Work Text:
December 18th 1989
If she was honest with herself, she was still a little strung out from the drive back from Boston. All the coffee and shitty weather, and lunatic East Coast drivers doing a number on her by default amped up nervous system.
Plus, she’d had to spend all day yesterday dealing with the awkward but loving kindness at Nancy’s because Karen had found out that her parents had told her to not even bother coming home again, after the horrendous results of her bright idea to come out to the family over Thanksgiving a few weeks prior.
They hadn’t told Karen the real reason why she wasn’t allowed back in her childhood home, hell she didn’t even know that her and Nancy had been dating for two and a half years. Nonetheless, she’d been bombarded with maternal hugs and cheek kisses, the promise of enough honey-ham and dinner rolls to feed an army, and the righteous fury of Karen Wheeler scolding her absent shitty parents for kicking out their own child. “ On Christmas no less! ”
It had been a lot.
Almost too much.
By the time they’d crashed into bed that night she felt so emotionally drained that her brain might as well be a raisin in the Mojave desert at noon in July. She wanted to melt into a puddle on the frilly pink duvet that still adorned Nancy’s bed in her essentially unchanged teenage bedroom. If it weren’t for her girlfriend running her fingers continuously through her hair until she fell asleep, she probably would have been up all night going over every awkward interaction of the morning until she puked.
But she had fallen asleep.
And then she was woken up suddenly by the tinny ring of the phone on Nancy’s bedside table. Nancy, being the lovely, organized, professional beauty that she is, had answered it like it was barely a problem. Her voice only carried the smallest hint of sleep, quiet and soft, and adorable. She had watched Nancy hold the phone between her shoulder and ear, and ended up getting distracted by the curve of her neck in the early morning light. So distracted that the short conversation was completely wiped from her already limited sleepy perception. Nancy had hung up and cuddled back into her, and she’d wrapped her arms around her, content to press her face into the spot between her girlfriend’s shoulder blades and sleep for another five or six hours. Nancy had made a happy hum, and then said simply:
“We’re going to a party tonight.”
That’s how she ended up here, freezing her ass off in the snowy woods behind Hopper’s cabin, nursing some kind of hot alcoholic spiced cider thing , that was more rum and whiskey than apples or cider. At least it was keeping her hands warm, since it’s not like she could go over and hold Nancy’s hands at all. She desperately wanted to, because damnit Nancy looked cute all cozied up in her peacoat, curls poking out from beneath her hat, even wearing the mittens that she’d gotten her as an early Christmas present. She was standing in a small semi-circle that consisted of her brother, Will, Dustin, and Max, laughing about something undoubtedly stupid and nerdy and dragon related, and she wanted to go interrupt whatever it was and kiss Nancy breathless.
Only Steve knew the truth about them, which she was grateful for, ecstatic really because she would have actually combusted not being able to tell anyone for two and half years, but all the other kids were in the dark. It’s not that she thought they would react badly, but her recent reminder of why she needed to be careful still hung over her. The wound from her parents was still fresh and bleeding, and hadn’t even begun to scab over. So, she’d asked Nancy if it was fine if they held off for a bit longer. Nancy, god she loved her, had been understanding of course, not out officially herself anyways, and it felt okay for now. They’d do it eventually, when things cooled off, or when they graduated, or…something.
Steve nudged her hard in the ribs, laughing.
“Dude, you’re looking at Nancy like you want to eat her.”
“ Shut up .” She shoved him back, splashing a little of her beverage onto her sleeve.
“If you want me to shut up then stop staring and help me get this fire started.”
“Ugh. I’m tired. Can’t you just let me agonize and get drunk in peace?”
“Uhhhh. No. It’s Christmas break and you're finally back from Boston, you’re not allowed to agonize. We’re supposed to be celebrating our momentous reunion!” Steve replied, poking at weather-inappropriate converse with a tree branch he fished out of the snow.
He was right, this really wasn't the time for any kind of moping, agonizing, complaining, or sulking. She had missed Steve the way one might miss a limb or a lung, or a kidney. He was as much a part of her as she was of him. Anytime she got to see Steve again after anything longer than a two week period (that was her limit) she required the best body-crushing bear hug imaginable, more pepperoni and jalapeno pizza than any one woman should eat, and hours of the most ridiculous goofing off they could muster. She’d gotten the hug so far, and apparently the pizza was coming, as her best friend had put this whole shindig together in her honor.
