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Nancy loves Christmas. It’s the one time of year her family seem to make the effort to actually act like a family at this point and, despite doing the same routine every year, it’s nice to have some semblance of normality after everything.
Yes, Vecna is still out there somewhere, slowly growing in power the longer time goes on. Yes, the Upside Down is still a problem, and sometime soon they’re going to be fighting for their lives all over again.
But… Mike is safe, for the moment. Her mom and Holly are safe. Everyone is alive, out of the hospital, and slowly recovering, too.
Will’s nightmares have all but stopped. Max is recovering well, her sight restored and relearning to walk, no longer complaining as much about the wheelchair. Eddie and Wayne finally have peace and quiet in their government-provided house, no longer getting bricks through their windows or the break-ins they’d initially been dealing with.
El’s powers are stronger than ever and she’s adjusting to being in a school where she isn’t a target of bullying. Having herself, Robin and Eddie around to look out for the younger kids in school has helped, too.
They still do their daily patrols, but Hawkins has been quiet for a few weeks now, with no more occasional monster breaking out of the cracks in the ground, no more vines snaking across the roads. The fissures in the earth are still an issue, still need to have eyes kept on them, but it’s been… peaceful. It seems like Hawkins is finally recovering from the events of spring break all those months ago.
Nancy’s own nightmares haven’t stopped, and most mornings she still wakes up gasping, her face wet with tears as the images of Mike’s body torn in half and her mother shielding Holly as demodogs run towards them fade from her mind.
But some mornings, she wakes up with Robin pressed against her side, snoring softly with her arm thrown over her, and those are the mornings that make things a little easier. Having a… a friend. Having a friend around makes the nights easier.
Robin makes the nights easier, hearing her steady breathing as she drifts to sleep, feeling her presence next to her. Nancy’s always slept better with someone beside her and Robin has this… this natural comfort she radiates. It’s hard to put into words.
What with the lead up to Christmas, they’ve been too busy for a sleepover. The last one didn’t really count, considering everyone stayed over. She, Robin, Max, El and Erica had all crammed into Robin’s room, the younger girls taking over Robin’s bed and she and Robin taking the floor. It had been lovely, but it hadn’t been the same as the sleepovers she has with just Robin.
There’s something different about having Robin to herself, that’s it. Like having a best friend again. Especially a best friend who understands the lesbian experience. That’s why she misses sleepovers with Robin; she understands her like no one else does.
“Nancy,” Mike says, and she blinks, realising she’s been zoned out for the past who-knows-how-long.
He’s staring at her, looking distinctly unimpressed, which is a little bit funny considering he’s wearing an oversized woollen Christmas sweater their mom has made him over a set of pajamas. It’s hard to take his teenage-boy-grumpiness to heart when there’s a little bear putting a tiny star on top of a tiny tree emblazoned on his chest.
“Hmm?” She straightens up, unfolding her legs from where she’d been sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet.
Predictably, their father has already fallen asleep on the La-Z-Boy, snoring away behind them. Holly’s playing with her new toys next to them, not paying them any attention, and she can hear their mom talking on the phone.
It’s nearly 10am, which means soon they’ll be calling all their relatives to thank them for the presents, and then settling down to watch a Christmas film until their mother bustles away to start cooking, insisting she’s watching the film from the kitchen. Inevitably, she’ll go over to help her when their father stays asleep, and Mike will grumble while peeling the potatoes next to her until their mother takes pity on him and lets him off to go radio the party members and talk about who-knows-what.
“I asked what Christmas film you think Mom has picked out.” Mike folds his arms. “I don’t think I can take It’s A Wonderful Life again.”
“It’s tradition, Mike!” Nancy gasps dramatically, widening her eyes and clutching her chest. “Mom has to put on It’s A Wonderful Life and claim she’s watching it from the kitchen or Rudolph cries.”
His face shifts to somehow looking more unimpressed. “You’re so funny. Have you considered a career in comedy?”
“Doesn’t change the fact you believed it for three years.”
“Oh, excuse me for trusting my big sister,” he shoots back. “Lying to an innocent child. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“You were never an innocent child. You were born with devil horns. That’s why Mom’s labour was so complicated, you nearly speared her coming out.”
He shoves her. She shoves him back with more force and he elbows her, hard, in the side, knocking her sideways.
“Ow! Your bony elbows nearly impaled me, you moron.”
“I’ll try harder next time.”
“Nancy! Michael!” their mom shouts, phone tucked between her head and her shoulder. “Stop bickering, it’s Christmas!”
Nancy pulls a face at him. Mike sticks his tongue out at her.
Child, she mouths.
“Butthead,” he retorts, earning a Michael! from their mom.
Nancy lowers her voice so she can’t hear her. “That’s the best you can do?”
“The insult I want to use I can’t say because there are children present.”
“Stop fighting,” Holly whines, shuffling over to sit in-between them. “Rudolph cries when you argue.”
Nancy holds back her laugh. Barely.
“You’re right, Hols,” Mike says, sighing. He slings an arm around Holly’s shoulder. “Nancy, I can’t believe you’d make Rudolph cry on his birthday.”
Holly looks up at her with big eyes. “Nancy, why do you want Rudolph to cry on his birthday?”
“I don’t want Rudolph to cry!” she protests, glaring at Mike as he looks at her smugly. “I’m sorry, Hol, you’re right. We’ll stop arguing.”
Holly beams at her, reaching out. Nancy leans in automatically, pulling her into a hug, and Holly reaches over to tug Mike into it too, the three of them forming a small huddle on the floor.
Mike makes eye contact with her over Holly’s head. They lock eyes for a few seconds before they both burst into laughter.
It’s nice. Even the bickering is nice, as much as she’d have been annoyed by it a few years ago. She’s missed spending time with Mike more than she’s realised. Without even realising, they seem to have split off into two groups: the party and the older teens.
It makes sense, what with having two different friend groups, but somewhere along the way Mike seems to have gotten closer to the rest of the older group and drifted from her. He’s especially close to Eddie, she knows this, but he even seems closer to Steve and Robin, which… she hadn’t expected.
She misses him.
She wraps her arms around him, pulling him closer into the hug as he squawks, but his arms snake around her too, careful not to squash Holly in-between them.
“Nancy!” her mom calls, finally hanging up the phone. “Could you get the videos ready? Grandma’s trying to wrangle the cat out of the tree, she asked me to call her back in the afternoon so we might as well start early.”
“Sure, Mom.” Nancy untangles herself from her siblings, crawling over to the cabinet.
She opens it to find the stack of tapes they usually have almost depleted. There’s a battered copy of Star Wars and some other sci-fis Mike likes, and a few of Holly’s films, but their little pile of holiday films are gone.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Where are the Christmas films?”
Mom frowns, striding into the room. She, too, is wearing a handmade sweater, her apron covering most of it so only the red sleeves are really visible. There’s little Christmas baubles hanging from her ears. “Are they not in the cabinet?”
Nancy moves aside, showing the nearly-bare shelves.
Her mom gasps. “Oh! Oh, no, I’m—God, idiot!”
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Mike sits upwards, Holly now sat in his lap instead.
“Back when the—Oh, I’m so stupid, I donated them all months ago, I meant to— I completely forgot to rent the tapes from the video store!” She sounds genuinely distressed. “I can’t believe I forgot, I was so busy with all the Christmas prep and—I won’t have time to go to the video store today what with cooking—”
“Is it open today?” Nancy glances over at Mike, who shrugs. Robin and Steve would know, but they can hardly call them to ask, not when they’re having their own Christmases. Steve’s parents won’t take kindly to being interrupted, and Robin has made it very clear her mom doesn’t like her using the phone when she’s with them.
“Yes, yes, it’s open all year round.” Mom massages her forehead. “Reduced hours, I think, but it’s open until at least five.”
“I can go, Mom,” Nancy says, standing up.
“I’ll go too,” Mike adds quickly, jumping up. Holly slides off his lap, pouting. At Mom’s confused look, he continues, “Need to make sure Nancy doesn’t pick out anything too boring.”
“Go get dressed, then, and hurry up!” Nancy calls after him as he races up the stairs, feet loudly hitting each step as he goes.
“No running in the house!” Mom turns back to Nancy. “Thanks, hon.”
Nancy nods, grabbing her own Christmas sweater and tugging it over her head. She’s matching with Mike, with her sweater being purple with a polar bear adding the star, whereas Mike’s is blue with a brown bear and Holly’s is pink with a honey-coloured bear.
She’s just left the living room and grabbed her car keys when Mike thunders down the stairs, now fully dressed, Christmas sweater rumpled. She reaches out to pull it down without even thinking and Mike groans, swatting at her, stepping out the door and out of her reach.
Almost as soon as they’re in the car and the door closes behind Mike, he breathes out a sigh of relief.
Nancy cocks an eyebrow at him as she pulls out of the driveway.
“I didn’t want to be stuck alone with Mom and Dad,” he says, folding his arms. “Don’t get too excited.”
“Love you too, Mike.”
He sticks his tongue out at her and turns to stare out of the window.
It’s not snowing currently, but it must have snowed overnight. Hawkins is adorned with a fresh layer of snow, grit coating the roads she drives down. The morning light makes everything look like it’s glittering.
Nancy can’t help the small smile on her face as she takes in the surroundings. There’s something so magical about snowy mornings. Maybe it’s a remnant of childhood, where snow meant cancelled school and guaranteed snowman building. Early mornings where her mom would bundle her and Mike up in hats, scarves and gloves and send them out to play in the snow while she prepared breakfast. The ghost of easier times.
Wonderful Christmastime starts playing over the radio. She glances over at Mike.
“Do you want me to turn the radio off? Are you still playing, uh, what was it called—”
“Whamageddon?” Mike finishes, turning back to face her. “No. Steve fucking—”
“Language—”
“—got us out on the twelfth when he played it in the car on the way to the arcade.”
Whamageddon, the game invented by Dustin the previous year. Apparently, Steve plays Wham!’s Last Christmas so often as soon as the year reaches December that it’s impossible to avoid. Thus, a game was born: try and make it to Christmas without hearing the song at all.
She’d heard from Robin that Steve had made it approximately two hours into the first day before he’d played the song. Max had gotten Eddie out on day one, too, by putting headphones over his head and playing a Christmas mixtape consisting of only Last Christmas on repeat directly into his ears. Apparently she’d planned a sleepover the night before specifically to make him lose immediately upon waking.
“Ouch.” She shoots him a sympathetic smile. “How many of you lost?”
“Me, Lucas, Will and El. Dustin was smart enough to get a ride with Eddie and Max was already out because Eddie held her down on the sofa a few days before when Steve went to, quote, ‘get in the festive spirit’.” He scowls. “It was targeted, I’m sure of it.”
“That was your fault for letting Steve drive you.”
“Are you still in?”
Nancy shakes her head. “I made it to the twentieth. It was playing on the radio in Family Video when I went in. Robin tried to warn me through the glass, I just didn’t understand what she was doing until I walked in.”
Mike squints at her. “What were you doing in Family Video by yourself?”
“I do have a life outside of you, you know,” she scoffs. “I know that may seem hard to believe, but I like seeing my friends, too.”
“Sure,” Mike says, then lowers his voice until it’s almost inaudible. “‘Friends’.”
She glances over at him, frowning. “What’s that meant to mean?”
“Nothing.” He raises his hands in surrender, turning back to stare out of the window.
Baffled, she shakes her head, focusing on the road once more.
It’s not long before Family Video looms ahead of them. The parking lot is almost completely empty, so it’s easy enough to park outside.
The bell jingles as they walk in. A familiar voice drifts over. “Welcome to Family Vid—Ah, fuck.”
Nancy stops in her tracks so suddenly that Mike walks straight into her. “Robin?”
Ahead of them, at the counter, Robin and Steve look like a pair of deer caught in headlights.
Both of them are wearing their green work vests over Christmas sweaters—Robin’s in green, Steve’s in red, both with matching patterns—and Steve has a little Santa hat on top of his head. Over the sweaters, she can see that they’re wearing their matching necklaces: Robin with half a heart reading best and a silver S; Steve with the other half reading friends and a silver R.
It’s Mike who speaks first, breaking the moment. “Why are you here? You said you had plans for Christmas.”
It’s not quite accusatory, but both of their expressions shift to something guilty all the same. They look at each other, exchanging a look, and seem to have an entirely silent conversation within thirty seconds.
