Zccming​:

𝐖𝐇𝐎: robin buckley + @dvstybuns​​​​ ! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: the hospital 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: somewhere between 2-3 am

robin’s eyes felt both heavy and extremely puffy, a result of crying on and off as well as a lack of sleep. herself, max and dustin all sat at steve’s bedside and by this point, the hospital staff had pretty much given up on trying to move all of them out. especially given that max had decided to use a few… choice words which made even robin cringe. 

the three of them had forged some kind of unspoken agreement that they each had to sleep, but that they would take it in shifts. just in the instance that steve woke up while they were out cold. she’d offered for her two companions to sleep first but max had excused herself in search of a vending machine for all their stomachs were rumbling, and robin only thought that dustin had actually took her up on her offer. 

but now that she really looked at him, he was hunched over in his chair doing a very bad job at pretending to be asleep. robin supposed she couldn’t really blame him, steve had always been an important person in dustin’s life and none of them really wanted to sleep right now.  “i can see you breathing heavily, dingus.” she spoke softly, the nickname rolling off her tongue with ease. it almost felt right calling dustin that — a sort of passing down the torch from steve to dustin type deal.

melissaia​:

WHO: Melissa Armstrong + open WHERE: Outside City Hall WHAT: Community car wash

     There had never been a time when Melissa was so lost in her life. Waking up after her own death to find that three years had passed, head filled with foggy memories of the time between that felt false but with no way to prove it, she was just left…adrift. She had been accepted to university before she disappeared; now she was quite suddenly a twenty-one year old with no college credit, no career and no clue how to get back on track. Well, in all fairness it had only been a few days and she was bound to pull her shit back together soon enough, but in the meantime she clung to what was familiar, what came naturally. Community service. As long as she could be of use to her town, she wouldn’t be entirely unmoored.

     “It’s five dollars for a small to full-size car, ten for a truck or van,” she automatically listed the prices for the fund-raiser car wash as somebody approached their hopeful operation, looking up from her clipboard with a bright smile and squinting in the direct sunlight. “All proceeds go to rebuilding Benny’s Burgers. Or if you’re here to volunteer your time, we could always use more hands and we have plenty of sponges to go around.”

⚢

robin hadn’t initially intended to go to the community car wash down at city hall, but it just happened to be on the way home. don’t get her wrong it was for a great cause, but she didn’t have a car. though she had mentioned it to steve so he could take his down there, as compensation. that was, if he would even let anyone else touch his ‘precious baby’. and robin was just going to breeze on straight past, until the sound of a familiar voice drew robin’s attention, to which she walked directly through the commotion instead to locate the source. usually a familiar voice wouldn’t seem too odd, except- “…melissa?”

she would have said it was impossible, except there the other woman was. standing there, rallying the town together just like she had done back in high school. but she was supposed to be dead. “melissa, hi. it’s robin, we used to study together, we-“ kissed in the back of the library that one time right before you disappeared off the face of the earth, only to turn up dead not long after? oh, yeah. like she could say that. “what are you doing here?” voice barely above a whisper now, robin felt as if she could almost choke on thin air.

stevehharringtcns​:

.

robin seemed mad, to say the least. and this time around, steve didn’t know why she was mad, but it seemed like he had done something. which was weird, because he hadn’t seen robin in a week now, so there wasn’t necessarily a reason for her to be angry at him. at least he thought so. “o…kay.” steve said slowly as he processed what robin said, staring at the outside for a few moments as she made her way inside of his house, before he finally shut the door and turned to look at robin. she also seemed nervous with what she was about to say. “what do you want to talk about?” he asked, as he crossed his arms over his chest and looked at his friend - he was a bit tired, but he figured out he could sleep once robin left.

and that’s when robin started talking and steve was sure that he had never been more confused in his life. what was she talking about? steve had just come back from being out with his parents and now he was being blamed for something he was sure he hadn’t done. shaking his head slowly, steve looked at robin with a confused look on his face, but he didn’t interrupt her until she was done. “robin, what the hell are you talking about? what do you mean last night? i’ve been gone for a week, i haven’t seen you all week.” he said, shaking his head in confusion. he had no idea what the other was talking about, he couldn’t even come up with a theory - it was too early. “how did i hurt your feelings?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

steve couldn’t help to notice that robin really seemed nervous about this. he knew her, he knew when she was nervous about something, so it wasn’t hard to recognize it. “do you need to go outside? i’ll go with you.” he said, as he started moving towards the door that lead to his pool.

