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nancywheelersgirlfriend · 2 years

Note

Request idea: Robin comes out to her parents and it doesn’t go well (referenced abuse) so she goes and stays with Steve. Nancy sees her living with him and wearing his clothes and assumes the worst, they’re dating, but she can’t understand why it bothers her so much if she’s so over Steve. How does she react to the truth after seeing robins bruises one night and how does she realize her feelings weren’t for Steve after all?

i loved this prompt :) i hope you enjoy!!

the gaping mouth (2,973 words)

That definitely wasn’t Robin’s shirt she was wearing, and it definitely shouldn’t be bothering Nancy as much as it was to see her wearing it.

It was hot and it was Hawkins and maybe that was why. Maybe Robin didn’t own any proper t-shirts.

Maybe Nancy was just an idiot - but she was a sucker for detective work and she couldn’t stop the jealous bile rising up in her throat every time Robin caught her eye that day, draped in an old basketball tee that practically swallowed her whole. The faded green made her sharp blue eyes stand out even more, glinting in the hot sun.

They’d all accompanied Max to the Hawkins skate park (less of a skate park and more of an old, rusted parking lot) that day. And while watching Mike bumble around and attempt to not open his forehead on the sidewalk was very fun, Nancy was regretting her involvement more with each passing second.

“Did somebody set your dog on fire?” Eddie asked from where he’d sprawled himself on a bench by the rim of the skate park, clunky sunglasses covering up a good half of his face. She held a hand to her face and dimly recongized she’d been scrunching her whole expression up in anger, practically burning a hole through Robin and Steve - who were stood way too close together on the opposite end of the park.

“Is it that bad?” Nancy asked miserably. She used the hand on her face to wipe at her forehead. Maybe it was the heatstroke. She wasn’t sure what else it could be.

“It appears, Wheeler, that you’ve got a jealousy issue,” Eddie hummed through clenched teeth, grinning wickedly up at her. She shook her head vehemently and leaned against the chainlink fence, arms crossed. Pay attention to Mike, Nancy. He was on the verge of collapsing. Pay attention to Mike, Mike with his flailing arms - and Robin was laughing at him, leaning back with the tiger emblem on full display. Nancy groaned dramatically.

“I do not have a jealousy issue,” Nancy replied, short and clipped. Because she really didn’t. “You know I don’t like Steve like that. Not anymore.” Eddie poked her side with an intrusive finger, dragging her eyes back to his impish face.

“Who said anything about Steve?” He said, laughter chasing his words. Nancy shook her head down at him in confusion, refusing to give him anymore bait. Whatever he’d meant by that, she had no idea.

Because she wasn’t into Steve. Seriously. And people needed to stop trying to force them back together.

There’d been a moment, maybe, in the franticness of the Upside-Down where she’d considered it. Where she’d saw how much he had grown and changed and came to appreciate it. But it wasn’t a like-appreciate. It was a love-appreciate, like the love you share for a close friend. Somebody bonded to you by trauma. They’d never work, just like they didn’t work in the first place. They clashed heads too much.

Besides, couldn’t a boy and girl be friends? Nancy wasn’t one of those people who disagreed…which is why she’d tried for so long to wholeheartedly believe Steve and Robin when they promised they were platonic-with-a-capital-P.

But they couldn’t be. Nancy didn’t believe it. Steve didn’t share shirts with her. They shared drinks, sure, and food, and babysitting duty. But never clothes. And yet Robin showed up to practically every friend gathering adorned with some article that screamed Steve - basketball shorts, baggy t-shirts, sometimes even his well-loved sweaters.

So they were dating. That much was clear. Why that fact upset Nancy as much as it did was the real confuser.

This bubbling, upset volcanic feeling came to a head when Steve hosted The Party (trademark) at his new apartment downtown. It was far too small for them, so small Nancy spent half the night pushed up against the wall, but that was the best part about it. The scuffing sound of sneakers on his kitchen tiles, the kids piled on the couch together to watch a VHS of The Dark Crystal, the ‘adults’ (and jesus, they were adults now, weren’t they?) taking shots on the countertops and stealing popcorn from his cabinets.

Well. It’d been a great night, up until the point Nancy found herself wandering down the singular hallway. So what - she was a snoop. And the party in the joint kitchen-living room had gotten a little too loud for her liking. She’d never been a crowd person. So she stepped out to take a breath.

There were two doors, one presumably the bath and one presumably the bedroom. Nancy pushed on the one she guessed was the bathroom only to find Steve’s room.

At least, she’d assumed it was Steve’s room. But the door opened enough to give her a glimpse of a folded bra on a pile of clothes. Her stomach dropped to the soles of her shoes. Nancy edged the door open just a little more, glancing behind her to check nobody was about to catch her completely invading her friend’s privacy.

Stepping fully into the room, Nancy was overwhelmed by the amount of evidence that Steve did not live here alone. For a start - both sides of the bed were destroyed in two different ways with both pillows equally slept on. There was a pair of fuzzy pink socks, certainly not Steve’s, slung over a chair in the corner of the room. On one bedside table there was a photograph of Steve, Dustin, and Eddie at the recent Hawkins ‘graduation’ (if you could call it that) and a comb. On the other sat a loosely capped bottle of antidepressants and a small polaroid. Nancy drifted over almost on autopilot and picked it up.

It was her and Robin. She remembered this getting taken - El had gotten a polaroid as a late birthday gift from her father. At a party a few weeks back she’d been obsessively taking pictures. Nancy and Robin had posed accordingly. Robin had stuck two fingers behind Nancy’s head. They were grinning equal smiles. Nancy traced Robin’s face in the photograph absently. They’d spent practically the whole night together.

