childofhermes03 - Tumblr blog

[childofhermes03]

More Ronance Band!AU because it's single handedly keeping me going

As always you can check out the full fic here. This picks up after chapter 5 :)

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It was around 3am when Steve and Nancy finally pulled up to the Wheelers driveway. The porch was cast with shadows that fled from the streetlight just a little farther down the sidewalk. The night was completely silent once they killed the rumbling motor, and the wooden stairs only creaked a little bit as the two slowly made their way inside.

The house was just as quiet as the surrounding area, and it'd be enough to make Nancy think she was going deaf if she couldn't still hear the faint hum of the cicadas outside. From over her shoulder, the brunette could see her unexpected guest inspecting the little details around her home. Steve looked at every knick-knack, picture, and painting he could as they passed through the halls to the stairs that led to Nancy's room.

They were about halfway up the stairs when there's a flick of a switch and the room is suddenly cast in a harsh orange light for all of 10 seconds. At the other end of the room is her mother, hands on her hips as her gentle blue eyes took in the scene in front of her.

"Well," she started after a pause, "I have to say, you were much better at sneaking Steve in when you were a teenager, Nancy."

"Mom!" Nancy shrieked, pointedly trying to avoid her mother's teasing gaze as well as the flustered look Steve is giving the back of her head.

"What? I'm just saying, he didn't stomp quite as loud when he was sneaking through your window." She chuckled as the man muttered a hushed apology. Turning her attention his way, she quirks an eyebrow,"But that was years ago so, to what do we owe the pleasure, Steve?"

"I- uhm, well…" He fumbles, as he realizes there's no actual reason for him to be in the Wheeler's house. At least, other than Nancy's panic induced state, which the brunette can tell he was hesitant to bring up around her mother.

"He's helping me with a story!" Nancy supplies, hoping her mom will take the bait.

It takes a beat before Steve catches on, "Yeah! She needs some help staking out some crooked politician and she called me in for backup. It’s supposed to be big." The boy waggled his eyebrows to sell it, but the older woman still looked unconvinced.

"We're just here to get some clothes. I don't know how long we’ll be gone.” Nancy said, ushering Steve up the stairs. The quicker they got away from her mom, the quicker they could leave.

“Okay well don’t stay up too late, and be careful!” Mrs. Wheeler yelled up after them before the door to her bedroom cut off anything else the woman may have said. As the door clicked into place, the brunette sighed heavily, dragging her hands down her face. She could feel the exhaustion from the day seeping into her bones the longer she stood there, so pushing away from the door, she turned to find Steve standing in the middle of the room seemingly lost in thought.

“You okay there?” Whatever trance Steve had fallen under seemed to dissipate at the sound of her voice. He shook his head slightly and turned back to her, a gentle smile on his face.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just- your room looks a bit different than I remember.” He said wistfully looking around the room. The walls that were once painted pastel pink were now white with dark oak borders around the floor. Her room was just as organized and proper as before, though her desk looked much more cluttered than it did in highschool, clips of newspapers and half finished drafts covering nearly every square inch of its surface.

The boy's eyes landed on the poster above her headboard and Steve couldn’t stifle his laugh as the Tom Cruise poster that had once been proudly displayed was now replaced with Joan Jett smiling wolfishly. Nancy flushed as she realized where the boy's attention had drifted.

"Yeah yeah, whatever, I just really like her music okay." She huffed digging in her closet.

"Whatever you say, Nance." The two fell into a comfortable silence as they sifted through the clothes. Occasionally, they would point out outfits that they remember from their time together (Nancy's wardrobe really hasn't changed much since they were in school.) Once they had filled the bags to the brim with clothes, Steve bid Nancy goodnight. While Nancy was adamant that she didn't mind giving the man the bed, Steve insisted that he'd be fine sleeping on the couch. It didn't take very long for the brunette to drift off as soon as her head hit the pillow, the exhaustion in her bones finally taking hold of her and dragging her into a dreamless slumber.

The next day starts off rather uneventfully. The Wheeler home was rather unfazed by the sudden appearance of Steve Harrington, despite Mr.Wheeler's griping about yet another mouth to feed. After a brief phone call, Max is on their doorstep and ready to meet the rest of the band.

"Nancy, Red is here!" Mike called, receiving a glare from the girl in question. As Nancy and Steve turned the corner, the younger girl regarded the man with suspicion, if the scowl on her face was any indication.

"Who's this dude?" She asked, crossing her arms. Nancy rolled her eyes affectionately at the girl and patted the man's shoulder.

"This dude is Steve Harrington," she smirked, "Also known as Griz."

Max's jaw dropped as her eyes darted between Nancy's smug smirk and Steve's wide, boastful smile.