⚢

steve harrington. robin felt as if she knew him better than anyone. she knew his strengths and his weaknesses, what he liked and disliked and could almost predict how he would react to most things. though she did have a tendency to be incorrect, like right now for example. robin had assumed he’d just make excuses about last night. but instead steve appeared to be pretty clueless — with the key word being ‘appeared’ since she already knew that he was faking. but most importantly, they communicated stuff. like her telling him when she couldn’t handle things, or steve confiding in her about his sexuality. and robin knew that he was going to be out of town, she recalled steve mentioning it but he had also said it would just be for a couple of days.

so him claiming to have been gone for a whole week… yeah, right. this excuse made robin visibly roll her eyes, did he think that she was stupid? that he could just pull the wool over her eyes? well never mind that, there had been plenty of other people there who had also witnessed steve being at the cemetery last night.

so she concluded that steve was pulling her leg — didn’t want to confront his actions just yet so kept going along with the joke. this infuriated her even more. “what the hell are you talking about? seriously, this isn’t the time for goofing around. i saw you last night and so did everyone else!” if this was the hill that he was willing to die on, then it was a pretty silly one. the thought didn’t occur to robin that steve wasn’t exactly a great actor.

“hello, earth to steve? you implied that i drugged everyone, remember? total asshole move, by the way.” then she felt a little guilty for calling him that, so muttered a quick apology. at the suggestion, robin stood from the bottom of the steps and followed him to the door. “fine, let’s go outside.” some fresh air would probably do her some good.

❝  𝗜  𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗟  𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘  𝗠𝗬  𝗪𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗘  𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘  𝗛𝗔𝗦  𝗕𝗘𝗘𝗡  𝗢𝗡𝗘  𝗕𝗜𝗚  𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗥.  ❞

𝗯𝗶𝗼 & 𝗺𝗶𝘅𝘁𝗮𝗽𝗲 & 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱

zccming​:

.

“next time.” max nodded, signaling that at this point, robin had little say in the matter. her mind was set on the idea of teaching robin to skate, and she intended on following through on that come hell or high water. truthfully, at this point, the only thing robin could do was avoid showing up, but even then, max was likely to track her down. she stood at the ready, prepared to soothe any and all reservations robin might still be having. “i’m great at patching up.” she insisted, implying that this instance had been an outlier in her track record. “i had to do it to myself all the time when i was learning, it’s like, battle scars, and you get to show all the other skaters how tough and seasoned you are. doesn’t that sound fun?” max enthused, getting carried away with the idea of being able to spend time at the skate park with another girl and not just cole. 

max pulled her words and eager demeanor back in then sucked on her teeth. robin’s attempt had been pretty pathetic, but, “yeah, guess you did.” she had a hunch that robin wasn’t the type to learn well under tough love. she proceeded to nod, “of course i do, i mean, you’re kinda cool now and whatever…” robin definitely wasn’t the epitome of cool in the traditional sense, but max had always thought so, her words were genuine. “but think about how much cooler you’ll be when you can zip around town all effortlessly, like, vicki vickers or something!” 

⚢

“fine. but if you even think about telling anyone how bad i am, the deals off.” maybe it wouldn’t turn out to be so bad. after all, max was talented with a board — literally everyone and their mom knew that. in fact, a couple weeks back her own mother had gone grocery shopping and returned talking about the girl on the skateboard doing tricks and hanging around down there.

while she wasn’t the only girl that skated in hawkins, straight away robin knew it had to have been max and proudly said as much, and that she also happened to be her friend. so yeah, she was good. it was just relying on the fact now that max would be able to effortlessly pull off teaching someone who had trouble walking straight, let alone travelling on a physical moving object.

