy to pass the joint back. “Usually I’d recommend a bong because that’s much easier on your throat, but I don’t think there’s one lying around here and even if there were I dunno if it would be sanitary. The next best thing is shotgunning, or at least a version of it which means you don’t have to smoke the blunt. Basically, I take a hit, only I don’t inhale, and I breathe it into your mouth. You inhale right away, deeply.” She gestures between her and Nancy as she speaks. “It isn’t super easy to do so I can’t promise I’ll get it the first try, but, yeah. If you’re, uh, comfortable with that.” 

Below, the dreamy synthetic beats of the Eurythmics fill the night. Robin isn’t sure if it’s her suggestion, or the air heavy with sweat and smoke and artificial light, but Nancy’s cheeks are a beautiful dusty pink. They would be nice to kiss, she thinks.

“Okay,” Nancy says, though she doesn’t sound totally certain.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Robin doesn’t ask again. She feels Nancy move closer as she breathes in smoke, then turns to face her. Robin looks at her creased brow, down to her pursed, trembling lip. She feels a dull hammering in her chest, but it’s muffled, like taking a sledgehammer to a pile of foam. Putting the joint aside, she brings her fingers to Nancy’s jaw, as if to steady her. As she draws closer, she hears her faltering breath. Their lips touch, and there’s a second where Nancy doesn’t breathe, before suddenly, sharply, she does. Robin pulls away.

After a minute, “Feel anything?”

Nancy clears her throat. “Definitely, um, something. But I don’t know.” Then, quietly, “Do you want to try one more time?”

And they do. But this time, when Robin tries to pull away, Nancy grabs her wrists. Robin feels something crawling, unpleasantly, in the pit of her stomach. And this is the thing - sometimes the weed makes that worse.

“Nance?”

“Robin,” she says, not in response, but as though she’s tasting the name in her mouth. Thinking of it, and nothing else.

“Feel anything?” Robin asks again, this time in a whisper. Nancy guides Robin’s hands along her cheeks, towards her hair.

“Kiss me,” she says.

“Are you sure?”

She doesn’t repeat herself.

Chapter Text

vi.

No, she doesn’t repeat herself.

Robin spends the weekend in absolute agony, tossing and turning at night as if possessed. She’s feverish - hot one minute, cold the next. It’s a little hazy in her mind, and at the same time it’s everywhere all at once. The weed has something to do with it, she’s sure - maybe it wouldn’t feel so big if she’d been sober, then. And she feels so stupid, so weak for the weight of it. For the rush of it, too. (It was her first kiss, obviously.)

She tells Steve she’s going to be late to school, that she’ll catch a ride with her mom later. She’s got a dentist appointment, or something like that. She doesn’t think she can face Steve right now - she doesn’t think she can look at him, when every time she blinks she feels Nancy’s ghostly touch in every place she has the capacity to feel. 

It’s dramatic. It’s disgustingly, unbearably cliché. Not for the first time in her life (certainly not for the last) she wishes she couldn’t feel anything at all.

On the bus to school, Robin feels like she can’t move for boys and girls and girls and boys, laughing, whispering, arms on shoulders, hands on thighs, far too close for comfort. It’s always a little too much for her, to walk onto a bus or into a classroom or through a mall like the ghost of lesbians present. They can’t see her, but boy does she see them. Today it’s still too much, but the flavour of the overwhelm is just a little different - today she thinks of laughing and whispering with Nancy, arms on shoulders, hands on thighs. And it isn’t that she’d never thought of that before, but today the thought is caught in her throat like honey. Thick and sweet and hot and heavy - and stuck. 

She sees Nancy in English class later that day, because of course she does, they always have English together. Her brow is pinched, as it usually is, by some worry or other. Maybe another nightmare - there’s a darkness, lurking beneath her eyes. Her jaw is clenched, her lips tightly sealed. Robin tries not to think too much about her lips - she can’t, if she’s going to make it through this class. 

Regret comes over her, then, a sudden wave. Too late, she feels the loss of that ease, in the middle of the night around the campfire, in Nancy’s car. There is so much that Robin wants - but now, she only wishes she could sing to Nancy like the morning birds. She only wishes she could hold her hand in the passenger seat, as Hawkins, Indiana, floats away. 

When Nancy looks at her, Robin thinks maybe she isn’t the only ghost in this classroom. She’s wearing a shirt with a too-stiff collar, and a sweater. She pulls at it, like she needs room to breathe, and shuffles around in her jeans. It’s an almost boyish look - honestly it’s charming - and Robin relishes, for a moment, the things you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking hard enough. Was it really possible?

“Hey,” Robin says, dropping her bag to the floor, clumsily. 

“Hey.”

A small part of her is annoyed, if she really thinks about it. But she doesn’t, usually, so the thought is gone quicker than it appears. The feeling, somewhere inside her, stays. Festers.

