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mask131 · 27 days ago

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William Morris' works (2)

My very first contact with William Morris was through a recent, complete translation/edition of his work "The Well at the World's End". It had a preface by Anne Besson talking about the book, its author, and why it is at the root of the fantasy genre. Here are some highlights from it.

Morris' return to the stage is part of a movement wishing to return to the sources of fantasy. Now that the "big names" of fantasy (Besson mentions Tolkien, Rowling and Martin) have been explored fully and brought to life by many, there is a new interest and curiosity for the ones outside of them. The classical pioneers that are yet still ignored today, like George McDonald or Charles Kinglsey. The other British authors of the early 20th century that Tolkien overshadowed: Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, Hope Mirrlees, even T.H. White. And the parallel fecundity of the American pulp fiction - everybody knows of it Robert Howard for creating Conan, but now is the return of the others - Harold Lamb, Clark Ashton Smith, Abraham Merritt...

According to Anne Besson, William Morris is one of the greatest and most beautiful creators of the "unjustly neglected" literary monuments of early fantasy - and she considers his "The Well at the World's End" to be his masterpiece. Yet Morris is a very unique case, because he was first and foremost a material and visual artist. He was a drawer, a designer, a printer, and this is a part of his career that is still recognized to this day - often people only mention his crafts work, without a single word about the novels he wrote. Even in Encyclopedias of the fantasy, Morris' name often doesn't get a specific article, and is just a mention in either more general talks about the Preraphaelites, or an evocation in the articles of the authors he inspired (Tolkien, Howard, Eddings). This is the dual heritage of Morris - the great authors he inspired, and his carreer as the "Jack of All Arts" [a title Lyon Sprague de Camp gave him in 1974].

William Morris is first and foremost a part of the Confrery of the Preraphaelites, a group which deeply marked the art of England at the end of the 19th century. They had an hyper-realist technique mixed with a proud escapism when it came to selection their subjects ; this made them stand at odds to the abstractions and "progress" of the "modern" engaged art of the time, and as a result they were for a very long time neglected from the History of the Arts, deemed as being just "kitsch". But today, in England and France they have been fully rehabilitated.

William Morris stands proudly alongside the leader of the movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and his great friend Edward Burne-Jones. They share common aspirations and inspirations, mixing the Primitives of the first Italian Renaissance (of which they recreated the realistic depictions of nature) and the Gothic (of which they admired the "spiritual purity") - the result were idealized Middle-Ages, "made of faith, heroism and purity" (words from Julia Drobinsky. But Morris is more unique as he is, first and foremost, a craftsman, a designer, a decorator - he was the one who inspired the movement "Arts & Craft". He doesn't just dream of a "golden age", he tries to make it real.

Morris designed beautiful items in the hope of raising the aesthetic level of the Victorian productions. He wanted England to find back its traditional, demanding crafts, so that the alliance of the beautiful and the useful could produce, among the creators and the users, the satisfaction of a "work well done". He is mainly famous for his creation of an intertwined-flowers decorative motif which covered a lot of furniture cloth and wallpapers. He also created a printing house dedicated to recreating medieval-like books, not just using vellum or specific inks, but also special fonts and marginalia - between 1891 and 1898 his Kelmscott Press published 54 books, 17 of which were his own creations.

Morris as such echoes our modern concern of fighting against mass-production and standardization, to have more personal, artistic productions, blurring the line between craftsman and designer, offering fluid artistic collaborations. Morris and Co.'s traditional floral motifs were for a very long time associated with "cosy British interiors" but are now all over the world. Morris himself lived by his aesthetic agenda, surrounding himself with his visual and ideological choices - first in his Red House in the South of London (he had a part in its construction), then at Kelmscott Manor, an idyllic countryside retreat near the Thames co-owned with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A lot of rumors and criticism was aimed towards the two men's relationships to one woman - Jane, who was the wife of Morris but the muse of Rossetti. Yet, these "loose morals" denounced at the time were in line with the Preraphaelites' protest against the normalized violence of the Victorian society, a protest that was mainly expressed through an exaltation of a proudly sensual feminity... In The Well at the World's End, this is found in the character of the Lady of Abundance, a third seductive fairy, a third jealousy-inducing witch, a third pagan goddess...

