༉˚*ೃ ᵒ⁵. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇!
( tw. homophobia )

𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐏 to work the next day with a head of un-brushed hair and a dozed-off look on her face, head being cracked open with a hammer each time she blinked and eyes burning like miniature suns. It was the first thing Steve pointed out—rather rudely, Rain thought, who was Steve Harrington to tell a girl she looked like a mess?—and Rain had just blinked painfully at him. Her solution had been to simply sit down in one of the Scoops Ahoy booths and try to ride out the hangover.

          "Tell me," said Robin as she wiped a cloth down one of the tables, letting Rain sit back in the couch with her head propped back, "How late did you stay up last night?" Rainbow was incredibly hungover. Maybe she did drink a bit too much. God, she couldn't even remember half of it. The moments were all blurred together like some kind of acrylic painting. She remembered Harry, and Cherry inviting her up onto the table, and doing shots with some of the girls, and then making out with Jennifer, and that was about it.

          The lights were too bright, and Rain opted to shut her eyes. She thought about the question momentarily, feeling like she might vomit. She already had twice that morning. "Uh... until like, four AM." It was a miracle she'd gotten out of her house this morning without both of her parents smothering her with questions.

          The cleaning cloth halted its movements on the table. "You mean to tell me you only got four hours of sleep last night?" Robin sounded alarmed, as if she was ready to put Rain right back to sleep on this couch here and now.

          Rain made a face, turning her head to look at Robin while squinting. "I mean, yeah. It was a party, Robin."

          Her co-worker huffed as if she didn't care the circumstances. "You should still be sleeping, Bow." She blew some of her hair out of her face and looked at Rain suspiciously. "Please don't die of sleep deprivation on me."

          A groan left Rain's round lips and she dropped her head surprisingly hard on the table with a loud thunk. "Ugh, Robin, it was one night. I'm not going to die." Then she let out an, "ow," because she hadn't anticipated hitting the table that hard. She opted to just lay there for a moment, because her mind was spinning once again. Ugh, she should have drunk less. But it had been so fun.

          "You better not, Princess. I don't want to be stuck working with just Harrington again." The boy was back working serving the customers again. He'd been kind enough to put Rain on clean-up duty after seeing how unhinged she looked. Steve—the Keg King of Hawkins High—probably knew all too well how a bad hangover felt. Rain was incredibly thankful for him in that moment, even if he was terrible at picking up girls and was an idiot most of the time.

          "As if I'd ever leave this ice-cream hellhole," said Rain, tilting her head back to look up at the taller girl. The soft glint in Robin's eye caught Rainbow a bit off guard. It was affectionate and fond, and, coupled with the gentle smile that had appeared on Robin's lips, made Rain's heart clench a little bit. What did we say, Rain? she reminded herself, no falling for straight girls. Nancy Wheeler had been enough to break Rain's heart—she didn't need it again with another smart, sweet, witty girl, and her co-worker no less. Rainbow knew Robin would never feel the same. "Not without you, anyway." And— oh, just had to make it weird, didn't you, Rain? she scolded herself mentally, and instantly bit her lip hard.

          Robin did not look weirded out at all, but just smiled and sunk onto the cushion beside Rain. "We'll probably be working here till we're forty, then, Bow." When she dropped the damp cloth with a sigh and lowered her hand, her fingers fell atop Rain's. The shorter girl's heart leapt in her chest and she tried to hide any expression on her face that gave away what she was feeling. Robin wasn't so successful, because the freckles on her cheek were drowned out with a soft pink colour, and the tips of her ears turned a little red. It was so surprising and delightful, that Rain was the one to draw her hand away in surprise. It was just an accident, Rain reminded herself, girls just blush all the time. She noticed Robin biting at her nails again—so that's why the nail polish was always so chipped—and Rain leant her back up against Robin's side.

