It’s late. So late that the moons almost disappeared from the sky, the light of the sun barely peeking through the curtain of the night. Robin knows it’s not a great idea to be out in the middle of a field at this time of night, but she can’t bring herself to care. Wind blows the grass around her, sending little pieces onto her lap where she sits. Hands in the dirt, she feels the ground beneath her. It’s the real ground, not the kind with dark slime and tentacles running over top.
Nightmares like these mess with her head, blurring what’s real and what’s fake. When they get particularly bad, she sneaks out her window, down the street and to the small field on the outskirts of town. She always sits in the same weathered spot, her pajamas covered in grass stains and mud. No matter the weather, she’s always here.
She remembers her first time in this field. Right after the summer of ‘85, she had an awful nightmare. Hands pulled her down, simultaneously those of slime and those with uniforms attached to the arms. Needles pierced her skin all over, and sparks of fire burned what went unpricked. Someone screamed at her, revealing all of her secrets at once. She woke up heaving, almost ruining her blankets with puke. She nearly broke her window trying to get out, and bruised her ankle during the fall from her second-story room. She ran for what felt like hours, but was probably no more than ten minutes.
Eventually, she came across a clearing. It wasn’t much more than the size of a football field, but the tall trees surrounding it and the hill in the middle were enough to make it look serene. The moon in the sky, she walked to the top of the little hill and sat. She sat for hours, not even thinking for most of it. Once the sun came up, she walked home, quickly changing out of her dirty clothes, but she went back the next night, and the next, and continued to go whenever the nightmares came back.
Even now, over two years later, she still goes. This time, at least, the jump was only from her first-floor apartment much closer to the edge of town, making her journey much shorter and less perilous. With her parents long gone from the state, she doesn’t even have to worry about them finding her dirty laundry from these nights, with herself being the only one even living in her small place.
She stares at the tiny pinpricks of stars above her, slowly disappearing as the sun takes their place. She knows she should return home soon, so she’s not completely exhausted when she makes her way to the radio station for the morning broadcast, but she wishes she could stay in this spot forever. Like Sleeping Beauty, cursed to sleep for 100 years, Robin wishes to be cursed to sit atop this mound of dirt for the rest of time, just observing the world around her move on with time and she sits, unchanging. But, she supposes nothing lasts forever anyways, so her place in this clearing can’t either. Even the stars above her will leave someday, and many already have, but are still leaving their mark on her night sky until their last ray of light finishes its travel to earth.
If stars explode, then their sun must do the same someday. Part of Robin hopes she isn’t there to see it, while the other part wishes it could happen right now. Maybe then her life would feel complete, her pain gone. That’s her only goal, only purpose, though maybe her work at WSQK could be another. “Rockin Robin,” she’s called there, and in the booth she becomes a new person. Someone sure and confident, who knows who they are and what they want, someone with the confidence to shout out their girlfriend and dedicate songs to her without ever alluding to the fact that she’s not dating a man. She really is Rockin Robin then, and most of Hawkins sees her as such.
Even Steve forgets who she really is sometimes, only sees the persona while on air, the one that comes out now whenever she’s in public or with more than a few people. She’s never the old her anymore, the one that rambles on about useless facts, the band nerd who wanted all her life to run away, the loser with the crush on a girl miles out of her league, with the one sided rivalry between her and King Steve, the girl who at least had an idea of who she was. Now she feels disconnected, not truly any real person anymore. Like a ghost, she supposes. Though she doubts ghosts can be heard clearly over radio waves, like she can.
Or maybe this is just all a dream. The hazy feeling that she’s just drifting through life would be explained by this, but when would this dream have even started? Perhaps when she ventured down a Russian elevator, or when she watched a gooey slime monster destroy the mall, or maybe when she watched the news report that a girl from her school was viciously murdered and then had to investigate this murder. Knowing her luck, the dream started the night after they killed Vecna. Ever since then, everything has been almost fine, but not quite, which is reminiscent of a dream. Robin’s not sure what’s real anymore, but she just blames it on this constant dream state she’s in.
