Chapter Text
The first time Nancy hears the knock on her window, she thinks she's imagining things. It's been years since she got used to the sight of Steve climbing her drain pipe and she hardly glances over, clutching her pen tighter.
Another knock.
She's surprised her notebook hasn't bent from the force with which her left hand is curled around it. Her pen is staining in her other hand, her thumb passing over the top and clicking it, and she rests it down, pursing her lips in the direction of her window.
In the faint lamp light, Robin's face is softened. It's dark outside and Nancy can't see much more than the toothy smile Robin offers her, before raising a hand to knock again.
Nancy's pen and notebook tip from her lap. She's in her pajamas, cheeks flushed, before she shuffles over the empty side of her bed towards the window and opens it, just enough to speak to Robin.
"What are you doing here?" Nancy leans forward, ducked to Robin's half crouched height. "Why didn't you knock on the front door?"
"Friends can't climb each other's roofs?" Robin's lips are quirked in a wide smile, pink dusting her cheeks in the low light. There's a leaf sitting on her hair and she's pulled her sleeves up over her knuckles, presumably to avoid cutting them climbing. "You mind if I come in, Nance?"
Nancy tosses a look over her shoulder towards her bedroom door. She didn't lock it, and it's early enough that her mom could still knock and ask to come in before the night is over and before Robin's left. But—
—Robin's a girl. A friend. A girl who's a friend. There's nothing wrong with having a girl in her bedroom.
"Okay." Then, widening eyes peering over Robin's roughened hair, adds, "Did something happen to you? Is that why you're here?"
"Honestly, Nance, I just couldn't stop thinking about seeing your bedroom again. How's Tom Cruise?"
Nancy smiles in spite of herself. "As well as he was last time. Did you want to come in and say hello?"
The tension holding Robin's shoulders up loosens, letting go of a weight Nancy didn't know she was carrying. Something to do with her mom, maybe, or school, or that girl she's been hanging out with; Steve calls her Vickie, but Nancy's been pretending to forget she knows.
"Sure. You know, it's almost like I could tell he missed me. I tend to have that effect on people."
Nancy simply steps aside to let Robin climb in, eyes sweeping over her appearance before she's made it halfway in. Yesterday Nancy saw her at Family Video and she was wearing the same clothes, down to the undershirt Nancy can see peeking out from underneath her jacket.
Robin's narrowly managing to keep her forced smile plastered on her face,
"Rob—"
"Could I stay here tonight? Do you think? If I'm not a bother."
Nancy swallows a nervous laugh. "Uh, sure. Yeah. Did you want to borrow pajamas?"
Robin's hand slips from her pocket, fingers dancing across the surface of Nancy's chair before retrieving a book tossed on it. "Do I get to wear a matching set like you? Oh, pretty please say yes."
Rolling her eyes, Nancy reaches to slip her book from Robin's grasp. "You can take a look for yourself, alright?" she says.
"Maybe I'll borrow a dress." Robin's tongue slips between her teeth, mischief sparked in her eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have anything more comfortable than last time, would you?"
Nancy narrows her eyes, her book clutched close to her chest. "I'm sure this time you'll be able to find something up to your standards."
"You're the best," Robin tosses over her shoulder. She picks carefully through Nancy's closet, pinching the material of matching top and bottom pajama set between her fingers and turning to Nancy, eyebrows raised. "Are these penguins?" she asks, feigning shock. An amused smile lights up her face.
"It was a gift," Nancy defends. And it was . Thanks, Mike. "Why don't you try them on if you like them so much, hm?"
Robin takes them off the hanger and turns, holding them up to her. "How do I look?"
"Kinda stupid."
Robin's face falls. "You shouldn't speak to me like that in front of Tom Cruise, you know. He'll start to think differently of you. And then he'll hop off your wall and find another teenage girl to spy on. Won't you, Tom?" She pauses, then offers Nancy a winning glance. "See? He said yes."
"If you're trying to convince me you're not an idiot, I really don't think you're doing a good job." Nancy fights a smile, glancing at the soft splash of freckles across the bridge of Robin's nose. "You look cute, alright? Are you going to put them on?"
Hesitating, Robin lowers the pajamas, eyes drawing over each individual inch of Nancy's face; anywhere but her eyes. "Nance, are you sure you don't mind me staying here? Not that I'm like, not thankful, because of course I am, but… I don't want to intrude, and I have a bad sense of personal space, that's what my mom says. Seriously, I can totally go. Say the word and I'll skedaddle, okay?"
"Robin?"
"Yeah?"
"Put on your penguin pajamas and lie down, alright? If I didn't want you here, you'd know. Promise."
Robin holds up her hand. "But do you pinky swear?"
Nancy curls her pinky around Robin's. "Cross my heart and hope to die. Put on your penguins."
"You won't peek?"
