༉˚*ೃ ᵒ⁶. 𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒!
𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 show up for work the next day. Robin and Steve sat waiting at the counter, confused. They'd received no call, no indication that she wouldn't be coming in. They simply waited and waited and waited, to no avail. No girl skidding in on roller-blades, no profuse apologies, no wide grin laughing at them; no Rain at all. It was all quite worrying. "Do you think we should try to contact her?" Robin asked Steve when the mall's large yellow and blue clock hit fifteen-past-three. It was unlike Rain to even be late, let alone miss an entire day of work unannounced. Robin knew that Rain's job was important to her. She wouldn't just risk losing it.
Steve tapped his hand on the counter, glancing around the mall. But Rain didn't come running up to them in her sailor's uniform with her curly hair tied back and an Ahoy hat sitting on her head. There was no sign of the happy girl amongst the sea of people. "Maybe she's just sick." The both of them knew it was unlikely—she'd been perfectly healthy the day before, spare the hangover.
Robin didn't like the idea of Rain being sick and alone. But she didn't have Rain's number—there was no need, since they saw each other at work every day—and she wouldn't be able to drop by to see how she was doing. "Yeah, you're probably right." She rubbed a finger over her lips before turning to serve a man lining up. It didn't keep Rain off her mind for the rest of the day.
Work was incredibly slow without the bubbly girl by their sides, and seemed to drag on for hours longer than usual. There were no playful arguments, no teasing Steve about just about everything, no jesting about height. There was only Robin and Steve serving ice cream and striking marks on the board whenever he embarrassed himself in front of a girl—but without any of the beautiful joy that was Rainbow. It was the strangest day.
Then the boy in the Camp Knowhere cap and lame graphic tee entered the parlour, and started insistently ringing the service bell while Robin sat up on one of the counters listening to one of Rain's mixtapes through her Walkman headphones. The irritating sound made Robin practically throw the headphones off in frustration. "It works, dingus," drawled Robin as she stepped up to the counter, already in an irritated mood due to Rainbow's absence. "Can I help you?" Her Ahoy! hat was lopsided on her head—there was no Rain to fix it upright this time.
"Hi," said the kid with a wide grin.
Robin blinked at him, unimpressed. "Hi." Serving customers without Rain there was already boring enough, dealing with annoying kids alone was a whole other level.
"I'm Dustin," he chirped at her. Curly brown hair poked out from under his cap, and he couldn't have been older than fourteen. He seemed to be trying to peer around her as he searched excitedly for something.
"I'm Robin," she replied with the same lilt to her tone—slight annoyance plastered across her sarcastic face. Her lips were tight and unamused.
The odd boy grinned again, eyebrows raised high on his face. "Pleasure to meet you. Uh, is— is he here?" he asked, pointing towards the back room.
Robin raised a single sharp eyebrow. She was not equipped to deal with random children without Rain here by her side. "Is who here?" she snipped back—a clip of anger in her tone, though she tried not to let it show on her happy-customer-face. Surprising her, the door to the back room slammed open loudly and Steve's excited figure stumbled through, looking like a dumbass, and, okay, maybe Steve was friends with more children than she initially thought, which was totally weird. Then unfolded some faux Star Wars battle and they began discussing intercepting an evil Russian signal in the parlour, much too loudly.
And so began the quest of decoding a secret Russian transmission to save all the glory that was Hawkins, Indiana.
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𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄, 𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍, in a nearly-empty house with only a single occupant, Rain's bedroom was positively cut off from the rest of the world. Sunlight would have poured through the windows had they not been tightly shut, and her bedroom door closed. The air in the room was muggily warm. A single lamp pooled some pretty orange light across a wall and side of the room. On Rain's large double bed, where the lamplight only highlighted the curve of her back, she was collapsed and shaking with heavy sobs.
Her body was curled in on itself: knees pressed up tightly to her chest, fingers locking over her ankles, cheek pressed against her pink and blue duvet as her face was wettened with heartbroken tears. Rain's hair was splayed out around her. The tears ran down the bridge of her nose and across her cheekbones and down her neck and landed sadly on the colourful sheets. Her cries seemed to be softened in an attempt to be quiet, hidden in where she pressed her wrist against her face.
