Backtowheeler​:

jackforeman​:

Jack hadn’t really spoken to Robin Buckley much at all in his life before being at the Wheelers’ family barbecue. It was there that he learned she’d become friends with Steve, his coworker, even, and it was just another reminder of what he’d missed while he was now known to be dead, not just gone in a cult. He would have considered her presence on his front porch a threat, that she was here to chew him out about attacking their mutual friend at the carnival, even if it was something that Jack had no recollection of. 

Instead, it seemed that she was here in peace. It was nice to know that Steve’s condition had remained stable since he’d gone to visit, when he’d gotten the strength to face his friend to apologize for what he’d done. “Oh, that’s … great, actually. That’s good. I went by yesterday, just to say hi, and, well, I figured I owed him an apology.” He shifted, uncomfortable and embarrassed by what he’d done that he couldn’t even remember. “Do you want to come in?”

⚢

“oh, i uh, didn’t know you’d been by.” she felt a little sheepish now. suppose she’d been too caught up in her own thoughts to pay any real attention to whether steve had told her about jack visiting or not. the previous evening she’d paid a visit to vickie’s mom, to pay her respects and to apologise. the apology held way more weight than it should have done, but it felt necessary under the circumstances.

“anyway, they think he might be able to go come home soon.” and honestly, thank fucking god for that. while steve was definitely doing a whole lot better, it was still painful to see him in that hospital room. jack asking whether she wanted to come in admittedly caught her a little off guard, but she nodded her head anyway and followed him inside. “actually, there was something else i wanted to ask you. i don’t know how well you know steve’s parents but… have you seen them much? recently, i mean.” steve had said they’d been by the hospital once, maybe twice. robin thought that was insane, but knowing the harringtons, she wasn’t really all too surprised.

stevehharringtcns​:

who: steve harrington & open

where: middle of the road

what was he doing? was he really about to go to a barbecue that was being thrown at the wheeler’s house? he had been invited, of course, but something didn’t feel right on just showing up there. how was he going to react when he saw nancy? and worst of all, how was she going to react? all of these thoughts were going through his mind as he drove - he should have been paying the attention to the road, but luckily he snapped out of his own head just in time to spot someone crossing the road right in front of his car. without even thinking, steve hit the brakes as hard as he could, his body leaning forward with the abrupt stop and before he knew it, he was honking the horn in protest, before sticking his head out of the window to get a better look at the person who was standing in front of his car.

“what the hell are you doing, dingus? you can’t just… walk in front of my car like that, you could have damaged it! i mean, you could have gotten hurt.” steve said, shaking his head as he ran a hand through his hair - both of them had been lucky, he thought to himself as he took a deep breath. “you going to the wheeler barbecue or what?” he asked, once it got awkward enough - they couldn’t just be there forever and the person didn’t seem to move, and steve definitely couldn’t run over them.

⚢

a worn-converse clad foot poked gingerly at an old bike, as if willing it to jump to life. her dad had refused to drive her today and steve was currently m.i.a so, she’d been left with no other option. unfortunately this decision came up fruitless, as the bike in question was completely and utterly busted. a sigh, gathering her belongings from the sidewalk and setting off for a lone shift at the video store. pulling walkman headphones over her head, fingers covered with chipped black nail polish manoeuvred their way to the the play button. hallo, wo is die toilette?  — german, her latest choice of language to learn. she repeated the phrase out loud in near enough perfection. obviously way too invested to notice the car speeding towards her as she crossed the street.

“woah… steve, you can’t just steal my insult. somewhere in that huge — yet equally limited — brain of yours you must have something at least the tiniest bit original knocking around back there.” of course that was the thing robin decided to acknowledge and not the fact that hypothetically a mere second later, she potentially could have been unconscious if not completely deceased on the ground. and hit by her best friend, no less.

if they were in much closer proximity, she would have definitely given him a gentle knock or two on top of his head to accompany the comment on his brain. but alas, he was in the drivers seat and she, the sidewalk. yes, she’d hopped back onto the curb side. just incase his foot accidentally slipped on the accelerator or something. “don’t tell me you zoned out at the wheel again. we talked about this!” once asked about the barbecue, she raised an eyebrow then shook her head quickly. “what? no, why would i-“ oh. that whole deal with steve and nancy. of course he was going. “actually, i’m going to work, dingus. maybe, just maybe, you should try it sometime. or are you still too caught up on nancy wheeler to stack videos nowadays?” 