Nancy glances up, eyes wide, before her gaze lands on the gentle curve of Robin's mouth. Her expression settles into a scowl, which softens the second Robin smiles at her in the small distance between them. Nancy looks away, fumbling with the curtain to her right and shielding them from the street view.
Robin pretends not to notice.
Nancy shrugs. "Not unless you have a weird mole you want me to look at."
"Oh, you're good, I'm free of weird moles, but I will keep that in mind for the future." Robin winks. "Turn around and pretend I'm not here."
Nancy does turn. Her mirror is directly on her line of sight, and she catches a sight of Robin's bare back, smooth and freckled, and Robin's . Swallowing a sudden lump in her throat, Nancy closes her eyes.
"How's it going?" she asks.
Robin's muffled voice comes back. "Oh, so good. I'm ace at putting on clothes, I've been doing it all my life."
Nancy ducks her head towards the ground, fighting a smile. "The way you were fighting your jacket last week says otherwise."
"The jacket started it," Robin says, voice now clear. "I won though."
"Oh, trust me, I saw." Nancy chances a peek at her mirror— Robin's mostly dressed, deft fingers still struggling with the buttons of her borrowed shirt. Her hair is mused, like she's been running her fingers through it to try, and fail, at successfully taming it into something mildly presentable. Somehow, the leaf wasn't brushed out.
Robin ta-das, whirling around to face Nancy. "Penguins are on. Not bad, right?"
Nancy meets her eye in the mirror. "No, you, uh… I mean. I mean, you look good. Nice. I've never seen you in pajamas before. It's shockingly not too far away from how you usually look." A lie. It's more intimate, more friendly; Robin Buckley standing in the middle of her room, wearing her pajamas, looking at her like it's a secret for the two of them and no one else. Nancy both wants and doesn't want it to be.
She wants to say, "Robin is in my room, at night, getting ready to possibly sleep in my bed." She wants to yell it.
And yet, there's no one to tell. She thinks Robin might be her only real friend.
"Do you take the left or the right?"
Robin freezes, folding her shirt politely and tossing it onto Nancy's chair. "I was thinking the floor. If I sleep in your bed it'll be a whole thing, and I'll probably kick, and you'll end up pushing me off in the middle of the night anyway. I was hoping I could mooch a pillow and blanket, then I'll be out of your hair for the night."
"I like the left. Can you sleep fine on the right?"
"Look, Nancy—"
"Robin—"
"If you knew the truth about me, you probably wouldn't be inviting me into your bed. That's all. The floor's fine."
Nancy's heartbeat is thunderous in her ears. It's as if time stops for a minute and allows her to stare at Robin, uninterrupted. Robin's eyes are wet, her bottom lip caught painfully between her bottom lip, and Nancy reaches for her before she can tell herself not to.
"All I care about is that you're my friend. You're Robin. Take the right or don't take the right, but I want you to. Is that… is it okay that I want you to? Sleep in my bed, I mean?"
"Please don't take offence to this, but I really don't get you."
Nancy's hand falls from Robin, afraid that she read this wrong, pushing her foot back a step. The dim light of her lamp and the curtain she pulled close reads like a confession. "You don't get me?"
"A few weeks ago you could hardly look at me," Robin murmurs. "Because you thought I liked Steve, right? Except I don't like Steve, and I don't like Vickie, and now we're standing in your bedroom even though the last time I was here you were mad at me for touching things and now I'm borrowing penguin pajamas and you're asking what side of the bed I sleep on. Nancy, I really, really don't understand. Help me understand. I don't want to push boundaries and usually that's hard enough, but your boundaries keep changing. Do you… do you know what I'm saying?"
Nancy shakes her head, panic rippling through her steady calm. "You know what? Forget I said anything. I'll take the left, you take the floor."
"I like you, that's all. I'm trying to make you comfortable."
"Well, I am. Thanks." Desperate to turn off the light and forget about this, she steps towards her bed and grabs a pillow. "Here. This and the throw at the end of the bed, all yours."
Robin winces. "Can we talk?"
Brushing down her blanket, Nancy sits on the edge of her bed, wringing her hands. "What else can you possibly have to say?"
Robin hesitantly kneels in front of her, hands resting on Nancy's knees. "I want to take the right. I do. But— eventually you'll find out about me and you're going to realise I got into your bed without telling you, and you'll think… precisely what other people will think. That I'm the boogeyman hiding in your closet and you invited me into your bed and I stayed there the whole night, that close to you. You're okay with me in your bed knowing that?"
"I've shared a bed with a girl before."
"I'm not just a girl, Nance."
Nancy's fingers catch in the untucked hair falling across Robin's face and push it back into place behind her ear. Neither of them is breathing.
"I know you're not." She smiles despite herself. "You and Steve? Platonic with a capital P? You were very discrete."
Robin inhales, finally. "I have to be. If my mother found out…"
"You don't have to worry about that with me, okay? Take the right."
"Are you—"
"Take the right. Please ." She settles a hand over one of Robin's. "Do I need to beg?"