William Morris didn't just print beautiful books, theorized books in his crafting ideology, or collected medieval manuscripts - he also wrote many, many texts. His complete works, gathered by his daughter May, form 24 volumes (plus four volumes of corresponance, plus a hundred of articles and political conferences). And he did all that before dying at 62 years old. To give a few highlights, he started in the 1850s, under the influence of Thomas Malory's La Morte d'Arthur. He published medieval-inspired novellas in "The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine" (notably "The Hollow Land"), and he even decided to have an Arthurian dialogue with Lord Alfred Tennyson, the greatest poet of his time, by publishing in 1858 "The Defense of Guinevere".

Morris' works were a succession and mix of translations, adaptations and re-creations. A good example of this is his work on the Volsung Saga, the great myth of Sigurd that was the source of inspiration for Wagner's operas. Morris first learned Old Norse from an Iceland man named Eirikr Magnusson (who was the key person for the diffusion of Norse culture in the Oxonian circles). He then co-wrote an "archaic" translation: Völsunga Saga - The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs, with Certain Songs from the Elder Edda, 1870. Five years later, he offered a vast epic versified rewrite: The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs, 1876. He was very proud of this book.

He also translated various French medieval romances (notably "Ami et Amile" in 1896's Four French romances), and the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (in 1895). But it is much more relevant to point out how close he was to the Greco-Latin tradition. Outside of a long poem dedicated to Jason (The Life and Death of Jason, 1867), he published a translation of Virgil's Aeneid (1875-76), and one of Homer's Odyssey (1887-88).

Finally, his enormous compilation of 24 narrative poems called "The Earthly Paradise" (3 volumes, 1868-70) was the encounter of his two ancient inspirations : Vikings of the North enter a heavenly otherworld where Ionians survived, and with whom they exchange stories - all to offer a beautiful metaphor on the role of the "transmission of culture".

His writing of "romances" is only a late stage of his production. The Well at the World's End was only published in 1896, the same year as Morris' death - even though it had been written some years earlier. It forms a greater whole alongside "The Story of the Glittering Plain" (1891), "The Wood Beyond the World" (1894), "The Water of the Wondrous Isles" (1897) and "The Sundering Flood" (1897, posthumous work). It is a late but logical development as Amanda Hodgson noted: before that, Morris' work oscillated between the "historical temptations" and the political utopias turned to the future. On one side his historical novel "The House of the Wolflings" in 1880, defending the Northern aristocracies against the Roman invasions ; on the other side his "A Dream of John Ball" about the Middle-Ages confronting the Industial Revolution, or his "News from Nowhere".

These romances, beyond showing the tiredness of the end of a life dedicated to an unflinching political engagement, allow Morris to unite these contrasting aspirations. Their "lightness" and their happy endings glorify the ability of individuals and communities to transform. Through escapist stories, Morris captures the same hope he tries to offers to the people of his time. It is the meaning of the fourth part of "The Well", dedicated to a return to the homeland, during which the hero and his beloved go back through the same places they crossed before and see their evolutions.

It seems every aspect of Morris' life lead to these romances. They feed on his nature as a scholar in literary and languages, they feed from his passion for Arthurian romances and Medieval chansons de geste ; they are born from his interests for myths, epics, fairytales and folklore. But they are also very visual productions. Sober yet strongly evocative descriptions through an insistance on color and light ; the use of typical hyperbola and a stylistic unity ; the "chromatic exuberance" through the union of "absolute colors" (yellow, gold, green, blue, scarlet) in a limited palette reminding of the Medieval illuminations... Morris wrote his texts like he painted his images. The very plots, with their constant duality and doubles and counter-points, reminds of the ornamental motifs of the Morris Company.

