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Nancy never thought she’d get along with Robin Buckley.
In school, they never really talked. Nancy knew of her – she had seen her wandering through the halls and in the locker rooms, but Nancy was somewhat stuck-up in high school. She never really talked to people outside of her carefully-crafted circle, and it was only after defeating Vecna that she really started hanging out with Robin.
It’s an odd thing; the bonds you create under pressure. The loyalty that’s forged when lives are in the air, when no one really knows who’s making it home that night. Nancy never expected Robin Buckley to impact her life at all. They were too different, born in two different worlds and they never needed to get along – but ever since the night they sealed the gates, Nancy has found herself attached to Robin in a way she can’t really explain.
They still clash sometimes. Robin is the unstoppable force where Nancy is the unmoving object, and that can cause tension between them. A push and pull between chaos and order. Robin, with her uncontrollable impulses; Nancy, her steadfastness. Robin is unruly, with her air-dried hair and rebellious spirit, and Nancy is contained, an ample amount of stubbornness behind her words, following them the way a crow follows a van above the country roads.
But it works. When it's not frustrating, it's playful – a mix of water and fire that makes the flames burn brighter while the water expands its territory, intertwining, melding. Not clashing but adapting to each other. Learning to coexist in the same space. When Robin buys from the snackbar, she always grabs something for Nancy. When Nancy drives to school, she's started picking Robin up, too, because her trailer isn’t that far out of the way and it just makes sense.
The changes are small but noticeable. Quick and easy shifts in routine and practice.
Sometimes Nancy drives Robin to work, too, if she gets scheduled to work a shift without Steve. They talk along the way, no longer awkward or just trying to fill the painful lapses of silence. Real conversations. Normal, even, and Nancy clings to that. In the day of monsters and mirror dimensions, she’ll take any kind of normalcy she can get.
Sometimes Robin reminds her of Barb. Nancy tries not to focus on the way Robin’s close-mouth smile looks eerily similar to her old friend's. Or her sense of humor that would’ve made Barb weak with laughter. Nancy doesn’t acknowledge it, but it lingers like a thick veil over her eyes, and sometimes she wonders if she can tell a difference between the two – like her wires have gotten crossed, and she’s looking at both of them at the same time.
Nancy doesn’t tell Robin about Barb. Can’t. But Nancy finds herself trying to make amends through Robin.
When they’re together, Nancy never leaves her side. She calls at least twice a week, just to check in, just to hear her voice, and if Robin was anyone else, she’s sure she would be questioned – but Robin never questions it. She picks up the phone every time, listening and responding to Nancy’s verbal examinations. Sometimes Nancy calls in the middle of the night – after a nightmare, or after hours of deep thought, and Robin always answers, voice raspy from sleep. Nancy twirls the telephone wire between her fingers as she listens to Robin’s breath through the receiver. It’s a steady rhythm that Nancy has memorized by heart. Nancy asks about her day, and after she’s done rambling, Robin returns the question. They talk until the sun comes up sometimes, all hushed voices and stifled laughter. Nancy’s walls are thin; she’s had her fair share of complaints from Mike about staying up too late, but no amount of caffeine crashes or dark eyebags could make their late-night talks less appealing.
Nancy talks to Robin like she used to talk to Jonathan. She anticipates every call, feels her heart jump when the telephone rings. She misses Robin like she missed Jonathan after he moved to California, and Robin only lives fifteen minutes away from Maple Street.
Her love for Robin is gentle – it’s her heart beating a little faster when Robin laughs, eyes crinkling at the sides, cheeks dusted petal-pink; it’s her fingers twitching from the urge to reach out and grab Robin’s hand – but it’s also inherently tainted.
Nancy is many things, but she isn’t naïve. She knows the consequences of liking a girl in her conservative town; it’s as isolating as it is frightening, and the media lays it on hard and heavy every time it gets the chance. Black and white. No in-betweens, and no space for anything else.
For a while, that’s what made Nancy lean into her other inclinations. The so-called right ones. The Steve’s and the Jonathan’s.
And it was comfortable. It was safe and still good, even if she knew she was compartmentalizing.
