#Buckingham fic

[blushweddinggowns]

“Your boyfriend,” Chirssy sighed as she picked through Nancy’s clothes, “Y’know, Steve?”

Robin blinked at her, “You think I’m dating Steve?”

That was a silly question, “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? You guys are all over each other.”

They were. Piggy back rides, cuddling on the couch together, constantly invading each other’s personal space. The only person worse with Steve was Eddie, but Chrissy figured that just came with being best friends for over a decade. She didn’t exactly have a frame of reference for that, considering her first real friends were barely six months old. 

Chrissy just hadn’t expected Robin to burst out laughing. Hard enough to double over.

Robin wiped at her eyes, barely managing to speak through her own cackles, “That’s-oh my god. How have we fucked up this badly?” 

Chrissy could feel a flush creep up her neck, embarrassment kicking in. She hated when she wasn’t in on the joke. It usually meant that it was actually on her,  “Don't be mean.”

“No!” Robin rushed out to say, effortlessly catching on to the look on Chrissy’s face, “No! I-I don’t mean- you’re not stupid! I am. We are. For… reasons. But we aren’t dating.”

That didn’t make any sense. Unless… was Steve leading her on? Was he the type of guy to do that?

Chrissy raised a brow at her, “So what are you doing? The two of you are attached at the hip. Unless he just drives you around everywhere for fun?”

Chrissy could tell Robin was still trying not to laugh. She was failing at it too, obvious as she hid it behind her hand. 

“Stop laughing at me,” Chrissy grumbled. 

“I’m not! I’m just laughing near you,” Robin said quickly. She turned to Steve, “Hey babe, can you come over here for a second?”

He came trotting right over, leaving Eddie to argue with Nancy in his place. He kind of reminded her of a dog, but in a cute way. Like a golden retriever boyfriend. 

Robin wrapped an arm around his shoulder the second he was within reach. She grinned at him, shaking him the slightest bit, “How would you feel about us going out some time?”

Steve stared at her, obviously confused, “Huh?”

“You, me,” Robin went on, “The whole boyfriend girlfriend shtick. What do you say?”

Chrissy didn’t expect to Steve physically cringe, like the idea completely disgusted him, “Ew, no.”

Robin scoffed but she didn’t look very surprised, “Fucking rude.”

“No!” Steve said, raising his hands to placate, “I don’t mean you’re gross! I mean it would be like banging my sister!”

It was Robin’s turn to cringe, “Dude, ew.”

“See!”

Chrissy didn’t understand what was happening. She stared at them, blurting the question out, “You guys aren’t together?”

Robin did a set of jazz hands, “Nope. Absolutely zero attraction between us. See?”

“But why?” Chrissy asked, looking between the two of them, “You both seem so perfect for each other.”

“Hey Eddie,” Steve called, a weird smile on his face, “What do you think? Are Robin and I perfect for each other?”

Suddenly Robin had that same look, “Yeah. He knows Steve better than anybody. Let's have him weigh in.”

Eddie groaned as he came over, clearly eavesdropping the entire time. He left Nancy to dig around her closet, walking up next to Steve with a sigh, “Are we really doing this? Really?”

Robin gasped, faking a faint, “Are you implying that I’m not good enough for Steve?”

Steve gasped right along with her, joining in with the dramatics while Chrissy was still lost, “I think he might be.”

“As fun as this little game is,” Eddie sighed, “I think we should just tell her. I’m tired of keeping my hands to myself anyway.”

Steve looked at him, head cocked, “You think so?”

“Why not?”

Steve shrugged, his eyes landing back onto Chrissy. His voice dipped down, more serious then before. He was talking like he was speaking to Eddie, but Eddie wasn’t the one he was staring down as he spoke, “It makes sense. I think the chances of it going badly are pretty low. The alternative wouldn’t be very wise.”

Chrissy was reminded, not for the first time, why she thought Steve was the scarier one of the best friend duo. 

But then Eddie was clamping a hand onto Steve’s shoulder, pulling him closer as he mumbled in his ear, “Put the claws away angel. I highly doubt she's like that. Plus she's been through enough for one day. Don't you think?”

It was actually pretty impressive, how easily a few words had Steve’s face transforming from scarily defensive to pleasantly neutral. It nearly looked like the words made him shiver, “I-you're right. Sorry Chris. I'm just… sensitive about it “

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Chrissy said, completely unable to accept an apology that she didn’t understand, “What is happening?”

And what did Eddie just call him? 

Eddie went on, “Well… we kind of have this thing when we’re in a near death experience. Or at least adjacent to it. Where we, well, kind of let loose? So we might as well warn you about what you’re going to see beforehand.”

Chrissy stared as Steve leaned further into him, nearly too close. No, definitely too close. He was basically nuzzling the side of Eddie’s face as he spoke, “You’re making it sound like we’re going to commit public indecency in front of her. And I’m the one who needs to calm down?”

Chrissy still didn’t get it. But her brain was still trying to work it out, fitting the weird pieces together. The way they were leaning into each other. The fact that Steve, for some bizarre reason didn’t want the best girl in the country, despite the fact that Robin was right there. How Eddie was instantly able to calm him down. 

Angel.

Oh. 

Oh. 

OH. 

“Uh, you okay there Chris?” Eddie asked, watching right at the realization hit her.

She was not okay. Not because of Eddie and Steve, but because this meant Robin was single. And she had been the entire damn time. 

Chrissy shook herself out of the stupid thought, just because she wasn’t taken didn’t mean she had a chance-

“Yeah, we’re kind of the queer trio over here,” Robin added, effortlessly grinding Chrissy’s train of thought back to a halt, “I um, probably should have told you sooner but piggybacking on their coming out seems appropriate.”

Nancy snorted, her outfit choices formalized as she walked over, “If you’re the queer trio what does that make me? The straight fourth wheel?”

They were all talking about it so casually. Like the thing that has plagued Chrissy’s mind for years, filling her with guilt and doubt, didn’t matter. It was normal, it was fine, and Robin liked girls.

She was pretty sure she was going to faint. But before she could her mouth was opening, “That’s- I - Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

Her voice came out more forceful than she expected. Though in her defense, she just found out that she had a real shot with her best friend the same day her life was in danger. She was feeling frazzled, but she corrected herself when she was met with silence, “I-I’m fine with it! Really! I j-just wish I had known.”

Nancy looked at her sympathetically, “Did you have a crush on one of them too? I get it, Steve got me the first time we started getting close. But I promise it’s not that hard to get over it.”

“No!” Chrissy said quickly, again with too much force, “I’m just surprised. T-That’s it. Everything’s fine.”

“Think you got the wrong category there Nance,” Steve mumbled under his breathe, yelping when Robin pinched his arm with a sharp glare. 

“Ignore him,” Robin said with a sad smile, “He doesn’t get everyone doesn’t have the gay gene.”

Chrissy nodded, her eyes trailing the flush that was going up Robin’s neck. Suddenly her mouth felt dry, the urge to correct her coming out full force. She shouldn’t tell them, right? It was wrong, it was bad, it didn't make sense. Because she knew they weren’t wrong. They weren’t bad. And Chrissy was so, so, tired of other people’s words invading her own thoughts. 

Nancy was laying the clothes out, the only one capable of getting everyone back on task, “Since it looks like neither of you were actually looking. I picked these out for you-”

“I have it,” Chrissy blurted out, her eyes still on the clothes on the bed. She refused to look up for any of their reactions, “The um, what you guys were talking about earlier. Me too. And I like the blue skirt.”

Nancy was the only one who didn’t miss a beat, “Ah, so now there’s four. Good for you. And I agree with the skirt, it will make you look a little taller with the heels and the elongation. We can get you to pass for a college student for sure. Robin, what do you think about the pink?”

from the next chapter of this fic

[penny00dreadful]

Okay, okay, okay listen.

Remember when we were all obsessed with Steddie Legally Blonde a while back? Yes, I’m still thinking about it, leave me alone. And I adore everything I’ve read. It’s all so fantastic.

But I had a thought because what if we switched it up a little? I’m going mainly off of the musical here, so bear with. 

So what if instead of having Steddie as Elle and Emmett, we instead have them as Paulette and UPS Guy/Kyle??? Like??? It fits, right???

But then, but THEN who do we have as Elle/Emmett?

Buckingham.

No, but just think of it! 

Or I guess you don’t really need to because I’ve thought of it enough for all of us and it goes like this:

(OMG you guys I blacked out and when I woke up this thing was 3.1k long written over a few hours. I haven't edited this at all so please be gentle about typos/tense changes etc. The fever just took me.)

Chrissy is your quintessential girly girl. She is Elle Woods. She’s blonde, pretty, cheerleader, very feminine and happy where she is in life, President of her Sorority with her besties by her side and her guy who is… well he’s as good as any guy could be, right?

Jason is handsome, rich, well connected, he treats her with affection and he humours her when she has some pretty wild, out there ideas. 

But then it happens and they break up because apparently having a girly girl for a wife just wouldn’t look good if he’s gonna live his life the way he wants to. Lawyer, his own practice, running for office. 

Apparently her blonde hair and boobs would hold him back which, what the fuck??? 

What does that have to do with anything?

They love each other, right? That surface stuff isn’t supposed to matter. At all! They’re supposed to be together no matter what because they… they love each other?

Well fuck that noise, no one tells Chrissy Cunningham she’s too fucking blonde to do anything which is a hypocritical ass thing to say because has Jason looked in the fucking mirror recently?

Different fucking rules, apaprently. 

Well, no more.

She’s gonna fuck up law school right along side him and she’s gonna wear fucking pink while doing it too!

And like, everything is going fine. 

Chrissy’s not stupid, she knows how she’s perceived by people before they get to know her. 

Vapid, bimbo, perky, blonde.

Like that’s an insult.

It’s just harder now that she’s away from her girls, gays and theys back home. And everyone here seems to think that the best way to live their lives is to look boring as shit while doing it along with tearing each other down.

She fucking hates it, but she’s determined to see it through. 

It helps that she seems to have found the one person on the whole of the fucking east coast who actually listens to what’s coming out of her mouth rather than just paying attention to the hair on her head or staring at her tits.

Robin is so strange.

She’s different in such a refreshing way, it’s like being able to breathe clean air for the first time in years.

And she’s fucking sharp. And sweet. And so, so comforting. 

Chrissy would have never managed to survive the depression of those first few weeks without her.

And like, she’s not ignorant to the fact that Robin sometimes does look at her boobs but at the same time it just feels different coming from a woman than it does a man. It doesn’t feel so objectifying.

Instead of putting Chrissy on edge it makes her feel a little smug. A little proud of herself, it makes her feel attractive and desired in a way she hasn’t felt in a very long time. 

Is that sexist? To prefer the attentions of a woman over a man when both do it just fine for her?

Chrissy’s not exactly sure, but she knows she enjoys it when it’s coming from Robin.

So maybe it’s a Robin thing. 

Chrissy honestly thinks things are looking up for her. 

Until Jason introduces Nicole. 

His fucking fiancee???

It’s been, like, four months since they broke up.

Nicole hates her guts, she can tell. She thinks she’s some two braincelled idiot who got into Harvard on daddy’s dime and needs to be babied through the simplest of tasks while not understanding how condescending everyone’s been the whole time.

Chrissy fucking understands. She’s been through it all before, but back then she had people by her side. It’s all so fucking childish. The world already hates women enough, Chrissy desperately doesn’t want to be at another womans throat, over a man no less, but Nicole doesn’t seem to feel the same way.

She’s ambitious and cut-throat and dedicated and a little bit terrifying. 

Apart from Robin, she’s on her fucking own out here.

And she needs something. 

Something of home to bring some light back into her life.

So she gets in her car and just drives around the streets hoping something will catch her eye. 

And it does. 

Some tiny little hole in the wall salon with a pride flag out the front that she’s immediately drawn to because god damn it she misses her friends. The girls, the gays, the theys.

As soon as she pulls over she feels both simultaneously like she’s come home and she definitely won’t fit in here, but she’s so emotionally raw at this stage it all kinda ends up converging on her and now she’s standing in front of a mostly empty salon and there’s a guy looking at her and she’s just fucking crying.

Through her blurry vision she can see the guy approaching and she really fucking hopes this isn’t gonna turn into a thing because she just does not have any spoons left to deal with some creep right now. 

But he seems to sense how he’s coming off because he becomes a little more effeminate from one step to the next.

“You okay, honey?” He asks, big brown eyes wide with concern and a hand covered in rings hovering over her shoulder, not touching. He has a cigarette in the other hand, held away to keep the smoke from reaching her, his arms covered in ink but Chrissy wants nothing more than a cigarette right now.

Or, that’s kind of a lie, but she’d love one in all honesty. She hasn’t smoked in so long. 

The guy spots her eyeing it, sticking the cigarette back between his plush lips and needing to use both hands to pull his carton from his pants considering they’re so tight.

“Bad day?” He hands her one and Chrissy ends up breaking down all over again.

She tells him that it hasn’t just been a bad day, but a bad half a year, really. She tells him all about Harvard and Jason and her professors and Robin and by the end of her ranting they’re sitting back in the breakroom of the salon. They guy’s name is Eddie, she learns and despite his mean and scary exterior Chrissy thinks he might be the gentles person she’s met in this whole god forsaken city.

He holds her hands between his and listens to her. Actually hears her talk and pays attention and is concerned and attentive and she loves him for it. 

He helps her find her confidence again, at least for the rest of the day. They commiserate about how they both stick out like sore thumbs in their communities and how people need to just kinda get over it.

He encourages her not to let the normies win, do go hang out with Robin, to go kick ass and she’s just wondering how on earth she can ever repay the favour when they hear

“Knock, knock.” 

Coming from the front of the salon.

Eddie’s whole face drains of colour before immediately turning red and he bolts up from his chair, stumbling out of the staffroom and moving back behind the receptionists desk.

Chrissy gets to watch in real time as all of Eddie’s incredible confidence and easy lightheartedness disappears into a vat of nerves mostly hidden by cheeky flirtation as he twirls a lock of hair around his finger and bats his eyelashes at the Hot UPS Guy who looks equally as charmed. 

When the guy, Steve, has to get back to his route, Eddie practically melts against the desk as soon as he’s out of sight. 

“Looks like I’m not the only one who needs help.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at her but smiles anyway. “I had that handled just fine.”

Over the next few months, she and Eddie get closer, Eddie and Steve stay exactly where they were that first day and she and Robin are quickly approaching best friends level.

But Chrissy is starting to come to terms with the fact that maybe she wants a little more than to be best girly-girl friends with Robin and maybe she wants to stick her tongue down her throat about it. 

The two of them are practically attached at the hip, spending all day at classes together, alternating between their respective rooms to study late into the night, ending up in the same bed together and waking up together in the morning. 

Chrissy is almost, completely, entirely sure that this is all very not platonic but it’s so difficult to tell.

She’d be constantly sleeping over with her friends back home, hugging, kisses on cheeks, cuddling in bed or when watching movies, just girly things.

But this feels different. Is it different?? Or is this just how Robin is with all her female friends, the same way it’s always been how Chrissy was with her friends back home. How can she tell if it’s going from platonic to romantic??

And all of that needs to go on the backburner anyway because they’re being put on a real life, for realsies you guys case. And if they fuck up this case they could be at fault for someone spending the rest of their fucking life in prison for something they didn’t do??

Unacceptable.

And after Chrissy finds out their client used to be on the same cheer team as her? It was all over. No way was she gonna let her go to prison just because everyone thinks a pretty young woman couldn’t possibly love someone a little older than her. 

Not on Chrissy’s watch. 

But first she has to deal with Robin’s wardrobe because they professor is insistent that all the women wear skirts and tights and Robin is not having it.

Neither is Chrissy to be fair, so she takes Robin out to the most lavish place she can, decks them both out in the fiercest looking pantsuits they can get their hands on, refusing to back down.

It comes as a surprise to both of them when Nicole stands with them in solidarity as well and now their professor is both outnumbered and losing his arguments with only Jason on his side about this and they fucking win.

It’s only a small win but it still feels fantastic. 

Riding her high of winning that small fight, she bursts into the salon and informs Eddie that he is going to either kiss or ask out Steve the next time he sees him and when Eddie reacts like she just said she was going to shave all of his hair off she refuses to hear it. 

Because the thing is Eddie is pretty, really pretty and she knows that Steve knows it, but she doesn’t think that Eddie himself is really aware of it. And despite his prettiness, he’s all awkward elbows and knees. 

So she gives him some tips and shows him how to highlight certain things about himself, the long legs, the tattooed arms, the hip bones. Even his cute little bum. She teaches him how to subtly pull at his clothes in conversation so some skin is exposed or his tiny little waist is highlighted. She teaches him how to use his eyes to go in for the kill.

He doesn’t seem to think it’ll work but she is almost certain it will. 

And it’s confirmed for her when she gets a call later that night from Eddie who sounds fucking over the moon and completely bewildered by the fact that Steve likes him back??? Has done for months?? And they had some incredible dirty nasty sex in the salon after it closed for the night and how they’re going to the movies tomorrow??

Eddie swears he’s gonna send her the biggest fuck off fruit basket he can find. 

Everything is looking up for her, especially after she has such a major win in court, figuring out one of the prosecutors witnesses had perjured himself on the stand (without outing him to the whole damn court, thankfully).

Or at least everything was looking up for her until she found herself alone in a room with her professor and she felt the energy in the room shift before it happened. 

His hands were on her before she could do anything about it and she cracked him across the face for it before she could even think about what this could do to her legal career going forward. 

Because that was the reality of it, wasn’t it? 

Either allow herself to get assaulted or destroy her career before it even started. 

She didn’t know when her priority had shifted from getting Jason back to actually pursuing this as a future career. But she had found to her own surprise she loved it. She adored it actually. 