“I hate it when you do that,” Mike groans. “It’s creepy. Just answer the question.”
Steve tilts his head at Robin, who shrugs and turns back to them.
“This is our Christmas plan,” she says, sighing. “Could you guys close the door? You’re letting all the cold in.”
Nancy almost stumbles in her haste to move from the door, Mike stepping past her and striding straight over to the counter. As she hurries after him, letting the door swing closed, she notices that he’s wrinkled his nose, his signature I’m not liking what I’m hearing look.
“I don’t understand,” Nancy says slowly, looking between Steve and Robin.
Steve shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shifting uncomfortably, not making eye contact with her or Mike.
“This is our Christmas plan,” Robin repeats. She makes a sweeping motion across the counter with her hand, brushing away something Nancy isn’t quick enough to see. “Nobody wanted to work the Christmas shift so our manager offered double the usual holiday pay. And, like, our families are out of town, we would’ve just ended up hanging out alone at our place watching shitty movies. Figured we might as well get paid to do that here.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Steve says. “Better pay, reduced hours and it’s not like anyone’s going to show up.”
“Besides you guys,” Robin says pointedly, but the teasing tone in her voice gives her away. “What’s your excuse?”
“Mom forgot she donated the Christmas tapes,” Mike says. “She wants—”
“Hold it.” Robin puts a finger up. “I’ve got great news for you, Mike. Not so great for Karen.”
Nancy raises an eyebrow at her, then quickly smooths out her face when she realises Mike has raised an eyebrow, too. God, it’s scary how in-sync they are sometimes.
“We’re all out of It’s A Wonderful Life,” Robin explains. “It’s, like, our most popular film this time of year.”
Mike fist-pumps the air.
“It really is a wonderful life,” he says with a happy sighs.
Robin snorts, a grin on her face. For just a second, an inkling of something pleased flashes on Mike’s face, before it’s quickly replaced by a neutral expression.
Idly, Nancy wonders if that’s what she looks like, too, when she hides her expressions, not wanting to seem too vulnerable. Something about seeing Mike do it hurts her heart.
Robin gestures at the shelves of tapes nearby. “You’re free to browse the rest of our selection, but anything popular’s probably gone.”
“Thanks.” With that, Mike walks away, disappearing out of view to pick out films, leaving Nancy alone with Robin and Steve.
She feels awkward, suddenly. Put on the spot.
Robin and Steve aren’t meant to be here. It’s Christmas Day. They’re meant to be with the families, unwrapping presents and preparing Christmas dinner, or—
She doesn’t actually know what they do at Christmas. Christmas Eve a few years back Steve had spent it with her family. She doesn’t know how he spent Christmas Day that year, only that he’d shrugged it off afterwards, commenting that it had been the same as ever. She hadn’t known Robin then, either, and doesn't know how Robin would’ve spent the day.
And last year—her stomach twists uncomfortably—last year she didn’t even bother to speak to either of them after the events of Starcourt, let alone at Christmas.
Back then, she had naively assumed them to be dating, had been upset at how Dustin talked about Robin like the sun shone out of her ass, how impossibly fond Steve had always looked around her.
Childishly, she had been jealous; she’d felt threatened by the sudden presence of a new girl her age, filling shoes Nancy hadn’t even realised she’d left to fill until the kids had stopped asking her for help and instead spent their time hovering around Robin—in the school, at Family Video, even at the arcade. Max and Dustin, in particular, had hurt the worst. She’d spent too long holding them at arm’s length and they’d moved on to someone who didn’t push them away.
So, selfishly, she had shunned Robin, ignoring her in the school hallways, turning down invitations from Steve, even when it meant that she was left alone and lonely after Jonathan moved to California. And shunning Robin meant shunning Steve, too, since they had become a pair out of seemingly nowhere.
(She hadn’t learnt the reason for many, many months, even after spring break. It was only a couple of months ago, a short while after Robin had broken up with Vickie, when Robin had let slip what had happened to her and Steve underneath Starcourt. It had come out in a rush when she had been explaining why it never would’ve worked out between her and Vickie; she’d stopped, stricken, mid-ramble as soon as she’d realised what she’d said.
Nancy had found it difficult to sleep that night, long after the taller girl had drifted off curled into her. She had fixated on the tiny pinprick scar on Robin’s neck, barely visible in the lamplight, and had imagined the events the girl had described. She had remembered the way Robin had flinched when security had grabbed her at Pennhurst. Most importantly, she had remembered all the times she’d complained to Jonathan about how Dustin and even Erica had talked about her as if she’d been a hero. She had been a hero. Nancy had just had no idea of it.
She hadn’t been used to being wrong. She hadn’t been used to feeling guilty. )
It dawns on her that she had simply assumed that they would be spending Christmas with their respective families. Neither of them had said anything about the matter.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she blurts out. “We could’ve— You could’ve spent Christmas with one of us.”
With me, she doesn’t say.
Robin shrugs again. “We didn’t want to intrude,” she says plainly, as if either of them could ever be intruding by just being around.
“And nobody asked,” Steve says, to which Robin nods. The casual way in which he says it makes her heart sink. “Not until we’d already committed to working these hours, anyway. Look, it’s fine, really. We’re having fun hanging out together, it’s not like we’re alone.”
But you are, she wants to argue. You’re just… alone together.
“We’ll probably do something this evening, after work.” Robin lightly nudges Steve, who nudges her straight back. “We’re in good company with each other.”
“Both of your families are out of town?”
Steve frowns, just for a second, before it’s replaced by a careful mask. Now that she’s noticing, she can’t stop. How long have they been keeping things to themselves? How long have they been reacting, subtly, before covering it up? Hasn’t anyone been looking closely enough?
They all do it, she realises. It feels like a punch to the gut. The same way she guards her own emotions and tries to keep them off her face. Nobody wants to be the one to show how they’re feeling. Nobody’s looking close enough to tell.
“It’s really not a big deal, Nance,” Robin sighs. “My parents spend every Christmas with my aunt and her family, they’ll be back in the new year. It’s— I never liked going there, it made more sense for me to stop going. And Steve—” She pauses, looking at Steve, who gives a tiny, subtle nod. “Steve’s parents… extended their business trip, so they’re not going to be back for a while, either.” Robin’s eyes flick down to the counter as she speaks, avoiding her gaze.
It occurs to her that she doesn't know when she started being able to tell when Robin’s lying. Or rather, maybe not entirely lying, but obscuring the truth. Either way: she’s not being entirely truthful. The journalistic instinct in her is crying, begging her to push the subject, dig at her answers until she uncovers the truth, but there’s another part of her that’s softly saying drop it.
If Robin wanted her to know, she would tell her. Pushing the matter will only push her away from her and that’s the last thing she wants. She trusts her. She’ll trust her to tell her when she’s good and ready.
“Okay,” Nancy says softly, watching as Robin’s shoulders relax. “Just— Next year, we’re making plans, okay?”
“Okay,” Robin says, giving her a smile. It’s— It’s a surprisingly gentle expression as she meets her eyes again. Her insides squirm as she tries to place the feeling.
Mike reappears so suddenly that she blinks, stepping back as he drops an armful of tapes onto the counter.
“Jesus.” Steve clutches his heart. “You have got to stop appearing like that.”
Mike gives him a withering look before turning to Robin and pushing the tapes towards her. Nancy peers over his shoulder as Robin starts scanning them.
There’s three holiday-appropriate films but it’s the fourth film that sticks out. Day of the Dead stares up at her from the counter surface, the 18 sticker stuck to the cover, and right as she’s opening her mouth to protest—
“Have you seen this one yet?” Mike asks Robin, tapping it. Robin glances down, spinning it around to face her.
“Nope,” she says, popping the ‘P’. “I’ll put it aside for next time?”
Mike nods eagerly and Robin slips it under the counter with a wink. Nancy stares at them, baffled, then looks at Steve, who just gives her a shrug and goes back to sorting a pile of tapes. Robin continues scanning the films before handing them over with a little paper receipt.
“Enjoy your Christmas,” she says. Nancy blinks at her again.
“But I haven’t paid,” she says lamely.
“It’s Christmas.” Robin smiles at her. “I used my employee card. Just do me a favour and rewind them before you return them.”
“Oh!” Nancy picks up the stack of tapes. “Thank you, Robin. You… didn’t have to do that.”
“Hey, I’m not going to let Karen pay when we don’t have her favourite movie in,” she teases. “Enjoy the films. I hope the phone call with your grandmother isn’t too unbearable.”
Nancy pauses. She’d mentioned, offhand, a few days ago that every year, their mom gets them to call their grandma, and that every year, without fail, their grandma would drone on for half an hour about anything and everything. “You remember that?”
Robin falters. “Should I not have? Sorry, I— That was probably weird to mention, I’m—”
“No, no, it’s okay!” Nancy says quickly. “I, um— You’re fine. It’s fine. It just… surprised me. I appreciate it.”
More than you could know. She’s spent a lot of time being heard but not listened to. It’s— Well, it’s refreshing, actually. There’s that feeling inside her again, this warmth in her chest that she can’t place.
“Have a nice Christmas,” Steve says, pulling her from her thoughts. Mike is watching her with a barely-raised eyebrow; she’s just standing there, clutching the tapes.
“You too,” she says quickly, turning away from them. Mike follows her out. She pauses in the doorway, looking back to see Steve and Robin waving at them, before heading back to the car.
They’ve been driving only a few minutes when Nancy glances back at Mike, who’s staring out at the snowy surroundings.
“What did Robin mean by ‘next time’?” she asks. “I thought we didn’t do horrors at movie night anymore.”
Not after it turned out the majority of them didn’t like watching horrors, anyway. They’d tried watching Friday the 13th some time ago, and El had gripped Will’s arm so tightly he’d had little half-moon imprints in his skin afterwards. Dustin had claimed the film was so cool, but had shrieked when Mike had bumped into him going for water that same night, and Jonathan had winced every time there’d been a kill on-screen. Everything, perhaps, still too fresh, that underlying anxiety of knowing things aren’t over yet.
Mike looks over at her, drumming his fingers on the car door. “It’s not for movie night.”
“Then what—”
“We have horror nights sometimes.” The words spill out in a rush. “Me, Lucas, Max and Robin.”
There’s a knife twisting in her gut. “Oh.”
Mike has movie nights—smaller movie nights, outside of their big group—with Robin, and neither of them have ever mentioned it to her, or invited her, and that makes her feel— The tiny, childish voice in her head croons that Mike has replaced her with Robin, same way Dustin had last year, and she hadn’t even noticed it was happening. Mike doesn’t talk to her, doesn’t spend time with her, usually, but— he’d looked so thrilled to make Robin laugh, even if he’d instantly tried to quash it. The memory of it reminds her so much of the times he’d used to seek her approval in his excitable, younger-brother way in their childhood that she almost chokes up.
“It’s not a big deal.” Mike’s voice softens ever-so-slightly. “It’s not, like, meant to— It’s not to exclude anyone. Just, um… We know that everyone else doesn’t like to watch them, and we didn’t want to seem like we were making plans without you all, so we… We didn’t want it to be a thing, like, ‘nobody else can handle horrors so we have to band together’, you know? We just… know most people don’t like them. Including you.” His voice gets gruff again. “Though if you think you can handle them, I guess you can join sometime.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” she replies, a little stiffly. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mike roll his eyes.
“See, this is what I didn’t want happening,” he complains. “You wouldn’t be intruding. It’s not some exclusive club, it’s just a group of people who want to watch horror films without making anyone else feel guilty. Besides, Robin would be happy to have you around. One less person to gang up on her, probably.”
The mental image of Robin being bullied by the combined forces of Mike, Max and Lucas does get her to lighten up a little. “Where do you even host them? It can’t be our house, right?”
She tries to picture Robin sneaking into the basement, tailed by Lucas and Max, and has to hold back a snort, remembering the time Robin had tried to sneak into her bedroom window after Nancy had called her at 3am, not wanting to be alone, and Robin had almost fallen straight off the roof.
“Robin and Steve’s house, usually,” Mike replies. “We’ve had a couple at Lucas’ house when Steve’s had plans at their house. One time Steve walked into the room during Suspiria and got so freaked out he couldn’t leave the room. He ended up hiding under a blanket with his face pressed into Robin’s leg the entire time, because he didn’t want to watch the film but he didn't want to be alone, either.” He snickers, clearly reliving the memory. “So now either he goes to hang out with Dustin and Eddie when Robin hosts horror night, or Lucas hosts.”