"So," Steve started mirthfully, "you're the Max I've been hearing so much about."

The girl spluttered for a moment before she extended her hand, "Yes, sir, I'm Max. I'm a huge fan of your work. Seriously, I've memorized almost your entire discography."

The drummer chuckled before ruffling the girl's head as he moved towards the door.

"Well then, let's get a move on, Mad Max."

[childofhermes03]

This band!AU is gonna be the death of me

[childofhermes03]

I've been dead as fuck lately, but as promised, I have a sneak peak for the next chapter of my cracked out Ronance Band!AU.

You can check out the first couple chapters here.

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The next morning was hectic to say the least. She was awoken by her alarm clock screeching rudely at her first thing in the morning. Normally she would get up, get dressed, and make breakfast before heading off to work. Of course, she wouldn't be going back to the post today. In fact, she took these extra few minutes to calm her nerves before she had to inevitably call the office. She silently hoped that she wouldn't be fired before she dialed the number. Marge, the office secretary answered the phone cheerily and Nancy's nerves were soothed just a little. She and the older woman had begun a cordial friendship, born out of crossword puzzles and coffee orders. 

Nancy explained to the woman that she wouldn't be in for a while, citing an "exciting new story" that she just had to cover. The secretary excitedly congratulated her on the scoop and shooed her off, promising to take care of the execs in the office until she got back. Nancy smiled and thanked her for her time, truly that office didn't deserve someone as sweet and understanding as Marge. Now that she didn't have to worry about losing her job, she quickly changed into a simple white Tee and jeans and made for the door. Normally she would spend more time on her appearance, but if working backstage was truly as much manual labor as it appeared to be, she figured she'd take practicality over perfection.

As soon as she got to the venue and walked backstage, she was immediately lost. She had no idea where to go or what to do as hulking masses of men moved boxes and sand bags across the stage. She just wandered around aimlessly until she remembered the folded up piece of paper in her back pocket. Taking a quick glance, she made her way to the dressing rooms to meet with Robin. Her heart raced in her chest as she approached the lead's door, but she tried her best to squash the feeling before knocking on the door. 

"Come in!" Robin's voice carried through the dark oak, and Nancy took a deep breath before pushing her way through the door. A few feet away sat on the red plush couch, was the blonde, fiddling with her guitar. The other woman looked over her shoulder towards the door and grinned, "Nance! Nice to see you again. Come, take a seat." 

The reporter nervously sat on the opposite end of the couch, posture straight and stiff, waiting expectantly for the singer to fill her in.

The singer placed the guitar down and grabbed a stack of papers off of the table. Nancy stared entranced as the blonde flipped through the pages and pulled one from the back, "So Vic crunched some numbers last night, and to cover the cost of the equipment you'd only half to be on tour with us for about 3 weeks. That's about half of the tour." 

The longer Robin spoke the more the situation dawned on Nancy. She'd have to move from city to city. State to State. 

She looked up into Robin's understanding blue eyes and the blonde immediately dialed into Nancy's train of thought as she grimaced apologetically before starting again. "Here's the tricky part, you basically have two options. You can drive behind us with the rest of the crew and pay for your room at a motel every stop, or," she trailed off nervously, "you can stay in the tour bus with us." 

It was official, Nancy was a fucking goner.

[childofhermes03]

I let the brainrot win. The werewolf!Robin is now on its way. In the meantime enjoy this small teaser while I absolutely destroy my keyboard for the rest of the day.

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Despite the memory of that nightmarish hellscape they escaped not even a month ago, Robin once again found herself outside staring up at the moon. It was full tonight, lighting up the expanse of trees and grass in a soft glow as she sat on a hill just past the outskirts of the forest. There was an electric buzz in the air, but it could also just be the cicadas furiously vibrating from their perches in the trees. Something felt different though. The air was charged with something Robin couldn't quite place. 

The blonde took a deep breath in, letting the fresh air fill her lungs. It was a far cry from the stagnant, dead air of the Upside-down. She held her breath, letting it burn her lungs just a little before she released the breath, and with it the stress she's felt building up inside of her the last couple of weeks. She let the feeling wash over her, the warm burning sensation growing stronger in her chest. It was comforting, feeling so at ease for once. Everything had been so hectic. With Eddie and Max in the hospital, the Byers back in town after a Russian jailbreak, and the literal gates of hell bursting open throughout their small rural town, everything seemed to be going a mile a minute. She found peace in her friends, Steve was always so good at calming her down from her paranoid state, but it always seemed like a temporary solution. It was like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. Sure it would absorb some of the blood, but there was only so much it could take before the crimson liquid seeped out onto the floor. 