“How was your weekend? Feeling okay after… you know?” Robin winks. Nancy looks bewildered, her fingers lingering around her collar, like she’s itching to take her sweater off. It is a little warm, but Robin knows she’s been out of sorts. 

“Um…”

“You know, it was your first time, right? It isn’t like drinking.”

Nancy’s hand falls to her lap, where she holds it steady.

“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. No hangover or anything.”

“And that is one of many reasons why it’s superior.”

Nancy offers a terse smile, but doesn’t say anything. Robin tries, instead.

“But about… about the other thing, in all seriousness. Are you…?”

Nancy laughs suddenly, loudly. A few looks around the classroom, in her direction. Robin’s turn to be bewildered. She feels a little too material, in that moment. Suddenly she longs to be a ghost again. 

In a low voice: “God, yeah, I’m so sorry about that. How awkward! Whatever you had, that was the good stuff, huh?”

She won’t look at her, and honestly, Robin doesn’t know what to say. Of course, it wasn’t possible. 

Later, as she walks home from school, Robin sees someone new on the sidewalk. She doesn’t think any of her neighbours have pets, and she can’t see a collar. 

The cat holds her gaze with a quiet intensity. She seems cautious, even afraid. Her fur is black, but dull, maybe a little matted (everything Robin knows about cats is theoretical). Her eyes are round as saucers and blue as… well, bluer than blue, really. Her tail stands alert, ballooned. 

Robin stands very still, and blinks, slowly. She read somewhere that it builds trust, with cats. Then she starts to kneel, beckoning to her. Her pupils still dilated, the cat saunters over. 

“Good kitty,” Robin says in a soft, measured tone. She holds her hand motionless, waiting for the cat to approach at her own pace. First she sniffs the rings, the nail polish, the freckles and the little marks of clumsiness. Then she rubs her left cheek across the back of Robin’s hand, in a grand gesture of affection. The right cheek, next. A leap of faith. 

Robin walks into her house, holding her new friend like a child. Her mother is on the couch, watching TV. Robin sits next to her. 

“Mom, I found this stray cat on our street. Can we keep her?”

Robin’s mother looks at the cat. She holds her big blue eyes with a quiet intensity, and the creature doesn’t so much as meow. 

“She’s quiet. Unlike you.”

“My soulmate, maybe? Opposites do attract.”

Robin’s mother looks at her daughter, then. She puts her hand on her blonde head for a moment, and turns away again. 

“If you take responsibility for her, you can keep her.”

Robin decides she’ll budget for it later. The cat’s rumbling purr against her chest is making her tired, like a car engine. In the morning, she’ll think of a name, too. For now, she rests her head on her mother’s shoulder.

“Deal.”

And her mother rests her cheek upon her head. 

Chapter Text

vii.

Sometimes it felt so terrifying to dream. In her room, in the dark, Nancy would stare at the ceiling until the lightbulb began to look like a pearl. When she couldn’t keep her eyes open any more she’d sink into sleep like a collapse, and she dreamt hard and fast and vivid. These days she dreamt of Robin often, like the more she pushed her away the closer she felt. 

Tonight, when Nancy plunged into sleep, she saw Robin sitting in shallow water. She was wearing a white dress, and the freckles on her shoulders moved like stars. Nancy reached out as if to capture one, to hold it still and keep it close. 

Robin turned her head. Her hair was wet, her lips were parted, and she held a pearl in her hand. When Nancy reached for it, Robin put it in her mouth. 

Nancy wanted to give in. To fall to her knees and lose herself among the stars. To hold wet warm skin, to unfurl and to float, like petals in water. More than anything she wanted that pearl in her mouth. And because she was dreaming, she took it. 

That was when she woke up, desire burning in her stomach. 

Nancy looks at the clock on her bedside table - 7 in the morning. A bit early for a Saturday, but she doesn't want to go back to sleep. She's tired of dreaming. 

When Nancy walks downstairs she sees her mother in the kitchen, making coffee.

“You’re up early, Nance! Sure you don’t want to stay in bed a little longer?”

Nancy smiles, or tries to, taking a seat at the kitchen counter. “No, mom, I’m good. Why are you up so early?”

Karen laughs. “You know me, honey. Early bird catches the worm and all that.”

But Nancy wonders if there’s more to it. She wonders how well her mother sleeps. She wonders if her mother dreams, and what it is she dreams of.

“You deserve to relax on a Saturday just as much as anyone else. What are you up to today, mom?”

Karen looks surprised. It makes Nancy sad. 

“Well, I suppose I was going to make everyone some breakfast, see if you kids needed anything from me… Oh, do you want some coffee, sweetie?”

“Yes, please.”

Karen fills two cups to the brim, black with no sugar. Like mother, like daughter. She slides a cup over to Nancy, then leans on the counter, facing her.

“Nancy, you look tired. Is everything okay?”

She looks at the pearls on her mother’s neck. And she remembers her words - just don’t act on it. 

“Yeah, I’m just a little stressed. Senior year and all.”

