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NANCY
AUGUST 1986
She’s just barely turning onto the road when she stops the car abruptly.
Jonathan’s hand falls to the dashboard. “What the hell, Nancy?”
“I need to go back.”
“Why?”
She turns to look out the back window as she reverses back the short distance into the studio. “I forgot to take the book with me.”
“Seriously? We’re going to be late.” Jonathan whines as if it’s the worst thing to ever happen to him.
She turns off the car, unbuckling her seat belt. “Would you break a promise to Will?”
“I…fine,” he sighs, dramatically. “Just don’t be long.”
She can’t put her finger on it, but he’s been different since he’s returned, or maybe he’s always been like this and she just never had a reason to notice it before.
“You know what, Jonathan, if it’s that important to you, here.” She holds out her keys. “If I’m not back in five minutes you can leave without me.”
He barely even gives it a thought as he takes the keys from her. “And how are you going to get home?”
“I’m sure Steve will give me a ride,” she nods towards the all-too familiar maroon car still parked in front of the station.
Jonathan’s face contorts at the mention of Steve, but Nancy walks away before she has to hear him grumbling about it.
The last thing Nancy wanted to do after spending three hours in the stuffy bunker underneath the radio station was go back in, but she promised Holly she would read with her tonight, and she obviously couldn't do that if said book was still downstairs.
“Hey!” Steve looks up at her slowly from the ratty old couch, the same spot he was in when everyone left a few minutes ago. “If you're looking for your book, it's over there,” he nods towards the sticky table they've been using as their base of operations.
"Thanks." She grabs Robin’s old copy of The Babysitter's Club off the table, but hesitates because something is wrong with him; he’s been like this all day, like he’s ready to cave in on himself, his usual smirk hidden away under newly formed worry lines, and most concerning of all, he’s quiet.
The thing is that she could so easily leave, but they're trying to be friends now, and this is what friends do — they check on each other.
"Are you okay?"
He sits up straight, putting on a fake smile. "Yeah. I'm just tired. I promise."
“Right.” She sets the book back where she found it and settles down in the middle of the couch to be closer to him. She tells herself it’s just so she can hear him better over the low hum of the generators in the back, but the truth is that she feels better being next to him.
“What are you doing?” he wonders.
“I'm waiting for you to tell me what’s been bothering you all day.”
He hesitates before speaking again. "Aren’t they waiting for you upstairs?”
She recognizes this for what it is — a get out of jail free card. She doesn't think he's testing her, more like he doesn't want her to be forced into caring about him. She does care though, she's always going to care about him (the fact that he still cares about her is something she's still trying to wrap her head around). Besides, Robin seems to be preoccupied with something lately and Dustin’s been distant with everyone, so she's not sure he has many other people to talk to.
“They'll figure it out.” She leans over to take a pillow from the other side of the couch and places it behind her to get comfortable, trying not to focus on the tiny shock that goes through her when their shoulders brush.
He shakes his head in disbelief, giving up quicker than she thought he would. “Has your brother said anything about Henderson to you?"
“Not really, why?”
He leans his head against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling, his bouncing leg shaking the couch beneath them. "He yelled at me today,” he starts, his voice so uncomfortably tense. “I don't think I've ever seen him this...angry. And not in a ‘I ate the last of your cheez-its’ angry, more like ‘I can't believe you spoiled the ending of the last Star Wars movie’ angry."
She smiles at how easily he lets the kids rub off of him.
"All I said was that he needs to be careful with all the shit going on, but he started going on about how I don't know what I'm talking about and that people need to remember what Eddie did for the town and that everyone needs to get off his back. Which, like, yeah, okay, sure, but no one will ever know the truth and no one gives a shit so all he's doing is putting a giant target on his back for no good reason. He stormed off and he hasn't talked to me since."
"Is that why he was so weird today?"
"Probably. I think the others told him the same thing, but he won't listen to anyone. He's just pulling away and..." he trails off. "And I don't know how to help him or even keep him safe if he won't even listen.”
She knows what it feels like to be this helpless, to sit around knowing something bad was going to happen, but not be able to do anything about it. And it's because of this that she knows there's nothing she can really say to make it better for him. "I'm sorry. I'm sure he'll come around soon.”
He shrugs. "Yeah, well, that's teenagers for you, I guess."
"You don't have to do that, you know.”
He turns his head towards her, his eyes so incredibly soft it makes her heart flutter. "Do what?"
"Do your whole ‘nothing ever bothers me because I'm Steve Harrington’ routine, at least not with me. I know you care and it's okay that you do.” She doesn't say that it's what she likes most about him.
He chuckles, warmly. "I'll remember for next time. Thanks, Nance.” He reaches out to give her hand a gentle squeeze.
She tells herself this is fine, normal even, because it's something friends do.
Except they aren't really friends, or at least, they've never ever been just friends, hell, she's not entirely sure how she’s supposed to be just friends with him because every time he touches her, she feels so good that she wants to ask him for more.
"You don't have to do that either, you know." He nudges her shoulder. Fuck, there’s that feeling again and she fights the urge to lean into him.
“Do what?”
"Hide how you’re feeling.”
“Who says I’m hiding anything?” she asks, feigning ignorance, hoping they move past this topic.
He gives her a knowing smile. “Whatever you say, Nance, but I’m here if you ever want to talk. I know you have… other people you can talk to, but I’m here, too. Or, well, I mean we can obviously talk about whatever, but you can also tell me what’s bugging you, if you want. I hear it helps and I’m a great listener.”