She purses her lips, thinking. “I don’t know, Mike, you’re too young to really be watching R-rated films anyway—”
Mike scoffs loudly. “We’ve fought real monsters, Nancy. Besides, it’s Robin who rents them, so we have ‘adult supervision’.” He makes air-quotes with his fingers. “She won’t let us rent the films unless we watch them with her.”
“That’s… responsible of her,” she says. It’s not a surprise, really, Robin has always been responsible around the kids when it’s mattered, but she— well, she’d always assumed it was only when it really came down to responsibility being needed.
“That’s how it all started,” he tells her. “Robin caught us trying to sneak out an R-rated film in the case of a PG film. It was Max’s idea,” he adds quickly, seeing the stern look she shoots him. “They’d never let us rent anything too old for us, not even when Dustin begged Steve. Anyway, Robin gave us a right telling off, something about how it creates more work for her and Steve and that if a customer had tried to rent the R-rated film only to find a PG film then they’d have gone nuts and it would’ve been her or Steve that would’ve faced the consequences.”
“Well, she’s right. Customer service is a hard job.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it from them. Point is, we were there at the counter, hanging our heads in shame—”
“—Oh, bullshit—”
“—and taking the scolding, and she’d like, paused, and scanned the film and put it aside. Max had demanded to know what she was doing and she just, she told us she’d rented it in her name so we could watch it with her instead. Said that that way she knows we’re being responsible and we’re not risking getting banned from Family Video.”
Nancy softens, picturing the interaction in her mind. She can perfectly imagine Robin’s attempt at a stern face, telling the kids off only to relent and take pity on them.
“Maybe I will join sometime,” she decides. “After all, someone needs to defend Robin against you little shits.”
He shrugs. “You’d be welcome to. Just don’t go shoving your face into Robin’s leg like Steve did, you’ll embarrass me.”
For some reason, the idea of it makes her face heats up, and she turns her head away from him quickly before he can see. “That won’t be a problem.”
“You two were a while,” Karen comments when they finally come through the door, the warmth of the house immediately hitting Nancy as she crosses the threshold.
“They didn’t have It’s A Wonderful Life, Mom,” Mike says, and he looks so earnestly disappointed that Nancy almost laughs out loud. “Robin used her employee card so I got us some options, though.”
“Robin’s working?” Karen pauses from where she’s checking on a saucepan. “Oh, darling girl. I’ll have to get her something to say thank you.”
“She and Steve both are,” Mike replies, his expression slipping into a brief scowl.
Karen frowns, her expression darkening just for a moment. “Well, that’s just not right. What are you going to do about it?”
“What— Huh?” Nancy blinks at her. Karen puts her hands on her hips.
“The Nancy and Michael Wheeler I know wouldn’t sit idly while their friends are alone on Christmas,” she says firmly. “And I don’t think you want to sit idly, either. So what are you going to do about it?”
“We’re— We’ll contact everyone else,” Mike says, lighting up.
Karen nods, a small smile on her face, and turns back to her cooking. “Try to be home for Christmas dinner.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks Mom!” Nancy grabs Mike’s wrist, tugging him out of the kitchen. Mike darts upstairs as she heads down to the basement.
Minutes later, he appears downstairs, clutching his radio. As soon as he’s seated on one of the armchairs, Nancy speaks again. “How are we meant to let everyone know? It’ll take too long to call everyone and I know Robin and Steve keep a radio at work, so they’ll hear us if we radio everyone.”
Mike looks shifty, suddenly, and she shoots him a sideways look.
“You can’t get mad,” he starts, picking at the thread of his sweater.
Nancy opens her mouth but he puts a finger up to stop her.
“We—like, our group, the party—have… We have our own communications channel. So we can— So we can talk about things.”
The unspoken without you knowing hangs in the air between them.
“Mike—”
“But you guys do too, I know, I’ve seen Eddie use his radio without mine going off, and I know you’ve been hiding stuff about the patrols from us and you think keeping us in the dark is—”
“That’s different,” Nancy interrupts. “We keep stuff from you so we can keep you all safe—”
“It’s our choice, Nancy!” Mike glares at her. “You’re not— You’re not protecting us by keeping us in the dark. We’re all part of this, and we all— we all—” He cuts himself off, taking a shuddering breath.
She doesn’t say anything, looking away as he composes himself, letting him say what he needs to say.
“We’ve been in this since the beginning,” he says quietly. “I know— I know you think you’re protecting us, but keeping secrets is how people get hurt. And I— I don’t like— I don’t like that you don’t think I’m capable.”
Her mouth falls open. “Mike, I don’t— Of course I think you’re capable. This isn’t— It’s nothing to do with your capabilities. I just—”
“I wasn’t there,” he whispers. “I wasn’t there when Vecna was— was targeting Max, targeting you, and you all went through this horrible event without me and— I had to come home to find both Eddie and Max in comas. No one could— No one was able to tell me everything that happened. Not until— Steve and Robin filled us in. Me, Will, El. El knew parts, from what she’d seen, but we didn’t— Dustin couldn’t even talk about what had happened until Eddie woke up and Lucas wouldn’t leave Max’s bedside. And I was so— You wouldn’t talk to me, either, and Erica and I were never close, and Eddie and Max obviously couldn’t say anything and I just felt so— shut out.” He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling quickly. “I hated it. I hated it. Will and El had Jonathan and you— You just shut me out. And you still shut me out, so we— We have our own channel now. So we can keep up with things ourselves.”
He looks so small. It’s like for the first time in years she’s not seeing her brother, Mike Wheeler, but Mike, her baby brother. He’s so grown up now, nearly sixteen years old, but he’s still that little boy who used to crawl around after her in the living room. He’s still that little boy who would tag along behind her and beg to be included in her games with her friends.
She gets up, squeezing into the armchair to sit right beside him. Tentatively, she wraps an arm around his shoulders, half-expecting him to shrug her off and feeling pleasantly surprised when he doesn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she says, hoping her tone comes across as gentle. She’s— It’s been a long time since she’s had to comfort Mike. They’re much more alike than she likes, both of them trying to avoid vulnerability where they can— They’re not like Jonathan, Will and El, or Lucas and Erica, where they have each other to come to or talk about their problems with.
Mike deals with his issues, and Nancy deals with hers, and neither of them really bother with the other. Admittedly, she hasn’t really thought about his perspective before.
“I just—” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t want— I don’t want to lose you. That’s why I try to keep you out of it. It’s nothing to do with not thinking you capable enough to handle things.”
“But I don’t want to lose you either,” he mumbles. “I don’t like being treated like a stupid kid.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, squeezing him carefully. “It’s hard to remember you’re grown up, sometimes.”
“S’okay,” he says gruffly, sitting up straight again. “No big deal. It’s fine. Just— That’s why you can’t be mad.”
And there he goes, retreating back into himself.
“Mike—”
“Do you want Robin and Steve to have a miserable Christmas or not?” He gives her a pointed look. She sighs.
“Not. But, hey— We’re not done with this conversation, okay?”
“Yeah, fine, whatever.” Mike fiddles with his radio for a moment or. “Anyone around? Do you copy? Over.”
It’s quiet for a moment. Then—
“Mike? What’s wrong? Is it a code red? Over.” Lucas’ voice, breaking the quiet.
“No, no, no code red. It’s… something else. Check in? Over.”
One by one, the party members check in— Lucas, with Max and Erica; Dustin; Will and El. Once everyone’s confirmed they’re listening in, Mike speaks again, explaining the events of his and Nancy’s visit to Family Video. Nancy listens in intently as the party members respond, then—
“Someone should tell Eddie, he’d want to know. Over,” Dustin says.
Nancy picks up the radio to reply. “I can call Eddie to let him know.” Mike stares pointedly at her and she sighs, pressing the button down again. “Over.”
“Nancy? Mike, this is our sacred line! Why is Nancy listening in? We agreed we’d only tell them if it’s an emergency! Over.”
“It is an emergency,” Mike argues. “If Steve and Robin have a miserable Christmas then they’re going to look like kicked puppies for days. And they won’t want to run your ass to the arcade or anywhere else. Over.”
A pause.
“Then what’s the plan? Over.”
Robin’s busy working on making a woven blue, purple and yellow bracelet, this one with beads reading ‘W’ and ‘B’ and a wizard hat charm, a small pile of already-finished bracelets next to her hand, when Steve suddenly gasps, jostling her.
“Steve,” she complains, nearly knocking the string from where she’s taped it to the counter. Steve ignores her, all but jumping onto the radio behind her, and suddenly the intro to Wham!’s Last Christmas is blaring behind her.
She groans, trying to hide her grin as Steve barges back into her space, trying to grab her wrists.
“No— I’m busy—” she protests, but Steve shoots her a pleading look, sticking his bottom lip out, and she sighs, rolling her eyes, and allows Steve to pull her towards him. He starts singing along, loudly, moving her wrists back and forth in awkward movements, like he’s trying to make her punch the air but she can’t quite hit it.
“Thiiiiis year, to save me from tears—” he croons, grinning at her as she shakes her head, pulling her arms free and instead holding her fist in front of him as if holding a microphone. He leans in towards it, singing louder, “I’ll give it to someone special!”
She laughs, watching as he continues to dance, moving to sing into his own fake microphone. By the time they reach the end of the first chorus, she’s joined in, the two of them yelling the lyrics into their closed fists, holding onto each other’s hands with their free ones.
“Once bitten, and twice shy! I keep my distance, but you still! Catch! My eye!” She moves to twirl Steve, and he lets her, spinning around and spluttering with laughter when he nearly trips over a crate of tapes next to their feet.
“TELL ME BABY! Do you recognise me? Well, it’s been a year, it doesn’t surprise me!” Steve yells, breathless, twirling back in towards her. He relaxes his fist back into his hand and grabs her other hand, dancing with her so that they’re dancing together.
They continue on like this, dancing around each other, belting out the lyrics in the empty store. Robin can’t keep her laughter in, half-wheezing the lyrics between giggles.
“I’m hiding from you and your soul of ice!” Steve lets go of one of her hands again to pretend to swoon behind his palm.
“My God, I thought you were someone to rely on— Me, I guess I was a shoulder to cry on!” she shouts.
Steve immediately follows up with, “A face on a lover with a fire in his heart! A man undercover but you tore—”
“—Tore! Me! Apaaaaaaart!—”
“—him apart!”
“Now I’ve found a real love, you’ll never fool me again!” Robin joins in again and Steve beams at her, swaying his head to the beat in overexaggerated movements, and this time it’s him that twirls her, catching her off-guard for a few seconds before she finds herself being twirled back towards him.
“THIS YEAR!” Steve hollers, “TO SAVE ME FROM TEARS!”
“—I’ll give it to someone! Special!”
“SPECIAL!”
Steve breaks away again, dancing in a circle around her as she laughs, bringing the pretend microphone back and shaking his head with such ferocity that his hair trembles around him.
“This—” she wheezes, “this is why—”
Steve puts a finger on her lips. “I gave you my heart—It’s-Wham!-only-Buckley—But the very next day! You gave me away!”
“Steve—”
“This year! To save me from tears!”
She shakes her head fondly, joining his backing vocals instead. “A face on a lover with a fire in his heart—”
“I gave you my—” Steve draws out the word, tipping his head back dramatically, as she continues, trying to hold back her laughter, “—heart!”
The music finally fades out and they both flop back against the counter, out of breath. Steve’s hair is going in all directions from how vigorously he’d been shaking his head and she huffs out a laugh, tugging her fingers through his hair in an attempt to neaten it before sitting back down to turning back to the bracelet she’d been working on.
Less than a minute later, she feels Steve’s chin come to rest on her shoulder, watching her hands as they twist the pieces of string together. He’s humming along to the next song—Stop the Cavalry, one of her favourites solely because of the trumpets—right in her ear, wrapping his arms around her waist. There’s a woven bracelet already on his wrist, entwined red and blue string with an anchor charm and four small blocks— ‘S’, ‘H’, ‘R’ and ‘B’, all next to each other. She has a similar one on her own wrist, except the initials are in the other order, with hers being first and his afterwards. The one on his wrist isn’t her best work— It had been the first friendship bracelet she’d made, spending an age trying to make it look neat while Steve had diligently worked on hers next to her, and eventually he’d gotten so impatient that he’d plucked it from her fingers before she could pull it apart for a fourth time, insisting that it was perfect . He’d then slipped the one he’d made onto her wrist, and his had been messy, but she’d loved it because he had made it for her, so maybe he’d had a point. He’d only made the one, saying something about wanting to make sure she wasn’t left out, before leaving her to her own devices.