Karen looks at Nancy with eyes like the ocean. Blue, and vast, and full of secrets. But the sound of waves crashing always made Nancy feel serene - like she was being held.

“What about you, sweetie, any plans for today?”

“Not really, probably just studying.”

Karen straightens up, takes a sip of her coffee. 

“You know, I love that you’re so hard-working, but I hope you’re still being a teenager, too. Sure you don’t want to see any of your friends?” She pauses, maybe considering whether or not to continue. “I haven’t seen Robin around much lately, not even to study. She could keep you company, right?”

“We’ve just been busy,” Nancy mutters, “Schedules not aligning.”

“Well, that’s a shame. I really like that girl.”

“I know you do.”

“It’s just nice to see you have a girlfriend again, you know?”

Nancy smiles, sadly. “Yeah. It’s really nice to have one.”

Karen plants her elbows back on the counter, meeting Nancy at eye level again. There’s a spark in her eye - a little mischievous. It makes Nancy wonder. Who was Karen Wheeler, before, well… Karen Wheeler? What made her stomach burn?

“Why don’t we have a movie night, just you and me? After you study all day, of course,” Karen assures, catching Nancy’s disapproving look. “I’ll even let you pick the movie. It can be as pretentious as you want.”

“Mom!”

“I’m joking! If Robin isn’t around for you to watch your obscure movies with, you have me. Now get changed and let’s go rent something from the video store.”

Karen drives, and it’s nice. Nancy feels so old, sometimes, she forgets she has someone to take care of her. On the highway, her mother looking at the road, shoulders bouncing to the beat of Two of Hearts - though never unrestrained enough to sing along - Nancy suddenly remembers Robin’s mother. She looks at herself in the side mirror, and she wonders if she’s got it all wrong. If Karen Wheeler, with her heart so full of love, has got it all wrong. 

“I’ll go grab something,” Nancy says, remembering her mother’s glove compartment stash of cigarettes, the ones she doesn’t think anyone knows about. “You relax a bit, mom.”

Karen smiles at her, one of those proud smiles with something enigmatic, still, in it. Nancy’s own heart swells with love, and she hopes her mother can feel it. 

In the video store, Nancy sees Robin. She’s surprised - she was sure Robin didn’t work Saturday mornings. But sure enough, Robin is leaning on the counter, holding her jaw in her hand like a twig swaying under a paperweight. Tired. Dark circles under her eyes, not unusual for her, but maybe darker than before. When she sees Nancy, she straightens up, pulling at the green apron over her shirt. Nancy feels terrible.

“Hey,” she ventures first, walking over. The store is more or less empty, because most people don’t rent videos so early on a Saturday morning. 

“Hey,” Robin says. Nancy watches her twiddle her rings around her fingers, saying nothing. It isn’t a comfortable silence, and Nancy remembers the comfortable silences they’ve shared before, the ones that surprised and thrilled her. That closeness feels like a distant memory, and Nancy wants it back so much it hurts. Why had she given it up? What was all of this for?

“Do you have The Color of Pomegranates?”

Robin looks at her suspiciously. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even look at the computer. 

“You know we don’t have that movie.”

“Maybe it’s in the back,” Nancy insists, holding her stare. “Why don’t we go take a look?”

Robin doesn’t bother to say customers aren’t allowed in the back, and she doesn’t bother to leave a note at the counter. Usually Nancy might have pointed it out, been responsible. She doesn’t care much for responsibility, today. 

“If you say so.”

In the labyrinthine storage space of the Hawkins Family Video store, Nancy looks up at Robin’s crossed arms, her distant gaze. She’s never seen her like this before. 

“So what do you want?”

Nancy pulls at her jeans with her thumb and her index finger.

“I deserve that,” she says. “Robin, I know you’re not stupid. Far from it. In fact, you’re the smartest person I know. What I mean is, I know you’ve felt me pushing you away, and I know you can tell I haven’t been honest with you. And you have every right to be mad at me for that.”

Robin eases up a little, though her face is still serious. 

“So,” Nancy continues, “it’s only right to apologise, because it isn’t fair. It isn’t what you deserve. You deserve honesty, and you deserve vulnerability. And I’m sorry.” 

Robin meets her gaze, then.

“I appreciate that. But I still don’t understand why. I felt like we were getting so close, like we were opening up to each other. What changed?”

Nancy considers this. More precisely, she considers what she should and shouldn’t say. 

“You know Vickie?”

“From band? Yeah.”

“She, um, said some things about you.”

Robin blinks. “You pushed me away because Vickie from band said some things about me?”

“Robin, she called you a - well, I’m not going to say it. The point is she was being nasty, and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Robin pauses.

“Did she call me a dyke?”

Nancy feels her forehead crease. “What?”

“Did Vickie call me a dyke?”

A pause, then: “Yes.”

“She’s right.” Nancy is silent, so Robin continues. “I like girls, Nancy. Worse than that, I don’t like boys the way I’m supposed to. I’ve tried - I really, really have. But I don’t think I’m capable.” Silence, still. “Is this it, for us?”

