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nancywheelersgirlfriend · 2 years

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I found this on the internet: “We’re best friends, and literally everyone knows we’re in love, but we’re too shy to say anything. I want this year to be different, so I’ve stayed by your side through this whole New Year’s party so we could kiss at midnight, but now it’s five minutes till, and I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE!” and I want it so badly with Nancy and Robin

hehe this was fun :) i hope this is what you were looking for!! i know i changed the prompt a little, but it has the same premise

minor steddie, basically blink n you'll miss it

edge of '87 (3,160 words)

11:30 PM

“This time’s gonna be different.” Robin’s voice was muffled by the sheer amount of cake she’d just anxiously shoved in her mouth. Steve, unimpressed and pressed to her shoulder, watched her choke down the chocolate and took a casual sip from his mysterious alcoholic concoction. Whatever Eddie had dumped together for the ‘Party Punch’ in the kitchen, neither could muster the courage to ask. Probably something illegal and/or toxic for the human body. He kept drinking.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed.

“I swear to God,” Robin continued, pressing her cheek to his with intent. “I’m gonna do it. And it’s not gonna be a ‘friend kiss’.”

“What the hell is a ‘friend kiss’?” Steve asked, question going wholly unanswered as Robin took a rather violent swig of her own drink as an exclamation.

“Tongue and everything,” Robin promised, nodding squarely. Steve scowled into the rim of his cup, eyes drifting away from his best friend and onto the box set behind her. New Years’ Rocking Eve, ‘87 edition, played hazily. He had to squint to tell apart the faces. “Maybe teeth.”

“Teeth,” Steve nodded absently. “Right. Good choice.”

“Maybe not teeth,” Robin mulled over the possibilities, pacing back and forth in front of him. Steve had to stand on the tips of his toes to look over her outrageously frizzed brown hair so he could keep watching Dick Clark. “Did she like teeth?”

“She had them,” Steve mused. “And so did I. So she probably did. I can’t remember.”

“You are useless,” Robin went ahead and hissed the last word, mushing their faces together once more. She was sweating like a pig, all nervous energy and excited rage. “T minus thirty minutes. Should I brush my teeth?”

“I think you should calm down,” Steve said, peeling her hand away from where it latched like a vice onto his arm. He squeezed her fingers in his bigger palm, an attempt to calm her down that was sadly in vain. Robin could spin herself out like nobody’s business and she appeared to be in the midst of a F5 breakdown. “Nancy’s not gonna like it if you’re soaking her.”

“Does my breath smell nice?” Robin breathed directly onto his nose as a test. Steve grimaced and dropped her hand, waving her away half-heartedly.

“Never do that again,” He said, a finger to her chest in emphasis.

“But does it smell nice?” Robin asked again. Steve deliberated. She smelled like girl, a general smell that he tended to rather like. Whether or not Nancy would was the question.

Even though he knew she would, because Nancy adored everything that had to do with Robin. Steve supposed that’s where the phrase ‘crazy in love’ came from, because half of the things Nancy went mad about were things he could barely tolerate about Robin. In a loving way, obviously.

Their scientific experiment was interrupted by a stomping Will Byers, who came down Steve’s stairs in a rush of adrenaline and Child’s-First-Tipsy.

“Have you seen Mike?” Will said, practically snorting fire out of his nostrils. Steve shrugged unhelpfully.

“Back porch,” Robin supplied, pressing her drink to the corner of her lip absently. “Have you seen Nancy?”

“Last I saw, she was out by her car,” Will said; the exchange of priceless, gay-crush information a silent agreement.

“By herself?”

“With Jonathan,” Will said, sadder this time. He gave Robin a pitying smile before turning heel and breaking into a run, nearly crashing into the kitchen wall with the force of his sprint. Whatever he needed Mike for, it was urgent. Robin turned to Steve with an utterly devastated look on her face.

“She’s with Jonathan,” Robin groaned dramatically.

“I heard,” Steve empathized, slugging an arm around Robin’s shoulder. His eyes glazed back over to the tv, where the Go-Gos were performing. They were pretty good. “I also heard they broke up.”

“Of course they broke up,” Robin snapped, rolling her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean he’s also not looking for a New Year’s kiss. High school relationships are fickle like that.”