Her smile soured considerably remembering where exactly she and this photo were located. Clearly the owner of this half of the bed was Robin. Who else could it be? As if the universe wanted to confirm this as soon as possible, a tube of familiar mascara rolled out from where it’d been tucked underneath the pillow when Nancy accidentally bumped the bed. She recongized it because Robin had done her makeup a few days ago in Nancy’s bathroom - Nancy on the counter, Robin on the floor (she was considerably taller). Their faces had nearly been pressed together from the small space. And Robin had used that exact mascara.

“Nance?” Speak of the devil. Nancy whirled around to see Robin in the doorway, face scrunched up in confusion and hand on the doorknob. “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nancy managed out, although the flaring emotions in her stomach were nearly untamable. Jealousy, anger, frustration. Frustration from feeling like this in the first place. She hated when there wasn’t an answer for something.

“I just noticed you’d left the party, so,” Robin explained. She took a cautious step into the room, hand out in offering. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Nancy gestured to the bedroom, “sorry for snooping. I just needed a minute.” Robin gave her a reassuring smile, one all teeth and pink cheeks, and somehow it made Nancy even more upset.

“It’s okay,” Robin promised. After a beat: “It’s a great picture, right?”

“Hm?” Nancy wrung out her hands anxiously and put a good amount of distance between herself and the bed, except she was partly trapped from Robin blocking the doorway.

“The polaroid,” Robin elaborated. She pointed over to the bedside table and Nancy’s suspicion were seemingly confirmed. “I love it.”

“So you’re living with Steve?” Nancy asked, wincing at the lack of grace with which she asked it. Robin didn’t look bothered by it. In fact, her smile grew. It was confusing because - if they were seriously secretly dating, wouldn’t they want to hide that?

“Yeah,” Robin said, rubbing the back of her neck with a little laugh. “Sorry. The bedroom’s a shitshow.”

“It’s fine,” Nancy said, absent now from the conversation. Suddenly her head was flooded with drowsy concepts of what exactly Steve and Robin were doing in this bed. She took another step away from it, face contorted in a pained expression. It hurt and it hurt even more to see how concerned Robin was, taking another step into the bedroom. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take this explosion in her stomach, this overwhelming jealous feeling that had her on edge at a near constant rate.

“Nance.” Robin was inches away now, both hands outstretched. Nancy resisted the urge to glare at her, but it seemed she hadn’t fought it back quite well enough because Robin’s fingers curled into her palms. She was so close - too close, Nancy couldn’t breathe. She pushed past Robin breathlessly, sprinting from the bedroom and down the hallway.

She knew the whole group was watching her as she rushed from the hallway out the front door, no doubt visibly distressed. The apartment door slammed shut behind her but she didn’t even wait for it to close before she was bolting down the creaky steps to the first floor.

Outside Nancy took in a breath of the cool night air and felt her eyes, embarrassingly, well up with tears. It was so unbelievably absurd. She pressed a clenched fist to her mouth and heaved.

So what if Steve and Robin were dating? Clearly they made each other happy, happier than she and Steve had ever been. She attempted to separate out feelings to identify the source of the issue, because - she was happy Steve had somebody. That wasn’t the problem.

Nancy sat down on the curb and pulled her shirt into her chest with a little whimper. Nancy Wheeler did not struggle to find the answer. She should’ve figured it out by now. She shouldn’t be feeling like this, so unbelievably helpless and - and crushed.

She was happy Robin had somebody. She was happy Robin had Steve. In a romantic with a capital R sense. But when those words came out of her mouth silently, Nancy testing how they felt around her lips, the taste was all wrong. It hurt to even say it to herself - the implication of what that meant for her, for Robin. It was a gunshot to the chest. Nancy found herself gripping her shirt physically, as if the pain in her heart manifested into a genuine wound.

The door to the apartment complex swung open and closed. Somebody’s booted shoes walked up to her hesitantly on the sidewalk and Nancy didn’t have to look up to know it was Robin.

“Yes?” Nancy allowed after a moment of tense silence. Robin all but collapsed onto the curb beside her, launching into her typical motormouth spiel.

“I’m so, so sorry Nance. I didn’t realize -” Robin choked on her whole breath “-I didn’t realize you didn’t feel like I felt and I didn’t mean to imply anything and I hope you don’t think differently about me now and I hope you don’t think I’m, like, a creep or something because I swear I’m not I just really care about you and you’re, like, my closest friend and I’ve never actually had a close girl friend like this before and I don’t know what I’m doing-”

“Rob,” Nancy said, and Robin promptly snapped her mouth shut. She looked up at Robin’s big blue eyes, shaking with unshed tears, and tried to avoid looking at the too-familiar letterman Robin had adorned on her trip to chase Nancy outside.

“I’m sorry,” Robin whispered. From what little of it that hadn’t been broken before, Nancy’s heart ached with how quiet her voice had gotten.

“I’m not upset,” Nancy said and then sighed, because who was she kidding? “No, I guess I am. I’m sorry. I really tried to be happy for you. I’ve got no right, feeling like this.” Robin opened her mouth and then closed it, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

“What?” Nancy rolled her eyes, gesturing to nothing in frustration.

“You and Steve!”

“I don’t follow,” Robin said, shaking her head. “What about me and Steve?”

“That you guys are together,” Nancy all but hissed between clenched teeth. So there. The words were out and they hurt just as much, if not more, as they had thinking them. She had to look away from Robin as she spoke. Silence rang across the street and then Robin started laughing. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Nancy,” Robin got out between giggles, “Nance. Oh my god.”