She should tell him that everything is fine and ask him to drive her home because if she doesn’t acknowledge or talk about what's been keeping her up at night, she can pretend it doesn’t exist, but she doesn’t want to leave. She can’t recall the last time anyone (including Jonathan) even made an attempt at asking about her day, and yet despite all the chaos in his own life, despite the years worth of conversations they’ve yet to have, he’s still making sure she isn’t alone. She tells herself that’s the only reason she starts talking.
“I just didn't realize it would be this hard.”
“What?”
“I know why we need to keep it all a secret, but it just feels wrong this time around." She looks down at her hands, remembering the vision of them covered in her family's blood.
"How so?" He turns completely towards her, hand outstretched against the back of the couch, knee barely pressing into her hip, helping ground her. She wishes he’d take her hand again, but she's not sure that's something friends do casually.
She talks for what feels like hours; every single worry, every single thing that's been weighing heavy inside of her, from the fear that all of this is useless to her uncertainty about what this quarantine means for them in the long run. She tells him about Holly's difficulties in school and about how much more her parents have started arguing. She tells him things she hadn't even realized were bothering her until they had made their way out of her mouth, tells him things she hasn't shared with anyone in months because it all felt useless. The only thing she doesn't tell him is about her relationship with Jonathan because she’s not quite sure what to feel about that anymore. And through it all, neither of them look away from the other, as if locked by some tether, as if she needs his presence to keep talking, as if he can't bear the thought of missing even one syllable.
"That sounds… like a lot," he says after she finishes, placing his hand on hers, not letting go this time.
She lets out a dry laugh because, yeah, it is. But it doesn't feel like a lot, not anymore, not when he's holding her hand, not when he's looking at her like he's ready to go to war for her.
She squeezes his hand. "This helps."
“I'm glad." He softens somehow, and for a split second she's reminded of how he looked on their first date, what felt like a lifetime ago, carefree, hopeful, and so inexplicably happy she still remembers wondering how he was able to smile for so long.
He's always been like this, always so caring, so compassionate, so full of unconditional love — how had she not fully seen or appreciated it before? It was probably hidden inside of him like those peanut butter boppers he's been talking about missing. Maybe she'll talk to Murray about trying to get those for him.
"And just," his thumb rubs along her knuckles bringing her back to reality, "remember I'm here if you need me. And you don't need to wait until you're about to explode, either. I wasn't ready to listen two years ago, but I am now, and you don't need to do this alone. I'm here.”
He’s somehow closer than he was before, so close she can see the stubble along his jaw he hadn’t had a chance to shave this morning, so close she can see the pink tip of his tongue poking out through his chapped lips, so close she can see a sweat coating his neck from the unrelenting heatwave they’re under.
She doesn’t know what to blame it on — the proximity or the fact that despite feeling so incredibly fragile, like all the stitches she carefully placed over her wounds were re-opened, she can't remember the last time she's felt this at ease or this safe in Hawkins — but she’s kissing him then, her hands tangling in his curls, her lips pressing into his like they're a lifeline.
She scrambles backwards as soon as the realization hits her, trying to make as much distance between them on the couch as she can. “I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I’m going to —”
He takes hold of her wrist gently enough that she could pull her hand away if she wanted to, but its presence keeps her where she is. “Nancy,” he starts, looking apprehensive. “Do you want this or do you need this?"
She can't find it in herself to say anything other than, “I want you.”
═════════════════════
NANCY
OCTOBER 1986
It's been seven months of the same routine and Nancy is so fucking tired.
She is tired of spending her days learning military lingo to decrypt their communications, tired of continuing to lie to her family for their supposed protection, tired of constantly living in fear of the day Vecna's vision is going to come true, tired of not making any progress in finding where this asshole is, in bringing Max back, or even figuring out why all of this is happening in the first place.
She's used to deadlines, in fact she thrives under pressure, but it's starting to feel like too much. If it's not one thing it's another, and the home that she's so used to being her sanctuary is now chaos incarnate ever since the Byers’ moved in last month; she isn't looking forward to Thanksgiving next month.
Things with Jonathan have been rocky ever since he got back from Lenora, and it's only getting worse. He's trying too hard to be useful, like he's trying to make up for lying to her, but she really doesn't have the mental capacity to try sorting that out right now.
Especially not when today has been a total and complete shitshow.
She knows it was out of her control, it's not like any of them could have predicted that the military would seal up the entry way they've been using to sneak in, but after all their planning, after days of testing their new trackers, figuring out frequencies, their routes, and their codes, their third crawl was stopped in its tracks before it even had a chance to get started and now, they have to wait weeks, if not months, until the next supply run so they could try searching for him again.
It's not like any of them anticipated it taking this long, but as the days pass, the possibility of the future she had envisioned for herself dwindles as quickly as the the trees are dropping their leaves, and she’s not sure how much longer any of them can last in this pressure cooker without some kind of win.
A tear falls down her face and she wipes it with a sleeve.
The last time she was this frustrated was when she was working on her Emerson application, but she had taken a long hot shower and worked herself to a release that helped bring her back down to Earth. But it's not like she has the luxury of that anymore, not with a house full of people who barely have the courtesy to knock before entering the bathroom, let alone have a bladder large enough for her to take a shower for longer than five minutes. It’s not like she hasn’t tried, late at night in her own bed, but there’s only so much her imagination can do when the only thing she sees when she closes her eyes is destruction.