“Stevie,” she says after a moment, turning her head slightly to look at him. “You’re blocking the light, babe.”
“It’s snowing,” he informs her, nodding his head in the direction of the door. She looks over to see it is, in fact, snowing; small, white flakes coming down in a flurry.
“That it is,” she agrees, turning her attention back to the bracelet as she carefully works the wizard charm in. He looks back down.
“What charm is that?”
“It’s a wizard hat,” she tells him. “This one is Will’s.”
“And you’ve done…” He pauses, rifling through the completed ones on the counter: a yellow, blue and pink one with a horse charm and ES on it; a dark green and blue one with a tape charm and LS; a green, blue and orange one with a dinosaur charm and DH; a black and blue one with a guitar charm and EM; a red, blue and orange one with a skateboard charm and MM; and a dark blue, light blue and yellow one with a dice charm and MW. “Huh. Nearly everyone’s?”
“Yeeeep. Just Will, El, Jonathan, Argyle and Nancy left.” She finishes tying the bracelet she’s working on together, gently setting it down in the pile of finished ones and picking up new pieces of string: pink, blue and purple. “Scratch Will off that list.”
Steve examines the charms sitting in a pile. There’s a waffle, a pizza, a camera and a quill. He pauses again. “Does… Does Argyle have a surname?”
“Of course he has a surname. Why wouldn’t he have a surname?”
“El didn’t have a surname before Hopper took her in. I just assumed Argyle didn’t either, he seems like he wouldn’t. Like a hippy thing?”
“Okay— Firstly, El did have a surname, legally, it’s Ives. Secondly, hippies have surnames.”
“Huh.” He pokes the pizza charm. “What is it?”
“Flores.”
“When are you having the time to find this stuff out? I didn’t find out Argyle has siblings until, like, a month ago.”
She shrugs, braiding the strings together. “We’ve had a few patrols together. He’s nice to talk to. It’s come up.”
The bell jingles, interrupting their conversation, and Robin deftly slides the bracelets and materials below the counter. She looks up to see Max wheeling herself in, Lucas and Erica trailing in behind her.
She glances at Steve, who looks just as confused as she feels, before she connects the dots together.
“Mike must have contacted them,” she says quietly; Max is quickly approaching with a face like thunder.
“Aww, the little shit does care,” Steve replies, letting go of her to stand up again as Max reaches the counter.
The redhead glowers at them. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone you were going to be alone at Christmas?”
“Language,” Steve says, as Robin says, “Hello to you too.”
Just behind Max, Erica glares at them as well. There’s a box tucked up under her arm.
“Literally just a few days ago we were talking about how sad it is to be working on Christmas.” Erica puts her free hand on her hip. “Working alone is even sadder.”
“We’re fine, seriously,” Robin says, straightening up to stand next to Steve. “We’re not alone, anyway. We have each other.”
Erica mimes being sick. Even Lucas pulls a face at them.
“Damn, alright, resounding disapproval there.” Steve wraps one arm around her shoulder, giving it a reassuring pat. “It’s alright, Buckley, I don’t think we’re lame.”
“That’s worse,” Erica says. “Scoops, are you listening? The level you’ve sunk to is the babysitter doesn’t think you’re lame.”
“Since when is Robin the cool one and I’m not?” Steve protests.
“Anyway!” Max slaps her hand on the counter. “We’ve come to keep you company until lunchtime. We got you something to do.”
“Besides our job?” Robin asks, amused. They ignore her, Erica dumping the box onto the counter; it’s a gingerbread man decorating kit.
“Mom bought it last year and forgot about it,” Lucas says.
Steve wrinkles his nose. “Is it still okay to use if it was bought a year ago?”
“Duh. You think we’d bring you expired gingerbread men?” Max folds her arms. “We researched it. They keep well beyond a year if they’re unopened.”
Lucas empties out a bag that Robin hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding onto the counter, sending bags of piping icing and candy scattering.
Steve’s still wavering, eyeing up the box suspiciously. She lets out an exaggerated sigh and grabs the kit, ripping it open to reveal several plain gingerbread men, and opens the packaging, sliding them in front of Steve, who’s watching them as if they might jump out at him. Robin picks one up and breaks the leg off, popping it into her mouth as Steve stares at her in horror.
She shrugs, crunching it for a moment before swallowing. “Tastes fine.”
“I can’t believe you’d do that in front of me,” Max deadpans. She gestures at her legs. “After everything I’ve been through?”
Robin splutters as Lucas and Erica burst into laughter. Steve gapes at her, stunned, before splitting into a grin, too, and Max snickers, looking pleased with herself.
“You’re a wretched child.” Robin shakes her head, plucking the one-legged gingerbread man and one whole one from the box before sliding it back across the counter so that it sits between the five of them. “Come on, then, join in.”
Lucas passes two gingerbread men to Max as Erica immediately goes for the pink icing. They fall into a rhythm of sorts, Christmas music playing quietly behind them after Steve turns it back down, passing the icing and sweets back and forth.
Robin’s in the middle of decorating her second gingerbread man—or gingerbread woman, really, since she’s been working tirelessly on making gingerbread women, giving the one-legged one a little candy-cane, well, cane—when she remembers the bracelets under the counter.
“Oh!” she exclaims, straightening up from her hunched-over position on the counter so quickly that she bumps Steve’s arm.
“Hey!” he complains, the line of green icing he’s carefully making wobbling off to the side. He sighs and wipes it off with his finger, licking his fingertip clean, and goes back to working on the line. She pauses, momentarily distracted by his decorating. His gingerbread man has chocolate sprinkles adorning his head, blue icing on his legs and looks to be in the process of gaining a green vest.
“Are you making yourself?” She pokes the chocolate sprinkles on the head— he’s done a surprisingly impressive job of nailing his hairstyle, using the sprinkles to mimic the little swoop of his fringe.
“I’m making us,” he corrects, batting her hand away and pointing to the gingerbread man laying next to the one he’s working on. That one has a green vest made of icing, too, wearing a black t-shirt made of more icing, with a mix of chocolate sprinkles and orange sprinkles making up her hair; he must have painstakingly picked out the orange ones from the rainbow sprinkles Lucas had brought. There’s rainbow sprinkles forming a little heart on the black icing t-shirt and she has blue icing eyes that match the blue trousers he’s iced.
She finds herself choked up all of a sudden, turning back to her own gingerbread women. “Dingus. I’m making gingerbread women.”
“Perfect, gingerbread-you can have two gingerbread women to get flustered around.” He picks up the gingerbread version of her, placing it next to her one finished gingerbread woman. “Oh, wait, this isn’t accurate anymore, hold on—” He puts down the green icing tube, which immediately gets scooped up by Erica, and picks up the red one instead, squeezing out two small dots of red icing on either side of gingerbread-Robin’s head. “There we go. She’s blushing because she can’t talk to women.”
“Fuck you!” She elbows him, laughing. “I don’t see any gingerbread women interested in gingerbread-you’s ass either!”
“Gingerbread-me isn’t alive yet, I’d be worried if they were. I didn’t take your gingerbread women for necrophiliacs.”
“You two are so weird,” Erica says, pulling a face at them.
“Oh yeah!” Robin scrabbles for the bracelets below the counter until she produces the three she’d made for them. She pushes the gingerbread men aside and places them down in a spot away from the decorations. “These are for you three. Christmas presents.”
Lucas picks them up, passing Max and Erica’s to them respectively, and examines his closely. “What are they?”
“Friendship bracelets,” she says, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I— I mean, they’re just bracelets, really, that I made, I thought— Well, I thought it would be nice to make something for everyone, but now that I’m saying it aloud—”
“You made them for us?” Erica asks, staring up at her. The bracelet sits between her fingers.
“You don’t have to wear them,” she says hurriedly, reaching out to take it back. Erica pulls her own hand back before she can.
“No, back off, I’m wearing it. It’s my present.” Erica pulls it onto her wrist, letting Lucas help her tie it together. She studies the charm closely, touching it, then nods, looking pleased.
Max is helping Lucas tie his together as Lucas watches, looking touched.
“Thanks, Robin. They’re great,” he says, smiling at her. She feels herself flush slightly, embarrassed at the praise, and focuses back on decorating her gingerbread woman as Max slips her own on.
“Yeah, thanks, Robin,” Max echoes. She’s smiling slightly, though when she sees Robin glance over at her she pulls her sleeve over the bracelet. “You sap.”
Robin discretely flips her off.
“You’ll all get your presents off me in a couple of days,” Steve says, hard at work adding chocolate drops to his gingerbread-self’s face. “I left them at home.”
Lucas shrugs. “No rush.” Steve gives him a grateful smile.
They spend the next half an hour finishing off their gingerbread decorating, occasionally singing along to the radio or looking to see what tape Erica’s putting on to play in the background. When they finally finish, Lucas produces a handful of disposable cameras from his backpack, lining them up on the counter.
“What are these for?” Steve asks, stealing a chocolate drop from Robin’s palm before she’s able to throw a handful into her mouth and earning a glare.
“Mom always gets a bunch for holidays so everyone can make some memories,” Lucas says. “And we thought—”
“Lucas thought,” Erica corrects, elbowing him.
“—I thought maybe the two of you would like to make some memories, too.”
Steve looks at him with an impossibly fond expression, blinking rapidly. “Oh,” he says, his voice half-cracking on the word. “Yeah. That’s— Thanks, Lucas.”
Robin picks up one of the cameras, immediately snapping a photo of their collection of gingerbread people: her two gingerbread women are next to each other, hair made of icing and carefully decorated, one with black hair and a dress, the other with yellow hair and trousers; gingerbread-Steve and gingerbread-Robin are also next to one another, the red dots on her gingerbread-self’s cheeks scraped off after Max had pointed out it looked like Steve was making Robin blush and they’d both gagged; Lucas had made gingerbread versions of himself and Max as best as he could, using bright orange icing for Max’s hair and giving her a candy cane walking stick like Robin had done, giving himself a big smile (and saying that it’s not visible, but gingerbread-him is blushing); Max had done her best to turn her gingerbread men into Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees and had sucked on one of the candy canes until it had been sharpened down to a point in lieu of a knife; Erica’s gingerbread men were less decorated and more a mess of sprinkles and candy and icing, rainbow sprinkles coating every bit of visible gingerbread, so many pieces of candy stacked on top that they were almost twice the thickness of the rest of the gingerbread people.
Hearing the click, Steve picks up one of the other cameras, carefully moving the rest below the counter.
“Alright, everyone crowd in,” he says, holding out the camera at arm’s length. Erica and Lucas squeeze around both sides of Max’s wheelchair, the three of them all grinning at the camera. Robin shuffles closer to Steve, so that they’re positioned in such a way that the gingerbread men are centred, Steve and Robin are to the left, and Lucas, Max and Erica are to the right.
Steve squints at the camera for a second before beaming, throwing one arm around her, and clicking the camera.
“Hope that comes out alright,” he comments, winding the dial back. “We won’t know until I have time to get them developed.”
“Hey, even if we’re all blurry, we’ll know what the photo’s meant to be.” She pats his shoulder, turning back to the other three and seeing Erica reaching for another leftover piece of candy on the counter. “E, your mom is going to kill me if you keep shovelling down candy before you’ve had your food.”
Erica huffs, pulling her hand back. Steve peers past her.
“Speak of the devil,” he says, nodding towards the front where a car is pulling into the parking lot.
“You’re calling my mom the devil?” Erica widens her eyes at him.
Steve squawks. “What? No, it’s a— Oh, you little shithead, you’re messing with me again.”
Erica grins at him.
The bell rings and Mrs. Sinclair hurries in, brushing the snow off her coat.
“Hi, kids. Dinner’s almost ready,” she says, shooting Steve and Robin an apologetic look. “They’ve got you working the Christmas shift?”
“Oh, it’s really no problem, Mrs. Sinclair,” Robin says, helping Erica carefully stack their gingerbread men while Lucas made room for Max to turn. “It won’t be too busy, we’ll have a quiet day, the two of us.”