“What?” Nancy repeated. “Stop laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing-” Robin cut herself off with a hand wipe down her face. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing at how crazy this is.”

“How crazy what is?”

“Nancy, Steve and I are so not together,” Robin said. Nancy was about to protest when Robin reached up and grabbed her arm just soft enough to catch her eyes. They looked at each other and Nancy realized Robin, for perhaps the first time in her life, was being completely serious. “Really. We aren’t.”

“Then what? You’re just sleeping together?” Nancy retorted, face flushing.

“I mean, in the most literal sense, yes,” Robin allowed. “He’s letting me live with him. But we just share a bed because we can’t afford a two-bedroom place right now, cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Really?” Nancy asked. She was a little embarrassed by how breathy and excited her voice had gotten. Robin nodded, relieved smile on her face. But there was something else in her expression - disappointment, maybe.

“Yeah, so don’t worry,” Robin said. “If you’re, you know. Into Steve again. Or something.”

“I’m not into Steve again!” Nancy protested. She raised an eyebrow at Robin’s disbelieving stare. “Seriously. Cross my heart and hope to die.” She mimicked Robin’s earlier gesture by slashing an ‘x’ across her heart.

“Okay,” Robin finally agreed. She dropped Nancy’s arm, leaving the skin burning from the lack of her warm touch. Nancy folded her arms across her lap and they sat together for a bit on the curb. She tried to press her chest closer to her knees - jesus, it was cold outside.

Suddenly there was a rustle of fabric and then Robin was placing Steve’s letterman on Nancy’s shoulders. Nancy looked up to see Robin in a tank top, clearly her own, watching her with this odd smile on her face. Before she could say anything, Nancy’s eyes caught on a set of molting black-and-blue marks on Robin’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Nancy asked. She reached out a hand to touch the bruises, hesitating before Robin nodded and let her make skin-to-skin contact.

“My parents weren’t too happy with me,” Robin laughed drily, humorlessly. Nancy pushed back the tank top strap to see a multitude of matching bruises lying the rest of her shoulder and traveling down her back. Nancy swallowed back bile that had risen up in her throat at the sight and instead let the anger take over her. Who could ever touch Robin like that? What monsters would do that to her? Nancy cupped her hand on Robin’s shoulder and rubbed the bruise absently with her thumb. Robin’s eyes closed at the soft touch.

“Why?” Nancy asked. “Or was it just-”

“I came out to them,” Robin said in one quick breath. She cracked an eye open to see Nancy’s reaction. “As a lesbian. So, uh. That’s why.”

Nancy nodded. Suddenly some new feeling in her chest bloomed at that. Something warmer and distinctly delicious. Her hand on Robin’s shoulder slid down but Robin was quick to reach up and take it with her own. Their fingers brushed together as they pressed palms, folding in on each other slowly. Robin’s hand was warm and soft, softer than expected. Nancy took a sharp breath in watching the way the dim streetlight a few feet away reflected off Robin’s sharp nose, her cheekbones. The way her shaggy hair was tucked behind her ears. The freckles that splattered her skin even the places where the bruises had all but covered them. And something connected in her brain that had never connected before.

Oh. That’s why she was so jealous.

“Is that why you’re living with Steve?” Nancy whispered despite it just being the two of them. Robin nodded. “I’m sorry for being so stupid about it. And storming out.”

“It’s fine, Nance,” Robin laughed quietly. Nancy watched her sharp eyes drift down to Nancy’s lips and she licked them on instinct. Robin took in a shaky breath reactively but didn’t move her gaze. Knowing Robin was watching her like that made Nancy’s heart twist happily.

“I wasn’t upset because I’m into Steve,” Nancy added. She leaned forward almost on instinct, letting her head tilt slightly. Robin did the same, her clipped hair brushing against her neck as she did. Nancy reached out her other hand to push it back a little, shocked at how shaky her hand was. Robin looked up to make eye contact with her as Nancy cupped her hand around the back of her neck.

“Then why - why were you upset?” Robin stuttered out, eyes closing as she leaned into Nancy’s soft hand. Their noses bumped into each other. They’d slumped forward to meet each other halfway without even really realizing it.

