Capítulo 4: 4. My best friend (Nancy, the girls & Barb)
A/N: This is for my lovely and faithful reader from AO3, Toongrrl1990, who wanted some Barb involving the girls. This is kind of sad, so I hope you guys enjoy it. #Barbwearesorry
Prompt: The Party/Girls discuss Barb, and they watch Pretty in Pink.
Max rolled her eyes for the fourth time in three minutes as Dustin yelled at Lucas to fireball whatever monster they were fighting on the campaign now. The squad, or The Party, as Dustin liked to call them, had reunited in Mike's house to hang out. Or so they told Max, but instead she found herself 3 hours in a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons, bored out of her mind. At first she had decided to not be an annoying jerk and listen to the campaign. She had to admit Mike was a great DM, his storytelling was spot on and capturing; but she didn't have the patience for a game this long. They were barely halfway through, and Max wanted to flip the damn table already. She looked over from her spot beside Lucas, and locked eyes with an equally bored El.
The brunette was lazily resting her head against Mike's shoulder, pretending to read from his open book, but Max could tell the girl was ready to get out of there, only remaining in place by Mike's sporadic attention. Mike was in the zone, and although his puppy love made him want to glue his eyes to El's face, he was totally enraptured by the story.
Max lifted her eyebrows, and raised her eyes to the ceiling, jerking her head towards the stairs to signal her plans to El.
The girl nodded and Max let a relieved sigh slip from her lips. "We're going upstairs for a bit."
"What, why?" Lucas asked her as he interrupted his bickering with Dustin to look in her direction.
"We're bored." She stated plainly, smirking as Will let a gasp in fake-astonishment.
"You too?" A crestfallen Mike asked El as the telekinetic girl stood up.
"Yeah." She nodded ruefully.
"Oh, okay." He nodded, upset that his favorite girl was leaving. "Sorry for boring you."
"It's okay. You're great." El smiled as she touched Mike's shoulder for one last time, as both girls walked towards the stairs. "We'll be back in a few." She threw behind her shoulder.
"I'm great!" Mike repeated happily and the boys erupted in teasing voices, making fun of the boy as he tried to shush them angrily.
Both girls giggled as the teasing fell to muffled voices, closing the basement door behind them.
"We're not going back there, are we?" Max asked El.
"God, no." El shook her head as they made their way through the house.
The TV was on in the living room and Max peered over hesitantly, thinking Ted was asleep again, but instead she found Nancy watching a movie by herself.
"Hey!" Nancy told the pair as she spotted both girls entering the living room. "Those nerds bored you, already?"
"I've been bored since the first 20 minutes we got here." Max answered as she plopped herself next to Nancy on the couch.
The older girl laughed as she passed the bowl of popcorn to El, who took a seat on her other side. "Well, you girls want to stay here with me? My movie partner has a bedtime."
The girls proceed to watch as Farmer Ted made the bet of getting Sam's panties with his friends Cliff and Bryce.
"Yeah, that's such a good thing to do to get a girl to go out with you." Max scoffed sarcastically as she showed on a mouthful of popcorn.
"High school boys are douches. They only care about one thing." Nancy shared a pointed look with both girls, happy when they both nodded in understanding. "Great thing you'll both have each other when you get there. Not that you'll need the help on boys; as I see it there's no worries there, is it?" She smirked at both girls, watching in satisfaction as their cheeks began to pink. She had caught Max and Lucas greeting the other with a kiss on the cheek, and El and Mike—, well, those two were a known fact.
"But seriously, is a great thing to have a best friend girl who gets you." Nancy sighed.
"Do you have a girl best friend?" Max asked curiously as they watched Jake slow dance with Caroline Mulford.
Nancy tensed beside her, and tightly gulped down the mouthful of popcorn she had been chewing.
"I did." She answered carefully.
"What happened to her?" Max asked hesitantly, watching the blue eyed brunette's reaction.
"She... umm—"
"She's gone." El answered carefully for her as she took Nancy's right hand in hers.
"Oh. Gone-gone?" Max asked warily, not knowing if she was overstepping with her questions.