“Robin, hon, how many times have I told you to call me Sue?” Mrs. Sinclair shakes her head at her.
“Sorry, Mrs. Si— Sue,” Robin corrects. “Really though, Steve and I are fine.”
“We close earlier, too,” Steve adds, giving the older woman a smile. “We’ll probably celebrate later, once we get home.”
“Well, I hope you both have a good Christmas,” Mrs. Sinclair says, eyeing up the gingerbread men Erica is holding.
“They haven’t had too much sugar,” Steve says quickly. She laughs.
“Don’t worry, I know what Erica’s like with her sweet tooth.” She pats the top of Erica’s head; Erica simpers, immediately shooting a glare at Steve when he snorts. “Come on, kids, food should be ready to serve by the time we get home.”
“Have a lovely Christmas,” Robin calls as they leave; Lucas waves at them before they disappear into Mrs. Sinclair’s car.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Steve says.
Robin looks up from the bracelet she’s working on—red, yellow and blue, beads reading ‘A’ and ‘F’ already threaded, a pizza charm waiting to be added—and turns her head towards him. They’ve already eaten one gingerbread man (rest in peace, yellow-haired gingerbread woman) and the other three sit on the counter, Robin’s other creation being slowly broken into pieces and devoured, too.
Steve’s staring down at the gingerbread versions of themselves. “It feels in bad taste to behead us,” he says helplessly, poking gingerbread-Robin. “What if I break your head off and then you break your neck in real life?”
“What, like some kind of warped gingerbread voodoo dolls?”
He snaps his fingers. “Yes, exactly! What if we’re tempting fate?”
“Well.” She leans over, grabbing her gingerbread-self. Before he can stop her, she snaps the head off, biting it in half as he gapes at her. “That’s a risk I’ll take. I taste great.”
“Robin!” he chides, looking down at the headless gingerbread in her hand. “If some demo-whatever ends up biting your head off I am going to be so upset with myself.”
“Here.” She reaches over and snaps the head of gingerbread-Steve off too, holding it out in front of his mouth; he reluctantly lets her feed it to him. “Now we’ll have our heads bitten off together.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine then,” he says, sarcasm slightly abated through the mouthful of cookie. He swallows. “Weekend plans sorted.”
“At least it’ll be fast,” she replies approvingly. “There’s certainly worse ways to go.”
He’s just opening his mouth to ask whether she’d prefer to be eaten by a demobat or a demogorgon when the bell jingles and an elderly lady enters the store. He watches her quickly unstick the bracelet, sliding off the other two she’d finished (pink, blue and purple with a waffle charm for El; brown, blue and green with a camera charm for Jonathan) and place them all beneath the counter.
“Welcome to Family Video, please let us know if there’s anything we can help you with today,” Robin says, slipping straight back into her customer service voice. Unsurprisingly, the customer heads straight over to the section marked Christmas selections without responding.
He ducks his head slightly, leaning closer to talk with Robin without risk of the customer overhearing.
“What’s our guess?” he whispers to her.
“Almost definitely something we don’t have in stock,” she murmurs back. “Rock paper scissors for who has to serve?”
“Deal.”
She throws rock; Steve throws paper.
“Fuck!” she hisses, and he can’t hold back his snort. He pretends to wipe sweat from his brow and earns an elbow to his ribs from her for his troubles.
Sure enough, not five minutes later the lady approaches the counter empty-handed.
“I can’t find It’s A Wonderful Life,” she says disapprovingly, eyeing them both over her glasses. Her perfume is so overwhelmingly strong that he has to stop himself from scrunching his nose up in displeasure. Next to him, Robin makes an almost inaudible noise and he knows, more than sees, that she’s hiding a wince.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” Robin says, all charm and smiles as she steps around the counter, “our last tape was rented out a couple of days ago. I’m happy to help you find something else that suits you.”
The lady bustles back over to the Christmas selection, Robin trailing behind her. The store is small, and otherwise empty, so he can just about hear her making suggestions to the customer, her voice growing occasionally louder as she gets into the discussion. He smiles to himself, quietly breaking off another bit of gingerbread—who cares if he loses his arm, he’s already lost his head—and tossing it into his mouth. Working at Family Video isn’t the greatest of endeavours but Robin thrives when asked for recommendations— the whole reason she’d ended up with a big pin reading ASK ME! had been because their manager (not Keith, someone higher up again, a woman named Joan who had offered the double pay for the Christmas shift) had noticed that customers were more likely to leave good reviews after being helped by her.
A few minutes later, the customer reappears, setting a copy of The Year Without a Santa Claus down on the counter. Steve picks it up and as he’s scanning it, the customer starts speaking again, talking to Robin as Robin rejoins him behind the counter.
“You know, it’s such a shame that you have to work on Christmas Day. You should both be home with your families.” She tuts at them as if it’s their fault the store is open. He inhales sharply and feels Robin discretely touch his elbow; the gesture is comforting and he relaxes, just slightly. He forces his face into a smile.
Robin laughs politely. If he didn’t know her as well as he did, it would sound genuine enough, but he knows her better than he knows himself at this point and it’s easier to hear the forced humour in her laughter.
“Have a merry Christmas,” she says in lieu of an answer as Steve hands over the tape with a receipt. “The tape’s yours for five days, don’t forget to be kind and rewind.”
“Thank you, dear. Try and enjoy your Christmas.” She takes the tape and shuffles away.
As soon as the door closes behind her, Steve drops his smile.
“It’s such a shame you have to work on Christmas Day,” he mocks, scowling. “She does realise that she’s turning up to the store, thus giving us a need to work?”
“Ooh, ‘thus’?” Robin teases, placing Argyle’s half-completed bracelet back on the counter and carefully taping it back down. “That’s not a word you use often.”
“Yeah, well, I spend all my time with you, smarty-pants. You’ve rubbed off on me.” He pokes her ribs. “You’re making fun of the wrong person, redirect it to grandma out there. You’re meant to be on my side.”
“True, true. No cracks in our united front.” She pats his arm sympathetically. “Unfortunately I feel it is the customer way to be outraged that we’re working on holidays even though they themselves are in the store on a holiday.”
“It’s so stupid.”
“Yeah, you know she’d be writing a letter of complaint if we were closed when she wanted her Christmas film.”
“And we don’t even earn tips anymore.”
“You say that as if half the customers at Scoops ever bothered to tip anyway,” she points out, threading the pizza charm onto the bracelet and going back to braiding the strings.
He sighs, loudly and dramatically, resting his chin back on her shoulder and watching her hands work the threads. She weaves the strings rhythmically back and forth, back and forth, braiding them until the three colours are entwined together and tying the end.
“I like the red and yellow,” he comments, reaching out to poke it. “Like that place Argyle worked at, right? What’s the blue?”
“It’s— The two colours are them, see? And then the blue is—” She sounds embarrassed. “Well, the blue is meant to be me, like— like our friendship? It’s stupid, I know, but—”
“Hey, hey, it’s not stupid,” he protests, seeing the tint in her cheeks. “It’s clever. I like it.”
“Sorry yours isn’t as good.” She turns her head slightly to look at him. “I can remake it, if you want, since yours was the first I did—”
“Nope, no, it’s perfect, don’t you touch it,” he interrupts. Truthfully, it is a little messier than the rest of them—made before she’s gotten the knack of creating them—but it’s objectively the best one, because it’s the first one she made and she made it for him. He’d been her first choice.
He hasn’t been anyone’s first choice in a long while, before Robin. Some part of him had always assumed that the other shoe would have to drop eventually, that he’d be bumped down to second choice, or lower, the moment someone else came into the scene, but even with Robin’s crush on Nancy he’d still been the person she’d made the first friendship bracelet for. A little testament to her choosing him, and continuing to choose him, sitting on his wrist. Of course he treasures it.
Robin puts her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I won’t touch it.” There’s a smile tugging at her lips, though, softer than usual.
The bell jingles, making them both jump, and he looks up to see Jonathan and Argyle striding in. They’re both holding a collection of containers, bundled up the hats, scarves, gloves and thick coats.
Jonathan shakes his head like a dog as the door closes behind him, adjusting the containers in his arms to give them an awkward wave. Argyle beams at them from beneath a thick, red scarf that looks like Joyce’s handiwork.
“Happy holidays, my dudes!” he crows, tossing his hair to dislodge the snowflakes that have settled there. “We come bearing gifts!”
Jonathan deposits his containers on the container, neatly arranging them in front of them. “My mom heard you guys were working and immediately set aside portions for you,” he explains, gesturing at the containers. “Uh, these three are yours, Steve, and these four”—he waves his hand over the containers—“are yours, Robin, Mom separated the meat from the veg for you, how you like it.”
“God, I would die for Joyce,” Robin says, sliding the counters towards her.
“And these,” Argyle grins, setting down the containers he’d been holding on the counter, “are some pretty wicked treats for you both from me.”
Robin stiffens. Steve exchanges a nervous glance with her, his mouth going dry.
“We appreciate it, but—” Steve starts, only to stop when Argyle holds up his hand with a smile.
“Don’t you worry your heads about it, they aren’t the magical kind— only magically delicious!” he moves the containers to the side, tapping each one. Steve feels Robin relax next to him; she looks as relieved as he feels. “I know you guys don’t like the trip, but I figured, hey, you’d probably still like, like, virgin treats?”
“So… normal baked goods?” Jonathan points out with a smile. Argyle looks thoughtful.
“Huh. Yeah.”
“Thanks, man,” Steve stacks the containers, pushing Robin’s closer towards her and his own to the side.
“They’re hot, so you want to eat them soon,” Jonathan says. “I wish we could stay longer, but we need to get back to have our own food.”
“Oh, hang on!” Robin scrabbles beneath the counter, holding out the two bracelets with ‘J’ ‘B’ and ‘A’ ‘F’ on them. “These, um, are your presents off me.”
“She made them herself,” Steve says proudly.
“You made these?” Argyle plucks his bracelet out of her open hand, giving her a bright smile as he slips it on his wrist. “Sick, Buckles! It looks awesome!”
“I have ones for the wonder twins too, if you want to take them,” Robin says, looking slightly abashed as she fiddles with one of her rings.
“I imagine they'll swing by before the day is up.” Jonathan takes the other bracelet and puts it around his own wrist. “This is lovely, Robin, thank you. Will and El will want to get theirs directly from you, I think.”
Argyle takes Jonathan’s hand, linking their fingers and holding their hands up to see the bracelets side by side. “Excellent craftsmanship, Buckles, really. Thanks!”
“Before you leave, there’s one other thing,” Steve says, pulling out the disposable camera he’d used earlier. “We’re under strict orders to make memories.”
“I can bring my camera by if you want—” Jonathan stops speaking when Steve shakes his head.
“Nah, it’s okay. More special with these.” He waves the camera in the air. “Get in here.”
Argyle tugs Jonathan forward by the hand, leaning across the counter to throw an arm around Robin, who laughs as he does, throwing an arm around him in return. Steve carefully angles the camera to face the four of them, ducking down slightly so that Jonathan and Argyle are visible over his head, and snaps the photo, then winds the dial back and snaps a photo of the three of them for good measure.
“Here.” Argyle lets go of Jonathan and Robin to reach for the disposable camera, taking it from Steve and pointing it at the two of them behind the counter. “Smile, brochachos!”
Robin grins, hands on her hips, and Steve puts an arm around her shoulders, shoving his cheek against hers. She laughs as Argyle snaps the photo, shoving her hand into his face as soon as she hears the click. “Steve!”
“Perfect,” he says, then licks her hand. She pulls a face of disgust, wiping her hand on his vest.
“Warn a girl next time, Christ.” She takes the camera back when Argyle offers it out. “Thanks, Posy.”
“Seriously, when have you two been hanging out enough to be on a nickname basis?” Steve asks, looking between the two of them, then at Jonathan, who makes an I don’t know noise. “Jon, why haven’t you nicknamed me yet? I’m hurt.”
“I’ll work on it,” Jonathan says wryly, shaking his head. “We really need to get back home now, I’m sorry. I hope you enjoy your Christmas dinner.”
“Tell Joyce thank you and that I’d die for her!” Robin calls as they retreat from the store, Argyle tugging Jonathan’s hat down over his eyes and throwing his head back with laughter as he does so. Jonathan elbows him as the door closes, but Argyle leans in and plants a kiss on his lips before they disappear out of sight again.
