#ghost!robin buckley

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

{ I bring you Sacrificial Virgin!Steve, Demon!Eddie, and Ghost!Robin for your tables. Take this and feast my friends.

I woke after 3 hours of sleep suddenly possessed with this idea and had to get it out of me immediately before i went back to sleep for a bit. Shits crazy. }

Warnings: death, blood, gore, demony things.

The Harrington's are an old family. Older than Hawkins itself, some say. Their manor sits on a hill, overlooking the town, keeping an ever watchful eye on the people below.

Steve has always been alone. No friends. No girlfriends. His only company the maids, and butlers, and tutors, all of whom float through his life, never constant, always different, no connections to be made. His parents make sure of it. He is to be pure. Always. Until they need him.

Unbeknownst to them, Steve has made one friend. A lonely soul, lost and scared, stuck in the halls of Harrington house after one of their many sacrifices. Her name is Robin. She's skittish at first, frightened of him.

He understands. And he waits. And a few months later she comes to him. They lie in his bed, and she talks to him. Tells him about the life she had in Hawkins. Tells him what it's like to live. She is cold to the touch. Steve barely notices.

They strap him to the table on his eighteenth birthday. He'd known it was coming. It was the only logical end to the life he'd been living. His family and their followers, dressed in their dark robes, looking down at him, but not seeing him.

Steve doesn't struggle. He lets them take him. Lies there and looks up into the eyes of a girl none of them can see, and hopes it will be fast. That it will end. Then he can be with Robin and they can find a way out of these halls, and out of this town, and be together, forever.

He doesn't cry. He doesn't make a sound when the knife sinks into him. His blood leaks onto the marble beneath him, his body going cold. Colder. He keeps his eyes on Robin as she smiles sadly down at him, her fingers laced with his though he can't feel it.

The room goes black. Suddenly. Like the light is banished by something unseen. His parents and their rable gasp, scattering out of Steve's sight. He hopes their afraid. And then a voice, otherworldly, fills the room. It's words bring a warmth to Steve that he's never known, it blooms in his chest the way his blood blooms across the floor.

"Why have you summoned me?" The voice says, edges of each word crackling with heat.

"We offer sacrifice." His fathers voice, it's shaking, he's afraid, Steve feels a sick pleasure roll beneath his skin. He hears the new voice make a sound. Disapproving.

"Ah. I see. You think you've summoned me." The voice is deep, and if Steve's not mistaken, amused.

"We- we have summoned-"

"Ah ah. No." His mothers trembling voice goes silent as this new thing cuts her off.

"You've done no such thing." It says. Steve hears footsteps. Hears gasps roll through the room like a wave.

"The boy, is the one bleeding out on the alter, is he not? He... summoned me. Not you."

Steve can see, suddenly. He can see the whole room, and the creature, or is it a man? He can see them all as if it's a play on a stage. He can even see himself, naked and bleeding. And Robin, crouched behind the marble alter, hands still firmly in his own.

"You think yourselves strong enough? To summon me? Without any bloodshed of your own." The creature pushes into his fathers space, Steve's stomach twists in sick pleasure as his father cowers before it. It shakes its head, disappointed.

As Steve watches it move from person to person, assessing, he can't help but find the beauty in it, in him. He looks a bit like a man.

Skin paler than moonlight, except at the hands, his hands are stained pitch black, the inky color crawls across his skin to his elbows. The nails on his fingers are pointed, and dripping, though Steve can't tell with what. And there's something behind it, a tail, Steve thinks, pointed and tipped black.

The creature grabs at his mothers white dress and she recoils at the stain he leave behind.

Steve smiles, a rare thing, in these halls, but he does it. He lies there, bleeding, and he smiles at his mother's discomfort. And this, of all things, draws the creatures attention. His head twitches in Steve's direction like he'd made a sound. Though he hadn't. Though he rarely does.

The creature moves closer. Stands beside the alter and looks down at him with pitch black eyes, and smiles with too sharp teeth. It snaps its inky fingers and the bindings holding Steve fall away. It moves two fingers across Steve's forhead, pushing his sweat soaked hair away from his skin.

"Oh Steven. What have they done to you?" It whispers, and the warmth in Steve's chest burns like coals in a furnace.

"Tell me what you want. Anything. It's yours." The creature, the man, the demon, for Steve knows it to be true. They've summoned a demon. No. He, has summoned a demon.

The demon rests his sharp fingers over Steve's barely beating heart, and waits for him to answer. He swallows, thickly, his throat clicking from underuse and death creeping up on him slowly.

"Kill them. Kill them all." Steve rasps, his throat burning, his chest aching. The demon smiles down at him, and winks.

"It would be my absolute fucking pleasure." The words drip from his blackened mouth like syrup, sticky, and sweet. And then Steve watches, barely able to lift his head now, as the demon tears them apart.

His parents are last. Cowering in the corner like scared children as this demon they've wished for descends on them with a burning fury and covered in blood. They whimper and recoil as he crouches in front if them, tail swishing madly behind him.

"You were given a gift. Eighteen years ago. A gift from the darkness." His voice is shaking now, his hand too, as it reaches toward them, pointing accusingly.

"A gift you begged for!" The shout rings through the nearly empty hall, the force of it extinguishing the candles littering the floor. Steve finds he can still see through the darkness.

"You begged us for this gift. And then you spent the next eighteen years neglecting it. Neglecting him." Steve can feel the demons rage, like it's his own, perhaps it is.

"There is no forgiveness. Where you are going. You will burn. And you will scream. And no amount of begging, shall grant you anymore gifts." His inky, bloodstained, hands reach out and grab their faces, his pointed nails sink into their skin.

"Not in this lifetime. Nor the many after it, that you'll spending screaming for mercy." His face seems to split then, his smile impossibly wide across his cheeks.

"We do not grant mercy in the realms of darkness and fire. We grant only what is deserved." There's a growl, low in the demons throat, as he rips the Harrington's from this world and sends them to the next. A sick squelching sound follows it as he removes his hands from the mess he's made. He's back at Steve's side shortly after that.

"Why- who-" Steve stammers, reaches up weakly, he can't catch his breath.

"Shh. Don't speak. It's alright." A warm, dry finger, presses to his lips. Steve's chest aches to feel more. Anything else this creature will give him.

"You don't have long I'm afraid. But I have an offer for you." The demon's voice is soft now, almost human. His features are smoothing out too, the blackness fades from his eyes and skin until there's just a man standing next to him.

"What it is?" Steve asks, his breath hitching, not enough air left in this world for him.

"Come with me. Stay with me. Forever." The demon places his hand on Steve's chest and it burns again. Steve gasps, squeezes his eyes shut against the sting of it. And then the pain is gone. It's no longer hard to breathe. He isn't cold. And he feels a hand in his. He opens his eyes.

"She can come too." The demon is smiling, and looking directly at Robin. She's smiling back, and squeezing Steve's hand.

"I can feel you." Is all he can think to say.

"Yeah no shit dingus. You're dead." She says, and launches herself at him. He catches her in his arms and laughs with her, it echoes through the empty halls like music. She pulls away, looks at him, softly.

"Whatever you decide. I'm with you." She pats his cheek, hops off the alter, and goes to stand by the window, looking out into the darkness that shouldn't be there.

"I'm Eddie, by the way." The demon says, he kicks at the ground with his toe, rubs at his neck.

"What kind of demon name is Eddie?" Steve blurts, his eyes going wide. Eddie laughs, and it too, sounds like music.

"It's just my name. So what do you think? You wanna come with me?" The demon, Eddie, asks, his fingers walking along the edge of the alter, eyes on the floor.

"Are you nervous?" Steve asks, his hands dropping to his lap, and he realizes suddenly that he's naked. As soon as the realization hits him, he no longer is. Black sweatpants appear out of nowhere, soft and warm around him.

"Better? And I am. Nervous." Eddie says, tugs on Steve's pantleg genlty.

"Thank you." Steve whispers, not sure how to take the fact he's made a demon nervous.

"I'll always take care of you. If you come with me." His knuckles press into Steve's thigh.

"I've been waiting a long time for you. Wasn't really planning on meeting you like this. Disappointing." He shakes his head, glares off into the corner where the remains of the Harrington's lie in a bloody heap.

"You've been waiting for me?" Steve asks, his fingers twitching with want to reach out, to take Eddie's hand. Eddie nods, bites his lip with a sharp fang, and then looks up at Steve.

"I have a fondness for shattered broken souls. I used to be one, after all." He smiles sadly, and Steve can't stop himself, he reaches out, takes Eddie's hand.

"I think I've been waiting for you too. I just didn't know it." He squeezes Eddie's hand. Eddie smiles, reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind Steve's ear. He leans forward, forehead pressed to Steve's gently.

"I made you so perfectly. Made you everything they asked for. Everything they wanted." Eddie drags his nose along Steve's, whispering into the space between them.

"And they hurt you. And broke you. And left you all alone. When you should have been with me." He nuzzles into Steve, both of them pressing into the other. Eddie's words slam into Steve's chest with shattering force. Eddie made him. A gift for his parents, all those years ago.

"I would've never left you if I'd known. What they'd do. And by the time I realized, it was too late to take you back. Even demons have rules." Eddie pulls back, cradles Steve's face in his hands.

"I'm sorry. All I could do was give you a friend. But I'm- it wasn't enough I'm so sorry." A tear falls down Eddie's cheek, steaming as it rolls across his skin and fades into the space between them. Steve's chest feels warm again, hot like a fire being kindled behind his ribs. He grabs Eddie's shirt and yanks him forward, presses his lips to Eddie's hard.

"It was enough. She was enough. She was perfect. Just what I needed. And now I have you, too." Steve kisses him and breathes the words into his mouth until he feels Eddie accept them. Feels Eddie wrap himself around him, his skin buring where it touches Steve, making him feel alive.

Near the window, Robin smiles at her shoes.

"Can I keep you?" Eddie whispers the words into Steve's neck, his sharp nails pressing into Steve's back as he pulls him closer and closer.

"Yes. Keep me forever. I'm yours. All yours." Steve whispers back, his dull nails clawing at Eddie's shirts, trying to get him closer, he'd climb inside him if he could. Eddie growls into his skin, possessive.

"Let's go home." He whispers, and they're gone. All three of them.