Steve was always the safest option – her first real relationship. She loved his hair and his taste of music, and the way he smelled. She loved the soft spot he set aside just for her. It was exciting. All of it was. Stolen kisses in the bathroom, sneaking around after curfew, having a boy in her room when her parents were right downstairs – it was her first taste of defiance, and it rang sweet on her tongue.
Her second taste of defiance came in the form of Jonathan Byers. She found comfort in their shared experiences, but also their differences. Their polarity. The way that, despite being born in completely different circumstances, they still worked well together. She loved his eyes, and his hands, and the way that he always protected the ones he cared about most. She loved his heart and his intuition. His character.
She loved both of them in different ways. Sometimes, despite being happier than she’s ever been, she thinks about retreating back into them. Maybe it’s to spite her feelings toward Robin – to say, look! I’m still normal! when she’s felt anything but normal for the past three years. She wants to be seen as a regular person. No strange affection towards her female friend. No cross between wires, or guilt for glancing down at the wrong set of lips. She almost wants a safe future behind a white-picket fence. A husband that works his nine-to-five while she manages their two kids at home – because at least then, she wouldn’t have to worry about being outcasted. She could still visit on holidays and call her parents when she missed them.
Nancy plans to never mention it. Robin doesn’t need to know about her fantasies. There’s no way Robin would return the feelings, and it would just change things between them – there would be no more late-night phone calls. No more drives to work or school. And that’s just too much of a risk, so Nancy plans to lock her feelings away in a nice little box, maybe decorate it with a few stickers, then bury it so deep that it grazes the earth’s core, burning up every single butterfly she’s felt in her stomach.
Robin doesn’t like girls. Not like Nancy does.
It’s only in the driver’s seat of her station wagon, when Robin confesses that she does like girls, that Nancy thinks about keeping the little box around.
It’s dark outside. They’re parked out by Lover’s Lake – an odd choice of venue, she’d be the first to admit, but it’s too noisy downtown and the water is nice to look at. Robin sits in the passenger seat, avoiding eye contact as she says, “It’s totally fine if you don’t want to be friends anymore."
A few seconds later, "I mean, obviously it's not fine but I – you know, I would understand. I wouldn’t push or anything. So if you don’t want to talk to me ever again, just say it. Please. I won’t bother you – in fact, I’ll just. Walk home. If that’s what makes you comfortable. But I just wanted to tell you because you seem really accepting and you’re like, my closest friend besides Steve, and it felt weird keeping it from you.”
Nancy lets Robin ramble, stuck in a hollowed-out state of shock.
“But you don’t owe me anything,” Robin adds quickly. Her voice teeters between panic and dread. “Like, anything at all. We don’t even have to talk right now, or ever again.”
Nancy doesn’t say anything. It’s like the cogs in her brain have stopped turning, like her tongue has turned to honey.
Robin seems to take this as rejection. After a long pause, she shakily takes a breath, grabbing her small backpack and unbuckling her seatbelt.
"Sorry, Nance. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She opens the car door. The noise brings Nancy back to the present – but it slams shut before she can say anything. Nancy stares at the lake, blinking. Then, her mind goes from holding zero thoughts to a hundred-billion at once; in an instant, she’s switching the car off, opening her own door to follow Robin out into the darkness.
The air is cold and bitter against her skin. Mud squelches beneath her boots as she walks, but she doesn’t think about it, not even when it starts to seep into her socks.
“Robin,” she calls out.
Robin stops walking ahead of her, but she doesn’t turn around. Her shoulders are heaving, up and down, heavy breaths that can be seen from behind, and Nancy takes the opportunity to jog closer. She lays a hand on Robin’s arm as she approaches, turning slightly to face her.
All of her words die in her throat. They’re replaced by a tender ache, one that stings the cavity of her chest.
Robin’s crying. Nancy stands in front of her, watching as she looks away and puts a hand over her eyes. “Nancy, just forget I said anything. Please.”
This is more than crying, though. Robin can’t seem to catch her breath, each heavy inhale getting caught halfway. She wraps her arms around herself, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Sorry,” she manages to say.
“Don’t be sorry,” Nancy insists gently. “Let’s take a few breaths, okay?”