“Because I’m into you,” Nancy admitted, nearly inaudible. Robin surged up to kiss her and when she did, Nancy was ready. All she could think was: I’m a dumbass. A very, very lucky dumbass.

~~~~~

(btw feel free to leave a request in my inbox!) <3

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nancywheelersgirlfriend · 2 years

Note

Fake dating AU- set slightly in the future Johnathan comes back to Hawkins with a new girlfriend and desperate to prove she’s moved on also Nancy asks Robin to fake date her. (Ronance happy ending)

thanks for the prompt! i hope you enjoy :) i think i might flesh this one out more. maybe you'll see that pop up around november, i had too many ideas to stuff into this oneshot :D but hopefully the length makes up for the weight

them there eyes (5,507 words)

If Nancy had been better prepared, perhaps this whole mess would’ve never had the room to start up in the first place. All she needed was a phone call or two from El in casual explanation - a thirty second debriefing her ex-boyfriend’s exploits and current local. However, the phone calls from El, while frequent and enjoyable, rarely included any information about Jonathan. Whether that was specifically for Nancy’s benefit, she didn’t truly know.

All this to say that she was now, twenty-three and home for Thanksgiving, stood in the center of the soup aisle at Hawkins’ local grocery store completely dumbfounded. Not because of the soup, mind you.

But because Jonathan Byers and a girl - a human female - who Nancy had never seen before (sure she would’ve recognized her if she’d gone to their high school, their graduating class size was in the double digits) were also in the soup aisle. Sharing both a cart and a smile. She passed him a can of tomato soup and he, after ducking underneath his permanent fringe like an adolescent, pressed a kiss to her cheek quickly in thanks.

Nancy knew, vaguely, that she was staring. But something about the image rooted her to the spot. She wasn’t sure which was the most disturbing aspect. One: that Jonathan, arguably the first true love of her life, had been able to move on so exponentially that he was grocery shopping with somebody else. Or two: that she, the other half of Hawkins’ weirdest couple, was currently shacking up in her parents’ basement with negative romantic prospects.

She tried to recall the last true date she’d been on, scaling back all the way to the past February before she found a good example. It’d been horrific - he, in the name of feminism, had tried to get her to pay the whole bill. Not that she would’ve minded paying for half. That was understandable. But the whole bill? And he’d gotten a sirloin. She wasn’t made of money. She was a journalist - she ate ramen for dinner the majority of the time, if that.

Her mother, ever the hen, had practically forced her out the house door to run errands. She claimed it was a ‘nice day’ and Nancy should ‘get some fresh air’. It was pouring outside, absolutely storming. Nancy could hear it on the roof of the grocery store. But she supposed her mother had a point - she hadn’t gone outside since she’d gotten there three days before, content to bury herself underneath the household’s excess store of fuzzy blankets and slowly wade through the childhood VHS tapes collecting dust down beneath El’s old tent.

Had Karen Wheeler realized the abject horror she’d be subjecting her daughter to when she’d forced her out of the house that morning? Surely not. She never would have betrayed her like this.

Nancy continued to watch open-mouthed as the girl (who, by the way, was stunning) whispered something in Jonathan’s concealed ear. His face turned a shocking shade of red at whatever she had said. He glanced back towards the end of the aisle with a little nervous laugh, one that had Nancy’s stomach twisting up into her ribcage. She could remember making him laugh like that many times.

She knew she should just be an adult about this and walk away from the aisle. Nobody didn’t need Italian Wedding that badly. Besides, Nancy had a college degree. She was going places. She would be moving to New York City after this brief hiatus at home, making big bucks and traveling the world to report on its innumerable atrocities. Give it an hour and Jonathan Byers would once again be lingering only in the very corner of her mind, some distant ghost she forgot to remember most of the time.

And yet she stayed rooted to the spot. How had he, arguably the most emotionally unavailable man she’d ever known, gotten into a relationship that made him this happy? Made him so comfortable with PDA, when he’d shrugged off Nancy’s hands in high school more times than she could remember? It was absurd; impossible. She blinked once, twice, just to make sure this wasn’t some sort of putrid nightmare she’d stepped her way into. As she did so, her mind gifted her the wonderful possibility of that shared cart having a baby in it. A baby with a bowl cut.

She’d throw up. She’d leave town without notice, or do something drastic like shave her head. Change her name and move to Alaska, turning that journalism degree into firewood and using her hands for ice-fishing. Jonathan Byers is in love, in love with somebody other than her.

God, she was selfish, wasn’t she? Even as she acknowledged this, the jealous feeling continued to blossom.

“Nance?” Oh my god, this was worse. So, so much worse. Jonathan was talking to her. “Nancy Wheeler?”

“Hi, Jon,” She said, grimacing on the way to a smile. She was shocked she managed to speak at all, as opposed to much more viable option of projectile vomiting all over the red Campbell labels.

“Jesus,” He replied breathlessly - and why was he smiling? He was smiling like this was something pleasant. Jonathan ran a hand through his mop of hair, still slightly bowlish despite his grown age, and stepped forward to clasp their palms together. She was surprised he couldn’t feel her shaking as he did so.

Their breakup hadn’t been…bad, per say. Okay, well, actually it’d been horrific. Lots of shouting. Crying. The whole nine yards. He’d come clean in August about the college lie. She lost all trust in him. They attempted to do long distance again but without that trust - that communication - they fell apart. His passion for photography reignited and he was off to Europe that spring. She came inches away from kissing another girl at a college party and felt more in the pit of her stomach than she ever had with him. They broke up over the phone and then again in person; to make it more real, she supposed. Or more movie-like, maybe.