In the end the "birth of the fantasy" Morris is credited with is no more than the fusion of magnified Middle-Ages with socialist visions of another world more just and more beautiful. Poetic and politically engaged, these romances, through their initiation processes and their rich symbolism, offer questions about self-fulfilment, the formation of a couple, the need to be inserted in a collectivity - while also promoting the values that are loyalty, perseverance, care for desires, and the importance of the community.

Did William Morris invent fantasy? At least this is how he is perceived...

Originally, outside of the publication of Morris' completed works by May Morris, they were very hard to access, only available to the best experts of English literature, until Lin Carter offered them a second life in the USA, in the collection "Ballantine Adult Fantasy". We are in the huge wave caused by the success of "The Lord of the Rings" (its pocket-edition of the revised version in 1965). Ballantine Adult Fantasy, the first fantasy collection ever, was created to fulfill the needs of a Tolkien fan, by ambitiously reprinting all of the "classics". Lord Dunsany, George McDonald, George Meredith and... William Morris. In five years four of his books were re-published, starting with "The Wood" in 1969, and "The Well" in two volumes in 1970. Lin Carter is also a very fascinating name when it comes to the fantasy world, very divisive. On the "light side", Carter is remember as a scholar and lover of fantasy who maintained and enhanced the genre ; on the "dark side", Carter is recalled as a mediocre author and a shady editor, hated by fans of Tolkien and Robert Howard for shaping and exploiting a twisted version of their works...

It is under the pen of Carter that Morris' romances earned their title of "origins of fantasy". Carter presented them as such: "From the world of the "Wood" and the world of the "Well" descend all of the later worlds of fantastic literature, Poictesme, and Oz and Tormance, Barsoom and Narnia and Zothique, Gormenghast and Zimiamvia and Middle-Earth. When he sketched out the map of those imagined realms which lie between Upmeads and Utterbol, William Morris blazed the first trail into the unexplored universe of fantasy".

But Ballantine's Morris can be seen as almost a betrayal of the original spirit... It implies a new genealogy, a new target-audience, and a new interpretation. His romances are not part of a complete architectural unit. The American audience split them away from the rest of Morris work, differentiate the author from the artist. Yet, it was widely recognized at the time that the first English fantasy and artistic theories were closely linked... George MacDonald, the author of "Phantastes" and "The Princess and the goblin" was a friend of John Ruskin, an influent art theorician, whose texts were for Morris (just like for Proust) a massive revelation... Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the most famous of the Preraphaelites, belonged to a family of artists: his sister, Christina Rossetti, was a figure-head of a darker Victorian fantasy, with her poems (Goblin Market) or her Lewis Carroll-like fairytales (Speaking Likenesses).

The reason so many of these early names rarely reached us is because of the huge meteorite that crashed on the "fantasy land" - named Tolkien. A meteorite that changed forever the "fantastic ecosystem" - after him, all fantasy works shall be compared to Tolkien and no one else. It is unfair, but it is so. Anne Besson highlights how her work edition for writing this preface was a 2003's publication by the Inkling Books which claimed would "give back Morris to the people" and yet systematically and heavily referred to him as "the author who influenced Tokien". The editor, Michael W. Perry, seemed to strongly imply that the only reason Morris' Well deserved to be read, was because of its association with Tolkien. The first lines are: "On the lines of Morris's romances, two books that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien, The Wood beyond the world and The Well at the world's end, by William Morris". Tolkien's full name comes before Morris' own full name! And the introduction, titled "William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien" is entirely about what Tolkien found in Morris for his own works... And the dedication is "For the fans of Tolkien who are wishing for books like the Lord of the Rings".

Despite everybody linking Morris to Tolkien, his influence is more relevant in th case of C.S. Lewis, who was very enthusiastic about the author and wrote a beautiful presentation of him in his 1939's "Rehabilitations". Tolkien's inspiration was there, though lesser and smaller... He mostly took broad elements (a hieratic style, a Medieval Northern Europe setting, a discreet ambiant magic) and punctual details (the malevolent Gandolf and the Silverfax horse of Morris predate Tolkien's Gandalf and Shadowfax). Tolkien did write that the Dead Marshes were more directly influenced by Morris' romances. And to this list of influences can be added two more things. One, the importance of the "return" of the characters - the story doesn't end with the quest, the characters have to go home. Two, the image of the dead tree brought back to life - brought back to life by the heroes' return, by the return of a vital harmony, of a just government. For Tolkien it is Gondor's White Tree, for Morris it is the Dry Tree, the opposite of both the Well with its waters of life and of the arms of Upmeads, a fruit-bearing apple-tree by a river.