The last time she had an orgasm was months ago with Steve, and while she rode the high off of their time together for weeks, they both agreed that it was a spur of the moment decision brought on by emotional vulnerability and that it would never happen again.
It is stupid in retrospect. Her boyfriend has been living with her for months, and yet she can count on one hand the number of times they've kissed since he's been back. Truth be told, him having to sleep in the basement is a convenient excuse for both of them, because it would only lead to more frustration — she doesn't even need any hands to count how many times he's ever made her come.
That's why she's still here, still in their new base of operations, cleaning up long everyone had called it a night: her mom once told her cleaning was therapeutic, that it gave her something to focus on and makes her feel accomplished, but she's starting to believe she lied.
But at least with all the moving around she’s doing she doesn't feel cold anymore. This place needs blankets. And space heaters. She makes a mental note to ask Murray about that next time he shows up, even though she’s starting to feel uncomfortable talking to him as he makes way too many unnecessary off-handed comments.
"Oh, hey!" Steve says, as he jogs down the stairs. "I thought you left with everyone else.”
A wave of calm and heat washes over her almost instantaneously.
“Hey. I just wanted to get a head start in cleaning the place up.”
“What can I do to help so that you don't spend the night here, because trust me, it's not a fun experience.”
“Do I even want to —”
“No, you don't,” he says flatly. “Now what will it be, boss?” He rubs his hands together, looking over the room.
It’s only slightly awkward between them now, but they’re doing their best to not let their actions a few months ago cloud their behaviors. If anything, it helps remind her that despite the supernatural happening around them, some things are still as expected.
"Would you mind getting the chairs all back to where they were before?”
“Easy peasy!” He gets to work without a singular note of complaining about why it matters that the chairs aren't in their place, or that he's tired from placing them there in the first place. She shakes her head, not wanting to relive that argument with Jonathan from a few weeks ago.
She's grateful for the company and his constant stream of conversation; there's something about the tone of his voice, about the random stories he tells that not only helps pass the time, but also keeps her out of her thought spiral. It’s the same reason why, even though it's been nearly half a year since he told her about his dream, she still finds herself escaping into its memory before she falls asleep more often than not these days. She knows what it means and it scares her, because if she confronts it, he'll be just another person she could lose, and she doesn't want to risk that, not when everything around them is so fragile.
"I was actually thinking we should get a projector down here,” Steve says, stacking the last of the chairs near the back wall. “It would be so much easier to plan shit out and clean up if we had one. You know, like the one Mr. Kent used for fifth period algebra?”
She takes a look at the space — there's an outlet in the corner of the room, and if they move the couch over to the other wall, it would fit perfectly. "That’s a good idea.”
“Why are you so surprised? I always have good ideas.”
“If you're fishing for compliments I'm afraid I'm all out,” she replies, stacking the last of the pizza boxes by the stairs. They also really need garbage cans.
“I'm not, I'm just trying to make this abandoned bunker underneath a radio station a home!”
She laughs for the first time in what feels like weeks. She's never going to understand how he does it, how he manages to stay so positive despite everything going on and how willing he is to share that lightness with everyone else.
“This bad boy is the only thing left, right?” He slaps the concrete for emphasis.
God this wall. Her mood shifts again. This stupid wall serves as another reminder of all the work they put into planning and now it all needs to get cleaned up — all their checkpoints, all their codes, all their routes would need to be adjusted.
“Sorry it didn't work out,” he says softer. “I know you've been planning it for a while. But we'll get him next time.” He says it so confidently that for a second she almost believes it.
“Will we? Because it’s been almost a year, Steve, seven months and ten days to be exact, and we haven’t gotten any closer to finding him or closing the gate. Eleven is hiding out in some cabin in the middle of the woods, and I was supposed to — it’s all so fucked!” she exclaims, starting to pace the room. “I knew something would go wrong, it always does, doesn’t it?” She turns to look at him. “I should have…”
“Woah, hey, hey —” he reaches out a hand like he wants to touch her but decides against it, “ it’s not your fault. You’re smart, Nance, but you aren’t like telekinetic…no wait, psychic! You aren’t psychic, not even Eleven is psychic. I know it feels like we are all clowns learning to juggle and instead of giving us extra balls to throw around they give us...knives that have been set on fire and are asking us to do ballet at the same time,” he tries miming the action, “but we're all in this together, and it’s not your fault, so don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s not going to help.”
She laughs, turning around and wiping her eyes, feeling lighter already. She needed that, needed to not only let it out but also get someone to pull her back down to Earth with how tightly wound she is. She should have come to him sooner.
She leans against the wall for support, closing her eyes and trying to calm down.
“Sorry for snapping.”
He leans his shoulder against the wall, smiling warmly. “It's okay. I know it’s a lot.”
“I just wish it would stop for even a minute, you know. I haven't even had a chance to breathe since all of this started.”
“Then take a break.”
“How exactly would I take a break? It's not like I can go on vacation somewhere or hide from what I have to do.”
“Then let me help. Tell me what you need to get done and I'll do it for you. I can help Holly with her homework, help clean, or even pick up deliveries. There's not much I can do about driving the kids to school since I have to be here, but otherwise I'm here for whatever you want or need. Well, I guess nothing illegal, but, honestly, I think we're way past that at this point.” His tone is as innocent as when he asked if he could help her clean the room, no alternative motive, nothing aside from simply being there for her. That in and of itself helps.