“But yours and Nancy’s won’t be?” Steve asked, laughing.

“It’s different,” Robin argued, face flushing from both the intolerable heat of the living room and her embarrassment.

“I’m sure his breath doesn’t smell half as nice as yours,” Steve promised. Robin sighed and glanced over her shoulder, as if waiting for Nancy to appear in the doorway that very moment. When the second passed and the door stayed firmly shut, she turned back to Steve with a shake of her head. They clicked red solo cups. He settled in to watch the ball drop.

11:40 PM

“Jonathan and Nancy broke up, right?” Robin’s question came from her left side. Max practically jumped six feet in the air.

She’d been relaxing, sprawled out on the outdoor couch and content to listen for splashing sounds. She knew Lucas and Will had jumped in the pool a few minutes before, having heard them come up for air and tease each other about the skill of their cannonballs. The pain of not being able to see them perform said cannonballs was dulling, a welcome reminder that time tended to heal all wounds. She liked hearing them laugh, anyway.

But getting used to being rendered completely blind in both eyes didn’t mean she could metaphysically sense when somebody showed up. Her friends had started to announce themselves when they got closer, a habit Max didn’t care enough to break. Robin, however, had never learned to do that. She simply appeared in Max’s subconscious, usually halfway to a panic attack.

“Yes,” Max confirmed once she’d gotten her rabbit’s heart down to a normal pace. Her hand reached out into the darkness, spasming. Robin’s furnace fingers touched hers and they clasped together, a welcome ‘hello’ for the new year. Her unspoken longer sentence was: Because she’s in love with you, dumbass.

“Good,” Robin breathed out through her nose, squeezing Max’s hand. Max felt the couch deepen beside her, Robin’s jacket-covered shoulder pressing against hers and their sneakers colliding on the concrete.

“Are you finally gonna kiss her?” Max asked. Robin’s sharp intake of breath was loud in her ear, all frightened. Like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. Max fought back the urge to smirk and instead removed her hand from Robin’s to pat at her knee comfortingly.

“Yes,” Robin rushed out all at once, a release of air and admittance. “Yes. Am I crazy?”

“I think it’s overdue,” Max allowed, which was a total understatement.

Robin and Nancy’s unspoken feelings for each other were becoming practically unbearable for the group at large to handle, but especially for Max. Both older girls came to her for advice and vice versa - so she’d been hearing them gush about each other for months on months. It got tiring the first go around. Now she was just about sick of it, nearly on the verge of confessing to Robin all those sappy and honey-covered things Nancy waxed poetic about. Maybe that was the push they needed. Or maybe Robin was finally gonna get her shit together. Max had been praying for it.

“Do you think she’ll kiss back?” Robin asked. The telltale click of her biting off an already short fingernail followed.

“I know she will,” Max said. She knew Robin wouldn’t take her seriously. Still, Robin hummed in agreement. Together they sat listening to the boys in the water. “What time is it?”

“11:42,” Robin supplied quickly, no doubt glancing down at her military watch. “When is it too early to go looking for her?”

“I’d say you should find her soon,” Max said after a moment of consideration. “You don’t want to miss the ball drop.”

“Very smart,” Robin said. Max felt the couch relax as she stood up, grunting as she stretched in the chilly night air. “Very smart. You’re smarter than I am.”

“Is that a surprise?” Max asked, but she knew she was speaking to the empty air. She smiled, a small private one for herself, and desperately hoped Robin would finally end this terrible back-and-forth once and for all. If she didn’t psych herself out at the last second, that is.

11:50 PM

“Have you seen Nance?” Robin asked. Argyle shook his head, eyes now completely tinted with red and hair a mess.

“Maybe upstairs?” He suggested, gesturing with the pace of a sloth to the stairwell behind them. Robin nodded absently, turning on her heel and trudging up.

Logically she knew there were only so many places Nancy could be. Nancy’s whispered confessions and secrets over the crest of pink-covered pillows told Robin she had certain places she avoided when the group spent time at Steve’s house. She hardly spent any time by the pool. She didn’t go near his bedroom.

He was rich but he wasn’t megarich. His house was bigger than anything else Robin had stepped foot into, and sometimes she thought she might get permanently lost with the identical white doors and plethora of matching family portraits. But Nancy had to be somewhere. And Robin had to find her.