To read "retrospectively" Morris as just another fantasy author, or as in the line of posterior creations, is thus for Anne Besson a big mistake, because Morris, who wrote at the very dawn of a new genre, is very "original" in his work compared to what is expected of a fantasy today, and what might seem in the context of modern fantasy as "naive" or "blinded" was very fresh, very troubling, very "primordial" in the light of the end of a life-time of social fighting alongside the poor and the victims of misery an injustice.

And it is not because Morris' work is great, or a classic, or very influential on modern works, that it means it is easy to read today. While the text feels simple, fresh, fluid, it is a false sense that is quickly broken down by how unfamiliar modern audiances will be with the content of the book. The book has a very ambivalent "moral system", where it is hard to discern what is good an what is evil - exemplified by the troubling relationship between religion and magic in this fictional universe. It is a work done in a style purposefully archaic, avoiding Latin-derived words to search for a purely English language paying homage to its Nordic roots. It is also a work with the traditional "flatness" of the medieval romances and illustrations: everybody happens on the same plane, there is no pause, no acme, everybody speaks the same way, and the same episodes return over and over again.

However as C.S. Lewis wrote, while Morris' style is very artificial, it shall be praised for being very simple, very obvious, very clear, "more so than any "natural" style could be". It is a form of stylistic sobriety that invites to see beyond the words. Morris' stories don't have a "set", a "stage" or a "decorum", they have a geography. Morris makes sure the reader can "breathe the air" of the mountains they read about. Morris started there this ideal that all fantasy authors seeks to reach, the same ideal that Tolkien popularized - but when Tolkien talks of the "tales of Faërie", he seems to be echoing and evoking the texts of William Morris. Simple, fundamental stories filled with light, that invite to look at things like everyday colors and rediscover them, and that get rid of banality and familiarity to literally "possess" the reader.

Anne Besson concludes by claiming Morris IS the Well which all the 1930s-onward fantasy authors drank from, as well as the more distant source of the flow of "new fantasy" of the 70s.

#williams morris #the well at the world's end #fantasy #fantasy literature #history of fantasy #tolkien #the lord of the rings #c.s. lewis #preraphaelites #anne besson #remember this is a loose translation/rushed info-mining by yours truly

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taivansupremacy · 2 years ago

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in a heartbeat [part 2]

part 1 part 3

Summary: The night after Corroded Coffin’s first gig with Robin, you wake up beside her in bed. You start avoiding her, afraid she weirded out by you. Eddie sees through your front, though and tries to bring you back to the group.

or according to @thruheavenandhighwater: Cuddles and grand theft auto, all before breakfast.

Word count: 3,698

A/N: Thank you to @shysneeze for giving me the idea for the color of Robin's bedroom and @thruheavenandhighwater for beta reading! As usual, likes, reblogs, and feedback is always appreciated!

CW: swearing

You woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and opened your eyes to find your arms wrapped around Robin’s middle, your front pressed tightly to her back as she continued to snore. In a panic, you slowly maneuvered your arms out from around her as not to wake her, collected your clothes, and bolted out of the room. You needed to get out of there before Robin woke up, but how? Eddie drove you to The Hideout and to Steve’s last night, so your car was at home. He wouldn’t mind if you took his van home, right?

After a moment of convincing yourself that Eddie wouldn’t mind, you tiptoed up the stairs and found Steve’s bedroom at the end of the hall. You quietly opened the door to find Steve and Eddie sleeping peacefully, Steve’s head tucked into the crook of Eddie’s neck as they slept. You affectionately rolled your eyes at the pair of them and bent down to find Eddie’s ripped Levis on the floor. You fished the keys to his van out of the front pocket and silently backed out of the room.

