Chapter Text

Look, it was an astronomically bad idea, Robin knew that. Moving in with Nancy Wheeler of all people? It was a death sentence. But Nancy had found a moderately priced apartment located between their two colleges in Boston, and, well, Robin had done the calculations. Room and board, which were not covered by her scholarships, would be way more expensive than splitting rent and utilities.

Besides, with all of the Upside Down-related activities destroying Hawkins every year, the two hadn’t been able to go off to college in the fall of ‘86 as they’d planned. Instead, they’d stuck around for a few years, due to “natural disasters” putting a halt on their college savings and the uneasy feeling they got whenever they contemplated leaving. Even if Robin had the money to live in the freshman dorms, she’d be the oldest one there. Unlike Steve, she didn’t want to spend her time around people a few years younger than her.

So, in came Nancy, who was the only person Robin actually knew in Massachusetts (and who, in turn, would understand the night terrors that still occasionally woke Robin up to this day), so she really couldn’t turn down the offer.

The real problem was that she had a massive crush on her roommate.

Her newly out roommate.

Her newly out and way out of her league roommate.

It was like a surprise tenth level of hell designed specifically for her.

It didn’t help that Nancy was the perfect roommate. Always cleaned up after herself. Would offer to pick things up from the store for her. Baked killer pies she’d share with Robin. She’d even started participating in Robin’s sporadic movie nights–something Robin had been sure was going to be a solo activity. Robin would pick out a random dusty VHS from work (Family Video surprisingly had an excellent employee transfer policy), pop a bag of microwave popcorn, and veg out on the couch as she took in the flick. Nine times out of ten, it was some brain-rotting menace that really proved not everyone should be allowed near a camera.

At first, Nancy had sat at their little kitchen table (one they had picked off the side of the road–score!) doing her homework. Over the course of their first week living together, when Robin had really been using movies to cope with the homesickness, Nancy drifted from the kitchen to the opposite end of the couch. Robin had happily shared her popcorn with her, and Nancy even engaged in her Mystery Science Theater 3000–style riffing. She was peak girlfriend material, and it made Robin want to bash her head against the wall.

She even brought home a bouquet of flowers every week from her job at the florist. She’d arrange them in a vase on their rickety kitchen table, the light from the window catching on the petals, brightening up the room just a bit more. If Robin let her mind wander, she’d imagine that they were living together under less platonic circumstances and that those flowers Nancy brought were intended for her. That it was just a thing Nancy did because she knew how much Robin secretly loved them and had secretly desired, more than anything, to receive flowers from a girl who loved her–like how guys would give their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day or how Eddie would give Steve on rainy days.

(Really, most of her desires in a relationship came from her dingus best friend and his stupid perfect relationship. Don’t get her wrong, she loved that they were happy, but by god, did it piss a lonely girl off.)

So, yeah, Robin feels like dying as she stares at the wilting camellias and daffodils in the vase, while she tries to muddle her way through her algebra homework. (She thought she was done with math in high school. Why the hell she needed it for a liberal arts degree was beyond her.) Nancy’s out on a first date with some girl from the theatre department, and the only reason Robin hasn’t packed up and moved back to Indiana to live with Steve and Eddie is that she doesn’t want to lose Nancy as a friend.

Robin didn’t get to have many (read: any) female friends growing up. Something about her personality being off-putting and her constant fear that her sexuality would be found out. Nancy was the first real female friend Robin had had in years. A girl who she wasn’t just crushing on. Someone who actually saw and understood her. She didn’t want to give that up just because she couldn't deal with Nancy getting to explore her newfound sexuality.

Sometimes, Robin thought that she was doomed to a life of pining after girls who wouldn’t give her the time of day. And, yeah, sometimes it hurt a little that Nancy did give her the time, but didn’t look at her past the bounds of friendship and trauma bonds.

Robin had just begun to nod off when the front door slammed shut. She jolted up in her chair, wiping a tiny trail of drool from the corner of her mouth.

Nancy stormed into the kitchen and threw open the refrigerator.

Robin watched as her roommate pulled out a container of Chinese takeout and give it the sniff test. “Whoa, there. Bad date?”

“Terrible,” Nancy replied, dumping the pork fried rice onto a plate and nuking it in the microwave. “Barely thirty minutes in, and the girl starts going on about government conspiracies and how we can’t trust the media.”

“Nance, we have first-hand experience with government conspiracies and lies in the media.”

Nancy pulled her plate from the microwave and stirred it around with her fork. “She thinks lizard people run the FBI, Robin. Actual cold-blooded reptiles that eat bugs.”

“Well . . .”

“And she thinks they are putting chemicals in the water to control our minds. And that the government faked the moon landing because they went to Mars instead.” Nancy shook her head, “She had more thoughts, but by then I had stopped listening.”

“Yeah,” Robin closed her textbook. “Even for me, that’s a bit much. Government hiding evidence of Bigfoot or aliens or kids with supernatural powers? Totally within the realm of possibility. But lizard people and mind control? That sounds like something Grandpappy Munson would believe.”

Robin had met Eddie’s extended family a total of once when they came to visit Hawkins from the mountains in Tennessee. Grandpappy Munson was a complete nutjob, rattling off conspiracy theories far beyond what Robin thought plausible, and she was still holding out hope that the Loch Ness Monster was real. Needless to say, he was probably her favorite in the Munson clan.

“On top of all that, she insulted journalism. Said it was a complete waste of time if all that’s published anyway are lies. My entire career is some big joke to her. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“Does she have any room to talk? Isn’t her major just playing make-believe?”

Nancy snorted. “No wonder she can believe all that bullshit.”

“You dodged a bullet. If you two had dated, you’d have to convince yourself that you enjoy her singing in the spring musical.”

Nancy lifted an eyebrow. “Tammy Thompson?”

Robin groaned. “When will everyone let that go? I swear, I’m going to kill Steve for telling the Party.”

“C’mon, it was an accident. Besides, we’ve all had embarrassing crushes.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Okay,” Nancy crossed her arms. “I had a crush on Jason Carver in middle school. Also, I dated your dorky best friend for a whole year.”

“Hey, Steve may be a dork, but he’s a catch! Wait,” Robin paused. “Did you say Jason Carver? As in, tried to kill our friends, Jason Carver? Shitty boyfriend and town brown-noser, Jason Carver?”

“I had a type before Jonathan–and that was ‘all-American boys who my parents would approve of.’”

“That’s a real shitty type.”

“It’s better than ‘any girl who breathes.’”
Nancy shoved a fork full of fried rice in her mouth. It may have been past its best-by date, but holy heavens, did it smell good. That or Robin was just hungry.

“We can’t keep ragging on Steve when he’s not here to defend himself. Besides, he was going through a shit-ton of denial.”

“I’m talking about you, Robbie.”

“Oh.”

See, the thing was, in order to avoid suspicion when they inevitably talked about girls, Robin would pretend to have a crush on just about anyone that walked by. Which wasn’t that hard to do. After all, her other half was Steve Harrington, former king of Hawkins High and heart-throb to the masses. Spending hours watching him flirt with customers and listening to his “doomed” love life instead of working taught her to find the beauty in women she would have otherwise written off because they weren’t Tammy or Vickie or Nancy.

So, he had inadvertently turned her into a ladies’ . . . lady? A Dona Juanita? Whatever it was called when a woman fell hopelessly infatuated with every woman she met. But some days it really bit her in the ass. At least that’s how she felt now, taking in the discomfort in Nancy’s stance.

“Well,” Robin collected herself. “You’re no better. What is this, the fourth first date you’ve been on since the beginning of the semester? And it’s not even midterms yet.”

“You jealous or something?” Nancy smirked.

Yes. Yes, she was jealous because those dates hadn’t been with her!

“No!” She sputtered instead. “Well, maybe yes. How do you have the courage to ask girls out? Every time I try, I get majorly tongue-tied.”

How can I ask you out? She left unsaid. Maybe if she could woman up and ask someone out she could convince her heart to move on from Nancy. That was possible, right? That had to be possible, or else she was not going to survive these next four years.

“Some people find that charming.”

Not as charming as the pink that oh so naturally dusts Nancy’s cheeks. Robin wished she could one day be the cause of the other girl’s blushes. Alas, ‘twas a pipe dream.

“I find that hard to believe. Usually, people just tell me to shut up when that happens.”

“I don’t do that. Do I?” Nancy asked, taking another bite.

Robin wondered where that takeout menu had disappeared to. The junk drawer, perhaps?

“No, but you’ll divert the subject, which is pretty much the same thing.”

“Oh, well I’m sorry.” Nancy stared down at her food, appearing genuinely ashamed about it. “That has not been my intention. I enjoy listening to you ramble.”

Robin swallowed her squeal. “If only I could find someone romantically interested in me who felt the same way.”

“You’ll never know unless you put yourself out there.”

“I guess.”

“You’ve survived worse,” Nancy pointed out in a lighter tone than the horrors they’ve witnessed deserved.

“Well, when you put it like that.”

“I believe in you, Robbie. You’re more charming than you give yourself credit for.”

Robin didn’t know what to do with the compliment. Nancy thought she was charming? She was going to have a heart attack under all the attention the other girl was dishing. She needed to deflect. “How dare you be good at everything. You’re good at writing and giving pep talks. Not to mention your sharp shooting abilities.”

“I am not good at everything. I’m not good at algebra,” she said, gesturing to Robin’s homework.

“Uh, you’ve got to be better than me, Miss Valedictorian.”

“That was three years ago. I’ve probably forgotten everything we learned.”

Robin wanted to growl. How dare Nancy not accept any of the compliments she was giving her. “Could you still maybe help me? I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of equations here.”

Nancy shook her head fondly. “I can see what I can do. You know they have a tutoring center on campus.”

“Why would I need a tutor, when I live with Nancy Wheeler?”

“Did I not just say that I may have forgotten everything?”

“Nancy, you’re one of the smartest people I know. I don’t care if you tell Dustin that, just please don’t tell Erica.”

Nancy chuckled.

“Please? For me?” This was it. She was so close to winning this non-fight that she could almost taste it. It tasked like chow mein. Damn, she really needed to find the number for that restaurant.

The other girl sighed and pulled out the chair next to Robin. “Alright. What are we going over?”

“You’re the best, Nance!”

Nancy hid her face over her shoulder as Robin flipped through the textbook. Victory was sweet. Even better, she had just spotted the takeout menu peeking from underneath the couch.

Chapter Text

“I’m just saying, with the kids all leaving for college next fall, you don’t need to stick around Hawkins. You and Eddie could move to Boston. I hear the metal scene is great here.” Robin didn’t actually know how the metal scene was in Boston. However, it was a big city, and anything had to be better than Hawkins.

“I don’t know, Robs,” Steve sighed. “Eddie won’t say it, but I know he doesn’t want to move too far away from Wayne. Besides, the girls aren’t moving away yet. El and Max are going to a nearby community college, and Erika still has a few more years until she graduates.”

“They’ve still got Hop and Joyce.” Robin twirled the phone cord around her fingers, weaving it over and under each digit and back again. They’d had this conversation countless times by now. The entire party had been encouraging Steve (and by extension, Eddie) to leave Hawkins for years now. Eddie didn’t have much of a future in the town that tried to kill him three years ago. To this day, he had to work a couple of towns away because people still didn’t trust him despite the cover story Owens and his people had given.

Steve didn’t have it much better. She could tell that staying in the same town he had grown up in was weighing him down. He hadn’t been able to make any friends his age who didn’t know the truth behind the Hawkins Lab. Most of the people they graduated with that had stuck around blamed his boyfriend for Chrissy’s death, so Steve didn’t give them the time of day.

There were plenty of young people here that didn’t know of the Creel murders, who Robin was sure Steve could easily befriend. There was even a group of guys who met up to play basketball at the park near her apartment that seemed to have new additions each week. She had told him a couple of times already, but he had dismissed her.

“Please, Stevie. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Robs. But we’ll see each other at Thanksgiving.”

“Ugh, that’s so far away.” Robin slumped back in the chair behind the register. For midday on a Tuesday, there sure was a lack of customers. Robin had been reorganizing the candy display for the umpteenth time when she remembered Steve had Tuesdays off, and he would definitely be sitting at home doing nothing because the kids were in school.

