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the-teddy-bear-butch · 2 years

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‘Cause, Baby, This Ain’t Like the Movies || Ronance One-Shot || 2443 Words

(inspired by “Movies” by Conan Gray, requested by @avocadosockz )

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Robin laid her forehead against Nancy’s, the softest of smiles dancing on her freckled face. The music in the background was soft and sweet, something she didn’t recognize, but the perfect tempo to sway to, standing too close, breathing each other in.

It was nighttime. Crickets chirped and the grass was soft. The sky was lit by sparkling stars, a lovely painting of light and dark. A diamond lined tapestry.

Robin opened her eyes, stormy gray skies meeting the darkest ocean blue of Nancy’s gaze. She traced Nancy’s jawline, then pressed her hand to the girl’s blush dusted cheek. This night was perfect. Nancy was perfect. It was too perfect. A scene from a movie that Robin held dear to her heart.

The smaller girl smiled, stopping her gentle sway to stand on tiptoes and press a soft kiss to Robin’s lips. Robin pulled her closer, intoxicated by the other woman. She tasted so sweet. So, so bittersweet.

Robin’s eyes fluttered open to a dark bedroom and the empty spot on the bed beside her. The sheets were still messy, still smelled of lavender and vanilla mingling with Robin’s own honey and sandalwood from when she and Nancy had been tangled together just hours before.

Of course, Nancy was gone now. She called it a one time thing, a fluke, an accident. A mistake, though she didn’t say it out loud. Robin knew what she meant. Her heart ached as she turned over, facing away from the cold, empty side of the bed. She should have known better. She was a lesbian in small town Indiana in the 80s. She wasn’t going to get her movie romance. Especially not with Nancy Wheeler.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember the way the girl tasted as they kissed under the stars in her dreams.

___

The music was too loud. It was thrumming through the whole house, practically vibrating in Robin’s skull. The air smelled of alcohol and there were far too many people to be even remotely comfortable. Robin’s heart was pounding as she tried to hide how overwhelmed she was.

Why Robin agreed to be here was beyond her.

Actually, it wasn’t. That was a lie.

It was because Nancy had asked, and Robin was still hopelessly pining after the girl, still dreaming of her touch, the softness of her pink lips, her stupid lavender shampoo.

Lavender shampoo that seemed permanently stuck to her clothes anymore as she followed Nancy like a lost dog, sat next to her by the pool at this stupid party, tried to ignore the girl’s hand on her knee. This touch wasn’t soft. It was painful and ugly, and it burned. Nancy was touchy when she was drunk, and Robin didn’t have the heart to push her away. The brunette slumped against her now, head on Robin’s shoulder as she hummed to the music.

“I like you, Buckley,” the girl slurred, pressing her nose into the crook of the freckled girl’s neck. Robin laughed, something shaky and sad.

“I like you too, Wheeler,” she murmured, hoping the waver of her voice didn’t give away the painful truth of the words. Still, she pressed a soft kiss to Nancy’s forehead, something gentle—something that could be read as completely platonic. Platonic with a capital fucking P. Nancy took her hand and squeezed it, her smile faltering.

“I wish you were a boy,” she mumbled, the words barely audible and filled with terror, sending a cold spike of ice down Robin’s spine. She pulled Nancy close, wrapping the girl in a tight embrace as tears rolled down Nancy’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Robin whispered, and she was. She knew. She knew exactly what this felt like. She distinctly remembered having the same moment years ago at summer camp when she finally realized she was different. She spent many a night crying because she was different, because the person she wanted so badly to hold wasn’t right—wasn’t a boy. “I’m so sorry, Nance.”

Robin looked up at the sky, admiring for a moment the soft white pinpricks of the stars, a beautiful tapestry of diamonds against velvet black. It wasn’t too unlike the sky in her dreams. It felt like a mockery now.

Robin had Steve drive them home and she tucked Nancy into bed. She brushed the sleeping girl’s curls from her face and whispered a soft goodnight before she left, wanting nothing more than to crawl into the bed and hold Nancy through the night.

___

Nancy distanced herself from Robin after the party. It hurt more than Robin could express. It felt like a breakup, though she knew their weird, tense back and forth was never a true relationship. One shared night and a number of touches behind closed doors were not love. She found herself again wishing for her movie romance.