Steve shakes his head, sighing mournfully. “I can’t believe out of everyone, Jonathan beat us to a happy gay relationship.”
“Hey, I dated Vickie first before he dated Argyle,” she protests.
He raises an eyebrow at her. “Yeah. That’s why I added happy.”
“It wasn’t her fault.” She opens up the container in front of her, breathing in the smell of the food. “Bit hard to explain why you keep waking up screaming when they don’t know there’s another dimension underneath Hawkins. Can you grab us some forks?”
He dips into the breakroom, grabbing them some cutlery, before half-jogging back to her. “I still feel like she could’ve handled it better.”
“I broke up with her, remember?”
He folds his arms as she digs into her food. “Still.”
“Put yourself in her shoes. We spent barely any time together because I was always checking on everyone else or out on patrol, neither of which I could fully explain, and whenever we did find the time to spend together, I would wake up screaming and not be able to calm down until I had confirmation you were alive, or I’d freeze up when I heard a noise I could place or see some lights flickering. We’re still friends, just… I’m a lot to deal with, Steve.” Then, quieter, “We all are.”
“Hey, that’s not true.” He spears a roast potato with his fork and points it at her. “You just need someone who tries to understand. Or”—he waves the potato in her direction—“does understand.”
She frowns at him, eating another mouthful and swallowing before responding again. “If this is about Nance again—”
“Of course it’s about Nance, Robin! You know she’s into women, you know you’re into women, you know you’re into her, what’s the problem?”
“It’s not that simple,” she argues, and he huffs. “No, it isn’t. For one, we don’t even know if Nancy likes me like that. Evidence points to no. For two, I’ve got a good relationship as her friend right now, and I don’t want to risk complicating that with my feelings. For three, she’s still figuring herself out. You know as well as I do how scary it is to realise you’re not straight. It’s only been a few months, I don’t want to overwhelm her or get in the way of her progress. For four—”
He groans loudly. “Alright, I hear you. I still think you’d make a great couple, though.”
“Steve Harrington, local matchmaker,” she says dryly. “You’re one to talk. How are things going with Eddie?”
He straightens up, feeling himself flush. “That’s different.”
“Is it? You were straddling him on the ground during that snowball fight the other day.”
“He was straddling you first!”
“You could’ve just knocked him off me and been done with it, you pinned him to the ground!”
“Yeah, well— I— Max told me that Nance stepped in to pelt Mike with snowballs after he hit you with snowballs and you went scarlet,” he accuses. “Don’t pretend you’re any better than me!”
She pauses, dragging her hands down her face. “We really are hopeless.”
“You know, I’m feeling a weird sense of déjà vu right now. If people start getting Vecna’d again—”
She nudges him, frowning again. “Don’t even joke about that, I’m so serious. I can not handle people floating right now.”
Steve picks up their gingerbread-selves. “I already lost my arm.”
Robin looks unimpressed. She grabs gingerbread-Robin and breaks off her limbs one by one, organising them into a neat little pile. “There we go. Now if he goes for anyone it’ll be me.”
“Fuck, we should’ve made them candy headphones.” He snorts. “Though at this rate, we’re being beheaded first, so he’s just rubbing it in by snapping our limbs afterwards.”
“This so won’t be funny when one of us does get targeted,” she says grimly, but she’s smirking, so the effect is ruined.
“Hey, at least it was nice of him to let us have Christmas before the end of the world.”
She shakes her head at him, a gesture he knows by now to be fond, and goes back to eating her food. He laughs lightly before joining her with his own.
By the time they reach three o’clock, the store is still as dead as it had been that morning. Robin’s helping Steve shelve titles for a third time, having arranged them by colour once, then release date, and now back to alphabetical order, when she gets the sensation that she’s being watched.
She pauses, swallowing hard, trying not to make her sudden nervousness obvious. Steve stops, too, giving her an odd glance.
“You okay?” He eyes her with concern in his brown eyes.
“Yeah,” she says, exhaling slowly. “Just—” There’s movement by the door and she turns her head to see a gathering of people standing right in front of the door. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”
“What?” He whips around immediately, automatically throwing one arm out in front of her, and relaxes upon seeing the sight she sees. “Those shitheads. What are they doing?”
El, Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max and Erica are all gathered in a line, Nancy and Eddie standing behind them. Seeing them looking, Dustin waves cheerfully at them.
“Why aren’t they just… coming in?” She squints at them, trying to figure out their motives. Most of them are just smiling innocently, with the exception of Mike, who’s looking like he would rather be anywhere else, and Erica, who looks over the entire thing. If only she could figure out what she’s over…
For a moment, nothing happens: Steve and Robin stare at the gathering on their technically-doorstep; the gathering stares back at them.
Steve sighs. “Never anything simple with this lot.”
He walks towards the door, glancing back at her one last time before opening it. “What are you—”
Immediately, all seven members of the party burst into loud, out-of-tune song. “We wish you a Merry Christmas, we—”
Steve shuts the door.
Unfortunately, they seem to be acting on Pandora’s box’s rules, because Dustin pushes the door open straight away, filing in after Steve as he heads back to the shelves. Max wheels herself in next, followed by Lucas and El, then Erica, then Will and Mike. Nancy comes in behind them, laughing, and Eddie darts inside, heading to the front of the ground and pretending to conduct them, his back to both herself and Steve.
“—and a happy new year! Good tidings we bring, for you—”
Steve grumbles, putting his hands over his ears, and she can’t help but laugh. They’re bellowing out the lyrics at this point, Lucas and Max grinning as they sing, Mike mumbling the words and staring determinedly past them, Will and El with an arm each thrown around each other and singing especially loudly, Dustin and Erica at the front shouting, more than singing, the words directly at them.
Eddie dutifully continues to conduct them with dramatic arm movements, motioning for the volume to raise and briefly turning his head to smirk at them both before refocusing. Nancy, behind them all, isn’t singing, but laughing into her hand, cheeks flushed from standing in the cold, and she looks so pretty that Robin’s momentarily left breathless. She quickly busies herself with the stack of tapes, and if she’s red in the face then, well, it’s because they let the cold in when they marched inside.
The verse finally finishes and they stop, grinning up at the two of them. Steve, slowly, lowers his hands from his ears.
“Is it over? Are you—”
“Oh, bring us some figgy pudding! Oh, bring us—”
“Jesus Christ!” He lets his head fall against the shelves in an over-exaggerated motion. She reaches out and pats his shoulder.
Impressively, the kids power through all five verses and each chorus, keeping their volume the entire way through. Halfway through it, Robin and Steve finish shelving and head back to the counter, and the kids follow them, Eddie hopping up onto the counter to continue miming conducting them.
When there’s finally, finally, silence again, Steve puts his hands on his hips.
“What the hell was that display?”
“Since you could not be visited by Christmas carolers, we have decided to bring the carolling to you!” El says excitedly, clasping her hands together. “We are your Christmas carolers!”
“Typically, carollers don’t come inside,” Steve says, looking directly at Dustin, who mimes hurt.
“It’s cold, Steve, do you want us to freeze? After we came all this way to make sure you have a merry Christmas?” He stares up at him, looking heartbroken. “After everything we’ve been through?”
“Stop manipulating your mother.” Robin places her hands on Steve’s shoulders, giving Dustin a playfully stern look.
“Sorry, dad.”
“Wait, I thought I was the dad?” Eddie turns around so quickly he almost slides straight off the counter.
Erica scoffs. “Presumptious of you.”
“Yeah, sorry Eddie, Robin staked the claim of fatherhood long before you showed up,” Nancy grins, patting his shoulder. “Why else do you think Dustin listens to her?”
“Dustin listens to me!” he protests. Lucas and Max both snort and Eddie gives them a scandalised look.
Robin leans forward, pushing Eddie’s leg on the counter away from her. “In your dreams, maybe.”
Dustin high-fives her.
“That’s it, Buckley, I’m going to teach your kids how to ride a bike and forever take that moment from you.” Eddie prods her collarbone.
“Uh, they can already ride bikes,” she points out.
“All of them?” He eyes them doubtfully. “Erica? El?”
“Erica already knew how to ride a bike,” Robin says, Erica nodding with her, then adds, smugly, “and I taught El in the summer. I gave her my old bike.”
All in all, it had been a nice experience. El had admitted to her that she did not know how to ride a bike and that Will rarely touched his after everything so she hadn’t wanted to ask him. Jonathan, Joyce, Argyle and Hopper had been caught up with planning patrols and she hadn’t wanted to disturb them, Max had only just woken from her coma and obviously couldn't, Lucas had been unwilling to leave Max’s side, Mike had still been in the ‘wanting space’ period of his break-up with El, and she hadn’t wanted to bother Dustin. The topic had only come up with Robin when Robin had offered her her old bike to begin with and El had admitted she couldn’t ride it. They’d spent the day together, trying first with stabilisers, then without stabilisers with Robin holding the back of the bike, until finally El felt confident enough to ride it alone. Afterwards, they had gone out for ice cream to celebrate; it had been a nice day altogether.
El nods fervently. “It was very fun!”
Before Eddie can reply, Dustin speaks again. “We’re getting off topic! You are getting carolled. Any requests?”
“Actually—” Steve starts.
“Too bad, you’re getting Silent Night,” Dustin interrupts, and then they’re all immediately bursting into song again.
“Did you put them up to this?” Steve turns to Eddie, who grins but shakes his head.
“I wish I could take credit for the idea, but alas, I was merely their chauffeur.”
When they break into their third song, Steve leans over to her as she’s fondly rolling her eyes at them.
“Reckon we could get away with wearing earmuffs?”
Eddie gasps dramatically. “Stevie! You’d really break their little hearts like that?” He reaches out and squishes Dustin’s cheeks as he sings, squashing them back and forth until Dustin elbows him.
Steve’s trying his best to remain looking unimpressed, though she can see the cracks in the way he’s trying to repress a smile. She looks back at the kids and spots that Max, Lucas and Erica are still wearing their friendship bracelets; she softens.
“You might as well embrace it, Stevie,” she says, moving her arms to wrap around his middle instead, resting her chin on his shoulder. “At least it’s not The Never-Ending Story again.”
Dustin stops mid-song to glare at her. “I’ve changed my mind, I want a new dad.”
“Yes!” Eddie fist-pumps the air.
Dustin gives him a withering look. “Not you. I’m going to ask Argyle how he feels about parenthood.”
Robin sniffs, pretending to wipe away a tear. “Spoken like a true son of mine. I’ll accept Argyle as my substitute, he can have you on the weekends.”
“Don’t I get a say in this custody agreement?” Steve asks. “I say we split it every other week. We’ll have him one week, Argyle can have him the next.”
“That’s a lot to put on poor Argyle,” Nancy teases, earning her own elbow from Dustin.
“Screw all of you,” Dustin says, fixing them each with an unimpressed look. “I hope your Christmas is miserable, actually.”
“I’m hurt, truly.” Robin feigns being wounded. “You’re killing me, Dusty. You’re killing your father.”
“Hurry up and die, then.”
“Show your father some respect!” Steve scolds, though he’s trying not to laugh.
“I made you a present and everything,” Robin sighs, shifting to stand in front of Steve instead of behind him and immediately falling dramatically into him; he catches her easily, rolling his eyes as she fans her face. “I fear my time is soon. Please, on my headstone, make sure it reads ‘cause of death, heartless son’.” She sticks out her other hand and motions as she says the last words. “Mourn my loss forever. Wear black for the rest of your life. Never move on from me.”
“Not even with Argyle?” He shoots her a sad look.
“Hmmmm.” She pretends to look thoughtful. “I’ll allow it. Argyle is the only person you can move on with.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re dying dramatically and Steve will never get over it, whatever. What present?” Dustin waves a hand dismissively and taps the counter.
“You are unbelievable.” Robin shakes her head, pulling herself upright again. “They’re presents for all of you, actually. They’re not much, but…” She reaches under the counter and pulls out the small stack of now-finished bracelets.
One by one, she hands them out, trying to act nonchalant but biting back a pleased smile when El gasps at hers, sliding it onto her wrist.
“Max, now we are matching!” El runs around the corner and holds her hand out; Robin finds herself abruptly tugged forward, as if by an invisible rope, and yelps. Seconds later, El throws her arms around her, hugging her tightly.
