[ Mysterious fog, it turns out, is actually pure evil. This is maybe the worst day of Robin Buckley's life so far. She's had some massively embarrassing ones but this takes the cake. The day she got trapped in a Russian base and found out monsters are very much real is not even in one of her top tens because it turns out that was weirdly an okay day that made lifelong bonds and changed her life forever. The best day.
No. Strike today being the worst day. The second worst day of her life is today. The first was when her best friend went missing.
This. Right now. Definitely a contender. To think Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan wouldn't have people looking for them would be foolish. Of course they would. Everyone would look. Even Robin, brand new to the horrors of the universe. Her search was something quite a ways off from the rest of them. Check the old lab, sure. That group she feels like an outsider to keeps checking it. But check the ruins of a mall? That's an idea.
It's foolish. Stupid. Careless. She shouldn't have been doing it alone and ever fiber of her being would usually be screaming at her not to but she did, for some reason, because it called out. In hindsight, maybe she was being mind controlled. At least she's not part of a meat monster. She could blame Dustin for talking her into it if she wanted to pin the blame somewhere.
It was a fruitless search. Government cleared it all. Rock and rubble with no way down. At least until she went to leave. This fog with demented whispers. She doesn't know what the Mind Flayer does but maybe this was it. At least the kids weren't around.
To say she was shaken is an understatement. Walking through woods is disorienting, like being really really high only with an odd sense of perfect clarity. A sinking feeling. Like falling in your dreams. She's staring at the floor when she arrives close enough to everyone. Robin hears a sound and jumps with a loud squeak. Flinching, blinking rapidly through watering eyes. What the hell.
Oh. That's just Steve whispering. ]
Holy shit.
[ Maybe it's the second best day. She points at him, stupidly, mouth agape and eyes as wide as they can go. Then her feet are moving before her brain catches up. Her mouth moving before her brain catches up. If the camp didn't know there was a new arrival, they would now. ] HOLY SHIT- NO, NO! HOLY SHIT! Steve! STEVE! STEVE HARRINGTON!
omg i love this so much, this is like perfect lore for her. And your voice is so good so far!!
[ She walks closer and as she does, he notices she doesn't really look scared or nervous or confused... It's so unlike every one's first entrance that it throws his brain and heart for a bit of a loop. But then again, she's literally always been so unlike everyone else. It's why he likes her so much, and why they're so close.
It's also why he doesn't really know how to feel about her coming here, he's not mad at her of course, she had no part in that. But, part of him is definitely pissed off that she's subjected to this and has no idea what she's in for. If Steve could, he'd march right up to the entity and kick it's ass for bringing her here, but he can't so all that rage has to just collect inside of him, nowhere to flow.
Unless, it just melts away a little because he's really missed his best friend in the whole entire world and the moment he sees her stupid little goofy smile, he can't help but smile back, his matching hers. If they're not careful, they're going to end up swallowing flies. It's been so long, and every time he looks at that dumbass outfit of his, he'd think of her. In the Fog, that Scoops uniform holds so much more hate from Steve than it ever did in the real world, the constant reminder of what he left behind. Now, he's never been so happy to see it again, looks better with a skirt than those stupid shorts anyway.
And then she starts running and yelling and he matches that too, closing the distance between them.]
ROBIN! What the hell?! Is this real!?
[ He touches her face and adjusts her hat and pats her head making sure what he's seeing isn't some cruel trick, before grabbing her by the shoulders, stilling both himself and her, and takes in a breath. ]
[ Steve Harrington with his bagel crumbs and all those kids that love to follow him around and his unfiltered completely open instant acceptance of everything that's wrong with her had cast an empty hole upon the world going missing. Nancy was well-loved but she doesn't know her. She knew her. Everyone seemed so sure they were alive somewhere because they were together and they're both "badass" but she's seen Steve get tortured before and Nancy is a really tiny lady. Then Jonathan was gone after them and all hell broke lose getting Joyce Byers involved more than she already was (Robin might be in love with that woman. But unrelated-) but things were looking bleak.
But oh, there he is with his stupid hair and everything's fine. False alarm. Nobody's dead.
She reaches him and they're both mutually grabbing at each other. Her's touching her face. She's poking his cheek and patting his hair and grabbing his face between her hands and squishing it to check the validity of it all. ] You're asking me!? Are you real? You're real right? You're not dead? Am I dead? Oh my god. Did we die...?