“Tell me about it.” Despite the agony of separation, she could hear his smirk through the phone.

“Working is no fun without you.” The bell over the door of Family Video dinged, signaling the arrival of a customer. Drat. “Speaking of, someone just walked in.”

“Are they cute?”

She raised her eyebrows. “If they are, will that convince you to move?”

“Hey, I’m in a committed relationship. I was asking for you.”

Robin glanced at the little old man making his way to the war movie section. “That’s gonna be a no.”

“Darn.”

“You trying to live vicariously through me or something? Is Eddie boring you?”

“What? No, no.” Steve sighed, “I was just hoping that things would pick up for you, now that you’re living in the big city. That you’d have more chances to meet girls like you, who see you for the amazing person you are.”

“Aw, dingus. You’re gonna make me puke,” She joked. If accepting compliments from Nancy was bad, accepting them from Steve was worse. He didn’t deal them out often, preferring to show his love through sarcasm and sass, so when he did, you knew he meant them. “But seriously, I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, alright. Don’t kill anyone!”

“No promises!” She hung up, a fond smile making its way onto her face.

Robin tried to shake the cord off her fingers, but it barely budged. Panicking, she frantically shook her hand until the cord slipped down her fingers. She really needed to stop doing that. She made a mental note to leave the cord alone when on the phone. However, by the end of the next call an actual customer had made, she was halfway to creating a cat’s cradle.

__________________________

Fresh foxglove and peony sat in the vase on the table when Robin got home that night. She didn’t know that flower shops carried poisonous plants such as foxglove, but ever since Nancy had gotten a job at the florist’s down the block, she had begun bringing home flowers Robin had never seen incorporated in the cellophane-wrapped bouquets grocery stores carry.

Nancy had initially wanted to get a job with the local paper, that way she could get more experience before she finished her degree. But after a month of classes (and the paper flat out refusing to hire new help due to budget cuts), she decided to find a job that wouldn’t cause her to burn out before Christmas. Turned out she had a real passion for floral arrangements. It had become a creative outlet for her. Robin hadn’t seen her so consistently happy since Nancy had bought a new revolver for herself for her twentieth birthday.

It was, in a word, nice to see the joy this job brought her. Actually, the language hadn’t been invented to perfectly describe the way Nancy lit up a room while she told Robin of her colorful, pollen-filled creations. (And Robin should know, seeing that she was fluent in six languages.) It simultaneously made Robin’s heart melt and explode from the affection she had for the other woman. Her insides were sure to look like a warzone. It almost made her nervous about searching for a healthcare provider. Who would take her if she was this big of a mess?

Whatever bubbling thoughts she had of Nancy’s joy came crashing down when she saw the new note on their shared calendar as she went to grab a Coke. 7:30-Date w/ Tiffany was written under this coming Friday in Nancy’s precise cursive. To say she despaired would be dramatic.

She despaired.

When Nancy had suggested hanging a shared calendar on the refrigerator, Robin had naively thought it would be used for things such as cleaning schedules or grocery runs. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it would be used to let her know when Nancy would be out on a date. She probably wouldn’t have agreed to its existence otherwise.

Soda forgotten, Robin stormed to her room. She didn’t even take the time to shuck off her work vest before flinging herself onto her bed. She groaned into her pillow.

This love was killing her. Why couldn’t feelings come with an on/off switch?

Robin didn’t know how long she lay there. Hours, probably. She hadn’t checked the clock. All she knew was that her bladder was going to burst if she didn’t do something about it quickly.

Her muscles were stiff as she made her way to the bathroom. She was getting old, she thought for the hundredth time. In reality, she was only twenty-one, but there must have been something in that Upside Down air that sped up the aging process.

As she was coming out of the bathroom, she spotted Nancy on the couch, a paperback of Great Expectations resting on the blanket tossed over her lap. She was dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, which, judging by the fact it had “Hawkins High Band” emblazoned on the front, Robin was sure it had once been hers. Fuzzy sock-clad feet stuck out from underneath the blanket. She looked like she had just woken up from a nap. Robin didn’t blame her. Dickens could be a snoozefest. However, the sight of Nancy cuddled up on the couch sent a spike of adrenaline through her veins. Robin wanted to snuggle up next to her so badly that her bones ached.

Nancy gazed up at her, blinking sleep from her eyes. She smiled up at her. “I didn’t know you were home,” she said with a yawn.

Robin’s face flushed. She could feel sweat gathering in her pits. “Yep, just been in my room,” she rushed before ducking back into her bedroom.

She couldn’t keep living like this. There was no way she could spend her life avoiding her roommate every time Robin was overwhelmed by her mere existence. She’d never be able to be in the same room as her.

She needed to get over Nancy. In order to do that, she had to do the impossible. Robin was going to ask a girl out.

__________________________

Robin had lucked out when choosing her major. Who knew there would be so many lesbians studying literature? Well, really there were only three other women that she knew of, but by Hawkins’ standards, that was a crowd.

Janice and Nickki were both in her Gothic literature class. When the three of them realized their shared interest, they had begun sitting together in class. However, Robin couldn’t ask out either of them because they had been in an on-again-off-again relationship since orientation, and frankly, she had stopped keeping track of their relationship status.

So, that left Camilla from her Russian literature class. Camilla was a sweet girl. She was always willing to share her notes with Robin, whenever Robin realized she had zoned out during the lecture. Camilla also had a great sense of humor, and she could recite the entire first chapter of Anna Karenina from memory. Plus, she was absolutely gorgeous with her light blonde hair and 5’3 frame. On paper, she was the ideal candidate to ask out.

So, after class, that’s exactly what she did. Robin had offered to walk her to her next class, and as soon as they were away from prying ears, she’d asked her to the movies. Friday night. Same time as Nancy’s date with Tiffany. With all the blood rushing to her ears, Robin had barely been able to catch Camilla’s enthusiastic “Yes!”

She had almost passed out, but she’d finally successfully asked a girl out! Robin was bursting with excitement as she made her way home, she had to tell someone.

She paused as she unlocked the door. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell Nancy that she’d finally gotten a date. Nancy told her about her dates all the time, so what was the big deal?

The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

Eddie’s voice was unusually chipper. “Harrison’s Necromancers and Crematorium. If we can’t bring ‘em back, your cremation is free. Would you like to schedule an appointment?”

“No wonder Steve never lets you answer the phone.”

“He just usually gets to it first. How’ve ya been, Birdie?”

Robin rolled her eyes, as she debated explaining why Steve always raced to the phone. “I’ve been pretty good. How’s the record shop?”

“Killer. My manager Zack has been talking about promoting me, which means I’ll get a pay bump and the final say on what album we play in the store that day.”

Robin could imagine the smug look on his face. If there was one thing Eddie loved, it was controlling the music. “That’s great! I hope he does. You’ve been working there for a while too, right?”

“Two and a half years in November. So, is this a social call, or should I get Steve?”

“Is he there?”

“He’s just finishing up his shower, and, oh, wait, he’s coming out of the bathroom.” Eddie pulled the phone away from him. His voice was slightly muffled as he yelled like he had pressed his palm against the receiver. “Hey, Stevie! Robin wants to talk to you!” Eddie put the phone back to his mouth. “He’s coming.”

There was a shuffle, and Steve’s voice was in her ear. “Hey, Robbie, what’s up?”

Robin couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’ve got a date!”

“Shut up!” His voice brightened. “You finally ask Nance out?”

She frowned. Steve knew full and well that Robin had a crush on Nancy. He’d figured it out sometime in between flambéing Vecna and Max waking up from her coma. After Nancy broke up with Jonathan and came out a year later, Steve started pressuring Robin to ask her out. She’d spent many hours explaining to him how that wouldn’t be possible. We’re just friends and Nancy doesn’t think of me like that, had been her mantra for the entire summer and fall of ‘87. She thought she had finally convinced him of it when he stopped bringing it up. Apparently not.
“No, it’s a girl in one of my classes.”

“Oh, well, hey! Congratulations. I’m happy for you,” he said in his supportive best friend voice. “What’s she like?”

“She’s nice and pretty. And she’s read nearly all of Dostoevsky’s works.”

“She sounds perfect for you,” Steve chuckled. “So, what does Nancy think of her?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

Steve hummed.

“What? I haven’t seen her since this morning. I’m going to tell her when she gets home.” She wasn’t. At least, that’s what she was leaning towards.

“Robin?”

“Yes, Steve?” She tried to keep her voice light and cheery. She knew that despite the distance, Steve could tell that something was up. Maybe it was a soulmate thing. Or, more realistically, it was because he knew what it was like to use dating to get over Nancy Wheeler. It was probably the latter.

Steve sighed. “Just don’t force yourself to date this girl if there are no feelings there. That would be unkind to her and unkind to yourself.”

“I won’t,” Robin promised. And she wasn’t. She just needed time to get over Nancy and fall for Camilla.

__________________________

The flickering television cast a blue glow over the room. Through bleary eyes, Robin stared at the screen, not quite awake enough to comprehend the plot. It was some cheesy science fiction flick where you could see the strings on the ufos. The antagonists were currently wandering through a graveyard with cardboard headstones. She thought they might be zombies, but that could be her sleep-addled brain talking. What did zombies have to do with alien invasions anyway?

The day had been set up to be amazing. It had been a week since her first date with Camilla, and they had gone on their second date today: bowling. For all of Robin’s clumsiness, she was actually a pretty decent bowler. She’d been prepared to whoo the girl, Camilla, with her skills over greasy fries and nachos with that neon orange plastic-y cheese.

The date had been fun, and Camilla had talked about scheduling a third one. So, things were getting serious, well, more serious than she had ever been with a girl romantically. Robin should feel head over heels for her.

She felt nothing, and it was really starting to irritate her. Because whenever Camilla would smile at her with her big baby blue eyes, all Robin could think was how much prettier the color of Nancy’s were.

Robin had just begun to succumb to sleep when the front door banged open.

Robin squeezed her eyes shut tight, hoping Nancy would think she was asleep and go straight to her bedroom. She didn’t know why she did this. All evening, all Robin wanted to do was spend time with her roommate. Now that she might be able to, she was passing up on it. What was wrong with her?

“Oh! Sorry, Robbie.” Nancy’s giggle turned into a hiccup.

Nancy only hiccuped when she was drunk, something Robin was exceedingly jealous of every time she caught a case of the hiccups. And that was frequently. She didn’t know that Nancy had plans tonight. She hadn’t written anything on the calendar. Granted, Robin had yet to mark her dates with Camilla on their calendar, so she didn’t have room to say anything.

Had Nancy been out on another date? Had she brought her date home? She hasn’t done that yet. Robin was not prepared to face the girl lucky enough to get to have sex with Nancy Wheeler.

But as she listened to her roommate make her way to her room, she only heard one set of footsteps. Robin peered from over the couch. There was no one in the entryway. Unless Nancy had given her a piggyback ride, there wasn’t another girl.

Robin’s shoulders relaxed. She wouldn’t have to cope with Nancy having an active sex life yet. Just as she started to settle back into the couch, another thought struck her. Just because she didn’t bring a girl home, didn’t mean Nancy hadn’t been out with one. Judging from the upbeat tune she heard Nancy warbling, wherever she had been, she’d had fun. What if this was the end of Nancy’s first date streak? What if she started seriously dating someone, and Robin just had to cope anytime the girl was over?

Robin knew that these thoughts were unfair to Nancy. She had gone on a date tonight too. A date that had gone really well, at least how some people might consider it.

Robin chastised herself. She knew she had no right to be upset. She needed to stop wallowing and be happy for her friend. After all, Nancy would be happy for her too.

On the television, the alien zombie lady killed a man using only her comically long fingernails. Robin felt completely lost. Everyone knew that aliens captured humans to run experiments on them, and zombies only cared about eating human brains. So, why the hell did the zombie lady not seem to care about her victim?

“Did I wake you?” Nancy stood in the hallway, water glass in hand, wearing an old pair of gym shorts so short they disappeared under the hem of her sleep shirt.

“No, you’re good.”

“What are you watching?”

“I’m not even sure at this point.”

“Can I join?”