That’d been four years ago now. During that hiatus, she hadn’t seen him anywhere besides the annual Byers family Christmas card - because, of course, when one set of Byer/Wheeler siblings broke it off another rose from its ashes. Will and Mike were grossly in love, to the point of applying to all the same colleges and sharing a dorm under the guise of their infamous ‘best friend’ status. Due to their impending forever love, Nancy had known for a while she’d end up seeing Jonathan and his pasty little face at least one more time in her life.

She had no idea what to say in response to him. Her mouth was simultaneously dryer than the desert and so wet she could hardly speak through the gathering spit.

“How’ve you been?” She finally settled on. The woman, who’d been lingering at the cart, stepped up to bump Jonathan’s shoulder. Despite all of Nancy’s quickly heightening expectations, her eyes weren’t mean. They were the opposite, actually, which made things a little more difficult for Nancy.

It would’ve been much easier if she was hateable. But this girl looked positively wonderful. Perfectly put together. Everything Nancy wasn’t and never could be. As she and Jonathan’s hands disconnected, Nancy couldn’t help but glance at his palm to double-check his scar had stayed. At least a part of him was still marred by her, even only physically. She couldn’t say she’d been able to recover in the same way.

“Great,” He replied. It was so genuine it hurt. His toothy grin was like a bullet to the heart. “Just great. Oh! This is Bianca, by the way. My fiancee.”

Oh god, even worse! His fiancee. Jonathan Byers, who’d gotten up on his soapbox every time Nancy so much as casually suggested the pipedream of living together someday. That Jonathan Byers was engaged. Bianca smiled and it took everything in Nancy not to scream in pure horror. They shook hands.

“Nice to meet you,” Nancy said. It sounded as though she were speaking under water. Somehow Bianca’s beautiful smile only grew. Beneath her unruly bangs of black curl, her eyes were warm and brown. Nancy recognized those easily enough - Jonathan had a type, she concluded.

“Jon’s told me about you! You’re a journalist, right?” Bianca asked, practically forcing the words out through the gaps between her teeth. Nancy tried to hate her. She really tried.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nancy nodded, wiping her newly sweaty palm down the front of her pant leg. “I mean, I’m going to be. I’ve got a starter job at the AP office in New York City - I’m moving there after the new year.”

“Oh, excellent!” Bianca sounded completely genuine.

“What do you do?” Nancy asked, if only to fill up space in the air. She had to admit, she really wanted to know. Model, maybe? Garbageman? Bianca was a complete mystery. And, apparently, so was Jonathan.

“I’m a teacher,” Bianca replied. “Kindergarten.”

“At Hawkins Elementary?” Jonathan and Bianca shared one of those hearty laughs only people in love can have. Nancy was incredibly jealous.

“No, no, we live in New York City,” Bianca corrected. “We’re only here for Thanksgiving, since this is where Jon’s family is. Christmas we’re spending with my parents.” Nancy resisted the urge to bite out a snarky did I ask? and instead nodded pleasantly.

“Maybe I’ll see you in the city, then,” Nancy said. Yeah, she’d rather cut out her tongue than have to spend five more minutes in their lovesick presence.

“We should go out to dinner while we’re all here,” Jonathan suggested. She could’ve choked him out with her bare hands - right there in the middle of the grocery store. What had she done to deserve this strange and unusual punishment?

Nancy swallowed tightly as Bianca said something in agreement. She imagined what that might look like: third-wheeling her ex-boyfriend and his new, perfect fiancee in her hometown. What a hellish experience.

So you can’t blame her for what she said next. It would be like blaming a deer for getting itself hit by a car, or a bird for crashing into a window - a better solution required too much forethought for Nancy to handle. She rushed forward with the only thing she could think of, regretting the words even as they were coming out of her mouth.

“I’ll have to see when my girlfriend’s free.” Jonathan’s face stayed politely neutral. Bianca’s eyebrows went up into her bangs, but to her credit she looked more distantly delighted than disgusted.

“Sure!” Bianca was quick to reassure, the tone half of people tended to whenever Nancy came out. As if she truly cared about Bianca’s opinion of who she did and did not have sex with. “Sure, yeah. Let’s set a tentative Thursday date, hm? And you can ask her about it and then phone up the Byers’ place - we’re staying in their guest room.”

“Who’s your girlfriend, Nance?” Jonathan asked. He just didn’t know when to quit, did he? She couldn’t help but grit her teeth together, the smile becoming more a snarl every second that passed.

“You do, actually.” She racked her brain for potential women: considering, just for a moment, how funny it would be to bring El to the sham of a double date. But the only girl Nancy could really consider (or, though she didn’t admit this to herself, the only girl she wanted to consider) was Robin.

Robin, who was as much as Nancy’s other half as she’d been that final summer before everything ended. Her freshman roommate had gotten absolutely sick of Nancy writing pages of letter early into the night, shipped off first to Indiana and then, when Robin moved overseas for a few years, to Paris. This past summer Nancy had flown out to visit her. They’d shared a bed for the first time since August 1987, legs tangled together and words carefully unspoken. Those early mornings by the Seine, so close and yet so far, kept her up at night more often than not. They hadn’t really spoken much since that summer, too busy to reach out…

Still, if Nancy could recruit anybody to play pretend, it would be Robin.

“It’s Robin,” Nancy said, effectively sealing the deal. Jonathan clapped her on the shoulder, an action that sent her nearly leaping across the aisle.

“I should’ve guessed,” Jonathan said. “You guys have been dancing around each other for years.” Nancy recovered from her shock at his casual touch to frown at that particular comment. What the hell did he mean by that?