And now…

Now it would all be gone. 

Jason had seen, of course he had and he was less than kind about it because apparently it made more sense that she had fucked her way into Harvard than had actually been smart enough to get there on her own. 

She couldn’t stomach anything Nicole could possibly have to say to her but if the way she was glaring at Jason with barely concealed rage after that comment was anything to go by, Chrissy didn’t need to worry too much about that.

She just wanted to go. To get out. She needed to get out. And she would have gotten away scott free if Robin hadn’t been hanging around waiting for her.

Robin’s face broke into a bright smile but that quickly slipped away when she saw the state Chrissy was in. She was all sweet concern and care and affection but Chrissy couldn’t fucking deal with it at that moment, she couldn’t face her.

She couldn’t face Robin who would find out what a fool of herself she’d made believing in Chrissy, when Chrissy had thrown all of their hard work away.

Because no one would ever fucking see her as a person. She was just a piece of ass.

So she ran.

She didn’t even realise where she was running to until she was standing outside the salon doors again. 

It was late, they were closed, of course they were, why was she here?

She was standing outside the door crying again like she had been the first time and it was all just so fucking stupid-

“Chrissycakes?”

She was enveloped in Eddie’s arms before she could even blink, being ushered inside and steered back to the staffroom, same as that first time. 

There were beer bottles and take out containers over the table and Steve sitting at the table and oh, she’d interrupted something hadn’t she? 

What a fucking way to officially meet one of her best friends new boyfriend right?

But they were so sweet. 

They sat and listened while she spilled the whole thing, offering at different points to hunt down her professor for her or slash his tires or lose all of his mail or whatever and she was forced to giggle through the tears.

But she shook her head in the end. She was tired. She was sick of having to defend herself constantly. 

She needed… she needed to go back to where she belonged. 

And she was about to. 

She was about to leave the salon, swear to keep in contact with Eddie because god damn it she loved him now and she was ready to run.

But then there was a hammering at the door and Chrissy poked her head out to see Nicole standing there looking like she was on a fucking crusade. 

And… was that…?

Robin was standing behind her, looking like she was just trying not to get in Nicole’s way.

Eddie grumbled to himself about changing the damn salons opening hours if this was to continue but he unlocked the door anyway.

Nicole burst in all fire and determination, shoving her finger directly in Chrissy’s face.

“I hated you. But god fucking damn it if you didn’t prove to me that this is the career you belong in. And I refuse to stand by and see an admirable woman of your smarts and calibre get run over by some small dicked professor with a receding hairline. You’re so much more than that. So c’mon. We’re breaking through that fucking glass ceiling if it kills us.”

Holy shit.

Robin pulled her into a tight hug, warm and comforting and a little too long to be platonic, running a hand through her hair. 

“We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with Chris, but… you deserve to be in that courtroom.” She muttered into her ear and Chrissy could do nothing but nod into Robin’s neck.

She heard Eddie sigh behind her. “Okay if we’re doing this then… I need to make a few calls.”

A few days later Chrissy made her triumphant return to the courtroom. Everyone was there to support her. Eddie, Steve, her besties from back home that Eddie had called, telling them it was a friend emergency and so of course they all came right away along with Robin and Nicole bracketing her on each side. 

And while she could tell the court wasn’t taking her rants on hair care very seriously, when she finally came out with the verbal crackdown, proving the witness was actually the murderer, the gasps from the gallery were enough to feed her for years to come. 

When all was said and done at the celebration later that night, she found herself being approached by Jason.

He told her it was a mistake to let her go, to discard her the way he had and she agreed that yes it was. But his mistakes weren’t her problem anymore. And from the look of it they weren’t Nicole’s problem either. 

Jason surprisingly took it well enough, mentioning that he never really felt the same passion for law that she so clearly possessed. 

She wished him luck with finding what he wanted to do.

But now.

Now she needed to find Robin. 

Chrissy couldn’t take it anymore.

So weaving through the people around her, she grabbed at Robin’s hand, dragging her away from Steve who she had become inseparable with and pushing her into the hallway.

Robin didn’t even have a chance to ask what was happening before Chrissy was on her, pressing her into a wall, holding her close with her hands on either side of her face, kissing her with so much longing and elation and joy and happiness that when she pulled away Robin looked completely dazed. 

Robin blinked slowly a few times before her face broke into a wide grin. 

“Me too.”

[libraryofgage]

Scream AU

I've been possessed recently by a Steddie and Buckingham Scream AU, which means I haven't written much for my Tumblr fics hfjkds

Anyway, to make up for it, here's a little snippet of the Scream AU ;)

This snippet is clean, but the fic itself is, uh, very Dead Dove hfjsdk

Still, this snippet does include discussion of murder with vague descriptions and cursing

-------

“Have you heard about Tommy and Carol?”

Chrissy presses her lips together in a thin line, focusing more on the breeze passing over her than Jason’s friend, David, sitting a foot away from her. Jason’s arm is around her waist, encouraging her to lean against his shoulder for the twenty minute free period. 

On Jason’s right side, Steve Harrington is sitting with one leg on the bench and the other on the ground. It creates a space perfect for Robin Buckley to fit in. And she does. She slid into the spot like she owned it, and she’s now leaning back against Steve’s chest, a book in her hands that Steve reads over her shoulder. He never stops her when she turns the page, and Chrissy wonders if he’s actually even reading along.

Robin and Steve look good together. They fit as naturally as the sun that shines down on them, making Robin’s hair glint in a way Chrissy finds difficult to look away from.

“Yeah,” Jason says, shaking his head as he rubs circles on Chrissy’s waist with his thumb. “Fucking brutal, huh?”

“Dingus used to know them,” Robin says, her voice distracted as she turns the page. 

“Used to,” Steve stresses, frowning slightly as he looks away from the book. “Haven’t talked to them much lately. Jason’s the one who's been hanging out with them recently.”

“What happened?” Chrissy asks, getting the feeling she doesn’t actually want to know. Still, she hates the idea of being left out even more.

David grins at her and leans closer, ignoring the way Jason tugs Chrissy closer and glares. “They were both found dead this morning,” he says, his eyes wide and gleeful. “Tommy was floating in the pool, Carol hung from a tree, and both of them were gutted.”

“Gutted?” Chrissy asks.

“Ugh, spare us the details,” Robin says, putting the book down and looking at David with a bored expression. 

David doesn’t listen to her. “Yeah, gutted. Intestines and organs all falling out. Tommy’s were floating in the pool, though, made the water red and everything.”

A sick feeling stirs in Chrissy’s stomach, making her grimace as she looks away from David. She can’t help imagining the sight, nausea sweeping over her uncontrollably. “Dude!” Jason says, his loud voice making her wince. “Have some fucking class, yeah?”

“Sorry,” David says, raising his hands up and keeping his mouth shut for all of two seconds before saying, “I bet they were fucking.”

“What?” Steve asks, looking up at David like he’s stupid.

“You know,” David replies, “fucking. Everyone knows you shouldn’t fuck in a horror movie if you wanna live.”

“This isn’t a movie, dumbass,” Jason says, leaning even further into Chrissy’s space to flick David’s forehead.

“I’m just saying!” David says, rubbing at his forehead. “Everyone knows you shouldn’t have sex unless you wanna die. Look at Friday the 13th! Those counselors getting it on started the whole massacre.”

“So, what, some guy passed by Carol’s place, saw them fucking in the living room, and decided to get stab-happy?” Steve asks, his tone heavily implying David is, in fact, stupid beyond reason.

“Maybe he’s a horror movie aficionado.”

“Do you even know how to spell that word?” Steve asks.

“Do you?”

“How’d they even gut them?” Robin asks, her head falling back on Steve’s shoulder as she moves the subject along. Her neck stretches, and Chrissy focuses on following the line of it down to Robin’s shoulders to ride out the nausea. “Seems like overkill.”

“You cut them from the navel,” Steve says, his finger tapping against Robin’s knee as he looks across the courtyard. When Chrissy follows his gaze, she finds Eddie Munson sitting on a table, grinning at something one of his friends has said. “And I guess you’d go, like, side to side or something.”

Before he can say more, he grunts in pain, and Chrissy looks back to see Robin has roughly elbowed him in the ribs. “I said spare us the details, dingus,” she says, looking at him over her shoulder with a frown. Steve grins and raises his hands in surrender, shrugging once. Robin rolls her eyes and looks away. 

Her gaze lands on Chrissy and she gets up, brushing non-existent dust from her clothes before standing in front of Chrissy. “C’mon, let’s leave the boys to their gross talk,” she says, holding her hand out.

Without thinking, Chrissy accepts it, allowing herself to be pulled off the bench. Robin grins as she drops her hand, unaware that Chrissy is inexplicably missing the gentle warmth of her palm. “I’ll see you in class, Jason,” she says, waving before following Robin.

They’re half-way to the building when Robin says, “You should just tell them to shut up next time.”

Chrissy shrugs. “I don’t know. It was gross but easy to ignore,” she says. A few beats of silence pass before she adds, “You shouldn’t be so rough with Steve. He might think you don’t like him anymore.”

Robin falters, whipping her head around to look at Chrissy. “What?” she asks, her voice high and slightly strained.

It makes Chrissy think she’s stuck her nose where it doesn’t belong. She bites her bottom lip, watching as Robin’s eyes drop to the action before quickly rising again. “I just mean, well, he’s your boyfriend, right? You shouldn’t hurt him.”

Another beat of silence passes before Robin starts laughing so hard that she doubles over. She wheezes, holding her stomach and nearly losing strength in her legs before she calms down enough to stand up straight again. “We aren’t dating,” she says breathlessly, her cheeks flushed as she looks at Chrissy. “First of all, he’s way too high maintenance. Second of all, he’s only my platonic soulmate. We’re destined to be best friends. Nothing more. Third of all, I’m a gold star lesbian, Chrissy. I’m not exactly looking for dick.”

Oh. 

That’s…a lot to process. Chrissy blinks, letting everything run through her brain before she slowly nods. “Oh,” she says, her voice soft as she ducks through the door that Robin holds open for her. She waits just inside the school hall as Robin follows her in. “Sorry, I guess.”

“You’re okay with me being a lesbian?” Robin asks.

“Well, uh, are you gonna hit on me?” Chrissy asks back, making sure her tone is light and playful enough that Robin knows she’s joking.

Robin stares at her for a few seconds. “Only if you wanted me to,” she finally says, her tone surprisingly serious. Before Chrissy can respond, Robin smiles at her and easily changes the subject by saying, “Anyway, I’m kinda nervous after hearing the guys talk about Tommy and Carol.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s a little scary,” Chrissy says, her brain barely able to keep up with the change. “I’m not looking forward to being home alone tonight.”

“Want me to come over? I can bring a pizza and we can watch a movie,” Robin offers, her genuine smile telling Chrissy this isn’t a joke or some play on her comment about flirting.

It’s reassuring, actually. She wouldn’t want to invite Jason, since he’d look for reasons to have sex, and Robin is plenty nice. They’ve been hanging out more since she and Jason started dating. It was inevitable, really. Jason and Steve hang out because they’re on the basketball team together, so Robin and Chrissy would naturally cross paths.

“Yeah,” Chrissy says, her shoulders relaxing some as she smiles. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Totally,” Robin says, nodding once as her grin widens. “I’ll come over after work. I should be there around eight.”

Before Chrissy can say anything else, the bell rings, and she parts ways with Robin so she isn’t late to class.

[rosetintmyworldinatimewarp]

But mostly, I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close. 

Chapter seven is finally up on AO3!

Chrissy and Eddie have been best friends since middle school, ever since that one misguided kiss led to them coming out to each other in a panic. In order to shield themselves from the town’s homophobia, they promised that they’ll help each other find love; and that they won’t date until the other one does. Now, four years later, Robin finds out about their deal and in an attempt to shoot her shot with Chrissy, convinces Steve to take Eddie out on a date. The problem is Steve thinks he’s straight and Eddie hates him.

Or

A fic based on 10 Things I Hate About You, where the last thing that happened with the Upside Down was Starcourt (but Billy was never involved) and Eddie, Chrissy, Robin and Steve are trying to navigate their senior year and maybe, hopefully find love.

Chapter Synopsis

Robin has a tense dinner with her parents and Chrissy comes over for a French lesson. Steve tries to make it up to Eddie with a grand gesture. Eddie lets him take him out on a date.

[steddie-island]

(Tastes Like) She Might Be The One

@strangerthingswritersguild Kinktober day 14: Edging Rating: E | WC: 1,351 | Tags: Buckingham, car sex

For full fic and complete list of tags see ao3!

Divider credit

Robin let out a hum as she felt fingernails scratch softly at her scalp before gripping tight at her hair.

"Please," Chrissy choked out. Her hips twitched up off of the backseat and towards Robin's mouth. "Robin, please."

Robin dragged her tongue from Chrissy's core and to her clit, where she started dragging slow circles that had Chrissy's thighs twitching on either side of her head.

"You're being mean," Chrissy said. It wasn't quite a whine, she was having too much fun to whine, but that didn't mean that she wasn't getting frustrated.

It wasn't like they got to have much alone time. Between Chrissy's less than inviting family and Robin's mom working from home, they barely had any time unchaperoned.

But tonight Chrissy's mom had given in and told her she could use the car, hadn't even pushed for Chrissy to be home right at curfew because now there was no Jason in the picture, and Mrs. Cunningham was sure her little girl would tell her if there was another gentleman in her life.

[starryeyedjanai]

hypnotized in your cherry thrill

kinktober prompt: virginity | buckingham | explicit | 4k inspired entirely by @stobinesque's microfic about this concept

read on ao3

"Wait, what?" Robin asks, voice incredulous because there's no way she heard her right.

Chrissy blushes, cheeks going such a deep pink - the kind of flush she might get during-

She's getting ahead of herself.

Chrissy stammers for a couple seconds before she asks, "I mean, is it really that surprising?"

Robin blinks at her. "Okay, yeah, the whole 'raised Christian' thing. So not having sex I totally get, but you never-?"

Chrissy squirms a little, twisting her mouth. "That's also the 'raised Christian' thing. It was just something no one ever talked about. And I always felt guilty even thinking about trying."

Robin takes a minute to digest that.

She had an inkling about her being a virgin - she's talked before about her upbringing, but to be fair, she's also talked about how much she's wanted to get away from that.

So the virginity thing, she can get. What she's absolutely floored to hear about is that Chrissy's never even had an orgasm by her own hand.

That shit was something Robin figured out in her early teenage years. Her mom sat her down and gave her the Talk and handed her a hand-held mirror and some printed out diagrams and told her that it was important for her to get to know her body.

So Robin knows her body, has gotten herself off an incomprehensible number of times, knows how to get herself off quick and fast if she needs to - which comes in handy living in a shared room for the first time.

The thought of one of her friends not only not knowing anything about her body, but not ever even having explored it is such a foreign concept to Robin that it throws her off.

When Chrissy came to her with a secret, she thought she was going to get the deets of how she actually did hook up with her high school boyfriend despite previously saying that she hadn't. Because seriously, even good Christian girls have secrets like that, right?

But that is not what she told her.

She sat on the bed next to Robin and wrung her hands looking nervous to even be talking about it, but then she'd whispered that she hated not knowing anything about her body and wanted to know if Robin would be willing to teach her about it because Robin's not shy about sending Chrissy a text saying not to come back to the room for a little while so she "must know about orgasms," - the word whispered like it's a bad word.

Which is honestly sending Robin into a bit of a spiral.

Because she's been crushing on Chrissy since the first time she saw her laughing at one of Robin's stupid jokes.

It took time, is the thing. Chrissy was so reserved when they first moved into their dorm room, barely speaking to Robin unless she had to.

Robin quickly learned about her through some digging and she thought that maybe Chrissy was just super judgmental or something, but it turned out that she was just nervous being away from home for the first time, in a city nothing like her hometown, with a much more diverse group of people than she knew back home.

But when she finally opened up and talked to her, Robin immediately knew she was in trouble. Because Chrissy is gorgeous and kind and funny and-

Now she wants her to help her learn her body.

Robin's face is hot as she says, "So you- just so I'm not misunderstanding. You want me to show you, like, how to touch yourself. Like-?"

"It's weird, it- I shouldn't have asked. We can, we can forget I said anything. It's stupid," Chrissy says quickly, moving to get off the bed.

Robin puts a hand on her arm and says, "We are not forgetting this, Chris. I want to help you."

"You do?" Chrissy asks, her eyes wide as she looks at Robin.

Robin nods. "How do you want this to go? Like, we can watch something and I can tell you what to do?"

Chrissy shakes her head. "Not porn," she whispers. "Like, you could-" She cuts herself off and bites her lip. She puts her hand in her lap and looks at Robin like she's supposed to read her mind.

Somehow, it clicks in her brain and she gapes at Chrissy. "You want me to- demonstrate? Like- touching myself?"

There's no fucking way she got that right, no way that that's what Chrissy meant, but she's nodding her head, looking relived that Robin understands.

She can't say no.

Chrissy is sitting on her bed, looking nervous and Robin can't say no.

She doesn't want to. Maybe it's selfish, maybe she's going to hate herself after, but she's not saying no. The thought of being the person who, maybe inadvertently, is the reason behind Chrissy's first orgasm is overwhelming and fills Robin's entire being with this persistent buzzing.

"Okay," she says, breathing out heavily. "Now?"

It's the middle of the day. She didn't have anything planned for the rest of the afternoon, but Chrissy seems more the type to want to turn the lights off at night and not look at whoever she's with, but maybe Robin was wrong to think that. Everything about this is surprising her, so she should really stop expecting anything to go the way she thinks it will.

Chrissy nods shyly. "If that's okay," she says.