Nancy doesn’t know what to say. But she knows that Robin is fiddling again, that she sounds - anxious, yes, but resigned. And she knows that another human being is putting an enormous amount of trust in her, even after being hurt by her, even though she expects her to leave. Nancy doesn’t know if anyone’s ever trusted her that much - except, maybe, Barb, and she fucked that up, too (and she’ll never be able to repair it, now). 

She doesn’t know if she deserves this, but this isn’t about her. So she takes Robin’s hands, holds her restless fingers steady.

“No, Robin,” she says, squeezing gently, looking in her blue eyes. “You’re perfect exactly the way you are.”

Robin throws her arms around Nancy, and holds her like she might disappear at any moment. They hold each other in the back of the video store, just like that, until it’s time to leave.

Chapter Text

viii.

Nancy had never seen anyone so in love as Robin with her cat. She looked at the little creature the way Nancy imagined mothers looked at newborns - the way her own mother sometimes looked at her, but without any of the restraint. Robin loved wholeheartedly, freely, with reckless abandon - but softly, too. Deep as a pool, gentle as a tide. 

And the cat was very affectionate too, more than Nancy knew a cat could be. If she sat, she would press herself against Robin’s thigh. If she was held, she would rub her face against Robin’s chest. 

She had a name, of course. It was Woolf. Robin thought it would be terribly funny to name a cat after another animal, and by adding an extra letter, the name also served as an homage to one of her favourite authors. She was right - it was funny, and sweet. It made Nancy smile. 

That was when Woolf put a paw on her leg. Nancy looks down at her big, expectant eyes, and holds her hand out. Woolf sniffs it, then rubs her face against it.

“You’re hers, now,” Robin says, grinning.

“Oh, am I?”

“Yeah, that’s how they mark their territory. Other than pissing on stuff.”

“Gross,” Nancy laughs, “I’ll pass on that, thanks. This is good.” 

She scratches under Woolf’s chin and watches her eyes close, her mouth pursing.

“She’s very sweet,” Nancy says, “Just like her mother.”

Robin laughs. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

They look at each other for a moment. Nancy’s heart is beating out of her chest, and she wonders if Robin can hear it. As for Robin, she looks… surprised. They turn away from each other, starting straight ahead. 

The film is Desert Hearts, a new VHS release. Not the kind of movie to have made it to theaters in Hawkins, Indiana, and not the kind of movie their parents would have let them see, especially not if they knew what it was about. The perks of Robin’s job include access to comprehensive VHS catalogues, and the ability to order any tapes she needs (any tapes she likes). It serves their shared interest in obscure film and women directors well. Robin’s mom is out of town for a few days - she often is, for work - so it’s just them (and Woolf).

It’s the perfect summer movie for a sub-zero Indiana winter. Nancy prefers winter; there’s a sort of comfort in knowing that no matter how cold you get, you can add more, and more, and more layers. Make a cup of cocoa, wrap yourself in a blanket. Eventually, you’ll be perfectly warm - comfortable. But in summer, in the kind of heat you get in Hawkins, it’s like the sun reaches through your skin and wraps around your bones. Even if you stripped completely naked - not that Nancy’s summer wardrobe was anything less than appropriate - you couldn’t shake it. How could you, when it pulled at your insides like that? 

The entire atmosphere of the film was deliciously full of that dangerous summer lethargy. It was like Vickie’s party, with the weed; that kind of relaxation meant you weren’t in control. It made you do stupid things, stupid things that you absolutely, desperately wanted to do. Things that might make you float away, like time on a pink summer night.

Woolf had curled up on her lap. Nancy is utterly flattered, and a little surprised - she’d never thought of herself as the most inviting, certainly not the most maternal person. (Other people don’t think of her that way, she knows that for certain.) She strokes Woolf’s back, scratches the little neck behind the ears. She faintly hears the purrs, and feels them in her thighs. Nancy looks at Robin, who’s smiling at her - her blue eyes reflect Cal and Vivian and Reno in 1959, the sound of train whistles in the Nevada sun. In the flickering light of the television her upturned lips look like they could reach into her skin and wrap around her bones. Robin moves closer, reaches into her lap to scratch behind Woolf’s ears, and their fingers touch in her fur. It’s so warm, Nancy feels like she could cry. 

Woolf shifts about in her lap, then leaps from the sofa. Maybe she’s had enough of this stalemate, too. Robin’s hand lingers, and Nancy holds it. 

If she weren’t so close to Robin maybe she’d have dwelt on the other qualities of the film. The deep love and painful alienation between the grieving mother and the searching daughter. The unlikely bond between the uptight New York professor and the working-class Nevada girl. What was different, but also what was the same - and everything it might mean, about class, about gender, about what freedom might be (and what it definitely wasn’t). But Robin is holding her hand, and pulling a blanket around her, and she’s so dreadfully, so dangerously relaxed. She lets her head rest on Robin’s shoulder, and she traces the freckles on the back of her hand like she’s counting stars (she can’t see them, under the blanket, but she imagines them). 

