•protect her•

• Chapter two •

A/N- this chapter contains slight homophobia

After the four of us took showers, we grabbed our clothes from the washing machine. Eddie's water bill will definitely be up this month. We decided to take a look at Steve's wound. It was pretty bad, so we had to get Max to come and help.

After a few remarks about Steve's overly hairy chest, she was able to keep the bite from getting infected and she found some painkillers to give to him. She gave him too many though, he was definitely loopy. He was laughing at everything and he fell asleep on my lap.

Frankly, it was hilarious.

When everyone rejoined as a group and Steve woke up, Dustin noted that the only way to keep Max and Nancy from dying is to sneak into the upside down and to kill Vecna.

Nancy and Max hadn't heard the clock for a while now, so we knew he was up to no good.

We decided that we all needed rest and that we should go get supplies for our Vecna hunt, tomorrow. I noted that we would need two sets of headphones now that two of us were cursed,
so, after rummaging around for a little in his room, Eddie found his old headset and gave it to Nancy.

We all headed to my house due to the fact that Eddie's trailer was opening up into the upside down and my mom wasn't home. Plus there was the fact that I lived the next street down.

We would've gone to the Wheelers' house, but everyone's parents and the cops were having a group meeting and they were all pissed at their children.

And Max's mom was home so we couldn't exactly hide a group of fugitives there.

No one had ever been inside my house, except for Max and Steve. They were the only ones who knew about my home life.

When we got there, everyone filed into the cramped trailer and stared at me.

I didn't know what to say. No one except Max and Steve really knew how poor I was.

I scratched the back of my neck "so.. uhh.. this is where I live. I know, I'm really poor, the truth is, my mom has a good job, but she spends all her money on beer and gambling so, let's get over that fact and get to sleep".

The sleeping arrangements were odd. Erica insisted on sleeping in a bed, so her and Lucas got my bed and Steve and Eddie slept in my moms bed.

Dustin and Max slept on the couch and Nance slept in the recliner.
I however, got stuck sleeping on the floor of my living room with a thin blanket to keep me from freezing to death.

I couldn't sleep at all, my mind was racing and I was uncomfortable as fuck.

Apparently at some point, Nancy woke up and noticed this, because, she told me to sleep in the chair with her. At first I declined her offer, but she insisted that I keep her safe.

Nancy stood up, I climbed up onto the chair, Nancy sat down and cuddled into me.

For some reason, it gave me butterflies, but, I pushed that feeling away and drifted into deep slumber while listening to the faint sound of Kate Bush and Pat Benatar singing at the same time.

***

The next morning, I was the last to wake up, when I did finally come to, I smelled the familiar scent of coffee and bagels from the bagel place Steve and I stop by before work.

Everyone was gathered around in the kitchen and when I walked into the kitchen area, I felt everyone's eyes on me.

"What?" I exclaimed.
"Are you okay?" Nancy asked.
"What do you mean 'am I okay'?" I asked Nancy as I grabbed a bagel.
"Robin, you don't remember?" Steve stated.

"Remember what, what are you talking about?" I asked the group as everyone stared at me.
"You told us" Dustin said.

And suddenly I was back in the movie theatre bathroom. I had just come out to Steve and instead of being supportive, he sat there in disbelief and walked away.

I looked around and I was back in my trailer. Everyone was pointing at me and laughing. They were screaming nasty things at me, they were telling me that I was disgusting and that I should move schools.

Then, my eyes flashed open and I broke out in a cold sweat. It was just a dream. A bad dream.

I reached around for Nancy and realized she wasn't there.

I heard loud talking and noticed that Steve did actually get bagels and coffee. I got up and walked into the kitchen, if you could even call it that.

Everyone smiled at me as I walked in.

"It's about time, sleepy head" Eddie said while handing me a coffee and ruffling my hair. I muttered a thanks to him and Dustin started telling everyone to listen up.

He explained the plan that they were going to lay low for the next couple of days and after that, they were going to get traps so they can kill Vecna. Simple, right?

My mom was away so we just stayed there for the next two days. It was the slowest two days of my life. I just wanted to get out of there. But I couldn't.

It had only been a few hours and that's when I heard it.

Robin...

A deep voice said.

They don't accept you and they never will

I figured it was just my subconscious speaking and I decided to ignore it.

***

Later that day, we were in the middle of watching a movie and I was getting popcorn, when I heard it again. At first I thought Marty Mcfly's voice got really deep, but then it got loud. Really loud.

Nobody loves you, Robin

I winced in pain as I heard it, my ear drums were ringing.

Nobody ever will.

This time I screamed and fell to my knees, the popcorn going everywhere.

Lucas paused the movie and everyone ran towards me.

"Holy shit, Robin!" Steve yelled while kneeling down to me. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I-I think it's Vecna"

————————————————————
Ok so yeah... this was a long one, but I couldn't sleep, so here you go. If there's any spelling errors, let me know, I wrote this at 4am. Let me know if you want more long chapters like this. I hope you enjoy :)