Robin gulped. She could do this. She could exist in the same room as Nancy. Alone.

“Yeah, sure.” She folded herself up onto one couch cushion, so Nancy could sit on the other end without them touching.

Nancy didn’t seem to get the memo. She plopped right down next to her, taking the other end of Robin’s blanket and laying it across her own lap. Sober Nancy didn’t ever sit this close to her on movie nights. They always sat on separate ends of the couch with their own blankets. Robin could feel the heat radiating off of Nancy.

Robin steadied herself. “So, what have you been up to tonight?”

“My study group and I decided to go out for drinks after a particularly challenging study session.”

Robin struggled against the smile threatening to break out on her face. “Oh, cool. I assume you had fun?”

“I did,” Nancy stared at her water glass.

Underneath the blanket, their knees brushed. And suddenly all Robin could think about was the warmth of Nancy’s smooth, bare skin. This wasn’t good.

Robin forced her thoughts away from Nancy’s body and back to the person herself. “So, what were you guys studying?”

“Spanish. We’ve got a midterm on Monday, and half of it is going to be over stuff Professora Martinez just taught.”

“You know I’m fluent in Spanish,” Robin reminded her. “I could have helped you.”

“I didn’t want to put you out. You’ve been busy with your own classes and work.”

“I wouldn’t have minded. I like talking about languages.”

Nancy simply shook her head, focus returning to the movie. The aliens had set up their base on Earth in the graveyard. Robin looked closer at the backdrop.

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

Robin let out a laugh, that was more exhale than anything. “Look at the background. They’re not even outside like they were in the earlier graveyard scenes. They’re just in some room.”

Nancy squinted her eyes at the screen. “Did they not have the budget to keep shooting there?”

“No clue.”

“Why are the aliens summoning vampires?”

“Huh, I guess their costumes do look like vampires. I thought they were supposed to be zombies. They’ve been acting like the brainless undead the entire movie.”

Nancy snorted. “So like Eddie?”

“I’m going to tell him you said that,” Robin grinned.

“Don’t you dare,” Nancy’s eyes widened. “If you do, he’s going to complain about it to Mike, and then I’m never going to hear the end of it from either of them and Will.”

“Right, I forgot Will’s also sort of undead.” She hadn't been close to Jonathan back then, but she had been at the vigil thrown for Will and Barb.

Barb. Sometimes she forgot that she existed. That she had once been such a pillar in Robin's life. The two of them had been thick as thieves before high school. Robin had never felt pain like when they drifted apart. It took the better part of her freshman year to heal from it. Guilt tinged in the back of her mind. How could she ever let herself forget about Barb?

“Sometimes I forget you weren’t there for all of it,” Nancy mused. “It feels like we’ve been friends for much longer than three years.”

Right, it was only a little over three years since they walked through the Upside Down. She remembered the jealousy she used to harbor for Nancy. Barb had chosen her over Robin, after all. At least, that's how it felt. Now, she could hardly recall ever feeling ill will toward the other girl. It seemed like they had been friends for nearly a lifetime. High school grudges are pointless when the world nearly ends multiple times over.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“I can’t imagine my life without you. Is that crazy?”

Oh, god, she was going to implode. “No, I understand.”

“I’m glad you’re in my life.”

“Me too.” She was, even if it wasn’t in the capacity that she wanted it to be. Robin would take any bit of her that she gave.

Nancy leaned her body against Robin’s arm, resting her head on the other girl’s shoulder. Robin froze, fearful that any movement she made would cause Nancy to move away. However, if she needed to do something or she was sure she would combust.

“So how was your date last week?” God, she was a glutton for punishment.

“Huh?” Nancy looked up at her. “With Tiffany?”

“Were there any others?” She hoped not.

“No, just the one.” Nancy laid her head back on Robin’s shoulder. “And I won’t be going out with her again.”

Excitement flared within her. “Why? Did you not have a good time.”

“No, we had fun. There was just something missing. She just wasn’t what I’m looking for.”

“And what are you looking for?”

Nancy yawned. “I don’t know. Someone who’s smart and tall. Someone who I enjoy listening to. Who I feel comfortable around.”

Nancy trailed off. Robin waited to see if she had any more to say, but judging by the soft exhales that fanned against her neck, she was asleep. Robin had spent enough time with drunk Nancy to know that once she closed her eyes, she was out for the night. Dead to the world. Robin could practice her trumpet, and she wouldn’t stir.

She could turn off the tv and worm her way out from under Nancy so she could sleep in her own bed. Nancy wouldn’t even notice.

She didn’t move. This moment, with the shorter girl tucked into her side, was too precious to waste.

Robin untangled her legs from her criss-cross apple sauce configuration and propped them up on the coffee table. She let herself sink deeper into the couch and stared at the television screen with bleary eyes. She was out before the credits rolled.

Nancy was gone when Robin woke up. Her couch cushion was cold to the touch. She might have thought the whole thing had been a dream if not for Nancy’s empty water glass still sitting on the coffee table.

Chapter Text

“You’re telling me you had to wear those little sailor outfits for an entire summer, and you don’t have any pictures of it?” Camilla asked, gesturing to the teenager who had scooped their ice cream.

Robin and Camilla had spent the day wandering around the Copley Place Mall. One of the more mundane things she learned after working at Starcourt during the summer of ‘85 was that all malls look basically the same. Same storefronts, same food courts, even the same Scoops Ahoy with its god-awful sailor’s music and the bow of a ship sticking out the front window that shoppers threw their trash in. (Robin had always made Steve fish that trash out, even though he was barely taller than her.)

However, Camilla had thought the ice cream parlor was absolutely adorable, so Robin let herself be dragged into it. At least she wasn’t still completely burned out on ice cream.

“I told you, I didn’t have a camera. I’m poor!” She actually had a few Polaroids of her and Steve goofing around that summer taped to her bedroom mirror, but she didn’t want Camilla to know that. She’d die of embarrassment. No, those Polariods they took were just for her and Steve.

Well, and Eddie. He had made it abundantly clear how much he enjoyed objectifying Steve in his uniform. Maybe even a little bit too clear. The man had no filter, and while Steve did share details about their sex life with Robin, Eddie had made things a bit too graphic for the lesbian to stomach.

“Do you at least still have the outfit?”

“It was four years ago, and I hated that job. I trashed it as soon as I received my last paycheck.”

That, at least, was half-true. In the days following what she had thought was going to be her last day on earth, she and Steve had spent their time holed up in his empty house. It was hard for her to be alone. Every time she was, she felt like she was back in that interrogation room, wondering when the Russians were going to come back and finish her off. Wondering if Steve was dead.

He didn’t say anything, but she knew that the whole ordeal had messed Steve up too. Even going to the bathroom alone was a nightmare. Anytime one of them had to go, the other would talk to them from the other side of the door. At least until they stopped giving a shit and started sitting in the bathroom while the other one pissed.

On the third night after everything, they lit the firepit in Steve’s backyard and burned their uniforms Viking funeral style. It was meant to be a way of cleansing themselves from their night with the Russians. Unfortunately, they had misjudged how flammable the polyester the clothes were made from was. Steve nearly lost his eyebrows tossing his sailor hat in.

Camilla sighed and half-heartedly shoved her plastic spoon into her ice cream. “I wish I could have seen it. I bet you turned all of the ladies' heads in those short shorts.”

“Trust me, I did not,” Robin smirked. “I had this super annoying coworker who hogged all of their attention.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It was, but he grew on me.” Robin smiled down at her cup of mint chip ice cream. She was never really partial to the flavor back when she worked at Scoops. However, it was Steve’s favorite, and she was feeling homesick.

Once they finished their frozen treats, the girls trashed their cups and continued their journey through the shops.

She and Camilla had been going out for nearly a month now. They spent whatever free time they had in each other's company. She and Camilla were having fun.

Robin was happy. She was.

So why did it feel like she was having to convince herself of it?

Somewhere deep down, she knew it was shitty to keep dating Camilla. She wasn’t interested in her in the way she should be, and, as Steve had warned, she was essentially leading her on. However, she kept hoping that with each date, she’d fall in love with her.

She really did like her. Camilla was a textbook great friend and girlfriend. She just didn’t get butterflies when she was around. Not like she did with Nancy.

The fragrance of paper and ink enveloped them as they entered Waldenbooks. Camilla suggested they have a little competition to see who could be the first to find six books with a color of the rainbow in each title. To make things more interesting, the loser had to buy a book for the winner.

Robin, to the eternal dismay of Steve and Nancy, did not have a competitive bone in her body. However, she was more than happy to watch Camilla as she practically skipped to the romance section, throwing a taunt over her shoulder at her.

Robin didn’t know how the other girl had that much energy. Usually, the smell of books dulled Robin’s senses, leaving her functioning at least at half her normal energy level. Because of this, whenever she was overwhelmed, she liked to hide in an empty corner of the nearest bookstore or library, and let the silence and the aroma calm her frantic nerves.

She could have really used a few minutes in the Waldenbooks to calm down during the whole Starcourt fiasco. Might have made learning about the existence of unearthly monsters a bit easier. But, she couldn’t change the past. Besides, Mr. Harrington’s neglected home office and all its dusty books had worked well enough in the aftermath.

Despite not being overly concerned with the outcome of their friendly game, she knew she still needed to act like she had tried to win. Robin headed over to the nonfiction section on the opposite side of the store from her date.

Maybe she should have started searching in the fiction section. She had already gone through two rows of shelves, and the only book she had found was one on blue whales. In that time, she had thought of all the fiction books she knew with colors in the title. She decided that as soon as she was done with this section, she would head over to the kids’ section nearby to nab Anne of Green Gables and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

She took a step back to get a better look at the bottom row, jolting in surprise when she bumped into someone behind her.

“I’m so sor–” Robin spun around on one foot to apologize, but the words died on her tongue.

“Robin,” Nancy blinked up at her.

“Nance, hey! Oh!” Robin, still spinning on one foot, lost her balance and started to go down.

Springing into action, Nancy dropped the book she had been holding and grabbed ahold of her before she could faceplant on the ugly-ass carpet floor.

The two stood there for a few moments as Robin regained her balance. She caught Nancy’s eyes, and huffed out a laugh.

“Can’t go anywhere, can I?”

She smiled up at her. “Don’t think so.”

Robin was hyper-aware of Nancy’s hands still clutching her arms. Her skin tingled at the touch. Every nerve in her body shouting for more, more. Their faces were only a few inches apart. Robin’s lips ached. Longing to press them against Nancy’s lips swept over her like a tidal wave. She faintly remembered something about not resisting the water–that it’ll only drag you in deeper.

But she needed to do just that: resist. It wasn’t right for her to be thinking these things. It wasn’t respectful to Nancy, her friend.

Also, Robin had a girlfriend. A girlfriend who was wandering around in the same store as them. A girlfriend who, despite not being in love with, she didn’t want to hurt.

Robin felt like the shittest person in the world. She couldn’t be letting her mind wander like that. Even if she didn’t act on her thoughts, it still felt like she was cheating.

The feeling was reminiscent of when Robin’s parents tried out the whole church thing when she was in middle school. The preacher had screamed about the sins of the flesh and how men who lay with other men would burn in hell for eternity, while Robin had sat in the back row trying not to stare at Tammy Thompson a few pews away.

(Her parents quit making the effort to go a few weeks later. Sometimes Robin wonders if it was because of those sermons. That maybe they knew their daughter was different, and didn’t want her to think they agreed with those people.

Or maybe they just missed sleeping in on Sundays.)

“I didn’t know you would be here,” Nancy continued. “You should have said something. We could have come together.”

“Oh, um, actually . . .”

“Robs, I found another one.” As if summoned, Camilla came bounding around one of the aisles of selves. She stopped when she noticed Nancy. “Oh, hi there. Robs, who’s your friend?”

Nancy’s arms fell. A sour look washed over her face as she inspected Camilla.

Weird.

“This, um. This is Nancy. She’s my roommate.”

Camilla beamed at Nancy, and, to the horror of both roommates, embraced Nancy in a hug. “Nice to meet you, Nancy. Robs has told me so much about you. It’s good to finally put a name to a face.”

Nancy politely backed away from Camilla. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Oh, sorry, I’m Camilla.”