The burning grew then, spreading to her limbs. It was a hot, angry pain, and Robin did her best to fend it off. She coughed, scratched, clawed at her skin but nothing would ease the pain. She screamed willing the pain to disperse but it remained persistent, and as her vision blurred she wondered if this was really the way she would go out. Not by monsters or a mob of angry townspeople, but by herself in the middle of the forest, choking on air that hurt too much to breathe. At least it would be somewhere familiar to her, and compared to the alternatives, it was a relatively peaceful way to go in spite of the searing pain that shot through her bones.

There was a crack and her body doubled over from the pain. It took her a second to recognize that it was her own spine that had made such a ghastly noise, but as cracked the pain died down to a simmer, replaced by a sudden relief. The girl felt her skin shift and change as her back and legs moved of their own accord, and panic began to set in quickly as the initial shock wore off.

She wasn't dying.

No this was something much, much worse. She was changing, her body was shifting into something completely unfamiliar to her. She screamed again but it seemed like the trees absorbed them, creating a soundproof barrier around her and isolating her from the outside world. 

Robin wanted nothing more than to go home, for her dad to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. It was a childish thought she knew, but everything hurt and she just wanted to go home. 

She watched as her hands and feet changed, and as she screamed her jaw popped and shifted into a dog-like muzzle. Her cry morphed into a howl, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, the burning had stopped. In fact it felt like everything stopped as she flopped onto the dirt exhausted. Her skin was now covered in thick dirty brown fur, her teeth razor sharp in her mouth, and her hands and feet were now adorned with knife-like claws. It felt surreal. Sure, she had read a couple articles about supposed lycanthropy, and had been obsessed with "A Werewolf in London" when she had first seen it, but those were supposed to be fake. They were supposed to be nothing more than mystical fairy tales made up by old-timey people who didn't want their kids running into the forest to get eaten by wolves. Now though, after seeing the physical manifestation of hell right before her eyes, Robin supposed that someone turning into a canine wasn't as far fetched as it may have seemed.

There was a snap of a branch behind her and Robin whirled around quickly, half expecting another animal or interdimensional being. However as she turned, a blinding white light blinded her far too sensitive eyes and she crawled back in an attempt to put some distance between her and whoever was behind the light.

"Robbie?" A gentle male voice called. The flashlight was lowered and there in the pale moonlight was her father. The silver in her dark brown hair seemed to shine under the light, and his gentle blue eyes stared down at her with something akin to empathy. "Oh, sweetie."

[childofhermes03]

The way the Vamp!Eddie & Wolf!Robin AUs have me in a fucking chokehold-

I'm going absolutely feral

[childofhermes03]

More shameless self promotion but I love me a band AU

They are a band now

[childofhermes03]

just found out noah reads byler fics im losing my mind

[childofhermes03]

All yall who commented on my fics, you're a real one 😤

[childofhermes03]

Shout out to @thekeythief for doing the lords work

Also shameless self pulg, but I love this whole dynamic, so if you're interested in my obscure lil Ronance-Max fic, you can read it here

[childofhermes03]

I can’t stop thinking about the way that when Robin hears Nancy’s name in Season 3 she rolls her eyes and calls her a priss, but then not five minutes later she runs into Nancy in the flesh who’s apparently in the thick of the insane situation Robin has become unwittingly wrapped up in. Her makeup is smudged and her hair is messy and she’s terse with Robin and all Robin can do is utter a flustered reply while giving her this look:

And then shortly afterwards Robin watches as Nancy plants herself in front of a station wagon full of kids and shoots at an oncoming speeding car with a pistol, fully ready to sacrifice herself to protect them. That night at the Star Court Mall changes everything Robin thought about this dainty, pretty, prissy girl who turns out to be a certified badass with nerves of steel. 

After this, Robin is smitten. She volunteers to go with Nancy the moment an opportunity presents itself. When they’re waiting in the library, she assumes that Nancy has some genius trick up her sleeve because since Star Court she’s built up an idea of who she is in her mind: brilliant and brave and tenacious. Robin is so desperate for Nancy to like her that she loses all pretense of sardonic aloofness that we see around other characters and the words start spilling out, exactly as she described when venting to Steve about how she behaves around girls she’s crushing on. 

Robin is self-conscious and apologetic about how she comes across to Nancy, she repeatedly tries to diffuse the underlying tension between them in any way that she can, and is particularly keen to emphasise the platonic nature of her friendship with Steve. Despite barely knowing Nancy, she starts using the nickname “Nance” right away. There’s a sincere and earnest effort to win Nancy’s approval and affection; Robin needs it more than she even realises.