You were home for about two hours when Eddie called. You weren’t surprised. You figured he would call to find out where his van was sooner or later, but suddenly you were anxious that he’d be angry at you. After taking a minute to calm your nerves you picked the receiver up off its cradle and brought it to your ear.

“y/n?”

“Eddie, hi.” You greeted shakily.

“Hi, yeah where the hell is my van, y/l/n?” He asked with a little edge to his voice. He couldn’t be mad at you, could he?

“I took it to drive myself home…I can’t exactly explain right now because you’re with everyone else, but maybe I can come get you when Steve goes to work? I’ll buy you breakfast.” You hoped that even if he was mad at you, breakfast would be an effective peace offering.

“Yeah, okay.” He sighed, “Just, don’t do that again. I have way too much illegal shit in there that I don’t want you getting caught with.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“Of course not.” You were relieved, “Steve and Robin are heading to work in about ten, so come get me then?”

“You got it, Eddison!” You joked.

“Hey, you’re already skating on thin ice, y/l/n. I wouldn’t push it.”

“Bye Eddie,” You chuckled to yourself before setting the receiver back in its place and setting off to get ready to pick Eddie up.

****

You pulled up to Steve’s house to find Eddie sitting on Steve’s front porch. He jumped up as soon as he saw his van and made his way to you. He stuck his head into the open window and flashed you a shit-eating grin.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” He said with a roaring laugh, “What in the hell made you steal a van, y/n?”

“I didn’t steal a van, Eddie. I stole your van,” You shoot him a playful glare, “and I feel really bad about it. So get in here so I can get us breakfast and tell you about why I needed your precious van.”

“Absolutely not,” He shook his head with a serious look, “The illegal shit, remember? I’m driving.”

After switching seats at Eddie’s insistence, you were in the McDonald’s drive thru, ordering bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffins with a hashbrown for each of you. You wanted to take him to a diner, but he requested this instead. Eddie never needed anything fancy and was always easy to please.

“So,” He started as you pulled out of the drive thru lane, “What made you become a little van burglar?”

You took a bite of your sandwich and unwrapped Eddie’s to hand it to him. With one hand on the steering wheel, he ate with his free hand on the way back to your trailer park.

“I woke up cuddling Robin,” You cringed as the mental image of you spooning the bassist flashed through your mind once again, “She was faced away from me and I had my arms around her.”

“I don’t see why that’s a valid reason to steal my van.”

“It wasn’t a mutual thing, Eddie! I was the one doing the cuddling. She probably thinks I’m creepy now!” You shrugged dejectedly as you took another bite of your food, “I just wanted out of there before she woke up.”

Eddie nodded, “Did she wake up and see you?”

“Not that I know of...”

“Then why are you freakin’?” Eddie chuckled, “You’re in deep, huh?”

You crossed your arms and curled in on yourself, “She could have woken up when I was still asleep. Stop making fun of me!”

“Not makin’ fun. Just think you little crush on Buckley is cute, is all.”

You couldn’t hold back the little smile that threatened to break through your angry facade. You could never be mad at Eddie, not for long, anyway.

“Do you think I have a chance with her?” You asked quietly.

Eddie parked his van in front of his trailer and turned to look at you.

“She was looking for you when she woke up this morning,” He informed you as he unwrapped his hashbrown, “Seemed pretty bummed that you left early.”

He left you to stew on that as he turned the van off and exited through the driver’s side door. You each headed to your respective neighboring trailers for the day, thoughts of Robin bouncing around in your head until you went to sleep that night.

****

There was a knock at your door around 6pm, right on time. It was Saturday, the day of Corroded Coffin’s usual gig at The Hideout, and you’d been cooking up an excuse not to go all day. You’ve never missed one of Eddie’s gigs as long as you’ve known him, but you really didn’t want to face Robin. You’ve managed to avoid seeing the group all week. They invited you to hang out at Steve’s or to watch the band practice in Gareth’s garage countless times that week, but each time you made up an excuse as to why you couldn’t go. You knew that Eddie would be upset that you wouldn’t be at his performance, but you thought about it all day and seeing Robin just felt like too much. When you finally gained the courage to answer the door, you swung it open to find Eddie all dressed for his gig with a grin on his face.