The pain in her heart was unmeasurable. Rainbow thought a betrayal that hurt this much couldn't be possible—the betrayal that her parents could no longer love a daughter like her. It hurt so much deep in her chest that it numbed the edges of her fingers and burned her lungs and made her feel like she was dying. God, why couldn't be normal? Why couldn't she be good? She'd ruined everything. Rain cried, and cried, and cried.
She tucked her knees closer to a chest—until their bony, pointed presence in her ribs was unwanted—and sobbed to herself.
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𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐇 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐍 and Steve's joy and concern, Rain did come in to work the day after. She was on time, as usual, but was oddly not the first at the ice cream shop—a first in Rain's book. Instead, Rain wandered in just before the clock ticked over to the hour, still leaving enough time to help pull out the foyer's tables and chairs.
"Rain!" Steve exclaimed when he saw her unstacking some chairs out the front of the parlour. Somehow the floppy-haired boy (who had totally been an ass to her in school) had become so attached to her that just her presence made him smile.
"Hi," was all she supplied, her voice tight and closed over. Rain attempted to offer him a smile—but it was tentative and unsure. Something in her eyes was dark and far away.
She didn't talk much that day. Somehow, she looked worse than the day she'd had her hangover. It wasn't the way her hair was unbrushed, or the dark circles hanging beneath her eyes, or the lack of makeup on her usually shimmery face—it was the hollowness in her expression, the absence of her pretty grin. It looked as if she hadn't slept at all. Both Steve and Robin exchanged silent glances of concern when Rain wasn't looking. They didn't get a single quip about the music choices, or laugh over Steve's failed flirting attempts. It seemed a little like she was locked up, twisted like a chain around that part of her that made her cheery.
Robin noticed something was wrong within just ten minutes of her being at work. Rain was completely tunnel-vision focused on serving customers, even with her blank and joyless expression, not even bothering to go in the back room like she usually did to slack off or dance around. She just served up ice cream and sat on the counter when there were no more customers, and didn't strike up any idle conversation at all. It was another ten minutes before Robin decided to do anything about it.
Rainbow was sat up on the counter, knees dejectedly drawn up to her chest, staring blankly over her legs. There was no lipgloss on her mouth today, and neither was she wearing her favourite colourful scrunchies. It was like all the happiness that had been Rain was just... missing. Robs had been watching her worriedly from the back door—where a quiet, heated discussion about Russians was going on between Steve and Dustin, the latter who Rain had not even noticed yet—for a few moments before she walked up to approach Rain.
Rainbow lifted her head when she spotted Robin coming, Robin's pretty freckled face and gentle smile making Rain's heart ache. Rain's eyes were sad and empty. "Hey, Bow," said Robin to her—which is about all Robin had called her since she found out about her true name—and touched the back of Rain's hand. Her fingers were gentle and warm. "There's something I want to show you that we found. Well, we—but, me also." She gave Rain a sincere smile that was so pretty it made the corners of Rainbow's lips lift just a little bit. But Rain's was a sad smile, too, like she was looking right at something she could never have.
Rain kept needing to bite her tongue so she wouldn't burst into tears. "Okay," she agreed, and let Robin lift Rain's hand into her own. She may as well just go along with it before her whole life turned to shit. God, she was going to be ruined. It took everything to stop herself from crying, biting on her tongue and the inside of her cheek, crumpling her face whenever Robin wasn't looking to ward away the tears. Go away, this is all my fucking fault. God curse her, honestly. She hated how much she loved the way Robin's hand felt in her own—like it was perfect and made to be and not an evil sin. It just felt right. She wanted to hold Robin's hand all day. And Rain despised herself for it.
Robin still held Rain's hand as she led her through the door to the back room, her fingers tightly clasped in Rainbow's own. Her grip was light and gentle, but Rain could feel the callouses on Robin's fingers from various sports and instruments. God, Rain, stop thinking like that. Disgust for herself clamped like a vice on her chest. God, Robin would absolutely hate her if she ever found out. So would everybody in this entire town. Fuck.
