Loverboymontgomery​:

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.

ROBIN BUCKLEY in CHAPTER THREE: THE MONSTER AND THE SUPERHERO

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?”

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.”

STRANGER THINGS — 4.04, Dear Billy

Maya Hawke in the music video for Sweet Tooth

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.”

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​:

-

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?”

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.