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.

jofcreman​:

where: the hawkins post

what: jo weighs the pro’s and con’s of murder

who: jo + open!

brows drawn together, jo blew a lock of hair out of her face, bent over her desk as she once again re-arranged tomorrow’s edition’s layout. cursed, threw her hands up in the air, fingers flexing, balling into fists. she let out a groan, tempted to simply throw everything off her desk and storm out.

however many times she tried she just simply couldn’t get the layout to look right. and her cramped little office felt extremely hot - she had a shitty little fan in a corner but doubted that actually did anything -  and overall, it had been a long day. so yeah, jo was in a sour mood and not exactly jumping with joy when she heard someone enter, for, like, the twentieth time that day. 

her back still turned to them, she took a deep breath. “listen, i get that you’re trying to be helpful or something, alright, but i thought i fucking told you to take your business down to ‘the weekly watcher’, didn’t i? i don’t care about whatever weird freaky shit you saw last night deep in the woods, alright? weekly watcher. down the street, sharp left, sharp right.”

⚢

it was somewhat of a rarity that keith would send robin home from work early — well, more like practically impossible. but he’d claimed to be having… all kinds of issues lately. first his mom quote unquote set fire to the kitchen, then they had to shut for a whole day because he said that their stock was low, which was a definite lie because she’d counted a whole bunch the day before. but robin and steve had their theories. and introducing the most plausible, could it be that keith finally had a real-life girlfriend?

it was a little inconvenient that his ‘love life’ was impacting on opening hours but then again, it was the height of summer. and it got incredibly hot at family video. working at scoops ahoy hadn’t been so bad, because you could just stick your head in the freezer for a minute or two and then you’d be good to go again. but this was something else, so it was actually a relief to get out of there.

so here she was, at hawkins post. robin felt a little out of place but it was all for a good cause, to visit a friend. “woah woah hey relax! i’m just here to… offer some assistance. thought you might need some company with all this heat we’re having.” leaning her body up against the door frame, robin crossed her arms over her chest. “and the weekly watcher, really? i don’t know anyone who reads that and takes it at face value.”

colemontgomeryx​:

xx.

At Robin’s bidding, Cole sat next to her on her bed. It was comfy, he noted absentmindedly. Adjusting his position so he could face Robin, Cole tried (and failed) to read her expression. At her vague response, Cole’s face fell. Maybe he really had imagined what he’d seen– head trauma to blame, or something. Taking another sip of the soda, Cole weighed his options: tell her what he saw and risk being institutionalized, or not tell her and have to deal with it alone.

He chose the former. “Yeah… I did.” Cole tried to smile, though it probably looked more like a grimace. “My best friend died in the mall fire, and… I saw him, like, on fire.” Then, since he was already telling her the truth: “It felt really real. Like I was actually there.” He met her eyes again, visibly uncomfortable. “What did you see? If you don’t mind saying.”

⚢

the best friend… that had to be the jock she’d seen cole with once upon a time. robin was all too aware of the fact that the jock in question had been one of the flayed, it only made logical sense. which somehow made cole’s vision feel a lot worse than it already was. “holy shit, that sounds horrible. i’m really sorry.” in that moment, robin felt worse than ever considering what actually happened at the mall that night.

cole being honest only gave her the incentive to do the same in return. “do you um- remember barbara holland? it’s not an important detail but she was kind of my best friend in middle school.” a pause, willing herself to continue and explain what she saw. “i saw her, that night. i was standing by someone’s pool, and barb, she-“ voice breaking, robin stopped and took a deep breath. “she was in the water and she just… grabbed on to my leg and started begging for me to help her! like something was trying to pull her down and there was no escape.”

blue eyes met cole’s own, attempting to gauge his reaction and hoping that she hadn’t over shared. “then she was sucked back under and pulled me right in with her.” robin gave a shudder, all of the details still clear in her mind — it was just everything else that was foggy. “and like you said, it felt so real. i seriously haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

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 + @stevehharringtcns​​​​ ! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: the hospital  𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: a couple days after steve wakes

last night had been the first time that robin slept at home since steve had initially arrived at the hospital. she wanted to stay but he had insisted that she go home to get a proper nights sleep and that he’d be okay, just for the night. and maybe he would be and while robin had agreed, she really didn’t want to be alone. she’d managed to avoid thinking too much about the house of mirrors by worrying about steve instead. but if she were alone, she knew it would only come rushing back.