“Are you sure?”
“Look around, I've got nothing else going on.”
There's a lot of things she could ask of him and she knows he would do it without question, but truth be told there's only one thing that she needs right now.
Her belly flutters as she considers asking. Flashes of the last time they were alone float through her mind: the way he took his time fingering her, the look of ecstasy on his face as he slid inside, the shadow that fell on his face as he pulled out. Most of all she remembers how for a few (well several if she's being honest) stolen moments, everything felt right and good with the world. And she wants to feel that again. It should be wrong, but it felt so right.
She takes a step towards him. “I want you to touch me.”
“I don't think that's a very good idea, Nance,” he replies tightly, almost reluctantly, but she recognizes the want in his eyes regardless.
“No, it probably isn't,” she agrees, placing her hand on his chest, “but I want you to touch me anyway.”
“Nancy,” he starts again, but he steps closer, licking his lips, the reluctance losing its grip.
“Don't think about it, just touch me.” She takes his hand and places it on her breast. “Please.”
He's pushing her up against the wall before she can even blink, one hand kneading her breast, the other setting low on her hips. “You want me to help you relax?” he says as he rubs his nose from one side of her neck to the other. “You want me to give you what you've been missing?” he says, kissing the junction of her throat. “You want me to make you come?” His thigh slides in between hers pressing directly into her core. Fuck. Fuck. It's not just his thigh, she feels his cock, remembers how perfect it felt when he was inside of her, how lov —
“Please,” she whimpers, tipping her head to the side, needing more. Her hands tangle in his curls, pulling on them, urging him to get to it already.
He chuckles, though it comes out more as a moan. “I've never seen you this worked up.” He slides his hands down to her pants, starting to unbuckle them. “Its so fucking hot." He presses a featherlight kiss against her lips, and a flower blooms in her chest, but it’s too much, it’s too much.
She presses a palm to his chest.
He looks up at her in confusion and concern. “Okay?” he asks, brushing the curls off her ear, his breath so hot against her lips she’s having a hard time remembering what she wanted to say.
She presses her forehead to his. “This doesn't have to mean anything. This is just you helping me out. And if you ever…need help, just let me know.”
“Just friends helping friends?”
She nods, tracing the fine lines of his face with a finger.
"I can make that work,” he says, dropping to his knees.
═════════════════════
NANCY
NOVEMBER 1986 — SEPTEMBER 1987
It's become somewhat of a routine for them. All it takes is a shared look and a whisper of, ‘Do you need a break?’ between conversations and their plans are made.
It isn't always in the bunker, though that's where they end up more often than not these days. Sometimes they're in the van, sometimes in the restroom, sometimes in his house, and once, when the weather turned again, behind the studio (though they both agreed never to do that again on account of all the bugs).
And it isn't always sex, either. Sometimes they only use their hands, sometimes they use their mouths, sometimes they both get off, sometimes it's just one of them. It's whatever they need at the moment. And after the moment has passed, they go about their days like nothing is going on between them.
They've both changed a lot since they were last together and so has the sex. He's so much more confident than he used to be, so much more talkative too, and a small part of Nancy feels envious over the girls he learned all of this with. But every time the thought crosses her mind, she shakes it away, because all of this is supposed to be without attachment, without emotion. Done simply to relieve the stress of their daily lives.
It's just stress relief, she reminds herself every time they get dressed and the desire to kiss him before they go their separate ways appears.
It's just stress relief, she reminds herself when she starts looking for him in every room she enters.
It's just stress relief, she reminds herself, when they both start gravitating towards each other, a touch of a shoulder as they review their plans, a brush of fingertips as she hands him a Bopper, a shared meaningful look as they go their separate ways before a crawl.
The only things that stay consistent are the rules; there are three now: no visible marks (his only request after she left a hickey on his neck that caused way too many questions), no kissing, and most importantly, no emotions. The first one is easy, the second one is challenging at times, and the third, well, the third is becoming impossible. Because it's not just orgasms she's craving, it's being with him.
But she doesn't have the mental capacity to process it with everything going on around them.
═════════════════════
STEVE
OCTOBER 1987
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he snaps.
“What's wrong, bopper-cup?” Robin responds, popping her head through the open door of the radio room like a meerkat.
“I can't find the amplifiers.” He turns back towards the bin of cassette tapes. “I left it right here last night and today it's just…”
“Did you consider the possibility of it growing legs and walking out of here?” she asks, placing the headphones on her head.
He lets out a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to keep it together. It's much too early in the fucking morning to be dealing with this. They're ten minutes away from having to broadcast and he can't find the one thing he needs to make sure it runs smoothly. He just needs one thing to go right for him.
“It'll be fine, Steve,” she says over her shoulder, getting the vinyls out of their packs. “Relax.”
He wishes he could. It should be simple — all he needs to do is pull Nancy aside and ask her the question, but he doesn't think he'll ever be able to even think of those words again.
He knew this…arrangement between them was going to be a bad idea as soon as it started, but he had deluded himself into thinking he could follow the rules, that he could separate his feelings for her and be content with just using each other to feel better. And it worked for a while, but as the days turned into months, he could no longer ignore the fact that, no matter how many times she screamed out his name, she would always run back to Byers, and the knot against his throat got tighter and tighter until it became impossible to breathe, until it was impossible to ignore the truth.