Rain expected to maybe see Steve with an ice cream cake to give her in an attempt to make her feel better, or maybe Tears For Fears playing on the radio, or even some more tallies on Steve's failed flirting whiteboard. She was not certainly expecting to see a random kid sat next to Steve as the both of them listened to an unidentifiable voice on some kind of recording device. The boy was wearing a green cap that squashed down his unruly curly hair and a matching green and yellow t-shirt, and had his face scrunched up in confused concentration. When Rain took that step into the room, they lifted their heads to look at her, and Steve immediately switched the recording off before Rain could even identify what was being said. "Hey, Rain!" Steve said with a smile as the unknown boy blinked at her.
Rain, for the life of her, could not understand why this kid was here. "I'm sorry, who is this random child in our workplace?" Rainbow pointed, at which the strange boy had the nerve to look irritated at her gesture. She just blinked at him with her long eyelashes.
Steve gestured excitedly at him. "This is Dustin!"
"He's basically, like, Steve's best friend," filled in Robin as she sidled up against Rain's side, a single eyebrow raised. Steve seemed to deflate at the apparent insult that was hidden in there somewhere and Dustin's face scrunched up.
Both of Rainbow's eyebrows lifted high on her face—though her expression was a little unimpressed. "Wow. That actually makes a lot of sense." Robin snickered beside her and Rainbow tried to crack a small smile, but it came out a little broken. God, she felt utterly awful. It was like someone had come along with a massive sledgehammer and struck her directly in the heart. Oh no, if she thought about it too much more she was going to cry again. To prevent just that, Rain firmly pressed one of her hands against her cheeks, trying to focus on the sensation and will away the tears. "So is this what you found? This weird kid? What, was he in the trash or something?"
That was apparently hilarious because Steve absolutely lost his shit and began to laugh so hard that tears sprung to his eyes. His child friend looked less than amused and gave him a look that was a cross between annoyance and exasperation. Steve continued to laugh uncontrollably and hit Dustin on the shoulder. "In the trash," he repeated through snickers. Robin also began to laugh. She rested her cheek on Rain's shoulder for balance.
"No!" exclaimed Dustin shortly to Rain in annoyance. "I was not found in the trash!" His tone only made Steve laugh harder and Dustin looked at him helplessly. "Dude, you're supposed to be helping me!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," cackled Steve as he rubbed his hands over his face. Robin had resorted to stifling her laughter by pressing her hand over her mouth, but it also meant that she was almost completely leant up against Rain for support. Robin's hair brushed over the side of Rain's neck and she briefly dropped her face into Rainbow's shoulder to muffle the sounds. "It's like the slug you found in the trashcan last year—"
Dustin seemed determined to clear this suspicion, so he looked towards Rain with wide eyes. "No—we intercepted a secret Russian broadcast!" exclaimed Dustin, which was certainly not what Rainbow had expected to hear, like, at all. She blinked a few times at him in confusion.
At first she thought she must have misheard it, because that was so incredibly out of place for a tiny dead-end town like Hawkins. "What?"
Robin glanced over at her, "Mhmm, a full-on Soviet transmission. On his radio. It's what we were looking at yesterday, when you weren't here." Squinting back at her in disbelief, Rainbow's face scrunched up in confusion. Robs, who must have sensed that she was having a difficult time processing the information, continued. "I translated most of it and we figured out it's encoded. These dinguses think it's Russians trying to get into Hawkins—Steve found one of those mechanical horse toys that you pop quarters into and bob up and down, and it was playing the same music as in the Russian recording—"
"You means the ones that play Daisy Bell?" asked Rain, aware of both the horses and the song. Her brows were pinched a little, still in confusion. When she saw they were all looking at her in confusion, Rain shrugged her shoulders. "My... my dad is really into old music..." Something was instantly wrong there—they must have all detected it. Rain swallowed a lump in her throat. "The song's from like the second World War. But, um, it's not Russian."
