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Band practice the month or so before exams is always a little bit slow. Which isn’t to say they’re slacking off—Moondew Academy is a prestigious school, after all, one of the leading witch schools in the country, and they pride themselves on mostly extracurriculars and having a fun and easy learning atmosphere that still reaches the top five in terms of actual grades in the country.
Well. That’s the stuff principal Higgins tells them during morning assemblies on Mondays—with his huge witch hat and the grey beard, and Vickie has always thought that it really doesn’t get any more stereotypical than that.
But, the point is, Miss Cordell is letting them take it a bit easier, so they won’t be too tired to study later in the evening, which as she reminds all of them, they should be doing daily.
(Which, well, Vickie doesn’t—but she does it almost daily, if only thanks to Chrissy living in a room with her.)
And the point of that is—horrifyingly, mortifyingly—that Miss Cordell leaves them alone for a while to “coordinate” (Vickie thinks she’s probably just going next room to flirt with Miss Smith, but those are just rumors), and Vickie is left sitting next to Robin Buckley.
Horrifying and mortifying and all that.
Not that the other girl is paying too much attention to her—she’s seemingly cleaning her trumpet with wiry fingers, cursing under her breath from time to time, and Vickie presses her lips to a thin line, clicks with the buttons on her clarinet and wonders why Robin doesn’t use magic.
Even then, her heart is absolutely racing, slamming against her rib cage from inside, and with a small, subtle movement—Vickie is good at those, has learned them over the years of ducking her head and shutting her mouth and trying not to be too much—she casts a small spell to cool her face.
Just… in case. In case that she’s blushing, or anything like that. Even when Robin isn’t looking at her in the first place.
And okay, yeah, yeah, Vickie has a crush on Robin. Like, a little bit. Like, lying awake in bed and kicking your feet and daydreaming about the other person—that kind of thing.
So… a little bit. As she said. Just—a little bit. No big deal.
Shit, she’s drumming her fingers against her clarinet, staring into nothing instead of… well, whatever the hell Miss Cordell meant by coordinating. There’s the soft chatter of students all around, students who’ve taken the moment of being unsupervised to talk to each other, and some of them are flipping through their music sheets, others are fiddling with their instruments, and a few of them are practicing by themselves, with muting spells as to not disturb their peers.
It’s one of those things Vickie actually really likes about band—they’re all very enthusiastic about it. Most of them have been in band since they were children, and while they’re taking it slow for the exams, they’re still very much invested in what they’re doing.
And yet, here she is, doing absolutely nothing.
Robin next to her curses again, and Vickie ducks her head, glancing over at the other woman’s hands, still fiddling with the trumpet, clutching something that suspiciously looks like one of those rags people use to clean their glasses in the other.
“Shit,” Robin breathes out, blowing a raspberry, before leaning back in her chair. The chair legs creak underneath her sudden movement, and she sighs again at that. “Goddamnit.”
Vickie swallows. Should she…?
“Um,” she manages to get out, and her voice is quiet, but the room isn’t too loud. “Do you not know any cleaning spells…?”
Robin turns to her, blue eyes wide, and Jesus, she has so many freckles that Vickie thinks she’ll die. She doesn’t know if she was ever before able to look at her this closely, look at the strong line of her nose and the big, ocean blue of her eyes and—
Oh, Jesus. What she just said sounded horribly rude, didn’t it? She didn’t mean to, but sometimes, what she’s trying to say just comes out like that, and really, in the end Vickie has no idea what’s even really rude and what isn’t, because, well, it’s just really confusing, isn’t it?
The other girl just shrugs, however, and her chestnut brown hair bobs with it. Vickie takes this moment—they’re talking, right, so looking at Robin is fine, it’s not rude to look if they’re talking, right?—to take her in. Robin is taking the school uniform a bit loosely, not very seriously, her white button up isn’t buttoned all the way, she’s wearing a tie instead of a ribbon (which is also just slung around her neck without being properly tied), and she’s wearing pants instead of a skirt.
Which, well, isn’t against the rules, lots of girls here at Moondew do that, but with Robin, it’s… and the, the rings on her fingers, with the black fingernails, and—
“No,” Robin says, and Vickie blinks, manages to hold back a flinch. Oh. Oh, right. Talking. They were talking. “Well, I suppose I do, but last time I tried to clean something I made Steve’s baseball bat fall to pieces instead of cleaning it.”