"Yeah, that's-" more than okay. Robin takes a deep breath in and says, "I'm gonna take off my clothes if that's okay. And you can too if you want to, like, practice after I show you."

Chrissy nods and they both get up from the bed.

This is so fucking insane.

Chrissy lifts her shirt over her head and Robin is used to having to look away when Chrissy gets changed because she doesn't want to creep on her or make her feel weird. But she watches as Chrissy pulls her top off and realizes she's way in over her head.

She snaps out of it and takes her own shirt off, feeling a little self conscious because she's not wearing a bra and Chrissy is openly staring at her tits as she unhooks her own bra.

Robin feels like she's going to pass out when Chrissy drops her bra on the floor. Her tits are fucking perfect. If Robin was hooking up with Chrissy and not just showing her how to touch herself, she'd be swooping in immediately to get her mouth on one of her nipples.

Her tits look like they'd fit perfectly in Robin's hands. She wants to touch her, wants to put her mouth on her.

This was such a stupid idea. There's no way she's going to walk away from this without falling in love with her.

Chrissy pushes down her skirt and Robin gets with the program and takes her jeans off.

They're left standing in their underwear, looking at each other, and Robin feels nervous.

She's nervous that she's going to screw this up. She's nervous that she's suddenly going to forget how to touch herself with Chrissy looking at her. She's nervous that Chrissy isn't going to feel good touching herself, that she's going to be left disappointed.

She tries to push through the anxiety that's suddenly gripping her and pushes her underwear down.

Chrissy does the same and Robin is gifted with the view of Chrissy's bush, trimmed and neat and-

She has to look away. She's going to combust if she keeps looking. There's so much to look at.

Robin realizes the only thing they're both still wearing are the tacky friendship bracelets they bought at the mall early in the semester and has to steady herself. She doesn't know why that of all things is what is tripping her up so bad.

"I'm- uh, we can. On the bed?" Robin stammers, but Chrissy nods, so they both climb back onto Robin's bed.

She has no idea where to start. She's normally laying down when she masturbates, but she isn't sure what would be the best view for Chrissy to see everything.

They're both kneeling on their knees and Robin realizes that Chrissy looks just as nervous as Robin feels and that helps melt away some of her nerves of getting everything wrong. She's going to be helping, even if Chrissy doesn't come, even if it's a little weird or awkward. She wants Chrissy to know how to make herself feel good.

"So, you've never tried touching yourself?" she asks to confirm.

Chrissy says, "Never. I, okay, I tried touching myself a little one time, but I didn't know what to do or, or what felt good. And it all kind of felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be so I just stopped and didn't try again."

"Okay," Robin says. "I normally lay down when I- uh. So we can lay down next to each other maybe."

Chrissy nods and Robin moves her pillows side by side so they both have one to lay their head on.

Robin's left arm brushes against Chrissy's as they both lay down. Twin beds really aren't built for two people and that fact has never felt more obvious than right now.

"So, uh. I, I normally only really touch my clit when I masturbate. So I can show you what I do and then you can do it," Robin says, not sure how this is really going to work. Is she going to make herself come in front of Chrissy or is she just going to do a little demo and let Chrissy have the room to herself to explore a little? She has no idea what's about to happen.

"Okay," Chrissy says, sitting up on her elbows to be able to see better.

"Do you, uh, know where your clit is?" Robin asks, because she isn't sure how much 'I have no idea how anything on my body works' covers.

"I think so?" Chrissy says, sounding unsure.

"Okay, so. Uh, if you look, my clit is right here," she says, spreading her thighs a little and spreading her labia with two fingers to point at it with her other hand.

Chrissy leans up and then leans in and Robin sucks in a deep breath, feeling more than a little overwhelmed all of a sudden.

Chrissy sits up further and says, "I think I maybe need to be closer to see. This angle isn't working. Could you spread your legs? I can sit between them."

The thought of spreading her legs for Chrissy makes her pussy throb, the want lighting her up from the inside.

She does as Chrissy asked, spreads her legs and Chrissy slides onto her knees between them. Since there's more room on the bed now, she scooches a little closer to the center and Chrissy repositions herself between her spread thighs, looking at where Robin still has her fingers in a vee on either side of her clit.

Robin's thigh is touching Chrissy's knee, they're so close. She spreads her legs wider because if she's touching Chrissy while she touches herself, she's actually going to go insane.

Robin feels dizzy and hot. She's never really been one for exhibitionism, but being looked at like this is - it sure is something.

Chrissy's looking at her like she's a marvel, like she's something worth looking at, and it's kind of fucking Robin up a little.

She was sure an hour ago that Chrissy was a straight girl that she was doomed to crush on - not from afar since they literally share the same room, but just. She thought-

But now, with Chrissy looking at her pussy like this, looking hungry almost, it's hard to tell.

She takes in another deep breath and says, "This is my clit," tapping it with her middle finger.

Chrissy's looking intently still, watching her fingers, and Robin knows she has to be able to see the slick dripping out of her by now because her hole feels soft and open the way it gets after she comes with how wet she is.

She's got a beautiful girl between her thighs, so she thinks it was only ever inevitable that she was going to get fucking soaked.

Chrissy's attentive as Robin shows her what she normally does, as she talks her through how she normally touches herself.

"There isn't really much finesse to it. I just kind of," she trails off as she rubs circles around her clit.

"And that feels good?" Chrissy asks, licking her lips. God.

"Yeah. Well, if I'm not turned on, it's just kind of meh, but when I'm horny, it feels really good. I'm super impatient most of the time, so I kind of jump in and go kind of fast until I come like this."

She moves her middle finger over her clit quickly and feels the orgasm building with the faster movement. She switches to circling her clit with her index and middle finger on either side of her clit and keeps the pace fast, a moan falling from her mouth as she does.

She stops after another minute and closes her eyes because if she doesn't, she's going to come under Chrissy's watchful gaze.

When she collects herself, she opens her eyes and looks at Chrissy. She says, "So that is basically all there is to it. It's different for different people though, so what works for me might not work for you. But you can try it out and see if it gets you off and if not-"

Chrissy cuts her off and asks, "You don't ever, like, slow down and savor it?"

That kind of throws Robin off a little. That wasn't what she was expecting.

"I mean, when I'm with someone else, I do. But if I'm by myself and not, like, watching or reading anything spicy, it's mostly just the orgasm that I'm after, you know?" She cringes as the last words fall out of her mouth because of course Chrissy doesn't fucking know.

"I... can kind of understand that, I think. So if you were with someone, you'd let her take her time with you?" She's looking at Robin's face as she asks this and Robin shivers a little.

"Yeah," Robin whispers and the tension in the room thickens. She clears her throat and says, "But this is supposed to be about you. So I can go and leave you to try it out on your own if you want?"

"I don't want that," Chrissy says, shifting back from where she's kneeling between Robin's legs. She spreads her knees and they both bump up against Robin's spread thighs.

She leans back and with a shaky hand, she covers her pussy with it, cupping it.

Robin opens her mouth to say that they can switch positions if she wants, but the words get caught in her throat when Chrissy copies what Robin showed her and spreads her labia with her fingers.

With her thighs spread and her fingers holding herself open, Robin can see how wet she is, her slick clinging to the hairs there.

Her mouth is suddenly incredibly dry, and she desperately wants to taste the wetness between Chrissy's thighs. She wants to bury her face between Chrissy's thighs and suck the slick right out of her, drink her juices as she clenches her thighs around Robin's ears. This is so bad - she's got it so bad.

"So like," Chrissy starts to say, but cuts herself off when she strokes her finger over her clit.

She's so fucking pretty, it's actually unfair.

Robin's breathing harder now than when she was touching herself, watching Chrissy tentatively move her fingers over herself. How the hell is she supposed to be normal when Chrissy gasps so pretty when she does something that feels good?

"Is that right?" Chrissy asks, still touching herself, her fingers deftly rubbing circles on her clit.

Robin's nods and says, "That's, yeah. That's how I do it at least."

Chrissy slows her fingers down to a stop and looks Robin in the eye.

"Maybe um - I don't know if I'm doing it right. Maybe you could, you could show me. Like a hands on demonstration, just to make sure I know how it's supposed to feel," Chrissy says, once again shattering Robin's perception of reality because there's no way this isn't a dream, right? The pretty girl she's been admiring for months now is not only in her bed touching herself, she's asking if Robin wants to touch her. That definitely feels like a dream she's had before.

"You. You want me to- touch you?" she asks, ready for Chrissy to laugh in her face because this has to be a joke.

But Chrissy just nods, looking self-conscious like she isn't the most beautiful thing Robin's ever seen, like Robin is going to say anything but a resounding and enthusiastic yes.

Robin has no idea how she pulls together the brain power, but she says, "Okay, you should lay down then," and holds her breath as Chrissy complies, moving to lay back down. They shuffle around like before and get settled next to each other again.

Chrissy's laying next to her, and Robin rolls onto her left side.

With Chrissy so close, Robin can see that her skin is so smooth and her tits are so pretty and her cunt is hairy and wet and gorgeous and Robin is so fucking overwhelmed right now. She's going to touch her. She's going to get to touch her, to put her hands on her, and she's so overwhelmed.

Dear god, she doesn't know how she's going to survive this.

She puts her hand over Chrissy's, dragging it down to her cunt, and positions her fingers the way that she normally does when she touches herself - the way she'd shown her.

She keeps her hand on Chrissy's and moves it for her, starting up a slow, steady motions, rubbing at her clit slowly the way she would if she was making out with someone and getting them worked up.

"Oh," Chrissy whispers, sighing. "That feels different from when I did it. Kind of."

Robin keeps moving Chrissy's fingers for her, letting her get a feel for it.

She says to her, "I find that it's more intense when someone else is touching you. You can't anticipate their movements so it makes it kind of exciting. When it's your own hand, you know what to expect. Not that that's a bad thing."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense," Chrissy says. She lets go of the tension in her body that's been there thus far, lets her legs fall open a little more.

"I sometimes get my fingers a little wet so there's less friction, uh-" she cuts herself off, trying to think of a way to show her how she uses just her middle finger on herself. She can't think of a way so she says, "I can show you, like, not with your hand. With my hand. My fingers."

She cringes at herself.

Chrissy sighs so pretty and says, "Yeah, okay, you can."

So Robin lets go of Chrissy's hand and watches as Chrissy lets it fall to the side. Fuck. It's been difficult to contain herself and up until now, it's still been by proxy, but this? Putting her hands on Chrissy, letting her fingertips drag through the slick mess between her legs? She's actually feeling faint at the idea.

But Chrissy is trusting her, is opening up her legs for her, and Robin can't let her down.

She lets her hand drift between Chrissy's legs, lets her middle finger touch the slickness at her hole.

She says, "God, you're so wet," in awe. Chrissy's fucking dripping with it.

"Sorry," Chrissy gasps.

"Don't apologize," Robin says with a laugh, bringing her middle finger back up.

She touches Chrissy the way she would touch herself if she was trying to get off quickly, flicking at her clit with her middle finger rapidly.

Chrissy moans so sweet in her ear and it just encourages her to go faster, to try and make her come.

She rubs circles around her clit again, faster than before, and Chrissy's hips buck up.

"I- oh god, that feels good," she says, bringing her thighs closer together instinctively.

"You know," Robin says, rubbing tight circles around her clit. "Depending on how you feel about virginity, this could count as- you know. This could count, someone else getting you off." The thought makes Robin flush red. Being the first person to get her off is one thing, but the person taking her virginity? She didn't know that was a thing for her.

Chrissy's gasp is loud in the quiet of their room. "That's - holy shit."

The noise Chrissy lets out as it hits her, as she starts to come - for the first time - is something Robin's never going to forget.

She fucking wails as Robin's keeps the pace of her fingers steady, as she rubs larger circles, feeling Chrissy's cunt pulse and clench as she comes.

This is Robin's favorite part of being with someone, watching someone fall apart - the way Chrissy's legs shake, the sounds she makes, the way her hand comes up to grasp at Robin's wrist as she slows her fingers down and drags her through the last waves of it.

Her fingers stop moving when Chrissy's hand on her wrist goes lax, when she's melted back into the bed, looking dazed.

There's a flush high on her cheeks and Robin feels a fierce sense of accomplishment for being the one to put it there.

It's quiet in the room as Robin dips her fingers lower again to gather more of Chrissy's slick juices on her fingertips.

She brings her hand up and doesn't have to say anything as Chrissy watches her every movement like a hawk. When her hand is close enough, Chrissy just opens her mouth for a taste, so Robin presses the tips of her fingers against her tongue.

Chrissy hums, her lips closing around Robin's fingers as she sucks lightly.

When Robin's brain starts working again, she doesn't have any idea why she thought putter her fucking fingers in Chrissy's mouth was a good idea. Well, it's probably better than putting them in her own mouth, at least. Tasting Chrissy, god - she doesn't know how she could resist immediately shoving her head between her thighs if she did that.

Her fingers slip from Chrissy's mouth and she tries to gather her wits again, because she needs to go shower, needs to go get herself off immediately.

She asks, "Was that okay?" because she has to know, has to know if nothing else, that Chrissy felt good doing that.

Chrissy nods, still looking relaxed and flush. "That was- I can get why you rush it if you're alone now. It was-" She clears her throat. "It was good, really good."

"I'm glad," Robin says. "I should clean up, though. Take a shower."

Chrissy nods again and says, "Okay. Um, thank you. That was really nice."

Robin smiles, feeling a little bashful. "You should try to get yourself off now. The wonders of multiple orgasms and all that." Robin sits up and rises from the bed, going to grab her towel. She wraps it around herself.

When she looks back over, Chrissy's flush, which had been receding, comes back with full force. "You- I. Will it feel good, the second one?"

"Oh yeah," Robin says. "And the third and the fourth. They all feel good. Some are maybe less intense, but in my experience, the longer you go, the more sensitive you get, so. It's something to play around with, how much is too much for you."

"Oh. I'll try that then. Not all at once, I don't think. But I'll try the second one now," Chrissy says, blinking up at Robin with an expression she can't really read.

Robin grins at her and says, "I don't think you'll have any trouble, but I'll take an extra long shower, just in case."

Chrissy smiles at her, but it doesn't really reach her eyes.

Robin grabs her shower caddy and waves at her before she leaves, unable to shake the feeling that she's missing something.

She's so caught up in thinking about it in her shower that she forgets to get herself off.

The room smells like sex, like pussy and orgasms, when she returns. Chrissy's gone, likely taking a shower of her own.

Robin's still thinking about it when Chrissy gets back from her shower, but Chrissy is totally back to normal, smiling over at her like everything is fine.

[pizzaqueen]

Buckingham with a side of Steddie / just under 1k / rated T

Thank you for the encouragement to post this @courtjestermunson (and thank you to @legitcookie for also being encouraging about it)

“Never have I ever…” Robin twirls her hair, biting her lip. They’ve been playing for long enough that her head is starting to spin a little, though in a nice way, which is weird because head spinning shouldn’t feel nice, should it? She shakes her head, regrets it, then says, “Kissed a guy.”

She’s not surprised to see Chrissy drink where she’s sitting with her legs tucked beneath her on the other side of the coffee table. (God, she’s so pretty.) And she’s not surprised to see Eddie drink beside her. But, when she turns to tell Steve it’s his turn, and sees him tip his drink to his mouth, the shock sends the whole room spinning.

“You can’t… You can’t drink just because you want to,” she says. “You have to have done the thing.”

“I know.”

“But you haven’t…” Robin licks her lips. Steve gives her a look that says Yeah I have. Holy shit. “Who?”

On her other side, Eddie clears his throat and, when she looks over, he wiggles his fingers and says, “That would be me,” grinning.

Robin looks back to Steve. “You kissed Eddie and you didn’t tell me?”

“It was a recent development,” Steve says, arms folded over his stomach.

“Very recent,” Eddie adds.

Robin blinks. Through the haze of alcohol, she remembers Eddie and Steve slipping away to the kitchen earlier, Steve coming back looking all flushed and— “Did you guys kiss in my kitchen?” They were gone a while and they’d looked rumpled, too. “Oh my god.” She whacks Steve’s knee. “Did you make out in my kitchen?”

“A little?” Steve holds his fingers up, pinching them together.

“Ugh.” Robin screws her nose up. “How come you never told me?” She leans toward Steve, nearly losing her balance.

“I didn’t really know I wanted to until I did, you know?” No, Robin doesn’t know—she’s never not known she wanted to kiss girls—but Steve rubs the back of his neck, gaze flicking beyond Robin, probably to Eddie. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Um…” Robin’s a little confused and she’s a little hurt that Steve didn’t tell her but if he didn’t know then she guesses he couldn’t have told her, so it’s not like he didn’t trust her or anything. “Yes,” she says, “later,” and blinks at the glass in her hand. “Who’s turn is it?”

“It’s mine,” Steve says, shaking his head.

Next time it’s Robin’s turn, she decides to be brave. Steve was brave—or maybe drunk—so she can be too. “Never have I ever kissed a girl,” she says and, with an encouraging look from Steve, adds, “Yet.”

Steve drinks, a small smile hidden behind his glass.

Eddie drinks, which makes Robin furrow her brows in his direction. He shrugs. “Wanted to be sure, I guess.” He grins. “Wasn’t my thing.”

She nods.

But when Chrissy drinks, Robin’s heart stutters, and everything comes to a stop. At least Steve looks surprised this time, though Eddie doesn’t.

“It was at a party. Spin the bottle.” Chrissy shrugs. She looks at Robin across the divide of the coffee table Robin’s dad made before she was born, her cheeks pink in the candlelight. “It was kind of nice, actually.”

Robin decides to file that way for later. Well, she would if her mental filing system wasn’t total chaos right now. All she can think to say is:

“Oh my god, am I the only person who still hasn’t kissed anyone?” At the ensuing silence, Robin picks up the bottle of whiskey Steve purloined from his father, unscrews the cap and drinks right from it.