Nancy looked to Robin for help. She shrank back, realizing there was no way that she could hide Camilla from her anymore. Either she could claim the two were friends at the risk of hurting Camilla. Or she could own up to their relationship at the risk of . . .

What?

Her feelings for Nancy were clearly one-sided. Three years of purely platonic friendship had proven it. She wouldn’t care if Robin was dating anyone. So why did she ever feel like she needed to keep things a secret?

“You know, Nancy,” Robin slowly started. She hoped the other girl would indulge her, at the risk of not hurting Camilla’s feelings. “Camilla. My girlfriend.”

The words tasted like acid. Robin wanted to put her mouth under a faucet and rinse them out. Gargle a whole bottle of mouthwash. She hoped that visceral reaction was because she had to say it to Nancy.

(She didn’t want to examine it deeper.)

Nancy’s smile fell. She stared at the two of them with wide eyes. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about Camilla,” Robin lied. “We’ve been dating for almost a month.”

“A month this coming Friday,” Camilla beamed. She, blessedly, hadn’t seemed to analyze why Nancy was shocked by her existence. Robin exhaled for the first time since the beginning of their conversation.

“Well, congratulations,” Nancy said.

Something about her words seemed off. Maybe she was embarrassed to have not known her roommate had been dating someone for a whole month. Guilt seeped into the pit of Robin’s stomach. She was a bad friend for not having said anything.

Nancy continued, taking a step away from them. “I should probably be going. I’ve got a . . . I’ve got a study thing to get to.”

Robin watched as Nancy made her escape from the bookstore. She didn’t even pick up the books she had dropped when she caught Robin. Just left them scattered on the floor. Robin bent down and picked them up.

“She seems nice.” Robin jumped, nearly dropping the books back on the floor. She had forgotten Camilla was there.

“Yeah, she is.”

“Pretty too.”

Robin at least had the sense enough to not agree out loud.

“Looks like I won,” Camilla said, holding up her stack of books.

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“Guess it’s time for me to pick out my prize, unless you want to do a rematch? Double or nothing?”

Robin let herself smile at that. “You’re on.”

“Great,” Camilla beamed. “We’ll put these back, then begin.”

“Sounds good.” Maybe a little competition is just what she needed to keep herself from dwelling on Nancy. The last thing she needed was to analyze that hurt look on her face as she rushed off.

“Great! Prepare to lose again, Buckley.”

“In your dreams, Jones.”

__________________________

She didn’t see Nancy much in the following days. The other girl was either out of the apartment or holed up in her room, door closed and radio on low. She didn’t even come out for movie nights anymore.

Robin got home one day to find a bouquet of snowdrops and pink carnations laying on the counter. Not in a vase of water or even with a wet paper towel pressed around the stems. Just on the counter, still in its paper wrappings, drying out, as if Nancy completely forgot she left them there. It was unlike Nancy to forget to put the flowers up. If anything, it was something Robin would do–completely forgetting about their existence because she got distracted doing something else.

Was Nancy feeling well? She had seemed fine when Robin ran into her in the kitchen that morning. Well, she didn’t seem any different than how she had recently been acting. Maybe she was suffering from some long-running illness like mono. Perhaps she simply didn’t have the energy to finish putting up the flowers.

Robin double-checked the key hook by the door. Her keys were on hanging on their hook, so she was home.

Robin grabbed the vase from beneath the kitchen sink. It was a simple thing Robin had found at a thrift store shortly after Nancy started bringing flowers home. She liked it because the aquamarine glass reminded her of Nancy’s eyes. Also, it had only cost a quarter, and Robin loved a good deal.

Once the vase was filled with water, she tore the paper away from the bouquet and poured the food packet that came with it into the water. She used one of the stems to mix the powder into the water. Once she was satisfied that it had been well incorporated, she took out their kitchen scissors and began to trim down the stems so they would fit the vase. She cut them at an angle like she had seen Nancy do. She had told her once that cutting them that way allowed the flowers to soak up more water.

If you cut it in just the right way, it prolongs its death.

She felt there was something poetic in that. Being forced to stay beautiful–to look lively–by same the person responsible for your demise.

Or maybe she was just another English major reading too deeply into things.

Whatever the case, the flowers were beautiful. The pink in the carnations almost appeared as if it had been painted on the petals. The buds of the snowdrops looked like little fairy skirts. The pairing was delicate, like the beginnings of spring that could be so easily taken away by the lingering winter. But it had an undeniable strength. Like if the frost were to come back, the flowers would survive.

In a way, it made her think of Nancy and her bedroom back in Hawkins. Sure, Nancy was a sawed-off gun-toting badass who took shit from no one, but she hadn’t always been that way. Nancy, as evidenced by her childhood bedroom, had been able to experience girlhood in a way Robin had never felt connected to.

Nancy had been able to learn ballet and decorate her room in pink and frills and movie posters of celebrity crushes. She had been able to express her femininity shamelessly. And even when the horrors of the world had been thrown at her, she didn’t reject any of her femininity after she picked up a shotgun as movies so often forced women to do. Sure, she had strengthened into herself, but she remained the same, unapologetic feminine girl she had always been. She had weathered the winter, and she had come out intact on the other side.

Yeah, maybe Robin was reading too far into things. Still, she liked this bouquet, and maybe that was in large part due to her admiration of Nancy Wheeler.

Now if only she could spend time with her friend again.

Chapter Text

It had been almost a month since Robin and Nancy had been in the same room for more than ten minutes, and Robin was really missing her friend. Those first two Nancy-less weeks, Robin had thought she’d just been burying herself in her flashcards to prepare for midterms. Now, midterms were long over, and there had been no change in Nancy’s presence in their shared spaces in the apartment.

If it had been Steve who was absent, Robin would have just grabbed her pillow and moved into his room, forcing him to at least acknowledge her existence. But this was Nancy, and despite being one of her best friends, they just weren’t close like that. Robin would need to have some sort of verbal permission before moving into Nancy’s room. She didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. (Steve’s comfort, however, didn’t matter. He was stuck with her forever, whether he liked it or not.)

Though, Robin didn’t have much room to complain. She’d been preoccupied too. If she wasn’t working or attending a lecture, she was with Camilla. Studying with Camilla. Having lunch with Camilla. Going on dates with Camilla. Robin barely had time to keep to herself anymore.

And usually, this sort of thing would drive her insane–Robin loved being around her people, but she needed time to recharge away from everyone. However, since Nancy was avoiding her and Steve was hundreds of miles away, she welcomed Camilla’s near-constant presence. If not for her girlfriend (girlfriend! the word in relation to her still didn’t feel real), Robin knew that she would be a lonely, depressed mess at worse and a terror to her and Steve’s phone bills at least.

“Okay, something is up with you. Spill.”

Robin twisted her fingers in the phone cord. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’ve been all moody lately,” Steve said. “Did something happen? I know you didn’t break up with Camilla. You would have told me about that by now.”

“No, Camilla and I are doing fine. Great, even.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s silly,” she mumbled, taking a look around her apartment. She knew that Nancy was out. Where she was and when she’d be back was the only question. Still, she hadn’t voiced whatever was going on with her and Nancy yet, and there was a small part of her that wondered if she was blowing things out of proportion.

“It can’t be silly if it’s bothering you this much.” His voice was so sincere, damn it. How could she not believe him?

“I just haven’t gotten to spend much time with Nancy lately.”

“Okay, and? You’re in a new relationship. Of course, you are going to be spending more time away from your friends to be with your girlfriend.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Okay, first off, when you and Eddie started dating, I saw you the exact same amount. Eddie just happened to be with you more often.”

“Well, you and I worked together, and you practically lived at my house for most of the week.”

“But Nancy and I live together full time, so it’s not because of Camilla. At least, I don’t think it’s because of her.” And there came that doubt again. That maybe this whole thing was nothing but in her mind. “Nancy’s just been busy. At least she says she’s been busy. I don’t know.” Robin leaned against the kitchen wall in silence for a moment, allowing herself to ponder over her words.

“So what’s your second point?”

“That was my second point: I’m afraid that Nancy is avoiding me.”

“She’s probably not avoiding you. She’s probably just busy. You know how much of an overachiever she is. Nancy has been looking forward to college since at least middle school–if not longer. She probably just wants to knock her first semester out of the park.”

Robin shook her hand, trying to free her fingers from the cord. “Then why does it feel like she’s avoiding me? It’s like every time I walk into a room, she walks out.”

“Well, would she have any reason to be avoiding you?”

“I don’t think so. She hasn’t been in the same room long enough for me to have put my foot in my mouth over something. She’s been acting weird since–” She stopped.

Oh, maybe that was the problem.

“Since when?”

“Since she met Camilla.”

“And why do you think that is? You did tell her about Camilla, right? Robin?”

She rested her forehead against the wall as if to hide from him. “No. I didn’t”

“Robin,” Steve huffed out his most I’m-not-upset-I’m-disappointed sigh. He had gotten really good at it over the years.

She let out a long groan. “I am the worst person in the world.”

“What happened?”

“Camilla and I ran into her at Waldenbooks, and Camilla introduced herself to Nancy, rightfully assuming that Nancy knew who she was. And I might have completely embarrassed Nancy by pretending to have told her about Camilla already.”

“Robin!”

“I know!” She flung her arms out, nearly dropping the phone at the sudden movement. “But she seemed fine afterward, just a bit more busy than normal. I thought she was okay.”

“Robs,” he sighed. She vividly imagined him with his eyes closed, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose. “You know how much Nance hates looking like she doesn’t know something. Hell, you know how much she hates not knowing something!”

“Then why hasn’t she said something about it?”

“Look, you remember after Starcourt, when Max shut herself off from everyone?”

“Yeah. Is she doing that again?” She really, really hoped that this was a change of subject.

“So you remember when we would ask her how she was doing, and she would tell us she was fine, and that’d be that? But really, she was dealing with all sorts of things she didn’t want us to know about because she was so desperate to seem strong and independent. Like she didn’t need to rely on anyone?”

Drat. She knew what he was doing.

“Nancy is like that.” He said it like he was making some profound, knock-your-socks-off revelation. He was probably really proud of it too. She’d be irritated if she wasn’t so damn fond of him. “She’s one of the smartest people we know, and for some reason or another, she still feels like she needs to prove herself. Just like Max, she doesn’t want to seem weak by discussing her emotions.”

Robin heard the door open. She pressed the landline to her chest to muffle Steve’s voice, and listened as Nancy made her way through the apartment. She didn’t even look towards the kitchen, where Robin had now perched herself on top of the counter. There was no way she hadn’t seen her, especially because Nancy never passed up on scolding her for sitting on the counter. It was like she had been forcing herself to keep her eyes trained on the ground.

“Hey, Stevie,” She said, interrupting whatever story he had been regaling for her. “I’m gonna have to let you go. Nance just walked in.”

“Oh, okay, well–”

Robin hung up the receiver, not waiting for him to finish. She knew she would be hearing it from him the next time they spoke, but every moment she spent not talking to Nancy she would lose her courage to even approach the subject.

She needed to apologize, even though she was sure that not telling Nancy about Camilla wasn’t the reason she had been avoiding her, despite what Steve said. That kind of pettiness belonged to Eddie. Nancy was more of the “hash it out” kind of person when dealing with interpersonal conflicts. She didn’t like wasting time holding onto grudges. No, she said exactly what she was thinking, then would deal with the fallout later.

She admired that about Nancy. Robin really only felt comfortable confronting people over issues if she was close to them or if they were bothering her friends. Any other circumstance had her tripping over herself trying to smooth things over, then talking shit about the interaction with her friends later. As a system, it worked for her. Hell, if it weren’t for the very real fear that her suspicions were true, she would have already cornered Nancy in the kitchen to talk things out.

Maybe Steve was right, though. Maybe it really had upset her, and she felt like she couldn’t talk about it. She’d just have to see.

Robin knocked on Nancy’s bedroom door. “Nance, can we talk?”

There was a bit of shuffling paper, then Nancy’s voice. “Sure, come in.”