The light returns to the Harrington house. Bright dawn sunlight beaming in across bloodstained floors. Bodies scattered in heaps and piles around a blood covered alter.

The town of Hawkins forgets all about the Harrington's, for the most part. And their strange son who never left their hallowed halls. But all towns have their legends. And some nights, when the moon is new, and darkness reigns, they say you can hear screaming.

In the halls of Harrington manor, you can hear voices, screaming for mercy. And if you listen closely, right at dawn, they say, you can hear a chorus of voices, haunting, and beautiful, and laughing, as they answer.

"No."

[l0velysmut]

family: “why are you just sitting in ur room smiling at ur phone?”

me who’s been reading smut about fictional characters for the past 6 hours:

[ghost-proofbaby]

kissing lessons

summary: you and robin have already shared several firsts as best friends: your first time holding hands, your first time cuddling someone, your first time flirting. so what's a little platonic kissing?

pairing: robin buckley x fem!reader

warnings: lots of sapphic pining, yearning, etc. assumed unrequited love. hopeless crushing. doing romantic things and claiming they're totally platonic when they very much are not. mentions of reading trying to conform to the 80s standards by dating a boy. reader is explicitly female (which should be given since robin is canonically a lesbian)

wc: 3.4k+

a/n: this one was a long time coming. it's based off of my own first kiss, loosely.

part 2

Being best friends with Robin Buckley has always been about growing – together.

Life has a plethora of lessons for young souls to learn in time, and some of those lessons were simply hard. The first time you picked up a musical instrument and attempted to play your very first note, and it sounded atrocious. Nothing like the movies, more difficult than you could have ever imagined. The first time you walked the halls of your high school, and the terrifying first wave of panic at the realization you’d need to learn the map of the lands in order to navigate that maze for the next four years. The first time you walked into a classroom all of two minutes late, and the first shatter of embarrassment in your chest as every eye in the room turned to you. The first time you trip over your own laces on your way to Chemistry, the first time you impulsively cut your hair with the kitchen scissors, the first time a boy asked you out as a joke, and the first time someone asked you out genuinely only to fumble over every single word. Your first school dance, your first time cooking pasta from scratch, your first time attending a concert without a chaperone. 

Firsts, firsts, firsts. Life is simply full of them, and they never get any easier or kinder, but having a best friend at your side certainly makes it all bearable. 

Robin Buckley was that rock for you. And you, for her. 

It’s sort of how you got into this mess to begin with. 

“It’s going to be weird, isn’t it?” 

“It’s not going to be weird unless we make it weird, Robin.”

“How can I not make it weird? Where would my lips even go?”

You’re both lucky that no one is home to hear all the shrieking currently occurring in your small bedroom. Only the posters on your wall and your teddy bear you’ve had since you were five are witnesses to the current predicament occuring. 

Robin had been the one to suggest it, in all fairness. Graduation was next week, and there had been a lot of reminiscing flying about. All the firsts, all the hopeful lasts, and all the fatal moments you needed to drag by the hair to the backyard and bury six feet under. 

The topic of conversation had veered pretty erratically, turning left towards that one stubborn B left on Robin’s postcard as a result of her refusing to attend her assigned tutoring for Geometry last year, and then sliding right as you’d huffed about that one girl who had been an absolute menace towards you sophomore year when you’d botched your improv solo at a band concert. But in the last five minutes, it had finally straightened out – it had finally begun to follow the trail of a line of remembering that no one else would ever be allowed to know outside of you and Robin. 

You’d brought up the first date you’d ever gone on. A ridiculous milkshake outing with some guy in your freshman English class that had left you feeling more confused than starry eyed or lovesick as the books promised. 

The date that had caused Robin Buckley to offer to hold your hand at random, in private moments, the week leading up to it. Just so you’d know how it felt. Just so you could figure out how to best intertwine your fingers with someone else’s without feeling terrible foreign about it all. 

It had been platonic. You both swore it had been, shrugging carelessly as you’d let your palm meet your best friends. 

And you’d felt more every time your skin brushed hers than you had the entire night with that boy. Spent the entire date wishing it was Robin’s knuckles bumping yours when you’d reached for that damn strawberry milkshake. 

“Against mine, I’d hope.” 

The dissection hadn’t ended at the hand-holding. Next, the two of you had wistfully recalled the sleepover in which you’d first decided to learn how to spoon one another. Robin had read about it in a magazine, you’d never had firsthand experience, and it just felt right to suggest. Robin had rambled for a good five minutes before you’d tugged her back into her bed and commanded her to just lay there as you figured out where you arm should go as your body curved along the back of hers. 

It had been nice. Really nice. 

You’d never gone out on another date after the Great Milkshake Catastrophe, as the two of you had called it. Robin claimed none of the boys at school could handle her eccentricism. Both of you, young girls fumbling about the world, starving for touch completely unaware. You told yourselves everyone cuddled with their friends. You told yourselves it was normal. 

But then, you’d switched positions, Robin being the big spoon as the teen magazine had described, and you swore your heart had burst when her arm wrapped around your waist and her fingers slotted between your own against your abdomen. 

You’d fallen asleep in that position. Awoken to Robin’s face pressed right into your chest as you’d spread out on your back. Ignored the flaky drool stain left behind on your skin when she’d finally joined the living once more. Pretended like you both hadn’t had the best rest of your lives as you’d clung to one another through fading dreams and subtle snores. 

It was normal, right? It had to be, because it was nice, and it had become a part of your normal sleepover rituals. 

Friends used each other’s boobs as pillows all the time, as Robin had defended. 

“Yeah, but, well-” Robin cuts off in her current stricken rambling, throwing her hands out around the air between you two, “What about when it’s more than just pecking? You know? All that gross shit, where tongues get involved and spit is exchanged and, oh God, should we be sucking on some mints right now or something? Oh my God, what if you’re allergic to my chapstic-”

Gross shit. 

The not-so-clever code word the two of you used whenever describing any sort of romantic interactions. Kissing, making out, sex. The things all of your peers were regular experiencing, sometimes even displaying in public, that the two of you only turned your noses up to. 

You didn’t want to suck the face off of Connor in your fifth period pottery class. The only person you could imagine on the receiving end of that that didn’t make your stomach turn was sitting right in front of you now, eyes wide and cheeks flushed as she clearly panicked. 

“I’m not allergic to passion fruit Lip Smackers, Robs.”

The switch to a passion fruit flavor was new. Robin had been using the strawberry flavor religiously prior, but had recently offered it to you with the excuse of your obsession with strawberry flavored things. 

And now, you’d been using it daily. Trying not to think about how many times her lips had been on it prior to yours. Trying not to think about how many ways you could twist it into some sick secondary kissing metaphor, to have your lips slick with the same sticky substance as hers had been so many times before.

Tried not to think about what Robin Buckley’s lips tasted like, period. Easier said than done when the thought crosses your mind every time you lick your lips moment after application, getting the faux sweetness all over your tongue. 

“You could be. And how would we even know? I can’t even drive! If you start to have an allergic reaction, I can’t even take you to the hospital! We don’t have a c-” 

You can’t do it anymore – any other day, you relish in the sound of Robin’s voice as she’ll squeal on and on about everything and anything. But not today. 

You cut her off with a kiss.

The very same kiss you’d both timidly agreed upon when you’d both realized graduation was next week, and neither of you had had your first kiss. 

The same deal as the cuddling. The same deal as the hand-holding. The same deal as all the pick-up lines and flirting you’d try out on each other, the same deal as all the sweet ‘love notes’ you’d write for one another and slip into backpacks and binders alike. 

The same deal as that fluttering in your chest every time she looked up at you at the local pool, eager to see if you’d witnessed her flip beneath the water. The same deal as all the nights you’d cried into your pillow after being pestered about if any boys at school caught your eyes, because you knew they hadn’t and they never would. Your eyes were already too busy, completely captured by the sight of the brunette now pressing her lips against yours. 

None of the boys at school could ever compare. 

Passion fruit and strawberry mingles within the short peck, freckled cheeks and nose smashing against yours in the most awkward fashion possible. It could be weird; it should be weird. 

It’s not. 

When you pull away, Robin is completely stunned into silence for quite possibly the first time in her life. And her lips are shining with some of your residual spit, and her cheeks are the perfect shade of rose that no actual flower could capture.

Mother Nature herself could never replicate the girl in front of you. The girl you’d been best friends with for six years now, the girl you’d pined relentlessly for for just as long. 

Only you’d just recently realized it. Somewhere between the lip smackers exchange and the movie night in which you’d intertwined your legs on the couch and felt the weight of her between your hips as she’d passed out. 

Looking at her now sort of feels like realizing it all over again. Sort of like looking out over a precipice, and taking a deep breath, because you know you’re leaping off the cliff. No scared looks over your shoulder, no hesitation as you throw your foot out into mid-air. 

The kind of rush you’ve never felt with a boy, and never will. 

“Was that…” she whispers, voice hoarse before she clears it, batting her gorgeous lashes and taking the shakiest of breaths, “Was that good?”

“I dunno,” you lie, “I think we should try again.” 

It’s like a dance, you soon realize. Following her steps, guiding her with your own. She slides her way up closer, and you press your back against your headboard. Her hands are shaking when they brush your outer thighs, and your blood is racing as you tug on her elbows to guide her to straddle your lap. 

You both had said, after all, you needed to learn to be better kissers. That you couldn’t leave high school without having shoved your tongue down someone’s throat at least once. Your words, not hers. 

Your desperate attempt to make sure that someone was Robin Buckley. Your pitiful attempt to have the one thing you don’t think you’ll ever be allowed to hold. 

The weight of her on your lap is nice. The feeling of her lips returning to yours is nice. The way neither of your hands know where to go as you let your lips linger together a few seconds longer than the first time is nice. 

It’s far nicer than Connor from English could ever make you feel. It’s far nicer than that poor boy at the diner ever was, though he tried his best. 

You’re the brave one, when it’s all said and done. You’re the first one to let your palms settle at her hips, squeezing ever so gently to feel the softness beneath slot perfectly into your hold. You’re the first one to timidly include tongue, parting both your lips, trying to ignore the shivers running up your spine as all you can taste now is passion fruit lip smackers. 

Even with your own lip balm, you know your lips are horribly chapped. Dreadfully thirsty and desperate to absorb all the love you know isn’t yours to claim at this moment. Chapped lips, quivering hands, shaking breaths. Unsure movements and the ringing question in the back of your head of am I doing this right? 