“Gimme that.” Steve tugs the bottle out of her hands.

“I’m depressed! I want to be drunk.”

“You’re already drunk.” Steve rolls his eyes. “We all are.”

Robin groans and flops back onto the shag rug. “This game is dumb.”

“The night’s not over, yet, Buckley,” Eddie says, then shuffles off to the record player. He puts on Cream, makes a vaguely approving noise, and comes back to sit next to Steve.

“Hey, Robin,” Chrissy says.

Robin lifts her head.

“I could use a glass of water.” Chrissy’s fiddling with the sleeve of her sweater. “Come to the kitchen with me?”

“Oh, it’s fine, you can help yourself.” Robin waves back toward the kitchen. “The glasses are in the first cabinet.”

“Well, I…” Chrissy bites her lip. “Okay.” She hesitates a moment, then pushes herself to her feet, heading toward the kitchen. “You don’t need anything?”

“Nope. I’m fine.” Oh, she is so far from fine. First, Steve kisses Eddie in her kitchen, and now Robin finds out Chrissy Cunningham has kissed another girl and it was kind of nice actually? Definitely not fine.

“Okay,” Chrissy says again, and slips into the kitchen.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?” Eddie says.

“Yeah.”

Steve nudges her knee and says, “Are you really sure?” looking pointedly toward the kitchen.

“Yeah…” There’s something here Robin isn’t getting, she’s not drunk enough to not know that. But what? “I don’t…”

“Oh my god,” Steve says, face in his hands, “just go to the kitchen with her!”

Robin looks between Steve and Eddie, both of them giving her expectant looks and Chrissy didn’t need Robin’s help but she asked her to go to the kitchen with her, anyway, and…

Oh.

Oh?

“Chrissy, wait.” She scrambles to her feet, stumbling over her own steps as she heads for the kitchen.

Chrissy’s standing by the sink, sipping a glass of water, brows raising at Robin.

“I guess I need something after all?” Robin doesn’t mean it to come out as a question, but maybe she misinterpreted Steve and Eddie, and she doesn’t want to mess this up.

But then Chrissy smiles, tentative, beautiful, and says, “Maybe I can help,” and Robin’s stomach swoops.

She smiles back and says, “I hope so,” heart racing when Chrissy curls her hand around her wrist and closes the distance between them.

[matchingbatbites]

nobody else but you

This is incredibly niche and self indulgent, but sometimes that's just what you have to write for yourself. This is a Steddie + Buckingham rewrite of the final scene from Some Like It Hot, because while this movie is very near and dear to me, the last line gives me the ick! So we're fixing that. Much love to Read and Bee for looking this over and giving me some excellent feedback <3

Eddie and Robin scramble across the beach, both still wearing the performance dresses and Eddie doing his best to keep the wig on his head as they make their way to the pier. 

Steve is waiting for them and he looks over as they approach, his bright smile upon seeing them creating a flurry of butterflies in Eddie’s stomach. He drags Robin over, down the steps and across the planking to where the other man is waiting.

“Steve!" he calls, his voice slipping into a higher tone to keep up his illusion of femininity. "This is my good friend, Robin! She’s going to be a bridesmaid.”

To his credit, Steve just smiles at Robin and barely gives her a “Pleased to meet you,” before Eddie is grabbing him and dragging him down to the speedboat. Steve just grins and throws a look over his shoulder at Robin. “She’s so eager!”

They’re just climbing into the boat when a noise pulls their attention. The trio turn to see Chrissy biking down the stairs, honking the attached horn as she gets closer. Eddie and Steve settle into the front seat as Chrissy hops off the bike, leaving it where it lay as she rushes over.

“Wait! Wait for Chrissy!”

Steve looks at Eddie as he starts the boat, says “Another bridesmaid?”

“Flower girl!” Eddie replies, and Robin stands as Chrissy gets closer, taking one of her hands to help her balance as she climbs into the back seat. 

“Chrissy! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you: I'm not very bright.”

How sweet. Eddie reaches over and smacks Steve’s shoulder with a “Let’s go!” and starts to relax as they pull away from the pier.

“You don’t want me, Chrissy,” Robin says as she undoes the top of dress, revealing the masculine clothes she hadn’t had time to change out of, clothes that Chrissy surely recognizes from her supposedly male suitor. “I’m a liar and a phony, a trumpet player, one of those no-goodniks you’ve been running away from!”

“I know,” Chrissy replies, the smile never leaving her face. “Every time!”

“Chrissy, do yourself a favor: go back where the millionaires are, the sweet end of the lollipop. Not the cole slaw in the face and the old socks and the squeezed-out tube of toothpaste-”

The singer just giggles as she winds her arms around Robin’s neck, pulling her closer. “That's right, pour it on. Talk me out of it.”

Robin melts as Chrissy kisses her, can’t help but to wrap her arms around the smaller girl and pull her close. Eddie turns back to the front, knowing that isn’t something he should be seeing, that gentle intimacy between the two girls. He catches Steve’s eye and the man smiles at him.

“I called Mother. She was so happy she cried. She wants you to have her wedding gown, it's white lace.”

Oh this is- This is not going to be fun. Eddie takes a breath and steels himself for the conversation ahead. “Steve, I can’t get married in your mother’s dress. She and I- We’re not built the same way.”

Steve shrugs. “We can have it altered.”

Fuck.

“Oh, no you don't! Look, Steve, I'm going to level with you. We can't get married at all.”

The other man frowns at that, and pulls his eyes away from the water to look at Eddie. “Why not?”

“Well, to begin with, I'm not a natural blonde,” Eddie says as he brushes at the bangs of his wig.

Steve just huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “It doesn't matter.”

“I smoke! I smoke all the time.”

“I don't care.”

“I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a trumpet player.”

“I forgive you.”

What the fuck! Eddie feels desperate now, and he lets his eyes mist up as he looks into the middle distance. “I can never have children.”

Steve, who had clearly mentioned something about six children while they’d been dancing until sunrise, just smiles. “We can adopt some.”

Well shit. Eddie is out of cards to play, and knows the only thing he has left is the ace up his sleeve. “But you don't understand! Oh-” He reaches up and tears off the blonde wig, revealing his short, curly brown hair, and lowers his voice to its natural tone as he says “I’m a man.”

He certainly isn’t expecting Steve to smile, to give him a gentle, sincere "Okay."

What? He- Huh?

“Okay? That's it? Just okay?”

“Yeah? We spent hours dancing together the other night, you think I wouldn’t notice that something was different about you?”

Oh. “But- But what if I never said anything? You were just going to accept me as a girl with a guy’s body or something?”

Steve looks at him, all soft and gooey as he reaches over to take Eddie’s hand. “Babydoll, I fell in love with your personality. You’re a fucking firecracker, and anything else is just the cherry on the sundae. If you say you’re a girl, then you’re a girl, and I was a hundred percent ready to accept that. You being a man doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Oh god, Steve really is the sweetest guy, isn't he? Eddie thinks about the night they spent together, the hours of dancing and talking and the way they seem to fit together like two perfect little puzzle pieces. He thinks about Steve, and makes a decision. 

“I mean, I’m definitely a man. But I- I don’t mind wearing dresses, and I wouldn’t mind posing as your wife, in public. Especially if it would get me Mother’s approval.”

The beaming smile Steve gives him is enough to calm any anxiety he has about the future, and he laces their fingers together. “You don't have to do that. I’m sure she would love you regardless, honey.”

“Eddie. My name is Eddie.”

Steve’s smile doesn’t fade as he looks over again with a soft “Eddie,” and Eddie really doesn’t know how it’s possible to fall for someone this hard this fast, but he wouldn’t trade it for a single fucking thing.

[jonathanbiers]

find some place to go

pairing: robin/chrissy rating: explicit status: complete word count: 2.1k

Chrissy tastes like sweat and vanilla chapstick when they kiss, too chaste to fit with the way her hands dip under Robin’s shirt, feeling like she hasn’t already mapped out Robin’s skin a hundred times over.

[desiccatedwithering]

chat with you, baby (flirt a little, maybe) — ch 1/2

(ao3 link for those who don't want to read a 7.1k tumblr post)

Eddie has his players on the edge of their seats, so wound up that half of them scream when the door slams open.

“Hey, shitheads!” Steve “The Hair” Harrington barks, looming in the doorway like a monster from the Abyss. “What the fuck are you doing in here? Get your asses down to the gym right fucking now.”

Eddie gapes. First of all, the audacity— Second, he’s never been much for physical fights, but if this douchebag thinks he can bully any of Eddie’s kids, he’ll have to go through Eddie first.

“Let’s go! Move it!” Harrington snaps, making an impatient gesture down the hall.

Eddie rises from his throne and steps in between him and the kids. “What’s your problem? Here to bully the freaks?”

“I don’t have any issue with you, dude,” he says, surprisingly gentle for someone who was just practically shouting at a bunch of freshmen. “But I really have to grab my kids and haul ass back to the gym, so could you move?”

“What’s up? Is it a Code Red?” Dustin asks, and Eddie has a moment of whiplash before he remembers the kid’s weird, inexplicable hero worship for this washed up asshole.

“Lucas is actually playing in the championship game right now, and you little shits are missing it!”

Dustin visibly wavers, which is truly unacceptable. “So what?” Eddie asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “He chose his side.”

“His side—? What the fuck are you talking about? They’re his friends; they should be there to support him.” He glares at Eddie, hands on his hips, before turning to Dustin. He points emphatically down the hall. “Go!”

Dustin goes, running like a bat out of hell. So much for the future of Hellfire.

Mike, at least, protests, “He should be here playing with us!”

“Mike Wheeler. Nancy is in that room, and I will absolutely tell her that you chose D&D over seeing Lucas play for the first time.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Mike challenges. Half of Eddie wants to cheer—Yes! Stand up to the jock! Show some spine, unlike Henderson (that traitor)—and the other half wants to roll the kid up in bubble wrap because what the fuck is he thinking? Sure, having a spine is great in theory, but Mike is at that weird lanky teen stage where he looks like his body is just a collection of twigs, and Harrington could absolutely snap him in half with almost no effort.

“Try me,” Harrington growls, baring his teeth in a feral grin, bloodlust in his eyes. Huh. That definitely should not be doing something for Eddie right now.

Horrifyingly, Mike stands up. “Sorry, Eddie,” he mutters, slinking out the door like a scolded dog, then taking off towards the gym.

Harrington does a quick visual sweep of the room, freezing when his eyes land on Erica. “He’s your brother,” he groans with exasperation. “Why are you still sitting there?”

“Uh, we’re in the middle of combat? You can’t boss me around like those nerds. Besides, I doubt Lucas will even get his hands on the ball anyway.”

Harrington pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily. “Are you even part of this campaign?”

“No. I subbed in because Lucas couldn’t make it.”

“You realize that’s fucked up right?” Harrington asks, hands on his hips.

Unbelievably, Erica wilts a bit under his disapproving gaze. She opens her mouth to protest—

“If you don’t go to the gym to support your brother right now, I won’t drive you to my house for our next D&D session.”

Woah woah woah. Hold up. Did Steve Harrington just say that he plays D&D?

“I’ll get my mom to drive me.”

“Robin and I will never play with you again.”

She clenches her jaw but stands and points at him dramatically. “You owe me!”

“Yes, yes, I know. Move it!”

“I’m going! Jesus, you’d think we were dealing with the commies again.” And with that, she, too, sprints away.

Then it’s just him and his bandmates in a room with Steve Harrington, who turns to look at him with fire in his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. “Why didn’t you reschedule for Lucas?” he demands.

Eddie scoffs, though he feels like he’s lost his footing, the ground unstable beneath him. “We’re not going to reschedule for a single basketball game.”

“It’s the championship,” Harrington says, like that matters.

“So? It’s the end of the campaign.”

“That makes this worse. You know that right? You’re just finishing the campaign and don’t even care that Lucas can’t make it?”

And something in his tone actually makes Eddie’s stomach twist with guilt. God, unacceptable. How dare this jock make him feel guilty? He doubles down, lifting his chin imperiously. “He could’ve chosen to skip the game tonight.”

“And you could’ve chosen to wait until after spring break.”

“Jeff is graduating this year,” he says, though it feels far less relevant than when he brought it up in the cafeteria.

Harrington scoffs and throws up his hands. “Unbelievable.” He turns and gets a single stride down the hall before he stops, whirling back into the room abruptly. His hand darts out, and Eddie flinches, expecting a punch, but instead Harrington grabs his wrist and starts dragging him down the hall.

“What? Let go!”

“No,” Harrington snaps, hand like a vice around his wrist. Eddie tries to tug himself free but immediately realizes it’s a lost cause. Stupid strong jock hands. “You’re coming to support Lucas whether you like it or not.”

Eddie throws a wide-eyed, panicked look over his shoulder, but his three remaining players just give helpless little shrugs as he’s dragged towards his inevitable demise, not moving to aid him at all. Cowards. He’ll kill their characters if he ever manages to break free.

Harrington practically sprints, grumbling under his breath the whole time. “I swear, if I miss him making a shot because I had to deal with your screw up and come knock some sense into the kids—”

“That session was important,” Eddie complains.

“Spring break is literally a single week long. I don’t think it’s the end of the world to wait.” He adds something else under his breath. It almost sounds like, “Believe me; I’ve seen the end of the world.”

“It’s also not the end of the world to not watch a basketball game. You didn’t have to drag my players out to see it.”

“They’re my kids,” Harrington counters. Which is both rude and bizarre. Why should he get claim over them when he’s just a dumb jock? He’s not related to them. He doesn’t care about them. Obviously not, or he would’ve let them keep playing rather than force them to go to a basketball game like all the other boring, normal people in town. “And I don’t want them to ruin their friendships with Lucas because of your campaign.”

Eddie wants to protest because this situation is in no way his fault, but Harrington’s barreling on, “Believe me, if I knew where Max was, I’d be dragging her here, too. And honestly, it’s pretty fucking rich that they’d pick your campaign—no offense—over supporting Lucas, when Mike spent all of summer break ignoring Will when he wanted to play. Do you know how many free ice cream cones I had to give that kid? He’s always so sad! And Mike just abandoned him after he was—” Harrington shoots a look at Eddie, seeming to suddenly remember his presence “—after he got lost in the woods. Y’know? And then he moves away, and D&D is immediately cool again, and they all join a new party? I’m gonna get El”—Who the hell is El?—“to kick all their asses the next time they come to visit.”

And that should set off alarm bells in his head, a jock threatening freshmen with violence, but the tone is weird. Irritated, yes, but with an underlying current of fond exasperation, of indulgence. It sounds less like a bully targeting some children and more like a parent saying, “Kids. What can you do, right?”

“And, like, we talked about making time for your friends and being supportive even if you’d rather be doing something else, even if you think it’s more important. The only reason Scoops Troop was even formed—which, don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for—was because everyone else ditched Dustin on his first day back from camp, when he was trying to introduce them to his girlfriend.”

Jesus Christ, Harrington talks a lot. The kids probably just completely tuned him out whenever they allegedly had their ‘friendship is important!’ meeting or whatever he’s going on about.

“And Erica— God, that girl is smart. But she apparently just loses her mind when it comes to D&D. I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat thinking about how she tried to bike to Indy to sell that acid to replace her books, you know?”

Eddie is honestly kind of fascinated—not in a positive way; more like how you just can’t help staring at a car crash as you pass it—by how Harrington’s brain works. Is he aware that Eddie has no fucking idea what he’s talking about?

Before he can ask any of the infinite questions that little anecdote raised—(For example: Acid as in LSD or, like, vinegar or some shit you’d use in chemistry class that could melt your skin off or whatever? And no matter what option it was, why was Erica in possession of it in the first place? Who was she planning to sell it to? Why was she biking to Indianapolis? And how did King Steve get involved in any part of it?)—they reach the doors to the gym.

Harrington drags him inside to an empty spot on the bottom row of the bleachers but doesn’t drop Eddie’s wrist, probably—rightly—assuming that he’ll bolt if given half a chance. Luckily, the way they’re sitting hides the fact that they’re a bit too close to holding hands in public for Eddie’s comfort. The kids are sitting in a little huddle across the gym, right next to the marching band, looking miserable and frustrated. One of the band players leans over, whispering to them, and they smile, postures relaxing a bit. They look back at the court and cheer as Lucas gets his hands on the ball for a second.

A blonde woman a couple rows above the kids catches sight of the two of them, waving at Harrington, and he halfheartedly waves back. She frowns and crosses her arms when he doesn’t make any move to join her, but Harrington doesn’t notice, attention already pulled back to the players like a moth to a flame.

“Did you seriously ditch your date to steal half my party?”

“Hmm?” Harrington tears his eyes away from the court to glance at Eddie. “Oh, yeah, I did.”

“...Why?”

Harrington frowns. “I told you. The kids should be here supporting Lucas.”

“But why do you care about their relationship? Why do you care about any of them?”

Harrington presses his lips together, fighting to keep a straight face. “I’m their babysitter,” he says. It’s clearly an inside joke, and Harrington shoots him a wolfish grin. Eddie hates seeing it this close. It sets off butterflies in his stomach, which is both stupid and unacceptable. This is Steve Harrington, the straightest man in Hawkins and an irredeemable asshole. He may be objectively attractive and have great hair, but he should not be making Eddie’s heart flutter, no matter how sharp his smirk is.

Harrington’s attention is—predictably—back on the court, but Eddie can’t help staring at him. He feels like the world has tilted on its axis, maybe flipped upside down completely. Never in a million years would he have imagined himself sitting in the gym during the championship basketball game, all but holding hands with Steve Harrington, who has apparently adopted Eddie’s pack of nerdy freshmen.