Vickie knows who Steve is, of course—Steve Harrington, and he’s been hanging out with Robin since last year, ever since he became a lot quieter and no one calls him the King anymore, and Vickie has no idea what’s up with all of that, but she desperately wants to know, thinks about it so much it keeps her up at night with her fingers clawed into her pillow—but it’s the rest of that story that makes her eyebrows shoot up and behind her bangs.
“Fall to pieces?” she repeats, and Robin nods eagerly, now a small grin on her face. How… how is that even possible, with a simple cleaning spell? “Oh, well, uh, I can… help?”
And she can. She’s good at cleaning spells, and little things like that, she’s always been good at the details. Details she can lose herself in for days on end, details that seem insignificant to other people, but they’re always been Vickie’s favorite.
Robin’s teeth flash as her smile widens. She lifts her trumpet, eyes it, and God, yeah, right, instruments are important, of course. Vickie knows what that’s like, her clarinet is her life, so of course it would make sense that there’s some sort of nervousness in Robin’s eyes, that she doesn’t want to trust her with the trumpet even with the smile on her face.
“Well,” Robin drawls, and Vickie swallows, ready to say sorry for imposing and maybe excusing herself to the bathroom so she can scold herself in the mirror, but the other girl isn’t done. “Alright, Molly Ringwald. Show me what you got.”
Vickie swallows again. Blinks.
There’s something… in Robin’s tone. Some slight tremble, the edge of her mouth twitching behind the bravado, and really, Vickie has no clue what to make of it. Maybe it’s just her imagination?
And the nickname…
Robin lifts her hand holding the trumpet, before holding it out closer to Vickie’s chest, towards her blazer and the ribbon and the skirt that Robin isn’t wearing, and yeah, right, yeah, of course. Cleaning spells.
Praying her hands aren’t shaking—God, wouldn’t that be the worst thing ever, if she dropped the trumpet now?—Vickie takes the instrument from the other girl’s hands, swallowing at the click of one of Robin’s rings against the metal of the trumpet. Oh, Jesus. She thinks she’s a little dizzy.
Still, she manages to grab the trumpet securely, tug it in front of her, furrow her brows and squint at it to see what’s wrong. She turns the trumpet in her hands, noticing the metal is heated in some places from Robin’s hands, her fingers, and her face flushes at that, something hot rushing through her whole body.
Jesus. What the hell is she doing?
“Oh,” slips out of her before she can bite it back, the trumpet stilling in her hands. “Oh, it’s greasy. Is that the issue, Robin?”
Robin doesn’t answer. It’s only, what, a fraction of a second, but Vickie still furrows her brows once more, gaze flicking up to the other girl. The other girl, who’s… pretty much frozen in her seat, turned to face towards her, leaning over and into Vickie’s space just a little pit. The tip of her tongue is poking out of the corner of her mouth, and her eyes are wide, her body unnaturally still.
And, right, the thing about Robin Buckley is that she’s not still. She rambles, moves, fidgets, laughs louder than any of the other girls and Vickie always feels like she’s drunk way too much soda with how her stomach is bubbling. With how warm and gooey her chest feels, like it’s caramel or chocolate in the sun.
(Maybe she’s a little hungry, too.)
But she’s still now, staring at Vickie but not really staring, an almost glassy look in her eyes, and oh God, oh no, something is catching onto Vickie’s throat and she thinks her hands are sweating again.
“Robin?”
“Oh!” Robin exclaims, startling back to life, so loudly that a few of the other students turn around to them, turning away once they realize nothing is going on. Robin clears her throat, gestures with her hands. “Oh! Oh. Sorry, sorry, I—uh, yes. Yes, yes, the grease, right, uh, I… sort of touched it when my hands were all buttery? Just, uh—today, at, at breakfast. Yeah.”
Vickie laughs—and it’s not laughing at Robin, it’s more like… a startled laugh of almost disbelief. A laugh of amusement because Robin is cute, oh, she’s so cute, and handsome, too, and jeez, Vickie really needs to get a grip and stop staring at the other girl’s freckles, the way she catches her pink tongue with her teeth.