Is she feeling what I’m feeling? 

Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. But she’s kissing you back. Her tongue is meeting yours in movements that are nothing like the movies, shy baps that you both will probably laugh about later. Kitten licks to test the waters. 

And then there’s the retreating. The rock of her body as she settles her weight closer to your knees, and her tongue is put away in favor of just letting her lips slot between yours in slow and lazy movements. You can feel every deep breath she takes through her nose between the kisses, you can smell her perfume seeping into your psyche every moment she spends so close to you. 

The only lesson being learned right now is that you were an idiot. You were an absolute fool, and you are absolutely in love with your best friend.

“Better?” she questions when she pulls away entirely, and you try not to whimper. Try not to show her how badly you want this, need this. 

You hate the silence and you nearly wish she’d start babbling again. You wish she’d give you a reason to kiss her and shut her up, if for nothing more than to taste passion fruit and yearning all over again. 

You’re quiet for a few beats, staring at her as your chest heaves and your heart begins to twist up into terrible shapes. “I… Yeah. Yeah. I think we’re getting the hang of it, don’t you?” 

“Oh, absolutely,” her nervous smile breaks, and you wish she wouldn’t continue the thought, but she does, “You’re gonna be a pro in no time, breaking boys hearts left and right when you kiss them like that.” 

You don’t want to break a boy’s heart. You want to break hers – you want to entirely implode her heart the way she has yours, and have the honor to know it was mutual. A mutual destruction you both dove into headfirst. You only want to kiss Robin like this, forever. You only ever want to know how right her hand feels in yours, not some guy who can’t even choke out the right words to invite you to the cinema. 

You want, and you want, and you want. 

And just as you bite your tongue, decide against pouring out all your affections all over your bed sheets and pulling her right back into you again, desperate to share air with her and only her, you can hear your front door slamming over. 

Robin has never moved so quickly in her life. Jumping off your lap, leaping to the edge of the bed as a feverish blush overtakes her entire body. As though she might be embarrassed, as though she might be regretful. 

You still haven’t moved from your position, back sticky with sweat against the headboard, when your parents walk past your open door and say hello. 

They probably don’t even hear your sad and quiet excuse of a returned greeting, too enraptured by Robin’s own excited quip of saying hi. 

Your parents love her. Adore her in a way parents should care for their child’s closest confidant. They treat her like their own daughter, and Robin’s parents do the same for you. Once a month, your mothers meet up for mimosas over brunch and probably giggle about how lucky their girls are to have one another. 

You get it. You love her too. But certainly not in the way you should love your best friend. 

They finally leave, and Robin is quick to turn to you, eyes shining with all the stars and sunshine the Universe could have to offer, “That… um, thank you.”

“For what?” you laugh breathlessly, finally shifting forward, looking down at your thighs that had served as a temporary home to the girl who holds your heart, trying to swallow down any shame and all that rapid longing. 

“For… you know,” she smiles, a secret for the two of you to only ever keep, never sharing with the world. Selfishly, you almost enjoy the sentiment, “I’m sorry I was acting so weird about it before. You were right, it didn’t have to be weird unless we made it weird. I’m lucky to have you as my best friend, you know? And like I said, if you’re…. You know, doing that with boys, you’re going to be a certified heartbreaker. The world isn’t ready for my best friend. Besides! Another thing checked off the list, right?” she pauses, and you swear the smile has gone sad, but you can’t risk the projection, “Now we can both say we’ve done… that… before graduation! And-”

You speak before you can think better of it, interrupting her entirely, “I think I need more practice.” 

She stops in her tracks, eyebrows raising wildly and eyes turning to saucers, “What?”

“I think…” your head reels, desperate to come up with an excuse to kiss her again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. “I think I need more lessons, yeah? Like, I don’t know. More practice,” Oxygen evades you in desperation, giving your best puppy dog eyes, system in overdrive as you stare at her lips and your voice drops to a careful whisper, “My parents are out of town next weekend… Maybe we could try again then? Same time?” 

You swear her smile shifts, and you hadn’t even noticed the ingenuity in it previously until she dazzles you with one that must be real. As if you’ve just made her year, lightened her load, offered over your first born to the darling girl. 

“Well….” she moves her eyes across the room, focusing on a polaroid photo of the two of you pinned to the wall above the desk, “I mean, we did say lessons, plural. I can see if Steve will cover my shift on Saturday night if that works?” 

Am I doing this right? 

“That definitely works.”

Is she feeling what I’m feeling?

“Perfect. It’s a…. date, then.” 

“It’s a date.” 

It’s not. Only to you, never to her. 

But it’ll be enough. It’s enough to know next Saturday, she’ll be back here, in your bed and in your lap, getting that passion fruit chapstick all over your lips and shaking your chest from the inside out until it’s ready to burst. 

One day, you might be the brave one, when it’s all said and done. You’ll tell your best friend all the ways she feels so nice, and all the ways you want to capture that niceness in a bottle for the rest of your days. You’ll tell her the way you have no interest in the boys at school and how you’re cursed to forever be the heartbroken, never the heartbreaker, and only ever at her hand. The very same one clasping yours as she stands at your front door, thanking you vaguely once more, grinning ear to ear as she gives you three tight squeezes that are completely lost on you. 

Today’s not the day, though. Today is the day where you spend the night in your self-made cage, face buried in the pillow, noises somewhere between desperately muffled screams of frustration and dry sobs of torture leaving your lips as you picture the way she’d looked after the kiss. Her eyes softly shut, her lips still puckered, her neck entirely exposed as she tilts her chin back to look at your ceiling through her eyelids. Picturing the way that next time, you’ll try to convince her the two of you should learn the art of neck kisses. Picturing the way that next time, maybe you’ll grab her hips a little harder or let your hands wander a bit farther to her thighs. 

Tonight is the night you have no idea amongst your pity party, that Robin Buckley is on the other side of town, experiencing the exact same turmoil as she longs for the girl who tastes like her gifted strawberry lip smackers – the very same one Steve Harrington berated on her to get rid of when she’d vomited out all the ways she hates fake strawberry flavoring, but you love it, and she’d convinced herself if she bathed herself in enough of it, you might just want her the way she wants you. 

Tonight’s not the night, though. 

One day, the kissing lessons will simply be kisses. One day.

ghost's taglist: @emmaisgonnacry @figmentofquinn @bebe07011 @barbedwirebats @ayooooo0

@neverlearnedcivility @munson-enthusiast @digwhatudug @wow-cam @daddysmodifiedprincess2

@cancankiki @gothmingguk @nix-rose @thesesuggestedblognamesbegreat @chevelle724

@madaboutjoe @take-everything-you-can @josephquinnsfreckles @thebanisheddreamer @water-loos

@dailyobsession @whenshelanded @happy-and-alone @alwayslindie @royale1803

@onegirlmanytales @whyamiheresomeonehelp @mrsjellymunson @live-love-be-unique @hazydespair

@gothvamp1973 @kennedy-brooke @kittydeadbones @hollysleeps @hellojameshowyadoin

@munsonzgf @browneyes8288 @videogamesandpoorlifechoices @siriuslysmoking @mandyjo8719

@d64d-n0t-sl66p1ng @acenby-weirdo @hazydespair @royale1803 @batkin028

@ninejlovebot @charliewb1996 @imwaytoolazyforthis @definitionwanderlust @idkitsem

join my taglist!

[imfinereallyy]

There is a knock at Steve Harrington’s door.

Three to be exact.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

It’s nothing new. This happens every night. It doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

Steve gets out of bed and walks over to his apartment door, hands hovering over the handle. His body shakes, he feels too cold for a July evening.

Steve doesn’t bother looking out of the peephole. He knows there will be nothing to see. He hopes briefly it’s the awkward girl from down the hall, she always wears beat up converse and can hear her raspy laugh two doors down—but he knows it’s not. She often speeds by Steve’s apartment door, like she’s either terrified of him or what’s inside his home.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Three knocks, three times. It’s only number two.

Steve wishes he knew more people here, but he hasn’t been here very long. So no one is looking for him, no one is here to wake him up at 3 am.

His palm sweat—but the chill hasn’t left him. He’s starting to think he’s haunted. Though nothing ever happens inside. Nothing happens at all, except the knocking. Steve never dares to open until it’s finished.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Steve takes a deep breath, and opens the door….

No one is there.

Releasing a stuttering breath, Steve gently locks up and puts his head on then door.

“Fuck.” He whispers.

Then he hears, it from his bedroom.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Steve’s let something inside.

[alleiwentcrazy]

The point is, Steve can’t hear.

A person can get hit in the head only so many times before it takes effect and does permanent damage. Steve’s incessant claims that being in the front row when the fight breaks down does nothing to him, that he’s safe and alright as long as everyone else is, mean very little in the face of cold, evident facts.

His hearing isn’t intact. It takes him a while to adjust to this reality, but with the help of his friends, he eventually does. Thanks to Nancy’s fierce bullying of the government guys who come to Hawkins to assess the situation and cook up some half-assed excuse for everything that’s happened, Steve now has a small army of well-paid doctors that really seem to be eager to help. He also gets state-of-the-art hearing aids that, well—they work, but Steve’s range of possibilities is still quite narrow. Let a few people into the room, let them speak simultaneously and all he can hear is static, rustles and crackling.

But he’s pliant. He listens when Robin tells him they have to get in the car and hit the road to get to his appointment on time. He lets her help with inserting the aids properly on the days he’s just too impatient and too bugged about how they feel and look to even care if they help him hear. He’s not dismissing her enthusiasm when she starts learning sign language before he even gets a chance to discuss it as his option.

He’s doing a lot of things for her, even if they’re supposed to be important to him first. To be honest, these days it’s mostly doing things for Robin that keeps him going. He would have gone completely numb ages ago if it weren’t for her and her unique ways of picking up the severed pieces whenever he crumbles.

He’s also doing it for Dustin. If Robin is his twin sister, Dustin is the little brother he’s never had. And Dustin… It’s just been too rough on him. It’s been rough on everyone; how could it not be if the only thing they seem to be able to do is wait? Wait for the lab guys to figure out a way to end this. Wait for the panic to cease. Wait for Max to wake up.

Wait for the grief to pass.

