Work Text:
VIOLETS IN THE MOONLIGHT
For me this
and love for the sun
has a share in brilliance and beauty
For by my side you put on
many wreaths of roses
and garlands of flowers
around your soft neck.
And with precious and royal perfume
you anointed yourself.
-Sappho
“It’s bullshit.” Nancy mutters, lying on the floor with her shirt stained from the punch in the bathroom filled with the stench of tequila that was dying down with the help from a small open window above the shower. Her brain still swirls with thoughts of Barb and the unlimited possibilities of that night. A continuous string of knocks on the bathroom door jolts her out of her thoughts.
“Heyyy, you can’t hog the bathroom all night !! If you have serious constipation or something, deal with it at your own house.” The knocking quickens as Robin becomes more frustrated. “Dude, you can at least signal if you are alive in there. I swear to God if you are hogging the bathroom because you passed out. I refuse to run the risk of hearing people fucking upstairs.”
Nancy, snapping out of her fountain of never ending thoughts, cracks the door open. Her eyes only catch a glimpse of Robin’s dark red Converse. “I’m alive, just give me a minute.”
Robin kneels to Nancy’s eye level, “Are you okay ?” Robin knew Nancy from her math classes and from the school newspaper. Nancy Wheeler’s name was always sitting on that front cover article’s byline. Robin always found that accomplishment admirable, well all of Nancy’s accomplishments admirable. She always thought of Nancy as the picture perfect student seeing as she is the head of the journalism department with an internship in the field making her a perfect candidate for the school’s valedictorian. Seeing her on the floor, shitfaced drunk, has shifted that perspective. She seems more human now, instead of trophylike.
Through the intoxication, Nancy couldn't bring herself to find a convincing lie. All of her energy was being spent holding down the vomit. “I just miss Barb… Steve is no help in that regard. He just tells me that it wasn’t my fault and all of that bullshit. Ugh.” She slowly curls up into a ball on the plush teal rug. “And the room won’t stop spinning while my insides are crawling into themselves.”
Robin stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. “Have you drank any water or eaten anything? It might make you feel better from your complete breakdown. You look like a complete struggle bus.”
Nancy couldn’t help but laugh at Robin’s blunt words. “You are a real sweet talker, you know that.” Nancy had butterfly inducing memories of hearing a rough yet soothing voice rambling on about random shit in the back of the classroom yet could never put a face on it in her mind. “You look familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. Have we met before?”
Robin grimaced at Nancy’s question, “Oh, uh, we have been in the same math classes since Freshman year.”
Nancy couldn’t remember it. All she could remember is spending the entirety of the class passing notes to Barb, intermittently doing work, and apparently what is Robin’s incessant rambling. “All my classes blur together. I don’t particularly remember anything.” Besides the butterflies that Robin's rambling voice gave her so that she couldn’t focus. “So don’t take any offense in me not remembering. Anyways if you want to help me off the floor, I can leave so you can piss. Seeing as that was what you were hollering about in the first place.”
“I don’t have to go that bad anymore,” she shrugs.
“Robin. Answer me this. Did you piss yourself?” Nancy inquires, using her most serious face in a joking manner.
“Maybe just a tad.” Robin grins at Nancy who is not completely sure if she is joking or not.
Nancy couldn’t help but break her false demeanor. Laughing, she lightly pushed Robin who was sitting on the floor next to her. “Gross.” Both their heads resting on the spruce cabinet with the handles separating them, they basked in the comfortable silence between them and the moonlight coming from the open window above the shower. For the first time since Barb’s death Nancy felt okay. She didn’t have to pretend to be happy and not all screwed up inside like she did with Steve. She didn’t even have to talk about it. No inquiries into how she feels like with her mom or the stupid school counselor. She felt safe. Robin was the first to break this silence.
“If you need a ride home, I got my bike…. Or I can find Steve and ask him to drive you home because I know it might be weird to have someone you just met to drive you home. I could be some random crazy psycho killer for all you know. I mean you just met me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a psycho killer. I am just being a good samaritan. To be fair that is what a killer would say to gain your trust. Again that I am not. I sound insane. Sorry.”
Nancy smiled, amused at Robin’s rambling. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer it if you took me home. I don’t need Steve anymore involved in my night.”
Robin nods, beginning to speak in a shitty British accent. “I would be everymost grateful, my Queen.” She quickly pops up, offering a hand to Nancy. “Your chariot awaits.”
Nancy takes Robin's hand, shakily standing up. She follows Robin's lead both physically and linguistically with a British accent. “Oh how I have waited for such an opportunity.”
_________
Nancy only had one major request of Robin. Do not involve Steve. It seemed rather simple until Steve was right there. In the buttfuck middle of the room, talking to Eddie. Eddie quickly noticed Robin seeing as he had been painstakingly waiting for her to get out of the bathroom. “Robin!” Eddie waved her down.
Robin eagerly waved back to him, before Nacy quickly pulled her hand back down. “Robin, Steve is literally sitting right next to him. You can talk to. Uh.” Nancy paused for a moment.
“Eddie.” Robin chimed in.
“Yes, Eddie. You can talk to Eddie later. Right now, I need your help to get out of here. Please.”
“Fine, but you have to promise that you will help me find his number in the phonebook. Or. OR. You can write an expose about how cool and awesome I am since I am totally saving your night. Call me Robin ‘The Backbone Behind The Band’ Buckley.”
Nancy laughs, “Being in the band and being cool are mutually exclusive.”
“They are not !”
“You are a fuckin nerd, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Says the head of the newspaper.” Robin retorts.
“That is completely different !” Nancy begins pulling Robin out of the house as they continue talking.
“Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Why do you say that?”
Once they reach the front lawn, Robin stops to hold out a finger. “It takes a nerd to know a nerd.”
Nancy is stunned for a moment. “That's not how that works, at all.”
“No, no. I’m right.”
Nancy shakes her head, “Anyways. Where did you put your bike?”
“Uhm. It should be. Right overrr. There.” Robin points to a tree with a bike resting on it. “Isn't she a beaut?” The bike is a royal blue, lightly covered in rust and scratches. The handles look almost completely worn down.
“It is very pretty.”
“The tassels fell off a while ago, but I’m gonna glue new ones on.” Robin smiled as she hopped on and rang the bell. DING! DING! “It still has the bell on.”
Nancy couldn’t help but smile at Robin’s excited state. “So I just hop on?”
“Yup! You can hold onto my waist so you don’t fall off.”
Nancy had butterflies at the idea of holding onto Robin. “Okay- Uhm ya. I can tell you the directions to my house as we go.” Nancy got onto the bike, slowly wrapping her arms around Robin’s waist. Robin could feel Nancy’s heartbreak quicken on her back and prayed that Nancy wouldn’t notice how her own heartbeat was running rampant.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
_________
The bike ride to Nancy’s house was filled with comfortable silence outside of Nancy’s occasional directions. In the end, Nancy and Robin said their goodbyes once they reached her house. This night would spark something neither of them would ever forget.