Chapter Text
If you were to ask Robin, the best sound in the world is kids laughing and the rev of bus engines. She was sure that for a lot of people there was nothing worse, but it always brought her back to the happiest memories of her childhood.
Camp Stranger Things always felt like freedom. The way the sand of the dirt road would cloud up around her feet, inevitably finding its way into her socks. How the sunlight filtered through the green canopy made the world look faded and septa.
It was like looking through the polaroid's her mom took back when she went to camp. To be fair, barely anything had changed. Walking under the Stranger Things entry arch was like plunging back into the eighties.
The camper’s cabins were in a semi-circle around Sattler Lake and Robin found her way easily into the Beaver Cabin. A shitty rendition of the animal was painted along the doorframe and the familiar red door creaked as she opened it. The crumbling bulletin board and dusty bunk beds were the same as they were when she was twelve. She tossed her bags on the top bunk next to the door, the same bed she's been sleeping in since she was a skinny little kid.
Twelve year old Robin hadn’t known what she was getting herself into when she had thrown the flyer for the camp down on her ma’s lace kitchen table. The fabric folded around her fingers as the paper crickled.
Outside she could hear the chatter of other counselors arriving. Teenagers flocking together, laughing as they reunited with friends from last summer.
She shucked off her sneakers and pulled herself on to the top bunk of the beds, heaving her duffel bag up behind her.
From there she carefully began to unpack, her bag was packed with tears of refinement. A bright red sleeping bag on top, which she pulled out and stretched across the mattress. Robin had made the rookie mistake of bringing sheets her first year, but after the second time she had to rip them off the bed and wash them when mud or sand had followed her into bed from the day of hiking and playing she had sworn to a sleeping bag.
She pulled out her sketchbook next, opening the first page and caught the loose pages that fluttered out. She next grabbed a roll of tape and set to work talking her memorabilia to the wall next to her.
When she was nine Robin had read a book called Diary from the Edge of the World. The main character used to tape the things she collected on the wall to her camper van. Robin always thought of her when she decorated her room. It was a shitty book though.
She was just smoothing out the tape connected to a picture of herself that winter, blonde highlights hidden under a cotton hat and her freckles particularly visible in the snow, when a knock sounded at the door.
Robin frowned and sat back on her heels. Leaning back to see who it was,
“Come in?” She said,
The boy that walked in was unmistakable, even with the nine months of separation. His hair was a little longer and some stubble was visible along his jaw, but his eyes were still the same mischievous shade of cherry brown.
“Steve!” Robin cried, practically throwing herself from the bunk and into his arms. Steve picked her up and spun her around. She pulled back, her feet still hanging in the air.
“Good god, what the fuck is on your face,” she said, laughing and poking his upper lip.
Steve drops her abruptly, crossing his arms, “it’s my mustache!”
“No.” Robin shook her head, “absolutely not. Shave that immediately.”
Steve flicked her in the forehead and she batted him away, cackling. He shook his head and turned, leaving against the door frame, broad shoulders blocking the orangey glow of the rising sun.
Robin rolled her eyes, dramatic ass. But she still goes to stand next to him.
“Are you happy to be back at camp?” He prompted.
“Of course,” Robin said, “you?”
“Definitely. Not sure how much I’m looking forward to the lack of air conditioning,” he says with a grumble.
“Waking up at sunrise?” Robin adds.
“The scrambled eggs,”
“The shower barracks,”
“The one kid who nearly drowns the first time at the swim hole,”
“Speak for yourself!” Robin exclaims, “I think that adds to the excitement.”
Steve shakes his head, laughing, “you’re not a lifeguard,”
“It does seem more stressful that way, yes.” Robin agreed.
They walked together down the dirt road to the mess hall, chatting and catching up on what had happened during the seasons they were away. Steve joined the swim team at his high school. He learned how to make bread and chicken soup from scratch. He dated and broke up with seven different girls.