Robin nodded eagerly. She looked brilliant like that—all happy and proud. "Exactly. So, we think that the Russians recorded the message inside the mall," she finished, grinning widely at the pieces she'd uncovered. Rainbow's eyebrows raised once again.
Rain didn't look quite as excited about the whole thing as Robin seemed to expect her to be. She propped one elbow on her knee and rested her chin on her hands. "Man, I miss a day of work and all of a sudden there are Russians infiltrating the mall." Rain said it with a smile, but there was something off about how she spoke. She glanced at Robin for only a second before turning to look away, fiddling with the hem of her uniform. "That's exciting, though. You said the message was encoded? Maybe I can help crack it. I was always good with puzzles." Her smile wasn't convincing.
The smile that Robin gave her was a bit unsure, because at this point, she knew Rainbow well enough to tell when she was unhappy. Robs' expression looked more worried than anything, which made Rain's stomach twist in knots. Not entirely in a good way. If Robin found out about what Rain was hiding... Her thoughts were cut off by Robin's light words, "Yeah, we hoped you could help. These two are absolutely hopeless at cracking anything." She pointed jokingly between Steve and Dustin who each gave her an equally disgruntled look in return.
Rain nearly giggled, and her lips pulled up in a smile, but inside she felt awful. How was it possible to be feeling such different things at the same time? She was still trying to process this whole 'evil Russians' thing. Rain glanced up at Dustin in confusion. "Wait—so how the hell did you even find this broadcast in the first place?" she interrogated as she stared the kid down. Now that she thought about it, she had seen him around Jonathan Byers' little brother before, maybe. But she'd never had a conversation with Jonathan's brother before, much less his friend, so Rain couldn't quite be sure.
Dustin used a lot of big hand movements to try to explain, "Okay, so I built a ham radio to try to contact my girlfriend in Utah—her name is Suzie—but instead of reaching her I picked up this signal and this message. At first I thought it might have been a joke, but it kept repeating itself, like a message."
Trying to figure out if he was being serious or not, Rain's face scrunched up in thought. "And how do we even know this message is even real? Maybe someone is just fucking with us. I mean, if you were Russians trying to infiltrate America, why would you let your broadcast be so easy to discover?" One of her eyebrows raised and she'd buried a hand in her curly hair. She still felt shitty from how much she'd cried yesterday—her head still felt a bit heavy and her eyes still stung.
At her side, Robin shrugged. "It's in code, so I'm assuming it was a complete accident. I mean, it's probably something top secret, like a mission or information about weapons or something." She seemed genuinely excited about cracking the whole thing. Her eyes were bright and hopeful, though they did show concern for just how upset Rain looked. One of her hands had reached out to brush Rain's own in a sign of comfort. Rain wished she didn't crave it so much. "You'll help us, right?" asked Robin, and Rain saw the 'Bow' wanting to form itself on her lips. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Robin called her that around other people too.
Rainbow looked exhausted when she turned her head to look a Robin—with hollow, dark eyes—and nodded softly. She didn't keep eye contact with Robin long and forced herself to avoid her gaze. "Yeah, I'll help. It sounds fun," but she sounded a bit sad when she said it. Her last real adventure with friends.
Robin smiled. Her smile was so pretty it could have made Rain's heart warm for forever. Rainbow tried to keep the smile on her face, but she knew it was wavering and it made her look more upset than anything else. "Good!" She squeezed Rain's fingers. "I think we'll be here on decoding duty today, we can make Steve go out and serve." Steve rolled his eyes heavily at that but didn't complain, likely because he knew what an odd state Rain was in. Before Dustin could argue—and likely just in an attempt to give Rain some peace and quiet—Steve shoved him out the front into the parlour as well.
"It was nice meeting you," Rain offered Dustin as he left, but didn't feel up to much more than that. When the door shut behind the both of them, Rain massaged her index fingers into both of her temples intensely. She'd barely slept yesterday due to the tears and the whole thing felt like it was coming crashing down on top of her. Nausea bit at her stomach. Instead, Rain reached out to grab the recording device. "Let's listen to it then, shall we?" She pressed the play button.