“Yeah,” She said aloud, because what else was there to say? Inside, however, her mind was on the verge of exploding. The fiancee was plenty to distress about, but now - apparently - Jonathan thought she and Robin had something. Something actually palpable. So real even he could see it with his aforementioned emotional immaturity. She decided to shake it off. Jonathan Byers was a fool. He always had been, even in his best moments. Nancy just continued to smile, pretending to pay attention and instead deliberating on how she’d be breaking the news to Robin. Because Robin needed to agree. How embarrassing would that be if she didn’t?

“What are you doing on Thursday?”

“I’ll have to check my calendar - I’ve got a long going on. A lot of friends that I definitely have.”

“My apologizes to the big Hollywood writer.”

“I’m not doing anything.” Robin’s grin was audible and it made Nancy’s stomach twist itself into a permanent knot. “What’d you have in mind?”

“I’m gonna ask you for a big favor,” Nancy began, unsure where to start otherwise.

“If it involves the Upside-Down, it’s a no-go.” Nancy laughed despite herself. It felt like Robin was always getting her to do that.

“It’s worse. It’s dinner with Jonathan and his fiancee.” Best to rip the bandaid off. Silence on the other line.

And then Robin burst into laughter so loud it cut out halfway through. Nancy bit back a sigh and leaned against her peeling kitchen wall, shutting her eyes as if Robin were right in front of her instead of on the opposite end of town, mooching off her own parents.

“How the hell did you swing that?”

“I ran into them at the grocery store.”

“You poor thing.”

“So you’ll do it?” Nancy asked, taking on a hopeful tone. Robin hummed a vague affirmative. “Because, uh. There’s another element to it.”

“You’re changing the rules after I already agreed?”

“I told them you were my girlfriend.” Another bout of silence, this one not nearly as pleasurable. Nancy had stunned Robin so much she couldn’t speak - it was highly uncharacteristic and deeply uncomfortable.

“Why?” Robin sounded almost hurt. Nancy’s heart dropped to the soles of her shoes.

She knew it was silly to even consider a relationship with Robin in the first place. Not like she’d ever go after it - their friendship was too important, too necessary to breathe for Nancy to push. There had been some moments over the past few years, especially those brief pauses in Paris where Robin would turn and there’d be something on her face that made Nancy kickstart her heart. But she knew, really, it was in her head. And the implication that Robin, a constellation in the sky to Nancy’s shitty little telescope, would date her was not something Robin probably enjoyed.

“I freaked out,” Nancy admitted. “They were just so perfect, standing there buying soup together and smiling like freaks and wearing matching rings. I couldn’t take it.”

“It’s okay,” Robin said. The humor had returned to her voice. Maybe Nancy’d imagined the hurt. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“It’s so weird that you can drive now,” Nancy commented, laughing to release the iron fist around her heart. She could Robin’s responding giggle on the other line.

“Bye, Nance.”

“Bye,” Nancy murmured, standing there like a complete fool even after the only other voice on the phone was the dial tone, hands gripping the receiver like a lifeline.

Thursday rolled around much faster than Nancy hoped it would. It felt like a death sentence looming over the first half of the week. She nearly sliced her finger clean off while cutting up an apple on Wednesday; she’d been too busy considering all the harrowing possibilities of how Robin would react to Nancy dropping down on one knee and proposing.

Either she was insane or Jonathan was right. She wasn’t sure which was worse. It felt terrible, getting hope from her ex-boyfriend. You guys have been dancing around each other for years. Was he right? Had they been? Was it obvious? More importantly: was it reciprocated?

Ugh. What a complete mess. Nancy flopped down into her father’s laz-e-boy, vacant for the first time since she’d been home, and tried to resist the urge to run away. The kitchen clock, a clunky little thing from the nearby Kmart, clicked with reckless abandon.

“Shut up,” Nancy said to the huge and absolutely absurd fish tank her mother had installed beside the couch her sophomore year of college. “I know.” The goldfish gurgled something. Probably an insult.

The doorbell rang out through the empty house like the slice of a guillotine.

“Nancy?” Robin’s voice came muffled through the front door.

“Coming!” Nancy shouted in affirmative. She smoothed out the bottom of her skirt, shooting a quick glance over at the circular mirror in the foyer before swinging open the door with much more force than necessary.

There was both a pro and a con to Robin on her doorstep. Pro: Robin had dressed relatively formal, which was out-of-character for her. After a vague mention of Robin’s residency in Paris sent Bianca into a gushing spiral over French food, they’d decided on the only French restaurant in Hawkins; fairly fancy decor and subtle black tie included. Con: Robin looked absolutely breathtaking in pressed dress pants and a tight white shirt. Her slender body, all long and rigid limbs, seemed elegant in that outfit. She looked absolutely perfect and Nancy was going to die.

“We need to debrief,” Robin commanded, forgoing a hello and instead offering her elbow to Nancy with a familiar grin. Nancy furrowed her eyebrows in confusion - but took her arm nonetheless.

“Debrief on what?” She locked the door behind her, allowed to be on the stoop for a mere five seconds before Robin was yanking the both of them as some two-headed monster. She tripped on the last step in the sidewalk and nearly went face first down on the cement. “Jesus, I’m wearing heels!”

“I realized on the drive over that we’ve got no proper story,” Robin started to explain. She was a speedracer in both speech and talk. Nancy had to jog to keep up, not wanting to go ragdoll in her arms. “How’d we get together? How long have we been dating? Are we gonna live together? Who takes out the trash? Who pays for the food? Are we going to buy a dog or a cat?”

“Do you seriously think Bianca’s gonna care if we’re cat people?” Nancy asked incredulously. Robin all but yanked open the passenger door, nearly wrenching it off the side of her shitty little Beetle.

“These are important questions!” Robin snapped, rounding the hood of the car to hop into the driver seat. She started the car before Nancy had gotten both feet inside.

“Slow down, Rob,” Nancy admonished softly, reaching out a hand to cover up the gear shift before Robin could yank it and probably send them careening into her neighbor’s driveway. Robin looked up feverishly. Her face was a stark, intense pink. The sudden eye contact knocked all breath from Nancy’s lungs. She moved her hand over and up to caress Robin’s wrist comfortingly. “It’s okay. It’s Jon. Not that hard to impress.”

