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Robin is dreaming.
It’s one of those dreams that feels mildly ridiculous even in progress. Robin will look back on it later and recall a smear of colorful shapes, and, maybe, dancing teeth? Unclear.
Those shapes get blurrier, the light around the edges brighter, when she feels a soft weight gently moving against the length of her, pressing her into the mattress, enveloping her in the evocative, familiar smell of green apple and sandalwood.
Oh sweet, Robin’s sleep-addled brain crows, this is turning into a Nancy dream.
The weight shifts, and Robin slowly becomes aware of birdsong, the heat of the day seeping through the cracks of curtains, and the mellow rhythm of breath decidedly not her own.
Her eyes flutter open to meet Bambi-wide blue ones, already crinkled at the corners.
Oh, holy shit.
“Oh, holy shit.”
“Good morning to you too, Buckley.” Nancy’s face is smug, her chin resting in her palm as she leans on Robin’s breastbone, and Robin feels her breath catch in her throat, sputtering at Nancy’s body stretched so very decidedly on top of her’s.
“Are…are you real? Did I manifest this? This is like sexy Christmas morning.”
Nancy’s smirk spreads into a full-fledged smile, and she’s sliding up Robin until they’re nose to nose, lips a breath from each other’s. Nancy’s hand is gliding down Robin’s throat, dipping under her collar, and Robin, Robin trembles.
Oh, holy shit.
“Nice shirt,” Nancy purrs. Robin swallows, hard, tearing her eyes away from Nancy’s to glance down at her dad’s ratty, nearly transparent 1970s Margaritaville t-shirt. She turns narrowed eyes back to Nancy, who is biting her lip, her expression a battle between hunger and barely-contained glee.
“You cannot make fun of my pajamas when you’re, like, wriggling on top of me, Wheeler.” Robin stammers, voice sandpaper rough, trying to remember if her mouth has always been this dry.
Nancy’s face softens, eyes laughing, balling the front of Robin’s shirt in a fist.
“Believe it or not,” Nancy’s voice is low, eyes trailing down Robin’s chest, “it’s really, really working for me.”
Robin exhales, ragged, surging forward to capture Nancy’s mouth, ripping her hands from the sheets to grope, greedy, at the strip of bare back between Nancy’s blouse and shorts. Nancy’s sighing into the kiss like it’s a relief, like it’s a fucking oasis to have Robin touch her like this, and it’s setting fire to nearly every ounce of self-control Robin has.
She lets her hands slide along the smooth dip of Nancy’s spine under her shirt, and Nancy’s whimpering, soft around Robin’s tongue. She’s suddenly aware of how much Nancy’s wearing…blouse, necklace, shorts…and how much she, Robin, is not, only the oversized, worn t-shirt and drugstore boy’s briefs under the sheet between them.
It’s making her shudder.
“God, I love it when you do that.” Nancy’s groaning, pressing her hips down into Robin’s and, fuck, stars explode behind her eyes.
“What, tremble like an overeager teenage boy when you touch me?” Robin says thickly into the kiss, sucking on Nancy’s bottom lip and feeling her keen, weakly, into her mouth.
“You,” Nancy murmurs, pulling back for a moment before zeroing in on Robin’s thudding pulse point, leaning down to kiss and lick hot trails down Robin’s neck. “You are not like any teenage boy I’ve ever known,” She nips, making Robin gasp. “Even if I tease you like you are, sometimes.”
Nancy sighs. “And thank fuck for that.”
Robin swallows, flushing, Nancy’s words and attention nearly overwhelming her. They haven’t talked about this, really. How Nancy feels about Robin seems so blindingly, euphorically clear that it’s blotted out any courage Robin has to ask how Nancy feels about…well, every other complication that goes along with it.
Because Robin Buckley is very much not a teenage boy.
A thud from down the hall and Robin’s parents’ muffled voices invade the moment, making them both start. Nancy chuckles ruefully, slowly lifting her head to plant a chaste, gentle kiss on Robin’s swollen lips.
Robin lifts her hands from Nancy’s back to place them on both her cheeks.
“You are so ridiculously hot, and those people are my enemies.” Robin hisses, scowling, making Nancy grin against her palms.
“Go easy on them, your mom’s the one that let me in.” Nancy’s gazing down at her with such affectionate tenderness that Robin blushes, dropping her hands to Nancy’s waist.
She narrows her eyes. “Hmm, yes, Michelle thinks you’re a tremendously good influence.”
Nancy smirks, tracing a finger along Robin’s clavicle. “Oh, she’s absolutely right.”
Robin shakes her head, voice overwrought. “My own mother, suckered by big blue eyes and trustworthy features.”