“Okay,” Vickie manages to say, unable to wipe the wide smile from her face, and after a few moments more, Robin nods, hair whipping around, her grin unfurling back on her face.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” Vickie repeats with another laugh, before turning back to the trumpet—and when she’s leaning more to the right, to where Robin is next to her, then that’s her business and her business alone, isn’t it?
(Maybe it’s okay to indulge sometimes. And they certainly haven’t ever talked for this long before.)
So Vickie clears her throat, settles the trumpet in one of her hands, then lifts the other to twist it in a spell, focusing on the spots of grease smeared over the instrument. Quickly, they vanish, like they’re being sucked into the metal until they disappear, and her smile widens. Okay. Okay! She did it well.
Giggling a little in giddiness, she turns back to Robin to hold her trumpet out for her, and Robin accepts it with lifted brows behind her bangs and a smile tugging at her lips.
“Wow,” she laughs, quietly, turning the trumpet in her hands, around and around and around, her rings clinking against the metal a few times in little zings that zap down Vickie’s spine. “You’re good.”
It’s so honest—just such an unabashed compliment, coming from Robin Buckley with her honest blue eyes and the kind grin, and God, Vickie flushes. She likes honest people. She always has.
She likes… Robin. Likes her so much it stings a little in her chest. Digs inside, digs, digs, digs.
“It’s really not that hard,” she mutters, bashful, and she moves to grab into her short hair, looping her curls around her fingers to have something to fidget with. Her heavy earrings tug at her earlobes when she shakes her head, knocking into her neck gently from both sides, and it grounds her, a little bit. “Uh, it’s handy, though. Like, for everything? I can—I can teach you. If you want! So you, uh, don’t destroy more of Steve’s baseball bats?”
God. God, God, God, her heart is pounding so heavily she can barely hear anything else. What is it with her and constantly tripping over her words, talking so much more than would have been necessary?
Robin, though… doesn’t seem to… mind. No, she’s still smiling, that sort of slight smile with the wide, almost hazy eyes and the slightly lifted brows, like she can’t quite believe what’s happening, but really, that’s most likely just Vickie projecting again.
“Yeah,” Robin says, and there’s something rough in her voice now, something that shivers and trembles in Vickie’s belly. The other girl clears her throat. “Yeah! Yeah, I mean, yes, if it’s not… if it’s not too much work…? It could, uh, really help with my room. Make—make it so Nance isn’t always so angry at me for being unorganized.”
Robin laughs, still with wide eyes, and Vickie’s stomach does a flip. The background noise of a band room full of students has faded completely in her mind, just the fizzing of her own heartbeat rushing in her ears. It feels like she’s floating, somehow, but in a nice way, because Vickie is actually really, really afraid of heights.
“Okay,” she breathes out, and she feels like she’s in a trance, like she’s somewhere far away. Her gaze drops to Robin’s lips—stretched over her teeth with her smile, pink and full and she’s not wearing any makeup, is she? How are they so pink? “Okay, yeah, okay. Umm, can you come a little closer?”
Robin swallows visibly—oh, there’s freckles on her throat, too, oh—before scooting her chair closer, fiddling with her trumpet, a steady click, click, click of rings against metal sounding through the air. It’s grounding, the screech of the chair legs over the floor, and when Vickie blinks, she can hear the other students again. A little bit.
Once their chairs are so close they’re touching, once their knees are touching, too, Vickie’s bare one rubbing against the smooth fabric of Robin’s pants, and she swallows at the sensation, fumbling with her earring, Robin holds out her hand, the other gripping her trumpet so tightly her knuckles are turning white.
She really is nervous about it, huh? Well, after making something fall apart to pieces, it’s understandable, probably. Vickie giggles a little at the thought, breathless, and Robin’s eyes flicker to her mouth, but she doesn’t mention it.
“Okay,” Vickie repeats, and Robin nods, gaze flicking up to her eyes again, staring. “Okay, so,” she takes Robin’s hand, swallows at the warmth of it, pressing her thumb into her palm gently, “you need to relax your hand. For, uh, cleaning spells tension is bad. It’s just,” she flicks Robin’s hand, and by now, the other girl is staring at their intertwined hands. Vickie hopes her own isn’t too sweaty, “this gesture. And the, uh, the spell, of course.”