Robin shoved her shoulder into Steve’s. “player.”
“I prefer the term heartbreaker,” Steve corrected.
Robin pretended to gag, “you sound like one of those straight mom’s who don’t let their infant sons have female friends without calling them his girlfriends,” she informed him.
It wasn’t long ago when she was one of Steve's girls. Well, not technically, although that was what it looked like to the general public. She had never liked him in that way, but apparently all you need to gain Steve hairington’s affections was to be very, very mean. Robin was very good at this, it’s why she didn’t have any friends.
She thought it would have been easier if she could have just returned his feelings when he told her, high on something that the camp drug dealer gave them with little explanation, (the pair themselves not having enough self preservation to decide that maybe, just maybe that was a bad idea). Either way, they had survived long enough for Robin to reject him and tell him her stupid, life altering, gay secret.
Then long enough for Steve to wake her up in the middle of the night after a dream with the very pressing question of bisexuality a month or so later.
“Speaking of girlfriends, where does this leave Nancy?” Robin asked, increasing her lace a bit so that she could walk in front of Steve, effectively hiding her face.
Not that she needed to.
Nancy Wheeler was the third member of their trio, all three having been inseparable since year one.
“She broke up with me last year.” Steve said, “you were there.”
Robin nodded. She was there, she was also a little drunk and to be completely honest, didn’t remember much of the night.
“Yeah but like,” she paused to try and find the right words, “it always felt like you two had unfinished business.”
Steve laughed at that, then pointed up ahead, “well if you need a second opinion…”
Robin followed his hand to the end of the road, where the set up schedules they had come for were displayed, pinned to the outside of the mess hall.
A girl stood there, in flip flops and a long red skirt, tucked into a faded Colombia t shirt. Her curly brown-black hair pulled back with colorful clips.
She was just as beautiful as the day Robin had last seen her.
“Nancy!”
***
Robin was not in love with Nancy Wheeler.
This was very important to know, as she often had to remind herself of it.
Because despite how addictive it was to be in Nancy's presence again, to be able to listen to her as she talks about whatever’s on her mind. To be able to watch how whenever she gets particularly annoyed she’ll scrunch up her nose and the way she quirks her lips when she makes a joke, she was straight.
Robin knew she was straight, and has known she was gay king enough to no not to fall for straight girls.
So, no, Robin was not in love with Nancy wheeler.
She wasn’t when Nancy stood on her toes to hug her, burying her face in the crook of Robin’s neck.
She wasn’t when she told them where they were assigned to prep-duty before camp starts, because she had checked for them as well as herself.
She wasn’t when Nancy brought her a bottle of water half way through the day and sprawled on a picnic table, looking out over the lake.
And she definitely wasn’t when Nancy jumped her shoulder and told her that she’d see her later as they parted ways after dinner.
***
The nights in Camp Stranger Things felt like a living breathing thing. The lake came to life, frogs coming out of hiding to feast on the bug frenzy. It was wildlife’s version of living next to a highway. The wind echoed through the trees, the branches curling towards the cabin windows, there was a tree right next to the beaver cabin and Robin used to imagine that it was a witch or a hag scraping on the glass, trying to get it to steal her teeth.
Robin shivered despite the warm summer air that filtered between the trees. Tucked beside her, a flashlight in hand, Nancy laughed.
“This place is so haunted,” Robin groaned, burying her face in Nancy’s curls that they would protect her from whatever horrors definitely lurked in the woods, waiting to steal unsuspecting campers from their families.
“The ghost stories getting to you?” Nancy asked, “don’t worry, it’s not much farther.”
‘It’ was a bonfire the cabin counselors held each year, the day before the campers arrived, a ring of stones set into a clearing with the age of 40 years of use. The grass pounded to the earth with generations of footsteps. Robin liked to think about that part, that she was part of the tradition, something bigger than herself.
