#pov nancy wheeler
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Nancy Wheeler has always been observant. It's something she prides herself on, if she's honest. It's what she knows will make her an excellent investigative reporter one day. It helps her make connections that other people might miss and remember the smallest of details that could make or break a story.
Perhaps most importantly, it's what makes her good at reading people – their micro-expressions, their body language, what makes them tick. She's good at it with anyone, but especially when it comes to the people she knows best.
So it's only logical that she's the first to notice when Steve starts to fall for Eddie Munson.
The signs are subtle, at first, but they're there, and Nancy can see them from a mile away. She's got the added bonus of having been the object of Steve's affections, once upon a time, so she knows what to look for. She knows that with Steve, it always starts with the lingering glances. He's never been able to keep his eyes off the people he wants, and it's this that first clues her in on the whole thing.
She's at Penny's Diner with Steve, Robin, and Eddie, and their waitress is laying it on thick, flirting relentlessly with Steve, batting her eyelashes dramatically and swaying her hips more than is objectively necessary whenever she walks away. And sure, Steve hasn't gone for any of the girls that act this way around him in a long time, but he always, always looks. Hell, even Nancy looks, sometimes, when a girl is objectively pretty. She's big enough to admit (to herself, at least) that boys aren't the only dating pool she's interested in, now that she and Jonathan are done.
But that day at Penny's, Steve doesn't give the poor waitress so much as a second glance, because that day, Steve can't seem to stop looking at Eddie.
At first, Nancy is sure she's imagining it – the way Steve's eyes linger on the dungeon master like he can't bring himself to look away – but it gets harder and harder to deny the longer they sit there sipping their milkshakes. Eddie is debating something silly with Robin, and Steve is just... watching him.
Steve's got this fond little smile on his face, and it's a look Nancy recognizes immediately. It used to be directed at her. And honestly? She's a bit relieved it's not, anymore, because she loves Steve, but not like that. Not the way she was worried Steve still loved her... the way she wonders if Steve might be falling for Eddie.
She sort of keeps an eye out for things, after that day – the little things that give Steve away when he's crushing hard on somebody. The lingering glances. The soft smiles. The brief touches. The flimsy excuses for stepping into Eddie's space, like the day Steve sees Eddie struggling with the lighter, and instead of just lending Eddie his own, he steps forward until their shoes are practically touching and holds up the flame for him.
She sees it all and wonders how in the world nobody else has caught on yet. Even Robin, Steve's best friend in the entire world, seems puzzled by the sudden lack of dates on Steve's calendar. Sometimes Nancy wants to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to just think a little harder.
(Nancy wants to grab Robin by the shoulders for other reasons, too – reasons that involve pulling Robin closer and kissing the living daylights out of her – but that's neither here nor there.)
But no matter how long Steve's pining lasts, no matter how obvious he's getting, nobody else seems to notice. It's mildly infuriating, but Nancy isn't about to talk to anyone else about it. It's dangerous being queer in this part of Indiana, and even though she knows that their little monster-fighting family won't care, it's still not her secret to tell.
It all comes to a head at a bonfire one night, midway through the summer, when the kids are once again grilling Steve on his sudden lack of a dating life. And it's Max who first cottons on to the most plausible explanation.
"Oh my God, wait, you like someone!" Max gasps midway through Dustin's interrogation.
There's a brief silence, and then the kids are all shouting.
"Oh, shit, Max, you're right. He totally does!" Dustin cries.
Steve tries to protest, but it's useless, because ever since Steve shed his royal persona two years ago, he's been a truly terrible liar. He looks like a deer in headlights, eyes wide and vaguely panicky, but Dustin Henderson has never been very good at letting things go.
"You have to tell us who it is!" Dustin presses. "We're your friends, Steve. Friends tell each other things. Unless..." Dustin gasps dramatically. "Unless she's someone we know..."
That shuts everyone up all at once, even Robin and Eddie, who have been having their own little conversation off to the side. Everyone stares at Steve, and then half of their eyes go to Nancy herself, and the other half land on Robin. It might make Nancy laugh, if Steve didn't look so close to throwing up.
"Right, well this is stupid," Steve says, smacking his hands on his knees and pushing up out of the chair. "I'm going to get another drink, and when I get back, we're dropping this."
He turns and hurries into the house, and Nancy glances around their little circle. Robin looks confused, but mostly worried. Eddie looks vaguely sick. And most of the kids just look shocked. They all start to murmur amongst themselves after the door slides shut behind Steve's retreating form. Nancy sees the way his whole body seems to sag, watching through the glass, and decides she's had enough.
She gets up, ignoring the way the murmuring gets louder as she walks, and follows him.
She finds Steve bent over the kitchen counter, palms pressed into the granite and head bent towards his chest. He looks like he's on the verge of panicking, and her heart aches for him. He's been through so much – some of which Nancy knows is her fault – and God, she just wants him to be happy for once.
"Steve?" she says softly.
Steve flinches at the sound of her voice, like he was so lost in thought he didn't even realize she'd followed him.
"There's something I wanted to-"
"Before you say anything, it's not you," he interupts flatly before she can finish. He pushes off the counter to look at her with sad, earnest eyes. "I know things were, like, weird when we were in the Upside Down, and we never really talked about it, but... I don't feel that way about you anymore. So you don't have to worry."
Nancy just blinks at him.
"That... that's what you wanted to talk about, right?" he asks.
"No, actually," Nancy says carefully. "I sort of knew you didn't feel like that about me, and I don't feel that way about you, so that's a non-issue, but..."
Steve looks relieved for a second, then tenses up again. "But...?" he says, raising an eyebrow.
"I, um... I think I might have an idea who it is – if Max is right, that is, and you really do like someone," she says.
Steve sighs. "It's not Robin, if that's what you're thinking."
"No," Nancy says softly, shaking her head. "No, it's not."
Steve frowns and averts his eyes, arms crossing protectively over his chest. He doesn't say anything.
Nancy considers her options. She wonders how she should play this, how to go about bringing this up. In the end, she just goes with her gut.
"Did you know I like girls?" she asks. It's the first time she's said it aloud to anyone, but it feels good. It feels like the right time. Besides, she wants to do this for Steve – to make him feel more comfortable. It's the least she can do.
Steve's eyes snap up to look at her again.
"I still like boys, too, but yeah... I like both, so..." She takes a deep breath. "If there was anything you wanted to tell someone about how you feel about... someone else... I'm not going to judge you."
Steve bites his lip. He looks painfully conflicted, and a little bit like he might cry. "I, uh..." he stammers. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath… clears his throat. "Okay first of all, thank you for trusting me with that, and you know I support you. I just want you to be happy, Nance."
Nancy nods, because she knows. She's always known. "That's what I want for you, too," she says. She takes a step forward and takes one of his hands in hers, because Steve's eyes are getting watery, and she hates seeing people cry. "You don't have to tell me, but if you want-"
"I think I like Eddie," Steve says suddenly, voice whisper-soft. He looks terrified when he meets Nancy's eyes again. "I, um... yeah. I like Eddie."
Nancy offers him what she hopes is an encouraging smile and nods. "Yeah, I kinda figured."
"Shit, am I that obvious?" Steve says weakly, and Nancy can't help but laugh softly.
"God, no," she says. "Well, to me, you are, but to everyone else? God, they're clueless. I promise you that nobody else has any clue, and it's been driving me crazy."
To her relief, Steve huffs out a soft laugh, as well. "Yeah, well, you've always been sort of freakishly observant, haven't you?"
It's true. She's always been like this, and that's precisely why she feels confident enough to make her next statement.
"You should tell him, Steve," she says.
Because Steve isn't the only person she's been watching for the past few months.
She's been watching Eddie, too, so she's seen Eddie's dopey, smitten smile whenever Steve makes a terrible joke. She's watched Eddie pull his hair in front of his mouth bashfully after Steve teases him. She's seen the blush on Eddie's cheeks whenever Steve steps into his personal space.
Steve Harrington isn't the only one who's been busy falling in love.
As usual, nobody else has noticed.
"No, absolutely not," Steve says, pulling his hand away and running both hands through his hair instead. "Are you crazy, Nance? He'll hate me!"
Nancy is pretty sure she deserves an Oscar for keeping her expression neutral, because the urge to roll her eyes is physically painful to resist.
"Steve," she says calmly. "I love you, and I love Eddie, but the two of you are idiots if you can't see how hard you've been pining over each other, and I am not above physically knocking your heads together to get you to realize that."
Steve's eyebrows disappear behind his hairline, and Nancy almost laughs. "Jesus, when did you get so threatening, Wheeler?" he grumbles, but there's a hint of a smile on his face. It's quickly swept away by fear, though, and Nancy's heart breaks a little when Steve looks at her with those puppy-dog eyes of his and asks, "What if you're wrong?"
She's only just opened her mouth to reply when the sliding door opens again, and someone else joins them in the kitchen.
Eddie's eyes dart back and forth between Nancy and Steve assessingly, and Nancy has to bite back a laugh because oh. Eddie was jealous.
"Sorry to interrupt," Eddie says, one eyebrow raised. "Just wanted to make sure everything was okay." He focuses his gaze on Steve, eyes softening. It's disgustingly adorable, how earnestly concerned he looks. "You doin' alright, Stevie? Kinda left in a hurry back there."
Steve glances at Nancy, face becoming redder by the second. Nancy smiles.
"Well I'm going to let you talk," she says casually. Steve's eyes nearly bug out of his head, but she puts both hands on his shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes before he can protest. "But to answer your question from before... I'm not wrong," she murmurs softly, so only Steve can hear.
She pats him gently on the cheek and turns on her heel before Steve can respond, catching Eddie's eye on the way out. He looks perplexed, and she just smiles.
The kids hardly notice when she rejoins the circle around the fire. They've already moved on to topics that don't involve their babysitter's love life, but Robin still looks worried. It's cute. God, Robin is so cute, Nancy can hardly stand it.
"Is he okay?" Robin asks quietly. "He looked pretty upset when he left, and then you guys were gone for a while, and Eddie thought maybe you were getting back together, but I told him that was ridiculous, and now neither of them are back yet, and-"
"They're fine, I promise," Nancy says with a grin, interrupting Robin’s rambling. "They just... needed a little nudge."
Nancy gets to see the moment it clicks for Robin, and it's only a little bit hilarious. "Wait..." Robin says, mouth dropping open. "Steve...?"
Nancy nods, smile widening.
"And Eddie?"
"Yep," Nancy says. Robin looks on the verge of a massive freakout (a positive one, obviously, but a freakout nonetheless), and Nancy doesn't want her to unwittingly out both of the boys to the kids, so she changes the topic. She figures if she's making Steve deal with his feelings, she might as well do the same. You know, solidarity, and all that.
"By the way," Nancy says coolly, quietly, "did you know I'm bisexual?"
She has to cover Robin's mouth with her hand to stop her shriek of surprise, but it's worth it, because Robin instantly turns into a blushing, stuttering mess, and it's so stupidly endearing. Nancy wants to kiss her until neither of them can remember their own names.
It's even more endearing when Nancy tells her, "Yeah, so I'd really like to talk later, after the kids go to bed, if that's okay?" And Robin looks like she might faint when she blushes and whimpers out a yes.
Nancy just grins and threads their fingers together, hands tucked out of sight from the kids.
They're still sitting like that when Steve and Eddie finally come out of the house after a very long time, both boys looking flushed and a bit disheveled, but happy.
"Thought you were getting another drink?" Erica snarks at Steve when they sit down, and Nancy snorts, because Steve definitely returned empty-handed.
Steve's eyes widen and he looks at Eddie sheepishly. "I, uh... got a little distracted."
Only Max seems to recognize the implications, because her jaw drops, but Robin nudges her with her foot before she can say anything, and Max instantly shuts her mouth. She's still got a knowing look on her face, but Nancy knows she won't go outing anyone to the others. She's a good kid.
"God, you have the attention span of a puppy, Steve, I swear," Dustin grumbles, and the conversation quickly moves on.