And the thing is, it works. Nancy starts off cool and irritable and exasperated (which, one should point out, may be in no small part because she’d been up all night looking for her friend who she just found brutally murdered - cut her some slack folks!), but after those two hours with Robin in the library, she realises that she’s remarkably bright and creatively minded and complements her own logical way of thinking so well. You can see the journey she undergoes in that short period of time written on her face: bemusement and impatience soon give way to respect and the dawning realisation that she’s met her intellectual match, someone with the same insatiable curiosity and a whole new way of seeing the world to show her. 

Nancy has so many emotional walls built up from years of repression and trauma, especially surrounding having and losing friends (not to mention, potentially, her own repressed queerness), but Robin despite her insecurities over her lack of filter and tendency to ramble and her other personal quirks manages to steal in past those defences. After that first encounter together, Nancy wants Robin by her side at all times. Even though she knows Steve, Dustin, Lucas and Max so much better, she picks Robin to come with her to Pennhurst, she asks Robin to explore the Creel House with her, she has Robin ride shotgun with her in her car. They stick together as a pair at every turn. 

This is so, so important: Nancy grows to like and care about Robin because of her being totally and utterly herself. The Robin whose mouth moves faster than her brain, the Robin who is relentlessly inquisitive and goofy and clumsy, the Robin who is at her most overtly neurodivergent around her. And Robin is slowly but surely finding confidence in herself and courage through that relationship, she’s taking risks she never would have before, and learning that her perceived flaws are actually strengths. When talking to Warden Hatch at Pennhurst with Nancy, it’s her runaway way with words that saves them and leaves Nancy incredibly impressed. The unmasked, unfiltered, beautiful gay disaster Robin Buckley is the person Nancy comes to admire and develops a deep fondness for. 

It’s been said many times before, but Robin and Nancy complete each other. As we’ve just established, Nancy quickly becomes a source of reassurance, inspiration and affirmation for Robin. And Robin is someone who can keep up with Nancy’s laser-focused fixations and faced-paced thinking, who can challenge her to consider things she never would have otherwise. She also encourages Nancy to be more honest with herself and makes her feel at ease at a time when she’s more lost than ever. Robin is always carefully reading Nancy and respects her opinions and feelings; she’s the friend and confidant Nancy has been missing in her life all this time since losing Barb.

When they’re talking in the woods, it’s not what Robin says about Steve or Jonathan that Nancy latches onto. What truly takes her aback is the realisation that Robin considers them to be friends, and both quietly, bashfully blush and smile to themselves at that confirmation. However adrift Nancy might be from her complex feelings over Jonathan and Steve or her unhealed emotional scars, she’s found an anchor in someone. However insecure Robin might feel about herself, she’s found a girl who she doesn’t have to pretend with.

And then we come to perhaps the most revealing scene of the season so far: when Eddie, Steve, Nancy and Robin are on the boat over Lover’s Lake. The parallels to Tammy Thompson are evident as Robin stares at Nancy who can’t pull her eyes away from Steve, and the way in which the camera focuses on the two characters in the frame imparts so much more than Robin simply being happy for the rekindled feelings of her friends. Her longing expression breaking into a soft smile and the bowing of her head feels like the sad acceptance of something she believes to be unattainable for her. 

Nancy demonstrates her trademark reckless abandon to protect the people she loves when she dives in to rescue Steve without hesitation after he’s pulled under, but Robin’s reaction is gut-wrenching as she cries out Nancy’s name and reaches for her. And then Robin, who beneath her snarky facade is far more scared than she likes to let on, pushes down those fears and without wasting a second moves to go after her with a sense of resigned determination. The framing of this scene, the dialogue and Maya Hawke’s performance make it clear that Robin is willingly following Nancy Wheeler into hell. As Eddie says, that’s as sure a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen. 

Regardless of whether the romantic subtext is intentional or this relationship is supposed to remain strictly platonic, Nancy and Robin’s blossoming friendship is a very special one. Having swiftly dismantled their presumptions about one another, they’ve found true synergy, inspiring and pushing each other to be the best versions of themselves. In spite, or rather because of their differences, the two are slowly but surely forging a profound bond that is already one of the most charming and memorable on the show to date, and with any luck, we’ll get some meaningful and moving payoffs to their arcs together in Vol 2. Perhaps, through each other, Nancy and Robin will finally find the closure, catharsis and connection they’ve been yearning for. 

Thanks so much to @meanlesbianrobin for providing the accompanying screenshots! 

[childofhermes03]

Girls don't want a boyfriend they want byler to be canon.

[childofhermes03]

LET'S GO LESBIANS 🗣🗣

[childofhermes03]

😔🤚

[childofhermes03]

REBLOG if you have amazing talented artist friends!

[childofhermes03]

They deserve a nap 😭🌈💕

[childofhermes03]

Happy pride to them 😌🌈✌️

[childofhermes03]

ronance in season 4 is literally just me and you and you and me just us and your friend steve

doo-doo do-doo doo do-do