          "I think I'm gonna die, Robs," said Rain rather dramatically, letting her head fall back against the side of Robin's shoulder. She was so short, it was nearly embarrassing. At bordering 5'4", she was what Robin liked to call a 'miniature person'. Robs only said that so it gave her an excuse to pick Rain up and carry her around whenever she didn't want to do something, like restock the fridge or pack up the chairs after closing hours. It was still annoying. "I don't feel really great."

         Robin—deciding to be an asshole in this moment—snickered at her. "That's probably because you decided to stay up until four in the morning, Princess." Rain tried to glower at the pet name, but it made her heart melt a little.

          "Four isn't even late, Robin! You're just lame." She stuck out her tongue gently, trying her best to keep her body stable so she wouldn't throw up again. There was still a bit of nausea in her system that picked up every time she stood up.

           Robin had the audacity to look a little offended, though she said her next words through a smile, "I am not lame! I'll have you know that me and the other band geeks get up to all kinds of crazy stuff."

          "Doing pot doesn't count, Robin," sighed Rainbow. The sun filtering through the large sunlight in the mall made her head ache again. She crammed down the need to throw up. Ew, hangovers. Rain cradled her hand in her fingers once again and hoped she would start to feel better over the next few minutes.

          "It totally does," said Robin back, though she'd dropped her voice to a whisper so that it wouldn't gave Rain any more of a headache than she already had. "I bet you've never done any in your life."

          "As if you would know, Buckley. You've only really bothered to get to know me these past three weeks." It was just a jest jab, a lazy smile on Rainbow's face. One of her eyebrows was raise in a soft challenge. Try me. It was all bluff, of course, but it was always fun to watch the way in which Robin's brows furrowed together as she tried to get to the bottom of something. She always looked pretty like that.

          A group of girls glanced at where Robin and Rain glanced at the booth and began to whisper to one another, eyes not leaving the Scoops Ahoy pair. Rain glanced at them out of the corner of her eye. She shot them a glare because they were being too loud for her comfort and it was making her head hurt even more. Ew, she should have just skipped. For the moment, Rain just leant her head on the palms of her hands and prepared herself to work the moment her hangover had graced her with its disappearance.

         Working that day was, to be frank, strange. She got strange looks when she was ringing up the register or handing over their ice creams. People seemed to be murmuring to one another while staring at her—exchanging secrets or gossip. It all made Rainbow a little stressed. One gang of teenagers had seemed to hover in the Scoops foyer just to throw glances at her. She'd caught glimpses of their conversation from where she stood at the counter, mumbles of "yeah, that's right" or "mhmm", but nothing enough to catch a full conversation. It was strangely unnerving.

          "Robin," she asked at one point during their break, after an older middle-aged woman cast her a dirty look from another store. "Is something wrong with my appearance? Like, I don't have dirt on my face, or messy hair, or a torn uniform, or anything like that, do I?" Rain hadn't been able to spot anything off about her in the mirror in the backroom, but she still felt strangely exposed.

          Robin's eyebrows scrunched together in visible confusion. "No, not at all—why would you think that?"

         In response, Rainbow just shrugged and took another drink of the water Steve had gotten her to help quell her hangover. "I don't know. I just have a weird feeling."

༉*ೃ༄

𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐁𝐎𝐖'𝐒 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑-𝐒𝐊𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐃 to a stop outside her front door after work, as the sun was setting over the town of Hawkins. The air was humid and damp and Bow thought it would probably rain a little while later. She wanted to get inside before that happened.

          "Hey Mom, Dad, I'm home!" Rain exclaimed as she let herself in, dropping her backpack by the door and taking her helmet off her curly hair. She hopped to take her roller-skates off, masterfully staying still on a single foot. The nail-polish on one of her neat fingernails had been chipped off at the party the other night. Now, it stuck out in an ugly fashion. She sighed as she stepped out onto the floor in her socks.

          "We know," Mary Simmons said from the kitchen, and Rain stopped in her tracks. She hadn't heard her mother's voice that cold in... forever. It made nausea and anxiety crash through Rain's system. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach, and all the spit in her mouth dried up.