So they do. Nancy guides Robin and Robin follows, water and fire, intertwining and melding. Nancy wraps her arms around Robin’s midsection, unable to comfortably reach her shoulders, and Robin hugs back with an unyieldingly tight grip.
Nancy rubs her back. Tries to give her a lifeline – something she can grab onto to feel grounded again. It pulls her down like an anchor, slowly steadies her breath until it evens out again. Robin’s face looks a little puffy by the end, lips and cheekbones and the tips of her nose all dusted with the same dark shade of pink. Nancy can’t help but reach out and hold the sides of her jaw.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Robin whispers. “I don’t want things to change, Nance. I really, really don’t.”
Nancy’s eyes go soft. “Hey," she says, "hey, it’s okay.”
Robin shakes her head, nearly backing out of Nancy’s grasp. “It’s not. I know it's not."
“It is,” she says firmly. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Seriously. You haven’t ruined anything.”
Nancy runs a thumb over her cheekbone, and Robin stares at her with starry eyes. When Nancy’s eyes flicker up to hers, she looks away.
Quietly, “Sorry for forcing my dirty secret on you.”
Nancy knows it’s supposed to be a joke, something to lighten the mood, but it makes her heart drop to her stomach. Vulnerability flashes over Robin’s eyes and she backtracks.
“Sorry. Bad timing.”
“No,” Nancy says, “no, it’s just – ” She purses her lips, thumb stilling on Robin’s cheek. “You’re not dirty for liking girls.”
Nancy isn’t sure what gives her the boldness. Maybe she’s pulling from within herself, unclogging pipes and dragging out muck and dirt, speaking what she wishes someone would say to her. You’re okay to love. You’re okay to feel.
Robin’s eyes begin to gloss over again. “You don’t think so?“
“No,” she breathes. “Not at all. It’s – it’s just love, you know? That should be okay.”
And for just a moment, it’s like they’re in their own little space. There isn’t mud soaking through her shoes or snot on Robin’s sleeve, or mosquitos flashing by her face.
“Yeah,” Robin says, rivaling Nancy’s breathlessness. “Just love.”
Nancy doesn’t miss the way Robin looks at her lips. It’s a fleeting glance, a quick and curious once-over, too uncertain to linger too long. It makes her heart beat a little faster.
“I love you,” Nancy whispers before she loses the nerve.
It feels a bit selfish. Wanting what she can’t have. Settling for baseless hope, except, it’s not entirely baseless anymore – because Robin likes girls, too.
She looks at them the same way Nancy does. She wants them the same way – with romance and dates and relationships. She wants to kiss them and love them, and it makes Nancy realize, abruptly, that she’s no longer pining for her normal straight friend. It’s no longer a pipe dream, because somehow, the impossible situation has changed.
Something in the atmosphere shifts. Robin is staring at her, pupils blown wide as she leans back.
“In what way?”
It’s bold. Bolder than Nancy is used to. But makes her wonder if Robin is realizing things, too, because Nancy’s hands haven’t moved from her face. Electricity occupies the space between them, a terrifying and intoxicating buzz that makes the hair on her arms stand tall.
Nancy stares back. Putting everything on the line – every sleepover, every phone call, every long drive, every movie night, every good moment – she swallows down her fear and asks,
“What way am I allowed to?”
The way Robin’s breath hitches doesn’t escape Nancy’s watchful eye. After a moment, she says, with all the assurance in the world, “Any way you want, Nance.”
Nancy is sure her heart stops.
It takes five seconds before she can move again. As her heart restarts itself, a sudden giddiness fills her, swelling and fluttering like a restless bird in a cage, zigzagging across her chest and up her shoulders and down her legs. She can’t help the smile that pulls at her lips. She turns away, too overwhelmed to even look at Robin.
The delicate fragility between them shifts into something sweeter. Something that isn’t quite as intimidating, still brimming with unfamiliarity and pounding hearts and warm smiles, but easier to digest.
Ablaze with nervous energy, Robin asks, “What?”
Nancy decides that Robin is too wonderful to look at directly.
She’s like a supernova; bright and expansive and full of life. Her presence is energetic and candied, surrounded by hopeless romance and stupid jokes and every nice thing Nancy can think of. She’s the breeze that comes after a storm, when the grass is still wet and the sky is still tainted with gray. She’s the sound of an orchestra when the violins creep in, abrupt staccato rhythms balancing out the other instruments.