"Yeah," Nancy sighed heavily. "Gone-gone. She... uh—"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Nancy. I understand." Max told her earnestly, watching the older girl struggle with her words.
"No," Nancy reassured her, pausing the movie and turning to look at her. "No, it's not that. You deserve to know." Nancy nodded to herself and after taking the redhead's hand in her free one, Nancy told her about Barb's disappearance, and how the Demogorgon took her forever.
"I had to lie to her parents. About everything. And it was harder for me to sit there and look them in the face as they kept on hoping that Barb would come back, while I knew she wouldn't." Nancy took a shaky breath. "That's where I was when you guys were with Steve. I was with Murray, the investigator. He was actually pretty cool. Helped me shape up the story to make it sound convincing and to make those bastards take the blame. I had to, for Barb. I owed that to her."
"How was she?" El asked tentatively, after a few minutes of heavy silence. "Was she pretty?"
"Oh, she was super pretty. The prettiest," Nancy nodded with a watery smile. "She had this gorgeous red hair, like you," she smiled at Max. "She wore it short, around her ears, but she rocked that haircut like no one else. And she had these freckles dotted around her nose—"
"Like Mike's?" El asked curiously.
"Kind of. Mike's are darker, hers were paler. She had really pale skin, almost white; we used to joke she was a vampire. And because she used braces in elementary school, we used to joke they were for keeping her fangs in." The girls laughed, and Nancy took a deep breath, gathering fun stories to tell the girls.
"Once, when we went to the Hawk, we had to get out at mid movie because we couldn't stop laughing. Barb had soda running down her nose and popcorn was flying out of my mouth," the three girls laughed, two of them from imagination, and Nancy from memory. "The woman in front of me had to remove wet popcorn from her hair and I couldn't stop laughing, even after she turned in her seat and actually told me to shut up. I swear that was the first time someone looked at me with hate in their eyes."
"Why were you laughing?" El wondered with laughter.
"I don't know," Nancy laughed even harder. "I don't know."
"When I began to date Steve, many girls were jealous. Steve had this kind of unofficial fan-club." Nancy rolled her eyes.
"This girl, Dana McNamara, pushed me once against the sinks of the bathroom, and told me she didn't know how a 'stud' like Steve could date someone as plain and ugly like me. She told me I had the body of a twelve year old." Nancy shook her head, reviving the moment on her mind. "That was the first time someone made fun of me to my face. Know what Barb said to her?"
"What?" Both girls asked at the same time, watching Nancy with undivided attention.
"Well, first she got her off of me, and then she told her: 'Nancy doesn't have to be Miss Universe in order to be beautiful. She's unique and amazing on her own right; she's smart and kind, and everything you'll always wish to be. And there's one more thing she is, and you'll never get to be, and that's being Steve's girlfriend. And while you cry and get angry over it, Nancy is happily living her life while you stay bitterly alone. Go and live your plastic life, because you may be pretty on the outside, but you're rotting inside'; and after that, I had to hug her for the longest of time, because I knew she would always have my back." Nancy swallowed tightly again. "High school girls are bitches. That's why you two have to remain together." She looked at the two younger girls on her couch, and smiled, knowing their hearts would remain pure, no matter what.
And after, when the kids had all gone home, and she was alone in her room, Nancy found the picture of braces-Barb in her Halloween costume, posing threateningly as a vampire. Tears sprang from her eyes as she clutched the photo of her best friend to her chest, crying for the girl who had her life stolen. The girl who had been and would always be the best friend Nancy ever had; she wept because she hadn't been the best friend Barbara Holland deserved, and she sobbed because even through all of her mistakes, Barb had never stopped believing in Nancy.
"I'm sorry, Barb," she cried. "I'm sorry, Barbie." She pressed wet kisses to the face of her best friend, and then placed the photo back on her album, stashing it away next to the few items of clothing Barb had left in Nancy's room.
That night, she dreamed of a fierce red head, hissing and clawing like a vampire, defending herself from the real monster and then coming back to laugh with Nancy in the movies.
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