Steve could see how badly it was affecting Robin. They spent a number of nights in their new apartment sharing an ice cream tub and sobbing together over sad movies. Honestly Robin couldn’t ask for a better friend. She leaned against his shoulder now, sighing. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

A knock at the door startled them both. Steve glanced at Robin, but she only shrugged, then climbed over him to answer it.

Of course the universe must be playing cruel tricks on her, because standing in the doorway, eyes red and puffy, tears streaked down her cheeks was none other than Nancy Wheeler.

The girl stared at Robin for a moment, then her gaze flickered to Steve, their matching flannel pajamas and the ice cream tub on the coffee table—two spoons.

“O-oh,” she stammered, stepping back. She looked stricken, almost angry. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—“

Robin flashed a panicked look at Steve, then stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She tilted her head at Nancy.

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” she said. The words came out a little harsher than intended—she was sick of having to explain her and Steve’s relationship—and Nancy’s gaze only hardened in return. She crossed her arms and gave her patented Wheeler scowl.

“So I didn’t interrupt your date?” Nancy snapped, eyes glittering coldly. Robin stared at her, slack jawed.

“Nancy, I told you—“

“It doesn’t matter,” Nancy growled. She stepped back, her arms tightening around herself. The tears were falling freely again. Robin was fighting a desperate inner battle. She wanted to scream, to make Nancy understand how it felt for the girl to continue toying with her heart, how her leaving had been the last straw, ripping a bleeding hole in her chest that Robin didn’t know how to patch. She wanted to pull Nancy in, to kiss her forehead, to hold her tight and provide as much comfort as she could until Nancy felt better.

“It does matter,” she managed to say, the words sounding strangled. “It does matter to you, and I don’t understand why.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Nancy asked bitterly.

“Nance,” Robin choked out, fingernails digging into her palms as she tried to quell the raging storm of emotions in her chest—no doubt reflected in her eyes. She was never good at keeping her emotions hidden. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend you give a shit.”

The words slipped out without thought and Nancy recoiled like she’d been slapped. She stared at Robin in shock, but Robin couldn’t stop the words from spilling from her mouth.

“What, we, we make out once? You let me take you to bed and then you leave, because it was a mistake? Because you’re confused and you used me as some sort of sick experiment?” she stammered, hating the way Nancy deflated visibly, despite the defiant look in her eyes. “You never liked me. You used me. Why don’t you run back to Jonathan?”

Venom dripped from the words in a way that Robin didn’t know she was capable of. They cut like knives, slicing Nancy open, leaving her bare, beating heart exposed. Robin wanted to cradle it softly, to apologize, to stitch Nancy back together, but she turned away instead. Maybe in her movie romance, they could have fixed this.

“Jonathan and I broke up.”

At this, Robin froze. When she turned back, Nancy was hugging herself, her chest heaving as she fought back tears.

“Ah, shit,” Robin muttered. She wasn’t strong enough to go back inside alone. Instead she pulled Nancy close and rubbed her back, firm, slow circles across her shoulder blades in the way she knew the girl found most soothing.

Robin brought Nancy inside, and when Steve opened his mouth to ask why, she simply shot him a look and went to the kitchen to get a third spoon.

Nancy fell asleep against Robin’s chest on the couch that evening, and Robin didn’t have it in her to leave the girl alone.

___

After that, things got tentatively better. Nancy started hanging around more, and she even invited Robin over a few times. It was a bandaid over a canyon of a wound, but it was a start.

Robin could almost believe Nancy wanted her in the way they grew closer again, sharing beds and secrets like little kids. Robin’s dream still tormented her, and she awoke again and again from her perfect kiss to stare at Nancy’s sleeping face, her heart aching at the thought of things she couldn’t have.

It was a stormy evening. The rain was fierce against the roof of the house and the wind howled like an animal, but inside, it was peaceful. They were doing homework in Nancy’s bedroom when the phone rang. Robin ignored it at first, but she couldn’t help the pang in her chest when Nancy greeted the person on the other side of the line.

“Hey, Jon!” Robin chanced a glance up, watching the way Nancy grinned, the way she twirled the phone cord, the affection in her voice, it made Robin’s stomach turn.

“I need to get home,” Robin rasped suddenly. She stuffed her notebook in her backpack and left the room before Nancy had a chance to argue.

Robin ignored Karen—though that she felt guilty about—as she stormed down the stairs and out the front door. She realized too late that she had forgotten her raincoat, but she wasn’t going back. She grabbed her bike, only to hear Nancy calling from the porch.