Nancy sits up to straddling, smug. “A shared familial weakness, seems like.”
Robin huffs, propping up on her elbows, trying to ignore her blazing cheeks. Nancy looks so damn good in her lap, lips curled in a tease, it makes her wanna commit crimes. “Are you here just to make me start my day half-crazed? Because you’re doing a fantastic job.”
Nancy rolls her eyes, taking pity on them both and rolling off, leaving Robin immediately missing the weight of her.
“I promise, my intentions were pure.” She’s smiling, resting against Robin’s desk, looking summer lean, and sun-kissed. Christ. “I also didn’t expect you to still be asleep, you sweet dip.”
Robin grumbles, finally climbing out of bed herself, feeling deliciously punch-drunk. She makes no attempt to cover her bare legs in her briefs as she stretches, watching Nancy’s gaze follow the motion, and takes enormous satisfaction in her reddening face.
“All right, Nance, tell me about your pure intentions.” Robin yawns, grabbing a pair of knee-lengths cutoffs out of a drawer and pulling them on. Nancy coughs, but doesn’t look away as Robin turns her back to her and exchanges her sleep tee for an auto shop button-up with the sleeves ripped off.
“Well, you don’t have work today, and I don’t have work today, so I thought I’d take you on a little…adventure.” Nancy manages, taking a deep breath like she’s trying to force her brain to behave. It makes Robin giddy and bashful in equal measure.
She spins, eyes wide and playful. “Nancy Wheeler, are you taking me on a spontaneous outing?!”
Nancy’s lips quirk, and she steps into Robin’s space, looking up at her. How’s someone allowed to have eyes like that? Robin thinks. How can the universe permit a gaze exist that Robin would do anything for?
Nancy reaches up and straightens Robin’s collar, fingers brushing her neck. “I’ll do you one better, hot stuff. I’m taking you on a spontaneous date.”
***
Nancy won’t tell Robin where they’re going, just herds her into the passenger seat and pops in a Heart tape, sticking her tongue out when Robin accuses her of kidnapping.
She loves watching Nancy drive. The ease of her movements, her grounded confidence, the way she tips her head back. Anyone with eyeballs can see that Nancy Wheeler is pretty, but in these moments with Robin, the way her features settle, the shape of her mouth, her half-lidded gaze…she looks almost handsome.
Robin nearly opens her mouth to tell her so, and then closes it. Would Nancy take it as the aching compliment it was? Or is calling the girl you like handsome, kinda…Robin’s brain sputters…too gay?
For all Robin knows about Nancy, for all the parts of her that Robin holds close and cherished, Robin’s understanding of Nancy’s queerness remains a willful gap. Their first kiss had come virtually frictionless by Nancy’s hand, and since, she’s wrapped herself so joyfully around Robin that the idea that there was anything deeper to examine seems to almost fade away.
But it hasn't, because it can't, Robin realizes, her heart clenching watching Nancy hum along to the music, expression soft and open. The world that they live in has made sure the abnormality of their feelings remains constantly present outside their breathlessly wonderful bubble. She thinks back to the countless nights of loneliness so solid around the edges it felt physical, holding the secret so deep inside herself that she was convinced happiness was something only other people got to have. Telling Steve had been like opening a door and flooding her guts with sunlight. What she’d thought were stones inside her were seeds instead, and they bloomed into hope under his bad jokes and elbowed asides. And telling Nancy…
Robin inhales.
More than hope. Euphoria.
But Nancy’s not…odd like she is, Robin thinks to herself. She had a lifetime to get used to being a scruffy weirdo before adding “homo" to her list of features. Nancy, though. Nancy’s a force of nature. Nancy’s going to change the world, Robin knows it. But how does Nancy’s wanting Robin this way to fit into the picture Nancy might have of herself?
Does it make her feel lonely?
Ashamed?
Robin swallows.
What if these long summer days are simply temporal, this thing between them an insignificant aside in the story of Nancy’s magnificent life?
Robin can’t bear the thought of it. Worse, she can’t bring herself to ask Nancy whether it might be otherwise.
Nancy’s told Robin that she’s a blaze, that she’s lionhearted, but in the shadow of this fear, Robin feels like a mouse. She watches Nancy drive, and lets her chattering heart run away with all the ways it could break.
Nancy catches her eye and smiles, sliding her hand across the seat to thread their fingers together. Her window’s open, the wind blowing her hair, left hand so easy on the wheel. Robin quiets her thoughts, wishes she had a camera.
“These Dreams” begins to play, and Nancy sighs.
“Sing to me?”
And Robin does.