They wait and wait, but it never stops—on the contrary, it brings fresh, equally unwanted feelings. They’re always there, lurking behind the corner like a kitten that wants to launch itself at an unsuspecting owner – only with them, there won’t be any playtime involved. Steve recognizes this feeling. It’s the same feeling he’d had in that Winnebago when he was dropping off Max, Lucas and Erica at Creel’s doorstep. An awful anticipation of doom waiting to happen.

He doesn’t like it. He’d like to find a way to do something about it, but he can’t seem to get to the core of it.

Maybe that’s why he thinks he’s hearing things when he really can’t be hearing them.

At first, Steve writes it off as him being paranoid. It happens only when he’s home by himself, so it’s the only logical explanation – he takes off his aids, he gets too attentive about his surroundings, right? He thinks he hears something, but it’s only his tired mind playing tricks on him.

Especially because what he hears are mostly usual, non threatening things. The sound of water running in the bathroom (he goes inside, everything is dry and quiet). The sound of kitchen drawers being opened (he goes to the kitchen, the cabinets are exactly the way he left them). The sound of cutlery being dropped on the floor (but he hasn’t even taken anything out in the first place).

He even gets used to it. Things happen, his brain is weird. It’s confusing, sure, but hasn’t he seen worse things? He definitely has.

But it doesn’t keep him away from sleeping with his bat perched on the side of the bed. If he sleeps at all, if a sudden sound of breaking glass doesn’t keep him awake until his morning shift with Robin, when he can finally leave this goddamn house and take his mind off of things.

Steve tries to ignore it. He really tries, but the point is—Steve can’t hear things like running water in the bathroom when his aids are off. Hell, he only makes it out if he focuses on it when they’re in, so why the heck can he hear it so well? Why are the sounds multiplying?

It goes on for weeks. He avoids the topic for as long as possible, trying to shoo away the obvious similarities between his house and the house that made him hate spiders and cringe at fireplaces not too long ago.

It gets a little too real on just some random Tuesday, when his kitchen positively explodes with sounds the second he gets the hearing aids off. Cabinet doors slam left and right, mugs fall to the floor and shatter, forks and spoons seem to be getting thrown around like ragdolls—but Steve sees nothing. He hears it, he hears it so loudly it hurts, the cacophony of noises he’s never even heard before, but his eyes register no proof of it. He curls down on the floor, expecting sharp glass pieces to cut his skin, but nothing happens. Nothing’s here.

He still covers his head, tucked away in the furthest corner of the kitchen, waiting for it to just stop, to leave him alone—

Steve doesn’t know how long it takes, but when it’s finally done, his knees are shaky and his breathing is ragged. He snatches his aids and takes off, straight to Robin’s house. He doesn’t even lock the door, a thing his parents would kill him for if they knew.

It’s the first time he explains everything to her. It would be hard not to, because she sees right through him. His panicked, restless eyes are enough indication of things not being right.

“Maybe, uh—I think I’ve read something about hearing loss and auditory hallucinations? That they happen, sometimes, especially if the loss of hearing is sudden?” she says, already flipping through her notebook where she keeps all Steve-related stuff and pacing around the room with enough force to make a hole in the carpet.

Steve’s not convinced. “It seems pretty real to me,” he mumbles and frowns. “But that’s the point of it, right?”

Robin shrugs. He notices that she has a small set of wrinkles around her eyes. Steve looks at them for a second in total disbelief. They already have some worry wrinkles, and they’re not even well into their twenties.

He’s gonna lose all his precious hair in a span of months if this doesn’t stop.

*

They decide to bring it up during his next appointment, still hoping that it’ll maybe go away on its own. Robin tries to make him get a consult straight away (what if it is rabies after all, Steve, like a really really really weird, belated presentation of rabies?), but he waves it off. The option of hallucinations doesn’t soothe his nerves, but as long as it’s not a chiming clock, he can avoid confronting it for a while longer.

It doesn’t go away, though. Steve can’t quite pinpoint it, but it almost feels like—well, it obviously doesn’t feel like it’s real enough to be real. But there’s something that accompanies the sounds, the lack of evidence, the missing of this ominous feeling that Creel’s house inflicted on him.

The sounds—it feels like they bear a presence. Steve’s still scared and gets spooked by them whenever they happen, but he’s no longer truly afraid of them.

Some of them are even comforting. The sound of his pillow being fluffed up before he gets to bed, the sound of pen scratching on paper whenever he leaves his journal open on the desk, the whooshing sound of a lighter being opened and closed – they all make this eerie place his parents have left him a little less empty.

He rarely lets himself think about it that way. He may be a little kooky, but admitting that he’s lonely enough to find hallucinations comforting would be way too much to handle at the moment.

So Steve can’t hear, but he learns to accept the fact that, apparently, sometimes he can. He doesn’t know how it works—to be quite honest he doesn’t know a lot about experiencing hearing loss at all, despite now being hard of hearing himself—but it just makes its place in his life.

He thinks about it a lot, but he tries not to overthink it too hard. It just happens. Things fall to the floor in his house, curtains get torn, the fridge gets opened frequently. He just can’t see it. His mind hears it, but his eyes don’t get the memo. He lives for longer than a week. It’s probably a good sign; nothing’s going to make his bones snap in two now, probably. Hopefully.

Things change suddenly.

Steve tries to spend as much time with Dustin as possible. Between work, his appointments and Robin, Dustin, Max and the kids are his top priority. He doesn’t think he would be able to function if he let himself take a breath and step down from his piled up responsibilities that he chose to take on himself. They keep him together. They keep him going.

Besides, Mrs. Henderson gets really worried. Sometimes it’s just better for Dustin to stay with Steve, and Steve is more than happy to be with him, even though it seems that Dustin doesn’t really like his cold house either.

It’s one of Dustin’s quiet days. He gets them, sometimes—Steve knows that trying to get him to talk on one of those days is a lost cause, and his ears are killing him. He was in such a hurry this morning he didn’t take the time to put the aids in properly. Work was overflowing with people, too, so now his temples are throbbing from trying to pick up the chatter from the static. Seriously, how is it possible that people still spend so much time watching movies in the face of almost-apocalypse, Steve doesn’t know.

“Would you mind if I took my aids off for a while?”

“Go ahead,” Dustin mumbles, bending over his new book.

Something flips inside Steve’s chest. He knows it’s not supposed to be like that, it’s unlike Dustin to be so… not himself. But what can Steve do? He can’t make him talk. He can just wait, nothing else.

He gets up to leave his aids on the counter and pour himself some coffee. He should probably start making dinner soon, but he decides to take a few peaceful sips first.

It’s weird. To sit with Dustin Henderson, of all people, without a single word. Steve glances at him every once and again, but Dustin either ignores him or genuinely forgets that he’s there.

Steve’s so deep in his thoughts about Dustin, he doesn’t even look to the side when a sudden sound of kitchen chair toppling over cuts through the silence. His eyes are trained on the kid.

Who flinches. And frowns. Steve can swear that he fights the urge to look around.

Each and every chair Steve keeps in the kitchen is standing where he placed them in the morning after breakfast. Nothing real has happened. But Steve heard it. And, apparently, Dustin did too.

Steve’s brain is working overtime for the rest of the evening, and he desperately tries not to show any of it. He’s jumping into conclusions. It was an accident; dumb luck. It’s nothing. He’s working himself up, nonsensically.

But it doesn’t feel like it’s nothing. It was only one chair, one sound, but the feeling that accompanied it was strong. Too strong to be nothing.

He waits to drop Dustin off at home like he’s on pins and needles, fumbling with his fingers and keys and pacing around. Maybe it’s better that it’s one of Dustin’s quiet days, he mostly gets away with it, getting only a few side glances.

When gets back home, it’s late, but he’s buzzing with anticipation nonetheless. He can finally do something. He discards his aids haphazardly, not nearly as carefully as he should, and starts running around the house. The house his parents built is huge—but the kitchen turns out to be quite small when he’s finally done with arraying at least a dozen lamps there. He has to raid three of his father's garages to get enough extension cords.

When he turns them on all at once, he has to take a step back and shut his eyes, because it’s too much light.

Just the right thing he needs.

His heart is beating so fast he can almost feel it ramming against his ribs. That’s about how far he’d thought this plan through.

“Come on,” he says and clears his throat, trying to gauge how his voice may really sound now. He repeats himself, hoping that it’s louder this time.

Nothing happens for a while, but he knows he’s close. The feeling is here. The presence that hasn’t left him in months. It’s here.

Steve walks around the kitchen, moves the lamps a little, shakes some of them. His hands are clammy and it feels like he’s chewed through his cheek at this point, but he can wait. He’s waited for a long time. He can wait a while longer.

When the microwave beeps, he stops breathing for a second.

Until it beeps again. And again.

“Oh god,” he breathes. He doesn’t know if he speaks clearly or not, he doesn’t even care. “Come on, show me that it’s you. Come on, come on—”

The lamp furthest to the left starts blinking, slowly at first. Then the one next to it, then another one, and another one, like someone’s walking around and making them flicker one by one.

They’re blinking so much one of the bulbs goes out. Steve doesn’t hear it hiss, so he knows it went out here, now. He knows it’s real.

“Oh god,” his hand goes to his mouth. His eyes are weirdly itchy. “Oh god, is it really you, Eddie?”

The lamp directly in front of Steve goes wild. When he reaches out, it’s almost like he can touch the presence that’s here with him.

And it’s Eddie. Eddie’s here with him.

[ao3topshipsbracket]

Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - Round 2 Side 2

This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

[neverthebabysitter]

Ghost! Steve Harrington my beloved <3

Something about a dead Steve who stays as a ghost but not because he wants to stay, afraid of dying, but because he can't leave the Party alone. It just scratches a part of my brain...

I have a lot of au's for this, and au's for the au's, help.

Also, one of my favorite things to add about this, is the implied platonic soulmates stobin, Steve getting attached at Robin in every single one of them in one way or another, whether he can't separate himself from her/ being apart, or he could stay because he has some connection to her that make it possible.

Just- the heartbreak and grief that it would came from Steve's death but also not knowing how to deal with it because he is right there.

Not to mention that Steve may have already accepted that he would die young, but still grieving his own death and what could have been. I'm talking about his developing relationship with Eddie.