Robin is light where Nancy is darkness. Love seems like too weak of a word.
Nancy finally looks up again. She tilts her head up to make eye contact, and Robin stares at her, wearing her whole heart on her sleeve. She looks at Nancy in starry-eyed wonder. With the smallest, most fragile kind of hope gleaming behind her shallow breaths.
Nancy glances down at her lips. Then back to her eyes. Her hands are still cupping Robin’s face. “Can I kiss you?”
Robin looks like she’s stumbled off the edge of the precipice. Caught hook, line, and sinker. Her eyes close as Nancy brushes her grown-out bangs behind her ear, and she licks over her bottom lip before saying, “Please.”
Nancy is the one that bridges the gap between them. Her hands shift from Robin’s jaw line to the nape of her neck, tangling her fingers through dark blonde hair, and Robin’s hands find Nancy’s waist.
Nancy thinks of all the times she had seen Robin in the halls. Back when they were just strangers, two people with completely different paths and futures. She thinks of Robin working the counter at the mall, of their first real interaction – “I’m sorry, who are you?” “I’m Robin. I work with Steve.” – and how the Upside Down didn’t bring much good, but at least it gave her Robin.
Their kiss is a careful tread down memory lane. A slow and steady recollection of every laugh they’ve shared. Every deep conversation they’ve held, and every small moment. It tastes for only a few seconds, but it feels like it spans over an eternity.
When they pull back, breathless and a little dizzy, high on endorphins and the lovesick energy that hovers around them, they don’t say anything. Robin’s neck is bent a little awkwardly in order to rest her forehead on Nancy’s. Nancy is leaning into the balls of her feet to add a bit of height. They breathe each other’s air, eyes closed and heads spinning.
“I love you,” Nancy mumbles, “in that way.”
Robin nods, forehead still in place. Her voice is thin and raspy when she replies, “Yeah, I, uh – caught that.”
Nancy finally leans back to look at Robin. Their eyes open and they stare, not quite willing to let go of the weightless feeling. Not quite ready to return to the real world. Robin’s breath stutters a bit, like a thought has rushed through her mind and it’s too restless to keep inside.
“Hey, Nance?”
Nancy is sure her pupils are blown wide. “Hm?”
She looks a bit skittish. “I love you, too,” she says. “Like, a lot. Like, so much that I’ve been pinching myself every three seconds to make sure I’m not dreaming, a lot.”
Nancy feels her lips twitch upwards. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Robin says. Her hands flex on Nancy’s waist, like she can’t decide whether or not to keep them there. “Is this… you know, is this okay with you?”
Nancy tilts her head. A small, bittersweet smile grows. “Is it okay with you?”
Robin frowns. “I asked first.”
There’s an uncertainty behind her eyes. A hint of dread, and a tinge of keyed-up energy. Nancy stares at her for a moment, finally letting her head come down from the clouds. Her brain starts working again. Her critical thinking returns from its temporary dormancy.
This could mean losing everything.
It’s a sudden and sobering thought. Knowing what’s at risk. Knowing that her whole life could turn on its axis. Everyone she’s ever known – all of her family and her friends. Her job. Her career. All of it could be stolen from her by a second-long slip.
Is it worth it?
Loving Robin is easy; it’s as natural as taking her next breath, instinctive as closing her eyes when she goes to bed at night, and as involuntary as raising her brows when something surprises her. Robin is kind, outlandishly smart, and incredibly humble. Nancy loves the slight hook of her nose and the freckles that gloss over her skin, and the obscene sense of humor that sometimes makes Nancy cry with laughter. She loves Robin’s free spirit, hidden behind veils and veils of nervousness and excitable jitters, and her talent, the drive that motivates her to learn how to play so many instruments. Earlier today, she would’ve never even considered the possibility of Robin liking her back – she had been convinced that this was a secret that she’d go to the grave with, that it would live with her and die with her.
But now, it’s not so much a secret anymore.