***
“This is breaking and entering, Wheeler!” Robin’s hissing, climbing after a shockingly nimble Nancy over a chainlink fence.
“Wow, Robin, where’s your sense of adventure?” Nancy huffs, hoisting herself over the top and bouncing down to the ground like it’s nothing.
Robin’s grunting, baring her teeth, half-afraid to move.
“You know, I used to have a whole lot of wild ideas about what hanging around Nancy Wheeler might look like…” she mutters, hooking her sneaker down another rung. “Some heavy study sessions, sure, honor society meetings, absolutely, but for some strange reason routine petty crime never made the list—SHIT!” She loses her grip and slides down the fence, where Nancy half-catches her.
Robin scoffs, brushing herself off. Nancy takes her hand, looks down at her with those sharp, earnest eyes, brows drawn together in gentle concern.
“You okay?”
Robin exhales. Is she going to ever get used to someone treating her with such clear and present care? She feels Nancy’s eyes on her when she’s goofing off with Steve at the store, or when she’s off on a tangent over a pizza. All those times Robin thinks she's nothing much to look at, Nancy watches her like simply seeing her is the point.
“Yeah, I’m okay, Nance.” Robin says with a smile, squeezing her hand. “Now that we’ve further demonstrated my total lack of athletic prowess, are you gonna finally tell me where the hell you’re taking me?”
Nancy’s features brighten. “You do climb about as well as you run.” She says, kissing Robin’s nose and helping her to her feet. “You’re on the final trek, Buckley. Come on.”
They’d driven over an hour and a half out of Hawkins when Nancy pulled over at what looked like an abandoned compound and scurried up the fence like a damn squirrel. What’s an additional hike through the woods? You could drag me anywhere, Robin doesn’t say, feeling like the world’s biggest cheeseball, letting herself get pulled along and positively relishing Nancy’s grip on her.
“Wait…okay.” Nancy whirls around, hands on Robin’s shoulders. “Close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?”
“Close your eyes.”
Robin quirks an eyebrow, and then does as she’s told, letting Nancy lead her along a gravel path for a stretch, before:
“Okay, you can open them…now.”
Robin doesn’t know what she expected, but nothing could have prepared her for this.
Standing far too proudly in front of her is a massive, two-story tall statue of a naked woman’s leg, stretching saucily up to the sky. It’s sitting on an equally giant pedestal, casting a gargantuan shadow down its length. Robin’s struck dumb for a moment. It’s the tackiest thing she’s ever seen. It’s hideous. It’s outrageous.
It’s perfect.
“Nancy. Nancy, this is terrible.” Robin gasps. She can’t seem to tear her eyes away.
“Isn’t it the worst?” Nancy’s face is triumphant, hands on her hips as she gazes upward at its wretched majesty.
“What is it?! Why is it here?!” Robin’s stalking around it, straining her neck to try and get the best look at it. It’s so absurd, so profoundly ridiculous, that Robin feels positively giddy.
“If you can believe it, we’re on the abandoned site of what was formerly Indiana’s oldest nudist resort, and this silly thing is a huge, sexy sundial.” Nancy explains, stuffing her hands in her pockets and following Robin onto the platform. Robin spins to face her, beaming.
“A sundial?!” Robin’s mouth drops open in campy awe.
“The guy who owned this place was run out of town earlier this year for being a predatory scumbag, but the leg…endures.” Nancy shrugs. “I thought it might be the kind of thing you’d like.” Her voices drops slightly, bashful, but she seems so pleased with herself that Robin’s chest throbs.
Robin bumps her hip into Nancy’s. “Are you telling me you used your day off and drove nearly two hours so that I could see a hilariously awful erotic lady sundial live and in person?”
Nancy grins shyly up at Robin, and shrugs again.
“This is the gayest thing you’ve ever done for me. Up to and including putting your tongue in my mouth.” Robin teases before she can stop herself.
To Robin’s delight, Nancy just snorts, sliding her hand around Robin’s waist and into her back pocket, gazing back at the leg. “Oh, I’m committed toward continuing to be an overachiever in that particular department.”
When Robin kisses her, then, it’s with such exuberance that she lifts Nancy off her feet.
***
Later, dusk is beginning to fall as they press together into a booth at an old-school roadside diner, both digging into cheeseburgers, faces illuminated by the sizzling neon outside. Robin watches Nancy dip two fries into her milkshake…primly, somehow. She remembers laying in that mall bathroom with Steve last year, dripping blood onto the floor, conjuring up a one-dimensional picture of Nancy’s solemn face. “She’s such a priss.” Remembers the spring, standing shoulder to shoulder with her in the Upside Down, practically bragging to Eddie. “Full of surprises, isn’t she?!”