The final nail in the coffin came three days ago on an unusually warm October day. He doesn’t remember who made the final call, but it was decided that they would meet up at the Wheeler’s for a movie marathon for a break from it all, at least for a few hours. They had made themselves comfortable in the basement, watching the few remaining titles that hadn’t been stolen out of Family Video. For those few hours, surrounded by the laughter of (most of) his favorite people, he truly believed that everything would be okay.
But then Nancy was bringing down a bunch of pizzas with Byers; he had his palm on her lower back and she was laughing. They had settled down on the floor feet away from him, leaning against each other and whispering between themselves for the rest of the day.
He felt nauseous, unable to focus on what they were watching because it should be him making her smile, making her laugh, making her happy — he's been doing that all year. He's not one to get jealous, especially over Jonathan fucking Byers, but he can't for the life of him understand what keeps her tied to him when it's so obvious just how unhappy they are together, even with their recent reprieve, when he could give her everything that she deserves and more.
He leaves the station as soon as the broadcast is over — the wave of apathy is at his throat and he’s not sure he could handle seeing the two of them together, not when the memory of them huddled up together is still fresh in his mind, her laughter repeating on loop over and over again.
Robin notices, but he spares her the details, not wanting to cloud her newfound happiness.
He drives around trying to come up with potential crawl routes, but that just gets him more upset because that's something they've been working on together. He checks the clock after what feels like years, but it's only one in the afternoon. They don't have anything else planned today, no meetings, no afternoon show, his walkie didn't buzz with any sudden announcements, so he heads home to grab lunch then heads back to the station.
The place isn't exactly cozy by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the only place in town where it's quiet, where, for a few hours every morning, and sometimes afternoon, he's able to feel normal again, accomplished, even. Where he can be alone with only his thoughts so he can figure out what the fuck he’s going to do about the turmoil inside of him.
Except it seems like he's not the only one looking for a quiet place.
Nancy’s lost in her own little world, spinning side to side on a swivel chair, deep in thought as she looks at a variety of maps laid out on the table in front of her.
The knot tightens around his throat again. Seeing her used to be the brightest part of his day, hearing her laughter used to make the monotony and anxiety of this never-ending quarantine easier to manage, but now seeing her just reminds him of everything that he doesn’t have, reminds him of the emptiness that filled every part of him when he dropped Dustin off at Snowball.
He should leave before he does something stupid, before he confronts her about it all without really thinking about what it would mean.
But the universe has other plans.
“Oh, there you are!” She smiles, looking happy to see him. “Robin said you had a headache, are you feeling better?”
It’s moments like this — when she notices his absence, when she shows just how much she cares — that make it so much harder to not believe that something real is going on between them.
“I’m okay. You look like you’re working on something though, so I’ll just head back out. I don’t want to interrupt.”
She shakes her head vigorously. “You aren't. Come here. I'd love your take on this, anyway.”
It's a terrible idea, but he's heading down the stairs before he even realizes, unable to ever say no to her. What did Robin call him six months ago when he told her about the arrangement — a glutton for punishment?
He stops at the edge of the table across from her, shifting his focus to make sense of what’s in front of him: there’s color coded maps, field reports, hand written notes, even newspaper clippings. The only thing that makes sense is a can of Sprite off to her right. “What am I supposed to be looking at, exactly?”
“We’ve been doing these crawls for what, almost a year now, right? And we’ve covered a lot of ground” — she runs her delicate fingers over streets outlined in red — “but we haven’t really made any actual progress. So I started thinking, what if we had a more efficient way of picking sectors.
“I first looked at where the four portals opened up, but there was nothing along those routes, but then one day I overheard Mike talking about the tunnels and it made me pull out the map that we have of them and follow them around, looking to see if they intersected and when you overlay that with the portals, it all leads here.” She glides her hands over the various brown lines on the map, until she stops at a tiny dot at the outskirts of town.
“Where is that?”
She looks up at him with a glint of excitement in her eye. “No idea. But —”
“But it’s a start,” he finishes her sentence. “How long have you been working on this?”
“I've been thinking about it since Christmas, but only started working on it a few weeks ago,” she replies, shyly. She reaches out to grab a pen, but tips over her pop, spilling its contents all over the table. “Shit!” she stands, lifting the map off the table. “Steve, can you —”
He’s already moving before she even finishes the sentence. “Napkins, got it.”
As he heads to the other side of the room to grab the container, he can’t help but feel a bit warm at how in sync they’ve been over the past few months. They’ve always worked well together, but lately it feels like it’s more than just simple familiarity. Fuck, there he goes again.
The universe truly is conspiring against him today because there’s no other way for him to clean up the spill than to step behind her, and sure, he could just hand over the napkins himself, but he’s powerless against the pull he feels towards her. He never should have stayed, this is only he’s just going to give himself unnecessary hope. Fuck.
“Good thing it's just Sprite, right?” he asks, stepping up behind her and pressing the wad of napkins on the small puddle, trying to ease the tension.
She freezes. “I…what?” she asks, sounding slightly unsure as his chest brushes against her back.
“I just meant at least it won’t stain.” He takes a clean stack and drags it across the table in front of her, absorbing the remainder of the drink. “Might be sticky though.”