“Ready to go?” He asked, “I figured we could leave a little early today so you could help with set up.”

“Well, about that… I can’t go tonight.” You rocked back on your heels with your eyes trained on the carpeted floor at your feet as you told him.

“What?” Eddie pushed through to enter your trailer, “You’ve never missed a Saturday.”

Eddie didn’t look as sad as you expected him to be. Instead, he looked suspicious, as if he was onto you. It wouldn’t surprise you, you’ve been spewing excuses all week.

“I know, but mom thinks I need to stay here and clean my room.” You shrugged with an apologetic look, “Sorry. I’ll be there next week though.”

“This is about Robin, isnt it?”

“What?”

“I’ve known you for years, y/l/n. I know your tells.” He plopped down on your livingroom couch, “Also, your room is always spotless. You need to come up with excuses that are less shitty if you want me to believe you.” He popped up out of his seat and ushered you to your bedroom, “Now come on, get changed. We leave in 2 minutes.”

“You’re not even gonna give me a choice in this, then? Even if I told you that I’m terrified to see Robin again?” You gave him a pleading look, but he just pushed you further down the hall in response.

“2 minutes,” He reminded you once you were in your bedroom.

****

The lights dimmed in the cramped little bar and the stage spotlights illuminated. The members Corroded Coffin walked out with Eddie in the lead and found their instruments that were already sitting out on stage. Once again, your eyes were immediately drawn to Robin as she slung her guitar strap around her neck and adjusted it. You managed to avoid seeing her before the show by opting to stay in the bar area rather than hang out in the greenroom. You couldn’t avoid Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan, though. They found you in the front row right before the show started. All you had time for was a few hugs and hellos before the lights dimmed.

Seeing Robin on stage was the first time you’d seen her since you shared a bed with her at Steve’s a week prior. The way the stage lights that illuminated her face made her look almost ethereal and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from her. So you didn’t. You spent almost the entire show staring at her, just as you had at the previous show. You were mesmirized by her talent and beauty all over again. She looked over and caught your eyes for a brief second during the last song of the night. She held eye contact for a second and gave you a genuine smile before looking away. Warmth bloomed in your chest at the relization that her pretty smile was directed at you. It was for you. Eddie was right, you were in deep, but you were too giddy to care.

When the band finished playing, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan made their way backstage to the greenroom, but you waited for Eddie as usual. Except this time, it wasn’t Eddie that came to retrieve you. Robin stood in front of you, playing with one of the many rings that adorned her fingers.

“Eddie told me to come and get you,” She started shakily, “I hope that’s okay. I know that it’s kind of your thing for him to bring you backstage after the shows, but today he suggested that I should do it. I kinda feel funny about the whole thing because I’m not sure how we are after we left things last week and it seems like you’ve been avoiding the group, or maybe you’re just avoiding me, but-”

“Robin!” You interrupt with a giggle, “It’s absolutely okay that you came to get me.”

“Cool. So…are you like totally weirded out by me or something? Where have you been all week?”

“Just busy,” You lied easily and quickly changed the subject, “Why would I be weirded out by you?”

You knew that the rest of the group would probably be wondering where the two of you were, but you and Robin needed to talk and you absolutely were not about to do it in front of everyone in the greenroom, so you opted for a loud bar instead.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, a light blush rising to her cheeks, “I thought maybe that you felt weird after sharing a bed. You left Steve’s early and know that I can be a little touchy in my sleep sometimes so…”

You shook your head, directing a warm smile at the blue-eyed girl in front of you, “I thought you were weirded out by me. I’m touchy in my sleep too. That’s why I left early, I sorta panicked.”

The two of you laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. The sound of her laugh was music to your ears. It matched the raspiness of her voice, but was somehow gentle and melodic at the same time. You would do anything to hear it again.

Once you composed yourselves, Robin asked quietly, “So we’re okay?”

