Chapter Text
Trumpet stored away safely, she grabs the handle of the case and turns sharply on her heel. The school feels like a ghost town after hours, but she has to stick around to practice. The first day of school, 2 whole weeks ago, her band instructor called her out on being out of practice in front of everyone. She spent too much time all summer goofing off and hanging out with Steve, but it had been nice to finally have someone to hang out with.
She’s paying for it now though.
Between balancing school and work, she’s now having to put in extra hours practicing an instrument she thought she’d perfected already. It’s definitely her fault for slipping, for ignoring her beloved all summer, but Steve was not a band nerd and the last thing he understood was practicing an instrument. At the time, he said People can’t even hear you . And, yeah, he was wrong but it was a compelling argument. He’s people, after all.
She’s looking at the floor, busy trying to balance her backpack, duffle with her hand uniform, and trumpet case, when she feels a collision against her shoulder. A sharp pain shoots through her arm, jolting down her spine, hand becoming loose around the handle to her instrument. She holds her breath as she sends a silent prayer up to the goddesses above in hopes that she actually secured it this time. It flies through the air seemingly in slow motion before it settles against the ground. She can’t help closing her eyes, scared to look at the crash.
“Christ, Buckley,” comes a biting voice, “Watch where you’re going.”
Her eyes snap open against her will at the familiar voice, body immediately folding within itself. Looking at the floor, she notices papers scattered everywhere and her heart drops into her stomach. It turns and twists like she’s going to throw up. When she chances a glance at Nancy Wheeler, she sees the tightness in her jaw which makes her whole body feel warm.
“Shit, sorry,” she says quickly, “Are you ok?”
“Yeah,” Nancy says, sighing like the worst thing that could ever happen just has.
A groan tickles her lips, the frustration at being so disgustingly clumsy bubbling out. The last thing that she wanted was to make anyone’s day worse, especially Nancy’s. She’s getting real tired of embarrassing herself in front of pretty girls. It’s a never ending cycle. She’s been doing it for 4 years of high school and practically every day before that. If she could just have a little bit more control over her limbs or, at least, a little bit of charm to get herself out of the trouble. She drops to the floor and starts gathering the papers into a very disastrous stack.
“My mother always says to watch where I’m going but I’m so clumsy. Steve says it’s because I have long legs but it’s really just because I’m still figuring out how to stay on two feet. Every day it’s like I have sea legs whenever I wake up. Not that I’ve ever been to sea. Or the beach. Or outside of Hawkins really,” she rambles as she helps gather more papers off of the ground. When she realizes that she’s been talking for at least a full minute, she sighs mid speech. She really has to get her head right around pretty girls. She mumbles to herself, “Shut up, Robin.”
Nancy has an eyebrow quirked, jaw impossibly tighter as she feels dark eyes trace her very frame. She squirms where she’s kneeling under that gaze, feeling like she’s never actually seen anything like it before. The other woman is usually kind, at least when she’s speaking to others. A little prissy, sure, but soft enough at her edges.
“I really don’t understand social cues,” she continues, “And I can see that you’re actually really angry but is it possible that you maybe bumped into me? Or us into each other? Which, like, that’s fine. I’m ok. And you’re ok. But are you mad about something else?”
She receives a very long look, hesitance written all over the other woman’s face. They aren’t friends and they don’t really talk, not in the lengths of conversation. It still doesn’t stop her from having eyes that definitely know how to perceive the attractiveness of people.
Regardless, she feels the need to get to the bottom of Nancy’s anger. It’s what she does, picks and picks until she can get to whatever’s beneath it. Her scabs take forever to heal.
“I’m-“ Nancy starts, like she’s considering talking to her, Robin Buckley, of all people, about this; she abandons the potential of it all and says, “Fine.”
“Ok,” she says slowly, brain catching up to her thoughts when suddenly, they all spill out like she’s overflowing, “Just, you don’t seem fine and, I know, nobody wants to hear that but you actually seem very annoyed and also like you could throw a brick through a window. Do you want to? Throw a brick through a window?”
Nancy sighs, an elongated sort of ear piercing thing, and says, “Two bricks.”
“Consider me an impartial third party,” she says, “I’ll even help you throw the bricks if you tell me why and when.”
“Ok,” the other woman groans, annoyed as she grounds her teeth, “People are losing interest in Weekly Streak and Principal Graham wants me to throw in an advice column to get them hooked again or else they’ll shut the whole thing down. All of my reporters are stretched too thin right now so that means I have to do it and I don’t have the time either.”
Against her own free will, her mouth says, “I’ll do it.”
“What?” Nancy sputters.