She reaches out to pat the table, but catches the edge of his hand before he can move away.
He should definitely put some space between them now. He should leave, actually, because there's only so much anguish he could take in the span of a few days, because even this tiny touch is enough to make him buzz, and he doesn’t even want to think about the drop that comes after — but he can’t because she hasn’t so much as flinched away from his touch, instead applying just the tiniest pressure against his fingertips almost innocently, like she too feels the static that clings to their skin whenever they touch and she doesn’t want it to stop.
He moves carefully, testing her reaction as he takes hold of her hand and turns it over, pressing his palm to hers, tracing her slender fingers with his. She shudders, fingers twitching slightly and he waits with baited breath for her to pull away, to tell him that this crosses a line, to tell him to stop, but she doesn’t, instead her fingers curl around his knuckles, gripping him tightly, fully entwining their hands.
One tiny touch is all it takes for him to break, for his hunger to spring free of its prison. He steps closer, wrapping his other arm around her belly, nuzzling his face into the back of her curls, and takes a deep breath. She still smells like the same strawberry vanilla shampoo she’s always used, but it smells like home — she’s always smelt like home.
“I’ve missed you.” He admits like he’s letting out a secret. It’s been months, years even, since he’s last let himself really think about how much he misses her, but it’s always been there, like some unavoidable background noise that he is never going to be able to get rid of.
“Steve,” she whispers, almost in warning.
He knows it’s against the rules, but fuck the rules. He’s not going to let something as stupid as a bunch of made up rules keep him from having her, not when she hasn’t so much as pushed him away, or asked him if he needs to take a break and given him a reason to play the game the way she’s wanted him to since they started.
He ghosts his lips along the back of her ear. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
He feels it more than he hears it, the way the tension leaves her body as she sighs, head dropping backwards against him like she's giving him permission to keep going. There is no stopping this now.
He lets go of her hand and traces delicate patterns around her other forearm, her bicep, across her shoulders. When he brushes against her neck, she releases a noise so quiet he can only recognize it because he’s so familiar with all the sounds she can make; it’s a sound that means more, a sound that goes straight through him, a sound that makes him bolder.
He moves with more intent then, holding her closer, angling his hips towards her ass, sliding his hand down her throat, across her belly, her neck, her shoulders, placing open mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, across her jawline. Her neck is his second favorite place to be because it gives him access to her quiet whimpers directly against his ear, to her pulse jumping against his tongue as he brushes his palm against her perfectly soft, perfectly sized breast.
She turns around, arms settling against his neck, pulling his face towards hers. Her usually blue eyes are dilated and focused on his lips as if in a trance like she wants more, like she needs more, like she’s begging him to break this rule, too.
He kisses her slowly at first, giving her one last chance to back out, but she doesn't use it, she pulls him closer, gripping his hair so tightly he thinks she’s going to tear out strands.
Their kiss is hungry and messy, but their lips slide together with practiced ease, as she leans her perfect ass against the table, pulling him even further into her space. His hands land on the table beside her to keep from falling. And it's a good thing he has something to lean against because he feels like he's been electrocuted, her tongue sucking and swirling over his like she's trying to…fuck, it's exactly how she works the tip of his cock.
It been almost a year since he last kissed her and almost three since he was able to make her feel and he wants to take his time, wants to make up for all the time they’ve missed, but it's been seven fucking days since he's last had her and he feels every single one of them along the length of his hardening cock. There’s no time for softness when he needs her coming around him more than he needs air.
He unbuttons her cardigan then she pulls off his sweater and her bra joins their pile of clothes shortly thereafter.
There's a pause then, their heavy breathing fills the air as they do nothing but stare, taking each other in as if it's the first time. It started a few months ago, this little pause as soon as most of their clothes are off. He’d been trying to not think about what it meant, but that was when the rules still applied. Now, he realizes it started a few weeks after Hopper had a run in with the military police.
But there’s no time to linger on it, not with the way she drags her fingers down his torso, her eyes glazed over with want, her lips red and slightly bruised from his teeth, her curly hair gently brushing at the edges of her neck, her nipples pebbling up from the cold.
Her face breaks for a second as she brushes her thumbs almost too gently along the faint scars by his hip bone, but it clears by the time she’s squeezing him through his jeans.
“Fuck,” he keens, head falling onto her shoulder from the pleasure starting to course through him. Her hands fidget with the button of his jeans, but he stops her. “Hold on.” His cock twitches in protest, but he's thought way too long about this for his plans to be derailed and if she gets her hand or mouth around him, he’s going to finish embarrassingly quickly.
She freezes, hands dropping to her sides.
He surges forward, cupping her face. “I don't mean no. I very much love seeing you on your knees for me.” Her lips part for him as his finger slides across them, tongue sticking out to flick at his thumb, the sensation going straight through him. “I just really need to fuck you right now, baby.”
It wasn’t intentional, in fact he'd purposefully avoided calling her anything but her name for fear of exposing how he really felt, but it had slipped out so easily and well, he had already broken one rule.
She places her hand against his chest, palms scorching against his skin and for the briefest of moments, he sees everything that he's ever wanted to hear from her, but it's gone in a flash. “Next time, then.”
He doesn't tell her there may not be a next time.
He kisses down her chest, kneading one breast while swirling his tongue over her other nipple until it hardens in his mouth, then sucks on it until she starts whimpering, until she starts grinding up against him. The sound goes straight to his hardening cock and his ego.