Robin opened the door, and what she saw on the other side horrified her. Nancy Wheeler, little miss neat freak, was sitting on her bed, back to the door, curled up in a blanket, amongst the most clutter Robin had ever seen in her room. An empty plate and two half-full water glasses sat on her bedside table. Laundry hung from the back of her desk chair. Several stacks of books had been abandoned on the floor. The wire trash basket was filled to the brim and then some. It was like a Nancy-shaped tornado had blown through the room. Frankly, it didn’t hold a candle to Eddie’s bedroom mess and mystery stains, but still, this was Nancy.

“Are you okay?”

Nancy shuffled around to face her better. Her eyes were tinged red and a little puffy, though may have been the lighting. “I’m fine.”

“Feels like I’ve barely seen you the past few weeks.”

“Sorry, guess I’m just caught up in classwork.” She held up a stack of notecards to prove it.

Relief spread throughout her. “Oh, okay! Well, sorry for interrupting! I just kind of realized that I never apologized for that day at the mall with Camilla.”

Nancy furrowed her brow. “Why would you need to apologize?”

“Well, I didn’t tell you about her and then said I did. That was kind of shitty of me. I think I was just so caught up in finally dating someone, I completely forgot to mention it. So I am so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Nancy smiled up at her. “I’m happy for you. She seems nice.”

Robin forced a smile back. “She is.”

“Well, I’ve still got some studying to do, so if you don’t mind . . .”

“Right, right!” Robin backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

She made her way into her room and flopped down on her own bed, arms automatically curling around a throw pillow.

Everything was good. Great, even. Nancy hadn’t been avoiding her, and she approved of Camilla. Things should be going back to normal soon. At least she hoped.

____________

Thanksgiving just about blindsided her. Robin could have sworn it was still mid-October, but calendars told her she only had a few weeks left until winter break. She hoped those few weeks would speed by like the rest of the semester had. She couldn’t wait to get out of her tense apartment and back to bitching with her best friend in person.

She hadn’t been able to go back to Hawkins for Thanksgiving. She and Nancy had originally planned on driving back home, but then Nance’s parents decided to buy her plane tickets to fly back. Robin thought that Nancy was going to offer to sell the tickets and still make the drive back together, but their original plans never got brought up again. Robin’s parents couldn’t afford to fly her out for the short break, and she had refused to let Steve pay for her flight. So, she stayed in Boston for the week.

Thankfully, Camilla and some of their classmates were also staying in the city, so they spent the holiday together. The five of them had crowded into Nickki’s studio apartment for a potluck supper, then got hammered and played strip monopoly, which Robin hadn’t even known was a thing.

The whole night had been enough to take her mind off of the weird thing that was still going on with Nancy. Robin didn’t understand why Nancy was still avoiding her. She had apologized for not telling her about Camilla, and Nancy had acted cool about it. Was she wrong?

It didn’t matter, though. Nancy wasn’t coming back until Sunday, so she wouldn’t have to worry about their friendship for the next couple of days. Besides, with Nancy gone, she finally felt like she could bring Camilla to her place.

“Wow, it’s much cleaner than I expected.”

“Did you think I lived in filth?”

It was Friday night. After they had both clocked out of their agonizingly long Black Friday shifts (God, why were the crowds so bad? Family Video didn’t even have Black Friday deals!), they had caught a showing of Back to the Future II. Robin had to admit: without the Russian torture drugs, the sequel made a whole lot more sense than the first movie. After all, Michael J. Fox couldn’t have actually wanted to fuck his mom. That part had to have been something she hallucinated.

Now, they were back in her apartment, where, by the end of the night, she would hopefully be getting to cross a certain activity off her bucket list. She was excited. Things had been getting pretty hot and heavy with Camilla, but there was always something or an interruption from someone that stopped them from escalating making out to having sex. Tonight, in Robin’s empty apartment, there would be no distractions. She was sure of it.

(She wanted to get laid, goddamnit!)

“I don’t know!” Camilla threw her hands up, a smile spreading across her face. “There had to be some reason you never invited me over, and that’s the only thing I could think of.”

“Nancy isn’t big on having people over,” Robin supplied. It wasn’t the case, but it was the easy explanation. She really just didn’t want to have Camilla and Nancy around each other, but neither party had to know.

“Is she okay with me being here right now?”

Robin scanned the apartment as if to check for her roommate. “Well, I don’t see her.”

Camilla grinned and took a step forward into Robin’s space. “So she wouldn’t mind if I did this?”

She cupped Robin’s jaw and leaned in to press a kiss against her lips. Her stomach somersaulted, as it always did when they kissed. Robin parted her lips to let Camilla in, savoring the taste of artificial butter and cherry chapstick. It took a few minutes for her brain to process Camilla’s question, but could you blame a girl?

She wouldn’t mind if I did this?

Robin’s eyes shot open, and her fingers, which had been lazily just barely tracing patterns on Camilla’s sides, halted. Suddenly, kissing Camilla, which Robin was a big fan of, thank you very much, felt wrong.

She extracted herself from Camilla’s embrace. “Would you like me to get you something to drink?”

Camilla’s face was a mixture of impish and dazed. “Sure, what do you have?”

“Let’s see.” Robin led her into the kitchen.

Camilla propped herself up on one of the counters, taking in the room as Robin dug through the fridge.

“Oh, I really need to go to the store. Looks like all I’ve got are a couple bottles of water, some cans of Coke, and half a bottle of wine. Although, I do not remember when that was opened, so it might not taste good.”

“Well, we can try it and see.”

Robin grabbed the bottle and a couple of drinking glasses, and poured for each of them as Camilla watched. She handed her a glass, which her girlfriend raised in the air.

“To absent roommates,” Camilla declared, a devious sparkle in her eye.

Robin grimaced as she drank to that, though the facial reaction probably had more to do with the sour wine than with thinking of Nancy.

Camilla winced and shook her head as the swallowed it down. “God, that’s fucking awful.”

“Yeah, I’m just going to . . .” Robin dumped her glass out into the sink and poured the rest of the bottle down after it.

After pitching the empty bottle, she fished two Coke cans out of the fridge. She passed one to Camilla, then opened her own, taking several greedy gulps in hopes of washing away the taste of the bad wine.

“These flowers are pretty,” Camilla said, staring at the dried-out bouquet in the vase on the counter.

Nancy had brought them home a few days before she left for Hawkins. Robin hadn’t had the heart to throw them out yet. She thought it was because she had grown used to the constant presence of flowers, that going a few more days without them there would drive her crazy. Like fiddling with a piece of jewelry you wear all the time, but forgetting to put it on one morning, only to try to fiddle with it later on in the day and it not be there.

“Nancy brings them home from work. She’s a florist.”

“That’s cool.” Camilla took a sip of her soda. “Did you know people used to communicate through flower arrangements? It was like a secret code. Different bouquets could mean declarations of love or loss.”

Robin’s eyebrows raised. “Really? So could I send someone a bouquet that said I hated their tuna salad but loved the company?”

Camilla giggled. “I guess, though not in those exact words.”

“Do these have a meaning?” Robin gestured to the vase of flowers.

“I don’t remember what all of the different flowers mean, but I think hyacinth is for sorrow. And that’s really the only flower I recognize in this bouquet.”

Sorrow. Who knew something so beautiful could represent that?

“I never knew there were so many different flowers until Nance started bringing them home.”

“Did Nancy arrange these?” Camilla asked. Robin nodded in response. “I wonder if she knows about the language of flowers.”

“Probably. She pretty much knows a little bit about everything.”

“Maybe we should go to a trivia night sometime,” Camilla gasped. “Is she dating anyone? We could do it as a double date!”

“I don’t know.” If Nancy was too busy for her, there was no way she had time to be dating right now. “I don’t think she is. She hasn’t been around much these days, so I haven’t really gotten to talk to her much.”

“Are you okay, Robs?” Camilla asked, her expression softening.

Crap, her face must be betraying her. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she assured.

Camilla pressed her lips and squinted at her. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. I’m fine.”

“Fine is what people say when they are the opposite of fine. Something is bothering you.” Camilla scanned her body, as if that would give her a read on exactly what was going on with Robin. “Is it Nancy? Is something going on between the two of you?”

“Nothing is going on between us.”

Camilla looked back at the flowers. “Do you maybe want something to be going on between you two?”

“What do you mean? I don’t want to, like, fight with my friend.”

“I hate to be that girlfriend, but do you have feelings for Nancy?”

Camilla was too perceptive for her own good. Even in their literature class, she always seemed to know exactly what the author was implying through the symbolism that had been written. It was only a matter of time before those analytical skills were turned on Robin. And, apparently, that time had come. Still, she could try to deny.

“No, why would you say that? I have feelings for you and only you.”

“Robin,” Camilla frowned. “I don’t think you do. I think you may like Nancy. And I think she may like you too.”

“Nancy and I are just friends.”

“How long has she been avoiding you?”

She looked everywhere but at Camilla. “I don’t know, like a week or two?”

“So around the time we ran into each other at the mall? She acted like she didn’t know you were dating anyone. Had you not told her about me?”

Robin didn’t respond. Her words were caught in her throat.

Camilla sighed and slid off the countertop. “I think I should go.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaked. “Please, Camilla, don’t go. I’ll do better.”

“I’m sure you will. Just not with me. Robin, you’re a great girl, but I’m not the one you want to be with.”

“No. No, Camilla, you’re amazing.” Robin couldn’t let her leave. Camilla was all she had.

“I know,” Camilla smiled. “But I’m not Nancy. I think you should talk to her.”

“She doesn’t think of me that way. We’re purely platonic. Capital P!”

“I don’t think it is. I think maybe she’s been trying to tell you how she’s feeling.” Camilla opened the front door and took one last look at her. “Goodbye, Robin.”

And with that, she was gone. Robin sat on the floor, still staring at the door, as if Camilla might come back through with a teasing grin. A little “just kidding,” and they would go back to hanging out and kissing. But she didn’t open the door. She didn’t come back for her.

Even though Camilla was right that Robin didn’t have feelings for her, her leaving hurt. Camilla was the only person she had at the moment. Her roommate was ignoring her. Her best friend was hundreds of miles away. Who was Robin to turn to now?

And what did she mean when she said Nancy was telling me how she was feeling?

____________

Robin did what she was oft to do in times of crisis: bury herself in a pile of books. Only this time, instead of going to the library to hide in the first available unoccupied corner, she knew exactly where to head.

The Boston Public Library was a treasure trove of knowledge that spanned a wide range of topics. Granted, anything even slightly bigger than the Hawkins Public Library felt that way. Just another reason why she was glad she had finally gotten out.

It didn’t take long for her to find the botany section. She’d memorized the Dewy Decimal system sometime during high school. The small school library had been the only place she felt comfortable spending her lunch period. Even if she’d had someone to sit with, the cafeteria was too noisy. The idea of eating in the bathroom surrounded by germs made her want to throw up, which, honestly, would have been the ideal place to do so. Instead, she had snuck off to the library, spending her time reading and taking bites of food when the librarian wasn’t looking.

Robin nearly shouted in excitement when she found the book she was looking for, remembering at the last second that loud noises were generally frowned upon.

The hardback was filled with gorgeous illustrations of different flowers, vines, and other plants that people in the nineteenth century had ascribed meaning to. Each plant had a list of its meanings, origins, and what to pair it with written off to the side. And it was blessedly alphabetized. It was exactly what she had been looking for, and then some.

She headed to the circulation desk. Sure, she could spend a few hours memorizing what each flower meant, but she was dying to know what the bouquet in the kitchen said. Hyacinth was for sorrow, or so Camilla had said. But what about the others?

She passed the book over to the elderly librarian sitting at the circulation desk. The woman was wearing a beaded glasses chain that Robin knew she would totally rock whenever she had to start wearing reading glasses.

The librarian handed her the catalog card and a pen. Robin quickly signed her name and was about to hand the card back when her eyes latched onto familiar handwriting.

There, right at the top of the card in perfect, swooping cursive was the name Nancy Wheeler. Robin’s brain shut down. The librarian had to yank the card out of her hand. She hurriedly stamped the due dates on the card and the envelope in the book, then handed the book back to Robin. Of course, Robin took it automatically, but she just continued to stand there, lost in thought.

Nancy Wheeler checked this book out. Camilla was right. Nancy knows about the language of flowers. Nancy very well may have been crafting notes into her arrangements all along.