Eddie being devastated that he is falling in love with literally the ghost of a person, that they can't have something even when it's mutual, Steve might be a ghost now but he can't stay forever. Steve is dead.

Robin of course isn't having a good time but she already knew that Steve would have died for any of them. She's angry and sad and just wants to hug his best friend after she wakes up from a nightmare only to realize that she can't, even when he's right there.

She loves Steve so she will bear with the weight of his loss. She is happy he doesn’t know the pain of losing half of himself. For him, she will accept that he can go first, he just needs to wait a bit longer for her.

[batbitten86]

fuck questions like “what you favorite color?” tell me what fictional character you’re so obsessed with you can’t even think or hear about them 

[hbyrde36]

Steddie | R: Explicit (for eventual smut) | WC:4225 | Ch 2/8 | AO3

Ch 1 <-

Chapter 2: This Haunted House Is Not A Home

Eddie slumped in the corner, watching for longer than he’d ever be willing to admit to another soul, while Steve slept. 

It was fitful at first, and for a while every twitch under the sheets was accompanied by soft groans and whimpers. Steve never roused fully, but it was clear he was in a lot of pain even at rest. Eventually though, he fell still, his breath coming deep and even as the wrinkles in his forehead smoothed out.

The sun was beginning to rise by the time Eddie wandered out into the hall, finally growing bored of snooping around the plaid nightmare Steve called a bedroom, appalled to have found absolutely nothing incriminating—granted, he hadn’t tried to get into the closet—and he was left itching to explore the rest of the house. 

It was… depressing, to say the least. 

Eddie hadn’t really noticed before, being a little distracted with his own situation on their jaunt up the stairs a few hours ago, but there was nothing on the walls anywhere in the Harrington home, save for a few tasteful—read: boring—works of art. 

Using the term art loosely, of course. 

Not a single baby picture, school photo, or family portrait was displayed anywhere. Though Eddie did at one point come across a small album with Steve’s name written in blue across the spine, tucked high on a shelf in what must be his parents bedroom. 

The entire house was painfully staged. Except for the things that clearly belonged to Steve and stuff the rest of the party left behind scattered around the living room, it was as if the whole thing was a lifeless showpiece. A floor model, like those fake kitchens and shit set up in fancy furniture stores

To think Steve had grown up in this place with no warmth, no substance, no feeling. 

It made Eddie sad to imagine. 

He may have hopped from house to house for a while before landing with Wayne, but his uncle had made sure he felt at home, welcome and comfortable from day one. Their trailer was full of mementos… or, it had been. Eddie supposed it was all rubble or less by now, but nothing could take away his memories of those crowded walls, adorned with everything from embarrassing snapshots of his own sixth grade graduation, to Wayne’s extensive coffee mug collection. Not to mention all the hats, and tiny commemorative spoons from every State and truck stop they’d ever gassed up at during their summer road trips to his uncle’s favorite fishing hole.

Love housed in many forms, everywhere you looked. 

When late morning hit, Eddie was still wandering around, going from one window to the next to watch the horribly bland suburban world go by, and tried desperately not to consider the fact that this might be his life now. 

Steve still hadn’t come down, and there hadn’t been so much as a peep or a footstep from that part of the house. It made sense that Steve might sleep in, needing more rest than normal while he was healing, but there was a gnawing feeling in the back of Eddie’s mind telling him that this wasn’t good.

After warring with himself over it for a moment he returned to Steve’s room, quietly tip-toeing over to the bed to check on him.

“Steve?” Eddie said tentatively as he got close.

Steve’s face was as white as a sheet. His hair was stuck to his brow, soaked through with sweat. The covers had slipped down a bit since last night, showing his shirt similarly drenched too, and though his chest rose and fell in rhythm, his breaths were weak and shallow.

When Steve didn’t so much as twitch in response, Eddie climbed up onto the bed, noting that while he could in fact do that, the mattress didn’t dip at all under his weight.

“Steve?” He called again, a little louder and more insistent this time as he hovered over the other boy's frame. “Come on, big boy, you gotta wake up.”

With rapidly growing panic, Eddie reached down to grasp Steve's shoulders. For a split second he actually made contact, but as he tried to shake the other boy awake he lost it, hands slipping right through to the mattress below. 

For better or worse, that momentary touch had told him enough. 

Steve was burning up.

It wasn’t that otherworldly fluttering heat from the night before either. That buzz that had shot through him and had made his whole body break out in goosebumps when he’d last held Steve’s body.

No, he was raging with fever.

“Wake up, Steve!” Eddie shouted frantically, his throat growing tighter and tighter as Steve continued to be unresponsive. “Please—please don’t do this. I need you. We all need you–”

He sat back on his heels at the foot of the bed, running a hand through his hair. 

He felt solid to himself, damnit. He could feel his hands in his hair right now. It was part of what made the whole ghost thing so hard to believe. Wouldn’t he know if he was dead? Wouldn’t he feel dead?

Or maybe it was all just wishful thinking.

That was a problem for another day. He needed to get Steve help, somehow, and he needed to do it now. 

Eddie jumped off the bed and raced downstairs, making a beeline for the kitchen. If he could just dial 911—

But, naturally, the one time he really, really needed to make it happen, he couldn’t manage to touch the stupid phone. Maybe if he concentrated really hard on it?

Before he could bring himself to try a second time, the phone started to ring. 

Eddie prayed it was Robin or one of the kids calling to check in. Even knowing it was futile, he reached for the handset, stomping his feet angrily when he failed yet again. 

Goddamnit!

Think, Munson, think! 

What had been different last night when he’d managed to touch Steve for almost a full minute? 

Well, he’d been annoyed at first, then a little turned on if he was honest. Obviously his concern for Steve’s well-being had taken center stage once he’d gotten a look at how badly hurt he still was, but wounded or not, a shirtless Steve Harrington was a fucking sight to see. Eddie would challenge anyone—gay, straight, or otherwise—to stand in his presence and be unaffected.

But surely horny ghost magic could not possibly be a thing.

No, he’d been worried. Like, really fucking worried. The same way he felt just now when he couldn’t get Steve to wake. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing, he’d just acted.  

This time Eddie tried to clear his mind, no thoughts, no doubts, no anything, instead of attempting to force it. Which… trying to actively clear your mind was fucking impossible, it turned out, but he did his best before reaching out again.

His hand met nothing but air.

“Motherfucker!” He shouted, kicking out violently at the wall. 

His foot hit sheetrock hard, sending shockwaves up his leg and spine. The wall shook, knocking the phone off the hook to hang upside down by its cord. 

Eddie threw his head back and laughed, a burst of hope sparking in his chest, before squatting down to yell into the receiver. “Hello! Hello?!” 

He could hear Robin doing the same on the other end of the line. 

Right. 

The only person who could hear him was lying unconscious upstairs. 

“Steve, are you there? Steve?!” Robin’s voice cried out, tinny through the earpiece.

Eddie let his ass plop down on the floor, leaving him mouth level with the receiver as he dropped his head into his hands. “He’s in bad shape, Buckley,” he said, softly this time since it didn’t matter anyway. “And I can’t do anything about it. I feel so helpless.”

“I don’t like this,” Robin said over the line again after a long moment of silence. “Steve, If you can hear me just–just hang in there, okay? I’m coming over.”

Eddie heaved a sigh of relief, rubbing hard at his eyes. “Thank fuck.”

From his vigil at Steve’s bedside, Eddie heard the sound of the front door creaking open and slamming closed, as Robin—at least he hoped it was Robin—let herself into the house.

“Steve?” Her familiar voice called from downstairs.

Relief flooded him again in an overwhelming wave that made him want to both cheer and sob. His body went lax with it, everything but his gaze. That remained fixed on the bed in front of him, unblinking where it was set on Steve’s face, as if Eddie’s eyes on him could keep him safe until real help arrived. 

“We’re up here!” Eddie shouted out in a choked voice, forgetting again for a moment that she couldn’t hear him.

Whatever. 

“Cavalry’s here,” he murmured softly to the still form below. “You’re gonna be okay now, Steve.” 

In seconds Robin was pounding up the stairs and flying through the open bedroom door. “Oh my god—Steve?!” She cried, lunging for the bed. Eddie lurched out of the way on instinct just before she threw herself at Steve’s comatose figure.

She shook his arm, shouted his name, and at one point Eddie thought she was about to slap him across the face before thinking better of it, scrambling down off the bed to run into the attached bathroom. 

Curious, he followed, watching her grab a towel and fill a cup with cold water from the sink.

Yes! Genius girl!

She marched back out, whispering half-hearted apologies before dumping the entire thing right in Steve’s face.

It worked, though not quite as Eddie expected. Rather than gasping awake, sputtering and maybe yelling about getting water all over his bed, Steve whined, high and pitiful and heartbreaking.  

Eddie would have much preferred the first option.

Steve’s head lolled from side to side, lips parting to reveal chattering teeth, before one eye and then the next slowly cracked open. 

“Eddie?” 

“What? No, i-it’s me,” Robin said, her voice shaking a little along with her hand as it reached up to feel Steve’s forehead. “God—you’re really burning up.”

“I’m here, Steve.” Eddie answered after a beat, moving around to kneel down on the other side of the bed. His name being the first word out of Steve’s mouth on waking was more than a little unexpected, and something he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with, but hearing Steve’s voice, no matter what he said, felt like winning the fucking lottery just then.

“Did you—“ Steve cut himself off, coughing. “Call Robin?”

“Yes, dingus! I called and you weren’t saying anything. You scared me half to death.”

At the same time Robin was replying, having no idea the question wasn’t meant for her, Eddie spoke too. “No, but she called and I… I was able to knock the phone off the wall.”

“S’good,” Steve forced out, swallowing thickly. “I’m not feelin’ so hot today.”

“I’d imagine not—” Robin sighed, leaning in to push the damp hair out of Steve’s eyes. “You idiot. Why didn’t you tell me how bad you were, huh? I knew you should have gone to the hospital.”

“No, no hospital. I-I can't," Steve protested. 

“You have an infection!” Robin shrieked. 

“I don’t… can’t…” Steve did his best to shake his head, wincing with even that small movement. “Be ‘lone.”

“I know you hate doctors but I'll be with you the whole time,” Robin insisted.

Eddie leaned in to add his own two cents in Steve’s ear. “Trust me, big boy, you’ll be surrounded by nurses. They’ll probably fight over who gets to give you a sponge bath. You won’t be alone.”