“do other skaters really care about that?” if they did robin would definitely end up being the toughest and most seasoned skater around. in that, she would probably be covered in hundreds of cuts and bruises way before that point. “you think i’m cool or whatever?” at this, she smiled widely. no one had ever called her cool before, being in band solidified being anything but cool. yet this felt sincere, and coming from literally the coolest kid robin knew too! “let’s not get ahead of ourselves, one step at a time please.”

eddiemcnson​:

+++

“huh? what was that?”, he called out, even louder, a wide, toothy, teasing grin on his face. he’d turned up his stereo real loud, not loud enough to cause any of the neigbours to call the cops on him but loud enough so that the muffled sounds of the latest ‘ratt’ record were audible in the living room.

eddie grimaced as she mentioned the mattress, resisted the urge to pull his hair over his face to hide behind it, seeing as he wasn’t particularly keen on having it go up in flames. “oh my god, robin, just let it go. please. i give you plenty enough material for your mediocre jokes as is, let the fucking mattress go.”, he muttered around puffs, brows drawn together. 

but he loved it, their dynamic. hanging out with robin was always easy and comfortable, didn’t feel forced at all. their vibes just .. matched, it was hard to explain. after vecna, after everything had happened and they’d gotten closer, started to hang out more, eddie had often wondered why they hadn’t been friends in high school.

kicking his feet up on the coffee table, he passed the joint to her, eyed her with a frown. “bullshit.”, he said, crossed his arms over his chest. “what’s the matter, what’s going on?”

⚢

all robin seemed to be able to do when eddie spoke even louder was laugh. “you are so annoying.” she shook her head fondly, paying no real mind to the loud music coming from the bedroom. this was eddie they were talking about, and if there was one thing besides hellfire that he was known for, it was his love of music. which is why robin wasn’t fazed, and she was pretty used to it by now. it was just something that came with their friendship.

 “i will never forget that mattress in my life. the image is still carved into my eyelids.” robin hoped that somewhere along the line, eddie or at least his uncle had replaced the old thing. but until she received explicit confirmation, it was pretty likely that she would purposely stay well away from sitting on eddie’s bed. 

 taking the joint from eddie’s hand, robin took a long drag from it. “where do i even start?” another drag, just for good measure before passing it back to him. “do you ever feel like, something’s going on but you just can’t be too sure about it?”

𝐖𝐇𝐎: robin buckley + @yousuzeyoulose​ ! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: henderson residence

a knock on the door to the henderson household has robin feeling a little anxious. she doesn’t know why, maybe something to do with the reason why she was here. “hi mrs henderson.” she greeted politely when dustin’s mother opened the door and motioned for robin to come inside. claudia shut the front door behind her and mentioned that dustin was in his room, but that he might be catching up on some sleep.

of course she would know that both her son and robin would have banded together to support steve in his hour of need. “oh no, that’s fine. actually… i’m here to see suzie.” she’d hoped that the rumours were true, and that dustin’s girlfriend was camping out at the henderson house for the summer. thankfully mrs henderson showed her where suzie’s room was and robin thanked her.

giving herself a moment, she then knocked on the bedroom door, waited for yet another moment before calling out to the girl on the other side. “suzie? hi, it’s uh. robin! dustin’s friend. actually, i’m steve’s friend and dustin was also steve’s friend so we kind of bonded through that but-“ her mouth moved way too fast sometimes. “i was hoping we could… talk?”

sinclairss​:

-

when robin discarded her silverware, lucas unrolled the set on his side of the table and leaned over to stab a piece of pancake. he was mid-bite when he shook his head, changed his mind halfway, and nodded instead. “i mean, probably? it’s just…” he paused to thank the waitress as she dropped off his chocolate shake and turned to take a long sip from it before continuing. “…it’s just that whenever i get to close to the fence i start feeling…weird.” he knew that didn’t make any sense. he knew that it was just a graveyard and that, logically, nothing was going to jump out and push him into a grave-

unless cole was there. then he might fall back into a grave. but there was probably a perfectly logical explanation to everything.

or…something was going on. lucas picked at the remains of robin’s pancakes. he took a bite and then pointed his empty fork at her, voice dropping just a bit. no one else probably cared what they were talking about, but it was habit from when they’d had to do all of their debriefing in the wheelers’ basement. “could be worse,” he said with a shrug, dropping his gaze to the table and clearing his throat. “why do you say that?” he wanted to know. did everyone see something strange that night? “did…” he decided to go another direction. “do you even remember what happened? because i don’t think i was that drunk but i can barely remember who else was even there.”