Then Harrington’s breath catches, and his fingers tighten on Eddie’s wrist, dragging him in even closer as he starts to stand up. Eddie looks back at the court just in time to see Lucas’s feet leave the floor, the ball flying through the air. The buzzer goes off, and Eddie thinks, Huh, does that still count?

A second later, the ball swooshes through the hoop to a thunderous roar from the crowd, which answers that question. Harrington whoops beside him, almost deafeningly loud, jumping in place (and Eddie really never expected him to be the type to jump for joy). Eddie cheers with him. Fine, he’ll admit it: He’s proud of the twerp, even if he is sore that Lucas would choose basketball over his campaign.

“It’s not you.”

“What?”

“He didn’t choose to play basketball because he dislikes your campaign,” Harrington says, apparently reading his mind. “He was hoping that if he played, he’d get popular enough that people would stop bullying him and his friends.”

Oh. Eddie’s heart clenches. He’d been reading the whole situation wrong. But it makes sense. Eddie never had the option to not be a freak, so he took that label and turned it into armor, made himself untouchable. He plays up the drama, the “demonic possession.” He’s weird and a nerd and a drug dealer, but people don’t pay him much attention beyond that. He’s off-putting intentionally; he scares people away before they can get a good look. So he may be a freak to them, but he’s not queer. (It also probably helps that Eddie refuses to deal to anyone who knocks his lights out, which keeps most of the jocks in line.)

Lucas and Dustin can’t hide like that. Mike could probably fly under the radar, but he seems to be too preoccupied with being surly and unpleasant to bother.

“C’mon,” Harrington says, dragging him forward with a spring in his step and a wide grin. It lights up his whole face, and Eddie thinks that he could spend hours staring at it. Not that he would because Harrington is still a dick. One insightful comment about Lucas doesn’t change that. “Let’s go congratulate him.”

“Not meet up with your date?”

Harrington waves the question aside. “She genuinely thought Tammy Thompson’s singing was good.”

Eddie snorts. “Yeah, for a muppet.”

“That’s what I said!” Harrington laughs. “We all know Tammy Thompson’s a total dud.” The last part is said slightly louder. Not loud enough to draw the attention of the crowd, but loud enough for the band player who had talked to the kids earlier to catch.

“Steve!” she scolds, reaching over to smack his shoulder, though she snickers as she does it.

“What! You agreed with me, Robin!” He shoves her back playfully. “And it was under the influence of whatever shit was in those syringes, so I know you weren’t lying.”

Eddie carefully files that grain of information into the folder he’s just created, dedicated to figuring out what the fuck is going on with Harrington and why he seems so different from just a couple years ago.

Robin notices the way Harrington is still holding Eddie’s wrist, and her eyebrows climb. Eddie braces himself, but she just leans forward with a sly little smirk. “Damn, Steve. I was gonna tell you that your date left and add another tally to the ‘You Suck’ column, but it looks like you found yourself a new one. Finally a mark for ‘You Rule.’” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

Ok, and here come the slurs—

Harrington rolls his eyes. “No, he’s just here as a punishment for not rescheduling the end of their D&D campaign so that Lucas could make it. I was worried he would bolt if I let him go.”

Is Eddie losing his mind, or did King Steve just ignore the implication that he was on a date with a dude? And he’s still holding Eddie’s wrist. Maybe he just missed the hint. That’s possible, right? He is a dumb jock, after all. (Or maybe he’s far, far cooler than Eddie expected. No, there’s no way.)

Robin frowns at Eddie. “You wouldn’t reschedule?”

“Hey”—Eddie lifts his free hand in surrender—“I’ve already been put in my place by Harrington here, so you don’t have to bother.”

“Ok,” she says slowly. “But just know that if you upset any of the kids, Steve and I will feed you to a demogorgon. Or the mind flayer.”

“Robin!” Harrington hisses, elbowing her in the side, then throws a pointed look towards Eddie. Which is a weird reaction to an even weirder threat. Is he supposed to be scared of a couple of D&D monsters? They do know he literally DMs the game, right?

She rolls her eyes, complaining, “God, you’re so dramatic. Wait here. I’ve gotta go change out of this atrocious polyester prison before I die.” She looks back at Eddie and makes an I’m watching you gesture, then drags her finger across her throat. “Demogorgon and/or mind flayer. Don’t test me.”

Harrington looks frantically around the room, oddly desperate for a topic change. His eyes land on Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Erica, talking a few feet away, and he lifts an arm to wave them over. “Lucas!”

Lucas bounces over, accepting Robin’s high five as they pass each other, and Harrington drags him into a one armed hug.

“That was a fantastic shot! Whoever taught you must’ve really known their stuff, huh?”

Lucas rolls his eyes with a grin before noticing Eddie. He blinks, like his presence might just be a hallucination. Eddie’s right there with him; this whole night feels like a hallucination. “You came to my game?” he asks, utterly baffled.

“Didn’t really have much of a choice,” he drawls, waving towards the arm still being held hostage. He’s fairly certain he won’t be getting it back ever again. Maybe he could convince Harrington to switch to handcuffs, which at least wouldn’t be actively trying to crush all the bones in his wrist— Oh. He clears his throat as his wrist is slowly shattered. “But, uh, yeah. You did good, man. Great shot.”

Lucas lights up, and the crushing pressure around his wrist eases. “Thanks. That— means a lot.” He glances away for a moment, towards Mike, who gestures emphatically as he says something to a frowning Dustin and Erica. “So, uh. Did they win the battle?”

“Nah, man. Half my players were dragged out before we could even really get into it. Guess we’ll just have to finish the campaign after spring break.”

Lucas beams. Ugh. What is it with sports boys making him feel guilty tonight? Lucas looks so thrilled that he’ll get to play in their final session, and Eddie feels like a complete monster. He kinda wants to run into the woods and never return. He’ll hide out in Reefer Rick’s boat house or under Skull Rock or something, anywhere to get him away from the clear delight on Lucas’s face.

God, if Harrington doesn’t let him go soon, he’s gonna gnaw off his own arm like a coyote in a trap to escape this whole mess.

A moment later, Lucas is dragged away by the other basketball players—yuck, but also thank god because Eddie really didn’t want to have to try to talk about sports; he’s content to be supportive from afar, like a divorced parent who only gets custody once a month. (Before he’s whisked off by the jocks, Harrington murmurs a reminder that Lucas shouldn’t let the other guys pressure him into anything, and if he ever feels unsafe, he can call Harrington for a ride; seriously, dude, I mean it; call me.) There’s clearly a weight off Lucas’s shoulders as he trots away.

Harrington’s thumb sweeps back and forth across Eddie’s pulse, and when Eddie musters the strength to look up at him, Harrington is staring back with such a warm and fond expression that it steals his breath. What is happening here? It can’t be what he’s thinking. Can it? No, definitely not. Unless…?

“Hey, Steve,” Robin cuts in, walking back over sans uniform, an unimpressed look on her face. “Can you stop making googly eyes at Mr. Hellfire here for long enough to drive me home?”

Harrington glances over at her, and Eddie can breathe again—even as he tenses at the phrase googly eyes, though Harrington just ignores it again and starts leading Eddie towards the doors. “Yeah, of course. Can you ask if any of the kids need rides? We’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

Huh. Maybe Harrington really is a babysitter. Certainly not the profession he would’ve expected from the resident pretty boy, asshole jock, but why else would he be offering to drive around a bunch of freshmen like it was a regular thing?

“—Eddie?”

“Huh?”

“I was asking if you need a ride.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, a bit dumbly. He blinks twice and manages to drag his eyes away from Harrington, looking across the parking lot. “No, I’m good. I have my— Fuck!”

Harrington startles a little, pulling him in closer, which is surprisingly nice and protective and— Eddie mentally slaps himself. He is not going to stand here swooning over Steve Harrington. No way. Not even a little bit.

“What’s up?” Harrington asks, tense as a bowstring.

Eddie gestures towards his van with a scowl. “Some fucker slashed my tire.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Harrington breathes, relieved, which is fucking rude. Then he seems to realize what he said and winces. “I mean, that sucks. Obviously. Do you have a spare?”

Eddie puffs up his cheeks in that way that makes Wayne compare him to an angry chipmunk. “Nope. It’s whatever. I don’t live too far from here. I can walk.”

Harrington frowns. “It’s dark out.”

“So?” He raises a brow. “I know my way around; I won’t get lost.”

Harrington shakes his head and declares, “No, it’s not safe. I’ll drive you.”

Eddie is about to argue, but he pauses. Harrington didn’t say that it might be unsafe. He said it with absolute certainty. Like he knows about some monster lurking in their town. Which is absurd, obviously. Sure, the past few years have been weird, with people going missing and then turning up dead, but that doesn’t mean there’s any danger now. Those were chemical leaks and a mall fire and one kid who got lost in the woods. (Which, by the way, did anyone ever figure out the identity of whoever they actually fished out of the quarry after the Byers kid turned back up?) There’s nothing that would put him at risk.

But Harrington’s hand has tightened on his wrist again, like he thinks Eddie might break free and run off into the woods never to be seen again. So, “Fine,” he says. “But don’t expect me to pay for gas.”

Harrington lets out an aggrieved sigh. “No one ever does.” He sounds so much like an exhausted dad that Eddie can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of him. Harrington looks delighted at the sound. Then he glances back at Eddie’s van and tilts his head. “Hey, uh, is that Chrissy Cunningham standing by your van?”

“Damn,” Robin says, reappearing on Harrington’s other side and scaring Eddie half to death. “I didn’t think Queen Chrissy was the type to slash tires.”

Harrington tilts his head and makes a considering noise. “I don’t know. I feel like she has it in her.”

Robin glances at him and snorts. “Yeah, I guess rich kids are the ones who go the most feral when given half a chance.” She mimes swinging a bat, and Harrington elbows her.

“Shut up. You’ve never even seen me use her.”

“No, but I’ve gotten the play by play at least a dozen times by now.” She puffs out her chest, deepening her voice for dramatic effect. Eddie briefly wonders if she’s ever thought about playing D&D. “A fog sweeps into the junkyard, obscuring your view. You can hear Dart prowling and finally catch sight of him, but he’s not taking the bait. So you bravely heft Mrs. Harrington—”

“Ew, that is not her name.”

“—so you bravely heft your bat—which is named something you’re too embarrassed to tell me—and step out of the fortified bus to be the bait.‘Human tastes better than cat, I promise.’ But then! The horror! Dart isn’t alone; he’s brought friends, a whole pack of de— dogs, lying in wait. They attack! You dodge out of the way, roll over the hood of a car, and hit one as you come back to your feet.” She mimes another swing, and Harrington rolls his eyes with a sigh.

“You barely make it back into the bus alive. The dogs batter the outside of the bus, trying to break in to devour you all. As you brace the door, trying to keep them out, one jumps onto the roof. It looms in the open hatch right above Max and opens its terrible, disgusting mouth. You shove her aside, putting yourself in harm’s way again to save her life. Luckily, the dogs run away seconds before your untimely death. Thus making a trio of twelve year olds fall madly in love with you.” She sweeps into a dramatic bow, and Eddie would clap if he wasn’t still being restrained.

Harrington scowls. “One, you have to know the kids are exaggerating. And two, I’m positive none of them said anything about being in love with me.”

“One: Yeah, ok, maybe they’re exaggerating that one, but I distinctly recall a man trying to pull a gun on us and you deciding to scream, run directly at him, and then tackle and wrestle him until you managed to knock him unconscious. And if that’s not rich kids gone wild, I don’t know what is.” She shoots him an extremely judgmental look. “And two: They didn’t have to. I can see it all over their faces whenever they retell the story. Or, Max and Lucas, at the very least. Jury’s still out on Dustin.”

“Gross, Rob. Those are my kids. Were you drugged again?” Harrington looks her up and down, and Eddie glances between them, trying to find any hint that they’re joking because, uh, hello? Drugged? Again? “Why are you being like this?”

“No, dingus. I’m just riding the high of our victory. Go, Tigers!” she cheers. Harrington raises an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes. “Ok, fine. A certain somebody laughed at my joke, and I’ve decided to focus on the elation I feel tonight and save the soul crushing terror and probable panic attack about the other thing I said for our shift tomorrow.”

Harrington looks at her for a moment longer, then nods. “Alright, fair.”

“Drugged?” Eddie asks.

“Russians,” Robin answers, as Harrington jabs an elbow into her side and says, “Long story. You don’t want to know.”

Uh, Eddie absolutely wants to know. He’s never wanted to know anything more in his life. God, it’s like Harrington doesn’t understand him at all. Unfortunately, Harrington’s face makes it abundantly clear that he won’t be elaborating any time soon. Maybe Dustin knows what the hell they’re talking about.

“Right,” Eddie says, drawing the word out as he glances between the pair.

“So, are we gonna do something about the queen of Hawkins High slashing your tires?” Robin asks. Then, to Steve, “Oh, also the kiddos are good. They all have rides.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t the one who did it,” Eddie says. Harrington and Robin both turn to look at him in eerie unison. It sends a shiver down his spine, and he continues, weakly, “I was supposed to drive her back to my place after the game.”

Robin raises an eyebrow. She lets go of Harrington and swings around to hang off of Eddie instead, giving the bandana in his pocket a pointed tug. “I didn’t really think she was your type,” Robin murmurs, thankfully quiet enough that only Eddie can hear. “Honestly, I was pretty certain that she’s much closer to my type than yours.”

Eddie’s jaw drops because who just says that? Eddie is the capital “f” Freak of the school, and even he wouldn’t just casually come out to someone he’d only just met. Sure, he’s flagging, so she probably had a pretty good idea that he was safe, but what if the bandana had just been a coincidence? What if she’d been wrong? Before he can figure out how the fuck to respond, Harrington comes to his rescue. Ugh, rescued by Harrington. This is the one and only time he’ll ever be grateful to have the dude around.

Harrington shoots, like, a weirdly sympathetic look at Robin, then tilts his head like a puppy and asks, “I thought she had a boyfriend?”

Eddie absolutely will not read into the slight frown that crawls onto Harrington’s face when his eyes dart from Robin to Eddie. It means utterly nothing.

Then he realizes what Harrington is actually asking and nearly chokes. Does Harrington seriously think that Chrissy would cheat on Jason with Eddie, of all people? “For drugs. We’re doing a deal. She wanted something stronger than weed, which I don’t carry around.”

Harrington’s brow smooths, and he nods like everything is suddenly right with the world. And then the frown comes back as he looks back at Chrissy. His hand tightens on Eddie’s wrist again, apparently subconsciously.

“What is it now?” Eddie asks, rolling his eyes. “You got a problem with the idea of me dealing to a cheerleader, King Steve?”

“No, I don’t care about that. Just— Is she ok?”

Eddie shrugs. “Don’t know, honestly. She acted like a spooked horse when we met up in the woods, and then she asked for something stronger. But we don’t exactly know each other well. She could’ve just been nervous buying drugs for the first time.”

Harrington’s still frowning, tapping an absent minded rhythm against Eddie’s forearm. “Well, I can drive her to yours, too. I don’t want her walking around this late either. Or going to the basketball players’ party if she’s not feeling alright.”

Steve Harrington, knight in shining armor, apparently, protecting kids from—feral? rabid?—dogs (maybe?) and driving people home so they don’t have to walk around the spooky woods of Hawkins. Eddie could swoon. Except he wouldn’t. Because this is still Steve Harrington. Straight asshole jock. He’s not swoon worthy in the slightest. He’s not.

Eddie takes a step in Chrissy’s direction. He’s brought up short by the hand still holding his wrist. “Are you going to release me so I can get her?” Eddie asks flatly. Harrington squints at him for a moment, studying his face, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “I promise I won’t go running off into the woods.”

“Friends don’t lie,” Robin interjects extremely unhelpfully.

Eddie sighs. “Jesus Christ. I’m not lying. I am going to walk over there, tell Chrissy the plan, and walk back here. It’s like thirty feet. I’m not going to run, and nothing’s gonna eat me, or whatever you’re worried about.”

“Knock on wood,” Harrington mutters.

Eddie is losing his mind. Maybe he’s the one who needs the Special K. He tries to wrench his arm out of Harrington’s grasp again, giving him his best puppy dog eyes when it doesn’t work.

“Fine, fine. I’ll let you go.” He points at Eddie’s face. Eddie experiences a moment of derangement where he thinks about biting his finger. That would definitely go well for him. “No running.”

Harrington finally drops his hand, and Eddie’s wrist immediately feels cold and bereft. Jesus Christ, he’s gotta get a grip on himself. This is getting ridiculous.

Eddie briefly considers scampering off into the woods just to fuck with them, then realizes it’s probably a terrible idea. If Harrington had no qualms grappling a man with a loaded weapon, he certainly won’t hesitate to tackle Eddie onto the asphalt, likely breaking all of his bones in the process.

He glances around as he walks towards his van, double checking that there aren’t any basketball players loitering about, then raises his hand and calls, “Hey, Chrissy.”

She startles a little but quickly spots him. She meets him halfway, hands twisted together in front of her. “Your van—?” she starts, worried.

Eddie sighs. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with it in the morning. Harrington offered to drive us back to my place, if you don’t mind.” Her eyes slide to something over his shoulder, which is the only reason he doesn’t have a heart attack and literally die when he turns and finds Harrington and Robin standing right behind him. Apparently they can move like goddamn ghosts when they want to.

Harrington has his arm slung over Robin’s shoulders, and when she realizes Chrissy is looking, she shoves him away so hard he nearly falls on his ass. “Hi! Chrissy, right?” she asks, surprisingly sweet and innocent for someone who just assaulted her friend (boyfriend? beard? He’s genuinely got no idea what’s happening in that relationship).

Chrissy nods.