“Turns out, I’m pretty good at giving advice, if you can believe that,” she says, clutching the papers in her hands so tight that they’re bending beneath them, “And I don’t mind, really. It’ll look good on my college resume.”
Nancy scoffs, gaze a little wobbly, saying, “Yeah right, Buckley. Writing for the Weekly Streak is a privilege.”
“Ok,” she says, shrugging yet huffing nonetheless, “Whatever. You do it then.”
“Why should I hire you?” Nancy asks, studying her like she’s some hardcore chemistry notes. The other woman is brisking at the thought of writing the column herself. Brunette hair curls around Nancy’s chin as she tilts it down, eyes tracing the papers in her hands. Finally, she says, “It’s a weekly commitment. You can’t commit to anything.”
“Excuse me,” she counters, mouth dropping open and hanging there for just the briefest of moments, “That is offensive. I’ve been in band for over four years.”
“And where’s your instrument?” Nancy challenges. Gasping, her eyes roam the hallway until they settle on the black case in the middle of the floor. She points at it as she stares, slowly shifting her gaze back to the scary woman beside her. “That’s what I thought.”
“Dude, I don’t want any of the glory,” she says, “I was just trying to do you a favor.”
“Why would you do me a favor?” Nancy asks, eyes tightening around the edges.
“I don’t know,” she admits, voice soft as she buries the idea that it would be nice to have 1 friend in the whole damn school, “You’re Steve’s friend.”
Nancy laughs, a whole body sort of thing that really puts her on edge for so many reasons. The first being that Nancy is so unnecessarily pretty when she’s laughing like a maniac. The second that she isn’t really that funny.
“I’m just trying to help. I like helping,” she adds, “You want me to beg or something?”
“That would be nice,” Nancy says.
“Fine,” she says, readying herself to beg to do something she actually has no desire to do at all, not even a little bit (except for maybe the chance to see Nancy Wheeler smile at her just one time like she hung the moon), “Oh great one, please let me write your stupid advice column for your glorious school paper.”
“Cute,” Nancy bites out sarcastically.
She blushes at that, the idea that a girl would be calling her cute even if it is dripping with sarcasm. Not that she would understand that of it weren’t so blatantly obvious that she was being so, considering most of the things people say have to be deciphered into Robin speak for her to understand fully the tone.
“If you want my advice-“
“I don’t,” Nancy interrupts.
“Ok, but if you do,” she says again, more pointed, “I would agree to this deal. It’s one less thing you have to do.”
“Let me think about it,” Nancy says, even her voice tight now.
It digs deep into her bones and makes her shiver, feel the deep annoyance transfer in the space between them. She remembers her distaste for the woman now, for the way she cuts deep like a knife shoved directly into her chest. There was a brief moment sophomore year that she had a little gay crush on her, but she had been so very wrong. Even though there was a sweet side to Nancy, there was also a very sour side.
“Yeah, sure thing, Wheeler,” she says in the most bitter voice she can muster, which isn’t saying much, “Take your sweet time since you have so much of it.”
As Nancy’s jaw drops, she turns on her heel. She knows enough to get out of her proximity quickly before she gets a nice berating that would definitely stick to the lockers to mock her in the morning. She books it out of the school, utilizing her long legs. Pushing the doors open, she sees Steve sitting there in his BMW as he plays the drums against his steering wheel. She cringes thinking about how long he’s been waiting.
It doesn’t take Steve long to notice her approaching the car and to prompts an end to his intense drum solo. He smiles widely upon seeing her but she can’t fathom one for his benefit. Not after her interaction with Nancy has left her so unsettled. When she tug on the door handle, Steve locks the car door and starts laughing when she can’t open it. She scowls at him and they enter a stare battle, but he relents first. The car unlocks and she opens the door.
“You’re such a dick,” she grumbles as she sidles into the passenger seat.
“I’m sorry,” he replies, voice cracking, “What’s wrong?”
She closes the car door a little too hard and he definitely winces, probably because he thinks she hurt his baby. The car is fine. She, on the other hand, wants to scream bloody murder. After fighting with the seatbelt, the car finally lets her have it and she clicks it into place. With an all-consuming sigh, she tries to push out all of her frustration so Steve doesn’t have to take the brunt of it.
“Just a long day,” she says, shoving her bags into the floor at her feet, “I’m just so over dedicating extra hours to this stupid fucking instrument. Maybe I should just quit band.”
“What? You love band,” he says, confusion twisting his face; he doesn’t bother putting the car into drive, just regards her carefully like she’s grown a second head, “You can’t quit. Come on, dude.”