“No—” Steve groaned. Until that moment he’d been mostly staring up at the ceiling, but for the first time since he woke, Steve purposely turned his head, looking straight into Eddie’s eyes. “You ‘lone.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathed, a little dumbstruck. He huffed a breathy laugh, trying to ignore the flutter in his belly. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart, I'm coming along. You can’t get rid of me that easily. Let her take you to the hospital, man.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched as he gave a weak nod. “Okay.”

“See?” Robin bent her body sideways trying to catch Steve's eye. “You're delirious!” She shouted, throwing her hands up. “Come on, I borrowed my mom’s car.”

With an agonizing slowness and pained expression, Steve turned away from Eddie and back to give her a wary glare. “B-but you can’t drive.”

She looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. “I made it here, didn’t I? I’ve been practicing.”

“You been holding out on me, Robs?” Steve teased, weakly.

“Oh shut it, you know you love being my personal chauffeur.”

Somehow Robin managed to get Steve’s shoes on and help him down the stairs and out to the driveway. She had to have been supporting nearly half his body weight, and though she never once let on to Steve that she was struggling, Eddie could see it on her face. 

For his part, Eddie hovered, that same feeling of helplessness making him want to rant and rage. 

Instead, he kept up a constant stream of encouragement, contributing the only way he could, even if all his words managed to do were keep Steve awake long enough to make it into the back seat of the ugliest station wagon he’d ever seen.

Robin secured Steve with a seatbelt, and Eddie managed to slip into the car past him before she closed the car door. He was pretty sure he could have gone through it if need be, but better safe than sorry since he was still completely fucking lost on how the physics of this shit worked.

Up front, Robin spoke under her breath, babbling to herself about switching gears and keeping her hands at ten and two as the car jerked backwards out of the driveway, and pulled it slowly out onto the road.

Steve sagged in his seat, the belt seemingly the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floorboard, but still he spared what little energy he must have had to give Eddie a strained smile, his hand twitching where it rested on the bench seat as if he wanted to reach out. Eddie slid his hand along the vinyl upholstery, closing the distance until their pinkies would have brushed. 

They didn’t, because of course they didn’t, but Eddie was filled again with that pleasant, tingling heat. Steve let out a contented hum, his eyes slipping closed as he relaxed further into the cushion, and Eddie wondered if it felt good for him too. If Steve felt anything at all when Eddie’s form passed through his. 

Maybe sometime later he’d be brave enough to ask. 

For the second time that day Eddie found himself watching the world go by through glass while Steve slept, this new view even worse than the mundanity of Loch Nora.

Hawkins was a mess. 

Some streets and houses were nearly untouched, as if Hell itself hadn’t almost escaped to wreak havoc from beneath their carefully manicured lawns. Others were unrecognizable, homes utterly ruined, the path of destruction marked by deep cracks in the ground. The fissures were partially closed now but the devastation surrounding them told a story, as clear as any other, about how harrowing that terrible night had been, in and out of the Upside Down. 

Before long they were pulling up to the sliding doors of the emergency room at Hawkins General, where Robin thankfully remembered to throw the car into park before shouldering her door open and rushing inside, returning a second later with two nurses and a stretcher.

“Hey, man! Watch his head!” Eddie shouted as he climbed out, after the burlier of the two hauled Steve from the backseat too fast and with too little care, in his humble opinion.

His outburst fell on deaf ears, as was usual now, and for someone whose life and passions revolved around his inability to ever shut the fuck up, this not being able to be heard thing was a fate worse than… 

Well.

Robin took off after the nurses when they began to roll Steve away. Eddie followed at her heels, only for her to be stopped short by a small woman just outside a large set of double doors as Steve and his entourage continued on.

“I’m sorry, honey. You can’t go back with him,” the new nurse said, holding her hand up to block Robin, who was trying to weave around her. “Go check in with reception. We’ll update you when we can.”

Robin fumed but kept her mouth shut for once, only huffing in frustration before turning on her heel to march away.

“I’ll keep an eye on him, Buckley. Don’t worry,” Eddie murmured. 

He didn’t let himself hesitate for even a second, though he did shut his eyes, and walked straight through those closed doors like they were nothing, opening his eyes again on the other side, jogging to catch up to the stretcher carrying his friend.

For the first time since he’d come to in Steve’s living room, he was actually grateful for the whole ghost thing, or whatever this was.

After what felt like an eternity, after a team of doctors and nurses poked and prodded and assessed, and said horrible things like, “thank god he got here when he did,” and “narrowly avoided sepsis,” Steve’s hospital room was finally quiet, save for the electrical hum of fluorescent lights and a monitor.

Eddie sat at his bedside, watching every breath run in and out of his sleeping body, a position he’d become far too familiar with in such a short time.

He heard Robin coming before she’d even reached the door, talking some poor nurse's ear off at a mile a minute all the way down the corridor. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she whispered to the room as she stepped inside. She approached the bed opposite Eddie, resting a hip against it as she took Steve’s limp hand in her own. 

Eddie tried not to be jealous of the way she could touch so freely. 

“Can you believe they wouldn’t let me in till now?” Robin went on, with a light scoff. “Sometimes I forget other people can’t see that we’re a matched set. Maybe when this is all over we should get tattoos that say do not separate.” she paused, letting out a quiet, wet laugh. “I told them you got hurt in the earthquake saving Max and tried to treat yourself at home. I think if she wasn’t here herself they might have asked more questions, but—”

Eddie stepped away at that, moving through the room’s door with the same ease he had earlier, and out into the hallway to give them some privacy. Not that Robin knew he was there, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. 

He couldn’t help wondering about Max now anyway, feeling terrible suddenly for not thinking to ask if she and everyone else had made it out okay. Little red must have been hurt pretty bad if she was still here after almost a week. 

With Robin watching over Steve, Eddie took a moment to search for the younger girl, and found her only a few rooms away.

Every surface of her suite was covered in drawings and get well cards, fluffy pink teddy bears and floating balloons. He could practically hear Max bitching up a storm about it all, while being secretly pleased at the evidence of so many people caring for her.

Though it was early in the evening, she was already asleep, arm sticking out at her side in a massive cast and one of her legs lifted in traction. It felt wrong to see someone so fierce look so small and vulnerable, her thin frame swallowed up by the enormous bed. But a glance at her chart on the wall showed her vitals were good, and there was a healthy flush to her cheeks. 

If anyone could overcome this, it was Max

“Sorry, hun, but visiting hours are over,” a voice called out in the distance, trickling in from the direction of Steve’s room down the hall. “You can come back and see your boyfriend tomorrow.”

Eddie would have paid money to see the look Robin’s face at that.

“See you around, Red,” he whispered, slipping back out just in time to pass Robin on her way to the exit, her cheeks shiny with tears still flowing freely from red, puffy eyes. 

It was just the two of them again when Eddie returned to Steve’s room, and this time when he took up his post in the chair next to the bed, he gave in to the urge to hold Steve’s hand, as much as he could at least.

One minute Eddie was laying his head down on the side of Steve’s bed, only intending to ‘rest his eyes’ for a bit—if such a thing was even possible—and the next everything faded to black. 

He floated in calm nothingness for seconds or days, completely at peace with the undulating dark, until slowly, gradually something else came into focus. 

Something awful and unfortunately familiar.

The dark gray skies and falling ash of the Upside Down loomed overhead, the only color the occasional flash of blood red lightning in the distance. Eddie felt strangely detached from his surroundings, wandering the cold barren wasteland in a daze, barely aware of putting one foot in front of the other. 

Not long after it appeared around him the vision of the Upside Down vanished again, and with a strange pulling sensation from behind his belly button, he was yanked away, returned to the inky nothing.

Eddie jerked awake with a gasp, stumbling forward, only just managing to avoid face planting into the carpet of Steve’s living room.

Could ghosts sleep? Could they dream? What the hell had just happened? And how did he get back here?

He had too many questions and exactly zero answers.

After searching the house and finding it as empty as he’d expected, Eddie considered walking back to the hospital, but he had no way of knowing how much time had passed since he’d left Steve’s bedside. It was probably better to just sit tight and wait for him to come home.

Easier said than done.

Another night and day passed, and Eddie was ready to rip his hair out when the headlights of Robin’s borrowed station wagon cut through the dark of early evening to pull into the driveway.

He’d been watching the street from Steve’s bedroom window and quickly made his way down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Eddie?” Steve's worried voice called out after the creak of the door. He already sounded a hell of a lot stronger than the last time Eddie had heard him speak. 

“Y’know, you're really starting to worry me. It was just a fever dream. I'm telling you you can’t see ghosts!”

“I’m here,” Eddie said, rounding the corner of the living room, skidding to stop right in front of Steve. He wanted desperately to hug him or something, and maybe it was more of that good ole wishful thinking but it sort of looked like Steve wanted to hug him too.

Instead Eddie cleared his throat, glancing at Robin, who stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, then back to Steve. “Cat out of the bag?”

“Sort of,” Steve sighed, shuffling closer to the couch. “She doesn't believe me.”

Eddie followed, snorting. “I thought you two shared a brain cell?” 

Robin threw her hands up “Of course I don’t believe you, Mr. I've-Had-Multiple-Concussions! Who would believe that?!”

“What do you want to do?” Eddie asked, both of them ignoring her for the time being.

“Can you try to touch her, maybe?” Steve suggested. “Do you know how you did it yet?”

“Not really. I think I have to be under a certain amount of like, stress or something?”

“I mean, you are a ghost, that's gotta be pretty stressful already.”

“Oh, ha–ha,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “Good one, Harrington.”

“Why don’t you just—” Steve quieted abruptly with a low groan, wobbling on suddenly unstable, shaking legs. Robin surged forward as if she could catch him from across the room, but Eddie was right there. He practically swept Steve off his feet in his effort to keep him from falling, setting him gently but swiftly down on the couch before the ability escaped him again.

Steve beamed.

“What the—” Robin gasped, blinking rapidly at the scene in front of her with her mouth agape.

Eddie narrowed his eyes, leveling a finger in Steve’s face. “You did that on purpose.”

The insufferable ass had the nerve to wink, grinning up at him. “Maybe.”

“You’re already hurt, couldn’t we have found some other way to test it?!” Eddie hissed. “What if it hadn’t worked?”