The sun. It’s finally up from its sleep, the majority of it peeking over the horizon now. Should she stand? Robin doesn’t. She stays. She plans on staying until the bugs crawl into her skin and the plants grow her down into the soil, and she fertilizes some tree at the top of this hill, like a landmark of sorts. She thinks that would be a pretty good way to go, a peaceful afterlife.
Or maybe she’s doomed for hell.
It’s been ingrained in her since childhood that sin sends you straight to hell, and she has sinned heaps since then. Lying, stealing, and the like were common ones for a time, and then it got worse. Her eyes lingered on her peers, but not the boys. The second she knew what she was feeling, she hated herself. At eight years old, she knew she was a sinner, that after death her soul would sink to hell with the rest of her kind, forced to be tortured for eternity. She wouldn’t even protest at this point. Maybe hell isn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things. Unless Dante was God himself, humans probably have no clue what happens after we die, but maybe it’s better like that.
Robin looks up, the sun right above her in the very middle of the sky. It must be around noon now, she thinks, though what does she know about the movement of the sun in Indiana? She doubts anyone is too worried about where she is, though they must be mad she missed the morning broadcast. It’s boring, anyways. Anyone with a voice to speak and eyes to read the script could pull it off. The majority of it is references and jokes she sneaks in when she can, government-mandated propaganda and information, and a boring daily report on the weather and local news. Every day she reads it, she feels more numb.
Perhaps someday they’ll lift the quarantine, and she’ll escape this prison of a town for somewhere new. She’d always hoped for Europe, Paris specifically, but at this point she would settle for Indianapolis. Her real dream, though, is Italy. A small town by the ocean, a little place with a gorgeous view. Maybe she could teach, or write stories about the things she’s seen. Those are her real dreams, the ones she will probably never live.
She wishes for a love like no other, the kind the poets yearn about, the kind that makes you feel whole and in pieces simultaneously. As much as she likes Vickie, she doesn’t know if she loves Vickie. It makes her sick to say, so she avoids the topic whenever possible. Her daydreams consist of this dream lover, who doesn’t even possess any defining features, just a shapeless blob in her mind. They dance in the light of sunset, walk along the beach at night, and do a dance of domestic life around each other during the day. She doesn’t dare to hope for kids, knowing that someone like her could never have them, but sometimes she wonders. Maybe a little girl with a unique name, though nothing bird-themed like her own. Something beautifully new to her, a name that feels fresh. She thinks of little feet running around her, hands grabbing at her in a loving way, begging to be carried and comforted. Tiny voices screaming louder than they should be able to, toys scattered around every room.
She feels tears on her cheek, salt sliding down her neck and gathering in the collar of her shirt. The sun's almost close to the opposite horizon now, slowly returning to its spot on the other side of the world. The cycle continues, just like everything else in this world. She thinks of those around her, the ones who try so hard to break the cycles perpetuated by those before her, but their trying seems to be for naught, as it all continues. Steve, and his constant goal to be better than his parents, to be loving and accepting, is slowly turning cold to the kids who he always used to love. Nancy, who hated the idea of the all-American family with a white picket fence, now only months away from a proposal she won’t turn down due to the guilt of it all. Jonathan, who vowed to never be like his dad, but every time Robin sees him, he’s yelling at someone, a half-smoked joint always somewhere in his vicinity. Herself, who, just like her ex hippie parents, wanted to leave her old world to travel, but will forever be stuck in some mindless job, just trying to parent the kid she always hoped for, but never really wanted.
The stars are back. She always wishes she had learned astronomy, but out of her many interests, the books that filled half of her room, space never appeared. She wants to be able to stare up and see the constellations, the pictures and stories formed by the massive balls of gas millions of billions of years away. Maybe if she looks long enough she’ll see them. She lies on her back now, stretching out the aches and pains in her body as she does so. Her hair lies in the dirt, and Robin hopes she never gets up so she doesn’t have to wash the muck out; just the thought makes her feel icky.
No one’s come to the clearing yet. She should be sad that no one has come searching yet, but it feels like a blessing in disguise. If she isn’t found, maybe she can stay long enough to grow roots.
