Chapter Text
“And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear
Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?”
Christmas sucked. It always did. It always felt like a bomb of noise, sugar and alcohol was being dropped on top of families that were already too close to collapse entirely. Your memories of this merrily time of year always revolved around some type of conflict or argument. This year, on the contrary and for the first time in your life, the clock marked 10pm on December 24th and no one was crying, or yelling, or drunk or missing. This year, as you and your family were completely new in town, having moved just a couple days ago, a strange silence filled the house. The only thing that served as a reminder for the holiday was the tiny tree that rested above the fireplace.
You are not sure if it was the absence of controversial family members, the fact that most of furniture was still on the way from your former house or the general lack of feeling of home and belonging, but not even your parents were in the mood this year. You had dinner with them at eight, watched half of the worst christmas movie on the tiniest, shittiest tv and now they were in bed, fast asleep.
There were still two hours till midnight and you were not going to spend them on your mattress on the floor. It was just too depressing. So you grab your bike, a book, a blanket and your walkman and bike until you find a Seven Eleven.
There isn't a single soul out, but you can feel the festive vibe on the hair. All the houses are carefully decorated and music is coming out of every single door. It seems like you are the only one who isn't celebrating.
Well, you, the cashier and the girl outside, who are having a heated argument through the glass door.
"Oh, cmon, Kyle! It's Christmas!" she yells. The dude is on the door, physically stopping the girl from coming in.
"Exactly! My shift ended seven minutes ago! No. More. Customers."
Seeing that you are already on the register waiting for him to charge you, Kyle closes the glass door on her face. She responds with her middle finger, but you don't think he notices. You hand him your things and he begins to scan them.
"That'll be all?" he asks. You look to the side. The girl is still there, even with this cold.
"No, actually. Wait a second, please." You hear him complain when he sees what you’re going to do, but you don't care.
You approach the door and get the girl's attention.
"What do you want?" you ask. The girl, who’s sitting on the floor, right next to the door, looks up with confused eyes.
"No! Don't worry, he's just being a dick."
"No, c'mon. What do you want??"
"You sure it's okay?"
You nodd repeatedly, as you hear Kyle yell "Hurry up!" from behind.
"Just a coke and some chocolate?"
"Great!"
You get her stuff and pay for everything. You even give Kyle a five dollar tip, but he keeps the same pissed off expression. You get your bag and hurry out of there, wishing him a Merry Christmas on your way out.
Out you meet the girl. She’s taller than you, maybe for a couple of inches, and has a blue dress that’s now stained with mud and... blood? but she doesn't seem to be aware of it. She’s also shivering from the cold, her jacket not being able to put up a fight against the cold of December.
"Thank you!" she says as soon as you are out the door. "You didn't have to…"
"Well, it’s Christmas after all" you give her the stuff. She gives you five bucks and you don't have the heart to tell her it was more. She looks like she isn't having the best day ever.
"Yeah…" she looks down at the bag with a sigh.
"I hope that chocolate is okay?"
She looks up again, with a smile this time. She has a nice smile. "It's perfect. I'm Robin, by the way."
"I'm Y/N."
"Nice to meet you.” her rebel hairs dance around with the wind and she’s still shivering, but instead of going away she asks “I’ve never seen you around… Are you visiting for the holidays?”
“No.” you shake your head “I actually moved here a couple days ago.”
“Oh…” there’s a weird undertone there, but you can't quite place it “Welcome, then.”
You accept the gesture, giving her a smile. It almost seems like she hates this place as much as you do, which is weird and kinda scary, but also makes you feel a little less alone.
“I, um… I should get back?" You see her hesitate in the last part of the sentence. It’s pretty obvious she does not want to go back to wherever she came from.
You try to find an alternative, a way to make her stay even a second longer, but you can't figure out a single reasonable explanation for why you, two complete strangers, should spend the night together. So you agree with her. "Yeah me too."
"I don't really want to…" she confesses. You’re glad she did.
"Me too"
"Crappy Christmas at your house too? " she asks, you chuckle and she smiles harder.
"Yeah"
"I…" she doubts for a second, but your eyes meet hers with kindness and reassurance so she keeps going "I know it's kinda weird for me to suggest this, but I could, maybe, show you around?… I feel like I should pay you back in some way."
She looks embarrassed and absurdly cute, so there's no other chance but to say yes.
"Yeah, I picked up the serial killer vibe, but honestly it has been one of those days. So let's go."
You bike in silence, occasionally making a turn, with the wind hitting your faces like buckets of freezing water. And just as you're about to ask how long is this gonna take you find the building.
It is old, huge and it looks like nobody has painted it for at least sixty years. The fence is closed, obviously, but she doesn't mind. You watch amused and impressed at how easily she climbs up the fence and trespasses school property.
And if you weren't already sure you liked her this is probably a very clear indicator.
She guides you through what is going to be your high school. You had to admit, it was way better inside than outside and it had a pretty sweet auditorium. Still, it was smaller than the last one.
“And… here's my favorite place.” she says as she points at the old library door. You wait for her to open it, like she did with all the rooms before it. She notices. “Oh, they actually close this one during the nights. Someone, definitely not me , may have stolen a few, definitely not more than ten , books and manuals.”