Nancy is mostly quiet for the rest of the night, silently observing all of her friends and reveling in the feeling of Robin's hand in hers. She watches as Max tentatively rests her head on Lucas's shoulder. Watches Lucas's eyes widen and sees the internal freakout happening in his mind. She sees the way Eddie and Steve sit closer than before, practically on top of each other, faces flushed with happiness while they all make s'mores. She watches her brother look hopelessly confused sitting between Will and El, because he hasn't yet realized that while he is in love with one of them, it's not the one he thinks it is.
And at the end of the night, after the kids are all settled in the massive living room and she and Robin head for the guest room, Nancy catches Steve's eye. He and Eddie are holding hands now that they're out of sight of the kids, and Eddie can't stop staring at Steve like he's some sort of miracle. But just this once, Steve tears his eyes away from Eddie to meet Nancy's.
He smiles, mouths thank you, and gives an approving nod when his eyes land on her hand, which is still wrapped around Robin's.
Nancy just smiles and nods, and watches as Eddie impatiently tugs Steve into the bedroom and shuts the door. As Robin does the same to her, pulling her eagerly into the guest room, she has a wild thought.
If the investigative journalism thing doesn't work out, there's always the option of matchmaker.
She's apparently pretty damn good at it, after all.
And she's always been observant.
#steddie#steddie headcanon#steddie ficlet#steddie fluff#steve x eddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#nancy wheeler#pov outsider#pov nancy wheeler#nancy is a good friend/wingwoman#background ronance#ronance#getting together#stranger things#mcdynamite writes
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soulmate theory
nancy finally realises the extent of the unbreakable bond between steve and robin. unfortunately, it takes steve being cursed by vecna to do it.
#my ao3 works#stobin#platonic stobin#platonic with a capital p#stobin fic#stobin ficlet#stobin hc#stobin headcanon#steve harrington#robin buckley#nancy wheeler#ronance#steve and robin#robin and nancy#pov nancy wheeler#stranger things#stranger things fic#stranger things ficlet
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Hi friends! This is my Day Six of @steddie-week! I took the prompt misunderstanding & ran with it. I did a little outside POV take, so I hope you guys appreciate it. It's an unofficial part three of the Xander Cole Chronicles. You can find part one and two here! Thanks for reading, my friends. Here's the AO3 link! Enjoy Nancy's take on Steddie!
Despite, or maybe because of everything in their past, Nancy Wheeler loves Steve Harrington.
Now, before everyone gets all huffy – she can totally explain.
The love she feels for Steve is like that of a brother. She kind of looks at him like she does at Mike – there’s interest and concern and possession but the boat stops there. More than anything, Nancy loves Steve enough to want him to be happy.
Admittedly, Nancy is the reason why their relationship doesn’t work out the way Steve absolutely wanted. At that stage in her life, Nancy wasn’t prepared for the sort of love Steve brings to the table. She looked to Jonathan because he’s the opposite of Steve in so many ways.
How things ended between them is and probably always will be Nancy’s biggest regret. Though she’s glad they decided to go their separate ways, hurting Steve is never something Nancy wants to do. She’ll forever be making up for it.
Thankfully, Eddie Munson is Steve’s saving grace. Nancy is at first taken aback by the fact that they both were able to hide their bisexuality from each other and the rest of the world. As Eddie becomes a permanent fixture, however, Nancy is just glad to see Steve brighten up and find a bit of joy and peace, no matter who it’s coming from. Eddie is a shining star in Steve’s life that Nancy is positive she never could be. Steve looks at Eddie like he hangs the stars and moon and rotates the very sun above them. It’s that force of attention that Nancy wanted to escape – for Eddie, Steve’s intensity is everything.
Which is why they end up working out for the long haul. At first, Nancy is skeptical about Eddie’s job and Steve’s naivety about it. As someone who’s both assertive and innocent, a guy like Eddie screams no in so many ways to her. Yet, Steve finds a way to tame the wild beast of a rock star. Instead of losing Eddie to fame and fortune, Steve learns the ropes of Eddie’s business and becomes priceless to both him and the band. Eddie relies on Steve the same way Steve leans on him. Without one, the other fails. It’s a pleasure to see and a joy to share with her friend.
Nancy and Robin eventually find their way to each other after college and a couple of startup jobs on Nancy’s end. It feels like kismet, coming home to run the Hawkins Gazette and immediately running into Robin. Their conversation about Robin’s job at the high school turns into a night tangled up in the sheets and then several dates after that. Nancy isn’t certain why she never looked at Steve’s best friend but she’s very happy her eyes are finally open.
Their whirlwind romance is something Steve can’t help but be happy for. That’s a fun thing to experience the first time Eddie and Steve stop by on one of their breaks from tour. Steve and Robin are still thick as thieves, that much is clear by the way they meld into each other and finish each other’s sentences like no time at all has passed them by. Nancy and Eddie stick to the background, watching the loves of their lives rekindle the weird platonic soulmate relationship between them.
As the years pass and Eddie thaws out a little, Nancy becomes his friend, too. She learns quickly that Eddie is the type of person who is loyal without a fault. He loves Steve, that much is obvious by the way he lights up while talking about him. As a rockstar who’s living the life, Nancy is always taken aback by how wholesome Eddie truly is. At first, his love for Steve is what enamors her towards him. Little by little, Eddie’s quirks become something Nancy appreciates, too. Her stake in their relationship isn’t just for Steve’s sake, anyway – she cares about Eddie and his happiness, too.
A few years into their marriage, Robin and Nancy welcome their first baby. Theo is the best addition to their family. Nancy loves being pregnant and enjoys the idea of being a mom even more. Having Robin by her side, doing it together, that really takes the cake. For a while, that blissful happiness is all Nancy sees.
Then, Steve and Eddie come for a visit and the rest of the world becomes a thing to her once again. Nancy sees the longing on Eddie’s face and remembers a conversation from so long ago. Steve too talked so lovingly about a big family. At the time, Nancy tried hard to forget the conversation because it all sort of pointed to her. Now though, it all comes rushing back. Both men cling tightly to her and Robin’s small son as they fight for his attention. Theo isn’t put down one time while the boys are around and Nancy knows – she knows from the very bottom of her heart that Steve and Eddie are meant to be parents.
The boys make do with Nancy and Robin’s children, though. By the time the second comes around, Theo is more than accustomed to time with Uncle Steve and Uncle Eddie. Rosalie is similarly spoiled by the men who long for something more but can’t find the best way to make it happen. In knowing that, Nancy gives them grace where other parents might be territorial or offended. Her kids tell Steve and Eddie they love them just as readily as they do Robin and herself. It’s the best of a sticky situation – it works for them.
Then, a Xander starts to get mentioned and Nancy is over the moon. Eddie’s eyes light up when they mention the kid and Steve, once he’s finally on board, seems to react excitedly, too. First it’s casual mentions and then the name is brought up more habitually. It’s almost a relief when Steve finally announces they’re going to take Xander into their home for good.
To celebrate, Robin and Nancy put together a party that’s geared towards kids Rosalie’s age. For some reason, Nancy’s got it in her head that Xander is a young child who’s coming from a bad home. Robin gives her funny looks whenever Nancy mentions Xander playing with their youngest daughter, but they’re easily brushed off. Robin looks at her funny most of the time they share the same space together – it’s a reason why they work so well. Nancy never stops getting enjoyment out of it.
Nonetheless, Nancy gets her way with the party plans and is excited to finally meet the newest addition to Steve and Eddie’s family. Her friends are finally getting exactly what they’ve always wanted.
So, Nancy is noticeably shocked when the boys walk in with a teenager who is much, much, much older than their sweet Rosalie. Xander, as it turns out, is almost sixteen years old. He’s a kid who’s family completely gave up on for being gay and Nancy immediately understands. It’s not quite the picture perfect thing that she’s been picturing but it’s clear to see her friends love the odd teenage boy.
By the end of the night, Nancy is positive she loves him, too. Whatever misgivings she had are out the window – honestly, she’s close to fighting Steve and Eddie for custody of the kid. Nancy is so happy, she’s glad her misconceptions and preconceived notions are not the reality. Her friends are finally complete – that much is obvious.
Later in bed, as Robin snuggles into her, Nancy wraps an arm around her lover, sighing with contentment. “Do you think Xander will babysit for us?” Nancy sleepily asks, a smile on her lips.
With a laugh, Robin presses a kiss to Nancy’s forehead, then another against her lips. “Steve and Eddie will make him. Don’t worry, we’ll have him wrapped around our fingers in no time.”
Chuckling herself, Nancy nods her head and settles down. As she drifts off to sleep, Nancy smiles again – nothing is ever as it seems and luckily, no one in her life is anywhere close to predictable.
As it turns out, Nancy Buckley-Wheeler kind of likes that.
#steddie#steddieweek2023#steddie week#stranger things#pov nancy wheeler#nancy wheeler#steve harrington#eddie munson#xander cole
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Never Again
Nancy is trying to have a good time with her boyfriend after season 1. It would be a lot easier if the last time they did this wasn't the same night her best friend died, but she needs the break to avoid those thoughts, even just for a night. Apparently, she doesn't get a choice.
TWs: Implied past sa (coercion, not from nancy's experience and not directly described), past character death (Barb), accidental self-injury (and blood), and overall themes of grief (if you're worried about the sa tw i have a brief explanation of the context in the note on ao3)
This is the version of Never Again that has 18+ content changed to just kissing. (shoutout still to @museumgiftshoperaser for beta-ing the nsfw version 💕) **It still has implied sa and all other trigger warning still apply**
ao3
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Her heart was racing, her mind tuned into every touch and feeling, electric excitement buzzing in her skin at the soft kiss they shared by her bed. Gentle breaths hitting her skin and the echo of her own bouncing back.
No shirts, just the soft contact of skin as Steve held her waist and she held his neck.
She led him over and down to sit on the bed, keeping the contact above all else.
Warm, soft, and absolutely thrilling.
Just go home… okay…
Her heart was racing.
Her mind tuned into every touch and feeling.
An electric anxiety buzzing through her skin and swimming in her gut.
He pulled away.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
He looked at her with that face. She shook her head, glancing away and trying to get herself back into it. It’s okay, it’s fine, you’re okay.
I’m fine.
Just go home, okay.
“Nancy.” he leaned back fully, “What’s going on, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, just. Overwhelmed.” she smiled, “I’m okay. We can keep going.”
He studied her face for a moment.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she made herself roll her eyes and smile.
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in more carefully than before, “You have to tell me if you want to stop, okay?”
“I told you I’m fine.” she made herself laugh. She grabbed around his neck and pulled him for another kiss.
He was tense with caution for a few moments. She ran a hand through his hair and he relaxed.
..This isn’t like you…
She chased the feelings, the warmth and excitement and thrill.
..Nance.
She deepened the kiss, going stronger and disregarding the need for breath.
It was still warm. But it stopped being soft, desperate tightness in her lungs and tears in her eyes slowly outshining any joy.
Just go ahead and go home, okay.
A few tears escaped and she barely separated to catch her breath. The tightness in her chest only worsened as her lungs filled with air.
She needed out.
So she pulled back, getting up and rushing to the door.
“Nanc- Nancy! What’s the matter? Nance?”
Nothing.
“Just gimme a minute.” she called to the room behind her, then rushed in the bathroom and closed the door with a gentle thud. She sat on the toilet seat, covering her mouth with her hand and tried willing herself out of whatever headspace made her cry when she was supposed to be happy.
She tried cold water and breathing, but they did nothing. Dread still twisted at her insides, heart still too fast, tears still running wild and for no good reason.
“Nancy. It’s Steve. I have your shirt, do you want me to leave it on the door knob or can I come in?”
“No no no it’s fin-” her breath cut her off. She took another in, deep, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“No, we’re stopping. I can leave the shirt on the knob for you.”
“Steve, it’s okay, I’m just being… weird. It’s not a big deal.”
Silence from the other side of the door, long enough for her to think maybe he left already.
He took a deep breath from behind the door.
“Nance, can I come in?”
She took a moment to breathe and wipe her eyes.
“Yeah.”
The door opened slowly and Steve already had his shirt back on. He closed the door behind him, crouching in front of her.
"Something is wrong." And he held her shirt out to her. More tears spilled out as she took it, and they agreed with him for her.