Jonathan and Will had gone the extra mile and secured their step-dad’s cabin for the festivities, and had cleared out enough space for a dangerously large pile of sticks, tree branches, logs, and other woodland ephemera to be lit ablaze in honor of the Lord. Or something like that. She was surprised Hop even let them until Jonathan had said that he’d obtained an official fire-permit out of courtesy, had two fire extinguishers ready to go in the event of anything catastrophic, and the ritualistic burning site was at least forty or so odd feet away from any structures or power lines.
She set her drink down into a pile of snow, and started her job of crumpling up old newspapers into balls and shoving them through the labyrinth of branches towards the middle as kindling. Steve was doing something similar with a bucket of communally collected dryer lint, which was apparently supposed to be extremely flammable and the cause of many a house fire, according to Dustin. This fire was probably going to get out of control, considering its ridiculous size, more a funeral pyre than something you’d roast an innocent marshmallow on, but her tolerance for risk was much higher after chucking molotov cocktails at otherworldly evil wizards to care about that right now.
Steve had emptied the bucket, and ducked away to procure the three bottles of lighter fluid it apparently took to set this thing off.
“You think this is enough?” He asked, cradling the bottles in his arms, and looking down at her and her shortening pile of sacrificial newspaper.
“Uh, yeah, do you think it’s not ?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never done this before!” He shrugged and one of the bottles fell from the crook of his arm and into the snow, spitting a nice stream of chemicals out onto the ground.
“Oh my god, we’re all gonna die tonight.” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Oh, come on! Don’t say that. Have a little faith in my innate manly abilities.”
“We need an adult.”
“We are adults.”
“Adultier adults. Better adults.”
“So… Nancy?”. Steve offered.
“Yup.” She said, popping the ‘p’ and admitting defeat, for both their sakes, and the sakes of all the lives that would bear witness to this insane spectacle of a bonfire.
They turned at the same time towards Nancy’s general direction and shouted her name. Nancy didn’t jump or startle, just turned her head slowly and caught her eyes. Her expression went from questioning to soft as they looked at each through the trees. Her lips upturned in a small as she trudged over to them.
“Something wrong?” She asked as soon as she was in ear shot, her cheeks and the tip of her nose flushed pink from the cold. Cool and confident, and ready to solve all their problems like always.
“Baby, please convince Steve that he doesn’t need three gallons of lighter fluid to start a fire, I’m begging you, I want to live to see another sunrise.”
“Well, Robin is right, you definitely don’t. With all the other shit you guys stuffed in there, you probably only need like… a smidge.” Nancy laughed and held her thumb and forefinger out, barely not touching, the tiniest space indicating how much lighter fluid they actually needed (and how much sense Steve and Robin had between the two of them at this very moment.)
“How much is a smidge exactly?” Steve asked looking at the label on the back of one of the bottles like it might indicate the exact fluid measurement of smidge. Nancy, bless her, laughed again, and stepped up to Steve to ease the bottles out of his hands.
“How about I do this part, and then you can have the honor of the barbecue lighter?” Nancy propositioned, fishing the long lighter out of one of her many coat pockets and handing it over to a relieved Steve.
“Yeah, that’s uh… that’s probably the smart thing to do.”
She finished stuffing the last piece of newspaper into the center and Nancy crouched down close beside her, so that they were shoulder to shoulder looking in between the gaps of the branches and sticks.
Nancy unscrewed the cap on the bottle, and with a poor show of intentional clumsiness poured way more than was necessary onto the amalgamation of lint and newspaper.
“Oops.” she whispered conspiratorially, a sly smile on her lips.
“So, that’s the official measurement for a smidge, huh?” she asked, not all that surprised by her girlfriend's dangerous streak at this point.
“It’ll be fun. You gotta live a little, Buckley.” Nancy said, bumping their shoulders together, before standing up and holding her hand out.
She took Nancy’s hand, and was hauled up from her crouched position.
“Okay, big guy.” She said to Steve, “Light her up.”