The man's voice was gravelly and grating, but was, indeed, in Russian. "Nedelya dlinnaya. Serebryanaya koshka kormit, kogda siniy vstrechayetsya s zheltym na zapade. Poyezdka v Kitay zvuchit khorosho, yesli vy idete legko."
If Rain was being frank, she didn't understand a single inch of whatever the Russian man was saying. It all just sounded like a jumbled mess of nothing. The recording went to repeat itself but Rain turned it off before it had the chance. She didn't feel like hearing the droning voice repeat itself all over again. "That's really weird," Rain admitted, eyebrows furrowing. "So, what have you got so far?" she asked softly. She sat on the table to peer at the piece of paper Robin had written the notes out on. Though the Russian letters were above, somehow the English translation was even more confusing. Rain spoke it out loud slowly as she read them, "'The week is long... The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west... A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly...'? Okay, yeah, it's definitely encoded. As long as you're sure your translating is correct." But Rain trusted in Robin's judgement—she spoke so many languages that it made Rain's head spin, especially when she slipped some into conversation to throw Rainbow and Steve off. Rain had learnt Spanish in school and that was about it. English was a much more strong suit for her.
"It is," agreed Robin, tapping the pencil a few times against the page in thought. Her lips were pursed into a thoughtful expression, eyebrows lowered in confusion. "We've had a few tries at figuring out what the hell 'a trip to China sounds nice' means, and everything else, but it all just seems like... nonsense."
Rain's eyebrows adopted that same stitched expression. She carefully took the pencil off of Robin and hovered the lead over the paper Robin had provided—trying to piece together all the dots. "Yeah, I have no idea what China could mean. Maybe its because China and Russia are both Communist countries? Maybe they're starting... like... an alliance or something? But they wouldn't broadcast that in Hawkins." It was clearly a puzzle. God, why were they even going through all this effort again? Rain couldn't care less about being 'American Heroes'. At least not right now.
Rain read over the message again intently. 'The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.'
"Uh, I don't know," she tried, but it was clear her heart wasn't in it. Just focusing on such a task was difficult when she knew that as soon as she went home she'd have to face her parents not wanting to speak to her again—and anything she solved now would be worth nothing in the next day when word about her got out to Robin and Steve and even that weird Dustin kid. She'd have to skip town or something, or forever live as an outcast in Hawkins. Just the thought made her feel sick deep down in her stomach. All that school work for nothing.
Rain bit down so hard on her tongue that it stung, and then she pointed back at the piece of paper with the pencil. "So, um, maybe the 'blue meets yellow in the west' thing relates to the sun, right?" Rain offered. Her speech was a little deflated and flat, but Robin still watched her eagerly and curiously awaited her explanation. "I mean, the sun sets in the west, right? The sky is blue and the sun is usually depicted as yellow, so maybe it's talking about a time, specifically at sunset?" It was a bit of a stretch, but it started to make more sense as Rain thought it through. She made a little arrow on the page from that section that read 'blue + yellow + west = sunset??'.
Robin's eyebrows were raised and lips slightly parted. "Wow, I would have literally never thought about that." She seemed to analyse it over more, her blue eyes narrowed as she thought through the logistics of it all.
But as Rain mulled the idea over more, it just confused her more. That idea didn't seem to link up with any of the other pieces of information. Tread lightly? And what the hell was a silver cat? "I don't know how that has to do with anything let alone something to do with Starcourt mall," Rain groaned. She was getting a bit frustrated with herself, now. God, what was the point in graduating top of her class if she couldn't even solve a stupid riddle? "But... the week is long could mean the end of the week. So, either Friday or Sunday or Monday depending on if it's only weekdays, or including weekends, or who you ask. But probably Sunday. So, that's a day and time, right? Sunday as the sun is setting?" It was all beginning to fall apart a bit—and Rain wasn't quite convinced anymore. She put her hand over her face and sighed. "I don't know." There wasn't even a single joke made.