luckily once she arrived home she’d been too exhausted for her mind to even bother replaying the events at the mirror maze for she fell asleep fairly quickly. and as soon as she woke that morning, robin changed probably faster than she ever had in her life so that she could hurry back. just to make sure he hadn’t gone back on his word or whatever.

walking to the hospital would admittedly be a little too far so she dug out her mom’s old bike (her own was way too busted!) from the garage and set off. but not before paying a visit to a grocery stores on the way to pick up some reese’s pieces — steve’s favorite. arriving at the hospital she signed in at the desk, security checked her backpack and she headed up to steve’s room.

“steve, can you believe i actually had to smuggle these in? it’s insane.” she entered the room with a quick glance at a sleeping cole, and pulled out the box of candy from the inside of her jacket, then gently placed it on steve’s lap. “how are you holding up?”

elevcnhops​:

xx

Thinking back, the idea of favorites was still a wild concept. How could you choose just one? Especially when one had nothing to begin with? There were those instances of flipping through channels casually beside Hop ( as they sat on the same musty couch she would return home to shortly ). The titles weren’t specified so she couldn’t tell Robin even if she wanted to. Biting her lower lip, chewing softly while continuing to think. “ Ralph Macchio? “

  Aha, there was something! “ Max showed me a picture in a magazine. “ trying to remember the name of his movie, maybe the other would know? “ He’s a good kisser? “ reiterating the question Max once voiced. Concluding it must not be a big deal to mention, that was the only ’ fact ‘ she knew about the actor besides the title to his movie. “ Or yours? “ expectancy upon her question, El could fight off monsters sure, but Robin still had more ‘ real world ‘ knowledge. Finding that priceless. Her eyes widening, “ What is your favorite movie ever? “ echoing back with genuine interest.

⚢

“oh! give me just one minute.” now ralph macchio she could work with. the comment about him being a good kisser raised an eyebrow, it didn’t look anything special to her. not that she knew the slightest thing about what it was like to kiss a boy. but robin made a beeline straight for where she knew the video would be, for someone had just returned it a few days back. this she remembered specifically because they hadn’t rewound the damn thing and she’d had to do it herself.

returning back to el with it, robin handed it to her with a flourish. “i present to you, the karate kid.” then came the question and it was always a difficult one. there were a few niche ones that she doubted el would have heard of, so those were out of the question. robin did have a bit of a soft spot for back to the future owing to the summer of ‘85, then there was fast times at ridgemont high, but both of them felt too obvious. so instead she settled on, “escape from new york,” a pause, wondering if el had heard of it. “i actually do a great snake plissken impression.”

Tammy Thompson, everybody.

cassieconrads​:

If there was one thing that Robin was right about, it was no one being able to predict that the shit storm that followed going to the graveyard was going to happen. Cassie had been hoping to get to know some of the people her age in Hawkins a bit better, maybe make a few friends for when Nancy was too busy, but she had gotten far more than she bargained for with showing up to the cemetery.

Cassie nodded at Robin’s suggestion, waiting by the counter as she clocked off her shift. Maybe getting a few movies to watch at night would make her insomnia a little less painful. She followed Robin out of the video store and into the strip mall where the two had met in the first place. “No, it’s definitely not your fault, either. Everything was just so … strange. We had gone out to the woods together, right? I feel like that’s the last thing I can remember before …” she started seeing things, she wanted to say, but it was too soon for that. “How have you been since then?”

⚢

putting it quite plainly, robin liked cassie. when they had met outside the video store, she thought nothing of it — just helping someone out. but they hit it off and that’s why she had invited cassie along to the cemetery. yet now it was just another thing on her conscience. everyone had been there because of her, no other reason. and look how that had turned out.

“i think you grabbed my arm. then we walked into the trees and i can’t remember why.” robin hoped that cassie would be able to fill in some of the gaps, though in all honesty she didn’t hold out much hope because so far, no one else has been able to either. “i’ve been fine, i just think maybe we all got a little too carried away.” not true, but it wasn’t like robin could just outright say what she suspected was actually going on. cassie would likely run in the opposite direction and she didn’t want that. “what about you?”