Full of surprises, isn’t she.
Robin takes a deep breath.
“Nance? Can I ask you something…kind of intense?”
Nancy furrows her brow, chewing, nodding. “Always.”
Robin purses her lips. “Do you think you’re…um…” She stammers. “…like me? Or am I just, you know, kind of a one-time thing for you? An exception to the Nancy Wheeler rule? Which, you don’t have to know the answer right now!” Words are rushing out of Robin now, that familiar unstoppable stream. “I just…I was so scared, a-and alone, when I realized how I felt about girls…and I hate thinking about you scared, or lonely, or…or ashamed that you feel this way…I just want you to know it’s okay with me, no matter what the answer is, I want…I really want you to be happy, Nance, always, because having you in my life makes me so fucking happy, and—“
Until that point, Nancy’s just watched her, expression serious, but now, she’s lifting two fingers to gently press them to Robin’s lips, silencing her. She looks around the nearly empty diner, before ducking her head upward and pressing a firm, gentle kiss into Robin’s mouth.
“I could never, ever be ashamed of this, or of you.” Nancy murmurs, pressing her forehead against Robin’s, eyes blazing. Robin swallows, feeling inexplicably close to tears.
Nancy leans back, weaving her fingers with Robin’s under the table. “Do you know how I found out about that stupid leg?” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “I’ve been spending some of my mornings off at the library. You, Robin Buckley, showed me that you can find some wild stuff there, if you dig around hard enough.” Her mouth quirks at the edges. “Turns out that magazines and newspapers catering to deviants like us also carry lavishly illustrated ads for nudist resorts in the back.”
Robin blinks. Like us.
Nancy tilts her head, gazing into middle distance.
“But those same magazines and newspapers are also full of amazing people, caring for each other, finding each other.” She turns her eyes back to meet Robin’s, who realizes she’s been holding her breath. “Trying to build communities, trying to get laid. Making each other laugh. Just…really happy people, Robin.”
Robin takes a deep, shuddering breath, feels tears swimming at the edges of her vision. Nancy reaches up to brush the corners of Robin’s eyes with her thumbs, her own shining.
“I guess I don’t…I don’t quite know what exactly I am, yet.” Nancy continues, squinting with such a Nancy-ish face of concentration that Robin aches with the desire to clutch her. “But I know I’m not like them.” She gestures out at the diner, out at the world.
“And…” Nancy smiles, and it lights up her whole face. “I really, really want to figure it out. And I really want to do that with you.”
“You…” Robin feels choked, overwhelmed. “…are one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known.”
Nancy chuckles wetly. “Rob, I think that about you a thousand times a day.”
***
It’s long dark now, and Nancy’s rolls to a stop, parking at the end of Robin’s street. She shuts the car off, turning to Robin and stretching.
“We made it.” She murmurs, voice light as air.
Robin grins, languid, easy, gazing out the windshield, saluting the night sky. “I’ll never forget you, Giant Lady Leg.”
Nancy rolls her eyes, unbuckling and sliding across the seat to straddle Robin’s lap. “Don’t make me already regret taking you to that awful thing.”
“In our most intimate moments, I’ll lean over and say those three little words every girl longs to hear…” Robin slides her hands up Nancy’s waist, running her thumbs under her ribcage, relishing Nancy’s breath quickening. She leans in to whisper, seductively.
“Giant. Lady. Leg.”
“Oh my GOD you are not allowed to mention The Leg when you’re touching me!” Nancy exclaims, poking Robin in the ribs. “The Leg is off-limits during make-outs. NO LEG.”
Robin’s laughing, kissing along a squirming Nancy’s jawline, loving the way she glares down at her, face all at once scolding and indulgent.
“I, um…wanted to tell you earlier….” Robin hums against Nancy’s neck. “I think you look really handsome when you drive.”
Nancy leans back to meet Robin’s gaze, expression surprised…and then, enormously pleased.
“Really?” Nancy says, voice unexpectedly low and dangerous, hands snaking along both sides of Robin’s shoulders, moving up her throat to tangle in her hair.
Robin feels suddenly breathless, nods.
Nancy’s lips quirk, pulling gently at the back of Robin’s hair. “When else do you think I’m handsome?”
Robin licks her lips, feels her fingers flex against the soft give of Nancy’s hips. “When you’re looking down at me. Like, right now. You’re always pretty, but sometimes you do this thing with your eyes and your mouth, and—“
Nancy pulls harder, making Robin gasp softly, and leans down to whisper in Robin’s ear.
“I like being handsome for you.”
Full of surprises, isn’t she?!
Robin closes her eyes, the future stretching before her, infinite, and exhales.