But as they watch two women fall in love, Nancy isn’t quite relaxed enough to fall asleep. Her skin is on fire. 

“Robin,” she says, at last, “I kissed you.”

Robin doesn’t move much. She only turns the volume down on the TV. 

“You did,” she says. 

“And you kissed me.”

“I did.”

“And you tried to have a conversation about it, and I shut you down.”

Robin is silent, so Nancy sits up, turns to face her. 

“I’m sorry,” Nancy says. “I think I was just… scared.”

“Scared of what?” Robin asks, though Nancy imagines she has some idea. 

“A lot of things. But mostly how I feel about you.” 

Robin reaches for Nancy’s face with a trembling hand. Nancy holds it steady.

“How do you feel about me?” she whispers. Her voice is low, crackling in that irresistible way, like there are sparklers in her mouth. Her blue eyes are dangerous.

“Robin,” she says. It feels very important to say her name. Nancy doesn’t know how to describe these feelings in one fell swoop. The burning, the dreaming, the restlessness, the comfort. Like a terrifying new adventure, and like home. She settles on the three most incomplete words she knows. “I love you.”

And Robin cries. Nancy has never seen Robin cry, before. The tears are silent at first, but then her brow creases and her head bows, and her entire frame is wracked with sobs. Nancy holds her, and Robin’s wails grow deeper. Primordial, like the cries before speech. It brings Nancy to tears, too. She kisses Robin’s head, and strokes her back, and holds her, and holds her, and holds her.

When there’s nothing left in her, Robin says: “I love you too.”

Chapter Text

ix.

Robin had no idea what she was doing. Nancy knew better than her, and had more confidence (she’d never been with girls, but she had, of course, been with boys). Robin didn’t like to think about that much - not because she was jealous, not because she thought it was shameful, and definitely not because she thought there was anything wrong with Nancy being with boys (if she genuinely wanted to be). It was just that Robin never much liked thinking of boys at all. She especially didn’t like to think of boys with girls, and girls with boys. Girls could do whatever they wanted, and they deserved the world, but why boys? Why did they want boys?

She knew that Nancy and Steve had dated, of course. She knew that Steve had been much worse, then. She knew that, no matter how much Steve had grown, and no matter how much she cared for him, he didn’t deserve girls. He definitely didn’t deserve Nancy.

She knew that Nancy had dated Jonathan, too. She knew she’d felt closer to him, but when she mentioned the photos, Robin truly couldn’t fathom how. Nancy had talked about all this when they were friends - not that they weren’t still, wouldn’t hopefully always be friends - and she’d made it known then. (It was probably one of the reasons people clocked her - for some reason it was suspicious to say that women deserved better. Apparently only a lesbian could think that.)

People were many things, of course, and Robin tried to be as reasonable about it as she could. Jonathan seemed like a good brother, and a good son (not that it was any of her business, or like you could know a relationship you weren’t in). But a good boyfriend? Maybe that was none of her business, either, but she didn’t know if Jonathan deserved girls. He probably didn’t deserve Nancy.

But Nancy must have thought, at least for a while, that she deserved what she was getting. No doubt in part, it was the compulsory heterosexuality (a term Robin had found in a lit review she’d been pleasantly surprised to find in Hawkins library, before lying to her mother, getting 4 buses, and spending a weekend hunting down the original essay at the Indiana University campus in Bloomington). She did wonder if, now she had feelings for a girl, Nancy would re-evaluate any of these things. But that wasn’t all.

She had asked Nancy, that night. Do you think you deserve to suffer? And she had said yes. The last thing Robin wants is to be what Nancy thinks she deserves. But that’s a lot of pressure, and she barely knows if she deserves Nancy. 

That’s when Nancy presses her lips to Robin’s trembling ones. It’s soft as the sun on water. 

“It’s okay,” she whispers. Her blue eyes are so close Robin can see crushed stars in them. Behind them, Robin sees the actual stars, crystal clear in the barely-polluted suburban night sky. “You’re okay.”

Nancy’s weight above her is so small, yet she feels like her lungs could collapse. The grass is poking through the blanket below her, and it’s a little scratchy, but Robin ignores it. She watches the pensive smile on Nancy’s face, the one that makes her mouth small and her dimples pinch. She leans up and kisses the dimples, overwhelmed with tenderness. She holds Nancy, and feels her laughter erupt into her own body.

“Stop being so cute,” Nancy chides, slapping Robin gently on the shoulder, “and let me…”

She turns her head to fit in the base of Robin’s jaw, where it meets her ear. She gasps at the wet kisses, and hears Nancy sigh. There’s a pain, in her sternum. 