Steve lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “It did, didn’t it?”

“Eddie?” Robin asked, a little breathy. She looked nervously around the space as she moved to sit down next to Steve. “Is it really him?”

Steve turned to her, and mirroring him, Eddie did the same as they both spoke at once.

“Yeah, Rob. It’s him.” 

“Yeah, Buckley. It’s me. 

Thanks as always to @penny00dreadful for being the best beta and an absolutely amazing cheerleader!

Permanent taglist(open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers @bookworm0690 @wonderland-girl143-blog 

@goodolefashionedloverboi @themagicalari @awkwardgravity1 @rocknrollsalad

Fic taglist (open): @sidekick-hero @geekymagicalpotato

[laz-kay]

“Do you think we’re best friends in every universe?”

“Obviously, dumbass”

[oatmilk-vampire]

My sister and I having a very public discussion about how sexuality and gender labels confuse us but we both know we're not straight

[fuctacles]

Chapter three! We're halfway there with my @steddiebang2024 fic!

Art: @penny00dreadful

Beta: @dragoon-ze-great

Story and silly canva graphics: yours truly

[ghost-proofbaby]

kissing lessons, pt. 2

summary: you and robin face the music that maybe the kissing lessons aren't just lessons after all.

pairing: robin buckley x fem!reader

warnings: even more sapphic yearning than the first one (in my opinion), lots of religious imagery scattered sporadically, and a lots of hints/passing mentions of homophobia (no talk of violence, etc.) that was normal in the 80s. there's even more discussion of reader conforming to the usual and dating a boy. once again, reader is explicitly female.

wc: 3.3k+

a/n: i cannot explain how healing writing this has been. shout out to younger me for surviving the way my own experience ended with a lot more heartbreak - you deserved a robin buckley, baby ghost. and thank you to everyone who read the first one and was so very kind. i am eternally grateful <3

part 1 here

It was your own damn fault, probably. 

Robin may have been the one to ignite the fire, so prettily asking to start having those godforsaken kissing lessons, but you’d be the one clutching a bottle of gasoline. You’d been the one fanning the flames with each arrangement you’d insist upon, Saturday after Saturday always being spent one predictable way: kissing your best friend. 

In your bedroom, in her living room, behind the slide at the park. 

Mid-afternoon, early mornings, in the dead of night. 

Any time that you can find an excuse for it, your lips were attached to Robin Buckley’s, chipping away at your own demise, and it was all your fault. 

There wasn’t a handbook for this, though. There was no pamphlet to explain all the butterflies that would erupt in your stomach every time she’d smile at you slyly just before she’d lean it to initiate the kisses, no how-to for stopping the shake in your hands as you’d cradle thighs and cheeks alike as if they were the most sacred of sacrifices, no survival guide for all the heartache that now haunts your every waking moment when you think about the smell of her perfume. You had no one who could explain away your obsession with the taste of passion fruit lip smackers these days. 

You were in love with your best friend, and it sort of felt like some type of terrible shipwreck done by your own recklessness. 

And if she felt even an ounce of the same way, you couldn’t see it. You simply couldn’t allow yourself to read any further into the brushes of her hand in the hallways that had grown more consistent. If you daydreamed too long about the way she’d been so overly supportive of you wearing skirts to school more often these days, you’d quite possibly self-implode. It was all a dangerous game, a hopeless drowning in the middle of the Atlantic, and you were just letting it happen. 

“Why was that Connor guy talking to you in the hall today?”

And if you read too much into what you so desperately wanted to describe as jealousy in her tone right now, you’d certainly combust in the blink of an eye. 

It wasn’t even a Saturday – it was a Friday. Saturdays were the holy days, the days in which you could guarantee you’d taste her all over your tongue and be allowed to gather all your offerings in the form of worshiping whispers and guiding movements as she straddled your lap. The rest of the week, the two of you were nothing more than the best of friends. On Fridays, you should be nothing but two girls who find innocent and platonic solace in one another. 

It’s just hard to do when all you’re capable of thinking about is how soft the skin of her neck was nearly a week ago, when your lips had trailed down to her pulse point in such feathery light brushes. 

“Oh!” you sit up from where you’d been spread out on her bed, looking up at her with sudden excitement as you watch her spin in her desk chair, “I forgot to tell you! Holy shit, you’re going to love this.” 

The moment it had happened, you’d started mentally counting down the moments until you’d have the chance to tell Robin of the awkward conversation. You can’t believe you’d forgotten about it so easily once you’d gotten the girl alone. 

She pauses her spinning immediately, blinking rapidly as she was clearly dizzy, “What do you mean? Why am I going to love it?” 

“He asked me out to milkshakes.”

You wait. And wait. And wait. Nearly quaking with all the anticipation for your best friend to burst out into laughter with you over the irony of it all. 

You just keep waiting. 

The laughter never escapes Robin, her face stoic as she doesn’t even smile. All the giggles and rolling of eyes you’d expected to share is completely erased with that look on her face currently. A look you almost mistake as hurt, a look that reaches far beyond jealousy.

The look of someone standing amongst the wreckage of an abandoned ship. 

When she finally speaks again, with deflated shoulders and the corners of her mouth down-turned, it’s soft enough you almost miss it. “Did you say yes?” 

It was the one question you hadn’t been expecting – you’d assumed it had been a given that you’d turn the poor boy down. 

“Obviously not,” you snort, uneasy as you rifle through your mind, a sudden desperation to make Robin smile or to lighten the mood immediately rearing its head. 

“Obviously?” 

This conversation is very much not going the way you had seen it play out in your head. Robin’s missing all of her lines, none of her expressions lining with the directorial vision you’d been gifted with when the moment had happened. 

No saccharine laughter, no sweet joy. None of the sugared reactions are rotting your teeth out. 

Instead, there’s just a strange and hollow ache. The vacant expression of Robin’s face that twitches ever so slightly with something more below the surface, and a tension in the air that wraps around your throat tightly. 

“Yeah, I mean,” you choke out, trying to stave off your discomfort, “We both know how I feel about milkshake dates. And besides, he wanted to go tomorrow, and we already have plans-”

“You could’ve said yes,” she blurts out. As soon as the words fall in the space between you two, she’s wide-eyed, staring at you like a scared deer caught up in your headlights, “Our plans- They-” she pauses, and takes a deep breath that almost looks painful, “You could have said yes if you wanted to. I’d live. Plus, it’d give you a chance to put our lessons to use.” 

No sweetness, only a sour on your tongue that makes your face twist. “Why would I use our lessons on Connor from pottery?” 

Why would I ever want to kiss somebody that isn’t you? 

The thought easily makes you sick to your stomach. The lips of someone who isn’t Robin Buckley pressed to yours, the hands of someone who isn’t your best friend tracing the curves of your body. You think you’d rather die. 

“I dunno,” Robin is mumbling now, almost looking ashamed. The last thing you’d wanted to do was shame her. You’d just wanted to share a laugh with your best friend, “That was sort of the point, right? You wanted to get good at kissing-”

“We,” you correct her.

“What?”

“We wanted to get good at kissing. You can’t tell me there’s no boys in the band that have asked you out or you’d have a chance to kiss. You’re…” Even as the words are ash in your mouth, sticking to the roof of your mouth and making it hard to breathe, you force it all out. The only words left are the truth, anyways, “Beautiful, Robs. You’re fucking stunning, and funny, and so kind. Who’s your Connor from poetry, hm?” 

It’s a dagger to the heart. It’s alcohol on a paper cut, salt in a throbbing wound. Every cliche and morbid pain in the books is racing through you at what you’ve just said. Asking her about boys is worse than simply accepting it as a hypothetical. Having to actually hear about boys chasing after the girl that’s occupied you irrevocably is worse than imagining them all. 

At least in your imagination, they could all be fumbling over their feet, falling to the dirt as Robin cackles and arrives straight to her original destination – you. At least in your imagination, you stand a chance. 

“God, no,” she scrunches her nose up, immediately standing from her chair, “Oh my God, no. Ew. I don’t- I’d never-” 

“You’d never?” you raise an eyebrow, watching as she nearly starts to pace. 

“We were talking about you!” she bursts out, arms flailing out beside her, spinning so she was stood right in front of you, “You and Colton-”

“Connor.”

“-and how you should go get milkshakes with him! You should’ve said yes, okay? You could say you have a boyfriend when you get to college if you’d said yes.” 

Boyfriend. A word that will never, ever leave your lips. Not just when it came to Connor – when it came to all the boys in your school. All the boys in your town. All the boys in the goddamn world. 

That word doesn’t fit. It’s too tight, too confining. Strangles you in all the wrong places and makes your chest constrict in the worst way. 

You don’t want a boyfriend. 

You want your best friend to stop pacing, you want your best friend to hold your hand, you want it to be Saturday and for your best friend to kiss your fucking face off.

Pathetic, only because you don’t think you’ll ever find the nerve to say it to her out loud. 

“Who cares if I have a boyfriend when I go to college?” you spit out, struggling to even say the damn word, “I could give two shits if I-”

“I care!” Robin is turning erratic, wild as she tugs at her hair and looks at you with such misplaced desperation. You don’t know what she wants from you – you can’t give her what she’s asking of you, “I care, because you deserve to have that normal experience. You should be out there, kissing boys and going on dates to share a milkshake and- and- and… not spending your Saturdays with me, hiding away and kissing me and sharing chapstick and making me feel all these stupid feelings-” 

She cuts off roughly, a small gasp leaving her lips as she realizes what she’s just said. 

Making me feel all these stupid feelings. 

“What do you mean by that?” you whisper, sharing at her, shocked, “What do you mean by stupid feelings-”

“Forget it.”

“No.” 

“Yes,” she pleads, taking a step back when you stand up in front of her, “Dear God, please forget I ever said that. I’m literally begging you.” 

Stupid feelings. 

What does she even define as stupid feelings? 

Is it that her heart races whenever you suggest another lesson? Is it that warmth that spreads head to toe every time you grab her hand casually? Is it all that pain with nowhere to go at the end of the day, when you bury your face in a pillow and scream out all the what-ifs you assume you’ll never explore in this lifetime? 