“We’re perfect,” You responded, “Now lets get back there before they send a search party out for us.”

Robin laughed again and looped her arm through yours as you made your way backstage. Butterflies erupted in your stomach when her skin touched yours and the smile that split your lips didn’t go away until you made it to the greenroom.

“Maybe we could hang out on Monday after school? I-if you want to.” Robin blurted as she stared straight ahead.

Your smile only grew when you replied, “I’d love to.”

You were silent for the rest of the short walk, too busy thinking about what you would do with Robin on Monday to focus on a conversation. You split apart as soon as you entered the small room, Robin finding a spot next to Steve and you settling down beside Eddie, who looked like he was up to something.

“So, how’d it go?” He asked under his breath with a knowing grin.

“We’re hanging out on Monday after school,” You responded quietly, but proudly as you stole his water bottle from his hand and took a sip, “Thanks for that, by the way.”

He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and gave you a tight squeeze. You squirmed and squealed in protest until he let you go.

“See, aren’t you glad you came to the show?”

You flicked him in the nose and smiled despite yourself, “Shut up, Eddison.”

****

On Monday morning, you made sure to pick out a nicer outfit, perfect your makeup, and put more than your usual effort into your hair. During the school day, you bounced your leg under your desk and constantly eyed the clock. Eddie noticed, of course, and teased you relentlessly about your obvious nervousness and impatience. So when the dismissal bell rang in your last class of the day, one that you unfortunately shared with Eddie, he gave you a smug look.

“Go ahead, Juliet,” He laughed at you as you looked at him expectantly, “You don’t have to walk to my locker with me today. Go get your girl.”

You thanked him with a quick kiss on his cheek and gathered your things before sprinting to your locker to pack your backpack. When you were all packed, you fixed your hair and reapplied your lipgloss in the magnetic mirror that hung on the metal door of your locker. Once you were satisfied with your appearance, you set off to find Robin’s locker.

She stood in front of her open locker with Nancy as she stuffed textbooks and notebooks into her backpack. Her hands flying through the air as she rambled to her friend beside her, who just nodded along as she listened. Nancy caught your eye as you drew closer to the locker in front of you and took that as her cue to leave. She mumbled a quiet goodbye to the blonde and offered you a warm smile before taking off to her own locker down the hall.

“Hey Rob,” You greeted, internally kicking yourself for using the nickname that you’d only ever heard Steve use. Was it okay that you called her that? Would she think that you were overstepping? You bit your lip in anticipation as you waited for her to reply.

She slammed her locker shut and turned to look at you, beaming, “y/n, hi! What do you want to do today? You’re driving so you should have more of a say than I do, but I was thinking we could go to my house for a bit? My parents won’t be home until later tonight so we’ll have the house to ourselves. N-not that it matters or anything. I’m not trying to-”

“Robin!” You giggle, relieved that she didn’t seem to notice the nickname you used for her, “Going to your house sounds nice.”

“Great then uh, shall we?” She gestures toward the doors that lead out of the school.

You laughed at her charming, dorky nature and followed her out of the front doors of Hawkins High.

****

Robin’s house was a small, 2 bedroom, one story house. It wasn’t quite as nice as Steve’s, but you could tell that her family was better off than your and Eddie’s families. Her bedroom was painted a loud turquoise color. You couldn’t help but think that it didn’t exactly suit her. As you peered around the small bedroom, you noticed a dresser that was littered with crystals, her guitar and trumpet case leaning against the foot of her made bed, music and movie posters and sheet music tacked to the wall, covering most of the turquoise paint, and pictures of her and her friends in various frames around the room. Without taking the wall color into consideration, it was all so Robin.

“I uh picked the paint color out in middle school,” She admitted sheepishly, “My parents told me that I would only get to paint it once and I still picked this atrocious color,” She laughed as she walked into the room and took a seat on her bed, her back to her headboard.

She patted the spot in front of her and you obliged, sitting criss-cross on the bed and facing her.

“The color isn’t that bad…” You lied as you eyed the walls some more.