You laugh. She was more of a nerd than you had thought. Interesting. She watches through the window on the door with sadness in her features, so you pass your hand through your hair till you find the perfect tool. A hair pin. It's a little old and it might break, but it was your only option.
“More than ten?” you ask as you kneel in front of the lock.
“No way! Does that actually work? I always thought it was movie bullshit…” you hum yes, focused on your task. “It was thirteen books, by the way”
“Thirteen?” you laugh.
“I know! But I swear I was going to give them back…” you look at her with an eyebrow up and her innocent face falls apart “ Eventually. ”
“Aha…” you tease and she wants to protest but you finally get the door to open “There it is!” she squeals with excitement and that's the cutest sound you’ve heard in a while. “Just no more playing book thief”
She laughs and comes into the room, you follow right behind. You settle your things at the biggest table, Robin does the same, and even though there were still twenty minutes till midnight the two of you kinda set up a fake Christmas table.
When everything is in order you take the liberty to explore around for a while. They have good stuff, nothing too special. It needs an update, of course. As many things do these days. But, overall, you aren't so mad about the collection. Until, of course, you see the reading list for sophomore year.
“Robin!” you call out to her. She sticks her head out the language alley and looks over, curious. “Have you seen this shit?”
“Wha– oh, you’ve found the reading list. I know.”
“Not a single woman?” she nods in agreement, “What year are we? Fucking 1935?”
“Totally. And! The whole deal this year is, like, horror and science fiction. How do you teach horror and science fiction without Frankenstein?”
You agree with her, still offended. “It 's ridiculous.” You complain as you both go back to the table. You try sitting down, but it feels… odd. “This is weird, right?” She nods, so you settle for a space of floor between bookshelves. “Better”
“Much better.”
You talk and you share your food and complain a bit more about the educational system. After a while her eyes focus on one of the books behind you. You turn to look too. You’re in the poetry section and the book she’s staring at was a compilation, written by someone called Emily Dickinson. You haven’t heard about her, poetry wasn’t really your deal. But you did enjoy it, from time to time.
Robin leaves her spot on the floor to grab it, and you’re confused when instead of keeping it for herself she tries to hand it to you.
“What are you doing?” You ask.
“Well, it’s Christmas after all. And you’ve already given me all of these…” She points at the food spread on the floor “So this is your gift.”
You smile “I haven’t even started at this school and I already have stolen something…” You reflect. Robin starts to second guess her decision.
“If you don’t like it it’s totally fine, I–“
“No, I love it. Thank you so much, Robin.”
You fall into a comfortable silence that doesn't last much longer.
"Can I ask you a question?" she says.
"Yeah."
"If you could run away…" she starts, and you see how her eyes light up with possibilities from just thinking of making it out of here "No money needed, no strings attached. Where would you go?"
You think for a while. "Italy" She seems to like the answer.
"Can I ask why?"
"My grandma lived in Italy most of her life. I want to see every place she talked about. And you?"
"Everywhere except Hawkins" she sentences. You smile sadly, how terrible her life had to be for her to want to escape so badly from her hometown. "But Europe is the dream, for sure."
You don't want to be disrespectful, but the mystery was eating you up. What is she doing here? What, or who, is she running from?
“Can I ask what are you doing in the school library at eleven forthy two on christmas eve? Or is it too soon?”” you don't want to make her feel uncomfortable, so you ask carefully.
She lowers her gaze. Fuck, you blew it.
“Im sorry” you whisper. She shakes her head and looks up with an expression you can't quite read.
“No, it's fine.” she sighs, grabbing another chocolate before starting to talk “Extended family came over. Aunts and uncles and little cousins type of Christmas.”
“Uh, rough.”
“Yes” she chuckles. “And my parents are usually cool, but family approval has always been their achilles heel. So you know, clean house, no swearing and this stupid dress.”
“Honestly, the dress isn't that bad”
“Cmon…”
“I'm serious!” you say but it's obvious she doesn't believe you. “It’s like… you know when you eat those little candy balls? And how sometimes the colors get mixed up and you eat a red one but it tastes like a blue one. It looks like that. It's not bad, it's just not… sincere? I guess”
As soon as you finish your deep analysis you notice she's staring. Head slightly tilt to the side, confused expression, like she’s trying to figure out how the hell did you come to that conclusion.
“That's exactly how I feel. Constantly.”
“That makes two of us.” You cheer for your problems with the two cokes you bought, which, thanks to the weather of December, were still pretty cold. “So, apart from sexism and really bad taste in books, is there anything more about Hawkins that you need to warn me about?”
Her eyes light up and you don't know if it is from the implicit question of a future together, but you hope so. There’s something special about this girl.
“Oh, there's so many people I need to warn you about! So many assholes” you can't hold the laughter that escapes your lips. She said it with such an innocent smile.
“That's great! So excited to start, then” Your sarcasm makes her laugh too.
“At least we can shit talk together?”
“Robin Buckley, you're officially the first, and only , person I like in this entire town.”
“Honestly? You too.” You cheer again, just as the clock shows midnight. “Merry Christmas, Y/N.”
“Merry Christmas!”