Feat. Robin - Blog Posts

who: Cole & @rcbinbvckleys​

where: hate to say... the hospital

Since Cole and Adam had cleared the air and sort of discussed what happened at the carnival, Adam had refused to leave Cole’s side for more than a few minutes. It was the comfort he needed-- to know that every time he woke up, Adam would be there, holding his hand. Luckily, Cole hadn’t had any visitors who were out of the loop-- Max and his roommate(s) Steve and Eddie were well aware, and when Jack had stopped by it was clear that Adam had told him.

When Robin walked in, Cole instinctively pulled his hand away from Adam’s. With a slightly nervous smile, he greeted Robin. “Hey, Buckley,” he said, his voice notably hoarse. Maybe he was paranoid, but Cole could’ve sworn that her eyes lingered on Adam, his proximity to Cole, the intimate moment she’d walked in on. “You know Adam? We were really close in high school. I’m friends with his sister,” Cole’s cheeks flushed and he knew he was stumbling over his words.

He changed the topic, partially to divert her attention away from the Adam equation and partially because he had been worried about her, since Max mentioned they’d both been separated from the group. “Are you okay? Max mentioned... something.” 

rcbinbvckleys​:

⚢

“i don’t think we made it up either. when i usually make up or think out scenarios in my brain they’re always just a little bit fuzzy and out of reach. but this was totally different. because i was there, and i felt everything. did you- have that?” robin had considered that maybe she’d just been thrown back into a memory from long ago which went completely haywire.

but herself and barb had only gone swimming when they were kids, and in this ‘vision’, barb had looked older. as in, the same age as when she first went missing. and it had been night time. and then there was the pool… “i just wish we’d still been friends. i wish i could have helped her.” although robin logically knew that there wasn’t much that she could have done. the two of them had still been friendly, but they had drifted apart. it wasn’t anyone’s fault, sometimes that just happened, right?

“i don’t know.” the only real running theory was one that she didn’t believe cole could possibly know — that the upside down stuff was happening again. “i think — we might have disturbed barb’s grave.” it was what robin had initially believed too, before realising everything had been far too much of a coincidence.

xx.

“Yes! Yeah... it felt like a memory, only I know it wasn’t a real one; I wasn’t there when he died, I know that,” Cole said, relief washing over him in waves. They had both experienced the same thing. As the relief came, so did a growing sense of fear; why had they both experienced the same thing? 

The knot in Cole’s stomach twisted at Robin’s words. He didn’t know much about what happened to Barbara, but he knew that, with things like this, there was no use blaming oneself. Some things are just out of our control, no matter how desperately we wished they weren’t. No matter how desperately he wished he could change the past, he couldn’t. Instinctively, Cole leaned over to Robin and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He was pretty sure she wasn’t the kind of person to get the wrong idea from a comforting gesture like this, and he couldn’t stand letting her sit there with that sad look in her eyes. “I know,” was all he said.

Puling out of the hug, Cole nodded. Eyes dropped to his hands, a chill runing down his spine as he remembered the feeling of being in a grave. “It was Barb’s grave?” he asked, “The one me and Lucas were in?” As much as he tried to remember what had happened, the details were fuzzy. “Wasn’t it already... disturbed?” 

rcbinbvckleys​:

⚢

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.”

xx.

“Thanks,” he said, weak smile not quite meeting his eyes. The worst part, he thought, was that it felt like a fantasy first; he and Adam laying in bed, talking about the future, and then out of nowhere... Adam’s eyes changing, his body ablaze. It wasn’t a memory, so what was it? “I don’t think I made it up? But I don’t know.”

Cole let a breath go, shaking his head and watching Robin’s eyes. When her voice cracked, he put a hand on her knee, trying to reassure her. “I’m sorry, too. That’s... fucked,” he shook his head. 

He’d thought his ‘vision’ was bad enough, but he couldn’t imagine someone trying to pull him down-- kill him, presumably. If Robin was anything like him, she was hearing Barb’s cry for help over and over again in her mind. “I don’t know what happened to Barb, but... I’m sure there was nothing you could do,” he said. Cole paused, searching his hands for something to say. “Why do you think... we saw that?” 

rcbinbvckleys​:

⚢

opening up her own soda, a multitude of bubbles escaped over top. quickly she lowered her mouth to the can and just about managed to avoid them spilling over. robin gingerly moved to take a seat on the edge of her bed, leaving room for cole in case he wanted to join her. in fact, she motioned for him to do so as an invitation. they would probably be here a little while and it was best to have what would likely be an uncomfortable conversation in actual comfort.

“i think i might have seen something. maybe. it’s just all a bit fuzzy, i can’t really make any sense of it.” like cole, robin remembered the fire going out and cole and lucas both getting injured. then everything went dark. there had been the pool, and barb grabbing her ankle and pulling robin down into the watery depths with her. in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a lot to go off of. “and- correct me if i’m wrong, but judging by your face right about now i’d be willing to bet that you saw something too.”

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.”

Funnily enough, this was the second time in his life Cole Montgomery was sneaking into a girl's house. First, it was Max telling him to be quiet and not wake up her mother; now, Robin sending him straight upstairs. The fact that Robin had invited him over at all was surprising to Cole; sure, they'd talked and had mutual friends, but they weren't super close. At least, until the cemetery fiasco. He guessed that living through something like that meant they were bonded for life, or something.

Cole saluted Robin, turned on his heel, and marched upstairs. "Yes, Sergeant Buckley," he joked, keeping his voice low. Cole peered around the corners, taking the opportunity to snoop before Robin got upstairs. He stepped through a doorway that he assumed was her room and surveyed the walls.