“I’m Robin, and you probably know Steve.” She lowers her voice a bit and adds, “Don’t worry. He’s not as much of a douchebag as he used to be.”

“Thanks for the glowing recommendation, Rob,” Harrington sighs.

Chrissy glances at Eddie, hesitant, and he shoots her a smile. “It’s cool. They’re not gonna rat you out or anything. Harrington used to buy from me when he was still king of the school.”

“And Steve and I became best friends when we were insanely high. Like, I genuinely have no idea what we were on, but it was a trip. We watched part of that movie—”

“—the confusing one where Alex P. Keaton’s mom wants to bang him—”

“—and then we both went and puked—”

“—and shared some deep, dark secrets—”

“—and now we’re bonded for life!” She pats his cheek, then pinches it. “He can never get rid of me.”

“God knows I’ve tried,” Harrington says, deadpan.

Chrissy muffles a giggle with her hand, and Robin looks like she might pass out at the sound. “I didn’t realize the three of you were friends.”

“We’re not,” Eddie says. Harrington shoots him a wounded look, like crashing Eddie’s D&D campaign and dragging him to a basketball game he didn’t want to go to should’ve been enough to earn him friend status.

“We share custody over the same group of nerds,” Harrington explains as he leads them back over to his car. “I get them on weekends and most afternoons, and Eddie has them during weekdays and Hellfire nights.”

Chrissy nods like this makes total sense, while Eddie just stares frozen and befuddled. Here he is, feeling maybe a little bit jealous (ugh) of the relationship Harrington seems to have with the kids, and Harrington is just easily talking about it like they’re coparenting the twerps. Has he somehow stepped into an alternate dimension? How is this happening?

“And Steve and I met working at Scoops Ahoy in the mall last year,” Robin adds.

“May those stupid little hats burn in hell,” Harrington says solemnly.

Robin ignores him and continues, “And now we work together at Family Video.”

Chrissy nods, shooting Robin a sweet little smile as she asks, “You’re in marching band, right? I’m pretty sure I saw you playing, at least.”

Robin looks like she might actually die. Harrington steps on her foot. “Yes!” She nods like a bobble head. “Sure am. I play the mellophone.” She then mimes playing a trumpet, and Eddie just barely manages not to wince.

Harrington’s fingers twitch, like he wants to smack her hands out of the air. Instead, he just takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a long, long moment, clearly fighting back a sigh. After composing himself, he glances at Robin and asks, voice playful, “So, Robin, you want shotgun?”

Robin looks at him with fire in her eyes. “Eddie already called it, remember?” she says, voice sugar sweet and utterly deadly.

Harrington smirks. “Of course. How could I forget?” Then he pulls her close to whisper something in her ear and gives her the most “Go get ‘em, champ!” pat on the back Eddie has ever seen.

Holy shit, he realizes, the stars aligning and a lightbulb going off in his head. Harrington knows that Robin’s queer. And he’s being her wingman. (At least, he’s like 90% sure that’s what’s happening right now.)

He’s not sure how he managed to get into the car since his whole brain was focused on that earth shattering epiphany, but when he blinks back onto the Prime Material Plane, Harrington is staring at him expectantly, hand hovering over the gearshift.

“Can I help you?” he asks, a bit defensively.

“Yes, you can, actually,” Harrington says sweetly. Then he orders, “Seatbelt.”

He points towards it, like Eddie might not understand what he’s talking about. What, does Harrington think he’s some sort of caveman who’s never heard of seatbelts? Just for that offense, he’s not going to use it.

(And the thing is, he was going to put his seatbelt on. The moment he’d gotten his license, Wayne had taken him by the shoulders, stared into his eyes, and said, “I know I can’t stop you from driving like a damn maniac, but do me a favor and wear your seatbelt, yeah? I don’t want to get a call about them having to scrape you off the road because you flew through the windshield like a dumbass,” which was fair, honestly, and Eddie hadn’t hesitated to agree; Wayne didn’t need that kind of stress in his life. But now that Harrington’s ordering him to—)

Harrington must see something in the mulish set of his jaw, because his eyes narrow. “I’ll sit here all night if I have to.”

“It’s really not worth fighting him on this,” Robin says from the back, exhausted (and safely buckled in).

Eddie sighs and gives in. It’s not admitting defeat—because he would never let a jock win—it just happens to be in his best interest. He doesn’t want to drag out this interaction any longer than necessary, after all. Or die in a car crash.

Harrington shoots him a blinding—and infuriatingly triumphant—smile after the seatbelt clicks.

“So do I get a gold star, or what?” Eddie snarks.

Harrington laughs. “I don’t have my stickers on me, but I’ll have Henderson drop one off for you at your next game.”

Eddie genuinely cannot tell if Harrington is fucking with him right now.

Then Harrington puts a hand on the back of his seat, twisting around as he pulls out of the parking space, and the terrible part of Eddie that’s completely ruled by teenage hormones thinks, Oh god. Hot.

He takes a shaky breath and is hit with a wave of Harrington’s cologne. It’s probably something he put on special for his date. (His date that he ditched so he could spend more time talking to Eddie—) Harrington seems like the type of rich dude who’d have a different cologne for every occasion. Whatever it is, it smells incredible. It’s probably worth more than the entire trailer park, which Eddie should find offensive just on sheer principle, but honestly, all he can really think about is how much he wants to bite at Harrington’s forearm.

“You need directions?” Eddie asks as he battles off the horny demon in his brain.

“No, I’m good. I know where you live.”

Before Eddie can ask why Harrington knows where he lives—is he being stalked or something?—Robin launches into a summary of her day. It’s so routine, so familiar, the teasing little back and forth that she and Harrington settle into as she fills him in on the new gossip, that Eddie almost feels like an intruder. Or, he feels like he should feel that way. Instead, it’s weirdly comfortable to just listen as Harrington and Robin banter, and they never seem thrown off when he interjects.

Harrington has just finished whining about how much it’s gonna cost to take all the kids out for ice cream to celebrate Lucas’s game-winning shot, like he’s not absolutely loaded, when Robin says, “I still can’t believe they brought Tammy Thompson all the way back from Nashville to sing at the championship.”

“I know!” Chrissy hesitates for a second, then adds, “This is going to sound mean…”

Robin waves away the concern. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure everyone in the car has said worse.”

“Yeah, Rob’s a real asshole.”

“Case in point,” Robin says, through gritted teeth. “Ignore him. You were saying?”

“I kinda thought she sounded like a muppet,” Chrissy admits, voice a bit timid.

Robin lets out the loudest, most braying laugh Eddie’s ever heard, clapping her hands together like a sea lion. “Literally all of us have said that at some point!”

Chrissy’s nervous expression shifts into a grin, and she leans closer. “Really? God, I thought I was the only one.”

“No, no, she definitely sounds like a muppet. That time when Steve and I were high out of our minds, he did this impression of her, and I swear I nearly peed, I was laughing so hard.”

Harrington makes a thoughtful noise. Then, quietly enough not to disturb the girls giggling in the back, he asks, “Do you think Tammy Thompson’s singing is some sort of litmus test?”

Eddie stares blankly at the side of his head. “For?”

“Finding friends of Dorothy.”

Eddie feels a bit like someone just set off a firework inside his head. His thoughts are traveling faster than light. Or possibly swimming through molasses. He’s not really certain. There’s just a jumbled mess of half formed conclusions that he agonizingly starts to sort through.

One: Steve Harrington knows what Friends of Dorothy means, which confirms Eddie’s suspicion that he knows that Robin is queer. Two: Harrington thinks that Chrissy is queer. Three: Harrington thinks that Eddie is queer. Four: Harrington seems to have no problem being in a car with three maybe-possibly-probably queer people—actually, he seems to be enjoying the experience. Five: He’s absolutely trying to set up the two girls in the back seat. Six: Harrington was the first one to mention that Tammy Thompson sounds like a muppet—

Hold up. Did King Steve just casually come out to him?

He turns, openly gaping. “I— You—?”

And then Harrington has the audacity to fucking wink at him. Holy shit. Harrington did just casually come out to Eddie “The Freak” Munson after trying to set up his lesbian best friend and Queen Chrissy Cunningham.

This is the single strangest fucking thing that’s ever happened in this town, no doubt about it.

(tumblr post for ch 2, or read it on ao3)

[nburkhardt]

Street Fair Dates.

Welcome to my first attempt at writing Buckingham! @i-less-than-three-you picked a prompt from a prompt list I reblogged a while ago (“Did I just say that out loud?!”) and had her give me the set up too. Went with buckingham, still set in the 80s, post-Vecna Chrissy lives with just barely established steddie as a bonus. It got outta hand and it’s mostly due to Robin rambling lol. ENJOY!

She’s being a third wheel, she realizes pretty quickly. It was completely by accident, but it was an invitation! Just, not technically an actual one, it was a “hey, you’re here too!” kinda invite. She won’t blame Eddie for it, not his fault she doesn’t think the same as other people.

She will however, totally blame him for them ditching her.

They’re at the street fair, she didn’t realize it’s supposed to be Steve and Eddie’s third date. Didn’t know until Steve stepped away to use the bathroom and Eddie finally admitted that she misunderstood when he asked Steve out last weekend. That he didn’t actually mean for her to join them.

“I was going to clarify it for you. But then Stevie told me you’ve been having a hard time since the worst spring break ever.”

Groaning, she shakes her head and places both hands on his shoulders to shake him. “Why didn’t you tell me?! I would’ve said no!”

“I just did!”

She shook him again before dropping her head against his chest, “you idiot! Does Steve know this?”

“Does Steve know what?” Speak of the Dingus and he’ll appear, “what are you guys doing?”

She knows they look weird, so she drops her arms to pull Steve close and loop their arms together, completely ignoring his questions and dragging him along to another booth. They stay like this for another few booths before she lets go to buy this cute little homemade frog plushie, when she goes to show them, they’re gone.

“Oh you jerks! Leaving a girl all by herself just to be cheesy dinguses!” She yells out and pouts.

She walks around by herself with her new plushie on her shoulder for a bit before settling on a bench with food and a drink, thinking “wish I could find someone who’ll go on a cute fair date with me”

There’s a giggle that brings her attention back to her surroundings and finds Chrissy standing in front of her, a basket of fruit with a duck plushie. She looks gorgeous and adorable, her outfit is perfect for the fair. A pale green sundress with sunflowers all over it, her shoes just simple sandals to match. Her hair is in a loose braid resting on her shoulder.

“God you’re so pretty”

The blush on Chrissy’s face makes her eyes go wide, slapping both hands over her mouth, “Did I just say that out loud?!”

Chrissy nods, “you did, you also talked about a cute fair date. Isn’t- I thought I saw you with Eddie earlier.”

Even the vague idea of being on a date with Eddie makes her scrunch her face up. Because gross, a date with a boy? Just, no.

She shakes her head before focusing back on Chrissy.

“Oh gross, no. I was with him earlier, but not as a date. Just as a friend, he and I are just friends! Plus he’s too much of a nerd for me, too dramatic too! Like could you imagine living with that guy? No thank you. Eddie and I are just friends.” She’s rambling, she knows this and can’t stop. Chrissy is just so damn pretty and her blush is a lovely shade of pink now, she’s smiling and god, Robin is gone. She’s so gone on her.

“Gone? What does that mean?”

Robin wants to die, she definitely needs to shut up. “I’m, I’m gonna go now. I think, oh! I see Steve and Eddie, I’m just-“

Not even waiting for a response back, she takes off and nearly runs to hide behind the two that ditched her. She doesn’t even care about that anymore, too focused on getting away from Chrissy so she doesn’t say anything else out loud.

Steve’s ready to catch her immediately. Eddie on the other hand looks bewildered because she didn’t say a word, Steve wasn’t even looking at her. They were even facing the other direction, but her platonic soulmate just knew to catch her. Her arms automatically going around him and her head hiding between his shoulders and neck.

“What the fuck, do you have like a radar built in on if Robin’s coming or are you really telepathic like Henderson keeps saying?” She can’t see Eddie’s face but she can imagine the confusion and impressed. If she wasn’t freaking out, she’d be laughing at him.

Steve has a tight grip on her, swaying slightly with a hum. Knowing that she’s freaking out without even asking, “I don’t understand what happened but whatever it is, I’m here Robs.”

After listening to the boys talk quietly, her adrenaline from the freak out dies down and she loosens her grip on Steve before getting down. Only to latch onto his hand to keep the connection, “So, I’m not sorry for again crashing your date. I mean, at this point I get to do this since you ditched me earlier and! And I completely rambled in front of Chrissy, made a complete fool of myself!”

Eddie snorts and Steve doesn’t but there’s a knowing smile playing on his lips, she can already tell where his head is going. Maybe they really are telepathic. She’ll try that out later, for now-

“Don’t even sta-!”

“You got a crush on Chrissy, Robs?”

Groaning she drops his hand like it’s burning her and crosses her arms across her chest. A blush working it’s way up her face, that doesn’t help. Eddie’s laughing again and Steve has a goddamn twinkle in his eyes. She doesn’t like that.

“Even if I did! Which- I don’t” she lies through her teeth, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of being right. “I already fucked up my chances with her. AND! We don’t even know if she likes girls. No matter how sweet she is, or how much she cares for any of us- I won’t ask her anything!”

The boys share a look, which is more mischievous than concerned now. It’s a little odd seeing that look on her platonic soulmate’s face aimed at someone else. After a silent conversation between them, which is also weird. This is their third date, how are they already on silent conversations part of the relationship?

Steve clears his throat before placing his hands on her cheeks, she hates this part. He squeezes her face, making her make the stupid fish look. Then he places a kiss on her forehead, loosens his grip before resting his forehead against hers. Both of them going near cross eyed, she moves her own hands up to match him.

This is one of their things. It’s a routine for when either of them wants to be completely serious and focus. It looks weird, feels weird and makes everyone uncomfortable. This is also why Dustin believes they are telepathic.

“Robin Buckley, you are an amazing person. A beautiful and wonderful woman, but you’re also the dumbest person I know right now.” Steve starts off in a whisper, “we don’t know if she is or isn’t, but! You didn’t ruin any chance with her, she would be an idiot not to give you a chance. Okay?”

She can’t nod but she hums back, “Stevie, i love you but this isn’t like with Vickie where you can figure out if she likes girls or not from a movie”



“No. But, I can see when someone has a crush on you.”

There is no fucking way Chrissy Cunningham, ex-cheer captain and absolutely the most gorgeous woman there is, has a goddamn crush on her, Robin Buckley. A band geek with a rambling problem.

“I see that doubt, Buckley. I am correct, just you watch!”

They separate after that one, she rolls her eyes and pushes him towards Eddie. “Are you two lovebirds done here? I’d like to go home”

——————

She lost her frog plushie.

It didn’t hit her until she was sitting at home staring at her desk where her notebook sat with her drawing of a little frog.

Groaning she falls back onto her bed, “it was so cute too!”

“Robin! Door for you!”

Shooting up to sit, confused. Her mom usually just sends Steve up when he comes over and the kids don’t show up to her house. Nancy and her aren’t close enough to show up randomly yet. And Eddie would just climb through her window, being the weirdo he is.

So, with all the other options out of the way she makes her way to the door and finds her mom still there. “Mom, if you’re trying to get Steve and i to date I’m telling you-“

Her mom waves a hand at her, “of course honey, it’s not Steve. You know I’d just send him up, that boy whether you date or not is family”

She smiles at that but it nearly falls when her mom finally moves and there stood Chrissy.

Not only is Chrissy standing there in yet another cute dress, but she has her frog plushie. What?!

“Sorry for not calling first. But you weren’t at work I checked there and Steve sent me here.” Chrissy explained with a smile, “I wanted to bring this back, you dropped him!”

The him in question,sitting in Chrissy’s hand is of course the little frog plushie she dropped at her fair.

“How-“

Chrissy shrugged a little with a smile, “he fell off your shoulder when you ran away from me.”

She can already feel her cheeks heating up in embarrassment. “Sorry about that, really. I didn’t mean to run away like that. I swear! Just. I kept rambling and I said things out loud that were meant to stay in my head, didn’t really want you to hear them. Sometimes I just can’t shut up, it’s like my brain to mouth filter doesn’t work right so I just had to like get away before I said something really stupid. Like-” She slapped her mouth shut, her eyes going wide.

There goes ever showing her face again to Chrissy and just when she didn’t think it could get any worse. That is until she realizes Chrissy is giggling, looking way too adorable with her own blush.

“I’m really so-“

“Don’t be! I think it’s cute, rambling and all.” Chrissy admits quietly, not meeting her eyes.

Robin doesn’t find it cute, rambling is what landed her in many awkward situations and always caused someone to be annoyed with her. It’s an annoyance more than anything, really.

“Chrissy you really don’t have to say that, rambling it’s- it’s annoying”

Chrissy shook her head, a pout on her face. “Can, can I come in?”

It finally registered that they’re still standing in her doorway. Her blush comes back full force and she quickly moves out of the way to let Chrissy in before closing the door and leading her back to her bedroom.

It’s a good mix of comfy with her normal grunge-ish, androgynous style. The walls are painted a dark forest green, there’s posters from bands and singers she likes covering it. A few movie posters she stole from work, polaroids of her and Steve and then some of her with her band friends and the Party. But most are her and Steve. In the corner of the room opposite of her messy bed, is a beanbag with a tiny little shelf with her own personal library. It’s full of books from musical theory to queer literature. Signs pointing to her sexuality is clear, a pink triangle painted above the shelf.

Hopefully it doesn’t scare Chrissy away.

Chrissy is looking around before squealing and dropping onto the beanbag, “I’ve always wanted one!”