Steve sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall as she put the shirt on, slower than she had to.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” he asked gently after she was done.
“I-” she shook her head, looking for the most normal way to describe it.
“Did I do something to make you upset?”
“No, no. You’re fine, I promise, I- It’s just me being weird, nothing to do with you.”
He studied her face. She wiped at her tears with her sleeve. He reached out and stopped, then grabbed her a towel from by the sink.
“You can touch me, it's fine.”
“Good to know.”
Silence for a moment.
“You know you don’t have to, y’know… we don't have to sleep together. Like, ever, if you don’t want to.”
���That’s not…” she paused. It's not. But it leads where she needs to go. “Never, huh? You’re okay with never sleeping with someone ever again?”
“Yeah. Especially if you don’t want to, okay? You’re not losing anything if you decide you never want to do it again.”
She gave him a look.
“You’d stay in a relationship where you can never sleep with your girlfriend.”
“If I happened to love this girl, I’d do pretty much anything." he smiled, "Maybe even, oh I don’t know, run towards a 10ft tall monster man with a baseball bat I found on the ground,” he nudged her leg, “Y’know, if this girl was really special.”
She tried giving him another look, but her smile broke through, followed by more silent tears.
“You’re not losing me for anything, okay? Never feel like you have to do shit you don’t want to just to keep some boyfriend around.”
“Says the guy who ran towards a monster to keep his girlfriend around.” She shot back halfheartedly.
“That’s different, that’s-” he scooted in closer, stressing the point even more, “I wanted to help. You gave me the chance to leave and I almost did, but I wanted to protect you.” he took one of her hands in his, “You have to want to, otherwise it’s not-” he looked away, searched for a word and couldn’t find it. Instead he made a tense sort of eye-contact, “You don't really come back something like that. Just promise me you’ll never do it unless you want to.”
She exhaled, glancing away to cut tension and nodded. “Promise.”
He nodded, but his eyes still searched her face. She searched back.
“And it has to be because you want to actually sleep with them… not because you want to have them around or…"
She sobered and tentatively brushed the hair out of his face with her free hand.
“or you think you have to.” she finished. He gave a short nod, the look he gave her asking for the promise again.
"Steve, I promise I want to. It’s something else- and I don't know how to say it. But yeah, somethings... It’s something in my head. I had a good time, the first time, and I was having a good time just now, right until the..”
She looked for a vague enough word to fit without making it something he could’ve knowingly caused.
“...until The Something happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” he exhaled, then caught himself, “Well, not- not good, you’re still upset. I mean. Do you know-”
“Would it be weird if I gave you a hug right now?” she interrupted. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes.
“Go for it.”
She wrapped her arms around his back and he leaned into it. They both rested their head on the other’s shoulder, the air softening back into something comfortable again.
“I love you, too. By the way.”
“Thanks,” he whispered, relaxing.
“And you never have to do it to keep me around, either. I-” She took a breath, and the moment to think. Another breath. “I’m not with you because of that, I’m with you because of you.”
He nodded slightly into her shoulder, holding onto the moment. Then drew back, no longer concerned with hiding the tears.
“I’m with you because of you, too. Even with The Something, okay?” he took her hand and rubbed a thumb along her fingers almost absentmindedly, “Do you know what you want to do about it?”
She sighed.
“I don’t know what I should do. I can’t… ignore it.”
“Yeah, probably not… We can avoid getting- avoid doing it, if you want. Or figure out why it’s happening.”
“I know why.” she cut in, “I mean I just… I have an idea, maybe.”
“Do you want to try and fix it?”
“I dont think it's like that…”
“That’s okay, that’s okay. Do you want to see if it’s something we can avoid?”
She looked down at the thumb gliding across her fingers. She put her other hand over it, stopping the motion and just holding.
“I think I just need time. To figure it out and work through it, on my own.”
“Okay, that’s fine." he squeezed her hand gently, then let go. "Never again, if you need that."
"Maybe again. Eventually again." she exhaled, shaking her head, "Thanks."
"Mhm."
She looked up, stealing a breath and bringing herself back to normal as a sort of silence stretched across the room. Not awkward, but still not completely comfortable, at least to her. Everything she's wanted to say out loud has been said, repeated and in more words than necessary, but moving on still feels too soon. She looked around the room for a segue that could get them back to somewhere relaxed, but found nothing relevant. Instead she ripped off the bandaid.
"I think I’ll.. be in my room, for a minute." she said, then immediately cursed herself for the awful transition, standing decidedly to mask the awkwardness.
Steve seemed more shaken by the sudden movement before a clear realization. She gave her hand out to help him up.
"Yeah, ‘course. I can.. mind if I shower?"
"Mhm. Thanks for understanding." she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek, "I'll be in my room when you're done."
"I'll knock. No answer and I can hang out in the living room until you're good. That okay?"
"Great, thank you."
"Cool, I’ll.." he jutted a thumb back to the shower.
"Yeah." and she headed out the door, almost closing it before he spoke up again.
"Nance."
She paused at the door.
"I love you."
She relaxed a little.
"I love you, too."
They shared a smile and she closed the door.
Nancy made her way back, strolling slow down the hall to her room, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it, locking it out of habit. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, taking a long breath, as much as he lungs could take, then let out as slow as she could without suffocating. They fixed it, or at least found the work-around. It's okay now. She's okay.
She looked over at her bed, and the tousled sheets on top of it made the dread crawl back in. Cold and shaky, heart rate still too fast despite it being over now.
She pushed off the door and ripped the blanket off, then the next blanket, the sheet under, then pillows, yanked off the bed one by one, to just get it all off, start over, get it back to-
Wood on wood knocked from the nightstand beside her. She turned her head and froze. The photo of her and Barb gone.
She dropped the pillow and leaned over the desk, searching for where it fell. Back left corner, a little raccoon plush breaking its fall.
She dropped down and rescued the picture, checking for cracks in the glass. It was fine. She stood up, avoiding hitting her head on the desk, and examined it again for any slight new imperfections. It was still fine. She set it back on the nightstand where it belonged, tidying a few other things that fell over but not quite off the ledge. And it looked fine.
She took the last few pillows off the bed carefully, dropping them on the pile behind her.
She took a breath. Another.
Now would be a pretty good time to start crying again. It's supposed to be better, make you feel better afterwards, or at least numb. Her last cry didn't do that, didn't even touch whatever immovable heaviness lived somewhere behind her ribs. Metaphorically the heart, but physically deeper. The true center of her body, below her lungs that seemed allergic to air, above her gut that stayed hooked on feelings well past their welcome.
Now would be the time to cry. No one to see it but her, like crying on the inside but if crying inside could do anything to actually help.
She didn't cry.
So she made the bed. Refitted the sheets tighter, neater. Laid both blankets over top, one flat to tuck under the pillows, one folded to be used. Arranged pillows, biggest by the headboard, smallest towards the center. A few stuffed animals added around for good measure: a worn white rabbit, a puppy with a pink collar, a black cat, a light brown teddy bear, and the raccoon.
And it looked perfect. She won't be using it for that anytime soon, it's just her childhood bed again. The assortment of stuffed animals specifically helped distance it from the dread, and if she was lucky it'd be completely forgotten by morning.
She let out a deep breath and flopped down on her back, the bed bouncing and springs creaking loudly from age.
She's a little too big for this bed. She can still fit, technically, as long as she doesn't stretch out too far. They're lucky Steve doesn't mind curling up a bit, otherwise he'd never fit with both of them there.
A knock on the door. A gentle three taps, barely audible. She looked over to the door. She was basically done tidying up, the bed looked basically perfect.
A pause followed by three more knocks. Louder, just in case the first three hadn't been heard. She kept her eyes trained on the door. The room was perfect, she stopped crying and she was just lying down before bed now.
He didn't even try the doorknob, had no idea she locked it.
She couldn't convince herself to let him in.
Another second of silence, then the sound of the stairs creaking gently.
She should've let him in.
But the bed still holds a whisper of their time earlier, the only evidence left being the memory. And her guts still carrying the dread it found earlier, like a toddler clinging to their first toy.
She looked back over to the plushies, grabbing the Teddy Bear in hopes it could drive the dread away. It was nice, but didn't do anything, and she tried the raccoon after. Nice, but not helping.
She reached for the puppy but she was gone. She put the others back and looked over the bed, and found it on the floor. She rescued it and held her close.
The dread still didn't get better, and if anything it was getting worse, but she didn't let go. She sat up with it in her arms and could feel the tears finally coming back to her eyes. She held tighter, but they wouldn't fall.
The room looked perfect. Exactly like it did a few months ago.
Only she knew something's different. Only she knew that Barb will never lay on her bed next to her, never call her phone over and over until she answers, never play with the little music box she had gotten when they were both tiny and happy and alive.
When they both fit on the bed, starfished out beside each other, talking about every little nothing that meant the world to them a few months ago.
She needed to fucking cry.
Because nothing was wrong. Will came back and Barb skipped town, problem solved, nothing to see here. A rocky month for Hawkins and then everything's normal again.
She pushed off the bed, holding the puppy tight and pacing a circle, careful not to hit the nightstand again.
She’s too careful.
The picture could've broken, but it didn't. She could've hit her head, but she didn't. The puppy plush could've been lost, but she wasn't.
Too careful and now everything looks perfect.
It was all just fine.
Barb wasn't dead, she ran away. No one was grieving, they were missing her. Nancy wasn't a careless ass, she was a teenager with one rebellious night.
And people had the audacity to think Nancy felt betrayed that Barb left her.
She threw the puppy plush at the bed and it bounced before landing somewhere on the other side. Guilt punched her gut and strangled her throat, but the puppy didn't hit anything, barely even jostled the bed.
Like nothing happened.
She grabbed the picture of her nightstand, holding the top and bottom of the oval in each hand, put a foot up on her bed.
And as hard as she fucking could, slammed the frame down on her thigh.
Glass shattered and the wood split along the sides, the little frame bent but still in one piece. She held the frame still in front of her, staring down at the split fibers sticking out, the glass chunks at her feet, the few clumps falling from the still frame as gravity slowly pulls them away from her.
She doesn't regret it. Or maybe she does.
She turned the frame around slowly, looked Barb in the eye, both of them surrounded by shards of glass. The front of the frame's wood was more bent than split and would probably look ok after some work to it. But the glass is still broken, never to be glued back together or look quite the same ever again.
Something here was finally broken.
Her thigh was itchy. She moved the frame to one hand and looked at her thigh. A few crumbs of glass sitting on top, a scattering of cuts and a few splinters. Speckled with dots of red like her first attempt at shaving.
That wouldn't be a fun fix. Nor would finding all the scattered pieces of glass surrounding her.
She could ask for help, but that'd mean explaining why she broke the picture of her dead best friend, on purpose, and finding a reason that doesn't sound awful. She could fix it on her own, make the problem just broken glass, like the frame just fell off the table. She could pretend it upsets her.
She did neither.
She cried.
___
#stranger things#nancy wheeler#steve harrington#nancy wheeler fic#nancy wheeler fanfic#nancy wheeler ficlet#nancy wheeler fanfiction#nancy wheeler drabble#stanger things season 1#stranger things post season 1#post season 1 stanger things#nancy wheeler centric#nancy wheeler pov#pov nancy wheeler#devon's writings
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Jonathan didn’t know how else to say it but…Steve Harrington was weird. Like really, really weird. And he wasn’t even talking about Steve and Eddie. He thought Harrington was plenty weird all on his own.
Jonathan really didn’t understand why Eddie was always marked as the strange one in the duo. To him, Eddie made perfect sense. Poor background, unique interests, drug dealer, loud and obnoxious as a coping mechanism, but still managing to be a pretty good guy all around. It was normal for a guy like that to be a little out there.
But Steve didn’t make any sense to him. Zero. Zilch.
Because he was rich, handsome, athletic, a total jock in every sense of the word. Half the school wanted to get in his pants, while the other half desperately tried to figure out how he got so many girls. By all accounts, he should be an asshole. Someone who basked in his own popularity, not someone who literally shunned it. Steve was the only person he’d ever met who had it all, and didn’t care.