[ She pauses, staring blankly for all of two seconds as the very suddenly real possibility sinks in. Is she only seeing him because she died? He's here to greet her and not great granny? But he has her by the shoulders and her attention snaps back. ] I'm fine! [ She glances down at herself, unsure if her answer was an unintentional lie or not.
She's wearing this? She died in Scoops Ahoy. Oh no. Gays really do go to hell. ] I mean, yeah. I'm fine. I think. [ Robin puts a hand over the ones on her shoulders to pull them off. And reverse their stance. Her hands are on his shoulders now looking at him carefully. ]
Are you okay? Where were you? You just disappeared with Nancy Wheeler and then Byers popped out and nobody could figure it out and they all kept looking in the same spots so I thought to check the mall because maybe evil Russians took you out back and shot you in the head because they would do that, you know, that was one of the threats or you got sucked into some fucked up interdimensional portal because that was also a very real possibility and everything was just really really foggy and holy shit are you okay?
me imploding trying to reign in my praise of your robin, she's so good and you're so good!!!!!!!!
[ He thought he stilled her, steadied them both actually but then she's talking and asking questions and he's not really taking in and processing any of it. It's like he can see her lips flapping and her eyes frenetic and wide, pretty sure a drop of spit launched itself off her tooth and landed directly on his forehead, but the words are bouncing around in the air around his head, nowhere to land.
And then she slows for a moment and he picks up her last phrase, Did we die?...]
I...am still trying to figure that. But, if we did, we're gonna haunt the hell out of whoever did this to us, right, Robs?
[ Ghosts aren't that crazy to believe in, not after all the things he's experienced. Ok maybe still a little crazy, even though some of the killers are actual ghosts. But not him and not Robin. Probably. Fuck. Are they ghosts?
And then she steadies him, probably because he's visibly shaking a little bit from all of this, and her grasping him helps a lot actually, and then she launches into what everyone thinks happened back in Hawkins, and what happened to Nance and him, and he's always wondering what they all think, and now he knows and he's so close to a piece of his old life he almost forgets the Hell he's been living in for what seems like forever and then he realizes that she's here now and they might not have a chance to make it back to Hawkins, and even if they did, he couldn't leave Nance and Jonathan behind. And it's all just too much at once.
The dam that had been building behind his eyelids spill over just a little bit, and his voice cracks as he answers her. ]
Yeah. I-I'm ok. I don't know what happened. But I've just missed you a lot. And Dustin, and the party, and home.
[ He buries his head in her shoulders for just a moment, trying to steady his breaths and regain control of himself. It's not more than five to ten seconds later when he's got it back. And he reverses their stances again. Not sure at what point this starts to count as them dancing, but they've gotta be close right?]
Robin, I need you to tell me very carefully, how you got here. We can try and grab Nance and Byers, make it back, pretend none of this ever happened. Please tell me you know something I don't.
[ The deperation in his voice, she could probably cut it with a knife. ]
[ Robin talks. A lot. When she's nervous she just keeps going and right now is probably one of the most overwhelmingly nerve wracking moments in existence. She has no idea what's happening, which is becoming an increasingly regularity in her life that has, it seems, finally reached a peak of everything being so hard to understand that she wants to scream and cry and throw up a little. Steve's answering her, so she slows, because he's calm and weirdly steadying.
But she doesn't give her a very good answer to the question. ] What do you mean you're trying to figure it out? Shouldn't you know? How do we not know if we're dead or not!? [ Her eyes widen, further, further. But they're holding each other. He's saying they'll defeat it. She clenches her mouth shut and nods, small quick rapid-fire nodding. She has to hold him steady. If he falls apart, she falls apart. And let's face it, she's smarter than him so she has to keep her shit together.
He's shaking. She's practically vibrating. Keep it together, Harrington. ] Okay-Okay okay... Can I just- [ INHALE. EXHALE.
Her eyes wander because time seems slow suddenly while he answers her. His voice crack immediately making tears formulate on her own eyes, unable to stop them. Her focus caught. Robin runs a nail with chipped polish over a spot on his shirt while she's got her hands on him, scraping at it like she can get it off. Copper brown. Just a single drop but she's getting complete vertigo staring at it. He says he's okay and she just knows he's lying.