She walked up the stairs with the determination of a suicide bomber, knowing her mission was likely to ultimately fail and carrying herself to doom nonetheless. Surely Max was telling the truth when she confirmed Nancy and Jon had broken up. Though if it were true, it was only one obstacle on the track - the second being a much larger, more complex hump.

Robin had no idea if Nancy liked her back. There were moments, little bits in time, where she’d managed to convince herself there could be something between them more than female friendship and trauma bonding. On the frequent nights spent sleeping over in Robin’s cramped twin bed, Nancy would fling her legs out over Robin’s and cuddle up close to her. Did regular girls do that with each other? Robin had no fucking idea.

Or the way Nancy looked at her sometimes, especially at night - under street lamps as they walked through their old neighborhoods and discussed their separated childhoods. Discussed their united college experiences, both deciding to attend the much closer and safer option of University of Indianapolis. The way their gloved hands tended to brush on colder nights, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder for warmth. When they ordered takeout and Nancy gave Robin bites off her fork without Robin even having to ask, remembering that she liked lo mein but not the steamed carrots in her order of vegetables.

It all seemed to stack up. Maybe Robin was drunk. Maybe she was delusional. At this point, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Her crush on Nancy Wheeler was so overpowering that, though it was difficult to admit, it would hurt more to continue having to stand beside the most beautiful girl on the face of the earth than actually confess her feelings for her. Robin sucked in a deep breath as she reached the top of the stairs, peeking around into the dark hallway. Hopefully she found nobody having sex. Hopefully she found Nancy and hopefully, hopefully Nancy would kiss her back.

11:54 PM

Nancy was not upstairs, but Steve and Eddie certainly were, and Robin was never going to be able to get that image out of her head. As she stumbled back down the dimly lit hallway, pulling her sweater to her chest and grimacing to herself, Robin racked her brain. Where could Nancy possibly be hiding? Could a portal to the Upside-Down have opened up underneath her, removing her from the party? Would Vecna be that cruel and unusual?

As Robin stormed past the blaring television, where Argyle and Jonathan had sprawled out on Steve’s pleather couch to watch, she could hear the crowd cheering on the ball drop. T minus five minutes until Robin had to spend another year helplessly alone.

“Nancy?” She called out to nobody in particular, rounding her way through Steve’s empty dining room and back into his kitchen. There she found Will up on the counter, in a much better mood than he had been twenty minutes prior, swinging his legs and talking to his sister. “Have you guys seen Nancy?”

“Sorry, I told you where I last saw her,” Will said, shrugging. “If she’s not by her car, I have no idea.” Robin realized she hadn’t checked outside. El didn’t speak, she just took a sip from her twisty straw cup and smiled, pleased, at Robin. Robin couldn’t help but reach over and ruffle their hair before ducking away and rushing outside.

“Don’t forget to come in for the ball drop!” El spoke up in that soft voice after her as she ran through the patio door.

She passed Max and Lucas at the pool, no doubt making out or on the verge. Robin nearly broke the hinge on the wooden fence gate as she went, leaving it to swing behind her as she stepped out into Steve’s front yard. The street was alight with houses celebrating New Years’ similarly to theirs, streetlights with no warning blink and roads empty for the night. She stumbled down the lawn, glancing at every passing shadow with her eyes narrowed.

11:55 PM

“Nancy?” Robin shouted, hands on her hips. The space by her car was void of a person, Jonathan or Nancy. So clearly she’d moved on. As Robin walked back to the house, she heard the familiar pitter of flats on pavement.

She burst back through the patio gate to find Nancy on the opposite end of the backyard, shrouded in the light from the immense amount of Christmas lights Steve kept strung up year-round.

11:56 PM

Robin sprinted along the poolside, skidding across pavement to reach Nancy in time. The girl in question glanced up from where she’d been focused on watching the stars, eyes bright and beautiful and dilated. Her brown eyes felt like oceans at this point. Robin was teetering on the edge of falling in.

