Chapter Text
It wasn’t that Nancy put much stock in any particular higher power, but it was hard to see how this sudden torrential downpour could be anything but a personal attack. As soon as she’d decided to escape her house and walk into town, the sky darkened, thunder cracked. Like a bad joke: how could this day possibly get any worse! Cue the lightning.
Snow might have at least been scenic; rain in January seemed an excessive cruelty. Someone out there had to have sensed how deeply Nancy resented being back with her perfectly nice parents in their perfectly nice house. And they were punishing her for it with a miserable walk into Hawkin’s already miserable Main Street.
Despite the mind-numbing familiarity of the town, Nancy surprised herself by almost walking past the gas station entirely. Her mother’s warnings about the unsavory types that loitered there had had rendered the place, in her mental geography, a nonentity. And it might have stayed that way, if not for the flicker of a dim, orange light. Unmistakable, even from a distance. And where there was a smoker, Nancy reasoned, there was bound to be a slightly dry place to stand. She made a beeline, her Keds now soaked through completely, socks squishing with every step. Which, Nancy decided bitterly, was probably karmic retribution for managing to make the weather about herself.
In a moment, she’d wish she hadn’t run. Squishing socks and all. Because of course it would have to be Jonathan standing there, cheeks hollowing as he inhaled. For a split second, he doesn’t notice her, and Nancy almost turned right back around. They don’t have to do this. But she did it, nonetheless.
“Oh,” was all Nancy said. Not least because she was out of breath. “Hey!”
Jonathan blinked several times, like she was some sort of hallucination. Hopefully not because of how ghoulish she looked.
“Nancy,” he said, tepidly, by way of greeting.
“Bum a smoke?” She was joking. It was clear Jonathan didn't get it. They hadn't seen each other since graduation, she supposed. It was natural there'd be some strangeness.
“Uh, sure,” Jonathan muttered. He began rifling through his coat pockets, pointedly avoiding eye contact.
Nancy was too embarrassed to correct him. “How’s your holiday been?”
“Um, good? I guess.”
Jonathan pulled out a cigarette.
“And your mom? Will?”
“Yeah, they’re… good.”
Their fingers brushed as he handed it over.
“And, let me guess, you are… ”
Jonathan finally met her gaze. He grinned sheepishly.
“Good. Yeah.”
Nancy smiled back. “That’s good.”
Absently, she ran a finger along the raised scar across her palm, shuddering. Thinking back to kitchen knives, monsters, her hands on his. She couldn’t seem to remember if they’d touched since then.
“You want a light?” Jonathan asked, cautiously.
“Oh.” Of course. She had sort of forgot she’d be expected to smoke the thing. “Yeah. Please.”
Fishing through pockets again, Jonathan produced a silver Zippo lighter.
With toss of her head, Nancy took it, pretending she couldn’t feel Jonathan’s eyes on her. Play it cool, Wheeler, she demanded of herself. She brought the cigarette to her lips.
“This fucking— ”
Of course, Nancy would instantly tarnish her burgeoning cool by proving herself completely incompetent with a lighter, only managing to produce meager sparks that burned her thumb.
“Here,” came Jonathan’s quiet voice, “let me.”
He lit the cigarette with a practiced flick and like this, Jonathan was undeniably striking. His steady hands. The elegant angles of his face in the pale, yellow light.
Nancy leaned in, trying not to wonder if their faces had ever been so close before. Not that this counted. This was nothing. Clinical, even. It’d be over in a second, as soon as—
The light extinguished in the wind.
“Sorry,” Jonathan said, as if such a thing could possibly be his fault. “I’ll just—”
He lit it again, this time cupping his hand around the flame, leaning in closer. To anyone rubbernecking through the haze of rain, it’d look like they were kissing.
At the very idea, Nancy inhaled sharply, forgetting the newly lit cigarette between her lips. Never before had the phrase “coughing up a lung” made so much sense.
Jonathan made a fairly noble attempt at stifling his laughter. “You okay?”
“That,” Nancy pronounced, between sputtering coughs, “was vile.”
Jonathan shrugged, still trying not to smile. “Bad habit anyway.”
“You want to get out of here?” Nancy asked. Not even sure where the thought had come from before it was out of her mouth.
But Jonathan nodded quickly. “Yes. I mean, yeah.”
It was hardly inevitable. Nancy could’ve turned back. She could’ve paid attention to the weather report that morning or stuck around at home and watched Holly, like she’d been doing all break. She got into Jonathan Byers’ car.
“How’s Chicago?” Jonathan asked, eventually, fiddling with the radio.
“Oh, you know,” Nancy said, looking out the window. “Windy.”
Jonathan laughed and something in her fluttered and Nancy forgot, for a moment, how conversation worked.
“How’s New York?”
“You know?” He grinned. “It never sleeps.”
And then she was smiling too, despite herself.
“But really,” Jonathan insisted. “Do you like it there?”
“I love it,” Nancy admitted, almost guiltily. “It’s here that’s the problem.”
Jonathan was quiet.
“But you get that, right?” If anyone could get it, it would be you.
But Jonathan just frowned. “You must miss some things, though. Harrington.”
“Well, yeah,” Nancy said at first, before his meaning sunk in, thinking of Mike. Holly, who was so big now. “I mean, no. Not like that.” She shook her head.
“Steve and I broke up. Uh, right before Christmas.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Harsh.”
Nancy let it roll off her shoulders. “I guess. But it was a long time coming. With him at IU and… well. It just wasn’t going to happen.”
Jonathan just nodded. For a moment, the silence hung.
“Where are we even going?” Nancy asked, just to break the spell.
“Dunno. This was your idea,” Jonathan admitted, shrugging.
“I guess driving around Hawkins in the rain is marginally less depressing than walking around Hawkins in the rain.”
“So that’s what you were doing,” Jonathan said. “Not just— what was it you said? Bumming cigs?”
“Smokes,” Nancy corrected, smiling. “I was kidding.”
“Yeah, I worked that one out eventually.”
“You know I don’t smoke!” Nancy almost giggled, forgetting that she used to do that.
“Maybe you had taken it up!” Jonathan laughed. “I don’t know what you get up to on the mean streets of Chicago.”
“The mean— ” Nancy couldn’t even say it without starting to laugh. “You’re ridiculous. Or, I mean, you’re not but— you know, I missed you.”
Jonathan just looked at her for a long moment as the car glided to a stop.
“I missed you too.”
A car behind them honked.
Nancy cleared her throat. “So. Where are we off to?”
Jonathan chewed on his bottom lip for a second before answering with measured coolness. “My house?”
“Yeah,” Nancy answered, too quickly. “Okay.”