“El, warn people before you pull them towards you,” Will says gently, his face lighting up when his bracelet flies through the air in his direction. “A wizard hat charm?”
“For Will the Wise,” Robin says, voice slightly muffled as El’s hair is pressed against her.
“Thanks, Robin. I love it.”
She manages to turn back to the rest of them, El still swaying with her, and sees Eddie fastening his to his wrist, Mike trying stupidly hard to hide his smile as he puts his own on.
“Nothing for me?” Nancy asks, blinking her big grey eyes up at her. She almost sounds disappointed.
“No!” Robin says quickly. “I mean, yes! Fuck. I mean, you— You have one. Here. It’s— I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get yours right.”
Nancy’s bracelet had frustrated her the most, two strings of indigo and lavender, a string of periwinkle blue, beads reading ‘N’ and ‘W’, and of course, a quill charm. No matter how many times she threaded it, it always looked too wonky, too frayed, too clumsily-made. She’d given up after her seventh attempt, resigning herself to Nancy being stuck with a messily-made bracelet, even though the thought embarrassed her.
She reluctantly holds it out to her, finally being released by El. Nancy delicately picks it up, holding it up to the light, examining it closely.
“I know it’s messy—” Robin fidgets uncomfortably as Nancy continues to look at it. Nancy’s head turns quickly to look at her, her expression surprisingly warm.
“Robin, I love it,” she says gently, slipping it onto her wrist. “Thank you. Thank you, it’s beautiful.”
Like you, she wants to say, biting her tongue to stop the words spilling from her lips. She nods instead, ducking her head slightly, only to let out an oof of surprise when Eddie grabs her wrist and pulls her into a one-armed hug.
“Thanks, Buckley, I’ll wear it forever,” he promises, holding his wrist out to show her. “You big softie, you.”
She tries to shove him, but he just grips her tighter, grinning. “You see this, everyone?” He holds his wrist up to show everyone else. “This is proof that she considers me a friend. Evidence, ladies and gentlemen! Lady Buckley has given me a token of her affections!”
“Get off me, you lump,” she complains, trying to wriggle free. Eddie laughs, loud and gleeful, and ruffles her hair. She hears the click of Steve using the disposable camera and groans.
“Alright, everyone gather around for photos!” Steve calls. It takes a couple of minutes, but everyone manages to get into a cluster, Nancy pressed closely into Robin’s side, Erica on her other side. She can smell the citrussy scent of Nancy’s shampoo; she holds her breath, hoping her cheeks aren’t burning as red as they feel.
Steve takes photo after photo, first group shots, then taking photos of individual groups: Robin gets a solo photo with just about everyone, then a few of her, Max and the Sinclairs, and Will kindly takes a few photos of her, Nancy, Steve and Eddie before Steve finally announces he’s made enough memories to be content.
“I think Steve and Robin deserve one more song before we have to get you rugrats shipped home,” Eddie announces, clapping his hands together. “I’m not facing Hopper’s wrath for letting you all stay out after dark.”
As they all burst into a new round of O Come All ye Faithful, Robin thinks to herself that maybe this Christmas isn’t such a bad one after all.
Finally, when they finish the carol (she’s pretty sure Dustin extended every other vowel, lengthening the song by at least a minute), Nancy and Eddie start shepherding the kids out, bidding them a goodbye. Dustin’s the last to leave, pausing in front of the door.
“By the way,” he says, turning back to look at the two of them. “My mom says to come over when your shift finishes for a Christmas meal. No arguments, we want you there.” He disappears out the door before either of them can answer.
“God bless Claudia Henderson,” Robin sighs blessfully. “I hope she knows I would lay down my life for her.”
“We both would,” Steve agrees, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
The last few hours pass quickly enough, with the two of them cleaning up after themselves, double-checking the tapes are back in alphabetical order, and hoovering the floor for any wayward crumbs from the earlier cookie decorating.
Robin locks up the store, shivering in the cold December air. Steve’s by the car, loyally waiting for her despite the chill, illuminated only by the streetlight above them. The ground is icy, and she wobbles her way over to the car, teetering precariously until she makes it to the car door. She all but throws herself into the car, rubbing her hands together vigorously in a vain attempt to warm herself up.
Steve gets into the car the same time as her; she can see him shivering in the low light as he pulls off his green vest. She copies him, both vests getting tossed into the back seat. They’ll probably mix them up for their next shift and she’ll spend the whole day with her nametag reading Steve while his will read Robin, but that’s a problem for their future selves.
“To the Hendersons?” She blows gently on her hands, teeth chattering, only to give up and grab at one of Steve’s hands. He runs at a constant warmth, somehow, no matter the temperature, and she’s grateful for the slight reprieve.
“Your fingers are like little icicles,” he complains, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, turning the A/C on and setting it to warm. “Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to do something else first.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s Christmas, and we’ve been inside all day,” he says. “Do you want to go for a quick drive and look at the Christmas lights?”
She tugs his hand towards her face instead, pressing her cold cheek against his warm palm. “I’d love that.”
“You love being in the warm,” he corrects, laughing, but carefully drives off anyway. A few moments later, he moves his hand back to fiddle with the radio dial, letting Wonderful Christmastime fill the car, and rests it on the stick. She places her hand over his, slowly warming up with the heat of the car.
They take a longer route to the Hendersons’, slowing down on streets with multiple decorated houses. The night is alive with reds, blues, whites and greens, little Santas waving from windows, reindeer posed on roofs, strings of light entwined around trees and on windowsills. It’s snowing again, too, lighter this time, and there’s such a magical feel to the scene that has her sucking a breath in, staring out of the window. On the stick, she squeezes Steve’s hand.
When she was small, her dad had used to drive her around the town on Christmas Eve, getting her to look out for reindeer in the sky, or catch snowmen moving before they could freeze again upon realising they’re being observed. They were always home by 8pm, and her mom was always waiting for them with twin mugs of hot chocolate, and her dad would snap a photo of her and her mom in their matching Christmas sweaters. They would get her to leave out a carrot and plate of cookies, write her letter to Santa, and then tuck her into bed, taking turns to kiss her forehead before wishing her goodnight.
This tradition has lasted until she was around seven or eight, when she’d gotten too big to be considered cute in the Christmas photos, and it had taken her several more years to realise that her mother had loved being able to send their annual photo out to family members as a Christmas card more than she liked the experience itself, as if Robin herself was a Christmas decoration to be proudly displayed during the holidays, packed away as soon as Christmas was over, left ignored until the festive season was upon them again.
The Christmas Eve car journeys, though, had always felt magical. When she was older, she’d figured out their purpose had been to keep her out of the house while her mother set up the living room to her perfect standard, preparing for the perfect backdrop, the perfect little family. Still, she finds it hard to look back on those memories with disdain; the night sky had always felt so big, and the car had always been so warm, and she’d always felt so safe, craning her neck to try and spot Santa in the sky, or keeping count of the amount of each kind of Christmas lights.
(1974 had been a popular year for reindeer lights; 1975 had proved to be a year of inflatable snowmen, and she’d counted no less than thirty-three in Hawkins.)
This year, lit-up snowflakes adorn most windows, flashing white and blue lights at her as they drive.
(Last year, a little wine-drunk on Steve Harrington’s bedroom floor on New Year’s Eve, she had admitted to him that she missed driving around to look at Christmas lights. That she missed feeling magical at Christmas instead of just lonely. He had hummed his approval, eyes closed, lying on the floor next to her, and reached out to take her hand.
The clock had struck twelve, and he’d kissed the back of her hand, and she’d leaned over to kiss his forehead, and they’d fallen asleep there on the floor, not waking up until gone noon the next day. She hadn’t brought up the lights again, embarrassed by her vulnerability, but he’d remembered. He’d remembered.)
“Okay?” he asks quietly, moving his hand to interlock their fingers and squeezing her hand.
“Yeah,” she replies, voice soft, and she finds that she means it.
When the fissures had first opened across Hawkins, any houses in their immediate range were ordered to be evacuated. This hadn’t been too much of an issue overall—at least half the town had already left at that point, with more and more houses popping up for sale each day—but the Hendersons’ house had been within the affected range, as well as the Munsons’ and the Mayfields’ trailers.
The house, thankfully, had been undisturbed, unlike poor Eddie’s trailer, but the government had deemed them unsafe anyway, and so the Hendersons had been out of a house for a couple of weeks. Eddie’s uncle and Max’s mom had been allocated hotel rooms to stay in while other arrangements were made, particularly since the two of them had their children in the hospital.
The Hendersons, however, along with their pets, had stayed with Steve and Robin for the few weeks it had taken to find them a new house. The two of them had already been in Claudia Henderson’s good books—their sibling relationship to Dustin had certainly helped them there—but living with her for a few weeks had really sealed the deal, and truthfully, he’d grown extremely fond of the shorter woman.
When the Hendersons had finally moved out into their new house—a bigger house, towards the outskirts of town, with a neat little garden—Claudia had pulled them both into a hug, kissed them both on the cheek, and told them they were welcome over anytime. They’d gone over for an evening meal a handful of times, but what with the patrols and trying to prove Eddie’s innocence and both Eddie and Max waking from their comas, they haven’t been able to visit as much as he’d have liked.
Still, it’s a familiar enough sight when they do finally reach the new house that he finds a little knot of warmth tying itself in his stomach. The outdoors is decorated with Christmas lights, a little tree in the garden with warm yellow lights wrapped around it. There’s a large inflatable Santa sitting next to the path, waving at them as they leave the car and trot to the front door.
Robin knocks on the door, shivering in just her sweater, and he shuffles closer to her in an attempt to keep her warm.
They’ve barely been standing on the Hendersons’ doorstep for a minute when the door is thrown open, revealing Claudia Henderson in a Christmas hat and sweater. Her face lights up when she sees them, standing aside and ushering them in.
“Come in, come in, you must be freezing— Robin, dear, you didn’t bring a coat!” she scolds, taking his jacket from him as he pulls it off. The house is lovely and warm, heavily adorned with Christmas decor. “Dusty’s just setting the table.”
Robin carefully removes her shoes, setting them down by the front door, and he follows suit, nudging hers neatly against the shoe rack as he sets his down, before trailing after her as she heads to the kitchen.
As soon as she crosses the threshold, she stops, and he walks straight into her. He looks over her shoulder to see Dustin in front of her, effectively blocking her from moving, a smirk on his face.
Robin eyes him, looking wary. “Hi?”
He coughs. She glances back at him, looking as confused as he feels.
Dustin coughs again, more pointedly this time, and his eyes flick upwards. Steve follows his gaze to see a sprig of mistletoe hanging above them.
“Oh, for the love of—” He cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dude, come on.”
“It’s Christmas tradition,” Dustin says innocently. “A rule’s a rule.”
“That’s so not a rule, you little—”
“No no, Stevie, he’s right,” Robin interrupts, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You have to follow Christmas tradition, everyone knows it.”
There’s a mischievous glint in her eye. In front of her, Dustin is looking smugly at him, as if to say I told you so.
“Right, of course.” He nods seriously, biting the inside of his cheek to avoid his smile of anticipation.
Robin straightens up, looking at him and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, batting her eyelashes, and if Dustin’s smug smile gets any bigger he’s going to explode, then—
In one rapid movement, Robin spins around and yanks Dustin forward, planting a big, wet kiss on his cheek with an exaggerated mwah sound.
“Ugh, Robin, gross!” Dustin complains, scrubbing at his cheek. He tries to back away, but Robin grabs his shoulder, holding him in place, and then grabs both of his cheeks, planting overexaggerated grandmother-style kisses on his forehead as he tries to swipe at her. Steve laughs delightedly, unable to keep it in anymore, Dustin’s disgusted expression just making him crack up more.
There’s a click from behind him and he turns to see Claudia holding a camera, smiling brightly at them.
“Oh, Dusty!” She lets out a happy sigh, chuckling quietly. “You look so cute!”
“Mom!” Dustin shoves both hands in Robin’s face, leaning back as far as he possibly can. “Robin, get off!”
“But it’s Christmas tradition, Dusty,” Robin coos, spluttering with laughter herself. Dustin manages to shove her away, scowling, and she collapses against Steve instead, giggling.