It’s making her blush seeing Chrissy in her space like this, she doesn’t know what to do besides drop down on her bed. “They are really a better alternative to chairs. I wanted comfort, a space where I could curl up with a book and a blanket but not my bed. Ya know? Then one day I was out with my mom and she pointed out that beanbag saying it would match my walls. So, it ended up being a birthday present and well now it’s here!” She’s rambling again and looking everywhere but at Chrissy’s face, “I’d really recommend you get one for yourself, it’s worth it”

Chrissy’s giggling and well, Robin’s weak, she finally lands her gaze back on the blonde only to see her sitting up as best as one can on a beanbag. Her cheeks a pretty red and a smile on her lips, overall she’s just so pretty.

“Until I get my own, can I just use yours?” Chrissy asks and if this was anyone else, Robin would normally immediately say no. It’s her beanbag, the only other person who sits there usually besides her is Steve and that normally leads to both of them sitting on it with a tangle of limbs.

She doesn’t any of that, instead just nods because if she open her mouth it’d all fall out and she’s already rambled enough.

Chrissy beams at her and it melts her heart.

They fall into a comfortable silence, it’s so nice and quiet she swore Chrissy was asleep. Until she looked over and found her leaning back again but this time with a book. She can see her eyes follow the words, she flips the page and she looks so at peace right now.

It makes her heart beat a little faster and her blush rise back to her cheeks again. There’s a tiny voice in the back of her head to stop being a chicken. It’s annoying that it sounds like her Dingus. She’s not a chicken, she’s just…scared. Afraid that if she does make a move, Chrissy will be disgusted by her and never talk to her again.

This is nothing like what happened with Steve, he got lucky that the guy he liked was stupidly open with having the black bandanna in his pocket. Chrissy has no tells. She’s never said anything that would even remotely suggest she likes girls. It’s only ever been boys for Chrissy and Robin is very much not a boy.

“-bin? Hey, you okay?”

She jerks backwards, flailing a little, shocked back into reality. Her eyes widen before she sits back up again and instead of Chrissy sitting on the beanbag, they’re now face to face.

Chrissy must notice panic on her face, moving back so there’s more space between them. She’s frowning, a concern crossing onto her face. “You zoned out on me, Robin. Everything okay?”

She nodded her head, words failing her suddenly and that’s a wonder.

“Are you sure? Because I asked you a question a few minutes ago and you didn’t answer me, or um, did you ignore it because it’d be weird?” Chrissy had a blush on her face but it looked different than before somehow, like she was embarrassed and Robin couldn’t figure out why.

She shook her head to get the swirling doubt out, “I’m fine, really. I just got lost in my head. Wasn’t ignoring you I swear, it would be hard to ignore you, actually. Sometimes I’m like, hyper aware of you. It’s weird and I probably shouldn’t say that because it sounds creepy and honestly I don’t want to sound creepy but I can’t help it.” Her cheeks are burning and she can’t stop, “whatever it is you asked it’s probably not weird, nothing you ask me can be weird actually, I mean unless you asked me if I was ready to like have kids or something now that would be weird. Oh my god, I need to shut up, but I’m nervous around you all the time” She forces herself to stop talking by covering her mouth with a hand while waving at Chrissy to talk now.

Chrissy laughs before sitting next to her and Robin follows, hand still against her mouth. Chrissy smooths out her dress and fiddles with the edge, Robin’s eyes following. “Well, I was thinking maybe, if you wanted to. If you’d go with me to this street fair for art coming up. Just, um, the two of us. Maybe, if- if you wanted to go”

“Like, um, like a date?” She doesn’t know why, but it comes out as a whisper. Probably because she’s afraid that she read this wrong, girls ask their friends to hang out all the time. But with the way it was said, it didn’t sound like a friend asking their friend.

Instead of a vocal response, Robin watches with wide eyes as Chrissy nods her head before looking up and meeting her gaze.

“Am- am I dreaming? Like, are you real right now?” She blurts out, before slapping her mouth, “oh my god, Chrissy.”

“If you’re worried I’m using you as like, a test? I’m not, I swear. I really like you, and I noticed the symbols and how many queer literature you have.” Chrissy explains to her, “and um, I overheard you and Steve one day talking about who was hotter Michelle Pfeiffer or Molly Ringwald”

She’s going to both punch her best friend and then squeeze him in the tightest hug ever for convincing her to play who’s hotter in public.

Taking a moment to breathe, she closes her eyes before opening them again and placing her hand on Chrissy’s slightly shaky one, “Chrissy, I believe you and I would love to go on a date with you”

Chrissy smile is bright and she matches it. She tugs Chrissy’s hand to hold it properly, squeezing it, in a way to prove to herself that this is real. Which it is and she’s going to be on a high for the rest of the day.

They stay like that for another hour, figuring out the plans for the date. Only stopping when her mom yells up that dinner was finished. Chrissy doesn’t stay for dinner, but she does kiss her cheek before she leaves. Because of that, she doesn’t even mind that her mom bugs her about Chrissy.

Nothing can ruin Robin’s good mood, she got her frog plushie back and now she has a date with Chrissy Cunningham at a street fair coming up.

~~

Sorry I didn’t get to writing out their actual date, Robin rambled too much 😅 maybe I’ll write their date out at some point. Also if the formatting looks weird, sorry about that the tumblr app is pissing me off and not letting me fix it. I’m also not using drafts because it deletes things. ANYWAY!! I hope you enjoyed this and that it’s pretty close to being accurate to the characters, this was one of my first times writing out Robin and Chrissy.

[blushweddinggowns]

Chrissy woke up in Robin’s arms a few hours later, rested but disoriented. There was an odd sound she couldn’t place, a jingle that her morning-sleepiness wouldn’t let her focus on. 

The music was still playing in the background, a constant loop. She looked around, relieved that everyone was still there. Nancy was curled onto her side with Max laid out at the very end of the bed. Steve and Eddie were laying on top of each other on the couch, while Dustin snored in the chair. 

She wasn’t sure what woke her up, not until she realized that tinkling was the sound of keys in the door, followed by it slamming open.

“I hate that damn door,” She heard a gruff voice say under his breath. 

Chrissy popped her head up, her eyes widening when Eddie’s uncle stepped inside. He stopped, a loud sigh escaping as he looked around the room. His eyes zeroed right onto Eddie and Steve on the couch, Eddie still peacefully asleep on Steve’s chest. 

He didn’t even look surprised. Just vaguely annoyed. 

Chrissy watched as he walked over, nudging them both until they started grumbling. Steve came to first, rubbing his eyes before looking up at Wayne with a very guilty look on his face. 

He shook Eddie with him, waking him just in time to hear it when Wayne sighed, “Boys, why are all of these people in our house?”

They looked at each other, another silent conversation raging on until Steve nodded. 

Eddie rolled off of him, landing on his feet as he looked at Wayne, “We have something to tell you. And… you’re probably going to want to sit down for it.”

The rest of the group was starting to wake now, everyone coming to consciousness from the noise. But Wayne listened. He sat on the couch, obviously confused as Steve shook Nancy awake. He whispered a few words into her ear, her eyes going from sleepy to focused in record time. 

She nodded, “You’re right. He deserves to know.”

“Will someone please explain what the hell you’re talking about?” Wayne finally snapped, “I’m getting off a ten-hour shift here.”

“I know, I know,” Eddie sighed as he sat next to him, “But you’re gonna want to hear this. Nancy, go.”

And go she went, explaining the same tale that Chrissy got, but with none of the circumstances to force her to believe it. 

By the end of it, Wayne had his head in his hands, groaning as everyone chimed in about their corroborating stories. 

He was struggling to believe it, they could all tell. Chrissy couldn’t blame him. She was still struggling, despite the fact that her life was on the line.

He finally looked up, his eyes zeroing in on Steve and Eddie. 

“So you’re saying, that day you two came home beaten and bloodied wasn’t a fight? You almost died fighting monsters. That’s what you’re telling me?”

“I-It technically was a fight-” Steve tried.

“Have you or have you not, been risking your lives for the past four years dealing with supernatural shit? Yes or no, Steven?” Wayne interrupted. 

It was enough to snap Steve’s mouth shut. Chrissy was pretty sure she’d never seen him look chastised before, but here he was. Steve nodded, nearly hiding behind Eddie as Wayne groaned. 

“W-We had to sign NDAs!” Eddie tried, “We would have told you but we didn’t think-”

“What? You thought it would be better for me to find out my kids died through some shady government agency? Do you even know how insane all of the shit you just said was! I- how do you expect me to react?!”

It worked just as well with Eddie as it did with Steve. He snapped his mouth back closed, thoroughly reprimanded.

“We’re sorry,” Steve mumbled out, oddly child-like. Almost as though he was getting scolded by his father instead of his friend’s uncle.

“Steve, I don’t want to hear it,” Wayne said, “Because neither of you are going to stop, are you? Not when that girl’s life is on the line.”

They both shook their heads and it was enough to have Wayne groaning again. 

 “I don’t want to believe you,” Wayne finally said, “I haven’t heard anything like this since I was a kid. Boys, this is just too damn much!”

“Wait, what?” Nancy asked, her soft voice ignored as Eddie jumped in. 

“But it’s true! I swear it is! Think of all the weird shit that happens here, Wayne. A kid came back from the dead. You know this town is messed up!”

Steve was still going for a more meek approach, “Are you really that mad?”

“You’re damn right I’m mad!” Wayne snapped again, “The two of you have been risking your lives for - I don’t even know! Why would you-”

“No, wait,” Nancy interrupted, firm enough to get all eyes back on her, “What did you say before? The thing about when you were a kid?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Wayne said with a wave of the hand, “Just old ghost stories.”

“But what ghost stories?” 

Wayne shrugged, “Just… something crazy. It doesn’t matter.”

“But what if it does?” Nancy pressed, “What happened to Will is probably known as a ghost story around here now, and it was at the center of everything. We have no reason to think whatever this is started with him. What if it started before?”

“She’s right,” Dustin chimed in, “What happened when you were a kid?”

Wayne sighed, rubbing a hand over his face as he spoke, “There was a man who lived on the other side of town, in that abandoned house with the stained glass. Killed his whole family. Snapped all their limbs apart like some kind of monster. They never even explained how he managed it, let alone what he did to his son. They never found his body. But he was insane not magic. He sewed his own eyes shut after, never admitting to what he did. Victor Creel doesn’t have anything to do with my kids being stupid-”

“That was his name?” Nancy interrupted, “Victor Creel? What happened to him?”

“I think he’s still at the asylum,” Wayne said, “He got a plea deal, because he was off his damn rocker. Haven’t heard anything about him since.”

 Nancy turned to Chrissy, her brow raised, “Does the stained glass ring any bells?”

Chrissy blinked at her, “I-maybe?”

from the next chapter of this fic

[flowercrowngods]

I love you for doing this <3 My fic I'm most proud of changes by the day, but I've got to go with Craving Something Deeper (https://archiveofourown.org/works/45520477) since it doesn't get a lot of love. And I know Chrissy isn't a focus character for a lot of people, so I get it. But I'm enjoying writing it and getting in her head so much!

Craving Something Deeper

🌷 WIP | 15k words | 4/? | rating: T

season 4 re-telling with a twist from chrissy’s pov! showing us some BAMF chrissy, sweet eddie, a wonderful dynamic between chrissy and eddie that i would actually die for, and chrissy/robin (bandcheer/buckingham) in the making with some parallel steddie that i already know will captivate me like the rest of the story

🤍 the way you allow us to explore chrissy’s mind and witness an alternative to canon that is so believably told and intricately woven is really an absolute joy to read!!! (i’ve already yelled at you about all that in the comments but!!!) thank you for showing me this absolute gem! 🤍

‼️ slight cw for eating disorders though (par for the course when writing canon chrissy)

🌷 be loud, be proud, etc etc

[nonbinary-eddie-munson]

Finals week was killing Robin. She loved college, loved that the things that made her a weirdo in highscool actually were seen as cool in college. But finals week was going to kill her. She had been pulling late nights in the library every day this week, she was exhausted and just wanted to go home after a long night of studying, only Steve platonic love of her life was late to pick her up and also not picking up his damn phone.

It was well past closing at the library so she couldnt even sit inside until he finally got here meaning she was stuck sitting on the curb and hoping she didnt get kidnapped. Robin was debating just spending the $15 she didnt have on a uber home when a presence made itself known behind her.

Robin jumped to her feet at the sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Fuck! Please dont steal me and sell my organs on the black market, my family has a history of kidney disease so stealing them really really isnt worth it" Robin blurted as she whirrled around almost losing her balance with the quick movement, her hands coming up in front of her in a defensive position only to come face to face with the cutest girl she had ever seen.

"Im sorry i didn't mean to scare you" said the girl as she brought a hand up to stifle her giggles at Robins antics "i was just wondering if you were okay? Its pretty late and i didnt want to leave you out here without checking"

Robin pressed a hand to her chest taking in deep breaths to try and calm her racing heart. "Yeah im okay, my roomate is late picking me up but i think i might just uber home, dont wanna keep sitting out here until someone decides to come steal me and my organs" Robin replied with an awkward laugh "unless of course the uber driver moonlights as an organ stealer then i guess im out a genetically sub-par kidney".

The girl laughed for real this time not bothering to stifle it behind her hand as she smiled at Robin brightly.

"Your name is Robin right? I'm Chrissy, i work in the library part time I've seen you working late every night this week" the girl- Chrissy- said "i could give you a ride home if you want?"

"Oh no i couldnt ask you to do that" Robin replied waving her hands around for emphasis

"Please? I'd feel awful leaving you out here this late, I promise not to steal and sell your kidneys, especially since i know now that i wont make enough off them to cover tuition" Chrissy joked, smiling at Robin brightly.

'I'd give you both my kidneys and my heart if you just keep smiling at me like that' Robin thought, her brain going all fuzzy under the force that was a beautiful girl like Chrissy smiling at her like that.

"If you let me drive you home you can keep your kidneys but maybe we could talk about you giving me your heart over coffee once finals are over?" Chrissy said her smile somehow getting brighter

"Oh god i said that out loud didnt i?" Robin said burying her face in her hands, mortified.

"That you did, now come on im parked over this way" Chrissy said extending a hand out to Robin "we wouldnt want someone to steal your heart and kidneys before we can get that coffee"

"No" Robin replied, removing her hands from her face and reaching out to take Chrissys warm hand in her own "we definitely wouldn't want that"

[rosetintmyworldinatimewarp]

But mostly, I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close. 

Chapter three is up, you can read it on AO3.

Chrissy and Eddie have been best friends since middle school, ever since that one misguided kiss led to them coming out to each other in a panic. In order to shield themselves from the town’s homophobia, they promised that they’ll help each other find love; and that they won’t date until the other one does. Now, four years later, Robin finds out about their deal and in an attempt to shoot her shot with Chrissy, convinces Steve to take Eddie out on a date. The problem is Steve thinks he’s straight and Eddie hates him.

Or

A fic based on 10 Things I Hate About You, where the last thing that happened with the Upside Down was Starcourt (but Billy was never involved) and Eddie, Chrissy, Robin and Steve are trying to navigate their senior year and maybe, hopefully find love.

Chapter Synopsis

Steve tries to ask out Eddie but his usual flirting doesn’t seem to have any of the wanted effects. Eddie is proving to be more difficult to woo than anticipated, so Robin tries to come up with a plan. Chrissy (besides drooling over Robin) is desperately trying to make Eddie be nice to Steve.

[spicysix]

i was a no (never 'maybe'?)

"Robin takes her by the waist with one hand as the other reaches her face for a caress. Their eyes meet and Chrissy smiles before tilting forward. Her skin is silky smooth and as their lips meet there are fireworks- “Whatcha’ doin’?” Eddie’s voice is right by her ear. ❀ She’s pressed against a door, and Chrissy’s hands are on both sides of her head. She smells citric, her hair’s up in that cheerleader ponytail with the bow to make it better. Her lips are glossy, and Robin knows they taste of berries, and she confirms it once Chrissy leans in and their lips meet. There are fireworks- “What are you doing?” Robin wakes up from her daydreaming with Nancy’s voice behind her." or: Robin has a chronic problem of daydreaming about her crush.

warnings/tags: pining, friends-to-lovers, farmer market!AU, Robin is gay and oblivious, everyone else is gay and a meddler, fluff!! word count: 3.8k author's note: happy buckingham taking over jargyle jursday - so i guess it's Buckingham Bursday? anyway. and happy pride! 💚🏳️‍🌈 entirely based on the song and music video of 'chance' by Hayley Kiyoko (lesbian Mother yayyyy). you decided this one, remember that poll? heh, thanks for that. also shoutout to the ST rarepairs discord server for the help coming up with what everyone in this farmer market sells. hope y'all like it, happy reading! ♡

↳ ao3

Robin takes her by the waist with one hand as the other reaches her face for a caress. Their eyes meet and Chrissy smiles before tilting forward. Her skin is silky smooth and as their lips meet there are fireworks-

“Whatcha’ doin’?” Eddie’s voice is right by her ear.

“SHIT!” she shrieks, startled, before turning to face Eddie as he has a knowing smirk on his lips. Steve is behind him, trying to hold in his laughter. “I’m not doing anything!” she defends herself even if she knows they’re not gonna buy it.

“If you’d just let us meddle, you’d be together by now,” Eddie says as he shrugs.

Robin’s eyes go back to where they were just a few seconds ago. Chrissy is now talking to a client, a candle in their hand as she tries to make a sale. Robin knows that one, it’s the Lemon Meringue. Robin has three of them. The client should buy it, even if the delicious refreshing citric smell is not what makes them, Chrissy’s smile should do it. It’s what does it for Robin, anyway.