All he seemed to care about was freaking Eddie Munson of all people. They had been attached at the hip since grade school and even with Eddie disappearing for two years, Steve was right back at his side nearly the moment he got back.
He didn’t go to parties, never bragged about his conquests unless someone asked, and even then he was always incredibly vague, and from what he’d heard from Nancy, he didn’t even sleep at his own house 90 percent of the time. If you were looking for Steve Harrington, all you really had to do was track down Eddie Munson.
Jonathan had only purchased weed a handful of times in his young life, but every single time Steve had been there. Either in the van waiting when Eddie dropped something off, or sitting right next to him on the park bench, popping gum and reading a comic book while Eddie did his business.
And he was…intensely protective over him. Which was weird considering how Munson was scary enough in his own right, at least on the outside. Like getting into multiple fights, protective. Making girls cry who had the audacity to say anything about Eddie’s antics, protective. Like cursing out an actual teacher, protective.
Like comforting your best friend after a near death experience instead of your literal girlfriend protective. Who did that? And maybe it hadn’t been official back then, but still. You’d think you’d spend time cuddling your crush in your lap instead of your childhood buddy. And there was also the weird hair smelling thing they kept doing. He hadn’t looked too closely at the time, but Steve had turned to bury his face in Eddie’s hair every few minutes after the 83 showdown. He hadn’t seen a repeat of that since, though. Maybe…maybe Eddie had gotten demon guts in his hair? And Steve had been trying to find the source?
He didn’t fucking know. He just…didn’t get him. And now he got him even less. The guy pulled freaking Nancy Wheeler as his girlfriend, and he didn't spend every possible waking moment with her?
But it wasn’t just him prioritizing Eddie over Nancy. It was the fact that he didn’t care that Nancy was with him more often than her actual boyfriend. Which was fantastic for Jonathan, even if it was a bit of a double edged sword. Because Nancy was gorgeous and so fucking smart and cool and…and Jonathan liked her so much he kind of wanted to die.
And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Even if he’d come close, way more than once. There were probably a dozen times where he’d almost kissed her. And the last one would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. They had been talking next to his car during lunch, Jonathan couldn’t even remember what it had been about. He just remembered that he had said something to make her laugh. And she looked so freaking beautiful when she laughed. She looked pretty all the time, but something about seeing her happy made her jump from a 10/10 to a 15.
The sun was in her hair, and her eyes crinkled in that cute way that he loved, and Jonathan had been leaning in before he knew it was happening. And if Steve and Eddie hadn’t walked by right in that moment, it would have happened. He had jumped nearly ten feet in the air when he spotted him out of the corner of his eye, fully expecting Steve to start tearing into him for being so close to his girlfriend.
But he just smiled and waved when he saw them, and went right back to their conversation before walking off.
See? Weird.
He didn’t know why it didn’t bother Nancy more, how little he cared about what the two of them were up to. Part of him was praying it was because she was falling out of love with him, and all of the romantic tension they had together wasn’t in his head.
But he just couldn’t bring himself to make that final step. Mostly because he was busy trying to take care of Will most of the time. Even if he got his way he wasn’t exactly in a position to be a good boyfriend. His little brother came first, especially after everything he had been through. And he was struggling, Jonathan could see it. And he spent most of his spare moments trying his damndest to get Will to open up. It hadn’t worked. But he kept trying.
But there was another part to it too. He…he didn’t want to be that guy. The kind of guy to make moves on a taken girl. Especially Steve’s girl. Both him and Eddie had risked their lives last year helping them out, and what? He was going to thank them by breaking Steve’s heart? He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Even if Eddie wanted him to. Which was just one more thing he didn’t get, the weird encouragement Eddie would give him when it came to his best friend’s girlfriend. If Jonathan mentioned a movie he wanted to see, preferably with her, Eddie would always be sure to keep Steve busy on friday nights for her to be free. If Jonathan had his mom’s car for a week and really wanted to be the one to pick her up in the morning, Eddie would conveniently find a reason that Steve couldn’t.
It was weird, and kind of fucked up, but Jonathan had at least a small idea on why he was doing it. It was pretty obvious, after you got a little closer to the two of them. Eddie was in love with Steve. But Steve wasn’t in love with Eddie, not when he had Nancy on his arm. It explained why he monopolized all of his time, why he hung around them on their dates, why he was so open to letting another guy swoop in on her.
He never actually asked him about it. It felt like a fucked up thing to say, especially if he was wrong. But Jonathan couldn’t think of any other explanation. So he kind of just…went with it. At this point it felt like he was Eddie’s co-conspirator to break them up, even if it was never explicitly said.
Which was fucked up, on both their ends. Yeah Steve was weird, and kind of a bitch, but he was a good guy all in all. He was Eddie’s best friend for a reason.
So Jonathan held back his feelings. Or at least he did for as long as he could. But then Nancy came to him for help to expose the Hawkins lab. And they ended up on this crazy fucking adventure together. And he just fell more and more in love with every wild stunt she did.
And then they kissed at Murray’s and Jonathan didn’t have the strength to say no. How could he? It just…happened. And okay yes. He feels bad for Steve. But he doesn’t regret it. Not even slightly. And maybe that made him the biggest asshole in the world, but it was hard to care when Nancy freaking Wheeler wanted him of all people.
It was pretty easy to shove the guilt right out of his mind. That was until they saw Steve and Eddie next, right in front of the Hawkins lab. Steve had instantly brightened at the sight of her, immediately sweeping her up into a big hug.
And Jonathan couldn’t bring himself to watch it. He just couldn’t. Because that was probably going to be the last time they hugged like that. He was already in too deep and there was no way in hell that he was going to let last night be a one night stand. He hadn’t exactly asked Nancy to break up with him yet, but he was going to.
Because he was a dick like that, apparently. But maybe they could find a way to do it…kindly? If that was even possible. And if there was anyone who would be able to help soften the blow for Steve, it would be Eddie Munson.
Jonathan walked up to him as the other two started talking. He jerked his head to the side, “Hey can I talk to you for a second?”
Eddie nodded, following him over to a safe distance from the car. He didn’t really think Eddie would be mad at him for what he did. But he was still a little nervous to say it out loud.
He avoided saying what he truly wanted, deflecting with a question, “So um, Steve and Nancy, how uh, serious are they?”
Eddie stared at him like he’d magically grown a second head, “Huh?”
“They’ve almost been together for like a year now right?” Jonathan pressed, “Is he…y’know. In love with her?”
But Eddie was still looking at him like he’d asked something insane. He narrowed his eyes at him, “Are…are you kidding me right now?”
“What?” Jonathan asked, almost as equally confused as Eddie, “Why would I be kidding?”
Eddie raised a brow at him, “You think Steve and Nancy are dating? For like, real? After all this time? After last year. That’s what you think?”
Jonathan really wished Eddie would just tell him what the hell he was talking about instead of emphasizing every other word. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling oddly defensive when he asked, “What else am I supposed to think?”
He hadn’t expected Eddie to bark out a laugh at the question. It took a second for him to compose himself to talk again while Jonathan looked on, more confused than ever.
Eddie eventually straightened, holding a fist in front of his mouth while he struggled for the words, “Jonathan, dude, last year you saw me in his lap. With my arms around his neck. While he kissed me to make me feel better.”
Jonathan blinked at him, “Huh?”
He hadn’t remembered the kissing part. And in his defense he had been a bit distracted with the news that his brother was alive. But the hair smelling thing…had…had Steve been kissing the top of his head that whole time? Right in front of him?
Eddie looked way too amused at Jonathan’s shock, “So what do you think that means bud? Is that something you do with your friends?”
“But Nancy! And all the other girls-”
“Fake, fake, fake and fake,” Eddie said with a grin, “That boy’s all mine. And has been for years. Him and Nance are just friends. Really good friends but that’s it.”
Eddie put a hand on his shoulder, voice softening a little but still a little too tickled for Jonathan’s liking, “We all kind of thought you knew man. I guess I underestimated our own acting skills there.”
Jonathan slowly nodded, even though his brain was still struggling to catch up with everything he’d said. But it made sense. It actually made perfect sense. That’s why Steve didn’t care that he was all over her, that’s why Eddie had been so encouraging, that’s why Steve was so fucking weird. The guy had been basically married since he was in third grade.
“Holy shit,” Jonathan finally breathed out, “That makes so much sense.”
But then a realization hit him, “Wait, so all of this time Nancy has been single?”
“And ready to mingle,” Eddie added with a wink, “Though if it helps, you’re the only one she’s set her sights on. That and Tom Cruise but I think you still have good odds.”
As wonderful as that revelation was, it kind of also made him want to smash his head into a wall. How could he have been so blind?
“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie said, like he could read his mind, “We do actually try to hide it most of the time. It’s not completely your fault for not seeing the hints.”
He only had one more question, a stupid one but he still wanted to be sure, “So um, hypothetically. If I, uh, slept with his fake girlfriend, he wouldn’t be mad about it?”
Eddie laughed, “He’d be ecstatic. Half the time those two talk is about you. He’s been waiting for you to make a move as long as Nancy has. And he will definitely get a kick out of this conversation when I tell him, that’s for damn sure.”
Jonathan nodded. That was…some pretty fantastic news. Besides the sting that he could have had her weeks or even months ago, it was a good fucking feeling to know that they hadn’t done anything wrong. It was kind of weird, knowing that Steve Harrington of all people was gay. But he didn’t care. That might have been how his dad tried to raise him, but his mom had stopped all the homophobic shit the second he ditched.
He was raised better than to judge two people for being happy together. And the fact that they trusted him with something so big made him feel…kind of special. Definitely not like an asshole. The two of them wandered back to Steve and Nancy and Eddie didn’t hesitate to pull him into his arms.
Jonathan watched as he whispered something to him before kissing his cheek, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And for them it probably was. He saddled next to Nancy. He didn’t exactly have the confidence to be that affectionate in public like those two did, but he’d like to work his way up to it. He gently took her hand in his, blushing at the way it made her smile.
She squeezed his hand back before shuffling a little closer to lean into him. He didn’t have much time to indulge in it, not when the lights all suddenly came back on. But as they all hurried inside, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.
From the latest chapter of this fic
#steddie fic#steddie ficlet#eddie munson#steve harrington#jancy#the universe trapped in your skin#stranger things#steddie#pov outsider#season 2 rewrite#secret relationship steddie#steddie childhood friends au#nancy and steve bffs#nancy wheeler#jonathan byers
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Passengers
It took Robin three years to get her license. Which all things considered, the twice apocalyptic experiences, and, ya know, being poor, wasn’t too bad in her opinion.
20 was as good as any age to get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Okay, if she was honest with herself, really honest, maybe her calculations were off. It wasn’t three years exactly. She could have gotten her license at 16; hell, she could have gotten her permit at 15. So it quite honestly had taken four, five years max to get her license.
But the first two years didn’t count to Robin.
She didn’t even give a thought to driving until she was 17, and Steve was driving her every day without question. She hadn’t thought about it until Steve threw his keys at her, telling her to drive, that Robin realized he was driving her every day because he wanted to, not because she was a license-less loser.
It cracked Robin open when she finally had time to think about it. After all the blood, and gore, and almost losing Steve several times, it hit her that this dingus really wanted her by his side.
So, Steve was really to blame if she ever got into a car accident. Sure, he didn’t push her to get behind the metal contraption, but Robin wanted to pay him back somehow, for all the rides and love over the years.
That was how now, Robin was seething in regret as she drove the rest of the way home, in the dark, from their road trip.
See, when Robin had pictured them doing things like this, it had just been the two of them. Steve in the passenger seat, arguing over music and the best car snacks. Windows down, yelling about who fucking cares, and just laughing their way through different states.
Robin hadn’t taken into account there might be other people involved in her bestie road trip fantasies. No, instead, it wasn’t the terrible two, platonic soulmate extravaganza she pictured. Instead it now involved them, Steve’s ex-turned-best friend, whom Robin had a horrible crush on, Nancy Wheeler, and a sweet metalhead who Robin saw as a brother, and Steve had a huge soul-consuming crush on Eddie Munson.