Her voice is incredibly small suddenly: ]
I missed you too. They all did. I'm going to cry if you start crying-
[ Her head tilts to press her cheek against his hair when he's buried in her shoulder, one hand squeezing the shoulder she's still holding. Their positions reverse, a balance of taking turns being the strong one for each other. ]
I-... I don't know? I went to the mall. Dustin thought we could look there but I told him to stay put, because you would've said that, and I felt like I had to look there. Like um, magnet. Pull. That's stupid. It's all sectioned off charred rubble and big fences around it but everything was cleaned out. Not a scrap of that thing left, or bodies, or government guys. I was standing by, I think, what was the food court and I thought "there's nothing here" but then it got really foggy and I felt like I was suffocating but nothing was there just soot and maybe spider webs.
I'm sorry, Steve. I don't know. I really don't.
one week later, i wanted to wait for full brain cell function and sleep for this tag hehe <333
[ Oh it's Rapid-fire nervous Robin, even after all this time without her, Steve remembers it like yesterday, it's comforting in a way, despite the troubling causes. But that's ok, he's got her right now, she might be smarter, but he's got the bravery. Well, she does too. Ok they're tied. But he'll take the lead on it this time. ]
It's just really complicated, we're somewhere. Where dying doesn't even matter. I die over and over. But here I am. Safe and sound, and reunited with you.
[ That sounds crazy. Does he sound crazy? Is this too much for Robin? She's already short circuiting, should he maybe have braced her for this, because he's already on edge and like on the verge of breaking down, her hold on him being the only barrier to stop it.
But then she's tearing up, rubbing her chipped polished nail into his shirt, picking at some dried blood. He takes a second admiring it, been so long since he's had someone care about his appearance, it's just sweat and mud and blood here for everyone else, but Robin is so freshly arrived. He's not even sure if she's rubbing off any from his shirt, its caked on so thickly. Maybe nothing's coming off. Maybe she just needs to do that, and that's fine. Because it feels nice, the hug too, and it slows his heart a little, calms him, so he can recollect himself, be the strong one again in a moment. ]
No crying here. [ That's a lie, if there's one person on the planet, or the entire dimension that could get Steve to cry, it's Robin. His best friend, the shield to his sword. And that's why a tear spills over that he quickly wipes away and smiles to distract from it.
And then she tells him how she got here, and he's taking it in but he's also doing a lot of processing himself.]
Good call on Dustin. That twerp so does not belong here... Robin wait, that sounds like exactly how Nance and I ended up here. Ok, me and Nance, we were exploring the lab, back at Hawkins, and we just. We must've activated the portal by accident, or maybe the Russians did this, but then there was all this fog and a whooshing noise and that feeling you get on one of those spinny rides at the Hawkins state fair that I hate so much and it brought us here to this place. I don't know if it's the upside down or not, but it feels...off. Different. There's others too. Came here from other places, other...times? We'll figure this shit out together, get back home. You and me Robs, together we're unstoppable, right? I mean we took down an entire Russian base, otherworldly dimensions got nothing on us.
[ And then he rearranges them, taking the strong stance again, his hope for salvation slowly renewing. Motivation to fix this growing exponentially, since it means he'll save the one person he loves the most. ]
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No. Strike today being the worst day. The second worst day of her life is today. The first was when her best friend went missing.
This. Right now. Definitely a contender. To think Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan wouldn't have people looking for them would be foolish. Of course they would. Everyone would look. Even Robin, brand new to the horrors of the universe. Her search was something quite a ways off from the rest of them. Check the old lab, sure. That group she feels like an outsider to keeps checking it. But check the ruins of a mall? That's an idea.
It's foolish. Stupid. Careless. She shouldn't have been doing it alone and ever fiber of her being would usually be screaming at her not to but she did, for some reason, because it called out. In hindsight, maybe she was being mind controlled. At least she's not part of a meat monster. She could blame Dustin for talking her into it if she wanted to pin the blame somewhere.
It was a fruitless search. Government cleared it all. Rock and rubble with no way down. At least until she went to leave. This fog with demented whispers. She doesn't know what the Mind Flayer does but maybe this was it. At least the kids weren't around.
To say she was shaken is an understatement. Walking through woods is disorienting, like being really really high only with an odd sense of perfect clarity. A sinking feeling. Like falling in your dreams. She's staring at the floor when she arrives close enough to everyone. Robin hears a sound and jumps with a loud squeak. Flinching, blinking rapidly through watering eyes. What the hell.