“I thought you wanted to prove you’ve got yourself together,” Robin pressed, eyebrows knitted. Nancy had no proper reply, because she did. She desperately did. She also (mainly) wanted to pretend, for a night, that Robin would even consider being her girlfriend.

“You don’t need to kill yourself to do that,” Nancy said, half a joke and half serious. Robin glanced down at their connected skin, eyes unreadable. She laughed breathlessly and released Robin’s wrist, realizing too late she’d been caressing it for longer than necessary. For a moment it looked like Robin’s face had fallen - but maybe it was a trick of the light. She turned the key silently. As they were backing out of the driveway, Robin let out a heavy breath - it sounded like she’d been holding it for eons.

“We started dating in Paris,” Robin decided. “We’re moving to New York together.”

“Studio or one bedroom apartment?” Nancy asked. Robin hummed.

“Studio, I like enclosed spaces,” She decided. Nancy nodded.

“One cat,” They said in unison, grinning goofily at each other in encouragement.

“It’s hairless,” Robin added.

“No way, those are expensive!” Nancy gasped.

“We’re together enough to afford a hairless cat,” Robin argued. “You the journalist and me the famous, wealthy poet.”

“Wealthy and poet don’t normally go together,” Nancy retorted.

“I’m a different breed,” Robin shrugged. “It’s a left here, right?” Nancy nodded. She flicked on her clicker absently.

“We switch off cooking dinner,” Nancy suggested.

“We have taco nights,” Robin added. “You cook the meat, I’m no good with that.”

“We share sweaters.”

“You wouldn’t fit in mine, they’re too big.”

“You’re not that much taller than me. I like big clothes, anyway.” Robin glanced over at Nancy in the passenger seat. Her face was lit up by the headlights of the car facing them. She looked positively angelic as she laughed. Nancy realized, not for the first time in her life, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life making Robin laugh like that.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Nancy had to physically hold down her mouth to keep her teeth from chattering together. For no reason in particular, Hawkins Main was much chillier than her empty col-de-sac. She was shivering before they even really stepped out of the car.

“I can see them inside,” Robin said, taking Nancy up by the elbow again and pulling her along on the sidewalk. “God, you’re freezing.”

“It’s just the early stage of hypothermia, it’ll be fine,” Nancy said. They stopped about five feet from the doorway of the restaurant. Through the foggy windows of the front she could see the black curls of Bianca and Jonathan’s mousy brown towards the back. She bet she’d have a six pack by the night of the night, judging by the way she was clenching her muscles just at the thought of conversation.

A heavy weight suddenly on her shoulders caused her to break her absent staring contest. She glanced back at Robin, who was now only in her sweater, floral white shirt, and dress pants.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Nancy said. Robin shrugged and shoved her hands into her pockets idly. She kicked at the dust on the sidewalk.

“I wanted to,” She said simply. “Wanna go in?” Nancy pulled the coat closer to her chest and, as they stepped through the tiny doorway into the restaurant, hid her blush behind a puffy sleeve.

“Nancy!” Bianca called out just as soon as they’d stepped in, as if she had some sort of radar beacon set to go off whenever Nancy entered her general vicinity. Nancy gritted her teeth and waved back. They maneuvered their way past the relatively crowded front to their tiny table in the back. Nancy sat across from Jon, Bianca from Robin. She laid the coat on the back of her chair as if it were something priceless.

“It’s cold out tonight, right?” Robin said amicably, rubbing her hands together. Under the table, the side of her flat knocked into Nancy’s heel. With her long legs she often had a difficult time finding room underneath tables. “I’m Robin, by the way.”

“Bianca,” Bianca waved. Her engagement ring glinted in the dim lighting. “And yes. It’s horrible. I grew up in California, I’m not made for this.”

“It’ll be worse on the East coast,” Nancy promised, not necessarily rude but not particularly nice. “I remember weeks like this at Emerson.” Robin’s foot knocked hers again. Nancy knocked back.

“I’m so excited to move to the city, though,” Bianca gushed. “I love New York. All the lights and the people.”

“You gotta walk fast,” Robin laughed. “But we’ll get used to it.” She covered Nancy’s foot with her own.

“Are you moving with Nance in January?” Jonathan spoke up for the first time that evening, gesturing between the two of them. To Nancy’s extreme disappointment, he hardly looked bothered. In fact, he looked pleased. Happy for her, even. She couldn’t stand it.

“Yes!” Robin smiled at Nancy. She reached over to squeeze Nancy’s open palm, which was spread out on the tablecloth and waiting for her. Though she’d been anticipating it, the touch still left her heartbeat spiking. “I’m a writer, so I can really live anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t want to go anywhere without her,” Nancy replied, voice sickly sweet but words painfully true. Bianca smiled big and bright at her. She was beautiful and it hurt. She ached over it.

“Oh, sorry - here’s the menu,” She said suddenly, passing a menu over to Robin and Nancy’s connected hands. “Completely forgot!”

“It’s fine,” Robin promised. As Nancy held the menu up in front of their hands, neither dropped the handhold; even though nobody important was paying attention. “Escargot?”

“Soup,” Nancy corrected. “I’m cold.”

“We order both and share,” Robin suggested. “Just like we did in Paris.”

“I miss those mornings,” Nancy grinned distantly, eyes faraway and back in a place where she’d been desperately happy. “Breaking off baguette pieces.”

“A hearty breakfast,” Robin agreed. “Une pain.” Her French accent was heavy and exaggerated and, as it always did, made Nancy laugh.

The waiter came by then, some well-dressed teenager who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. It reminded Nancy of Robin and Steve at the video store, dull-eyed and joking, doing everything possible to never actually do their jobs.

“I’ll get the duck,” Bianca said sweetly. Jonathan gave the waiter an awkward, tight-lipped smiling in greeting.

