Jackforeman​:

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.

byersphotography​:

WHO: Jonathan + Open

WHERE: The Strip Mall, SpinCity Laundromat.

——————————————————————————

Jonathan never really knows how to spend his weekends. On Saturday afternoons, he’s generally stuck jamming quarters into the dented machines at SpinCity Laundromat – this weekend was no exception. Sitting on a vinyl chair, he watched his clothes mush through grey water and found himself thinking about whether Chinese or Pizza would be on the menu tonight. He was exhausted after a week of dealing with cranky customers at Melvin’s and it showed in the purple bags resting under his eyes. Hawkins has never been a major tourist attraction but the town always doubled in size over the summer as voyagers (with fat wallets) stopped in town while completing their trips to bigger and brighter places.

Jonathan crossed his arms and rested his head on the wall behind him, closing his eyes for a while before jolting awake to the beep of his dry cycle ending. He peeled himself from his chair and crouched to shove clothes in his laundry bag. The bell at the storefront went off as he closed the drawstring and turned towards the entry. His tired eyes widen when he sees [them]. Caught off guard, he opens his mouth but nothing comes out. “H-Hey” It takes him a second to figure out what to say and he glances back at Tara - the laundromat manager and only other person in the store - who is now looking up from their magazine to eavesdrop. One hand goes up to scratch the back of his neck. “I- uh, I guess you also do laundry on Saturdays?”

⚢

a literal disaster had struck the previous day within the buckley household. their good old washing machine had finally given up on showing any signs of life, which wasn’t all that surprising given that it was a good ten or so years old. her parents had suggested that they just revert back to washing all of their clothing in the bathtub with some detergent, but robin had managed to convince them that this wasn’t the sixties and that they weren’t living like actual hippies anymore.

luckily they had given in quite quickly, and the next morning her mother sent robin off down to the laundromat with a bag full of laundry and a pocket jammed full of quarters. walking in, the aroma of fresh laundry hit her straight in the face and she sighed in content. it had always been one of her favorite scents. eyes flickered around the premises, only to land on jonathan byers who greeted her with a simple hey.

robin walked over to an empty machine nearby and started loading the laundry in. “oh uh, my mom kinda sent me down here. our machine gave out.” she didn’t really have much of an opinion concerning jonathan. suppose she just didn’t know him that well, even if they did run in similar circles. or used to, given that he was no longer dating nancy. the two of them had faced the same danger together though, which at least gave them a common ground. “you work at the grocery store with your mom, right? i think i’ve seen you round there stacking some of the shelves.” an odd observation, but she would have said almost anything to fill the awkward silence.

STRANGER THINGS — 4.04, Dear Billy

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?”

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?”

ROBIN BUCKLEY in CHAPTER THREE: THE MONSTER AND THE SUPERHERO

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?”

sinclairss​:

.

“did you know,” lucas said as he reached for the syrup and doused the leftover pancakes with it before taking another bite. he did have the manners to wait until he was done chewing to continue talking, so sue sinclair would be proud. or at least not pissed at him. “that guys can have growth spurts into their twenties? and our brains don’t stop developing ‘til we’re, like, twenty-five.” he tapped his temple as he took another bite. “brain food.”

he listened to robin talk and nodded along until holding up a hand and asking “cassie who?” he fell quiet for a few moments, picking at the rest of the pancakes and only settling back into the booth once he’d cleaned the plate. he’d dodged robin’s question before, but lucas found himself wanting to check in, make sure he was the only one having bizarre thoughts about that night. and if not…well, he was sure there was something they could do about it. there always was.

“so every time i walk through the gates it feels…cold. like it’s january not july.” he hesitated when the waitress walked over, flashing her a smile and offering her a thanks! before redirecting his attention back to robin. “and…okay, i’m not sure if i hit my head when i fell, too, but i saw this…vision? the other night, too, and it felt really real and every time i close my eyes i can see him.” 

fuck. he hadn’t meant to say anything specific about the dream. or hallucination. or whatever it was. but he just kept talking, hoping to keep things moving. “did you…see anything like that?”

⚢

listening to lucas’ whole spiel about ‘brain food’, robin couldn’t help but feel amused. “guess that explains why steve’s brain seems way smaller than it should be by now.” she wasn’t sure just how legitimate the explanation was, but she would definitely look it up at the library or ask someone who was likely to know about it later.

“cassie, nancy’s friend from college?” robin welcomed the momentary silence, for she was starting to feel genuinely concerned about lucas. maybe that blow to his shoulder had done way more damage than first thought. “that doesn’t sound… normal.” she didn’t really know what else to say in this situation. if he was uncomfortable going into the graveyard again then he definitely shouldn’t. not alone, at least. but then again, strength in numbers had proved not to be the case last time. maybe they should just avoid it altogether.

lucas mentioning a him made robin question who he could possibly be referring to. just like her own vision, had he seen someone relevant to him in some way? “yeah, i think i might have seen something like that.” then before she could stop herself blurted out, “i saw barb. the real barb, except she wasn’t real because i saw her in my own mind. but she felt real.” he would understand what she meant if he had seen something similar so she didn’t elaborate any more than that.

Maya Hawke in the music video for Sweet Tooth

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.”