Time is always weird when she feels like this. Five minutes can feel like a week, while twenty-four hours can feel like barely ten minutes. It’s pitch dark now, with the stars not giving much light, and the crescent moon giving only a sliver of illumination to the clearing. She closes her eyes, finally feeling sleep in her bones, but the second her eyelids flutter closed, the nightmares start. She smells alcohol and fire, gun smoke and musty walls. She feels the cold glass in her hand, and she knows what she has to do.
It’s like she's back to that night. If she thinks hard enough, she can see Vecna's form in front of her, hanging stiffly from vines. She hears the window smash, but instead of his body falling, it’s her own. Her eyes won’t open, but she feels like she’s floating and falling at the same time. She hears talking, and hands grabbing at her sides and head. Instead of falling, now she feels like she’s being carried, but her eyes are still glued shut. She hears her name, or maybe something similar to it, and eventually she hears faint sirens. She feels a cushioned surface beneath her body, and she fades into sleep the second she touches it.
She wakes hours later in a hospital. She thinks of Max, the poor girl still confined to a room just like this one. Robin had a small wire connected to her arm, and the heart monitor beeps steadily, almost like a song she would play on the radio late at night, when the only people to hear were the night owls and the late shift workers. She’s alone in the room, but she hears chatting just past the door. It opens, and Steve steps inside.
“Hey, Rob.” His hair is flat and tangled, a clear departure from his usual appearance. She remembers one time when she hid his hairspray from him for a few days, and he almost crashed his car into a light pole out of stress. She’s confused as to why his eyes are red, and the spaces underneath are dark. “You feeling any better?”
She shrugs, her body still numb. She feels all floaty again, like a ghost but not quite. Steve stares at her as if he can read her mind, until he sighs and sits down in the chair next to her bed, slouching as far as he can with his hands in his hair.
She tries to hide, making herself smaller, hoping to disappear into the bleach-smelling sheets. It doesn’t work.
“We thought you died.” He sounds on the verge of tears now. “You didn’t show up for the broadcast, so I drove to your house and you didn’t answer the door. I figured you slept in or something, so I used my key to get in, but you were gone. Then I saw the window was open, and I panicked. What if someone took you, what if they hurt you? I called just about everyone we know to look for you, y’know. We searched for hours.”
He shifts in his seat, moving his hands down off his head. Robin can see tears running down his face. He chokes down a sob, but doesn’t stop talking.
“We found the clearing after a bit, right before sunrise. I saw you up on that hill, and, I mean, I didn’t know it was you for sure, but I saw a body up there and I just knew. You were barely breathing, Robin. I thought you were dead. I…” he stops, his breathing loud enough to fill the room. “I didn’t even know what to do. I froze for a good minute. Nancy caught up and basically slapped me back to reality.”
He laughs, and Robin bristles, unsure of what to do.
“I carried you back to the main road and Nancy called an ambulance, but I swear to god, I thought we had lost you. I remember seeing you strapped into that stretcher and it was like my whole life was over. The second you drove off, Nancy started sobbing, too. She was distraught. I had to drive the two of us here ‘cause she could barely walk straight.”
Robin knows what he’s trying to say. He’s been trying to say it for months, since before her and Vickie even went on their first date. He’d give her looks when they were planning their attack on Vecna, make little comments when she and Nancy would go off to do something just the two of them. She refused to believe him. The risk was too high.
The hospital lights shine above her, their bulbs flickering every once and a while. She stares at them until she sees stars. They don’t look like constellations, though. Not pretty enough. These stars just hurt her head. She avoids looking at Steve, knowing he’s waiting for a response. She won’t give him one, not until she knows exactly what to say. A perfect response might take a while, though.
The door opens again, and this time Nancy walks in. Her hair is up in a bun, and it looks like a brown halo over her head. Her clothes look too big on her small frame, but Robin swears she never used to look this small.
Nancy stands at the edge of the bed, arms crossed, eyes low. Robin wants her to look up, to look her in the eyes and tell her she should want to live, that she will make Robin's life worth living, but she won’t. She never will. The confident, snarky, badass girl she loves will never love her back, and she has to make her peace with that. And why would she ever prefer the wild storm of Nancy Wheeler to the quiet calmness that is her girlfriend? Vickie is stable, she’s soft. Nancy is all hard edges and deep looks, her eyes a sea of swirling feelings. All Robin wants is to float in that ocean, or drown in another.