Just as she threw the soda, Cole turned and managed to catch it. Hey, maybe those 'football lessons' forever ago with Adam paid off. "Thanks," he cracked the soda open and lifted into the air as if to cheers her. Cole leaned against the wall, taking a sip and shaking his head in disbelief. Fucked up was an understatement. He still couldn't get the vision... or whatever it was.. out of his head. "You could say that," he paused, hesitantly. "Did anything... weird happen to you? Like, other than the fire going out and me falling into an open grave, I don't really remember anything."

𝐖𝐇𝐎: robin buckley + @colemontgomeryx​ ! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: buckley residence

robin didn’t really invite anyone over to her house, she was used to just keeping her home and social life different. steve was an exception to the rule and he’d been there more times than she could count, although robin had to tell her parents that they weren’t dating way too many times. then there were the odd few occasions where she’d had one of the others over for some reason or other. and today, she’d took a literal leap and invited cole over for the first time. which would only welcome a barrage of questions from her mom who was currently home, but if she didn’t actually know that he was here then…

robin was watching out her bedroom window for cole’s arrival, and as soon as she spotted him she took to carefully making her way down the stairs as if to not make a single sound. she opened the front door with ease, slowly shutting it behind him once he made his way inside.

“please go straight up, i really don’t want my mom to ask any questions!” having said that, robin snuck away to the kitchen and to the fridge hoping for some beers, for their ‘trauma bonding’. sadly there was nothing but cans of soda so she grabbed two anyway before quietly making her way up to her room. “catch!” robin threw one of the cans at cole, assuming that he would catch it or alternatively, it would land on her bed. “so the other night was really fucked up, right?”

rcbinbvckleys​:

⚢

“i think some faces are just, way more noticeable than others.” it would have been much easier to pretend that she didn’t know him at all, but words had escaped her mouth way quicker than robin’s mind working to figure that one out. hopefully, she’d just managed to pull it back. if cole ever actually found out… she’d practically beg the ground to swallow her up. 

“truthfully if you said that you didn’t know him, only then would i be surprised.” it felt like steve knew everyone, and they all definitely knew him. he had been known as king steve, after all. “and he was so obnoxious back then, right?” it wasn’t surprising that cole and he were friends, even if robin felt like there were some other details she didn’t know. “it was truly some crazy fucked up shit. i’ve never been more scared in my life.” until the events of 1986, but that was a whole other ball game. “if it wasn’t for steve and that stupid hair of his, i honestly don’t think i’d be here right now.”

xx.

“If this is your roundabout way of calling me pretty, I’ll take it,” he teased, trying to ease the tension. Hawkins High was a small school, anyways, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they’d seen each other around. He needed to let it go, but was used to being on the defensive with his classmates.

Cole laughed, nodding knowingly. He didn’t believe there was anyone who’d gone to Hawkins High in the last... six years, give or take, who didn’t know Steve Harrington. “Was, past tense?” he joked, “As far as I can tell, he’s still obnoxious. Less of an asshole, though.” Cole’s teasing quickly subsided into a sad smile. “I can’t imagine being here. It’s fucked up enough that I knew people who died, you know? Like, I can barely deal with that.” Deal with it was generous, as he really hadn’t, but Robin didn’t need the details. 

rcbinbvckleys​:

robin didn’t necessarily directly associate cole with what she had accidentally witnessed all those years ago. yet being where they were right now, it was all she could possibly think about when confronted with him. the other jock, who’s name currently slipped her mind, had died in the ‘mall fire’. and the two of them clearly had something special back then. she couldn’t imagine how cole felt just being in the location where it actually happened, it was almost haunting.

“oh! cole, i recognise you,” shit, was that too obvious? “from back in high school.” she added quickly, in case he somehow figured out where she actually knew him from. though unlikely. “wait, how do you know steve?” steve hadn’t previously mentioned that cole was a friend, weird. she’d have to ask the former about that much later, when she was much more sober. “it’s… going. it’s just super weird being here though, right? you know, because of what happene-“ yeah, obviously he knows about that, idiot.

xx.

Cole caught a glimpse of Robin's expression and froze. Of course he knew her, but why did she know him? Did he stand out for some reason? He was probably just tipsy and paranoid, but still, it was enough to put him on edge. Still, he trusted that Robin meant nothing by it and choked out a laugh, "Oh yeah? I didn't realize I was so popular."

Steve. Maybe Steve had said something to her, and that's why she was being weird. "Just... you know, I was the water boy, he was a jock, impossible not to know him," he shrugged, burying the truth in his plastic cup. Cole nodded, a grim smile pushing his lips together. "Yeah. God, you were here, weren't you? That must have been fucked up," he said, though his gaze was vacant. What if she'd seen Adam that day?

where: blue quarry mall who: cole + robin @rcbinbvckleys

From the moment he stepped into the mall, Cole knew this night was going to be wild. Not because everyone was in the mood to party-- no, not at all-- but because everyone was uncomfortable. It made sense, everyone in the room had been affected by the fire in some way, and of course no one really wanted to be here. And if there's one thing Cole retained from high school, it's that when people are uncomfortable, they drink. A lot. Which is why Cole was offended when Harringon questioned his forethought.

After about six cups of lukewarm beer, Cole decided to venture into the crowd. The closest person to him was Robin, who he had never officially met but knew from afar. He noticed her cup was dangerously low and took it from her hand, using his head to motion towards the keg. "Here, let me top you off," he offered, his words slightly slurred.

Then, through his alcohol-infused haze, he realized how weird it was for a guy she doesn't know to take her cup and he turned towards her, splashing beer onto his shirt. "I'm Cole. A friend of Harrington's. Sorry, not trying to be weird, or like... predatory." He handed her the cup back and laughed at his stupidity. "So, how's your night going?"