Robin begrudgingly would admit the additional two had made the trip better, so she didn’t have too many complaints. Actually, in reality, Robin only had one big hang-up about the whole thing.
Steve was in the back seat.
Which would have been fine if Robin had been there too, but she wasn’t. It was her stupid turn to drive in the home stretch of their way home. Instead, Robin had Nancy beside her. Which should have brought her joy but instead made her nervous and clammy and not at all suited to be behind the wheel of the death contraption they called a car. Plus, Nancy was asleep.
Her snores were pretty cute though.
Robin seethed silently; it was Eddie’s fault. He positively insisted on sitting with Steve in the back. Something which Robin would normally tease the both of them for, the oblivious idiots that they were, but Robin was a possessive little creature. It was a trait of hers she tried to bury deep down. She knew people didn’t like that; they didn’t like when people clung. Didn’t like that she felt like baring her teeth, even sometimes wanted to actually bite at people who tried to pry her people away from her.
It was funny, really; the only person who understood that part of her was Steve himself, which made her possessive side come out even more. Like seeks like, and crazy seeks crazy.
God, if she was every lucky enough to get a girlfriend, she was screwed.
Robin had resisted looking in the review mirror for twenty minutes. Probably not safe, but driving angrily wasn’t either, and if she saw the two of them giggling like school girls, she was gonna flip the car.
But Robin was never good at resisting temptation. She was most definitely the child who would touch the plate after someone told her it was too hot. So Robin took a glance, shoulders tense and mouth dry, and saw—
Well, shit. Robin melted. There in the back seat with their heads leaned against each other were Steve and Eddie, sound asleep.
The edges of Robin softened; she remembered Steve pinching his nose earlier, eyes squinting on his turn to drive. She had been in the passenger seat then. She had wanted to ask but instead said nothing, knowing he would wave her off. So she claimed her turn to drive, and then Eddie had been insistent that Steve come in the back with him and—
Robin was getting it now. Although Eddie had a big fat gay crush on Steve. That wasn’t why he wanted to be with Steve in the back. He had noticed, too. The edges of sleep deprivation creeping slowly into an oncoming migraine for Steve. Eddie had seen Steve pushing himself, and somehow also knew that if Steve stayed in the front, he would feel obligated to stay awake.
Robin hadn’t realized that, Eddie didn’t just want Steve; he paid attention to him. Eddie noticed Steve the way Robin noticed him.
Robin spared another glance at the two of them, wrapped around each other like vines snaking up an old oak tree. The last of her anger seemed to fade away. Even after all this time, none of them got a lot of sleep. Steve, most of all, seemed to run on fumes. Robin knew he couldn’t sleep soundly alone, but also couldn’t fall asleep around just anyone. For a long time, Robin had been his only cure for his insomnia. Steve never dared to fall asleep in front of strangers, afraid he’d scare them with his screams.
But here Steve was, in the arms of the man that he loves, not a single worry line on his face as he slept the rest of the trip away.
Robin knew, with certainty, Steve felt safe.
And because of that, Robin thought wistfully to herself, if Eddie Munson ever wants a turn at being a passenger, she wouldn’t mind taking the wheel for him, too.
***
a short lil thing to get me back in my writing grove. Is inspired by a friend of mine who is in her 20s and doesn’t drive. It’s totally okay and everyone moves at their own pace! And also I’m definitely a person who likes to drive others around as a sign of love (I am Steve coded I am beginning to realize)
Sorry if this isn’t any good, or seems rushed. Writers block is a bitch.
#steddie#stranger things#robin buckley#Robin is a feral gremlin just like the kids you can’t change my mind#steve harrington#eddie munson#platonic stobin#platonic soulmates#platonic soulmates stobin#POV Robin Buckley#outsider pov#background ronance#nancy wheeler#my writing#ficlet#steve x eddie
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i truly would not be mad if nancy breaks up with jonathan and tells steve to move on. and for vickie to tell robin she’s not interested but is willing to be friends. so nancy and robin decide they need to hang out after a long day of heartbreak and throughout their convos of explaining everything that’s been going on, they realize they have feelings for each other. i truly would not be mad at that. in fact, that’s exactly what i want to happen 😌
#ronance#robin buckley#nancy wheeler#stranger things#who cares what the straights will think#they’ll be like ‘oh but that doesn’t make sense plot wise’#actually it does!#there’s been theories nancy is queer since s1#and s4 left off with the jancy + stancy love triangle#have jonathan go to college & steve realize he needs to move on#he mentions crawling backwards as a kid so now have him crawl forward by having him get over nancy#and vickie is dating whoever that guy is and then just play off that scene between vickie & robin as robin’s pov where she thought vickie#was interested but she isn’t#then we have the foundation set up for nancy and robin to be together#they’re already friends#have them hang out and get into a deep convo#and robin trusts nancy so she tells her she’s a lesbian & vickie rejected her#and that’s when nancy shares that she feels like she’s always been attracted to girls#AND THEN THEY KISS AND RONANCE IS CANON#LIKE ITS SO EASY THEY NEED TO JUST FUCKING DO IT#no one cares for the straights. do what needs to be done for the gays and give us ronance 😁
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How I imagine Nancy sleeping in Eska's cfdau Nancy pov
#nancy wheeler#nancy wheeler fanart#nancy is the saddest girl#nancy is a feral cat to me#she's out here hissing. having zoomies and wrecking her surroundings. and wants pets and care yet being so skittish and running away#cfdau nancy pov#ronance cfdau#eskawrites#the newest chapter wrecked me and we are entering Jonathan Byers era nooooo#my sketches
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This is something that hasn’t left me since I read a fic from fucking glee years ago. It’s haunting me and goes away only to come back and swirl in my head so I’m just gonna write it out.
Saying this now, i remember a lot of season 4 but I’ve blocked out the Stancy parts hahaha so it’s not completely accurate to the show I don’t think. Also a quick heads up, I skip a lot of what happens in the show because it’s taking up too much brain power remembering those things lol (ps: if you see typos, no you don’t)
~
“I always pictured you, just, wanted to let you know before we head straight into danger”
Something inside of her wants to break and yet all she can do is nod at him and immediately head into that danger. Not wanting to look to closely at it right now, there’s more important things going on right now.
Takes her shotgun and decides she’s ending this once and for all.
It feels like an eternity passes before she finds herself in the hospital. One second she’s ruining her eardrums using the shotgun right next to her face, the next she’s following the emt’s light.
Surprisingly all of them has made it, she doesn’t know how but they have. It’s all she knows, couldn’t hear properly and too out of it to really follow anyone anyway.
“-eler, ms? Hello, Ms. Wheeler? Can you hear me?”
Nancy blinks hard and looks around to find a nurse standing next to her, “oh, sorry. What did you say?”
The nurse smiles softly at her before shaking her head, “I was asking if you wanted to call your parents now? Our generator finally kicked in and we’ve already asked your friends”
That makes her blink again, her ears still somewhat ringing, “yeah- yeah! I’ll, um, do that”
The call with her mom she barely hears, but she knows that they’re on their way. As she hangs up the phone she looks around and doesn’t see any of her friends, it makes her nervous.
“Hey, where are my friends?” She asks the same nurse and catches her surprised look, “did- you already told me didn’t you?”
The nod is enough but the nurse still says, “Yes, two of them got admitted, the other two are in there with them. They didn’t want to be separated so they’re in room 130, just over there”
She knocks once before opening it to find what she expected, Steve in one bed with Robin clinging to him and Eddie on the other with Dustin sitting next to him.
It shouldn’t be surprising but it is.
“Nance! Heyyyyyy, welcome to the party!”
Robin snorts, “don’t mind the Dingus Duo, the doctors gave them some strong medicine for the bites”
She shakes her head, smiling just a little at them. Steve’s mumbling about Robin ruining the party, Dustin’s laughing and Eddie has his eyes closed either falling asleep or already there. She takes a seat on the extra chair, opens her mouth but lost her words. The room is filled with beeping, Steve and Robin whispering and Eddie snoring.
It’s nice, this is nice.
A pleasant change from the chaos they went through just hours ago.
Seeing Jonathan is amazing, he pulls her close and presses a kiss to her forehead. Her arms are wrapped around him and she can’t stop the tears from falling even if it’s a happy moment.
Because it is, actually seeing him in person and not just hearing his voice.
He holds her close and it feels great, it does. But there’s Steve’s words echoing in her head. It makes her hide her face in hopes to cancel them out, she’s with her boyfriend. The boy she loves with all her heart, and yet, yet she’s thinking of the one she broke at sixteen.
Those words swirl, rattle and settles in her head as she helps fix the cabin up. They burn when Jonathan jokes about Steve being in charge, she huffs a laugh but disagrees.
She sees the confusion on Jonathan’s face. That doesn’t surprise her. Instead of continuing, they’re interrupted.
Seeing Joyce and all of the Byers reunite brightens the moment of confusion, seeing Hopper is a massive shock but a welcomed one.
Fixing the cabin is a process, but with the actual adults back, they decide to stop for the day and make their way home.
She watches as Mike clings to El and Will, watches as Joyce holds Hopper’s hand in a death grips. Sees Jonathan hovering and she’s on the outside.
There’s those words making her stay on the outside.
There’s static in her ears, her vision blurry, heart beating fast and she can’t figure out what happened. How did this happen? They were fine, Jonathan promised. She promised.
“I’m really sorry, Nance. I just can’t be in a relationship anymore, I love you. I do, but my family needs me and I, I need them more. You have to understand” he’s holding her close and she can feel his tears fall onto her, “I won’t ask you to wait, you deserve someone who’ll love and focus on you.”
All she can do is nod as tears go down her face.
They share one last kiss before separating for good. He hugs her close and she squeezes her eyes shut.
It’s several hours later, having spent most of the day in a haze. She’s sitting at her desk, trying to get her focus back, when those words from months ago start to swirl back in.
“I always pictured you, just, wanted to let you know before we head straight into danger”
“-just travel across the country, with my family”and “always dreamt this” filters in with it, she doesn’t know what she’s feeling, she shouldn’t be thinking about her first boyfriend like this.
Jonathan just broke up with her, not even a full twenty four hours yet.
But the words are swirling fast and she can feel her stomach flutter suddenly remembering that feeling those emotions Steve used to give her.
It was nice, even if sometimes she had to be away from him. He did treat her like she was his world and it felt like it. Nancy goes to sleep with a plan set in mind.
Tomorrow, she’ll go to Steve’s and hope he still wants that second chance.
Dressed in her best clothes, wearing pretty make-up, she makes her way to the Harrington house.
Seeing Eddie’s van parked outside doesn’t surprise her, not really, what does make her pause is when she walks by a bike and skateboard on the porch.
Seeing that makes her doubt the timing, Eddie there is alright he shouldn’t know the history between her and Steve. She also swears she heard him talking Steve about lost loves and second chances.
The bike can only be owned by Dustin and he definitely knows the history and Max well, since Spring Break, has been particularly living with Steve at this point. Stating a number of times that Steve is her brother, she might not know the story but she’ll be questioning.
But she’s here now and Steve’s words are on fire in her head.
So, she moves ahead determined. She knocks on the door and takes a few deep breaths to get her composure.
The door opens and it’s not Steve answering, it’s Dustin and she blinks. Losing that composure she just gained, it’s quick and she’s quick to get it back with an easy smile. “Hi Dustin, can I come in?”
He’s been hanging out with Eddie too much lately, since he is loose with his posture now and opens the door with an exaggerated smile and waving his arm as he opens the door more.
“Nancy?”
She looks around, sitting on the couch is Max who’s got an eyebrow raise and frown.
“Hi Max, I wanted to speak with Steve. What’re you doing here?”
Both of them shrug and Dustin moves to sit next to Max, “We have plans with Steve and Eddie, we got tired of waiting outside”
“So we broke in”
She rolls her eyes, moves to stand closer to the stairs, “Are they awake? Where is Eddie?”
The two share a look and she can’t figure out what it means, Dustin has a mischievous smile once he’s looking back towards her, “Upstairs”
A little suspicious at the look, but the words in her head has her pushing forward despite the alarm bells ringing that something is up.
