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“Robin. Upstairs.”
This time, Robin wasn’t that surprised about Nancy picking her. She didn’t feel arrogant enough to assume Nancy would choose her for everything since they first kissed at the library… and Nancy’s bedroom… and also in the middle of the road. But that was at least more than enough to make this little act not completely shocking to her. So, instead of making a fool of herself and blurting out “Really? Are you sure? Me?” like some part of her wanted, Robin nodded and saluted Nancy, more than ready to follow her to the ends of the world, or the second floor of the creepiest house imaginable, the same thing really.
To be fair, it was important to mention she didn’t manage to actually form words to reply, because “Robin? Upstairs ,” was an incredible sentence coming from Nancy Wheeler looking at her like that . So, Robin didn’t hesitate. She did , however, stumble on her way to follow Nancy, but one couldn’t ask her to keep her already questionable balance in these trying times. The good news was that her lack of coordination delayed her a second too long, and so she was lucky enough to catch sight of Nancy doing a double-take and looking back to make sure Robin was following her. As if she could not.
“So, what’s the plan, Wheeler,” Robin asked in a quiet voice, trailing behind Nancy up the stairs.
“I’m not completely sure,” Nancy answered honestly, but with the confidence of someone that already had half of the impossible riddle solved. “Search for clues, I guess. Anything to help us understand what exactly happened here.”
“Right,” Robin agreed. “Cool, cool, cool. That’s… smart, yeah. Clues… I can search for clues. That’s no problem. Easy task, you know? Like, I got this, we got this, Nancy. The clues will be found. I’m going to be so good at finding clues, like, I’m surprised we aren’t done already. I mean…”
“ Robin ,” Nancy interrupted her, biting her lip to keep herself from completely bursting out laughing affectionately at the other girl's unsubtle rambles. “Is there anything you want to say?”
Robin laughed shyly, caught red-handed. She prayed their flashlight wouldn’t betray her blush, but she did look down and took a deep breath before looking up at Nancy again. “So, just to make sure,” she said, “you didn’t ask me to follow you upstairs for… anything other than search for clues? Absolutely not any ulterior motives that I wouldn’t be opposed to at all? Nothing related to, maybe, lips, uh, touching?”
Nancy did what she could, but not even pressing her fingers to her lips could prevent her endeared laugh from bubbling up past her throat. She looked at Robin with so much affection that it made her feel in the most beautiful spot on the planet, not even close to where they were actually. Speaking of which, “I was just hoping we’d make it at least past the stairs,” Nancy pointed out.
“Oh,” Robin looked down, realized she was still standing on the second to last step to the top floor, and promptly took a leap toward the top. “What about now?” she asked.
“You’re unbelievable,” Nancy smiled and shook her head. Then she reached out to take Robin’s hand, immediately intertwining their fingers, and said, “Let’s go.”
So Robin and Nancy made a quick sweep of the upper floor of the Creel House, trying and failing to contain their giggles and shushing each other in turns. Eventually, Nancy seemed to find a spot that she deemed not horrendously covered by dirt and spiderwebs and brought them to a stop there. “Okay,” Nancy sighed, and she turned around with what looked like every intention to take the lead and Robin’s breath away once more. Instead, in the blink of an eye, she found herself pressed tightly against the wall behind her, with Robin’s hands on her cheeks and Robin’s lips eager and loving on her mouth.
It wasn’t that Robin had suddenly lost the dorky and clumsy qualities that not only endeared Nancy but were innate to her. But Nancy just made her feel safe and appreciated enough to quiet the nervous voice in the back of her mind to a minimum at least, so she could listen to her instincts, so she could let her body make some decisions, so she could pin Nancy Wheeler against the wall of a haunted house and kiss her with unrestrained passion. Their flashlights fell to the ground with an odd thump that neither of them paid any mind to.
It took a while, but when they inevitably had to take a break to remember how to breathe, Robin looked down at Nancy with affection lighting up her features and said softly, “Hey.”
“Jesus… Robin,” Nancy breathed out, slumping against the wall. She eased her vice grip on the lapels of Robin’s jackets, which she’d been holding on for dear life until then.
“Was that okay?” Robin tilted her head and smiled. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, to me it felt fucking fantastic, but I have to ask, you know? Like, sorry if I ambushed you, or if I’m doing something wrong, or anything. You can tell me, okay? I can take it, I swear. Just be like, ‘Hey, Robin, maybe you should-”
“Shut up?” Nancy whispered with a laugh before connecting their lips for a shorter but still earth-shattering kiss, which was apparently the norm when they kissed each other. “You’re doing great, don’t worry,” Nancy sighed when they parted, resting their foreheads against each other.