⚢

lucas basically attacking robin’s leftover pancakes only made her shake her head, a slightly amused look on her face. “jeez, do your parents just like, never feed you?” she took a sip from her own milkshake and listened as he talked about the cemetery, nails tapping against the table surface. when he finished, robin instinctively raised an eyebrow out of curiosity and ceasing the tapping in the process. “wait, weird how?” an interesting development, she wondered if the rest of their group would feel the same way when confronted with the cemetery. robin couldn’t really speak for herself on the matter, she hadn’t been back there since that night.

she really wanted to just brush it off. excuse it as just an anomaly, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. maybe — just maybe, forget the whole thing all together! that would certainly make sleeping a whole lot easier, and cease her brain from putting two and two together to make ten. “i don’t know, maybe i’m just being paranoid.” a defeated sigh, none of this made any logical sense. “i remember some things.” to robin, she felt like she remembered quite a lot, although it was difficult to gauge because who knew what exactly was missing? “for starters, you and i were there. and steve, obviously. then cole, cassie and tessa. does that help jog your memory?”

# eddie is fed up with their lack of music culture

STRANGER THINGS | Papa (4.08)

zccming​:

WHO: max mayfield & @rcbinbvckleys​ WHAT: a little trauma bond for the girls WHERE: buckley residence

morning or night, max was still functioning in survival mode. four hours of sleep was a good night, she ate her first meals around dinner time if she even remembered, she’d showered maybe once this week. between rounds at the hospital and going door to door for her other friends who hadn’t gotten hurt, there was hardly any time for those little things, let alone digesting what went down in the house of mirrors. but if there was anybody who would get it, it was robin. 

with no regard for the hour, she skated to robin’s house, collected some pinecones from the yard, then began pelting her window with them. there was no easily scalable way in, so this would have to do. she hoped robin wasn’t a heavy sleeper, because she was reaching a breaking point. she had to talk about it. when the other finally opened the window to find the source of this commotion, max looked sheepishly up at her, “hey.” she started, dropping her pine cones, “are you busy? do you think…i could maybe like, come in or whatever?”

⚢

laying flat on her back robin just stared at the ceiling blankly, just like she had done most nights since that evening. ever since, the events of which had just replayed over and over in her mind like a retrospective bad omen. hell, she couldn’t even walk past a mirror without averting her eyes which made brushing her teeth rather difficult. however she’d managed to come up with a few rather unconventional methods to combat that hurdle. 

in the times that she had managed to sleep, an ethereal version of vickie had appeared to robin in dream. the two of them embarked on the beginnings of their relationship, replaying their first conversation after the upside down, their first date, their first kiss… and that was where it always went wrong. after their lips separated, vickie reverted to nothing but a burning pile of ash. robin had awoken and cried and screamed into her pillow way too many times, so lying awake? yeah, that was better than sleep.

the tapping at the window made her jump with a start, disregarding any other thoughts and sitting bolt upright.  leaning over to peer out of the window, robin began to brace herself for who or what was waiting for her on the other side. and as her eyes gradually adjusted, was relieved to find that it was just max. the one person who would definitely understand what she was going through. 

opening the window, she leaned out slightly as max began to talk. “do you have any idea what time it is, mayfield?” she hissed, then began to contemplate the repercussions of allowing someone into their house this late. but what her parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. she slowly nodded her head before departing from the window. robin crept downstairs and opened the front door, ushering max in quickly. “follow me and just- don’t touch anything, okay?”