ROBIN BUCKLEY In CHAPTER THREE: THE MONSTER AND THE SUPERHERO

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.”

willthewize​:

WHO: will byers + open

WHERE: you decide

     His drawing skills have only improved since those childhood days scribbling with crayons and colored pencils, but it still requires practice, a constant honing of his abilities to stay sharp. And anatomy, realistic human portraiture, is one of the hardest things to get right, because when it’s just a little off…well, it can get creepy fast. People have always been one of Will’s favorite subjects to draw, probably stemming from his interest in visualizing his and the party’s childhood DnD characters. It would just be a lot easier if…

     “Could you try not to move so much? Sorry, it just helps if you stay still.” He didn’t want to come across as impatient, but if his model was already fidgety, then sitting longer to finish the sketch wasn’t going to help matters.

⚢

when will had so kindly requested to draw her, robin admittedly had been completely taken aback. someone wanting to sketch another person was a detail that you saw in the pictures all the damn time and she had always thought that it was unrealistic, not to mention completely ridiculous and super unlikely. yet here they were, in the most unusual situation — well, to her at least. will was talented though, like really talented. he was probably just as good with his artistic ability as she was with band. so robin had decided to at least give it a shot.

“okay but i warned you before we started that sitting still is entirely not my forte. in fact, i don’t think i’ve ever sat completely still in my entire life. one of my limbs always has to be moving. can’t you just, i don’t know, look past it or something?” the request for limited movement, only made them more frantic, including accompanying hand motions along with this minuscule speech followed by gentle fluffing of short hair. “maybe we can take a break?” really, robin? they’d barely even started.

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?”

Tammy Thompson, everybody.

zccming​:

WHO: max mayfield && open.

WHERE: outside of melvald’s general store.

this wasn’t max’s most…well-thought-out plan, but she had ransacked the trailer for anything she could bring to the wheeler’s barbecue. and she was pretty sure cereal or swanson’s tv dinners wouldn’t cut it.  as she skated her way downtown in hopes of a miracle, she brainstormed what she could bring that wouldn’t be too complicated. she came up with the likes of doritos or boxed pasta salad. of course, when max pulled up to melvald’s and tugged at the doors, they were locked.  melvald’s, like the hawk, and every other godforsaken business in this town just had to be closed. “shit…” she breathed out, scanning her surroundings. not a car in sight…not a person … but there was a rock. maybe if she just…she could get away with it…

max scooped it up from the ground and raised her arm to chuck it through the window, but she felt these eyes on her.  turning around, max initially jumped at the sight of another person.  hadn’t she checked for people? in a swift recovery, max rolled her eyes and frowned, “asshole. you can’t just sneak up on people like that.” as if to explain herself, she stepped forward and gripped the handles once more, “it’s locked.”  after chucking the rock out into the road, max placed her hands on her hips, then eyed the other, “i need in, like now.” then as a hint to help or get lost she asked, “got any better ideas?” 

⚢

“hey! i wasn’t sneaking up on anyone! and besides, if anything you’re the one being sketchy and technically speaking, i could totally call the cops down here in like, two minutes tops.”

though she wouldn’t and they both knew it. in reality max was a good kid and robin liked that certain spark within her. the spontaneity reminded her a lot of her younger self back in high school. heck, hadn’t she literally clambered in the band room window when refused entry to prom? yeah, she really had done that. it seemed so long ago and so insignificant and yet at the time it had been the most important thing in the world. 

robin remembered the days of endlessly longing to be seventeen so she could escape out into the world. she had wanted to travel to foreign countries and just exist. but now she was twenty-one and the furthest she’d ever travelled out of hawkins was to a top secret russian base underneath the mall. she hoped that for max and the rest of the younger crew that they’d get out. actually get out. escape from the monster that hawkins now truly had become. and this, max resorting to breaking and entering, was certainly not the way to do it. “what is it makes you want in so bad that you’d almost consider breaking a window for anyway? totally not worth it, by the way,” she paused eyes flickering up to the store’s sign then back to the younger woman. “look, i’ll try to get you what you want. but only on the condition that we do it in a somewhat semi-conventional way? please?”

𝐖𝐇𝐎: robin buckley + @jackforeman​ ! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: outside of the foreman residence

initially, robin had been a little hesitant about going to see jack. the only thing that kept repeating in her mind was dustin talking about how the people from the tree commune had just snapped back at the carnival which resulted in hawkins being sent into total chaos. and it was no secret that jack was involved — was one of them.

but jack was also steve’s neighbour and his friend. robin had known him back in high school, and he had been different from the rest of his teammates. most of them had been jerks, they showed off and we’re just dicks in general. but jack, he was nice and he definitely wouldn’t hurt a fly even then. so what had happened to flip that switch? nothing good, that was for sure. “steve- he’s uh. he’s okay.” she’d agreed to update him on their mutual friends condition. “a little wiped out but mostly 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?”

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.

sinclairss​:

who: lucas & @rcbinbvckleys​ what: lucas sinclair invented uber in the 1980s where: lucas’ car

lucas had spent some time at the hospital since the shit show that had been the mayor’s 4th of july carnival, but he’d also been respectful that there were actual family members who needed to spend time with their loved ones…and people who were basically family. so, he’d spent a decent amount of time since then driving people to and from the hospital because…there was a real lack of working vehicles among their group. and if lucas’ shitty little honda could help make sure people got safely to and from the hospital? well, that was the least he could do.

on this evening, he was parked in the fire lane waiting for robin to emerge from the hospital, assuring the security guard for the fifth time that “i’m sure she’s on her way. oh! there she is.” with a winning smile and a cheery wave, lucas rolled up the driver’s side window and leaned across the center console to manually unlock the passenger door for robin so that she’d be able to climb in. “hey.” he turned down the radio as she climbed inside. “how’s steve?” a pause. “nancy? you?” there were a lot of people to keep track of.

⚢

lucas offering to drive her from the hospital was something that robin was extremely grateful for. she’d been home and back a few times in the last few days, opting to make the journey either on bike or on foot. to be honest it was beginning to get a little tiring, especially when somewhere deep down inside she just wanted to hide herself away. and yet, she still wanted to be there for steve. robin hadn’t even gone back to work yet, not just because she had her own shit going on but it wouldn’t be the same without him there. even if he was a dingus and annoyed her to no end sometimes.

calling a quick sorry to the security guard, robin clambered into the vehicle and pulled the door shut behind her. “thanks for doing this lucas, really.” she meant it, lucas really didn’t have to go out of his way like this but here he was. “steve and nancy are both okay, and i think the rest of them are too. but me? i’m absolutely awful.” a mirthless laugh, knowing that she was being unbelievably selfish about her feelings. how could she even feel this way when her own best friend had almost died? when vickie and scott clarke and other beloved townsfolk actually had?

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?”