          The next few steps that Rainbow took towards the kitchen were careful and hesitant. She wanted to run away very fast and not come back. Her veins seemed to be numb. I could leave right now and avoid whatever she's mad about, thought Rain to herself, grab my skates and run. But Rain wasn't brave enough to return later for her mother to yell at her about leaving. Actually stepping into the kitchen took all of Rain's willpower and strength. The floor tiles were cold under Rainbow's feet and the feeling seeped through her socks into her soles. Both of her parents stood at the counter looking madder than she'd ever seen them, each staring her down terribly. Her mother gripped the counter so hard Rain thought it might shatter like ice.

         "Is something wrong?" Rain asked, voice uncharacteristically small. Her eyes moved slowly between their two figures: observing their angry stances, the way her mother's face was set like stone and her father's was furious, the curled of their fists, their hardened gaze. Rain knew before they even had to say anything—of course she knew.

          "The Johnsons rang us," Rain's mother said. Her voice was still that sharp and cold tone. It made Rainbow's eyes drop towards the floor. She could hear her heart beating in her ears. "They told us some very foul things that they heard from their son. You know him, don't you? Matthew." Rain just bit her lip and prayed that she was anywhere but here. Let me be with Robin or Steve, or even back at school, just not here. When she didn't respond, her mother's rage only seemed to heighten. It was sharp in her tone and the way the words left her lips filled with hate. "Well, don't you?" Her voice was demanding. Everything that ever showed that she'd loved Rain was gone.

          "Yeah," Rainbow murmured back, throat closing over. She refused to look up once again. Rain hated the anger she saw in their eyes. It seemed to fester beneath her skin, calling her disgusting and foul and all kinds of wrong. She wished she could just squeeze her eyes shut and avoid it all. But Rain was too scared to close them.

         Her mother exhaled through her nose. "Do you know what they told us?" asked her mother. It was like she was trying to drag it out for as long as possible. Rain just wanted it to be over with—she hated seeing her family angry.

          Rainbow held her backpack straps tighter and ground her toes into the cold tile flooring. She dared her eyes to flicker up and glance at her parents once again. In all her life, she'd never seen so much hatred on their faces that was directed at her. It was out of character for her father to not speak for so long, and Rain shrunk into herself, posture failing her.

           "They told us," spoke up her father eventually. His voice was gravelly and wrought tight with anger. "That Matthew caught you at a party,"—Rain's heart gave a stuttering squeeze of fear—"doing terrible, disgusting things with a girl." That striking stab of fear shattered throughout her body, from her fingers to her heart to her mind and her toes. It was fire and ice all at once. Her throat dried up and closed over, her mind went blank, and all she could think was they know, they know, they know. It paralysed her entire being; iced the blood in her veins. She was going to lose her parents, and her normal life, and her opportunities, all because she couldn't love a boy. It wasn't fair. She hadn't done anything wrong—except she knew she had, because it was all wrong. "Kissing a girl." There was such a strong tone of disgust in his voice that it punctured something deep inside Rain's heart.

          "Is that true, Rain?" her mother asked coldly—though she looked like she'd already made up her mind.

          Rainbow's thoughts reeled for some other kind of explanation. There were already tears in her eyes, panic rising within her and tightening her chest notch by notch. "No—!" scrambled Rain, her voice hoarse and choked. She was already being tortured by crying. It gave it all away. "No, that's— that's not true, I was just—!"

          "Because it sounded mighty like it was true," Rain's father spoke again in a tone seethed with cold anger. She stared at him fearfully, eyes rounded in fear and horror and the overwhelming urge to cry. "You know how that is. You know it's crime against God." He spat every word. The feeling of horrified paralysis was creeping through her system—like her body was shutting down from the inside out. No. Please, no, God, I've been good.

          "It's not true, it's— no, I would never do that. That's all wrong!" But the way she was stumbling for words made it clearer than dawn. "It was— it was just a joke! I promise Dad, Mama, it was just a joke!" The tone of her voice was strained high with panic. Rain's chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. She was being squeezed by a great invisible vice, ribs were splintering open into shards and lungs were losing all their air. This was how it felt to die. I've been good, I promise.