She seemed fed up with the whole thing, quite frankly. Rain stretched herself out over the table so her stomach was facing the ceiling and she covered her face with her hands. Clearly the others thought this might be a fun little task for her to do after she'd been so down, but right now Rain wanted to do nothing more than just sleep for hours and hours and maybe cry again. God, she was never going to get into university now. The thought just made her want to burst into tears.
Robin seemed unsure of what to do, but she turned her head towards Rain, with her eyes filled with concern and some strands of her hair over her face. "You okay, Bow?"
It was clear that she was asking about more than just this very moment. Rain dragged her hands hopelessly down over her eyes and let them fall by her side. "Yeah, something just came up with my parents." Her knees were pointed towards the ceiling in a sharp-edged arc, and she stared blankly up at the white roof, hair frizzed out around her head. There was something lonely and melancholic in her reply, which made Robin tilt her head.
The taller girl sat up on the same table, peering down at Rain with a gentle kind of worry. "Oh, are they okay?" She pushed some of her hanging hair out of her face—tucking the blonde strands beside her ear. Her blue eyes shone crystalline.
Rain didn't want to look at her. Instead, she kept her gaze solely on the ceiling, chest rising and falling softly in her Scoops Ahoy uniform. God, the only reason she'd come in today was to avoid seeing her parents. She should have just ditched and gone shopping. It's not like it would matter if she got fired anyway—when the whole town found out about her fast-spreading secret, she'd lose this job no matter what. She'd never get a job again. The thought pumped more sorrow and fear through her veins, and set her lips into a hard, frustrated line. It took everything to stop herself from crying. "Yeah, it's more to do with me. It's fine."
"Really? Do you want to talk about it?" There was no warrant for Robin caring about Rain this much. Sure, they were friends, but that would all end soon enough, when everyone found out the truth. And no, Rain did really not want to talk about it.
"No," she said rather firmly, gaze on the ceiling turning hard, as if she could glare a hole right through it. "It's fine, Robin." There was a sharp edge to her tone, tinged with annoyance. She really didn't want to talk about it anymore—Rain had already spent the entire previous day and night bawling her eyes out. There was nothing she wanted to ponder over less than what was going to happen to her when everyone found out about her secret.
Robin kept looking at her like that. "Are you sure? It might be good to get it off your chest."
"Robs—" sighed Rain, staring up at the ceiling in frustration. Her features were pinched and annoyed. She felt like crying bitterly all over again.
"And, you know, I've heard I'm a good listener, so—"
Rain sat up straight. "Look, Robin, it's really not any of your business." The words were as harsh as she'd intended, and she blinked away frustrated and confused tears. The other girl's eyes widened slightly at her words, hurt. Robin parted her lips for a moment and then closed them silently. She gave Rain a stiff nod before quickly escaping the room, pushing out into the serving parlour. Rain watched her go, putting her hands on her propped ankles. An angry tear fell down her cheek—angry at the world, at her parents, at Robin for making her feel this way, and most importantly: angry at herself. She wiped her tears away furiously. "Stupid, stupid, Rain. You're so fucking stupid for liking girls. Don't even think about liking Robin," she muttered quietly, sniffling. She angrily pressed her hands against her face, wanting to scream and cry at the same time.
A moment later, Steve walked out of the parlour into the back room, looking utterly confused, and froze when he saw Rain sitting on the mini-fridge with tear-stains on her face. His eyebrows dipped, "Did something happen?"
"No, Steve!" Rain exclaimed bitterly, "Just keep scooping!" He also seemed stunned at her outburst, and abruptly turned to leave. When the door clicked shut behind him, Rain buried her face into her knees and cried until her lungs hurt.
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:((((
it was like, super weird not writing rain as bubbly & happy and i so struggled to write the dialogue for this bc rain is just like not herself at all
i'm SORRY THAT THIS IS SAD! this'll all have a happy ending i promise, rain will get the happiness she deserves :')
word count: 5,057
05.06.2020.