But what does that mean?

That doesn’t mean she was leaving notes for Robin in hopes that she would find them. She could have just been writing silly little messages. After all, that’s what Robin would do.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Robin blinked back at the librarian.

“Could you please move? You’re holding up the line.”

She looked over her shoulder, and indeed, there was a small line of impatient people, waiting to check out their books.

“Sorry,” she winced before scurrying outside.

____________

A new bouquet was in the vase on the counter when she got home. The trash had been taken out, too. Judging from Nancy’s empty key hook, her roommate must have taken it out when she had left, whenever that was.

(She didn’t know Nancy’s schedule anymore. The other girl had stopped updating their calendar weeks ago. She had been surprised when Nancy came back home on Saturday night. Robin had thought she would’ve come back on Sunday, so she could have spent as much time with her family over break.

Robin had spent the whole day on the couch, eating ice cream and watching bad TV. She’d thought she deserved to wallow for a while. After all, she was going through her first breakup.

When Nancy opened their apartment door, Robin, startled, had jumped so high, she fell off the couch. As far as she could tell from her place on the hard ground, Nancy hadn’t even looked at her once as she made her way to her bedroom. She had stayed there the rest of the day, and had been gone the next morning when Robin had left for the library.)

She was a bit disappointed. She had wanted to know what meaning it held. However, she perked back up when she spotted her beloved snowdrops nestled the yellows, reds, and whites of the other flowers.

Robin flipped to the “s”s, scanning each page for the flower in question.

Snowdrops stand for consolation and hope for better days ahead.

Hope for better days ahead. Well, that made sense. Nancy was clearly stressed out over classes. She definitely had to be looking forward to days post-graduation. But what about consolation? Was Nancy grieving someone? Did a family member recently die, and she just didn’t mention it to her? Maybe she was focusing more on the hope aspect of things when she made the arrangement. That was probably it.

Now, time to figure out what the rest of these mean.

Robin moved the vase to the kitchen table, so she could have a more comfortable place to flip through the pages than standing at the counter. Shoes kicked off, sitting criss-cross-applesauce in the wooden chair, Robin opened the book to the beginning. She examined each illustration, comparing it to the flowers in front of her.

Some of the drawings looked wildly different than the flowers in the vase. Those ones were easy to dismiss. Others looked similar enough for Robin to tear up little slips of scratch paper to bookmark those pages for further examination later. Once she had thoroughly gone through the entire book, she circled back to the pages she had marked.

Right away, she had two flowers that started with the letter “a.” Asphodel, which meant to indicate regret will follow you to the grave, and azalea, which meant fragility in a difficult time. Those meanings could still be about Nancy’s classes or a dead family member. You know, if she stretched. The color of the azaleas gave her pause. Red azaleas represented romantic love. Neither of Robin’s theories involved that. Though giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe there had been a surplus at the flower shop, and Nancy decided to use those, rather than diminish the supply of other colored azaleas. Although, since Nancy had checked out this book too, she would have known what the color red meant.

She flipped to the next bookmarked page, located all the way back in the “r” section. Rue was for regret. Made sense, considering the definition of the word “rue.” The meaning emphasized the meaning of asphodel, so they had to have been the correct flowers.

One last flower. She flipped to the entry for willows, and was unsurprised when their meaning coincided with the others. For mourning.

“Geez, Nance. What happened?”

So, either someone close to her had died, she was being really dramatic about finals, or . . .

Or she was mourning the separation from someone she had romantic feelings towards.

But Nancy hadn’t actually been dating anyone. Yes, she had gone on loads of first dates, but there was no way she felt that way towards any of them if she wasn’t going on second dates.

Perhaps the meanings of the other bouquets would shed some light on what Nancy had been trying to communicate. Robin flipped to the only flower she had really remembered Nance using.

Carnations: heartache.

Her eyes skimmed down to the bottom of the page.

Pair with snowdrops to represent a broken heart.

Well, shit. Robin for sure remembered that that arrangement had appeared shortly after the mall incident.

The whole time she had been decoding the flowers, she hadn’t once let her thoughts stray to the idea that maybe, maybe Nancy had been arranging them because of her. That maybe her sorrow and regret and goddamn broken heart were because of Robin. Because Nancy had found out she had a girlfriend. And sure, she could be upset about the way she had discovered that information. Robin knew she hadn’t handled the whole situation well. At all. But Nancy was the type of person to confront others when she had an issue with what they had done and she accepted Robin’s apology, so, clearly, it wasn’t about the way she had found out about Camilla.

Could it be . . ?

No, she had been dating other girls, so why . . .

But Robin had been doing the same.

Could Nancy Wheeler have feelings for her?

The thought shocked her to her core. She didn’t hear the keys rattle in the door.

Nancy’s sharp inhale, however, managed to break her trance. She looked up to see her roommate halfway across the threshold, staring at her. Nancy took one look at the book and one look at Robin’s still shocked face, then practically sprinted to her bedroom. Robin couldn’t spur herself to move fast enough to stop her.

The slam of Nancy’s bedroom door echoed throughout the apartment.

Chapter Text

Robin knew.

Holy shit, Robin knew.

Nancy knew she shouldn’t have tried to communicate her feelings through flowers. What had she been thinking? That Robin would understand what she meant? That she would know what Nancy had been trying to say, and somehow responded to her? Why did she have to make it a game?

She should have just sucked it up and told Robin how she felt. She had never been shy about letting Steve or Jonathan know of her interest in them. Then again, that may have been because she didn’t really feel any sort of real romantic attraction to them. There were no real stakes in flirting with them. However, she had been able to ask a few girls out on dates this semester, and she hadn’t been nervous then. So what was it?

Was it because she hadn’t been friends with any of those girls, not in the way she was friends with Robin? Maybe it was the fear of rejection coupled with the fear of losing their friendship that made her hesitate. There was real risk in asking out Robin.

This was so stupid. The two of them had fought literal monsters together. They moved to a different state together. If Nancy’s feelings were what caused Robin to reconsider their friendship, then she could get over herself.

God, she hoped Robin wouldn’t be mad at her because she couldn’t control her stupid feelings. She had tried to shut them down whenever she first started to see Robin as more than just a friend. She hadn’t wanted to complicate things, especially when she knew that they would be moving in together, states away from all of their friends.

How awful would that have been? To tell Robin that she was maybe sort of head over heels in love with her, only for Robin to reject her. They would’ve both had to find new living situations. Nancy did the calculations. The best solution had been to never, ever let Robin know how she felt.

She had tried to get over her. She really had. Nancy had dated pretty much every girl who showed interest in her, but none of them could compare. Every single one of them made Nancy wish that it was Robin who was with her instead.

Nancy buried her face under her covers. She was never going to leave her room again. She could just die there, for all she cared. Anything to never have to face Robin’s rejection.

“Nancy?” Robin’s voice rasped on the other side of the door.

God, Nancy loved her voice. It was always a little rough and a little nasally but oh so full of emotion. She could listen to it for hours.

She might never get to listen to it again.

The thought had her burying herself further into her bed if that was even possible. She couldn’t lose Robin. She couldn’t go the rest of her life without hearing her voice.

“Nancy, please,” Robin’s voice cracked. “Let me in.”

Nancy felt like a coward ignoring her. She’d stared down businessmen who thought she had no right to be a journalist, a half-crazed jock bent on tearing Hawkins apart, and literal blood-thirsty monsters, but she was too scared to face her best friend.

Because that’s what Robin had become: Nancy’s best friend. The years after Barb had died were the worst of her life. She had lost her best–really only–friend and had nearly died multiple times over. But the worst of it was the constant loneliness of it all. Sure, she had Steve and Jonathan, but for the most part, they hadn’t really been her friends. Not the way they were now, at least. They had both wanted things from her that she simply could not give them. On top of that, there was always something that kept them distant. With Steve, it was not knowing how to cope with the events of ‘83 and refusing to ever talk it through. With Jonathan, it was his duty to his family, then his move to California. While she didn’t blame either of them for the failure of their relationships, the pain of being so close but just out of reach still remained.

With Robin, it never felt that way. Robin was always one hundred percent present with Nancy. She was open with Nancy, sometimes even giving her too much information about her life. She was unafraid to be herself around Robin, confiding in her fears the way she never had with Steve and Jonathan. She felt things she hadn’t felt since Barb was alive and well. Robin was her first real friend since the Upside Down made itself known.

It terrified her that she could lose that friendship all because of some stupid flowers.

Hot tears burned in the corners of her eyes. Soreness crept down her throat. She couldn’t breathe.

She didn’t want to cry. Nancy Wheeler didn’t cry. She hadn’t for years.

But every cell in her body needed that release.

So she did.

____________

Nancy stayed in her room all night and skipped her classes the next morning. She couldn’t risk seeing Robin. And if she ran into her on her way to class, well, there was no way she would be able to pay attention during her lectures.

Sun trickled through her curtains. She didn’t know what time it was. She hadn’t looked at the digital alarm clock once. She hadn’t cared enough to know. Time didn’t matter anyway.

Her body was drained. She hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, but she didn’t feel it. Even if she was hungry, she didn’t have the energy to get up out of bed, let alone scrounge up some food. She would lay in this bed all day if she could. Sleeping. Staring at the wall. Crying again.

It was the need in her bladder that finally got her moving. She could deny everything but that.

She hadn’t heard movement in the apartment in hours. She hoped that meant that Robin was in class or at work or, hell, even hiding away in her room avoiding her too. She didn’t know. She couldn’t find it in herself to care. So long as she didn’t have to see her.

Nancy crept out of her room and straight to the bathroom to relieve herself. She chanced a look in the mirror as she washed her hands. Her face was red and puffy. What mascara hadn’t run down her cheeks had been rubbed all around her eyes, making her look like a pitiful raccoon.

She took out a cotton ball and some makeup remover and got to work cleaning herself up. Once she started, though, she couldn’t stop. Nancy had always found working and cleaning soothing. The mindless tasks she performed kept her mind off whatever troubles were ailing her. She could let herself get lost in the job at hand.

Once her makeup had been scrubbed away, she turned on the shower. As the water warmed up, she brushed away the grimy film that had coated her teeth during the night. When steam started to fill the room, she stripped off her day-old clothes and stepped under the spray.

The water burned her skin, but she didn’t move to change the temperature. The pain felt nice. At least she could feel something.

God, she wanted to feel something other than grief.

She made meticulous work cleaning herself. Her body, her face, her hair. She spent much longer than she typically did combing conditioner through her hair with her fingers. It was almost obsessive.

I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair and send him on his way . . .

She huffed out a laugh at that.

Nancy had never been much of a musical buff. That was more of her mother’s thing, but the tunes were catchy. It was funny how the gender of the person the song is sung about can change, but the sentiment stays the same.

After she finished her shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and, gathering her clothes, padded her way to her bedroom.

She threw her hair up in an old tee shirt to dry, then dressed in her comfiest pair of sweats and an old Hawkins’ High gym shirt she thought might have once belonged to Steve. She didn’t remember if she acquired it while they were dating or if the change in ownership occurred in recent years. She and her friends were almost constantly swapping clothes for one reason or another, as evidenced by The Clash and Metalica band tees that Robin wore as sleep shirts.

And send her on her way . . .

She didn’t want to think about her right now. She needed to keep moving.

Nancy grabbed a pen and a notepad, and headed into the kitchen. She knew she needed to do a grocery run soon. She’d been away for a week, and whatever food she’d left in the fridge had probably gone bad or been eaten by . . .

It didn’t matter.

Her suspicions were confirmed as she opened up the fridge. There was practically nothing in there besides a jar of pickles, a half-empty jar of grape jelly, and some drinks. Even her wine was gone, though it had probably gone bad anyway.

She checked the cupboards. Their pasta supply was practically non-existent. There were a couple of cans of fruits and beans, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of bread that didn’t appear to have any mold growing on it so that was good at least. She could probably survive until tomorrow. The thought of going outside today made her skin crawl.

She filled a glass with water and leaned over the counter, tapping the pen to paper. The essentials were obvious–butter, eggs, milk, pasta, marinara. Those were things they always got. Things they always used. It was the rest of what she needed that took time.