“I’m not gonna let you two idiots meddle. Either this will happen by god’s own will, fate’s written words, me growing metaphoric lesbian female balls, or it won’t happen at all!” she answers without taking her eyes off of the client putting down the Lemon Meringue and picking up the Passionfruit Martini. An excellent choice too. Robin once had six of them from when Chrissy started trying them out. She’s down to just one now, finally.

A loud bleat interrupts her train of thought, and Eddie’s screaming goat scares Hennifer Aniston and she starts cackling loudly as well.

“Jesus Christ, get out of here with your Baphomet,” Robin shoos Eddie and he laughs before pulling the rope around the goat’s neck. Robin picks up the chicken, Hennifer’s a very cuddly one so she calms down once she’s in Robin’s arms.

“This one’s Phillip, babe, you’re mixing them up,” Eddie says.

“They all look the same and you know it!” Robin fights back and he just waves a hand in the air, not caring about Robin’s antics. He knows she’s just mad because he’s a meddler.

“So do your chickens, by the way,” Steve notes as Robin puts Hennifer back in her little playpen.

“They do not! Stop siding with your boyfriend, don’t you have jam or pies or cakes to sell or whatever?” she retorts once again and Steve laughs. “You gay people don’t take care of your own lives and want to meddle in mine! Absurd!”

“We’re bisexual, don’t erase our sexualities! You’re gay people too, Bobbin, and my love life isn’t disastrous as yours is so I could be a good adviser.” He shrugs before leaving a few bills on Robin’s counter and picking up a tray of eggs she had separated for him earlier. “But you’re right, I do have jam and pies and cakes to sell. See you later, Bobs.”

She hums at him as he leaves for his own stall. The peak rush hours are closing in and Robin will get busy soon. She knows the chicken in a playpen gathers attention, and so does the little poster she has containing the chicken’s informations — name, age, personality. Kids love them. And the parents love the eggs, she’s been on the papers once with her high-quality chicken eggs. She’ll start getting her regulars in a few minutes and she’ll have to deal with her stall all alone because Nancy couldn’t help her in today.

Yet, she lets herself lose a few minutes more staring at Chrissy’s stall. The client is leaving with a Tangerine Drizzle — they clearly like the citric ones. Chrissy is counting the money and storing them away in her little detailed wood box, an Argyle Original. She doesn’t notice Robin staring, she never does.

A client approaches, and Robin lets out a sigh. She’s got work do to.

❀❀❀

She’s pressed against a door, and Chrissy’s hands are on both sides of her head. She smells citric, her hair’s up in that cheerleader ponytail with the bow to make it better. Her lips are glossy, and Robin knows they taste of berries, and she confirms it once Chrissy leans in and their lips meet. There are fireworks-

“What are you doing?” Robin wakes up from her daydreaming with Nancy’s voice behind her.

She squeals and turns around too fast, and the cornflakes in her bowl fly out and scatter around on the floor. The chickens are happy with that. Nancy is leaning against the fence, and the knowing smirk on her lips says it all.

“You really have to make a move, this is getting pathetic,” she says as Robin finishes spilling the corn.

Robin leaves the chicken coop and marks the tally on the mental note of tasks to be done.

“What’s with you bisexuals and your inability to stay away from my love life. I don’t wanna hear it from Ms. I Have A Boyfriend-In-Law.” She rolls her eyes as she starts going back to her house and Nancy follows after snorting.

“Jon and Argyle are pansexual, don’t erase their sexualities. And it’s called a polycule, by the way.”

“I’m not erasing-” Robin starts, but stops herself once she sees Nancy’s playful smile. She’s just teasing. “You people will be the death of me.”

Nancy just laughs again and they enter Robin’s house.

Chrissy’s there.

“Robin! Hi!” she greets excitedly when she turns around and sees them entering.

“Chrissy, hello,” Robin’s gotten better at not stuttering when she’s around her crushes. It took her half her life, yes, probably, but at least she’s got it now. She doesn’t ramble and babble awkwardly anymore. “Is there something I can help you with?” She’s also a professional.

“Steve asked me to get some eggs for him? Said he’s got a big order and can’t find the time to stop by himself,” she answers, that beautiful smile of hers still on her lips. Nancy is already heading to the place where the eggs are stored.

Robin narrows her eyes as discreetly as she can while her mind runs. Steve has no big orders this week. Robin knows that, because Steve lets her know every time he does, because she’s gotta separate the eggs for him. He would’ve told her about a big order.

Lying, meddling son of a bitch.

“Here it is, Chris,” Nancy shows up with two dozen eggs and Robin narrows her eyes again.

Chrissy hadn’t said how many eggs Steve asked for.

Lying, meddling sons of bitches.

“Thank you so much!” she says to Nancy before turning to Robin again, who’s just standing there acting weird. “Your birthday’s coming up, right? You’re gonna throw something?”

“Uh, yeah, next week. I don’t know, I’m not much of a partier. Maybe just a nice brunch,” she says, and Chrissy’s still looking at her with expectancy. “If I do, I’ll be sure to let you know, of course! You’re always invited.”

Robin’s answer widens her smile, and Chrissy looks down at her feet with blushed cheeks. Robin feels like screaming. She’s so fucking cute.

“What’s your favorite fragrance again?” she asks and Robin snorts.

Yours, she wants to say. She holds it in.

“Um,” she looks around.

There’s one of the Lemon Meringues on the table by the door. The last Passionfruit Martini is on her bedside table. She knows there’s a Cherry On Top somewhere in her office, and a Blackberry Cobbler in the living or the dining room. She’s been meaning to get a Tangerine Drizzle since she’s seen that client buying one that day, but she’s also been thinking a lot about a Banana Boat to replace the last one she had in the bathroom.

“Ambrosia Salad?” her answer is more of a question, because of course she can’t decide, but it seems to be enough for Chrissy. She tilts her head like a puppy dog — so adorable, really, Robin’s about to implode — and smiles again.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says. Robin’s heart is about to flutter out of her chest.

She hands the money to Nancy, who’s the one now just standing there, but she’s not being weird like Robin was, she actually has that annoying know-it-all smirk. Robin wants to strangle her.

But then Chrissy comes closer and leaves a kiss on Robin’s cheek, and maybe Robin is about to defy every single rule of the universe and become a puddle, liquefy instantly to the floor. Her cheeks are burning, and her brain seems to have short-circuited and, seriously, it’s fucked up that a single little blonde girl has so much power over her. That shouldn’t be allowed.

Chrissy leaves and Robin watches through the window as Chrissy crosses her lawn. She throws kisses to the chickens and Robin feels like she has no more place in her heart to fall in love even more, and yet she still does. Robin stares until she hops up on her bike and leaves, and she doesn’t notice Robin staring, she never does.

“Bet you wanted to answer ‘her perfume’ or something sappy,” Nancy says behind her and Robin turns around too fast, head going dizzy.

“Will you shut up!” she yells, and Nancy laughs.

“Robin, seriously. Talk to her! I could cut through the tension between you two five minutes ago.”

Robin doesn’t answer, instead, she comes up with a random topic to talk about. Jonathan’s and Argyle’s woodworking, or whatever. How’s that going? Selling lots of wood… works? Nancy lets her change the subject, because she knows Robin sucks at talking feelings, and honestly, Nancy kinda sucks at it too. With each other, at least.

“I wanted to say her actual skin smell, which is much better than any cheap or expensive perfume on the market, by the way,” she still teases back before Nancy leaves later that day, and Nancy laughs loudly and Robin lets herself giggle too.

When it doesn’t hurt like a bitch, being in love is actually kinda funny.

❀❀❀

They’re lying side by side on the grass, and their fingers are intertwined in between their bodies. Chrissy rolls to her side and so does Robin, and their noses almost touch. She’s got that pretty smile of hers that makes her blue eyes shrink until they almost disappear, her little wrinkles show how much she smiles all the time, and it makes Robin’s heart beat so fast. She leans in to kiss her, and the stars above them twinkle and there are fireworks-

“What doing?” Robin’s startled by a tiny voice beside her.

She’s sitting on the park grass, her back against a tree and she could’ve been more undercover if she had just remembered to put her sunglasses on her eyes instead of resting them on the top of her head.

“Doing nothing, Holly,” she answers, and the smallest of the Wheelers just shrugs and sits beside her on the grass.

“She’s pining. As usual,” Dustin answers, and only then Robin sees that the entire Party is there.

Holly doesn’t mind the answer, probably doesn’t even know what the word means, and just starts ripping grass out of the ground. Will and El sit close to Holly and start playing with her. Mike stands and hovers above the three of them, all knight-in-shining-armor pose.

“Huh, the babysat become the babysitters. Steve handed you the business keys?” she asks as the rest of the teenage menaces approach. “It used to be the other way around, you know? It was one guy with a gaggle of children, and now it’s one child with a gaggle of guys,” she finishes.

“Yeah, world’s funny that way, don’t try and change the subject, your pining is disgusting,” Dustin retorts and Robin rolls her eyes.

“Now the teenagers are meddling too, what have I done to deserve that?”

Robin stops looking at them, puts her sunglasses over her eyes this time, and focuses back on her initial interest. Chrissy and Heather are a few feet ahead having a picnic, far enough not to listen but close enough that Robin has a privileged view. They had picked a few flowers and Heather had weaved a few of them into Chrissy’s braided hair. She looks beautiful, like a fairy or something. Robin wants to be Heather so badly, touching Chrissy’s hair so absently, handing her flowers and basking in the late winter sun with her. If she didn’t know Heather was painfully straight, she would’ve been painfully jealous.

She swears she’s not stalking. They got here after she did. She just lost interest in the book she was reading before they appeared. But Chrissy didn’t notice her staring anyway, she never does.

“You and Chrissy have made it the entire town’s problem with your longing and yearning and lack of action. We’re obligated to see it, so you’re obligated to listen to our complaints until one of you actually goes ahead and asks the other out,” Max is leaning against the tree but Robin doesn’t tear her eye from Chrissy to look at the redhead.

“You’d be such a cute couple,” Lucas says and Robin wonders what kinds of sins she had committed to be karmically pestered by a gaggle of teenagers about her private business.

She’ll talk to the others later, tell them to get a hold of their younger siblings. They are so out of line.

“Look, you children don’t understand, okay? I don’t want to risk our friendship, because I like her very, very much. And this is a small town, and we have to see each other weekly and if things don’t work out it’ll be very awkward. There’s so much at risk, things that you kids have no idea about, and I will not! Risk them!” I won’t risk us, she wants to say.

They all look at her for a while after her heart-gutting speech. She looks back, defying them to say anything, and she’s almost sure she’s won her made-up staring challenge when they look at her with sympathy. But Erica ruins it.

“This is not about the gay thing, is it? Because, like, half of our group is part of the rainbow community, birds of a feather or whatever. Girl, we’ve been knowing.” Lucas hisses at his sister for her lack of touch, and she shrugs. “Just the facts.”

Robin takes a deep breath and starts thinking how she’ll answer that without cursing or being very rude and possibly scaring the Little Wheeler forever. Holly doesn’t deserve her rage, she’s clearly the best sibling in that family.

“She doesn’t even like me back, okay? Just the facts,” she mocks through gritted teeth. “Let’s just drop this,” is the best she can manage in a really dry tone, and she thinks it’s enough when they all go quiet again. Until Will speaks.

How did Steve manage, honestly? The man’s a saint, he’s gotta be. Kids are infuriating.

“Robin, I promise we’ll stop talking to you about this, and you don’t have to do as we say,” he says. “But, really. Just consider the possibility of talking to her. If it goes well, and I think it will, it really pays off,” he finishes and Mike, who’s still hovering and looking around as if a monster is about to appear out of nowhere, actually blushes. It’s almost cute.

Robin gives Will the smallest of smiles, that woman-love-woman to man-love-man solidarity smile, but doesn’t answer him. Doesn’t let them know that she’s considering following the advice coming from fucking teenagers (who all seem to have better love lives than she does, but that’s not the point).

Damn you, Will The Wise.

❀❀❀

She’s coming in Robin’s direction, the sun making her blonde hair shine bright and her skin glow, but her smile’s the most blinding of it all. She smiles at Robin in a way no one ever had, and it makes her warm inside. Chrissy’s finally close enough to touch, and Robin doesn’t hold herself and takes her face in between her hands. She smells of chocolate chip cookies in the oven, of laundry softener, of a flowery garden, she smells of home. Robin’s eyes almost tear up simply at the thought of her, and she can’t keep it in, she say’s ‘I love you’, and Chrissy answers, ‘I love you too’ before leaning in to kiss her, and Robin knows there are fireworks-

“Robin?” Chrissy’s voice sounds uncertain and it snaps Robin out of it.

Okay, she really is pathetic. Daydreaming about the girl while she’s talking to her, wow, this has reached a new level of absurdity.

“I’m sorry, so sorry!” she sputters, cheeks burning, hands sweating. “You were saying?”

“Just… happy birthday,” Chrissy smiles, hands Robin a gift box, but it’s such a small smile. A shy one, not good-shy, but fearful-shy. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Robin can only nod, and she hands the gift box to Steve so he can keep it safe for her. No one around her is making any noise, and she knows they’re being watched by all these meddlers, so she glances at Joyce before turning to Chrissy again.

“Inside,” she almost whispers, before turning around and heading for the Byers’ house.

They’re having her birthday brunch there because Joyce’s porch is the best and her backyard is one of the only ones without animals or trees or woodworking stations. She also loves hosting, so it’s a win-win situation. Argyle cooked, Steve baked, Hop’s working on the barbecue and everyone’s having a great time.

Or, was. Until Chrissy appeared, made Robin’s brain stop working and now there’s that weird tension in the air. Robin knows she fucked up, she fucked up big time, but oh god, Chrissy looked so beautiful. She looked so beautiful every day, but she had such a pretty dress on today, and her hair was up in that cheerleader ponytail with a bow to make it better, and she has a shiny lip gloss that makes her lips look so kissable, and she smells of honey and coconut, and Robin wants her.

Robin wants her so badly, and Robin dreams of her when she’s asleep and when she’s awake too, and she has never wanted someone this much. And she has never known so deep inside her soul, how she can’t have someone as much as she knows she can’t have Chrissy. Robin’s not a particularly insecure woman, but she knows Chrissy would never pay her any mind.

“Why do you hate me?” Chrissy asks once they’re inside, and when she turns around to face Robin her eyes are wet.

“WHAT?” Robin yells, then cups her mouth for a second. “I’m sorry, shouldn’t have yelled, but. What?”

“I don’t understand. I keep catching you looking at me sometimes, but then you look away immediately and sometimes you look almost angry. You don’t hold big conversations with me, you seemed pissed at me that day with the eggs, and just now you weren’t even listening as I was talking.” Robin is in total shock as Chrissy starts listing things on her fingers. “It wasn’t like this! We were friends, Rob, and suddenly you started being so weird. Why invite me to your birthday if you don’t want me here?”

Yeah, they were friends and then Robin caught feelings. And apparently made it weird. Maybe she wasn’t as good with the girls she liked as she thought she was. She stopped rambling and babbling awkwardly, sure, but now she apparently shuts them out. Definitely not great either.

“Chrissy, I want you here, I do!” she says, and her voice falters because Chrissy has no idea how much Robin wants her. “I’m so sorry I made it weird, I just…” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and remembers Will’s words. Oh wow, that’s pathetic for sure. “I don’t wanna be just your friend, Chris. I want more.”

She opens her eyes to face her demise because if she’s gonna be turned down she’s gonna take it proudly.

“You want… more?” Chrissy asks, and she takes a step further into Robin’s space.

“Yes. I like you. So much. So much, it’s pathetic.”

“You… like me?” she asks again, eyes wide open, and Robin gulps before nodding. Oh, god, here comes the blow. “Oh, Robin.”

Robin has no time to ask ‘what?’ because Chrissy throws her arms around Robin’s neck and their lips touch.

For real.

There are no fireworks, actually.

Fireworks are deafening loud, they’re bright and blinding. They jet, they spiral, they splatter. They can be scary, they’re everywhere and they’re overwhelming, and they’re too much sometimes. Just like Robin is most times. Loud, spiraling, everywhere, and overwhelming. Too much.

Chrissy’s kiss is not too much. It’s just enough.

It’s calm, and it’s relaxing, and it’s giving and giving and giving, but it’s receiving just as much. It’s stillness in a once stormy ocean, it’s silencing of all the high-pitched sounds that can be deafening, it’s thrilling in a way that makes Robin’s heart stump loud but rhythmically. Robin’s body loosens up, tension and anxiety leaving her, brain going quiet in, for once, a good way. She’s not overwhelmed, her senses aren’t screaming at her, she’s focused on the present moment. Chrissy tastes of fruit, of course she does, and she smells of home because it’s what she is. Her skin is warm as Robin holds her with no intention of letting her go, but it’s nothing like her dreams.

Because it’s real. And it’s so much better.

They separate their lips but their foreheads are still touching.

“You have no idea how much Eddie and Heather have been pestering me to talk to you,” Chrissy whispers almost against Robin’s lips, and she snorts.

“Oh, I sure do.” She wants to hate her friends for being right all along, but she can’t find it in herself to be anything but insanely happy.

“We’ve been two blind idiots, haven’t we?” Chrissy giggles, and it’s angelic as a sound can be, and Robin wants to crack Chrissy’s ribs open and live inside her chest. She nods at Chrissy’s question.

“I was so sure you didn’t like me,” she admits. “I looked at you all the time, daydreaming of this all the time. Reality’s so much better.” She tightens her grip around Chrissy’s waist to prove her point, to prove to herself it’s real.

“You didn’t see me staring right back.” It’s not a question, because the answer is obvious.

“I was too much of a blind idiot to see it, apparently.” She smiles and she leans in and she kisses Chrissy again. Because, oh god, she can do that now.

“But you see it now?” Chrissy asks.

“My eyes are wide open, Chris. And I see you now.”