Oh. That's just Steve whispering. ]
Holy shit.
[ Maybe it's the second best day. She points at him, stupidly, mouth agape and eyes as wide as they can go. Then her feet are moving before her brain catches up. Her mouth moving before her brain catches up. If the camp didn't know there was a new arrival, they would now. ] HOLY SHIT- NO, NO! HOLY SHIT! Steve! STEVE! STEVE HARRINGTON!
omg i love this so much, this is like perfect lore for her. And your voice is so good so far!!
It's also why he doesn't really know how to feel about her coming here, he's not mad at her of course, she had no part in that. But, part of him is definitely pissed off that she's subjected to this and has no idea what she's in for. If Steve could, he'd march right up to the entity and kick it's ass for bringing her here, but he can't so all that rage has to just collect inside of him, nowhere to flow.
Unless, it just melts away a little because he's really missed his best friend in the whole entire world and the moment he sees her stupid little goofy smile, he can't help but smile back, his matching hers. If they're not careful, they're going to end up swallowing flies. It's been so long, and every time he looks at that dumbass outfit of his, he'd think of her. In the Fog, that Scoops uniform holds so much more hate from Steve than it ever did in the real world, the constant reminder of what he left behind. Now, he's never been so happy to see it again, looks better with a skirt than those stupid shorts anyway.
And then she starts running and yelling and he matches that too, closing the distance between them.]
ROBIN! What the hell?! Is this real!?
[ He touches her face and adjusts her hat and pats her head making sure what he's seeing isn't some cruel trick, before grabbing her by the shoulders, stilling both himself and her, and takes in a breath. ]
Are you ok, you hurt or anything?
😭
But oh, there he is with his stupid hair and everything's fine. False alarm. Nobody's dead.
She reaches him and they're both mutually grabbing at each other. Her's touching her face. She's poking his cheek and patting his hair and grabbing his face between her hands and squishing it to check the validity of it all. ] You're asking me!? Are you real? You're real right? You're not dead? Am I dead? Oh my god. Did we die...?
[ She pauses, staring blankly for all of two seconds as the very suddenly real possibility sinks in. Is she only seeing him because she died? He's here to greet her and not great granny? But he has her by the shoulders and her attention snaps back. ] I'm fine! [ She glances down at herself, unsure if her answer was an unintentional lie or not.
She's wearing this? She died in Scoops Ahoy. Oh no. Gays really do go to hell. ] I mean, yeah. I'm fine. I think. [ Robin puts a hand over the ones on her shoulders to pull them off. And reverse their stance. Her hands are on his shoulders now looking at him carefully. ]
Are you okay? Where were you? You just disappeared with Nancy Wheeler and then Byers popped out and nobody could figure it out and they all kept looking in the same spots so I thought to check the mall because maybe evil Russians took you out back and shot you in the head because they would do that, you know, that was one of the threats or you got sucked into some fucked up interdimensional portal because that was also a very real possibility and everything was just really really foggy and holy shit are you okay?
me imploding trying to reign in my praise of your robin, she's so good and you're so good!!!!!!!!
And then she slows for a moment and he picks up her last phrase, Did we die?...]
I...am still trying to figure that. But, if we did, we're gonna haunt the hell out of whoever did this to us, right, Robs?
[ Ghosts aren't that crazy to believe in, not after all the things he's experienced. Ok maybe still a little crazy, even though some of the killers are actual ghosts. But not him and not Robin. Probably. Fuck. Are they ghosts?
And then she steadies him, probably because he's visibly shaking a little bit from all of this, and her grasping him helps a lot actually, and then she launches into what everyone thinks happened back in Hawkins, and what happened to Nance and him, and he's always wondering what they all think, and now he knows and he's so close to a piece of his old life he almost forgets the Hell he's been living in for what seems like forever and then he realizes that she's here now and they might not have a chance to make it back to Hawkins, and even if they did, he couldn't leave Nance and Jonathan behind. And it's all just too much at once.
The dam that had been building behind his eyelids spill over just a little bit, and his voice cracks as he answers her. ]
Yeah. I-I'm ok. I don't know what happened. But I've just missed you a lot. And Dustin, and the party, and home.