Steve’s house has changed since the last time she was here, there’s more life within it and old family portraits are gone, photos of friends in their places instead. There’s a door with a sign saying ‘Dustin’s room’ on it, and she passes an open door that was originally Steve’s. It’s cleared out except for the desk and the plaid wallpaper.
The next room is opened just a bit, she itches closer and pushes the door to see more and her whole body freezes.
There on the bed is not only Steve but Eddie too. From where she’s standing, Eddie’s pressed up against Steve’s back and has an arm around him; keeping him close.
She tears her eyes away from them and immediately regrets it.
On the floor is a mix of Steve’s clothes and Eddie’s, that’s not it though. Sitting directly next to bed is ripped condom packaging and by the trash bin is a poor attempt at throwing away a used condom.
It brings her attention back to the bed, in the short glance away, Steve has moved in his sleep. Instead of facing away; he’s now facing Eddie and nearly on top of the other. She tenses up as Eddie tightens his arms around Steve, then she pulls the door shut before moving quickly down the stairs.
Without acknowledging the two on the couch she makes it to the door, just as she pulls it open the door she’s stopped.
“They’re asleep still? We could tell Steve you stopped by” she can just hear smugness coming from Dustin and Max sniggering.
Shaking her head, she refuses to look back at them, “no, no, it’s fine. Have uh, have a good day!”
“It doesn’t make sense! I, I thought- he” Nancy mumbles to herself, trying to collect her thoughts. She didn’t even bother moving yet, still sitting inside her car mumbling and trying to figure this out.
She could’ve sworn Steve was flirting with her, she knows she was a little during the fight. It felt natural and right. Even though it was wrong, very wrong. But- it was potentially the end of the world, they could’ve died! Everyone involved would understand her lapse of judgment.
Steve had told her, admitted his dream with her in it.
Him and Eddie? Steve likes boys? Since when? Was- was it a lie then? Was she being led on? Maybe even being used?
She’s so in her head, she doesn’t notice anyone walk up and only realizes when her whole body jolts at the knocking on her window. Shaking her head and reaching for her glove box, looking over her eyes widen at Steve standing there.
He’s wearing sweatpants with only a jacket over his bare chest, he looks worried, confused and most importantly; scared.
Taking a breath, she rolls her window down before looking at him, “Steve, hi.”
“Nancy, what are you doing here?”
Frowning, she looks away from him and startles at seeing Eddie standing there by the door also looking scared. Her eyes must be wide, because Steve clears his throat and she immediately looks back at him. “I- I”
Steve sighs, dropping his arms to run a hand over his face and hair, looking away from her, “Nancy, what you saw- you can’t tell anyone. Okay? Please. I don’t understand why you’re here right now and I really don’t want to know rig-” he shakes his head, “just, please don’t tell anyone”
She opens her mouth, but the words get caught. Steve’s look is haunted, even more afraid then a few months ago. Closing her mouth, taking another look at Eddie by the door before focusing her attention back on Steve.
“I won’t. I promise, Steve. I won’t tell anyone, just- maybe we can talk sometime? All of us?”
He clearly wasn’t expecting that, she can tell by his eyes and how he glances behind him, before looking at her again. “I’ll have to talk with Eddie first, but, uh yeah sure.”
Steve gives a weak smile at her that she tries to match, despite her racing thoughts. He steps away from the car and she starts it, nodding her head before driving away. She watches in her rear view mirror as Steve walks over to Eddie and only squeezes his arm before leading him inside.
Imagines that once inside, Steve pulls Eddie close and holds him tight.
Three Days Later
It wasn’t avoiding them, she really wasn’t. She had to collect her thoughts, really figure out what she absolutely wanted in life now.
Which, she still doesn’t know, at least relationship wise.
Thinking back on the last few years and how they’re finally no longer fighting for their lives and the world, she can go for her dream of becoming a journalist. Which is exactly what she realizes, two days into her thinking, that’s what she actually wants in life. Not a relationship with Steve. Not even a relationship with Jonathan at this point, she doesn’t need that right now.
By the third day, she realizes how selfish she was acting and how much she actually scared, maybe even hurt Steve and Eddie.
That’s what brings her back to Steve’s front door with an apology and some cookies. There’s no bikes or skateboards this time around, just Eddie’s van and it’s not first thing in the morning.
Knocking on the door is quick and as she wants gets her composure and tries to relax. It’s not long before the door opens, Steve standing on the other side and her mind flashes back to the night in 83. Shaking her head to get rid of it, smiling she raises her hands up with the plate.
“I bought cookies”
Steve smiles a little and let’s her in, “you didn’t have to, Robs and I had a baking spree last night”
“Yeah and it’s all delicious!” Eddie shouts out, from somewhere.
It does some a little like a bakery in here, she notices. Placing the plate on the table before looking at Steve, “no, my mom insisted I bring them.”
Steve just nods as he closes the door, “It’s fine, we love cookies and if we don’t finish them, Eddie’s friends and Robs is coming over later anyway”
He leads her towards the kitchen and she’s not surprised to find Eddie at the table with paints and figurines, “Elder Wheeler, good afternoon on this fine day”
A laugh bubbles out of her, as she takes a seat across from him and she watches Steve take the seat right next to Eddie. Eddie looks towards him and she gets to see a silent conversation pass between the two, it’s not like the ones she’d see between Steve and Robin or even the ones she’d have with Jonathan.
It ends a second later when Steve looks towards her with a tight smile, “Nancy, I’m sor-”
“No!” She’s a little loud but it makes his mouth snap shut and Eddie to widen his eyes, “sorry, but you don’t have to apologize to me. If anyone should, it’s me. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you guys or to make you uncomfortable. I, I wasn’t thinking straight”
Eddie snorts, “couldn’t imagine how to do that”
It makes both her and Steve break into a smile, she’s quicker at sobering up though, sits straighter and clears her throat before settling her eyes on Steve, “I was being selfish, that’s why I came over the other day. Your words were in my head and I thought, maybe they were telling me that we could have a second chance. But I realized, I don’t want it anymore.”
Steve looks confused, “my words? Wha- my old dream? That thing?”
She nods, “yeah and I didn’t think things through, came here and found you both in bed and, scared you”
“You did” Eddie nods, dropping a hand to Steve’s, “When Dustin and Max mentioned you were in the house and looking for Steve, it really did scare us”
“I know, and I’m truly sorry for doing that to you both.” She looks away from them and sees how tightly Eddie has Steve’s hand in his, “You’re-”
“Relationship,” Steve interrupts her, “our relationship”
She nods, “it’s yours and I shouldn’t have even thought of you the way I was.”
They both nod and it’s quiet for a moment.
“Can, can I ask you?” She doesn’t know how to approach this, this isn’t something she does a lot. This is completely different from anything she’s done before, “You don’t have to tell me anything”
The couple share another long look before looking back at her, “I’m gay, I only like boys.”
“I like both. I especially like Eddie” Steve’s smile is bright and aimed completely at Eddie, “before you ask, we’ve been dating since we got out of the hospital.”
It surprises her, it’s been months.
“Yeah, I was surprised too. Thought Stevie boy was still high off the pain meds, turns out he was completely serious” Eddie laughs, “We haven’t told many people, gotta be careful with this”
She’s not surprised by that and nods, “I understand, I’m just a little confused- if you liked him and why give me hope? Why tell me that dream of yours”
“Nance, we were in the middle of a war,” Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand before letting go and reaching over to take her hand, “I wasn’t lying, I did dream of having a future with you. I thought we weren’t going to come out of it, didn’t think I’d have even a chance of growing up. That dream was from a little lonely boy who loved you with everything, I thought you should know that before something happened to us. But that wasn’t my only dream, and I know that’s not the kind of life you’d want, right?”
Her eyes are watering and nods, “You’re right, it was nice though”
It makes all of them laugh and Nancy feels like she knows him better, “I really am sorry, not just for scaring you. But for what I did back then”
“I’m sorry too”
There’s tears falling from both of them and she can see Eddie wiping away his own eyes.
A laugh bubbles up out of her, then Steve and lastly Eddie. It’s tears and laughter between them now.
~
Okay, look I’ll be completely serious right now. This wasn’t supposed to be this long, honestly. That’s why it ends the way it does, because it could go on even more. But I’d be repeating myself I think. Also, all of this just for the image of Nancy finding out about Steddie in like the most awkward way possible. (Without it being completely explicit 🤣)
Hope it reads okay, I had some help from the discord babes, @i-less-than-three-you & @strangersteddierthings! Love you both lovelies 💜
Information that isn’t in the fic: Robin and Wayne are the first ones to know about Steddie. Dustin, Max & the CC boys are the only other ones that know (besides Nancy) everyone else doesn’t. Also this takes place over a span of a few months. The very first part is directly after vecna (max isn’t hurt) and jumps to the “two days later” after that. But Jonathan and Nancy break up is about two months later.
TAGLIST! (If you want to be added, let me know!)
@spectrum-spectre @itsfreakingbats @mysticcrownshipper @artiststarme @thereindeerlady @justforthedead89 @ronniescontinuum @freyaforestafay @littlewildflowerkitten @estrellami-1 @gregre369 @zerokrox-blog @bookworm0690 @flustratedcas @carlprocastinator1000 @marvelmwah @solliesolesito @navnae @grimmfitzz
#Nancy finds out about steddie#steddie#steddie fic#past stancy#Nancy Wheeler POV#nburkhardt writes#pls don’t hate me for how I wrote Nancy this was my first real attempt 🫣#pls know I do love her#Nancy Wheeler#steve x eddie#stranger things fic
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Steve after an argument with Billy
(Billy’s side)
#harringrove#i did the other pov for steve now#billy hargrove#steve harrington#billy x steve#robin buckley#nancy wheeler#dustin henderson#billy hargrove x steve harrington#incorrect harringrove quotes#harringroveera#harringrove meme#harringrove textpost#harringrove edit#harringrove & the party#harringrove + text post#harringrove au#harringrove memes#steve x billy#steve harrington meme#incorrect steve harrington#steve harrington x billy hargrove#eddie munson
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ronance yearning hours
Mornings like this are becoming Nancy’s favourite thing, with the rising sun painting the room in golden light that always, always lands on Robin, who usually sleeps long past sunrise when she can. Nancy lets her; there’s nowhere for her to go anyway on this slow Saturday morning in Steve’s house, and the boys will only wake in an hour or so.
Nancy has taken to using that time to watch the picture of absolute serenity that is a sleeping Robin, with her cheek smushed into the pillow and her hair falling over her face in a way that never fails to make Nancy smile.
It also never fails to make her fingers twitch, itching to reach out and brush that hair behind her ear and see if her cheek is as smooth to the touch as it looks.
It gets stronger, this urge, with every slow Saturday morning that she wakes in the same bed as her. The journalist inside her wants to find a better word for it, a stronger one, to avoid repetition and ensure clarity. But all the words are big and carry implications for which Nancy is not yet ready.
She refuses to call it longing, this need inside her to touch and linger. She refuses to call it yearning, the way she looks forward to Friday nights at Steve’s with Robin and Eddie, or the way it fills her chest with excitement and giddiness just to think about sharing a bed and waking next to her and watching as all the things that overwhelm Robin on a daily basis are held off for at least another hour yet.
What’s in a word? she’ll scoff when it comes to interviews and articles and hours of agonising over sentence structure and synonyms.
But it’s on mornings like this that she realises that some words require bravery and tenderness rather than simple contemplation and calculation. Some words take time.
Beside her, Robin sighs quietly in her sleep, and Nancy shuffles closer. Because if she can’t be brave with words yet, not even with herself, she can at least be closer.
Using the momentum of a moment unguarded, her right hand comes up before she can stop it, finding a home on Robin’s cheek as she slowly, reverently brushes the hair out of her face and behind her ear. Her touch is light, fingertips ghosting over soft, warm skin — and feeling that softness upon her touch, she wonders if falling in love with Robin would be just as soft, just as gentle; just as warm.
Not a second later, Nancy pulls her hand away as if burned, her heart racing in her chest as if it were signalling her to run, you should be running, i’m racing like you’re running for your life before you’re caught and found out. Nancy balls her hand into a fist and scoots further back on the bed, feeling a heaviness inside her chest that has only been there for a few of these mornings. A fear. A panic.