Nancy’s hand is there, suddenly, like she can feel it too. Her fingers are tangling with the buttons on her shirt, pulling them apart, no clumsiness. Nancy pulls away from Robin’s neck, and stares at her chest.

“What’s this?” she asks, surprised.

It’s the tattoo. Nancy’s fingers are tracing it, gently.

“You ever heard of the Lavender Menace?”

Nancy rests her head in her hand, the other still on Robin’s chest. She looks at her, gets those creases in her forehead she always gets when she’s concentrating.

“No.”

“They were a fringe feminist group in New York, like, 15 years ago. Basically they were a group of lesbians who thought it was stupid that mainstream feminists didn’t want anything to do with them.”

Nancy pauses. She looks back at the tattoo: sprigs of lavender, held together with string. 

“I never really thought about… I don’t know. I don’t even know how I would… like, what I’d call myself. But I never thought about others. Like me.”

Robin holds the hand on her chest. Traces the lines on Nancy’s forehead with her other, as if she can wash the worry away. She knows she can’t.

“It’s hard to imagine, right? It’s the loneliest feeling in the world sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

“I think maybe I seek out all this knowledge ‘cause it makes me feel less alone.”

Robin feels Nancy sigh, heavy this time. She comes closer, very deliberately kissing Robin’s tattoo. She bows her leaden head, kisses it again, and again, and again, almost reverent. Robin feels Nancy’s curls tumble across her bare skin. She feels it in her stomach. Lower. And as thick, as warm, as deliciously full as she is, she’s afraid. 

“Nancy,” she whispers, her fingers in the curls. Her heart is racing, fight or flight. Nancy’s hands are getting lower, and her mouth is moving Westward, and Robin can’t take it.

“Nancy,” she says again, panicked. Nancy lifts her head. Her eyes are intense - they’re always intense, but Robin’s never seen them like this. She wonders if that’s how she looked at Steve, or Jonathan, before. 

“I’m sorry,” Robin says, feeling the words rising in her throat like bile. “It’s not- you’re not doing anything wrong. Quite the opposite. It’s just- I don’t know, I want this, but I feel like I’m freaking out. I’ve never done this before. With anyone. And I know you have, and I don’t want to let you down. Are you sure you love me, actually? Because I’m an absolute mess. And I really don’t have anything to give you, I mean nothing. I’m not a guy. What if I can’t live up to that? Physically. I mean, emotionally, the bar is just on the floor, but I really don’t know how much I can give in that regard either. God, I just feel totally exposed now.”

Nancy waits, patiently, for Robin to finish. Her eyes soften, a little sad. 

“Robin,” she says at last, “I understand. Trust is scary. Vulnerability is terrifying.”

She shuffles again, and holds Robin’s head, combs her hair with her fingers. Only Robin’s mother ever combed her hair, and it always hurt. It was even a little too hard when Robin did it herself. This must be how it's supposed to feel - like behind held. 

“Always tell me when you’re uncomfortable. I’ll never do anything you’re not comfortable with, I promise. As for the rest,” she says, kissing Robin’s brow, “you don’t have to live up to anything, Robin, but you’ve given me so much more than you think. You don’t even know. Even if you didn’t want to sleep with me, I’d still love you. You don’t have to worry about being everything I need - I don’t think any two people can be that for each other, or even should be. And your needs are just as important as mine, by the way.”

She’s right. Robin knows she’s right. She thinks of groups of women, arm in arm, like sprigs of lavender tied together with string. A loneliness she feels, even with Nancy. 

“Do you ever think… about leaving this place?”

Nancy blinks. “Not... seriously,” she admits. “I feel a little doomed to be here, sometimes. I look at my parents, and it feels like my destiny. A destiny I absolutely don’t want, but a destiny, all the same.”

Robin nods, slowly. “I understand.” 

She leans up to kiss Nancy again. This time, she follows the burning feeling from below.

“I absolutely do want to sleep with you, by the way.”

Chapter Text

x.

There was something about Nancy’s mother that reminded Robin of her own. She was gentler, for sure. Neater, tidier, more appropriate. But to Karen Wheeler, and to Rachel Woodhouse, love was control. Robin had a feeling they didn’t even realise it. Maybe it was just the only kind of love they knew.

In a way, she understood. If you could just take it at face value, just shove all those little aches and pains and needs and desires and thoughts and questions down, it was mesmerising. In a mind numbing sort of way. Like when you smoked weed and somewhere in your body you remembered, faintly, that you were a person, but it was all so far away. You knew that something, somewhere, was wrong, but all you could feel in that moment was safety, comfort, security. 

That normality was intoxicating. When Robin was in the Wheeler house she heard studio laughter every time Ted said something fascist (just a little, harmless commitment to Reaganism or the downfall of communism - nothing too fascist to be funny). She heard the audience groan when Mike and Nancy bickered, their ‘awww’s when Karen fed Holly, their ‘ooh la la’s when Steve or Jonathan called. Steve the hegemonic male, the safe option, Jonathan the non-conformist (just enough to be likeable, but not enough to be dangerous). What did that make her?