A twig cracked under Robin’s foot and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Nancy was determined that she knew where they were going, and while Robin trusted her sense of direction (she had seen Nancy teach orienteering, that girl had an internal compass like no other) she was beginning to think that they might be lost.
She was opening her mouth to voice her concerns when a hushed voice cut through the night.
“Who’s there?”
Robin froze. The shadows danced around them, taunting.
“Chrissy?” Nancy hissed back, pointing her flashlight.
A girl came into view. Her blonde hair was pulled behind her head in a high ponytail, bangs framing her round face. She was carrying a bundle of sticks in her arms, tucked to her chest. Robin knew of her more than she actually knew her. She was pretty, a cheerleader, Robin recalled, the counselor of the bobcat cabin.
“Y'all here for the fire?” she said, barely trace of a southern accent in her voice.
“Obviously,” Robin whispered back.
Chrissy smiled awkwardly and turned, gesturing with a shoulder to follow her, “it’s right up here, I’m getting some more wood.”
Robin and Nancy followed her in relative silence as she talked about “probably pot but I didn’t ask” brownies that Jonathan had brought.
Steve spotted the girls immediately as they appeared from the tree line.
“Ladies!” He said cheerfully, his speech only slightly slurred. His hair was mussed, not in his normal deliberate wave, but like someone had curled their hands through it.
“You’ve had fun,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Jealous?” Steve laughed, “she was really hot.”
“Who?” Chrissy asked, still hovering near the trio.
Steve pondered this.
Robin sighed.
She was about to open her mouth to make another scathing remark (she didn’t really care, but Steve was very easy to make fun of sometimes, and she took her job as ‘King Steve’s’ ego checker very seriously) when a burst of noise erupted through the clearing.
A boy had crashed through the foliage, another crash of kids following behind him. He thrust a case of something up above his head and hollered, “rejoice, fair campers! Your knight hath returned from his quest.” he yelled, “and I hath returned with a trophy of the greatest measure! Vodka!”
From the cheer that the crowd erupted in, they were very ready to have a bad hangover tomorrow.
“Who’s that?” Steve, looking across the fire, where the boy was now being swarmed by other kids.
“Oh, that’s Eddie,” Chrissy said, “he’s from the Bat cabin. He’s nice.”
“Eddie?” Robin repeated, “unnamed-drug-Eddie?” she said, looking at Steve.
“Unnamed drugs?” Nancy repeated, sounding alarmed.
Robin ignored her to smirk at Steve’s lingering gaze on the boy, “take a picture, Harrington, it’ll last longer,” she said, unimpressed.
“He just looks so different!” he remarked, “last time I saw Eddie he was just some gangly kid with a buzz cut.”
“And a guitar,” Nancy added, she grabbed the shirt of some passing teenager and took two beers from the six-pack he was carrying, passing one to Robin and clinking them together in silent cheers.
Eddie no longer had a buzzcut, his black hair longer than half the girls at camp. Robin could even see tattoos peeking out from the edge of his leather vest. He smiled, laughed, and tipped a beer upside down as kids cheered and yelled ‘chug!’. Steve’s mouth hung slightly ajar.
Robin elbowed him in the side, “well go on,” she said. “Cunningham says he’s decent,”
Steve shoved her, but still drifted away, towards the commotion on the other side of the fire.
“Mmm,” Nancy said, her voice barely audible over the din of the teenagers.
“What?” Robin said, looking down at Nancy. Her face glowing in the firelight, eyes dancing. Lips slightly parted, wet from alcohol.
“It’s going to be a good year. I can feel it.”
Robin smiled softly, trying to think of something to say in return when a girl started to drunkenly sing the first few bars of a Guys and Dolls song.
Robin stood straighter.
“Oh I hate this song!” She exclaimed, right before joining in the singing, her cheeks were flushed, choppy bangs plastered to her forehead unflatteringly.
Nancy is right, she thought, it was going to be a great summer.