Steve grinned, and stuffed the end of the barbecue lighter into the bundle of kindling. There were a few failed clicks, as the igniter struggled, and then WHOOF ! With an orange flash and blast of heat, the kindling lit up. Steve made a surprised yelp and fell backwards onto his ass in the snow, the very tips of the hair dangling in front of his forehead singed.
She dived forward and slapped a handful of snow onto her best friend’s forehead, just in case- because she cared about him and his stupid hair, and because it was funny.
“ What the fuck, Rob!” He shouted, dragging his palms across his face desperately to remove the snow, and shoving her off of him.
“Your hair was on fire!”
“ Are you serious!? ” He asked, eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling as he ran towards the cabin at a dead sprint, no doubt going to examine the damage in the nearest mirror.
Nancy snorted a laugh, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and watched Steve’s back as he headed up the cabin stairs and disappeared into the house. The rest of The Party’s heads followed him and then looked back at her and Nancy standing by the slowly building glow of the fire.
“What did you guys do to the poor guy?” Max called out, though she was grinning, “I’ve never seen him run that fast!”
She shrugged along with Nancy, who was looking a little too proud of herself, she leaned over to whisper in her ear.
“You’re a psychopath, you know that right?”
“You love me.” Nancy whispered back.
“It’s the cross I’ve chosen to bear.” She replied solemnly, gazing off into the distance, earning a shove from her girlfriend.
As the fire grew, more of their friends gathered around it, lawn chairs were dragged out and placed in a loose semi-circle around it- then moved backwards inch by inch as more and more of the branches and wood succumbed to the flames. Steve reappeared with more drinks and plates of pizza, seemingly recovered from any hair-related armageddon. She plopped down in a chair next to Nancy, drank a few more glasses of spiced cider, ate an unhealthy amount of pizza, and all of Nancy’s jalapeños.
Dustin and Lucas got into a shouting match about the second Ghostbusters movie, that she hadn’t seen yet, so it was near impossible to follow. El and Max were huddled close together and chucking small sticks into the blaze and chatting so quietly that she couldn’t make any of it out, but they looked so happy. Will, Johnathan, Steve and Mike were talking about Dungeons and Dragons, that much was clear, apparently they’d convinced the older guys to play a campaign with everyone and Steve was playing a fighter named Rowley Stormcastle, and that was something she filed away for later so could harass him mercilessly about it.
She watched them all. Laughing, faces illuminated by the fire, their very alive breath puffing in front of their faces and it felt like home and it felt like family, and everything she had ever wanted.
And still the sting continued beneath her ribs, the stupid infuriating sting that hadn't left her alone for weeks.
She put her drink down in the mesh cup of the folding lawn chair, wobbled to her feet, and excused herself. Walked away as quickly as she could while still remaining upright and not eating shit on the gravel drive back to the main road. Thought of all the things she was happy about, of Nancy and Steve and pizza and warmth and the kids graduating this year, and-
"Robin!' Nancy called out from behind her.
She stopped, allowing Nancy to catch up to her, because there was really no point in trying to walk away from her, and she didn’t even really want to, but her thoughts were a mess, and her feelings were on a pendulum, swinging between warm happiness and drunken bitterness, and it made her stomach sort of sick, made her head pound.
Nancy caught up with her after a short jog, her boots crunching through the snow and ice, catching her arm by the elbow she pulled back, and forced her to stop walking. Turned her enough to face her.
Nancy put a hand on her sternum, and stepped in close, close enough that she could smell her perfume, jasmine and something citrusy. Her eyes caught the smallest reflection of orange light from the fire down the road, and she was so beautiful it made it hard to breathe. She was having a hard time breathing. Her chest felt tight under Nancy's mittened hand.
"Are you okay?" Nancy asked, looking up at her with soft concern and scrunched eyebrows and a worried frown on her lips.
"Fine- I'm good, really." She answered. She was more than a little drunk, and felt heavy and warm and everything that hurt stung less, but the problem was that it still stung, and Nancy was here with her hand on her chest, no doubt feeling the thundering of her heart, and looking at her like she meant something, like she was everything.
"Talk to me."