She feels like a monster anyway, like she doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. Steve is her only friend which, he’s great and it’s way better than she could have imagined, but she doesn’t want to keep roaming the halls of Hawkins High all by her lonesome. Maybe doing Nancy a favor this big in hopes of having another friend, another loner (this person by choice, rather than whatever she’s doing), is a terrible idea.
“I don’t want to quit,” she admits. He finally starts driving after he offers her a soft smile, one that makes her feel better that he’s her best friend. As he pulls away from the front of the building, she sees Nancy in the side mirror, becoming smaller and smaller until she’s totally out of view. She decides to buck up and complain to him instead of burying it like she usually does. “I just ran into your ex-girlfriend, literally ran into her, in the hallway and she’s just so mean. What did you ever see in her?”
“I, uh,” he starts, fingers flexing against the steering wheel as his mouth opens and closes for a moment, “I mean, that was a year ago. Things change.”
“She used to be so nice,” Robin says, more to herself than to Steve. She sighs and turns her attention back to him, like she had never been grumbling about it. He stills seems perplexed, unable to really land on a single thing that he saw in the other woman. Which is funny considering he’s never said a bad thing about her. Her brows furrow and she says, “But lately, she’s extra scary. I think most people try not to even talk to her if they can help it because she might bite their heads off.”
“She can’t be that bad,” Steve replies.
“Maybe I’m exaggerating,” and she definitely is.
When she says people she means her and, in part, she avoids her because of how attractive Nancy is. In fact, she tries to avoid girls all together for that reason. She can’t become a town pariah if she never develops feelings for a girl. Admiring from far away is ok. Besides, practically everyone thinks Steve is her boyfriend anyway. Including Dustin, his child friend that he used to babysit and now just hangs out with for fun.
“That definitely sounds like you,” Steve teases.
She slaps him on the arm and he flinches. They both quickly dissolve into laughter but they still somehow make it to work safely and on time to boot. She gets her work vest out of the back, something that basically permanently lives in the backseat, and pulls it on as they enter the video store.
“You’re late,” Keith says in his monotonous voice.
“What?” She says, her mood deflating even more. The clock in his care said they had 5 minutes to spare. Damn Steve Harrington. And damn Nancy Wheeler, too. She feels bad because that means he had to stay late. “I’m sorry! I was stuck at school.”
Partially true.
Keith just shrugs and clocks out, leaving them to do basically everything. Looking at it, she doesn’t think he’s put up a single go back all day. Nor did he check to see if they’ve been rewound. It’s a full day of work in a 5 hour shift. She wants to flip the dude off as he leaves the building; but she manages to keep her hands right.
About half an hour into her shift, their first customer enters with the bell announcing their arrival. Steve is standing over a tape that’s in the rewinding machine while she leans against the counter and reads a book. After she finishes her paragraph, she looks up to greet the customer but is quickly met with a vision that, although beautiful, makes her lifting mood sink back to rock bottom.
“Nancy,” she says in her most hollow of voices.
Steve immediately saddles up behind her, standing behind her and hovering over her protectively. He does that sometimes. When a dude starts hitting on her and doesn’t get the hint. When someone judges her too harshly and he is displeased. And, apparently, when Nancy Wheeler approaches her with a slack jaw. It’s nice to see a little relief of tension.
“I’ve given it some thought,” Nancy says, much kinder than before, “I accept your offer. I’ll contact you with the details.”
The woman sets her trumpet case on the counter [(making her realize for the first time that she left the school in such a rush that she abandoned the instrument) good going ], and turns on her heel just as quickly as Robin had at the school. She stares in awe, feeling like she’s drowning beneath the other woman’s dusty trail that she leaves in her wake. Steve is grunting in her ear, a weird sort of noise that makes her skin crawl.
“Dude,” she huffs, whacking him in the chest, “Gross.”
Before she knows it, Nancy is letting the door swing shut behind her. She swallows, clearing her throat, as the brunette climbs into her practically brand new Subaru, and lets her eyes trail back down to her instrument case. She grabs it, pulling it closer to her chest and holding it desperately. She barely looks up to catch the car turning out of the parking lot and speeding down the street like a mad woman.
“God, that was a way better exit than mine,” she says, “I wish I could drive.”
“I could teach you!” Steve pipes up, any thought of asking her what the hell just happened completely leaving his mind.
Thankfully, because she doesn’t feel like telling him or anyone else anything. In this moment, she decides that if she has to meet with the rest of the newspaper crew then she’s bowing out. The last thing she needs is to be stuck in a room with more people who will just be mean to her.
She shakes her head, laughing to herself at the absurdity of it all.