“I hate both of you.” Dustin points at them accusingly. There’s suddenly a warm presence against Steve’s ankle; he glances down to see Tews curling herself around his and Robin’s legs. Robin immediately bends down and scoops her up, scratching her chin, and Tews starts purring away in her arms.
“Dusty!” Claudia frowns at him. “That’s no way to talk to your friends!”
“Yeah, Dustin, that’s not very festive of you,” Steve snickers, scritching the top of Tews’ head.
“Ugh, just help me set the table.” He rolls his eyes, moving back into the kitchen and heading straight for the cutlery drawer. Robin runs her hand along Tews’ back once more before carefully setting her back down on the floor, picking up the placemats from the kitchen counter.
The three of them are bustling around the table when there’s another knock at the door. Claudia quickly leaves the room. Steve exchanges a glance with Robin, who tilts her head slightly, before following after her, Robin on his heels, Dustin just behind her.
“Welcome, welcome! Come in!” Claudia fusses, stepping aside to let in Wayne and Eddie. Wayne raises a hand to them in greeting, and Eddie breaks into a wide grin.
“I see we’re not the only stragglers dear Claudia has collected,” he lowers his voice, stepping towards the three of them. “Harrington, Buckley. A merry eve to you.”
“But it’s not Christmas Eve,” Steve says, squinting at him.
Robin lightly gives him a nudge. “He means good evening.”
“That I do.” He gives a little theatrical bow. “My liege. Lady Buckley.”
“Come sit down, I’m starving, ” Dustin interrupts. He darts back into the kitchen before they can respond, clearly not wanting to get caught by Robin in the doorway again.
Steve goes to go next, wanting to also avoid the opportunity of Dustin to try and get him to kiss Robin again, but—
Eddie steps through the doorway at the exact same moment as him.
He feels himself freeze, which causes Eddie to stop and give him a peculiar look. Behind them, Robin quietly snorts.
“What?” Eddie raises an eyebrow. Steve glances up at the mistletoe without even thinking, quickly dropping his eyes back to Eddie’s face, to see Eddie also look upwards. A sly grin spreads across his face. “Oh.”
Oh, indeed. He feels his cheeks heat up.
“Aw, Harrington, that caught up thinking about getting kissed?” Eddie teases, eyes sparkling. It takes all of his strength to rip his gaze away, shaking his head in fond exasperation, but as he goes to step forward—
Eddie presses both his palms to his cheeks, holding his face in place, and presses his lips to his.
It’s overexaggerated, clearly not romantic at all and done dramatically, but Steve’s brain whites out anyway. Eddie pulls back, letting go of him and grinning, and Steve just gapes at him, mouth hanging open, too stunned to speak. His lips were so soft— he’d always assumed they’d be rough, or chapped, maybe. He’d felt warm. The ghost of the kiss lingers on his lips.
“You’re blocking the doorway.” Robin steps forward, trying to squeeze past the two of them, but Eddie moves faster, pushing forward and effectively trapping her between the two of them.
“Woah, hold on. Mistletoe rules, Buckley!” Eddie exclaims, grabbing Robin’s face instead. Before she can protest, he plants an exaggerated kiss on her lips, too, complete with smacking noise.
Steve’s mouth drops even lower. If it were anyone else, he’d intervene on her honour, but— well, Eddie’s gay, so it’s clearly not romantic. Robin seems unbothered, too, rolling her eyes at him as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Ugh,” is all she says, wrinkling her nose at him. “Thanks for that.”
“You are most welcome,” Eddie replies delightedly, bouncing out of the doorway and flopping down into a chair next to Dustin, who just shakes his head and immediately launches into some DnD-related spiel.
“You’re catching flies, Stevie,” Robin says quietly, tapping his chin so that he closes his mouth, and then she takes his hand, tugging him out of the doorway and seating herself at the end of the table, next to Eddie and an empty chair. Steve sits in the chair beside her, still processing what the hell just happened.
Robin, helpful as ever, just pats the back of his hand.
There’s a light giggle behind them. He cranes his neck in time to see Wayne kissing Claudia’s cheek beneath the mistletoe, looking bashful, before the two of them enter the kitchen too. He briefly glances over at Dustin, who looks scandalised, but then Claudia’s fussing around the food being ready to serve and he seems distracted by helpings of roast potatoes.
“Thank you for the invitation, ma’am,” Wayne says to Claudia, giving a nod. She looks like she’s trying to hide a smile, a very light flush to her cheeks.
“Yes, thank you, Ms. Henderson!” Eddie adds, squinting at Wayne for just a second. “The food is lovely.”
“Oh, both of you, call me Claudia,” Claudia says, waving a hand at them dismissively. “No formalities here, isn’t that right, Steve? Robin?”
“Right.” Robin smiles at her, cutting her meat into small pieces. “Thank you for inviting us too, Claudia. We appreciate it.”
“Thank you,” Steve adds, swallowing his mouthful of food. “It really is delicious.”
“All of you are too kind,” she hums, sipping her drink, but she’s beaming again. They fall back into comfortable quiet after that, Wayne and Claudia quietly talking, Dustin resuming his excited rambling about DnD to Eddie and Robin, who has started nodding along.
As he eats, it strikes Steve that this is perhaps the first Christmas he’s spent with a real family. The thought makes him feel warm, and he smiles to himself, watching Robin interject with an idea for Dustin’s DnD character, only for Eddie to complain that she’s throwing spanners into his campaign.
His fingers itch to take a photo. He clumsily pulls one of the disposable cameras from his jeans pocket, clicking and rewinding the camera until it finally runs out of film.
“Oh, Steve!” Claudia says suddenly, producing her own camera again. “If you leave your cameras with me, I’ll get your photos printed off, too. It’ll save you trying to find the time, I know how busy you all are nowadays.”
Steve blinks at her, surprised, and smiles. “Really? Only if you’re sure, I don’t want to put you out of pocket—”
“Nonsense,” she interrupts. “It’s Christmas, dear. You all do so much for Dusty, it’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you,” he says, meaning it more than he could possibly convey. “Thank you.”
Claudia waves the camera at him. “Squash in together, you four, I want a photo for my mantelpiece.”
Robin shuffles her chair over, moving next to Eddie, and Steve moves to half-sit on her lap, throwing an arm around her shoulders, his hand resting on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie, on the other hand, pulls Dustin onto him, wrapping one arm around his front and closing his other hand into a fist in Dustin’s hair, miming threatening to give him a noogie. Dustin swipes at him, laughing, and he’s laughing too, and suddenly all four of them are giggling delightedly as Claudia snaps the photo, and it’s the happiest Christmas Steve Harrington has had in over a decade.
By the time the two of them get back to their house, it’s nearing half ten in the night, but Steve is exhausted. Robin, too, judging from the way she’d kept almost dozing off in the car on the drive home.
Robin disappears up the stairs the moment they step inside, and he locks the front door and heads to his bedroom, changing out of his clothes and into pyjamas. They’re warm; he’d laid out both his and Robin’s pyjamas on their respective radiators before they’d gone to work that morning, knowing the heating was set to come on before they arrived home from work.
He’s just settled in his bed when Robin drifts into his room, wordlessly crawling into bed beside him. He shifts to make space for her, a move that is ultimately pointless because she wriggles as close to him as she can get, resting her head against his chest.
“You warmed up my pyjamas,” she murmurs, eyes already closed. The overhead light is off, but she’s lit by warm lamplight.
“I did,” he confirms, gently nuzzling the top of her head.
“Mmm. Thank you.” She lets out a content sigh. “Today was nice.”
“Yeah, it was.” He smiles softly, moving his arm slightly to rest against her head, gently combing her hair with his fingers.
She hums, her eyes fluttering back open. “You wanna talk about how you feel about getting smooched by Eddie?”
He flushes red, but with his back to the lamp, he’s hoping the dim shadows hide it. “It’s just Eddie, Robs, he didn’t mean anything by it. Besides, he kissed you, too, which proves he didn’t mean anything by it.”
She moves to prop her chin on his chest, staring up at him. “I didn’t ask how Eddie feels about it, Stevie. I asked how you feel about it. Getting kissed by your crush is a big deal, no matter the circumstances.”
“It doesn’t really count as a kiss,” he argues half-heartedly. She fixes him with a look and he lets out an airy chuckle. “Yeah, okay. Yeah, it… it was nice.”
She lays her head back down, wrapping one arm over his middle, but he can see the smirk on her face.
“Maybe we should put some mistletoe up in Family Video,” he teases, “seeing how often Nance has been popping in recently.”
Robin’s head shoots straight up again, making him laugh as she huffs. “Don’t even joke about that. I’m impressed you’re holding up at all, I would die on the spot if Nance kissed me out of the blue like that.”
“That’s because you become a flustered mess whenever Nancy does anything.”
“That is not true,” she whines, laying her head back down once more. “You are so mean to me. I want a divorce.”
“On Christmas? Robs, that’s cold.”
“You know what else is cold?” She smiles innocently at him. He frowns, trying to figure out what she’s hinting at—
—and hisses when her icy feet suddenly slip beneath his pyjama bottom leg. “Fucking hell!”
“My feet,” she says casually, breaking into a grin. “My feet are cold.”
He shoves his legs to the side to get away from her, going back to playing with her hair. “Dickhead.”
“Asshole.”
He pulls the duvet around them tighter, nudging Robin closer to him. She closes her eyes again, pressing her face closer to him.
“Hey, Steve?” She sounds like she’s moments from falling asleep.
“Mhm?”
“D’you think Claudia has a thing for Eddie’s uncle?”
Steve snorts. “Dustin’s gonna be real mad if she does, but… Yeah, I think so. Did you hear the way Wayne was talking to her?”
“Like a gentleman,” she replies sleepily. “I adore him. Uncle Wayne forever.”
He laughs softly, rubbing at his eyes, and rolls towards her, pulling his arm free—which she makes a small noise of complaint at—and turning his back against her instead. She gets the hint, winding her arms back around him and adjusting until he can feel her breath on the back of his neck, her weight pressed up against him. She’s wonderfully warm, like his own personal hot water bottle.
“If Uncle Wayne and Claudia get married, Dustin and Eddie’ll basically be brothers,” she says after a moment, tucking her head against the nape of his neck. “Dustin will love that.”
He snorts again, more to himself this time, at the thought of Dustin and Eddie in matching T-shirts reading best brother. “Yeah, he will.”
It’s quiet for a moment, the two of them wrapped up underneath the duvet. In his head, he replays the moment from earlier, the feel of Eddie’s lips on his, the glint in his eyes.
“Do you think Eddie thinks the kiss means anything?” he asks softly.
He gets only the light sounds of her breathing in return; she’s already fallen asleep.
He lets out a soft sigh. “Night, Robs. Love you.”
As he drifts off to sleep himself, the image of one certain metalhead’s grin doesn’t leave his mind.
Two days later, during another quiet shift at Family Video, Dustin strides through the door.
“Delivery,” he says, dropping several packets of photos onto the counter. “Mom says she hoped you had a good Christmas.”
“We did, thank you,” Steve says, opening the first packet. They’re the photos they’d taken throughout Christmas day: a few of him and Robin, a lot of the kids, a handful of group photos. There’s one of Robin and Nancy that he makes a note of to get a copy made for Nancy later. There’s duplicates of each photo, too— Claudia must’ve had copies made so he and Robin both get their own copy.
Robin appears at his shoulder as he leafs through the photos. “Oh, that’s a nice one.”
He holds out the photo of her, Nancy, himself and Eddie. “There’s copies for you, too.”
“Perfect. God, I love Claudia.”
He shuffles the photo on top to the back and bursts out laughing. Underneath it is the photo of Robin kissing Dustin’s cheek, Dustin trying to shove her away.
“She printed that one?” Dustin tries to make a grab for it but Robin’s faster, snatching it away; there is, of course, a second copy underneath it.
She laughs delightedly, holding it out of Dustin’s reach. “I’m framing this.”
“I’m going to get a copy made for everyone as a belated extra Christmas present,” Steve tells her, grinning wickedly. Dustin groans loudly as Robin laughs harder.
“Next time we’re on patrol together, I’m letting a demogorgon eat you,” he tells her, crossing his arms.
“That’s okay.” Robin’s lips tremble as she clearly tries to keep herself from giggling. “I’ll make sure they use this for the funeral photo.”
Steve cackles, long and loud. Scratch this being the best Christmas of the past decade— it’s the best Christmas of his lifetime.