“Robin!” the saccharine sweetness of the way she said Robin’s name pulled a desperate, choking sob from Robin’s chest. “Where are you going?”

Robin chanced a look over her shoulder, seeing Nancy with Robin’s yellow raincoat tucked over her arms, a confused, broken expression on her face, brows knit together with concern. Thunder and lightning crashed above them.

“I’m going home,” she managed.

“It’s not safe,” Nancy said. Robin could almost believe she cared.

“Nancy—“

“Why are you leaving?” Nancy asked, and god if Robin’s own hurt wasn’t reflected in those soft sapphire eyes.

“Nance, I—“ she began, but the words wouldn’t come. She bit back another sob, hoping the rain would mask her tears. “I can’t listen to you run back into Jonathan’s arms.”

Nancy frowned, hurt flashing across her face. She shook her head.

“That’s not why he called,” she said, and she sounded so deeply earnest. Robin wanted to believe her.

“I know you’re not over him. I’ve heard you guys talking in the middle of the night,” Robin whispered. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

If Robin’s eyes weren’t playing tricks, Nancy’s expression actually softened. The girl stepped out from the cover of the porch, placed a hand on Robin shoulder—she had the decency not to question when Robin flinched away from her.

“He’s the only one who was there when I—“ Nancy began, choking on her words. “When I got stuck there with that thing. He knows how to help me, when I have nightmares.”

“Oh.” Robin’s voice was soft, and she hated herself for making assumptions. Still, memories flashed in her mind. Nancy’s lips on hers, Nancy’s warm body beneath her, Nancy empty spot in the bed—

She wouldn’t let her heart be broken again. She still hadn’t healed from the first heartbreak.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, voice cracking.

Nancy stepped closer, placing a hand on Robin’s arm, her gaze unbearably soft and warm. Robin’s chest felt warm despite the way she shivered in the chilly rain.

“I had to figure a few things out,” Nancy murmured, her gaze dropping unmistakably to Robin’s lips. Robin was frozen in place, staring, waiting, hoping, god she was hoping. “And that was one of them. Jon helped me come to terms with… With what I wanted.”

“And?” Robin stammered, her voice breathy, shaken with cold. Nancy was beautiful, the way her wet curls framed her face. Her eyes seemed even more blue in the rainy night. “What did you figure out?”

Nancy took Robin’s t-shirt in her fist, pulling the girl down into a soft kiss. At first Robin was surprised, and Nancy began to pull away, but Robin pulled her back, deepening the contact. It was sweet and bitter and they were both shivering, but it was real and it was Robin’s and she could tell there was a difference—an intent in the way Nancy kissed her.

When they resurfaced for air, Robin stared at Nancy in awe.

“I want you,” the girl said simply, suddenly looking much smaller, a nervous shadow of her usual self. Robin took one hand, cupped Nancy’s cheek with the other, eyes soft as she turned the girl’s face upward to look at her.

“I want you too,” she whispered. Nancy smiled. “But I have to know this is real. This is really what you want? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Nancy promised, placing her own hand over Robin’s. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as lightning flashed again, but the thunder was barely a rumble in Robin’s ear as she was sucked into ocean blue eyes, drowning in the emotion that raged there.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

___

They took it slow. Their first real date was at a drive in movie theatre, watching Top Gun in Nancy’s station wagon. They kissed as “Take My Breath Away” played in the background. It wasn’t their first kiss, or even their second. It wasn’t her favorite—nothing would top kissing Nancy Wheeler in the rain as Nancy finally confessed her feelings—but it was perfect nonetheless.

“I love you, birdie,” Nancy whispered after, her forehead pressed against Robin’s.

Robin glanced briefly outside, smiled at the twinkling diamond stars in the velvet black sky, knowing they’d never shine as bright as Nancy’s smile.

“I love you too, princess,” she whispered softly.

___

Somehow, some way, in small town Indiana in the 80s, Robin Buckley found her movie romance with Nancy Wheeler.

#ronance #one shot #probably gonna put this one on ao3 #I’m really happy with how it turned out #anyway #Grace is a genius #thank her for this #also if you’re reading the tags before the one shot #it’s angsty but there’s a happy ending #Robin Buckley #Nancy Wheeler #robin x nancy #nancy x robin #Jon was definitely calling to ask Nancy if she’d made a move yet

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