Nothing, of course. She was nothing. She wasn’t meant to be on screen. She was the embers on the butt of a joke, a cog in the relentless machine of narrative progression, a sacrifice to the Gods of American propaganda. But in the Wheeler house, she watched it all, like a ghost. She even felt its spirit on her tongue, like Jiffy Pop and Coca Cola and stars and stripes. Burnt corn, sickly sweet, and sharp. Its magnetism, undeniable. Its violence, like a monster wallpapered over. Out of sight, out of mind.

Robin knew she didn’t belong there, but Karen didn’t (or didn’t seem to, anyway). It was Kafkaesque: like knowing you were a cockroach among humans, but none of them could see you were, or worse, they refused to confront it. Robin assumed that Karen fit the former camp, else she imagined she’d treat her more like Rachel did. But equally it could have been a different kind of refusal - not the refusal of quiet resentment and helpless love, but a refusal of reality, the construction of an entirely other plane of existence. And Karen Wheeler wouldn’t be the first to survive that way. Yes, in a way, Robin understood. But in another way it infuriated her.

When Robin looks at Nancy, now, she sees these quiet depths of pain in her eyes that had never quite been there before. She knew that Nancy had hidden things from her family. She knew she’d surprised them, even disappointed them. But she’d only ever skirted the realms of possibility, there, and even Robin was too afraid to get a tattoo where anyone could see it. (Now, of course, Nancy was the only other person who had. Steve thought he knew everything there was to know about Robin, but he didn’t know about that tattoo - no man ever would, no matter how friendly they were.) Robin wanted to hold her, in those moments, and when they went up to her bedroom she would. But no one would ever bear witness. Perhaps no one needed to bear witness, but it was hard when you’d only ever known one way to be, and you weren’t it. 

Robin had never had this much to lose, or not in the same way. Her family was difficult, but there was little pretense. For Nancy, though, something had died. No doubt it had breathed its last the first time they’d made love, when Nancy came home shivering on the knife’s edge between winter and spring. When her mother had asked her where she’d been and she lied bigger than she’d ever lied before. She had become the ghost in her own house, then. And ghosts, of course, couldn’t touch.

It was the love, of course, but also the empathy. Robin had never felt so close to another person, before. It came over her in waves, and they crashed hard and fast and again and again and again, because it wasn’t just Nancy’s pain she felt. It was her own pain. It was the pain of God knew how many women, everywhere all at once.

It hit her hardest that day, when the news came on in the Wheeler house. Record numbers of cases. Mortality rates over 50%. 

“God is good,” Ted mumbles. Karen is silent.

“I need some air,” Robin says, and walks out. Perhaps not the wisest move, but the only thing she feels like she can do. 

Nancy follows. They don’t touch - still ghosts. 

“Do you wanna go for a drive?” 

Robin nods. She watches Nancy from the passenger seat. Stiff posture, eyes straight ahead. The hurt in them is so deep, yet so far away. Robin can barely get a grasp on her own, and at the same time she feels like she’s drowning in it.

“I’m sorry,” Nancy says. “We should really avoid being around when my dad is home.”

“You don’t have to apologise, I know it’s not that easy.”

Nancy moves her hands. 8 and 4, 10 and 2. 

“You shouldn’t have to hear anyone talk about you like that.”

“You can’t protect me from it, Nance. And anyway, what about you? Isn’t it about you too?”

Nancy pauses. Robin really, really hopes she isn’t about to deny it. 

“Yes,” she says at last. “It is. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Robin squeezes Nancy’s arm. She shuffles around in her seat, then, restless. She’s almost always restless, but it’s one of those times. It’s fire and ice in her throat, in her belly. She rolls the window down, just enough that she can breathe but not too much. She fiddles with her rings.

“Robin? Are you okay?”

“It just makes me so mad, you know? Doesn’t it make you mad?”

Nancy glances in the rearview mirror. Her jaw seems tighter than usual. 

“Of course it does.”

“Right,” Robin says, sitting up. “So shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“What exactly are we meant to do, Robin?” She sounds exasperated, now. “We’re two closeted teens in Hawkins, Indiana of all places. The government isn’t doing anything, the hospitals aren’t doing anything. Nobody cares. What are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, okay, but there has to be something!”

Nancy barely moves, but Robin can feel her fury. Like gravity, or magnetism. The air between them is smoke cloud thick, and there is no one to bear witness. No one to shoulder that anger. Only them.

Nancy pulls over on an empty highway. Robin rolls her window up. She needs the air, but they need the privacy more.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Robin.”

Robin looks at the pain in Nancy’s eyes, and it isn’t so far away anymore. Helplessness, within reach. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not you I’m angry at. I just feel powerless. I’m sick of just… surviving. I’m furious, and devastated, that some of us don’t even get that.”

Nancy holds her hand.