What sort of meals did she want to make for the next week? What ingredients would she need? Those things took planning, and Nancy liked planning. She reveled in planning.

As she sipped her water, Nancy poured through her collection of cookbooks and recipe cards. She wanted easy meals. Things that didn’t take too much energy and time to make. She knew she wouldn’t have that, even with finals approaching.

She heard Robin’s keys in the lock. She didn’t think, she just moved.

Nancy bolted back into her room, abandoning her water and her notepad in the kitchen, where Robin would surely see them. She hadn’t meant to. She’d just wanted to escape seeing the other girl, keep her distance as long as she could.

The universe, unfortunately, did not care for what she wanted.

A soft rapt sounded at her door.

“Nancy, I know you’re in there. Can we please talk?”

Nancy sighed. What had she been thinking? That she could keep running and hiding from the woman she lived with? That was impractical. If Robin was going to break her heart, might as well happen while she still barely felt anything.

“Oh,” Robin said as she opened the door for her. “I didn’t think you’d actually . . .”

“What did you want to talk about?” Nancy said, putting on her best aloof voice. If she was going to break her heart, might as well make her work for it.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Robin asked, exasperated.

“I already told you. I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have! You practically sprinted to your room yesterday. Why did you do that?”

“You know why.” Nancy’s vision started to blur. There was no way she was going to start crying again. Not in front of Robin.

“Was it the flowers?”

“Of course, it was the flowers! I am so sorry, Robin. It was such a stupid thing to do. I’ve had a massive crush on you for months, and I didn’t want to do anything that might ruin our friendship. But I also couldn’t help myself leaving little clues when I discovered the language of flowers, because even if you didn’t know what they said, I could see how happy the flowers made you. And part of me wanted to imagine that you understood what they meant–what I meant–and that’s why you lit up whenever they were around. But then I found out you were dating someone, and it just broke my heart being around you, knowing that you don’t see me the way I see you.”

“Nancy . . .”

It took all of her strength to look up at her friend. She had expected to see disgust or annoyance or something akin to rejection on Robin’s face. Instead, she saw pink fabric tulips.

“I’m sorry they’re not real.” Robin thrust the bouquet into Nancy’s hands. “The florist was closed. Apparently, they are closed on Mondays. And the grocery store doesn’t carry tulips in the winter. I really wanted to get you real ones, not cheap-looking plastic ones, which, by the way, were almost as hard as finding real ones.”

“You got me tulips?” She stared down at the flowers. They were a little rumpled and some of the buds had completely lost their shape (if they ever had it in the first place), but for all Nancy cared, they were the most beautiful flowers in the world.

“Yeah, declaration of love, right?” Robin suddenly looked shy. “I’ve had feelings for you for months too. Well, longer than months. Pretty much since you blasted Vecna in the face, and I thought, ‘Holy shit, this is the coolest girl I’ve ever met.’ But I thought you were straight for the longest time then suddenly you weren’t, but by that point, I was so used to pushing down my feelings, I couldn’t imagine you ever reciprocating them. And also, I haven’t had any close female friends in years and I’ve never had a friend like you, so I didn’t want to lose that because I was being dumb.”

Nancy blinked at her in disbelief. Could this really be happening? Were her feelings actually reciprocated?

“What about Camilla?” She asked, tampering down the hope that threatened to overcome her.

“We broke up.”

“I thought things were going well.”

“She wasn’t you.”

Nancy’s heart swelled. She dropped the flowers and grabbed Robin’s face in her hands, pulling her into a kiss.

Robin grunted in surprise, but she didn’t push her away. She heard the flowers crunch as Robin took a step closer to her, placing her hands on her waist.

“So, just to be clear,” Robin said in between kisses. “We could have been doing this for the past few months?”

“Yes,” Nancy huffed. She really didn’t want Robin to talk, because if Robin was talking, she wasn’t kissing.

“Are we just dumb?”

“Very,” she said, kissing her again.

Robin broke away. “Steve is going to have a field day with this.”

“Don’t talk about Steve,” she demanded, drawing her back into a kiss.

Nancy had often fantasized about kissing her. The heated build-up. The tender embrace. The all-consuming feeling of being known and loved by Robin. It had become a favorite pass time of hers, creating scenarios in which their feelings for each other were finally revealed. She lost count of how much time she spent pondering on this in the still hours of the night as her brain wound down enough to let her sleep, or the even more time spent with her hands between her thighs trying to soothe the lonely ache from within. The real deal was better than she could have ever fathomed.

Nancy should have known Robin would be a great kisser, what with the workout she got from constantly running her mouth. Her lips were plush and lightly chapped from all of the times Nancy had seen her nervously biting at the skin.

Robin’s hands wandered over Nancy’s body as if she couldn’t decide exactly where she wanted to touch her, so she was trying to touch all of her. Arousal swirled in her belly. She wanted Robin to touch all of her.

Nancy hadn’t realized she was pushing Robin back into the wall until she slammed into it, waves of shock rippling through them.

“Shit,” Robin groaned.

“Sorry.” She did feel bad about it, distantly. At the forefront of her being was the intense need for Robin’s weight to be on top of her, anything else that might happen was collateral damage. “Bed?”

Robin nodded in agreement, and let herself be tugged over to Nancy’s unmade double with the frilly pink sheets she had stolen in the move from her childhood room.

Robin crowded her against where she sat herself down at the headboard. In the few minutes since presenting the tulips, she had become emboldened in a way that Nancy had never seen her before. Nancy was used to being in charge in all situations–she thrived in it. However, she did not mind relinquishing control if it made Robin act like this.

Nancy was flush and overheated as Robin’s lips began to wander down her neck. It might have been the dead of winter outside of their apartment, but she felt like she was going to burn alive if she didn’t take off something now.

“Robin?”

The other girl hummed in response, refusing to pause sucking a bruise into her neck.

“Robin, can I take my shirt off?”

That got her attention. She backed up off of Nancy just enough for her to work her tee shirt off.

Cool air hit her warm skin, easing some of the heat. Nancy breathed a sigh of relief.

Robin stared at her. Well, her chest. She was aware that she hadn’t put on a bra after her shower. She hadn’t planned on going out today. She certainly hadn’t planned on stripping down in front of Robin. If she had, she might have put on one of her lacey lingerie sets. Perhaps the blush pink ones that made her practically nonexistent boobs look good. Oh well, maybe next time. She hoped there would be a next time.

“Robin?”

“Huh,” Robin locked eyes with her, cheeks growing pink.

Nancy stared at her, suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness, which really wouldn’t do considering the reverence with which Robin gazed upon her. She wanted things to be equal, but more than that, she wanted to behold Robin the same way she was being beheld.

She reached up and pinched Robin’s sweatshirt, rubbing the material between two fingers. “Can I . . ?”

“Yeah. Yes, please.”

Nancy helped her out of her sweatshirt. It was all flailing limbs and light swearing until finally, it was off.

Nancy struggled to hold back a laugh. “You’re not wearing a bra?”

“I never do,” she said like Nancy should have known. “I hate the way they feel. They’re too tight, and they make my ribs hurt.”

To that, Nancy let loose her laughter, pulling Robin in for another kiss. “Fuck me, you’re perfect.”

Robin tensed up.

“What’s wrong?”

That earlier confidence was gone, replaced by the uncertainty Nancy was all too familiar with. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?”

“Had sex. I’ve never done it.”

She and Camilla never had sex? Nancy dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. Besides, she didn’t want to think about anyone other than Robin. “It’s okay. We can take it slow. We don’t have to do anything just yet.”

“No, I want to. I’m just,” Robin stared at the wall behind her.

Nancy waited for her to find the words. She didn’t want to rush her or pressure her or really anything that didn’t make her feel comfortable and safe and good.

“What if I’m not . . . What if I’m not good at it?” She finally said. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Robbie,” Nancy cradled the other girl’s face in her hands, pulling her down for another kiss. “Nothing you do could disappoint me.”

“But what if it sucks?”

“It won’t,” she reassured her. “Having sex with you will never suck because I’d be having it with you.”

Robin buried her face in the crook of Nancy’s shoulder. “Fuck.”

She giggled, wrapping her arms around Robin’s back so she was holding all of her weight. “I’d like to if you would.”

The heat of Robin’s breath against her neck made her shiver. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” God, when did her voice get all high-pitched?

She didn’t have long to dwell on how she did or didn’t sound. Robin’s lips moved against her skin, pressing feather-light kisses against her shoulder and collarbone.

She gasped, as Robin nipped at her neck. She licked over the bite to soothe it, then began sucking a bruise into the same place.

Robin moved up to the spot just under her jaw, and Nancy whimpered. Heat pooled in her gut. It was embarrassing how wet her panties had gotten from just a bit of kissing, but Robin had that effect on her.

“Robin.”

“Mhm.”

“Kiss me.”

A wet smack filled the room as Robin latched off of the spot she had been sucking on the other side of her neck. Robin grinned at her. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“You know what I mean,” she snapped.

“Well, okay then, princess.”

Her stomach fluttered at the nickname. She had always hated nicknames, but coming from Robin . . .

“Wait,” she said, as Robin leaned down to press a kiss against her lips. “Put your leg here.”

Nancy guided Robin’s right leg to rest in between her own.

“Okay, continue.”

“You’re quite bossy, you know that?” Judging from the grin on Robin’s face, she didn’t mind it one bit.

Robin resumed, and Nancy parted her lips to allow her in deeper. She moaned as she ground against Robin’s knee.

Pressure. Glorious pressure. That’s exactly what she needed.

Robin hummed in approval. Nancy propped her leg up between Robin’s, and the other woman wasted no time in rubbing herself against Nancy’s thigh.

“Oh,” Robin said in surprise.

Nancy panted for air. “Yeah.”

As Robin returned her attention back to her, Nancy let her hands wander. She cupped Robin’s soft breasts, relishing in the weight of them. Nancy swiped a thumb across her nipple, marveling at the way it responded to her touch. She did it again, this time with both nipples. Robin’s shudder urged her to go on. She rolled the pebbles between her fingers and traced circles around them.

“Can we take these off?” Robin gasped, rubbing the fleece material on Nancy’s thighs and the denim on her own. “I want to feel you more.”

Nancy nodded. She went to push down her sweats, but Robin stopped her.

“Can I?”

“Yes.”

Robin made quick work of pulling down Nancy’s pants and sliding them off her legs. She carelessly threw the article of clothing behind her, before stripping her own pants off.

While she did this, Nancy was able to get a good look at her. Robin’s breasts were perfectly sloped, her nipples a light brown color. Her skin was covered in freckles. Nancy was sure she could spend hours mapping constellations in them.

She moved her attention down south, surprised by the pair of lacey bright yellow panties with little white bows she wore. It was probably the most feminine piece of clothing she had seen on her since they had gone to talk with Victor Creel.

Nancy reached up to touch a ribbon. Robin’s abdomen flinched as her knuckles brushed against the skin. The movement captivated Nancy, making her completely forget about the bows.

“Robin, are you ticklish?”

“No,” she said in a voice that told her she was definitely lying.

Nancy lightly traced the tips of her nails against the little pouch of fat above Robin’s waistband. Robin’s body tensed, and she let out a shaky breath.

Oh, she was going to have fun with this. Nancy’s clit pulsed, demanding attention. Later. She would have fun investigating all of Robin’s ticklish spots later.

She wanted Robin to touch her. Needed Robin to touch her. Nancy was used to laying back and letting her partners have their way with her, reprimanding them when they did something she didn’t like, and rewarding them when they did. She wasn’t used to being the one who, well, “topped” as she had heard it called. However, none of her previous partners were virgins when they’d had sex. Robin was. And because of that, Nancy wanted to make sure that she got to enjoy herself.

So, Nancy pushed her own needs aside to deal with later and grabbed ahold of Robin’s waist to flip them over.

“Oof,” Robin grunted as her back landed on the mattress.

The sight of her, staring up at Nancy, hair fanned out on top of the pillowcase, knocked the breath out of her.

“Hi,” Robin grinned up at her.

“Hi.” Her cheeks were sore from how wide her smile stretched. Nancy leaned down and kissed her, Robin humming in response. “Let me know if you want me to stop.”