He takes her other nipple into his mouth, as he looks up at her, rubbing her other with his thumb, keeping up the contact.
Her hands grip the sides of the table in a vice grip, her head is thrown back in complete pleasure, body arching and following his touch. She's never perfect than when she is free like this, free of expectations, free of judgements. Just Nancy Wheeler taking what she wants. If he had the time, the things he would do to her. The things he would give her.
He releases her breast with a pop, kissing down her belly, kneeling in front of her. “Do you remember what we did last time and how good I made you feel?” he asks, looking up at her.
She nods, open mouthed and cheeks tinged with red.
He starts kissing her thighs as he unbuttons her jeans. “I'm gonna make you feel even better today. How does that sound to you?”
Her hands go into his curls like they always do, “Sounds, sounds good.”
“I need you to do something for me, though.” He nudges her core with his nose but then stands up, kissing up her belly, mouthing at her nipples along the way, kissing up her chest and her neck until he's at her ear. “I need you to turn around.”
She lets him maneuver her into position with his hands, pushing her forward until she’s bending over the table, but she stops him.
“Hold on,” she says, with ragged breath. “I've worked too long to ruin these.” She slides the maps to the other side of the table then lays her hands flat against the surface, spreading her legs and looking back, not in concern, but in urgency, in agreement with whatever it is he has planned. “Is this how you wanted me?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he nearly chokes, giving his aching cock a squeeze through his pants. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
He wants to take more time, wants to kiss her all over, wants to touch and taste as much as he can because he has a gut feeling this may be the last time for a while, but he's much too hungry for teasing today. And so is she apparently, because when he slides off her jeans and panties, leaving them pooling at her ankles, he nearly chokes. She’s so fucking wet, she’s practically glistening even in the dimness of the bunker, her arousal clings thickly to her thighs.
“You should’ve told me you needed to be taken care of.” He swipes his thumb around her and brings it to his mouth. “How do you always taste so fucking sweet?”
He rolls on the condom with ease, stepping up behind her to slide through her folds, trying so hard not to come from how warm, how soft, how wet, how ready she is for him when he's barely even touched her. Like she was fucking made for him.
She whimpers as the head of his cock rubs against the underside of her clit, grinding her hips against him.
He leans forward, kissing her shoulder, grinding into her. “What do you want?” It's silly how desperate he is to know she wants him.
“You,” she whines.
She’s barely finished the word before he’s pushing into her slowly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she groans.
Her tight heat flutters against him, tempting him to press deeper and deeper until he's bottomed out inside of her. No matter how many times he's done this, he's never going to get used to it. “You're so perfect, Nance.” He closes his eyes and lets the feeling of her warmth around him spread over him.
“Move, Steve,” she pleads moments later, staring to fuck herself against him.
“You seem — fuck — to be doing that yourself.” He spreads her ass, taking in the sight of his cock disappearing completely inside of her, coming out wetter than it was, her asshole twitching, her breasts swinging from the force of her thrusts. If it isn’t the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever seen.
She starts panting, grabbing hold of his thighs from behind, but her hips start losing momentum after a while, so he starts meeting her thrusts.
“It's not enough, is it? It’s okay, I got you.” His palms slide up her spine and into her hair and gently pushes her down until she’s laying on the table, then bends her leg and sets her knee against the side of the table, changing the angle to fuck into her so deeply that she can remember who is making her feel this good tomorrow and the next day, and the next, wants to ruin her for anyone else, wants her to be his.
“Steve, Steve, Steve,” she pants, her hips meeting his at every thrust. “Fuck, right there.”
“I know, baby, I know,” he coos, no longer caring about calling her something so tender. “I told you I would make you feel good.” He finds her clit with his fingers, rubbing tight circles along the sensitive nub while reaching for her breast with the other.
He gets lost in the sounds of their combined pleasure, in the wet squelch of his cock, in the overwhelming tension that is starting to build inside of him, in the way her body adjusts to him. He's not going to last long, and he knows she isn't either, not with the way her breathing changes to rough pants, with the way her thighs tremble against his and the way her back arches just a little bit more, the way her legs squeeze together, the way she stands on her tippy toes, the way she's fucking herself against him, their thighs growing sticky with sweat.
Fuck, fuck, fuck he hates that he knows her better than he knows himself.
"I know you're close.” He helps bring her leg back onto the floor as he grinds his hips against hers, wanting to hit that spot inside of her that he knows drives her wild, ”Tell me what you need.”
She makes a noise, tapping his hip as she lifts herself up off the table but catches herself as her knees buckle, almost losing balance.
He grabs her by the hips, holding her steady and helps her turn around then sits her on the table. “Careful.”
She smiles tenderly, resting her forehead against his. “Thanks, Steve.”
He’s about to tease, about to joke how he fucked her so good she forgot how to stand, but he the only thing he can think about is how there’s a new set of freckles that have spread along the length of her nose, no doubt from all the time they spent outside this summer. She’s so fucking beautiful he’d be content to do nothing but stare at her for another 537 days.
The words are on his tongue, they’ve always been on his tongue, and he may be stupid, but he’s not stupid enough to let them out here, not now, not when she’s still —
The air is knocked out of him as she kisses him again, slightly slower and softer this time. Their heads tilt in unison, their lips linger at every point of contact as if to stay connected for as long as possible, pushing and pulling into each other’s bodies with no foreseeable end in sight, easily falling back into a rhythm they’ve perfected over the years, his heart aching for a way back to her.