Because terrible things happen when Nancy Wheeler wonders about love and touch and tenderness. And worse things still, because it’s not supposed to be like this. Not with Robin.
So she stays on her side of the bed, watching the sun dance along Robin’s skin, her hand still warm, the ghost touch of Robin’s soft cheek still present. And she watches, hand cradled to her chest to stop herself from reaching out again. She watches and wonders if maybe she should start using bigger words, because the pit in her chest is growing larger with every passing second and she needs something to fill it.
~*~
It happens again the next week. And the week after that. It seems like the first time broke something in Nancy, or maybe it came alive, but either way she can’t really stop reaching for Robin now. And her repertoire of words is growing with each Saturday morning, too. Longing, aching, yearning — they are classics. But there’s basking, too. Hoping, wishing, and imagining. God, does she imagine.
She imagines Robin’s lips turning up into a smile with Nancy’s hand on her cheek, she imagines her hand coming up to capture Nancy’s and just holding it. Or an image that makes her heart race again: kisses brushed to her knuckles. Or her lips.
She imagines, and she wishes, and she longs. But there’s also belonging. In fact, there’s a whole novel Nancy feels she could write in those early morning hours. A thousand pages dedicated to all the words that exist around Robin Buckley. Words that live inside Nancy; that part is important.
Four weeks have passed and the feelings have only grown stronger, developed more words that will forever remain between her and the morning sun. And Nancy can’t stop herself from trailing the back of her finger along smooth, warm skin, the touch too light to disturb the sleeping beauty.
Sleeping Beauty, who stills and stiffens minutely, but Nancy is too mesmerised to notice until it’s too late.
“You’ve gotta stop this,” Robin whispers, her voice hoarse from sleep, and Nancy’s heart leaps out of her chest in panic and embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she whispers, pulling her hand back toward her chest. She’ll explain. Robin had something on her face that Nancy brushed away, that’s all. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s—
“Or I’ll fall madly in love with you if you don’t.”
Oh. Oh?
Oh.
Nancy swallows as her thesaurus dissolves and all words escape her. She blinks. Robin’s eyes are still closed but there’s a shadow of a smile on her lips, dimpling the skin that Nancy caressed just seconds ago.
There is the chance to just ignore that this ever happened, with Robin not looking at her, not making this moment real yet, on the brink of sleep and wakefulness. All she’ll have to do is wait. It’s the best chance she’s ever going to get, to forget about all this and get over it. Over her. Over whatever she has been building inside herself under the light of the rising sun over the past weeks.
All she’d have to do is remain still and silent and wait for Robin to fall back asleep.
But there was something about big words and bravery, and even though her thesaurus has left her and the thousand pages of things to feel, to say, to do, to think around Robin have torn themselves up because they were bleak and bland and not enough, Nancy feels brave on this particular morning.
Because the world hasn’t ended yet in all those weeks that she’s been thinking about Robin. In fact, the world has stopped ending since she started seeing Robin for who she is. And in a world where bravery is not about surviving, it is always about love.
And maybe that’s what she feels, maybe that’s what she wants, what she allows herself to want when she lays her hand on Robin’s cheek to caress the softest skin and gently comb back the strands of hair that are threatening to fall back over her face again. Her beautiful face that’s pulling up into a smile now — and Nancy is not imagining it. In fact, she’s smiling, too. She’s smiling so wide that a tiny little laugh bubbles past her lips.
Robin scoots closer, eyes squinting open now, as if to make sure this is real. As if she’s feeling the same. As if she meant it, what she said just now.
Nancy swallows thickly when Robin tucks her head under her chin, her body curling into Nancy’s, finding one of her hands to hold it. She still feels too raw, too vulnerable, and she wants to ask. Wants to be sure. Wants it to be real.
“Five more minutes,” Robin says, already on her way back to a deep sleep. “And then we’ll talk about this. I’ll tell you all about this girl I like. Think she might like me back. And she’s so warm.” She buries a little deeper into her side to chase that warmth that is now filling her whole body.
And Nancy gasps out a laugh this time, a tiny one, gentle and tender and all those words that are slowly coming back to her now that Robin is curled into her side and holding her hand. Her free hand comes up to comb through Robin’s hair in steady motions to lull her back into a slumber.
“Sleep,“ she breathes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Robin hums, cuddling impossibly closer, and Nancy feels herself drifting off again, too. With a smile on her face. For the first time in years.
#ronance#nancy wheeler#robin buckley x nancy wheeler#robin buckley#one day i’ll stop being pretentious about yearning hours but i am Not Creative and this was supposed to be just floaty but now it’s#not. because uh. i don’t think nancy pov can be floaty. because that girl has seen too much in a way that she’s not allowed to process#but uh. i’m not gonna go on a nancy rant now. maybe this is as floaty as it gets. maybe i can do better. only one way to find out#anyway nancy is yearning#if you saw this earlier no you didn’t. i hit post too soon like a real pro#does this make sense? idk it was written in a discord group chat bc i’m a madman who avoids documents like the plague apparently#dio words
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Steve Harington hates the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Not because of the movie itself, actually he’d thought it was pretty cool. No, he hates it because hes being forced into a live showing, which means costumes.
Originally he'd been drafted into being Brad because duh, of course Steve "The Hair" Harington should be Brad. But Robin had complained that she wanted to match Nancy who was going as Janet so Steve had been recast as Rocky.
The golden undies would have been bad enough, but then of course because the universe hates him, Eddie was of course Frank N Furter.
As if it wasnt enough to see Eddie in a corset and fishnets with his hair done up, he was essentially going to be a human prop. Which meant touching. Lots of touching.
Steve is pretty sure hes not going to last the night, and thats before he even sees Eddie.
Robin is winking at him like she'd done something helpful rather than dooming him to leaving halfway through due to an ill timed but inevitable boner.
However bad Steve thinks its going to be, the reality of seeing Eddie is much worse.
He looks gorgeous. The makeup is supposed to be a caricature but hes so damn pretty it doesn't come off that way at all. Plus that corset draws attention to the little dip in his waist and the fishnets emphasize of toned and long his legs are and Steve knows hes irreparably fucked.
Eddie, though too looks like hes swallowed a rock as soon as their eyes meet.
Steve waves, like an idiot and Eddie waves back and they just stand there like that until the girls pull them to the car.
#steddie#steve harington#eddie munson#stranger things#robin buckley#nancy wheeler#i might continue this from Eddie's POV who knows#i had this idea and now it wont let me live
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This is the face Robin made when Nancy jumped into the lake…
literal greif and devastation on her face
#pov your watching the love of your life jump into a lake that just swallowed your best friend#ronance#nancy wheeler#robin buckley#robin#nancy#robin x nancy#ronance canon#stranger things
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writing my silly little fic and again im struck with how much opportunities they missed by pretending the s2 stancy breakup wasn't messy, specifically for Nancy's guilt about barb and forcing herself to grow up too fast
like s1 Nancy spends one night being a stupid teenager goofing off at her boyfriend's party and staying over to get spicy while Barb goes home. then she later realizes Barb disappeared and died that one night she was letting go and having fun. this is widely recognized trauma for her and informs a lot if not most of her actions through the rest of the show
in season 2 she's feeling the weight of it more around the first year anniversary. steve trys to help by taking her to a party to forget for a little while and 'be stupid teenagers' for a night. a perfectly set up parallel already
the way the show wants it to go, we get the bullshit argument, they fight, allegedly break up at some point, and nancy sleeps with Jonathan. later steve tells her to go with him and we're supposed to read it as Steve stepping back so jancy can happen. we're supposed to be seeing this as a happy ending.
but with the material we're given this would have been the perfect place for an emotional repeat of season 1 for nancy. she and steve go to the party and pretend to be stupid teenagers for the night. but oh no! nancy lets lose too much, lets herself relax and drink and dance, and the next day her boyfriend's pissed. hes saying she said things she never remembered saying and its hurt him and she doesn't know what to do. and kids around school are talking about them breaking up at the party, and that fits with Steve's anger she saw, so they must've broken up right? it sucks, even if she wasn't in love with him, that'd be the worst way to break up with someone (especially if she's confusing platonic and romantic feelings or convincing herself it has to be romantic when she really just values him as a friend)
and then she doesn't have time to work it out, she needs to go with Jonathan to avenge barbs 'disappearance' to give her family closure. She's got a lot of conspiracy shit to do and its stressful. so when murray starts going off about how she's not really in love with steve, how she actually likes Jonathan and he seems to like her back. they finished a lot of the hard work with the conspiracy stuff, she can let her guard down and have a quick good night.
then the next day is chaos. demodogs and labs and will being possessed. It a rough fucking day. Steve tells her to go with Jonathan while they get the mindflayer out of Will, civil like they're on good terms so she does (and thank god she did because that was rough and they needed all the help they could get)
and then everything's fine again, with the upside down. and it looks like she handled things better this time, was about to relax occasionally and still made it through.
except apparently she and steve didn't break up. he thought it was just a few fights, that they put their shit aside for the apocalypse and now they can work things out.
and it could ruin nancy. a year later and she's still hasn't learned her lesson, that letting her guard down hurts the people she cares about, that relaxing and having fun makes her lose people. its her fault for the messy breakup with Steve and its her fault that barb is gone. she's the reason she's lost friends close to her, 2 for 2, and now she only has Jonathan left (and what do you know, season 3 has her conflict with Jonathan and in season 4 she's not let anyone else get truly close to her and fred still dies)
you see what i mean?? by having conflict magical resolve itself in the background we loose so much powerful, painful character drama for her. our girl who thinks she has to keep the world around her up solely on her shoulders because she can't handle the loss of her best friend in season 1. Nancy who desperately wants to be normal and have people she loves but keeps losing them, through factors both in and out of her control, but feels like everything has to be her fault just because some things were.
and to be fair, that story is still present in the show. its there and definitely compelling, but it could've been even more so. i feel like if maybe there was less 'nancy has to be a strong independent girlboss' in there (abd it's definitely there, they want to make a point of making her a Strong Woman Character so bad) and she was allowed to have mistakes acknowledged by the narrative, this is the direction it would've gone. She could've been an excellent example of well written women who are strong and awesome through their own right instead of the narrative trying to make us like her
#nancy wheeler#stranger things meta#stranger things thoughts#platonic stancy#stranger things#platonic stancy because while this could definitely be used in a jancy breakup then stancy fic#my personal theory is that she thinks she should like him romantically because he sees her like that but she actually likes him as a friend#and the bullshit scene was just the worst way for her to say it because she waited so long and refused to when she was sober#also didn't tag anti-nancy because i don't think it is really? like its anti-canon-depiction-because-i-think-they-did-her-dirty#also this is kinda nancy pov so its not like she's actually at fault for everything but in her mind she blames herself anyway#so yea#the fic is my Steve Henderson AU btw for ppl who've never seen me before#stancys not the focus (its steve pov with the Hendersons being main characters) but i want to do a serious platonic stancy workthrough in i#so this is just my headcanons (technically canon compliant based on what we see on screen but not following the narrative direction y'know)#devon's steve henderson au#steve henderson au rambles#hoping praying to god this doesn't make people angry but if it does feel free to block me i don't mind and i really dont want to argue#no disc horse for me just silly little thoughts and headcanons thanks for understanding#devon thinks sometimes
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I heard Hold On, We're Going Home on the radio on my drive home yesterday and this is what my brain supplied me with so 🤷♀️
"Edddd-he-he-he-heeeeee!"
The sound of Dustin's wail splits through the rumbling of The Upside Down as they were racing back to the gate.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Fucking idiots! What happened to not being heroes! Steve thinks as he picks up his pace, sprinting faster than he ever has, towards where he thinks he heard the sound come from.
He comes to a skidding halt next to the pair. Dustin, clinging to a lifeless Eddie, his tear-streaked face turned up to the sky, a guttural scream ripping from his little brother's lungs as he howls in agony. It threatens to break through his concentration, but Steve's training is stronger.