You think about your parents. The ones who are never home, or are oblivious in the kitchen as you shut your door and quickly return to your bed, where your best friend is awaiting you eagerly just to get her tongue down your throat. You think of Robin’s parents, who force her to go to church every Sunday, never realizing she can still taste the strawberry chapstick all over her lips come morning. Whispering all their prayers in the same tone she’d whispered your name the night before. You think about all the peers your age who spend their Saturday nights in diners, sharing milkshakes and planning their futures – their normal futures. 

White picket fence, a mid-size dog to run around the yard. Two and a half kids, and a wedding ring gleaming on the finger on their left hand directly connected to their heart. The same one that Robin always fiddles with while the two of you sit and do homework together, the same one Robin once slipped an old coin-machine ring onto as a joke when you were thirteen, cackling about some sort of marriage pact that had every adult in vicinity glaring at the two of you. 

All the things you can’t dream about. Because when you do, it’s never the nice boy your father points out at the grocery store. It’s never that boy your mother finds absolutely darling, who lives two houses down and has offered to mow your lawn numerous times. 

Every time you try to picture it, it’s with Robin. 

Her with a matching ring you’ve bought for a quarter, her lipstick staining the matching mug on your kitchen counter during a quiet morning. Kids with her freckles, kids with all her spunk. A dog she’d name something incredibly niche, and that you’d fight her on endlessly, but end up giving in simply because you love her. 

Whenever you try to look to the future, it’s with the girl before you, who has tears gathering in her lash line now. Embarrassment painting every inch of her exposed skin, and her chest stuttering with every gasping breath. 

Stupid feelings. You’d become entirely acquainted with stupid feelings, you just hadn’t realized that Robin had as well. 

“What do you mean by that, Robs?” your voice cracks, begging all but on your knees at this moment. Everything you could possibly want right in an arm’s reach. 

You don’t even need the picket fence or the dog. Kids could vanish right from the dream. The house could become a quaint apartment in the city. The morning coffee could be traded for peppermint tea. As long as the thing that never changes is her, you don’t really care where the visions lead. 

She says your name so softly, you nearly break down entirely. You want to hear it for the rest of your days. The way the shape of your name curls around her tongue and falls from her lips, “You should just forget I said anything, I mean it. Go home and call Connor-”

“Fuck Connor!” you suddenly raise your voice, so entirely done with all the boy talk. All the expectations and all the definitions of normal. Your finger on your left hand, connected directly to your heart, throbs. “I don’t want to share some half-melted milkshake with that… with that… idiot! I want to share it with the idiot in front of me right now. I don’t want to practice kissing on him, I want to practice with you. I don’t want him, and I don’t want that boy who bags groceries at Melvald’s, and I don’t-” 

Robin Buckley is the brave one. She shuts you up about all the ones you don’t want, by giving you the one thing you do want. 

Soft palms, soft lips. Gentle hesitation to soothe the scars of a future you never really cared for. Fruity lip balm that somehow perfectly matches airy perfume. 

She’s kissing you like her life depends on it. Like she’s feeling an ache in the joints of that finger connected to the heart, and she just can’t take it anymore. Like she loves you. Or at least likes you. 

And you’ll take what you can get when you reach up to grab onto her anywhere you can find. Bunching her shirt at her hip with your first, fingers curling around her forearm that’s connected to the hand cradling your cheek. You can’t possibly lean into it all enough; can’t press your lips any tighter against hers, can’t have any more of your limbs bumping into hers as you stumble backwards and onto her bed. 

She’s crawling over you, little puffs of breaths escaping between kisses, hovering above you with a halo of sunlight leaking in through her bedroom window. 

She looks like a God you don’t believe in, and one she can’t be spoon-fed to worship anymore. All holier notions are focused on you. Fingers trailing their way up under your shirt and hips bumping against yours as you both try to learn what to do with this new position. 

It’s better than your best friend seated in your lap, timidly moving her tongue. It’s nicer. 

“Stupid feelings,” you breathe out when she moves to pepper kisses on your cheek, on your jaw, on your neck, “Stupid fucking feelings.” 

“Sometimes, I wish we’d never started the lessons, you know?” she whispers when she pauses at your collarbone, peering up at you with those glossy blue eyes. Oceans deep, ready for your ship to roll right into. Ready for your ship to crash in. “It made all of this so much harder and complicated.” 

Your fingers slide into her hair, tugging at the sporadic pieces that you’d helped cut a year ago. The saddest excuse for layers ever, “Made what harder?” 

You want to hear her say it. You need to hear her say it. 

“Liking you.”

If hearts could burst, yours would be fluttering shreds behind your ribs. Nothing more than the aftermath of finally, finally, hearing those words fall from her lips. 

“You like me?” your cheeks ache immediately from your grin, so wide it occupies your entire face. You swear you can see its reflection in her eyes. 

Her head lifts and you see some of the fear still lingering behind her own smile, “Yeah, doofus. I like you. A lot, actually. And I just always assumed you liked that Cooper boy-”

“His name is Connor.”

“I know,” she laughs, face contorting as she bites back more giggles. It’s no use though, as her head falls forward and her forehead lands on the center of your chest, “I just- God, I sort of hated him. I heard him ask you out for the milkshake and I just wanted to punch the dude-”

“You heard?” you’re laughing now, head thrown back, “I’m sorry, you knew why I was talking to him, and you still tried to play all coy and ask me?” 

“Can you blame a girl for trying?” 

No. No, you really couldn’t. You can only imagine the ridiculous plans you’d elaborately conjure if you’d ever overheard a boy asking Robin out on a date. All the jealousy ploys and childish schemes, born out of all the sunshine she’s been instilling in you since the first day you’d met her. 

And imagining that is fine. But what you no longer have to imagine is a Robin who chooses you, the scenario in which you can simply grab her and kiss her until you’ve run out of breaths and your lungs have shriveled into nothing more than feathers in your chest. 

So you do. 

You tug her back up to you and kiss her, far more languid than she’d initially kissed you. The slow movements of lips with all the time in the world. The steady movements of hands that belong as you run them over her shoulders and down her back, bring them to those hips you’d been adoring every Saturday. 

You kiss Robin Buckley on a Friday, simply because you can. 

Nice, your mind rings out. Nice, nice, nice. 

This was nice – this was right. None of that discomfort at the thought of letting Connor kiss you, no strangulation at the word boyfriend. You feel like you can breathe for the first time in your life as you kiss your best friend serenely and let all of that love seep out of your skin when it presses to hers. In the background of it all, a new word forms, a soft blanket of comfort rather than something to wrap around your throat. 

Girlfriend.

Now that? That sounds nice. 

“Hey,” Robin says when she pulls back slowly, tip of her nose still bumping yours, the weight of her still between your thighs, “Do you want to…. I don’t know, go get a milkshake with me or something?” 

You don’t think about either of your parents, or any of the self-righteous vipers who might be prowling the town on a Friday night. You know it won’t be the same as going to the diner with a nice boy – you know you won’t be able to kiss her on the street or cuddle up quite as obviously, keep her quite as close as you so desperately ached to, but it was okay. 

It was enough. For now. 

“Only if we can get strawberry,” you quip, unable to help yourself as you lean up for another brief peck. 

The peck isn’t enough. You don’t think any amount of Robin’s treacly kisses would ever be enough. You’d probably spend an entire lifetime just trying to get your fill. 

“Deal,” she rasps, clearly sharing the sentiment as she leans back down, kissing you right back. Eager lips not quite satisfied. 

There would be no screaming or crying into pillows tonight. 

ghost's taglist: @emmaisgonnacry @figmentofquinn @bebe07011 @barbedwirebats @ayooooo0

@neverlearnedcivility @munson-enthusiast @digwhatudug @wow-cam @daddysmodifiedprincess2

@cancankiki @gothmingguk @nix-rose @thesesuggestedblognamesbegreat @chevelle724

@madaboutjoe @take-everything-you-can @josephquinnsfreckles @thebanisheddreamer @water-loos

@dailyobsession @whenshelanded @happy-and-alone @alwayslindie @royale1803

@onegirlmanytales @whyamiheresomeonehelp @mrsjellymunson @live-love-be-unique @hazydespair

@gothvamp1973 @kennedy-brooke @kittydeadbones @hollysleeps @hellojameshowyadoin

@munsonzgf @browneyes8288 @videogamesandpoorlifechoices @siriuslysmoking @mandyjo8719

@d64d-n0t-sl66p1ng @acenby-weirdo @hazydespair @royale1803 @batkin028

@ninejlovebot @charliewb1996 @imwaytoolazyforthis @definitionwanderlust @idkitsem

join my taglist!

[lavenderstobins]

steve and robin get really into ghost hunting

[fandsart]

I've seen the "Steve dies in the russian bunker and is bonded to Robin as a ghost" thing a few times.

So that, but specifically in a world where Eddie managed to get hellfire to reach the middle school back around season 2. So he starts getting the Steve hero worship really early, when one of the reasons he recruited middle schoolers was to find more people unaware of high school politics, but it seemingly just made them unaware of how shitty the popular kids are. He thinks the problem is that their only exposure to high school kids is what they hear about on the radio and he questions why he ever thought this would be a better idea

Then when they get to high school, and he hasn't seen them all summer, the hero worship stops. No one's seen or heard from Steve specifically in a few months and everyone just kind of assumes he went to college, and Eddie assumes that the kids have figured out what the high school hierarchy really looks like and have dropped the hero worship

He figures they're on his side now. He gives it some time to make sure it's not just that it simply hasn't come up, and then he makes some comment

"I'm just glad we don't have to deal with 'King Steve' anymore. They seriously used to attribute royalty to people for being rich basically. Everyone would trip over their feet to do his bidding and he didn't even do anything to deserve it. He's never helped anybody with anything."

He was specifically talking to the two new middle school recruits, hoping to get them to understand that high school isn't going to be as glamorous as TV presents it, so their hopes don't get crushed the way the new freshmen's seem to have been. But one of the middle schoolers after a moment of silence, Erica, turns to Dustin and says "He doesn't know?"

"It... hasn't come up..."

"Whatever. That's bullshit, I'm out of here. If you need me I'll be at Robin's."

That's when Dustin decides to inform him that Steve died saving pretty much all the Hellfire freshmen, a couple of their friends Eddie has never met, Erica, and Robin Buckley from band in the mall fire over the summer

[targetf0rce]

Stobin ghost hunters and their cameraman jonathan

version without night vision below