Robin’s lips are slightly parted, and she sways where she’s sitting—she leans back, and Vickie thinks that’s that, explanation done, back to their instruments, but then she leans back in, doesn’t drop her hand.
Grabs it tighter.
“Vickie—”
(Oh, Vickie thinks, she knows my name.)
And then, well, then the door opens so suddenly that both of them startle.
“So, everyone, back to—” but Vickie doesn’t understand the rest of Miss Cordell’s words, because Robin loses balance, yelping, sliding off her chair with her arms flailing, ripping Vickie down with her, and everything clatters for a few, eternal moments.
The chairs, Robin’s trumpet, Vickie’s knees against the floor, her clarinet clutched to her chest, and—and—
And it doesn’t stop clattering. What the hell?
For a few moments, she’s unable to move, groaning against the pain, her vision flickering and fizzing white, and her knees sting, the feeling rushing up her thighs, her elbow knocked against… something (one of the chairs, probably), and she sits up as best as she can, blinks, reaches out to find Robin.
Her hand bumps against the other girl’s shoulder just as her vision clears. Robin is lying half on her back, apparently having hit her head, her face scrunched up, but then she’s blinking, taking Vickie’s offered hand to sit up.
“Jesus Christ,” Robin mutters. Vickie’s head is still spinning, and she feels suspended in the air, blinks, parts her lips to speak.
“Jesus Christ, indeed,” Miss Cordell cuts in, a stern tone in her voice, and that’s what catapults Vickie back into reality. She looks around, earrings flying as she whips her head around, and oh—oh—
A few of the empty chairs are knocked over, several instruments and music sheets stands splayed out on the ground, so much paper it almost covers the floor, and a few students are standing, pretty much all of them staring at Vickie and Robin with wide eyes.
“Oh, shit,” Robin hisses, jumping up, carefully tugging Vickie up with her, and Vickie shivers when the other girl’s hand brushes the small of her back over her blazer. “Oh, shit, Miss Cordell, sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Miss Cordell lifts her hand, cutting off Robin’s imminent rant, and Vickie swallows. This is… a mess. Her cheeks are burning and her stomach is flipping.
“I get it,” Miss Cordell says, then she sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. For a few moments it’s quiet, everyone holding their breath, before their teacher waves her hand through the air. “Alright, everyone, I suppose that’s it for today. Robin, Vickie, please stay behind and clean this mess up, yes? Jesus…”
Vickie’s mouth is a little dry when the other students grab their stuff without much of a fuss, and she swallows at Miss Cordell’s muttering as the woman also moves to leave. She nods at their teacher when she looks at her with raised brows, and that’s it, because everyone is filtering outside, a few of them waving at Vickie and Robin awkwardly.
The door closes behind the others, and Robin whips around to face her so quickly Vickie jumps.
“Ohmygod,” she says, so quickly that it melts together into one word. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Robin—”
“You tried to—to teach me, you helped me, and I’m ruining all of it because of my stupid clumsiness, oh God, I’m sorry, now you’re stuck on cleanup duty for this mess—”
“Robin—” Vickie can’t breathe.
“It’s okay, it’s okay! You can, uh, you can leave. I’ll just—I’ll just do it by myself. Yeah! Yeah, no problem, I can—are you laughing?”
And she is. Vickie is laughing, giggling really, breathless with it for some reason, and there’s tears prickling in the corners of her eyes with it. Robin flails her arms, takes a step back, takes a step forwards, stares with an open mouth, and for some reason, that just makes it even funnier.
Robin’s still gaping when Vickie manages to calm down a couple of moments later, clutching her stomach, wheezing with it, and she thinks she must be ruining her mascara, because one or two tears escape her eyes.
“Sorry!” she giggles, breathing in deeply, before straightening up, brushing her hands against her skirt. “It’s just—I’m not—I’m not mad. It was cute. I’ll help you clean up, don’t worry.”
And at that, Robin’s face turns the most interesting shade of red before she whips around, almost stumbling over one of the music sheet stands.
“Okay! Okay, hah, okay, uh, we should get to it, then, yeah?”
Vickie smiles, nods, even when the other girl can’t see her right now. And really, she’s the opposite of mad—like this, they can spend time together. And—and Vickie can make sure Robin really has learned the cleaning spell.
God, she can’t wait to tell Chrissy about this later.