Her little box has been cracked open. It’s suddenly become Pandora’s box, releasing a thousand more problems into the atmosphere with no hope of resolution, and Nancy feels a lowburning impulse to return to safety. To return to Jonathan or Steve, or any other man for that matter. Anyone that could bring her back to normal. Back to being accepted.
Life with Robin is a guaranteed uphill battle. It’s all secrets and sneaking around and never letting their love see the light of day – but deep down, Nancy finds herself unable to imagine a life without her. Not now that she knows what it feels like to kiss her. No white-picket fence or husband with a cushy job could reverse what Robin has just carefully kindled.
So, with a determined and shaky breath, Nancy nods. Her palms brush against the shell of Robin’s ear as she lowers her arms, wrapping them around Robin’s neck instead.
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah, I think it is.”
A second passes as Robin lets out a slow breath of relief. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Nancy nods again, but it’s steadier this time. “Is it okay with you?”
“Yeah. Definitely.” Robin’s voice is breathy and enthusiastic. “I mean. Shit. Yeah, it’s like, definitely okay by me.”
Nancy’s smile is so big that it almost hurts. She looks down at the sudden rush of happiness that floods her system, feeling intoxicated. Drunk from the buzzing of her lips where Robin had kissed her.
“Nance?”
Nancy hums and looks up. Robin glances to the side nervously, clearing her throat before continuing. “Would you – would you want to go on a date?” she pauses for a moment. “Like, just the two of us.”
Nancy’s amusement creeps up on her. “Well,” she says. “One would assume a date is just the two of us.”
“Okay, but – ” Robin purses her lips, trying to find the right set of words. “I mean, we go out to eat sometimes anyway, but like, a real actual date. Like, with the hand holding and sharing drinks and shit?” She freezes at her own words. Quickly backtracks. “Not in public, of course. I wouldn’t – we wouldn’t – uh, anyways.” She blinks harshly, like she’s trying to clear her mind like a slate. “Maybe we could do it if it’s just us? Or is that too much? It’s fine if it’s too much. Honestly, I’m feeling pretty lucky where I am right now. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could die happily, but if you – you know, if you wanted something more, then I would be open to it.”
Nancy listens until Robin is done rambling. Then, with a fond smile, “Are you free Saturday?”
Robin lets out a short breath. “You know I am.”
Nancy’s eyes coast over Robin’s lips. In a sudden streak of boldness, she leans onto the balls of her feet and kisses her. It’s chaste, only lasting a few seconds, but it sends her heart into a frenzy.
As she pulls away, she says, “I’ll pick you up at nine, okay?”
Robin’s eyes slowly open again. “In the morning or at night?”
“What do you think?” Nancy laughs, lightly hitting her shoulder. “Night. We’ll go see a movie or something.”
Robin smiles. “Or something?”
“Shut up,” she replies curtly. “Let's get back to the car. I’m freezing my toes off out here.”
Robin doesn’t fight as she’s dragged back to the station wagon by the hand. The drive home is relatively silent, but there’s a sweetness to the air – a new and unfamiliar ground they’re treading together. At one point, Nancy sneaks her hand over the cupholders and shyly laces her fingers together with Robin’s.
When she pulls up to Robin’s place, she makes the quick decision to flick the headlights off, reaching over in the darkness to give Robin one last kiss – Robin makes a clipped noise of surprise, but after a second, she kisses back, sneaking a hand up the side of Nancy’s face.
They pull away slowly. Nancy mumbles, “Goodnight, Robin.”
“Night, Nance,” is the gravelly reply. Nancy turns her headlights back on, heart pounding, averting her eyes as Robin gathers her things. The car door opens and shuts, and Nancy only looks up when Robin is walking up the steps to her trailer. She walks inside, closing the door behind her, finally leaving Nancy alone with her thoughts.
In her first moment of solitude, she takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes, trying to mull over the seriousness of the situation, but all she can think about is Robin. Robin and her stupidly pretty hair, and her smile, and the taste of her chapstick.
Nancy doesn’t mean to start smiling, but she does – she puts a hand over her face, giddy and embarrassed, before shaking her head and putting the vehicle in reverse.
She decides to save her problems for another day. To just enjoy this high while it lasts.
She thinks about Robin the entire drive home.