“You don’t have to lie about it, y/n.” She laughed again, her hand brushing your knee briefly, “I know it’s… not great”

You weren’t sure if you wore more encaptured by her laugh or the feeling of her ringed fingers touching your bare knee. All you knew was that Robin Buckley would be the death of you.

“Everything else is, though!” You piped up once you regained the ability to speak, “The pictures, the posters, the sheet music tacked to the wall? It’s so you!”

She blushed then, looking down at her lap in an effort to hide her red cheeks.

“You can look around if you want. I was thinking that I could order us a pizza,” She hopped off the bed, “Be back in a jiff!” She called from down the hall.

You slipped off the bed and walked around the room and examined the pictures in their frames. There were a bunch of her and Steve in various places and poses. There were some of her and an older man and woman that you assumed to be her parents and her and her group of friends. You smiled to yourself as you made your way over to her guitar at the foot of her bed and picked it up, slinging the strap around your neck and running your fingers over the strings. You thought about the first time you saw Robin on stage with this guitar, how beautiful she looked and how expertly she played, despite it being her first show. You were lost in thought when without warning, the door swung open, signalling Robin’s return.

“The pizza should be he-” She stopped in her tracks and stared at you wide-eyed.

You wanted the earth to swallow you whole. Your ears felt hot as you put the guitar back down and averted her eyes.

“I-I’m sorry. I should have asked before… you know.”

“I could teach you how to play a few notes,” The blonde offered, stepping towards you to pick the bass back up again.

You expected her to yell at you, maybe even tell you that you had no right to be touching her very expensive guitar without asking, but instead she offered to teach you to play. Robin Buckley was full of surprises.

“Actually,” You started, still refusing to meet her eyes, “I think I’d like to hear you play something.”

She nodded, almost as shocked as you were, and took her previous seat on the bed, resting the guitar on her bed before reaching around to un-tack a piece of sheet music from the wall to reveal a paper-sized rectangle of turquoise paint. She set the sheet music down in front of her on the bed and glanced up at you.

“Eddie’s been bugging me to practice this one, anyway.” She rasped as she set the guitar on her lap and played the first few notes of a familiar tune.

You knew the song to be Def Leppard’s Miss You in a Heartbeat almost immediately, as it was one of your favorites. Eddie always called you a sap when you listened to it, but you thought it was cute and secretly hoped that you’d have someone that made you feel like you could relate to it one day.

You took a seat on the bed in front of her and watched in awe as her fingers strummed over the strings with expertise. Robin playing the guitar was even more breathtaking up close. The way her eyes fluttered as she read her sheet music, the way she lost herself in parts she knew and closed her eyes as she played, the way she played just as passionately for an audience of one as she did for an audience of 300. When the music stopped, you were pulled out of your trance. The room was all too quiet and the tension was thick in the air.

“I-I love that song,” You said softly, “It’s one of my favorites and Eddie always teases me for it.”

The sandy blonde girl chuckled and set the guitar aside, “That’s funny considering he’s the one that added it to our setlist for this weekend.”

You laughed with her, “You played it so well,” You complimented and watched as a bright smile settled on her lips.

“Thank you,” She blushed, leaning toward you and taking one of your hands into her’s, “I can’t wait for you to hear it at the show this weekend.”

All you could focus on was how close she was to you and how the metal from her rings cooled your skin. Just as you gained enough composure to reply, the doorbell rang. The pizza had arrived and the moment was ruined. Robin’s hand broke away from yours and you mourned the loss almost immediately.

“I’m just gonna go…uh grab that real quick.” She hopped off the bed and started toward the front door.

You threw yourself back into a laying position and covered your face with one of Robin’s throw pillows. You didn’t know how it was possible, but you’d fallen even more in love with Robin Buckley.

Robin Buckley Taglist: @momomc, @prettyplant0, @ariianelle, @rrobinbuckleysgf, @Desperate-gay, @hawkeluvr, @Abeltvs, @thechoiceslookgrimm, @justlydiasworld, @amberputh, @amelies-a-simp, @thruheavenandhighwater

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