            "A joke?" her father seethed. Panic was clear on Rainbow's features, her eyes blown wide and filled with tears. She was still trembling. Her gaze darted around the room, mind scrambling for more answers as she stumbled over her own words. "The boy said you had your tongue down that skank's throat!" And that wasn't fair, because Jennifer was sweet and good—but she was the same as Rain. "Our daughter is not a filthy homosexual." He spoke the words as if it was a fact, like speaking them would make it come true, like he was ready to make her not his daughter if that were the case.

          Rain tripped over her words. "No, Mama, Dad, I— I didn't! It's not— it's not true!" she fought back, a tear sliding down her cheekbone. There was no possible way to convey the amount of terror and nausea that built up within her. "It's not!" She could fight with them tooth and nail—but they'd always know. She'd always been a terrible liar. "That's all wrong—I'd know never to do that. I know how it is— I would never! Matthew was mistaken." Her gaze was pleading, like a final beg. "He was just mistaken!" The fear was crawling and climbing up her throat like choking hands.

          "No he wasn't," her father said in such a stone-cold fashion that it made her freeze. She was trying her very best not to sob, her vision clouded. They spilled a little out of her mouth anyway—a small, soft, sad sound—because she knew she'd already lost. Her father wasn't nearly done yet. Rain's mother just wore a look of incredibly angered disappointment. "Is this how we raised you? To be a d***?" Rain very visibly flinched, eyes dropping from their forms to the tiled floor once again. Mouth shut, don't look. Be good for once. "To defy God and go around committing the worst sins imaginable?" She refused to speak—to say anything that might upset them further. Her mouth was just a straight line, quivering as she tried very hard not to cry. Her fingers squeezed the shorts of her Scoops costume. "Look at me!" her father yelled. "Do you know what you've done to us?" Rain forced herself to look up then, glossy eyes shining in the kitchen lamplight. She'd torn into her bottom lip with her teeth and it was spotting blood. "You've shamed us, you've taken everything we've ever given you and rubbed it in mud. You've tainted our family name. You ungrateful girl."

           But they weren't nearly done, because then her mother placed her hands firmly on the marble kitchen counter and gave Rain a glare so withering that it made her sink further into herself. Rainbow's arms were hugged around her own body in some kind of attempt for protection. She tore her gaze away from her parents again and looked at the floor while she cried and trembled. "I cannot believe you," said her mother, as if it was all Rain's fault, "I cannot believe you'd turn on us like this. You know what a sin this is! We should kick you onto the streets! Committing such grievous sins in our household. Those... abominations." Her mother was not letting up, the fury on her usually sweet features scalding. "We will if you don't turn away from such... such terrible, disgusting behaviours."

          Rain could not even attempt to stop her crying now—her heart filled with hurt and betrayal and grief, any hope that maybe her parents could love her this way gone—and the tears spilled down her face and down her throat and her body was wracked with deep, quiet, painful sobs. She could have tried to beg, but Rainbow knew it wouldn't do any good.

          The expression worn on both her parent's faces told her as much. Rain's mother kept speaking, her entire face brought into an expression of pure anger, "We don't want to hear from you again. Either you turn away from all of this, or you're no longer our daughter." Rain's chest gave an anguished squeeze—she wanted to cry out and scream at them that she loved them and she would try to change, but her voice betrayed her. Her mother straightened her back and both of Rain's parents stepped away from the counter, until they were moving towards the door. "I hope you think about this," her mother said, not even bothering to call Rain by her name, as she and Rain's father walked past Rain's distraught form. It was just 'you', now. "We won't put up with this kind of disgusting behaviour within our household. It's your choice, Rain." They left Rain a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor, and closed the front door behind them.

༉*ೃ༄

:(

i know that naturally her parents and everyone else would call her slurs but as i'm not a lesbian or a gay man i obviously can't say the d or f slurs. so i won't be writing out those

word count: 3,365

21.02.2020.