Colour immediately flushes Robin's cheeks. "I think it couldn't hurt."
"Funny," Nancy says. "Would you get into my bed and go to sleep?"
Using her grip on Nancy, Robin pulls herself up. She's rambling about something as Nancy shuffles to pull back the covers, and Nancy's only half listening, but she's listening all the same. She might be one of the few people who actually does; who doesn't make the conscious decision to drown Robin out whenever she speaks for a moment too long, which is most of the time.
If anything, Nancy finds it endearing.
"Does he always watch you sleep?"
Nancy's head snaps up. She's midway through fluffing her pillow. "Who?"
Robin's smiling to herself. "Tom."
"Oh," Nancy says. "I guess so. I haven't ever really thought about it like that."
"You've never considered your Peeping Tom?"
Lighthearted, Nancy feigns a scoff. "You're ruining Tom Cruise for me."
"And you are ruining sleepovers for me, so I'd say we're even."
Nancy chokes on a laugh, bringing up her pillow to tap Robin's arm. "I'm ruining sleepovers?"
"How will I ever go back to sleeping on people's floors after Nancy Wheeler let me sleep in her bed?" Robin falls back, full weight dropping onto the bed. The back of her hand is pressed to her forehead and her eyes drift to Nancy, one corner of her mouth tugged upwards. "Can I keep the penguins?"
"I was thinking you could keep them here. For the next time you decide to climb my roof in the middle of the night and ask to sleep over."
Robin stares, unblinking. "The next time?"
"You know, whenever you next miss Tom Cruise."
Eyebrows disappearing into her fringe, Robin rolls over to look at Nancy. Her pajama shirt is tilted to the left, her freckled right shoulder exposed, and she props her chin on her hand, peering up. There's a curious glint to her eye.
"What are you thinking about? Like, right now. Exactly this second. Besides Tom Cruise."
Nancy opens the nearest drawer, sliding her notebook and pen inside. "You."
"Me?"
"You're in my bed," Nancy says. She gestures to how comfortable Robin's made herself on her sheets, more comfortable than Nancy's been in years. "It seems kinda inevitable that I would be thinking about you."
"And you do that a lot? Thinking about me?"
Nerves almost getting the better of her, Nancy tucks her hair behind her ear. She hesitates as she turns to Robin. "Yeah. Is that okay?"
"Yeah." Robin sits up, scrambling to pull herself together. "I think about you, too. Sometimes it's like you've spewed up in my brain, and you're all I can think about. And I know that sounds totally gross out loud, it was definitely sweeter in my head. What I meant to say is that I like you and I'm glad we're friends and I like getting to see the you that you are when other people aren't around, kinda like when it's just you and me. I… I really like when it's just us."
"Me too."
"Cool." Robin picks at a frayed string on the edge of her sleeve, attempting to hide her smile. "Me too."
Nancy laughs. "I know."
A knock at Nancy's door pulls their attention, eyes immediately frantically passing over it.
Even though they've done nothing wrong, Nancy and Robin wear twin expressions of guilt.
"Yes?" she calls out.
"Don't stay up too late, alright?"
Just her mom. The tension from earlier snaps back into Robin's shoulders
"Right, of course. Sorry. I'll turn my light out," Nancy calls back. "Goodnight, mom."
"'Night, Nancy."
Robin waits for Karen's steps to depart to release her breath. "So, which side of the bed was yours again?"
"Ha ha." Nancy reaches for the nearest pillow, knocking into the hands Robin stretches out to catch it. "Move over. Unless you've decided I'm the one that's taking the floor."
Left side of the bed free, Nancy tucks herself under her covers and reaches for her lamp. This late, its dim light feels like a spotlight over them; like they've been caught. It's once they're bathed in darkness that Nancy feels Robin shuffle closer, one hand shyly curling over Nancy's stomach and her face close enough in the dark to make out her individual features.
"Not too late to toss me on the floor if you've changed your mind."
Nancy takes Robin's hand in hers. "Actually, I was thinking of asking you to move closer."
"Oh. I can do that."
Robin's nose brushing her cheek, Nancy fully relaxes, allowing herself to close her eyes to the pitch dark of her room. It's the first time she's been able to sleep without the light on in weeks. "What were you thinking about earlier?"
Blinking oncoming sleep from her eyes, Robin says, "What?"
"You never said. You asked me but I never got to ask you." She traces patterns on the back of Robin's hand, turning her head into hers. There's no left or right, just them. "What were you thinking about?"
"I was thinking about you, too."
Nancy hmms contentedly. "I was thinking about kissing you. If we're being honest."
The silence stretches itself thin before Robin replies, fingertips brushing against Nancy's bare skin. "You should. I'd let you."
"Just not in front of Tom Cruise?"
"Oh, no. Poor guy. I think he's seen enough."
"But… tomorrow?"
Robin's lips find Nancy's jaw. "Tomorrow."