Chapter Text
The bitter cold made Nancy bury her nose into her scarf while she was walking as fast as she could over the frosted pavement. She turned the last corner and there it was: her house. Their house. It still filled her with indescribable happiness.
She slowed down when she came closer. Light was shining through the windows, illuminating the scene in the living room: Mike helping Holly drill a hole in the wall, Eddie and Steve carrying the big couch to a corner of the room, and most importantly, Robin, standing on a chair, reaching for the top of the Christmas tree with a glittery star in her hand. She was wearing an oversized sweater underneath her dungarees and laughing at something somebody had just said – in other words, she couldn't be looking more perfect.
A shiver went through Nancy's whole body at a sudden gust of wind and she quickly started moving again. She put down the boxes she was holding to take out her key and turned it in its lock with an ease that made it seem like she had been living in this house for years. Even the click of the lock sounded like home already.
She took the boxes inside and welcomed the warmth of the hallway with a content sigh that echoed through the still empty space.
'Hey, Nance, let me help you with that.'
It was Steve, who had just come out of the living room, and she gladly passed him one of the boxes.
As soon as she followed him into the living room, Robin welcomed her with an excited gasp. She jumped from her chair, nearly knocking over the Christmas tree in the process, and launched herself into an embrace.
'You're ice cold, babe,' she said as she pulled back and started to take off Nancy's gloves and scarf.
Nancy couldn't restrain herself from pressing another kiss on her girlfriend's warm lips.
'I had to walk a couple blocks,' she explained. 'Couldn't get the car through the snow.'
'But you found the stuff?'
'Yeah, it was all in the attic. Still not sure if it was worth that whole two-hour drive through the snow,' she added with a roll of her eyes.
But Robin only grinned at her. 'It was worth it. Hundred percent. Those ugly angels have been watching over us for every Christmas, they have to be here at this extra special one.'
Nancy couldn't help but smile back at her. She clearly remembered the first Christmas they had spent together, in '86, when they had come back from their first couple of months in college for the winter break. Robin had gifted her a set of four of the ugliest angels Nancy had ever seen in her life. She had put them on the windowsill of her old childhood bedroom and they had been witnesses to everything – everything – Robin and her had gotten up to in that room over the holidays. They had been an unmissable part of Christmas ever since.
'How have things been going here? Doesn't look like you guys made a whole lot of progress.'
Robin gave her a playful punch to her arm. 'Didn't you see that gorgeous tree?!' she exclaimed. 'I've been spending two fucking hours on it, how dare you not call that progress!'
'Oh, the tree is perfect, babe. I was talking about the rest of the house.'
'Oh, yeah, that's fair,' Robin answered with a nod. 'The guys are totally useless, they've been moving the couch back and forth for like 400 times because they can't agree on whether it should be underneath the window or in the other corner.'
Nancy looked over to Steve and Eddie, who were looking at her kind of sheepishly from their positions at opposite ends of the couch.
'I'm right,' Steve then said. 'It just makes more sense to put it under the window.'
'Why don't we let Nancy decide?' Eddie proposed with a twinkle in his eyes that told her he was absolutely sure of how wrong Steve was.
'Sorry, Steve, Eddie is right,' Nancy said with a smile on her face.
Steve groaned and let himself fall onto the couch in such a dramatic movement that it was clear just how much his boyfriend was rubbing off on him exactly.
Eddie dropped to his knees in front of him to give him a kiss and Nancy averted her gaze back to Robin.
'You ready to give those angels their rightful place in our bedroom?' Nancy asked her with a suggestive smirk.
Robin grinned. 'Well, since we finally own a place with more than one room that's ours, we can scatter them around and have them freak everyone out properly in four separate places.'
'Sounds amazing,' Nancy agreed.
She put the first angel on the windowsill in the living room and followed Robin into the kitchen and then the bathroom, saving the final angel for their own bedroom.
There was only a mattress on the ground and two big suitcases with clothes spilling out of them. It still smelt like the paint they had smeared over the walls last weekend, with help from the kids. One wall was bright pink, the others a more neutral shade of near-white, leaving plenty of space for picture frames or posters.
'Our first decoration,' Robin said with a smile as she watched Nancy carefully place their creature in front of the window.
'I can't believe he's gonna be watching us again during our first night in this house.'
'It's cute,' Robin said. 'It's like having a guardian angel watching over us.'
Nancy leaned in closer to Robin, pulling her girlfriend into her arms. 'But what if I don't want anyone watching over us tonight? Not even the ugliest guardian angel that has ever walked this earth?' she said in a suggestive voice that still managed to make Robin's cheeks burn.
'This one has already seen it all, hasn't he? I'm sure he can handle it,' Robin murmured back at her.
'Good,' Nancy mumbled before she reached up on her tiptoes to give Robin a proper kiss, enjoying the warmth of her soft lips onto her own. She could taste that she had been drinking hot chocolate earlier, and that made her feel all warm and tingly inside. Robin pressed her closer and Nancy reveled in that familiar feeling of her soft boobs pressing into her collarbones. She wouldn't mind staying in this room forever, just the two of them – but unfortunately her little brother wouldn't let that happen: his voice echoed through the still mostly empty house as he called for them from the base of the staircase.
'Nance! Rob! We need help with the Christmas lights!'
That evening, the six of them sat down on the empty kitchen floor, with pizza boxes scattered around them. It was clear that they had their priorities right in order: Christmas lights were twinkling everywhere in the house, there was tinsel all around and strings of mistletoe were hanging from the ceiling, and the Christmas tree in the living room was decorated like a true work of art – but none of their new furniture had been assembled yet. Nancy couldn't care about it too much. It actually felt cozy, to have a pizza picnic on a blanket spread out onto the cold kitchen floor with the prospect of camping in their bedroom later.
She grabbed Robin's warm hand, not quite believing that they were here, in their house. The house they bought, the house they shared with their two best friends, two separate households underneath one roof, fresh out of college and ready for whatever the next step in their lives would be. It was so completely different from the home she had grown up in. That one always looked perfectly cozy and lived in like this one didn't – not yet, at least – but it had been empty in a different way. She had happy memories there, sure, but it was no match for what was happening right now in this kitchen, filled to the brim with love. She had had lots of semi-formal Christmas dinners at the table of the Wheelers' kitchen and enjoyed them just fine; but she had never even dared to dream of this other scenario, where she was eating lukewarm pizza surrounded by her siblings, friends and girlfriend, a perfectly happy little family of their own. She was so ready to fill this house with as much love as she could possibly give over the course of the years that were waiting for them.