august-slips-away

[august-slips-away]

“It’s not even that cold out here,” Robin says, dragging her feet through a snowdrift. “Like, these boots? I can walk through anything, it’s kinda crazy. All-wheel drive.”

Nancy sighs and presses her eyes shut, trusting that Robin won’t lead her into traffic if left at the helm for five seconds.

“You take a girl,” Nancy starts, “to rural Indiana once—”

[august-slips-away]

“I mean, you’re from Iowa,” Robin had said, and Nancy looked over the menu at her with a sigh.

“Indiana,” Nancy corrected her. “You know that, Bucks.”

[august-slips-away]

Mike looks at him, appraising.

“Funny we didn’t run into you,” Mike says. “Like, at all.”

“Well, I’m not the one with a hit in the LLWS.”

Mike looks startled, uncomfortable. The bad part of Jonathan almost wants to poke at it, this raw and ugly scrape, because Jonathan knows that look like the back of his hand. It’s also because of that familiarity, that deja vu to a failed day at the beach, that Jonathan decides to take pity on him.

“Sixth round, two years of college, minor leagues,” Jonathan explains. “I was easy to miss.”

[august-slips-away]

Jonathan could hold out a baseball and Steve would take it and they’d start up again and everything wouldn’t be normal, but it’d be standard. But that’s not what Steve wants right now. Jonathan doesn’t know what Steve wants right now, but he doubts it’s to be in fuck-all Montana with his pitcher, trying to wheedle out an answer he knows he’ll be disappointed in ahead of time.

“Jonathan,” Steve says quietly, and Jonathan hates it. He tugs on the skin of his hands, scraped and raw.

[august-slips-away]

“I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy,” Mike says, staring at Will’s apartment ceiling. Will tactfully doesn’t say anything, but— “Why are you laughing? I literally swear it.”

[august-slips-away]

“Why are we talking about this here, anyhow?” Robin sighs.

“It was this or the pitcher's mound during a game, but I thought that might affect your play.”

Nancy says it with a straight face. Her expression doesn’t break when Robin stares at her.

“Oh, you’re serious.”

[august-slips-away]

“She isn’t mad, is she?” Robin asks.

Jonathan looks at her. His face is blue in the bar lighting. If she was more drunk, she’d be laughing. If she was more drunk, she wouldn’t be thinking about the way Nancy went off with a guy and didn’t come back.

“She likes you,” Jonathan shrugs. “She never gets mad at the people she likes, not really.”

The guy was tall. Jonathan’s still staring at Robin.

“She was sad, though,” Jonathan says, which could mean any number of things.

[august-slips-away]

So the thing with Nancy Wheeler is that she’s pretty much the perfect girl to be the baseball girl. She’s the baseball girl wet dream, pretty much, and Robin—

Robin isn’t.

[august-slips-away]

January. Midterms, playoff season, film projects.

or,

Nancy makes a list and finds herself falling in love with Steve all over again. And then there's Jonathan, too.

(part 5/10)

[august-slips-away]

December. Tree decorating, dances, and late night talks.

or,

Nancy has too many conversations, but still somehow not enough.

.

.

note: very sorry about how stranger things season 4 is turning out! As an apology, please take chapter four of this series, also known as the holiday chapter! (also byler is such a background ship in this but I feel justified in tagging it because there’s still more byler here than in the finale!)

[august-slips-away]

all of the usual tags that I follow have been overrun by Andrew Garfield and I can’t even be angry at this point.

[august-slips-away]

I wrote so much amazing fan fiction last year, the funny part is that I didn’t finish any of it.

[august-slips-away]

sometimes I like to pretend that I am, in fact, the “hot knife.”