[ He buries his head in her shoulders for just a moment, trying to steady his breaths and regain control of himself. It's not more than five to ten seconds later when he's got it back. And he reverses their stances again. Not sure at what point this starts to count as them dancing, but they've gotta be close right?]
Robin, I need you to tell me very carefully, how you got here. We can try and grab Nance and Byers, make it back, pretend none of this ever happened. Please tell me you know something I don't.
[ The deperation in his voice, she could probably cut it with a knife. ]
no subject
But she doesn't give her a very good answer to the question. ] What do you mean you're trying to figure it out? Shouldn't you know? How do we not know if we're dead or not!? [ Her eyes widen, further, further. But they're holding each other. He's saying they'll defeat it. She clenches her mouth shut and nods, small quick rapid-fire nodding. She has to hold him steady. If he falls apart, she falls apart. And let's face it, she's smarter than him so she has to keep her shit together.
He's shaking. She's practically vibrating. Keep it together, Harrington. ] Okay-Okay okay... Can I just- [ INHALE. EXHALE.
Her eyes wander because time seems slow suddenly while he answers her. His voice crack immediately making tears formulate on her own eyes, unable to stop them. Her focus caught. Robin runs a nail with chipped polish over a spot on his shirt while she's got her hands on him, scraping at it like she can get it off. Copper brown. Just a single drop but she's getting complete vertigo staring at it. He says he's okay and she just knows he's lying.
Her voice is incredibly small suddenly: ]
I missed you too. They all did. I'm going to cry if you start crying-
[ Her head tilts to press her cheek against his hair when he's buried in her shoulder, one hand squeezing the shoulder she's still holding. Their positions reverse, a balance of taking turns being the strong one for each other. ]
I-... I don't know? I went to the mall. Dustin thought we could look there but I told him to stay put, because you would've said that, and I felt like I had to look there. Like um, magnet. Pull. That's stupid. It's all sectioned off charred rubble and big fences around it but everything was cleaned out. Not a scrap of that thing left, or bodies, or government guys. I was standing by, I think, what was the food court and I thought "there's nothing here" but then it got really foggy and I felt like I was suffocating but nothing was there just soot and maybe spider webs.
I'm sorry, Steve. I don't know. I really don't.
one week later, i wanted to wait for full brain cell function and sleep for this tag hehe <333
It's just really complicated, we're somewhere. Where dying doesn't even matter. I die over and over. But here I am. Safe and sound, and reunited with you.
[ That sounds crazy. Does he sound crazy? Is this too much for Robin? She's already short circuiting, should he maybe have braced her for this, because he's already on edge and like on the verge of breaking down, her hold on him being the only barrier to stop it.
But then she's tearing up, rubbing her chipped polished nail into his shirt, picking at some dried blood. He takes a second admiring it, been so long since he's had someone care about his appearance, it's just sweat and mud and blood here for everyone else, but Robin is so freshly arrived. He's not even sure if she's rubbing off any from his shirt, its caked on so thickly. Maybe nothing's coming off. Maybe she just needs to do that, and that's fine. Because it feels nice, the hug too, and it slows his heart a little, calms him, so he can recollect himself, be the strong one again in a moment. ]
No crying here. [ That's a lie, if there's one person on the planet, or the entire dimension that could get Steve to cry, it's Robin. His best friend, the shield to his sword. And that's why a tear spills over that he quickly wipes away and smiles to distract from it.
And then she tells him how she got here, and he's taking it in but he's also doing a lot of processing himself.]
Good call on Dustin. That twerp so does not belong here... Robin wait, that sounds like exactly how Nance and I ended up here. Ok, me and Nance, we were exploring the lab, back at Hawkins, and we just. We must've activated the portal by accident, or maybe the Russians did this, but then there was all this fog and a whooshing noise and that feeling you get on one of those spinny rides at the Hawkins state fair that I hate so much and it brought us here to this place. I don't know if it's the upside down or not, but it feels...off. Different. There's others too. Came here from other places, other...times? We'll figure this shit out together, get back home. You and me Robs, together we're unstoppable, right? I mean we took down an entire Russian base, otherworldly dimensions got nothing on us.
[ And then he rearranges them, taking the strong stance again, his hope for salvation slowly renewing. Motivation to fix this growing exponentially, since it means he'll save the one person he loves the most. ]