All this thinking distracted her from the fact that Steve had left. As the door clocks shut behind him, Nancy finally brings her eyes to Robins. She doesn’t feel numb anymore. She feels… warm. Like that feeling of sitting in the hot sun for just a bit too long, and you almost burn, but not quite. She feels more attached when she’s around Nancy. More seen, too. Like Nancy can look at her and know exactly what she’s feeling, because she’s felt it too.
The more she thinks about it, her mystery dream lover wasn't a shapeless blob. It was a short, tiny brunette, with sharp eyes and a big heart. A biting remark soothed by a soft laugh. Cheekbones that could cut steel, with a smile that lights up a room. There’s no blob in these dreams, just Nancy. And that’s why they’re dreams.
Instead of trying to talk, Nancy makes her way to Robin's bedside, opposite where Steve was just sitting. She lowers herself onto the edge of the bed, with one leg folded underneath her so she can better face Robin. Her eyes say enough, so much that her words could never communicate. They both know what they want to say, what they could never say. Not with both of them in loving, committed relationships with other people. Robin knows this, and yet all she wants is for Nancy to hold her, for her to tell her she’s going to be okay, that the two of them will run off before anyone can stop them. She just wants love, a kind she can never expect from Nancy, as that would be selfish.
After a moment, Robin expects Nancy to leave. Instead, she comes closer. She lies down next to Robin, resting her head on Robin's shoulder, and she starts crying. Robin has no idea what to do, so she just freezes like she usually does when people cry around her. Nancy perks up at this, somehow knowing Robin was uncomfortable, but instead she burrows into Robin further.
“I thought you died, Robin.”
“Yeah, Steve said that too.”
“No, you don’t get it. If we had found your body dead in that field, I wouldn’t have wasted a second finding a way to join you.”
“Don’t say things like that, Nancy,”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because it can’t be true. If it’s true… then what are we even doing?”
“Well we need to figure it out.”
They sit, holding each other for a few seconds before Nancy speaks again.
“Why were you out there?”
“I’m out there most nights, whenever the nightmares get bad and I need a break. But I’m usually back before sunrise. This time I guess I just didn’t get up. I didn’t want to.”
“Because it wasn't worth it to. I was just going to go back to being numb, and I guess I didn’t want that anymore.”
“I broke up with Jonathan yesterday. While we were looking for you. He started suggesting that him and I should leave it to Steve and the others, that we should go home and take a break. I told him no, and he accused me of caring more about you than him. I told him he was right, and broke up with him. Right then and there.”
“Yeah. I saw Vickie outside, too. She wouldn’t come in. Said you guys had an argument last week about me, that she can’t be around you until you’re doing better.”
“No idea. You should go ask her.”
“No thanks, Nancy, I would like to stay right where I am.”
“That’s good, Robin, ‘cause I think if you went to talk to her right now, she might chicken out of breaking up with you.”
The two of them laugh quietly. Robin knew, always knows when people are about to pull away. She’s known for a few weeks that her relationship was at its end, but just like everything else in her life, she chose to ignore it.
Her thoughts are clearer today than they were yesterday. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, or the nightmare haze, or maybe she feels better with Nancy pulled to her side. Maybe all three. Before she can drift back off to sleep, she hears more voices come into her room. At this point, her eyes are closed, but this time she doesn’t open them of her own accord. She wants to sleep, so sleep she shall.
The voices soothe her, the people she loves crowding her head and stopping any thoughts similar to those of yesterday's spiral. One slips through, though.
She thinks of stars. And not just the big balls of gas in the sky, but the metaphorical ones too. The stars on television, on the radio. The ones like the girl next to her, who burns bright when doing what she loves, when fighting for what's right. The kind like her best friend, who shines like a light for those around to follow if need be. The ones that seem small, but will someday explode into a larger thing, something impossibly powerful. The kind that stick out a bit, but make up for it with their shine. She sees stars every single day in the people around her, whether they know it or not, but they make her life burn bright, for better or for worse, and she couldn't love them any more than she already does.
She’s thankful she never learned much about the real stars, as the ones sitting around her in this tiny hospital room seem far more important.
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