"What happened?" Steve asks, trying to peel Dustin off of Eddie so he can get a better look at his wounds. It's obvious it was the bats; they're either dead or writhing around them. But it's like Dustin can't hear him; he's just weeping and rocking Eddie back and forth.
"Dustin!" Steve snaps, finally gaining the boy's attention, his eyes snap open and the grief and heartbreak in their innocent depths are almost too much. Steve knows it would've broken him this time last year, it still could if he doesn't keep his head on straight, "Let go. Let me help!" Steve insists, trying again to get Dustin to let go.
"Steve," Nancy mumbles, sympathy lacing her tone as she reaches out for him and Dustin over their shoulders, but he just holds his hand up to silence her.
"No! He's not going!" Steve asserts, "Dustin, off!" he demands, wrenching the boy away and all but throwing him into Robin's waiting arms.
She's the only one who knew about the EMT course, she helped him read through some of his textbooks when he'd had to take the day off because he'd had the flu, she knows he's the only one that has a chance to fix this mess.
Steve reaches for Eddie's throat, but there's a gaping hole on one side, it's bleeding a lot but not squirting, so he's hoping that it's just superficial. Blood's pooling around Eddie but not enough to have hit an artery, he's bleeding out, but it's slow, he can fix this. He presses his fingers into the other side of Eddie's neck. There, a pulse. Barely, but definitely there, once, twice then nothing.
He wastes no time in starting chest compressions, "Robin! Count," he pleads, he knows it'll be easier if he doesn't expend all his energy trying to do both at once.
"One and two and three, one and two and three, one and two and three," she copies his movements, only stopping counting when he searches again for a beat before continuing when he does.
He half hears Nancy trying to get what happened out of Dustin, how it happened, how long ago, but the kid only knows half of the story. He explains how Eddie cut the rope and ran off, how he made it back through the gate by himself, how the bats dropped out of the sky as he wobbled out of the trailer and how he found Eddie.
"He was- he was talking," Dustin gets out between sobs, still shaking in Robin's grasp, the two of them watching Steve work intently.
"When?" Steve asks, still pumping Eddie's chest, half listening to Robin keeping count.
Dustin doesn't say anything for a second, then he splutters, "I- I don't…"
Except Steve doesn't have time for I don't know's, he needs to know, and he needs to know now, "Think, man!" Steve beseeches impatiently.
"Steve!" both girls snap, confusion written all over Nancy's face, fury on Robin's, mad at him for snapping at Dustin. She wraps her arms tighter, more protectively around the boy, pressing her chin into the top of his head, but she's still counting for him. Dustin's her favourite out of the boys and honestly, he can't blame her, he'd probably say the same if he had to choose.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry Dusty, but c'mon, I need to know," he implores.
Dustin nods, breathes deeply and sets his shoulders, scrunching his brows in concentration, "I don't know, he was bleeding, but he was talking, and then he said… but then he was gone, and then you arrived," he recounts, thinking hard he nods to himself, "Seconds, fifteen, twenty? Maybe more, but definitely less than a minute," he decides.
Steve nods back at Dustin, "That's good. That's so good, man. I'm so proud of you," he tells him as sincerely as he can, but he's starting to get tired. He knows he can't do this much longer, his body is screaming at him from everywhere, but he won't stop. He can't. Not just for Dustin's sake but for his own.
Because honestly, he hasn't been able to stop thinking about Eddie since the boathouse, since he'd pressed broken glass against his neck and left a bruise at the bottom of his back that hasn't gone away, that has him thinking about that moment every time it twinges, and he's already decided that there's no way this is going to be it, he won't let it end this way, not if he can help it.
Nancy's found some fabric from godknowswhere and is doing her best to wrap up the worst of Eddie's wounds. It's only when she runs out of material that she stops working and feels at Eddie's neck, "Pulse!" she shouts. Steve knocks her hand out of the way to check himself and sure enough, weak but there, proof that Eddie's heart is beating by itself.
"Move! Gate! Now!" Steve demands, using every bit of strength he's got left to lift Eddie from the ground. The girls grab either side of Dustin and high tail it to the trailer, Steve moving as fast as his legs will carry him after them. "C'mon, Eddie, just hold on, we're going home," he tells him, holding him more securely as he waddles up the steps.
Dustin's holding the door open for Steve as the girls drag the dining table under the gate, Robin climbing up onto the wooden surface and boosting Nancy through to the other side. Dustin pulls the door closed behind Steve and Eddie, then grabs a dining chair, dragging it next to the table and using it as a step to wobble up on the table surface. Nancy's already clambered off the waiting chair that Dustin had used to launch himself through the gate and is dragging the table into its place, climbing back up to catch Dustin as Robin carefully boosts the boy through to the other side.
Robin jumps down and helps Steve climb onto the chair and then the tabletop with Eddie in his arms then she climbs back up, and hops a few times. It worries Steve given the way everything here is slowly decaying that the table will crumble beneath their feet, but it doesn't. She leaps at the gate, clinging to its sides and lifting herself until she's falling, landing ungracefully into Nancy's waiting arms, Dustin doing what he can to help them keep their balance.
Steve nods to himself as he watches them get situated, ready to catch Eddie. All he has to do is get them both through the gate and then they're on the homestretch. All his training tells him Eddie needs a hospital like yesterday but looking at the unconscious boy in his arms, he stalls, something deep in him just can't let Eddie go. Not again.
"Steve," Robin calls, his attention immediately snapping to her, and he just knows from the look on her face. She knows, she sees him, it'll be okay, he just has to trust her and he does. He sucks in a breath and lifts Eddie as high as he can and when he feels the pull from the other side he pushes him towards it, Eddie floating between worlds landing heavily and awkwardly in Robin and Nancy's arms. Steve sucks in a breath when they catch him and between the three of them manage to get back on the ground, laying Eddie down gently on the mattress on the floor.
Steve doesn't hang around to watch as they do their best to get Eddie comfortable, as soon as they're off the table, Steve grabs the dining chair, dragging it onto the tabletop, stepping up and through the gate, landing heavily on the surface before rolling off onto the ground.
Robin and Dustin have already disappeared and Nancy's screaming into the phone, "I know you can hear us, you bastards! Man down! Get a doctor to Memorial now!"
Steve crawls over to Eddie, kneeling over his patient, pressing his fingers back into his neck. He's still got a pulse, and he isn't bleeding too intensely from anywhere he can see, but Steve knows he won't be able to lift him again, his arms just won't take it. It doesn't stop him brushing gentle fingers over his cheek, wiping away some of the grime, "That's it, Eds, we're home now, man. You just rest, we'll get you the help you need," he mutters to him.
When he sits back on his heels, he looks up to see Nancy's already waiting with Eddie's legs in her arms. He smiles gratefully at her, but he's distracted from actually thanking her when a car honks outside. They glance at each other and lift, carrying Eddie out and into the waiting car.
Of course you taught Dustin how to hot-wire a car! Little shits, the pair of you! Steve thinks affectionately, as he and Nancy lay Eddie gently over their knees in the backseat. Robin's behind the wheel, thank god! She sticks her foot flat on the gas pedal as soon as the backdoors are closed, panicking and shouting "shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" as Dustin screams for her to "slow down!" as they peel out of the trailer park.
Steve's got one hand on Eddie's neck, holding a pile of napkins from the car's console to the open wound with his thumb, feeling the beat of this pulse through his fingertips, gently stroking Eddie's hair from his face with the other. "You've got some explaining to do when you get better, Eddie Munson. Don't think being a hero means I'm gonna forget about ignoring orders," Steve mumbles.
Nancy hears him, glances sadly over but doesn't say anything, just turns her face away and focuses on the carnage outside, seeing the way the gate ripped Hawkins apart.
"Just hold on, Eds, you're doing so good. Just stay with us, man. We've got you. It's still gonna be your year, just you watch! I swear we're gonna get you that diploma if it's the last thing I do. We'll have you back on your feet in no time, so I won't hear any excuses. I bet Dustin's told you I'm a pushover, and I am for that kid but don't think you're not getting out of it that easy. You might be cute, but you're not my kid brother," Steve rambles, because he can't do anything else to help, but he remembers reading in his textbooks that the unconscious can still hear, that talking to them can help bring them back to reality, and he's been knocked out enough times by now to know that it's true.
"And you're on babysitting duty too. Someone's gotta help me wrangle these damn kids, 'cause I love Robin, but she's useless at it! You and me we're gonna get this one's attitude in check before the big bad world comes to bite him in the arse," Steve tells Eddie knowing he'll know who he's talking about, knowing Dustin will too. He hopes a bit of levity will help, but instead of the protest he half expects, a quiet sob is the only sound that comes out of the front seat.
Robin reaches over and puts her hand over Dustin's where it had been white-knuckle clenching his seat, giving him the comfort Steve can't right now, and it's almost like they've switched roles.
She's even gotten used to driving, she seems almost as comfortable as he is when he's behind the wheel, and she's as good as he is too, if not better. Not that that surprises Steve. She's always been bigger, brighter and smarter than him, and he loves that so much about her.
"Then when you're all better, and you've finally graduated, you can go off and be a big rock star and shout to the nation instead of the school cafeteria," Steve mumbles, gently removing the tangles and dried blood from his hair. It makes him impossibly sad, but he says it because he knows that's what Eddie wants, what he'd wanted since that damn talent show.
It's not even close to what Steve wants, he wants Eddie to stay with him, to choose to rant to him about the state of the nation's politics and how anything is made better if you add cheese, but it's not an offer he's sure he could ever make and definitely not something he wants to admit aloud especially when Eddie's unconscious.
They're around the corner from the hospital when Eddie makes a guttural rumbling sound that Steve knows isn't good. Shit! Everyone in the car seems to pick up on the tension that automatically fills his body as he presses his fingers harder into Eddie's neck, his pulse is there, but it's weakening. Robin presses down on the gas, the car screeching to a halt outside the ER entrance, Dustin leaping from the vehicle before it's even stopped moving, screaming for help.
Robin pulls open the car door, grabbing Eddie under his shoulders, helping him and Nancy manoeuvre Eddie carefully out of the backseat, "We're here now, Eds, they're gonna fix you, okay? Just hold on a bit longer, baby, and we'll soon have you home," he tells him as he holds the bloodstained paper to his neck, barely noticing when two nurses arrive with a gurney.
The girls practically have to hold him up as soon as Eddie is safely laid on the bed.
The four of them follow him into the hospital as far as they're allowed anyway, a nurse pressing a firm hand into his chest. Steve wants to argue, he wants to go with Eddie, he wants to make sure they look after him properly, but as he looks at the nurse he realises immediately why he recognises her, it's Stinson. She doesn't say anything, just nods at him, but he understands that she's saying, I've got it from here, so he takes a step back, watching helplessly as the door swings shut behind her.
Dustin and the girls crowd into his chest, relief and grief and love, and all he can do is hold them tight and hope and pray he's right.
#i don't know what this is#is it a missing scene? is it just my endless rambling? who knows#i should probably focus more on my driving than turning songs into steddie fics but my brain does what it does 😂#so sorry about the grammar and the tense changes. i am terrible at this#steve harrington#eddie munson#nancy wheeler#robin buckley#dustin henderson#platonic stobin#pre steddie#steddie#steddie ish#steve's pov#aj writes
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As somebody that writes pretty much exclusively Mike and Will POVs, I’ve started to notice that I’m much better at writing plot from Mike’s POV, whereas byler scenes flow much more naturally and easily from Will’s POV. It’s so weird. I can have Mike going through the literal horrors and all sorts of stuff, but when it comes to pining and romantic scenes, they’re better coming from Will. And I struggle writing plot heavy stuff from Will. They can be in the scenes together and be written fine, but with the point of view stuff it’s very particular.
Do y’all know what I’m talking about or am I crazy??
#mike wheeler#will byers#stranger things#byler#miwi#byler fic#byler fanfic#my writing#it’s a serious problem especially when I’m like flipping between them from chapter to chapter#idk maybe I just need to work on it but it’s so odd#the way a chapter is framed and experienced is totally different depending on who I’m focusing on#same goes for my fic with a nancy pov#different characters notice different things meaning you’re getting more or less of the story depending on who’s telling it#maybe I am just crazy
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