“You’re not alone. We’re not alone. We’ll figure it out.” Not just this. Everything. It’s a big promise, so big Robin is scared to trust it. 

“Okay,” she whispers, at last. She squeezes Nancy’s hand.

Chapter Text

xi.

Robin was average. Nondescript. She wouldn’t say she put a lot of work into being average - that would defeat the point of it, surely - but it certainly was deliberate. She didn’t want to be noticed. You know that. 

When Robin was with Nancy - especially since being with Nancy - she felt noticed. There was something exhilarating about that, of course there was. Occasionally it was a salve to her chronic loneliness. But it was disorienting, too. A little terrifying, actually. She was familiar with the fear of dying alone - sometimes it felt like it had always been a part of her - but this was different (and nothing threw Robin like a break in routine). Sure, it was sort of irresistible, sort of magnetic, everything people said it was in the songs and the movies and all that. But sometimes when Nancy looked in her eyes, she thought that maybe being known was worse than being alone.

Robin had always wanted to leave Hawkins, and everyone there. Even the good ones. It wasn’t personal, it was just that she needed a fresh start. She needed… she didn’t know, to be free, maybe. Of what, she wasn’t sure. To do what, she couldn’t tell you either. Her averageness was her lifeline until she could go - it was how she survived Hawkins, hiding away in plain sight - but everything was different, now. Something had shifted, irrevocably. 

Maybe that was when she started slipping up. When people started noticing her. Her perfectly average grades fell. Her perfectly acceptable tardiness - never more than five minutes - became too much. Her headphones, tucked perfectly away under her hoodie, came into view in the middle of class. It was a minor offense, but still detention-worthy.  

Her mother hadn’t noticed yet, thankfully, and Robin wasn’t about to tell her. No doubt she just thought Robin was working more than usual - she had to take care of little Woolf, after all - but other people noticed. Nancy did, of course, though she didn’t seem to know what to say. Robin loved her, but it was hard. Sometimes her furrowed brows and her pursed lips and her blue eyes felt so far away. But maybe the problem was that Robin felt too much, that she wanted too much. Kept contradicting herself. Sometimes, when she holds Nancy, she feels like she would only be satisfied if she crawled into her skin. 

Robin thought she saw people look at her in the hallways, now, recognise her, even. It wasn’t until she was in school late on a Thursday afternoon, stuck in detention for getting caught with her language tapes in class, that someone spoke to her. 

“Robin Buckley,” he says, grinning from ear to ear, “I knew you were a troublemaker at heart.”

Eddie Munson. Robin knows his name, of course. If she makes it her business to walk the world perfectly unnoticed, she makes it her business to know the world she’s walking through. The people she’s walking among. King of the nerds, they call him. Sometimes even king of the freaks. And that’s just for playing an apparently Satanic game - the black bandana in his back pocket has always given Robin the inkling of another story. Robin who, as you know, seeks out obscure feminist papers in out-of-town college libraries just for the thrill of it. If Eddie Munson is the same (or a similar) kind of freak, then he sure as hell isn’t her king. She doesn’t believe in kings, remember? 

That being said, she’s never talked to the guy. There’s a restlessness about him, a mischief. Robin isn’t sure if it makes her more nervous, or less. 

“Yeah,” she quips, “totally rebellious behaviour, learning Russian in class. Bad girls love to learn.”

He laughs. It’s full, feels genuine. His eyes are warm, and brown, and they twinkle a little. 

“You’re not learning what they want you to learn, so you’re pretty badass in my book, Buckley.”

Robin fiddles with the hem of her shirt. He looks at her knee, bobbing up and down. She looks away.

“Hey,” he says, before she can focus on her work again, “do you wanna get out of here?”

She turns back. Takes her time, regarding him. It’s deliberate; there’s a part of her that knows, already, what her answer is. Maybe because they’re both some kind of freak. But then again, maybe because they're different. Maybe because his eyes are soft. Maybe because they’re brown, and hers are blue.

That’s how she ends up smoking weed in the forest, alone with Eddie Munson. And it occurs to her, then, how strange it all is. How she thought, somewhere deep down, that the yearning was her destiny. The pain in her chest, where she had marked herself, permanently. Now, on some level, she had what she wanted. So why did she feel so lost?

“Hey,” a gentle voice, “are you okay?” 

Robin brings her hand to her face. It’s wet. 

“Yeah,” she croaks. Clears her throat, tries again. “Nope.” Shit.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

“I dunno, I barely know you. What if you got me high so I could spill my darkest secrets and you could, like… blackmail me or something?”

He laughs again. She likes his laugh, annoyingly. 

“Why would I want to blackmail you, man?”

“‘Cause I know,” she gestures to his pocket, “what that means.”

He’s silent, for a minute. Maybe it’s one, maybe it’s several. It’s hard to tell (you know, the weed). Finally, he laughs again, but it’s short. Curt. His eyes are a little further away (and it’s more than the weed, she thinks). 

“Takes one to know one.”

She can’t argue with that.