“Nance,” Robin began, realizing with embarrassment that she was out of breath from her sprint across the house. Nancy blinked in acknowledgement, smiling that beautiful pink-lipped smile. Her lips looked glossy in the moonlight, face stained by the gray light. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

11:57 PM

“Why?” Nancy asked with a twinkling laugh, stepping closer to Robin. Her hand came out to smooth down a part of Robin’s shirt she hadn’t realized she’d ruffled - her turtleneck halfway up against her pale neck. Nancy pulled down the fabric and smoothed out both hands across Robin’s shoulders, looking proud that she’d cleaned her up. Robin could barely swallow down her fear, let alone make any proper sentences. Nancy’s face was so close to hers now. It was to an unbearable degree.

“I have something to tell you,” Robin admitted shakily, glancing back at the house. She could hear their friends all gathering in the living room, no doubt surrounding Steve’s television and cheering on the oncoming ball drop. She ignored them, shaking her head and pulling her focus back to Nance.

11:58 PM

Because, in the end, Nancy was just a girl. She was just a girl shrouded in moonlight, looking up at Robin with that mesmerizing face of hers and a giggle on the end of her tongue. Nancy’s wide-eyed expression brought with it an intoxicating feeling Robin never wanted to be rid of. Her hands drifted up to stop Nancy’s from leaving the place they’d settled in on her sweater, pulling them down to clasp them over her chest. Nancy’s eyes, swift and detective-like, followed the movement curiously.

“I-” Robin felt herself faltering and kicked herself for doing so. It was hard to string words together in the presence of Nancy. For all her anxious sputtering and running around, when it got down to it she tended to be utterly speechless - case in point. “I, um.”

11:59 PM

“Yes?” Nancy pressed, dark eyebrows raised playfully. Robin’s mouth was desert-dry. She swallowed again and shut her eyes. No more time to fret over it. She needed to do this.

The dim shouts of their friends counting down the last minute before 1987 officially got rung in spurned her on. Robin reopened her eyes to find Nancy inches closer, their noses pressed together.

She was just Nancy. Robin let go of Nancy’s hands to hold onto her face, fingertips pressing down the corners of her ears and thumbs brushing over the familiar blush. Nancy’s eyes went wide by a decimal, and then narrowed. In challenge. In agreement.

“I wanted to say,” Robin began again. Suddenly fireworks erupted above them, no doubt set off by one of Steve’s obnoxious neighbors.

12:00 AM

“I wanted to say,” Robin repeated for the last time. She wouldn’t let herself be shaken. Neither girl bothered to look up at the sky. “Happy New Year, Nance.” Robin steeled her jaw and leaned in. Unbelievably and dream-like, Nancy met her halfway.

Robin nearly fell over from the force of Nancy’s kiss, hands dropping from Nancy’s face to wind themselves around her waist. Their sweater fabrics brushed together as Nancy tilted her head, balance and access coming together underneath the stars. Robin pulled her impossibly closer and sighed into Nancy’s mouth. It felt like fireworks behind her eyes. It felt like the celebration was in her head.

“Happy New Year,” Nancy whispered into Robin’s lips, her big eyes only about a centimeter away. Robin didn’t know which one to focus on. “Were you looking for me to do that?”

“Yeah,” Robin admitted. Nancy laughed into her mouth, pressing a small kiss to the corner and then pressing back tenfold. When they came up for air again, Nancy was still laughing. “What?”

“I was looking for you, too,” Nancy admitted with a sly grin. Robin chuckled and closed her eyes, forehead to Nancy’s.

“Great minds think alike,” Robin said. Nancy nodded solemnly, pressing another kiss to Robin’s jaw.

“Do you know what I’m thinking now?” Nancy asked, eyes suddenly alight with a mischief that had Robin’s stomach churning in excitement. More fireworks above them crackled and now she couldn’t resist turning her head up to watch, bright colors exploding against a backdrop of black. A new year cleansed of the Upside-Down. The perfect girl in her arms. All in all, a pretty good night. Robin grinned as she watched them explode one by one.

She felt a hand on her chin then, longer fingernails pressed against her cheek. She let Nancy guide her head back down, feeling oddly chastised.

“I have no idea,” Robin admitted. Nancy winked.

“Take a guess,” She murmured before leaning in again. Robin’s hands found their way up her back, into her hair. Feeling her everywhere. Although the kiss was hard to maintain when they were both grinning so hard.

And from somewhere in the house, voices chorused in relief after their own excited New Years’ celebrations: “Fucking finally!”

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