“Okay.”

Nancy kissed her way down to Robin’s waist, making a lengthy detour to suck and grope at her tits again. She couldn’t help herself. She loved Robin’s tits. She loved the way Robin’s breath hitched when swirled her tongue around the pebble of her nipple. When her fingers just barely ghosted over the sensitive skin. It was intoxicating. She wanted to see if she could get Robin off by just playing with her tits. Not right now, though. Right now, she had another interest in mind.

Continuing her trek down south, she pressed a kiss on her hipbone. Then another on the waistband of her panties. With a devilish smile, she dragged her lips down like she was going to press a kiss on Robin’s wet center, but at the last minute diverted her course, so she could kiss the inside of her right thigh.

“Nance,” Robin whined.

“Hmm?” She pressed a kiss on the opposite thigh.

“Please.”

“Please, what?”

She chuckled at Robin’s responding groan and turned her attention to the place that begged for the most attention.

Robin’s underwear was absolutely soaked. A thrill of pride shot through her spine. She had been the one to do that. It was her effect on Robin that caused such arousal. It left her speechless.

She pressed her nose against the fabric covering Robin’s crotch and breathed in deeply. The smell of desire and musk and something distinctly Robin overwhelmed her senses. This, she realized, could quickly become her favorite scent.

Robin’s hips bucked up as Nancy pressed her nose against her clit. She used her nose to trace a circle around that spot, just so she could see that reaction again.

“Yes, right there!” Robin cried. “Please, Nancy. Touch me.”

Nancy gave an experimental lick across the length of her vulva before looking up at her. The fabric wasn’t all that pleasant against her tongue. She wanted the real thing.

She snapped the elastic of her underpants, pulling a wince out of Robin. “May I?”

“Fuck. I swear to god and Jesus and like Buddha, if you don’t take them off I will scream.”

Nancy, who had hooked her fingers on the offending underwear, paused to look up at her. “That’s the point.”

Robin sputtered a laugh as Nancy tore off the panties and flung them somewhere behind her. She didn’t care to know where they landed, all she cared about was the naked woman in front of her.

“Oh,” she said as she stared at Robin’s pubic hair. All of the, albeit few, women she had hooked up with had been clean-shaven. Even she had been shaving down there since the hair had started appearing. She thought all girls did.

She could feel Robin’s eyes on her as she stared. “I’m so sorry. My mom took me to get my legs waxed one time in seventh grade, and it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. So I refuse to get waxed anywhere. Also, I am terrified of shaving down there because what if I cut myself and it gets infected and I–”

Whatever Robin was about to say got cut off when Nancy buried her face in her folds. The hairs were soft and pleasantly scratched against her face. She kind of liked it.

The scent of Robin was much more intense without her panties in the way. Nancy wondered if she could get high off of it.

She slowly ran her tongue from her entrance to her clitoris, savoring the smooth wet feel of her flesh. She absentmindedly dragged her nails softly against Robin’s soft sides, basking in the shivers she inflicted.

She pressed her lips against Robin’s clit, and swirled her tongue around the bump. Robin’s breath hitched, so she did it again. And again.

As she began to alternate licking and sucking, Robin’s hips wiggled up and down on the bed, chasing the friction. Really, all it did was make it harder for Nancy to work, so she pinned her hips down to the bed using one arm, despite Robin’s whine in protest. She had more important ideas for what to do with the other.

As she continued to work at Robin’s clit, she let the index finger of her free hand trace the other girl’s entrance, seeking approval. At Robin’s confirming hum, she eased her finger inside. Carefully, she pumped her finger in and out, letting Robin’s muscles adjust to the feeling before trying to add her middle finger in as well. As she did, she gave Robin’s clit one final suck before latching off it with a resounding smack, so she could sit up more to watch the other girl come undone.

Nancy didn’t let her be without pressure for too long. She wasn’t that cruel. She pressed her palm against Robin’s pleasure point as her fingers continued to pump in and out. She wanted her to be comfortable after all.

Nancy curled her fingers in Robin’s wet heat, searching for the spot that made her weak.

“Fuck. Fuck. Please. There. Harder. Nancy!” Robin cried, throwing her head back.

Nancy smirked and obeyed the beautiful woman trembling underneath her. She applied more pressure, curling and uncurling her fingers repeatedly so they could keep hitting that spot. Over and over and over and–

Robin cried out, her vagina clenching around Nancy’s fingers. Nancy continued to stroke her through her orgasm.

Once Robin seemed to have settled down, Nancy eased her fingers out. Making eye contact with the other woman, she stuck her fingers in her own mouth and savored the taste of her.

“Fuck,” Robin breathed.

Nancy smirked up at her, removing her fingers with a loud pop.

Robin’s eyes were heady as she stared down at her, her hands stroking Nancy’s back. Nancy was so turned on, she was sure that even the slightest bit of pressure would send her into the most intense orgasm of her life. She had never felt this riled up during sex. It was thrilling.

“Come here,” Robin said, pulling Nancy up to smear their lips together. It was less of a kiss and more of an attempt to consume each other.

Robin’s hand slid down her body, pawing at her still-clothed mound. Nancy shuddered when she found her clit, rubbing it back and forth with just the right amount of pressure.

“Robbie, I don’t think I’m going to last,” Nancy gritted through clenched teeth.

“Yeah?” Robin slowly increased the speed of her fingers as they massaged her clit. “Did I get you all worked up? You gonna come from getting me off?”

The groan Nancy let out must have sounded achen to a “yes.” Robin’s eyes darkened.

“Fuck, that’s so hot. You’re so hot. You’re perfect, Nancy. God.”

Nancy’s vision went white. Distantly, she thought she heard a shriek, and then there was nothingness.

When Nancy came to, her head was laying in Robin’s lap, Robin’s fingers carding through her hair. The feeling sent shivers down her spine. She nuzzled into the soft flesh of Robin’s abdomen. It was nice. She wanted to wake up like this every day.

“There she is,” Robin cooed when Nancy opened her eyes.

“What happened?” Her throat felt tacky and raw.

“You blacked out there for a second on me. Are you okay?”

Nancy furrowed her brow. She had never blacked out during sex, even if it was only for a few seconds. She didn’t think such a thing was possible. It must have been the effect Robin had on her. That or the lack of food in her belly. Her stomach growled, confirming the thought.

Robin quirked an eyebrow at her. “Hungry?”

“Yeah,” she blushed. Nancy sat up and glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table.

Shit. It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten.

Nancy tried to stand up to head to the kitchen, but almost immediately fell back down on the bed. The room spun around her. For a second, she thought she might black out again.

“Hey, here,” Robin grabbed at her, pulling her back up to the head of the bed. “Stay here. Let me get you some food.”

“I’m fine,” she protested, struggling against Robin’s hold.

Robin’s hold on her was strong, much stronger than Nancy would have expected out of the other girl. In the state she was in right now, fighting back was useless.

She slumped back into her pillows with a huff, glaring at Robin when she let out a laugh.

“I can do things for myself, you know.”

“Nance, you looked like you were going to faceplant if you stood up on your own. At least me go get you some water, while you rest for a minute, then you can do whatever you want.”

“Fine.”

Robin smiled and ducked out of the room, returning a few moments later with two glasses of water. Robin sat with her as Nancy sipped her water. When she finally deemed Nancy well enough to stand on her own, the two threw their shirts back on as well as some dry underwear, then made their way to the kitchen.

“Shit,” Robin murmured as she surveyed the empty cabinets. “I totally meant to go pick up some groceries yesterday.”

“I was going to go tomorrow.”

“Maybe we should go together tomorrow then?”

Nancy smiled to herself. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

That didn’t solve their current problem, though. They were still mostly out of food and the Chinese restaurant they usually got delivery from was closed on Mondays. They ended up making sorry-looking peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, playfully knocking into each other as they each slathered ingredients on slices of bread.

They took their sandwiches as well as a can of peaches and a fork over to the living room. Robin flipped through the channels, settling on a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 rerun Nancy knew she had already seen a few times over. The two settled on the couch, legs kicked up on the coffee table, bare thighs flush against each other.

The two ate in silence, passing the can of peaches back and forth until the sweet fruit was all gone. Nancy barely paid attention to the movie playing on the screen. She really wasn’t thinking much about anything at all, content to bask in the warmth that was Robin.

Robin set the empty can on the coffee table and turned her body to face Nancy.

A barely audible whine escaped Nancy at the loss of contact. Robin’s knee was still pressed into her thigh, but it wasn’t enough. Robin seemed to get the message. She took Nancy’s hands in her own, playing with her fingers and swiping the backs of them with her own thumbs.

“So,” Robin began, staring at their intertwined hands.

Smiling, Nancy bent her body, trying to get in Robin’s eye line. “So?”

Robin, finally looking up at her, smirked at her antics. “We should probably talk about what just happened.”

Nancy would be lying if she denied that her heart rate spiked. She tried to quell her fears. Robin had clearly been into everything that they’d done, and she was still here in front of her instead of hightailing it for the hills. So what she wanted to talk about couldn’t be bad. “About what?”

“Well, what are we, I guess? What happens now? I’ve never exactly fucked my friends before, so I’m not sure what comes next.”

“Hopefully, you.”

“Nancy Wheeler, was that a sex joke?”

Nancy grinned.

“Oh my god, Nancy Wheeler made a sex joke!” Robin announced to no one in particular. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I can make sex jokes!”

“But you haven’t,” she pointed out. “You really have become a sinner.”

Nancy beamed at that.

“But, seriously, what happens now? Because I don’t think I can go back to being just friends after . . . all of that.” Pink tinged Robin’s cheeks.

Fondness swelled inside of Nancy. Leave it to Robin to be embarrassed talking about sex, despite the downright slutty things she had moaned to her not thirty minutes ago. “I didn’t think we would go back to being just friends after that. I thought maybe I take you out on a date, and we see where things go from there.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“But what if . . . what if things don’t go well? What if we start dating, and realize we were wrong in thinking that we could do whatever this is? And then we can’t get over it and can’t be friends? And then we have to stop being roommates. And then we will stop being in each other’s lives, except for maybe running into each other at the grocery store, but even then, we’ll avoid talking to each other outside of maybe a quick hello,” Robin rushed. “I don’t want to lose you, Nance.”

“Hey, hey.” Nancy put her hands on either side of Robin’s face, stroking her cheekbones with her thumbs. “We’re going to be okay.”

“But how do you know?”

“Because I love you.”

Robin’s eyes widened. “You love me?”

“Of course I do. I’ve spent months trying to tell you through fucking flowers. I’ve loved you as a friend, and I’ll love you as a girlfriend. And if for some reason that doesn’t work out, I will still love you.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Well, yeah. I thought I made that pretty obvious.”

“Nancy, none of what you’ve done these past few months has been pretty obvious. Also, I can be pretty dense.”

“Then let me just say it. Robin, I want to be your girlfriend. Will you be my girlfriend?”

Robin bit her lip, doing a shit job at not grinning like Nancy thought she was trying to do. “Yes, of course I want to be your girlfriend.”

“Good,” She laced her fingers through Robin’s and brought their entwined hands up to her lips to press a kiss to the back of Robin’s hand.

The two stared at the television, snuggling into each other. The events of the past twenty-four hours finally started to catch up with her. Her body was worn out from the lack of proper physical care and the emotional rollercoaster she had put herself through. She let her body go limp, putting all of her weight on Robin’s side.

“So, what happens now?” Robin asked.

Now, they would take things one day at a time. The next day after classes, they would go shopping and get enough groceries to last until they drove back to Hawkins together. They would go to work, they would go to classes, and they would spend their free time helping each other study.

She would retrieve the fabric tulips from her bedroom floor, and place them in a vase in the kitchen, next to the flowers she planned to continue to bring home, this time telling Robin what they meant.

But beyond that was a blank canvas. Maybe they would make it for the long haul, and have an unlawful wedding some bright spring day surrounded by their loved ones. Maybe they wouldn’t last a week, and all of these feelings would dissolve into a strengthened friendship and fond memories of the one time they tried. The future was full of possibilities.

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t. It was scary, but she knew that as long as she had Robin by her side, things would be okay.