"I-" She cleared her throat as her voice threatened to break, " fuck , this isn't because I'm sad, okay?" She forced out as her eyes welled with tears.
Nancy nodded like she believed her, and maybe she did, or maybe she was just being patient.
"I'm not sad, I'm… things are so good. Everyone put this together and did so much and it's fucking incredible, and I'm grateful. I am. Seeing everyone again, everyone’s safe. I’m happy, I swear- I'm really- " her lip trembled and that was all Nancy needed to see to wrap her arms tight around her middle as she heaved out a muffled sob into the shoulder of her coat.
"I know I shouldn't- I shouldn't want to see them after what happened. I should be angry, I wish i could be angry, but I'm not-“ she rubbed her sleeve harshly over her burning eyes, “I'm not and it- it hurts so fucking bad…why…why can't I just go home? Why can't they even look at me?"
Nancy squeezed her hard, pressed a firm kiss to her temple, keeping her lip there for a long second.
"Robin, you're allowed to miss your family, even if what they’re doing is wrong. And it is wrong. They're wrong ." Nancy pushed her shoulders gently back to catch her eyes, to look at her, to make her see the fierce love in her eyes. Nancy pulled a mitten off to place her warm palm flat against her cheek. She leaned into the touch and closed her eyes, and Nancy ran the pad of her thumb gently beneath her eye to wipe away the tears.
"You deserve better than that." Nancy continued, "You deserve this whole goddamn world, and if they can't see that. If they refuse to, it's their loss. You're not even angry, you’d give them a million chances to be the parents that they should be, that's the kind of person you are. You're brighter than that absolutely ridiculous bonfire, okay? And if it was up to me, that bonfire would be in your parent's living room and I'd be charged with arson."
She laughed, the kind of laugh that only happened when you were strung out and crying and happy and feeling too many emotions at once. Nancy breathed out a small laugh after her, and stood on her tip-toes to press their foreheads together.
"I love you.” Nancy said, with such conviction it made her dizzy, “I love you for everything you are."
"I love you too. Like, a frankly insane amount."
She glanced towards their other friends to make sure the coast was clear before leaning in and kissing her softly. Nancy smiled against her lips, and it was addicting and contagious and she couldn't help but smile back. Nancy kissed her again and she pulled her by her coat collar flush against her.
This, however, turned out to be a bad maneuver because as Nancy's weight leaned completely into her, a patch of slick snow and ice shifted beneath her heel and she stumbled backwards into the fresh snowbank at the edge of the road.
They landed with a soft oof , Nancy wasn’t heavy and the snow at her back made the fall more comfortable, and she counted herself lucky. Lucky that Nancy was laughing lightly against her neck, her lips brushing the skin and sending a shiver through her that wasn’t from the cold for once tonight. God, she'd scratched off the weird gray filmy coating on a winning lottery ticket, when she'd dived into Lover’s Lake after Nancy Wheeler. She wanted to keep that residue under her fingernails forever to remind her how lucky she was. Lucky to be running her hands through the other woman’s curls, knocking her beanie off. Lucky to be kissing her deeply in the snow, hidden away from everyone where only she could hear the quiet whimpers Nancy made and catching them with her mouth, tasting apples and spice on her tongue.
Nancy worked her arms inside her jacket and along her sides and underneath her t-shirt, scratching lightly at whatever skin she could, and she wanted to jolt away from her icy hands, but was effectively trapped.
“Your hands are fucking freezing .” She whined against Nancy’s lips.
“I’m in the process of warming them up.” Nancy said simply, pulling away and pressing kisses along her jawline, moving lower down her neck.
“Whatever you say.” She mumbled, enjoying the attention more than she disliked the cold.
She tilted her head back, allowing easier access for increasingly open-mouthed kisses and barely there bites. Nancy’s mouth hot and every spot she left immediately struck cold as soon as she pulled away to move somewhere else. She stared up at the starry night sky, the barely there shadows of tree branches all around them. Her back cold and her chest warm, Nancy moving gently against her. She followed her girlfriend’s lead, and snuck her hands under her coat, fingers digging at the soft skin above the waistband of Nancy’s jeans.
The sting under her ribs gone for a moment, replaced with something else entirely, and something she hoped she’d never stop getting to feel.