He knows why this was against the rules: the tidal wave of emotions surging through him makes it impossible to differentiate between hunger and affection, between desire and love. He can't believe he deluded himself into thinking he could ever separate the two when it came to her.
And when he slides inside of her again, when she pulls him in so close there’s barely an inch of space between their sticky skin, when she moans into his mouth, he closes his eyes, wishing they were in his bed and he could hold her and be this close to her forever.
He finds her clit again, grinding into her slowly, deeply, making her feel every inch, moving in time with his lips, his thumb circle inside of her. It takes almost no time for her to get back to the edge, for the grip she has on him to tighten, for her walls to start clenching around him rhythmically. “There you go, come for me, baby.”
It takes a few more seconds before she’s trembling around him, coming with a soft cry as his own orgasm rolls through him, their breaths mingling between them. He fucks them both through it, clinging to her, unsure of the words he’s mumbling into her ear, unsure if they’re even intelligible or if he’s confessing his darkest desires to her.
He holds her close, not ready to step away, not ready for this moment to end, even as the chill of the bunker starts seeping into their bodies, even as their breathing has returned to normal, even as he can feel it in the air, the conversation he knows they need to have.
She presses a gentle hand to his face, brushing underneath his eyes then presses a kiss to his forehead, his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the dual moles on the side of his neck she always teased him about.
He feels it then, a tug on some part of him that's only ever belonged to her, like he's a church bell and she's the only one who has ever had permission to make it ring out. Everything else disappears, everything else goes silent, mellowing out, turning into something so soft and so real that there is no way all of this is one sided. But he can’t take this kind of tenderness from her without an acknowledgement, without anything for him to hang on to when he inevitably falls.
This is probably not the time or place to have this conversation, but if he doesn't say his piece now, he's not sure he's ever going to.
He gives himself a few more seconds to relish in it all before he places his hand along her delicate wrist. “I need to talk to you.”
“About what?” She looks hesitant, but he's not going to give her a chance to say no or run away.
“Just get dressed.” He squeezes her shoulder.
He can feel her anxiety rising as he leads them to the couch, to the spot where it all started. And just like that day, she sits down within reach; he’s still not sure if she does it on purpose.
“What’s going on?” she asks, crossing her legs. “Is everything okay?”
God, she’s so fucking beautiful, so blissed out, all doey eyed and reddened cheeks and bruised lips, so soft and so his. Maybe he shouldn't do this, maybe he should just keep on pretending because at least this way he has a part of her.
“That's the second stupidest idea you've ever had,” Robin's voice rings through his head.
He takes a deep breath. “What are we doing, Nance?”
She stills. “Can you be a bit more specific?”
He can't help but snicker at how predictable she is. Of course she was going to play dumb, of course she was going to pretend nothing out of the ordinary just happened. And that's the crux of the problem — she’s one of the bravest people he's ever met, running straight into danger without a second thought if someone needs help, but the second feelings come up, she hides.
“This…us,” he points between them. “What are we?”
She fidgets in her seat. “We're just, we're friends.”
“Because friends do what we’ve been doing.”
She sits up straighter. “I thought we were on the same page about this — that all of this was supposed to help us cope.”
Nancy Wheeler has always worn her emotions on her sleeve, and while she's gotten better at trying to conceal, he's gotten better at observing, which is how he knows that she isn't telling the truth. Besides, she hasn't so much as brought up the fact that they don't have sex without asking for a break, or so much as hinted at being upset that he broke two of their three rules. She may not like confrontation, but maybe if he pushes her far enough, she'll have no other choice but to finally acknowledge it.
“Is that really all it is for you? Is that really all you want from me? Can you honestly tell me today, right now, no lies, no bullshit, that you don't feel anything for me?”
She opens her mouth, but closes it, turning away, her curls blocking the view of her face. “I don’t…” she shakes her head, “I can't do this right now, Steve. There’s just too —”
“Too much going on, right,” he finishes her sentence, starting to feel his body fill with lead at being turned down by her yet again. Or rather, being placed back in limbo, which is somehow ever worse.
He takes deep breaths, trying to hold himself together, but it doesn't help hide the cracks in his voice. “Well, I can’t do this and keep pretending like I don’t want you anymore.”
She turns to look at him, eyes wide with something similar to panic. “But you agreed, you said…”
“I know what I said, but you had to know I was lying. Nancy, you know I want you for real, without any of these made up rules.”
“Steve, I…”
He reaches out to take her hand, trying to lighten the load. It somehow makes him feel worse. “Listen, I’m not going to stop being your friend, and I’m always going to be there for you, that part will never change, I just can't be someone you go to when things get tough, but not the one you go to when something is good and I want you to be mine the next time I touch you or kiss you. I won't bring this up again, so when you figure out what you want you know where to find me, and if you don't then I'll just assume that…well.”
She looks so lost and so fragile that he hates giving her an ultimatum, but there is no other choice, it’s too painful to do anything else.
He stands up then, hoping she won’t see his wet eyes, knowing that he’s not getting an answer today. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See…you…tomorrow.”
As he walks out of the studio, he promises to stop giving this any more thought and instead to focus on their friendship, so the eventual rejection doesn't hurt as much as letting her go the first time.
* * *