“The rib-eye for me.”

“We’ll have the onion soup and the escargot,” Nancy ordered for the both of them, passing the menu back to the silent waiter. He nodded and removed himself swiftly.

“You order for her?” Bianca asked with an eyebrow raised, though her tone was teasing.

“We always end up eating each other’s food anyway,” Robin explained with a shrug. “So - Bianca - what do you do for work?” As she and Bianca launched into an in-depth conversation on the pros and cons of elementary teaching, Nancy sat back in her chair and realized just how easy this was. Pretending to be a couple felt like second nature; almost unspoken, in a way. She supposed they’d already crossed most of the lines.

Sharing food and clothing and holding hands. Vacationing together. Something began to dawn on Nancy that she’d never considered before. Robin caught her eye over the entrees a half hour later, in the middle of laughing over some stupid joke Jon had just told. It clicked. Nancy laughed back.

Outside the restaurant, the four gave their goodbyes. Nancy would no doubt be seeing the couple over for Thanksgiving anyway, but she still found herself getting Bianca a friendly hug before she left. The girl had grown on her - and anyway, a night with Robin would have her shaking the hand of terrorists.

As Robin fished through Nancy’s - her’s, technically - coat pocket to find her keys, Jon tapped Nancy’s upper arm to get her attention. It was one she had never seen before. Perhaps it was new. Perhaps he’d learned it from Bianca.

“You guys seem really happy,” He said. Nancy, suddenly, felt cold water pricking the corners of her eyes. It was overwhelming how much she wanted this. She wanted Robin, like this, forever. It hurt to recognize. Jon squeezed her arm one more time and stepped back.

“So do you,” Nancy choked out.

“Nance! Ready to go?” Robin asked. She’d moved away as she and Jon had begun to speak, patting Bianca on the back with a promise of going out for coffee once both couples had settled into the city. Nancy wiped at her eyes with the back of her sweater. Jonathan, to his credit, pretended not to notice.

“Sure,” She said. The play was over.

Back inside Robin’s car, the silence was overbearing. Robin turned the key slowly. All the fervor from the drive over was drained out of her. Nancy watched Bianca tuck herself into Jonathan’s side as they walked down the sidewalk together. Unbeknownst to her, Robin watched Nancy.

“What’d he say to you?” Robin asked quietly.

“Nothing,” Nancy said. Robin tsked in the back of her throat, shaking her head.

“Clearly he said something wrong, you’re crying,” She murmured. As Nancy looked down toward her tangled hands in her lap, Robin reached over with a soft finger to wipe underneath her eye.

“It’s fine,” Nancy muttered.

“Tell me.” Robin’s voice was soft but firm, as she tended to be. And Nancy could never refuse anything Robin told her to do.

“He said he was glad I was happy,” Nancy admitted. She lifted her head but not her eyes, focusing only on the center dash controls instead of Robin’s eyes. If she looked up, it’d be over.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Robin said. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For him to think you’re doing well?”

“I wish I was actually doing well, Rob,” Nancy replied bitterly.

“Who says you’re not?” Robin retorted. “You don’t have to follow the normal line of college-marriage-kids to be happy. You know you’d never be satisfied with that. It’s not your fault.”

“That’s not the issue,” Nancy all but groaned, flopping her head back onto the carseat and screwing her eyes shut.

“Tell me, then.”

“I wish it were real.” The words came out nearly unintelligible. Rushed. Nancy desperately hoped Robin could not decipher it.

“You wish…what, the date?” Robin asked.

“This,” Nancy explained harshly, gesturing in between the two of them. She mustered enough courage to look up at Robin. She was staring at Nancy. Her face was slack. It was difficult to read her expression through the darkness of the parking lot, shrouded halfway by darkness.

“Us?” Robin’s voice was carefully quiet.

“I want the apartment and the cat and the stupid baguettes,” Nancy said, embarassed to find she was already on the verge of tears once again. It was just - all these feelings suddenly erupting to the surface, all with the name ROBIN BUCKLEY written across. In bright, unavoidable ink. It was a death sentence, loving her so much. “I want you. I want to be happy with you in every sense of the word. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Robin asked. Nancy stared at her incredulously as Robin began to grin. It was slow but definitely there, a soft rising sun on the bottom half of her face.

“Why am I-” Nancy scoffed, shaking her head and turning to look resolutely out the window. Bianca and Jonathan had disappeared, the sidewalk blissfully empty. “Because I just destroyed our friendship. Because I wanted to make Jonathan Byers jealous. Jonathan Byers. I haven’t cared about his opinion of me in years!”

“I, for one, had a great time making Jonathan Byers jealous,” Robin said. Nancy could hear the grin in her voice. “You shouldn’t apologize, Nance, because I - I’m on the same page.”

And then, and then - blissfully, thankfully, like a dream - Robin’s hand appeared in Nancy’s peripheral vision to grab onto her chin and yank her head the opposite direction. Nancy had barely enough time to part her mouth in an unspoken question before Robin was kissing her fiercely. Her lips were pleasantly dry, thoroughly bitten through by an anxious mouth. Nancy liked the way Robin’s fingers gripped her chin and cheek, pulling her close and closer still to get better access to her mouth.

They pulled apart after a fierce conversation with only tongue and lip, so aggressive Robin’s pants came out in visible bursts of air. Nancy could feel her breath hit the tip of her nose, they were that close.

“Don’t apologize,” Robin repeated breathlessly.

“Okay,” Nancy agreed, equally as out of breath. “Sure.”

“He deserved a little payback anyway,” Robin said. Nancy blinked. She’d forgotten a world existed outside of Robin Buckley’s mouth.

“Who?”

“Jonathan,” Robin said, as if Nancy should’ve realized. “For making me jealous everyday of senior year.”

“Seriously?”

“Who doesn’t want to share baguettes with Nancy Wheeler?” Robin replied incredulously. Nancy kissed her again, because words were useless when it came to matters of love like this. Robin didn’t seem to mind.

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