“Don’t worry? Have you met me?” Robin joked, but then she went blissfully back to work. She only kissed Nancy’s lips briefly, much to the shorter girl’s disappointment, but then Robin started a journey across Nancy’s jaw, which she’d been daydreaming nonstop for a while now. She reached Nancy’s ear, and her body was burning up in nerves and excitement but she wasn’t stopping anytime soon, and she pulled Nancy’s earlobe between her lips, going as far as to give it a gentle bite. She was immediately rewarded with the best sound she’d ever heard, a pleased and surprised high-pitched sound directly from Nancy’s throat, which was her next destination.
In the meantime, Nancy’s hands had started tightly gripping the back of Robin’s jacket as if she intended to rip through it. When Robin began kissing her neck, Nancy moved a hand to the back of Robin’s head to keep her there, scared of losing her somehow. But her other hand moved down to Robin’s waist, first, and started a restless adventure. She tugged on the hem of Robin’s shirt, and tentatively sneaked her fingers underneath. At the first touch of her probably cold finger on the warm skin of Robin’s stomach, the taller girl shivered, strong enough for Nancy’s own body to react in kind. But Robin’s kisses never faltered, if anything, she let her teeth graze the skin over Nancy’s pulse point on her throat. Nancy’s lips parted in a breathless gasp, and she dig the nails of her right hand on Robin’s soft skin. If Robin’s throaty groan was anything to go by, they were both doing exactly the right thing. So, Nancy didn’t stop her hand from moving toward Robin’s back under her shirt, moving up, trailing her fingertips over her spine, pushing her impossibly close, until they were pressed nearly from head to toe.
Now, Robin had experienced weird Russian drugs, and now she knew that people could be possessed by evil entities and levitate a few feet off the ground. She had absolutely zero interest in trying out either of them. Especially after living through the experience of making out with Nancy. She couldn’t imagine anything more powerful than that. It was the most real thing she’d lived, it was an out-of-body experience, it was all the nerves in her body on fire, it was undisturbed pleasure and joy. Too good to be true. Good enough to hurt. Too good to put into words. Everything in between. And, if Robin doesn’t find the strength to stop it once in a while, they’re going to be in serious trouble.
“Nance,” Robin breathed out, mouth still lingering against the other girl's neck. “Do you think we’re moving too fast?” She wondered softly, pulling back slowly, a little scared to see Nancy’s face. Her fears were unnecessary though, the vision that welcomed her was Nancy with her eyes still closed, her cheeks profusely flushed, and her freshly kissed lips tilted in a small smile.
“Give me a second,” Nancy said playfully. She finally opened her eyes and relaxed. She draped her arms over Robin’s shoulder and played with the tips of the taller girl’s hair. “Do you think we’re moving too fast?”
Upon having her question thrown back at her, Robin shifted nervously from one feet to the other. “Shit,” she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment and taking one small step away from Nancy, feeling the need to give some space for her words to fall. “No? Not for me, at least, I think? Like, I bet these crazy, mindfuck, situations that we’re in play a role but… I’m pretty sure I would feel like this for you at the end of the world and in the safest place on Earth. So, I need to ask, and I really don’t want to be annoying but I have to know if you feel the same because I’m like dangerously close to admitting certain feelings that-”
This time, Nancy stopped her by delicately pressing the tip of her finger against Robin’s lips. Somehow, it felt kind of more intimate than a kiss.
“I’m falling for you too,” Nancy admitted with a soft but firm tone, not entirely a whisper, as if she wasn’t scared of who could hear. The world, for Robin, could’ve stopped turning right there and then. “Life-threatening circumstances aside, you’re still my favorite person in the world right now, Robin.” The unconstrained grin that Robin sent her way must have pleased Nancy, because then she uttered a combination of words that could’ve killed Robin on the stop. “Plus, if this is what you do in a dusty and creepy old house, I can’t wait to see how you’ll be in an actually comfortable and clean bedroom.”
Robin’s jaw fell open. It wasn’t her lips parting, it was her entire jaw falling, trembling, taking a moment to close with a clank of her teeth. “Righ,” Robin croaked in a high-pitched voice before clearing her throat. “I mean… Uh, you know… well, I… you… so I… yeah…”
Nancy couldn’t avoid chuckling. “What happened to your endless stream of words, Buckley?”
Robin scoffed, but she still very much did not have the words to reply to Nancy. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Nancy’s waist, pulled her close and then up, lifting her off her feet to kiss her with all the devotion she was promising to give her on any chance she got. She put her back down gently on the floor quickly though, knowing her limits and not wanting to risk breaking any of their bones.
“We should get back to work,” Nancy whispered against Robin’s lips.
“That’s what I’m doing,” Robin mumbled right back at her.
It was deeply annoying for both of them to be interrupted, but perhaps necessary. They heard Dustin shout from somewhere around the house, “Nancy! Robin! Found anything yet? Some miracle or life-changing piece of information?”
His choice of words made Robin and Nancy break down laughing, holding each other for support for a few seconds before being able to walk back out into the hallway and continue with their actual job, never losing sight of each other for too long, never missing an excuse for a moment alone or a reassuring discreet touch, and never stopping dreaming about what the future held for them together.