#inadvertent desert hearts movie date au

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spoilers through chapter 10 btw but this is basically the thesis statement for my season 4 buckingham au if you were wondering

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Robin says Chrissy’s the one with the magic, but Chrissy’s pretty sure it’s the other way around. Something about wearing Robin’s blazer yesterday had made her feel brave, safe, like she could talk about exactly the sort of things she’d practiced avoiding with Miss Kelly last week. Today, Robin’s jacket is black denim instead of a blazer, scattered pins and patches decorating the material, but when she loans it to Chrissy, it feels just the same. They’re in the theater again, the same row, same seats even maybe, though this time Chrissy had arrived first. As soon as her free period ended, she’d left Jason outside of the gym and made a beeline straight here, not even bothering to stop at her locker. The lunch her mother packed didn’t have much in it anyway. She’d figured she was better off with the two granola bars in her backpack. She’s nibbling on one of them now, stalling while she gathers her courage. Robin’s been a little quieter today, not asking as many questions as she has during their last few lunches, but it’s given Chrissy time to carefully choose her words. “Robin?” she starts. “Can I ask you a question?” Robin looks up from slurping some sort of cold sesame noodle out of a tupperware, swallowing her bite and setting her lunch down in the row behind them. “Sure,” she says. “What’s up?” Chrissy sucks in a breath, bracing herself for whatever the response will be. “Are you and Steve really just friends?”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 8, a season 4 buckingham au

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When they find themselves driving down the street that cuts through Hawkins High and Hawkins Middle, Eddie points them into the parking lot. The stereo is still turned off, but he’s been humming something under his breath, some tune she can’t quite recognize, and he tilts his head towards the main building as he slows the van to a stop. “Wanna get your stuff while we’re here?” he asks. “You left your school bag here the other night after the game, right? Is it in the theater — is that why you were heading in there? I know you didn’t come looking for me, Ozzy. That drug deal seemed pretty fucking spur of the moment.” Chrissy blushes, shaking her head. “I was just, um, looking for somewhere… quiet, I guess. And that’s where Robin and I had lunch twice last week.” “Oh, yeah?” he asks, eyebrows raising. “You thought she’d be in there but you stumbled into an impulse purchase with me instead?” Chrissy flushes darker. “I didn’t think she’d be in there, exactly, but I guess I thought it would make me feel good to be there. Somewhere safe to hide until Jason and everyone else left.” Eddie reaches out to grab her hand again. “Being with Robin makes you feel good.” He puts it in simple terms, kind of the same way Miss Kelly repeats her feelings back to her sometimes, and she nods. “Yeah,” she admits, a little bashful, but Eddie doesn’t take the opportunity to tease her. “Then, hey,” he says, giving her hand another squeeze. “We’ve got plenty of time to kill before we have to head over to The Hideout. How about you take me on the Hawkins High Robin Buckley tour, huh? You can fill me in on all the details while we grab your bag.”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 12, a season 4 buckingham au

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Chrissy hesitates while getting dressed Thursday morning. She’s got her uniform on, her cheer cardigan too, but when she looks at herself in the mirror, she half wants to shrug the sweater off. Hang it back up in her closet. She won’t be swapping it out for Jason’s letterman after first period today. What would happen if she just… left it at home. Maybe, if she gets cold, someone else will let her borrow their jacket for the day. She wonders if Jason would offer. Would he insist? Can’t have my girl looking cold, Chris, she imagines in his voice. I know it’s game day, but here, you should take it. Maybe it wouldn’t be like that, though. Maybe it would be the opposite. Baby, how am I supposed to feel you cheering me on all day long if I don’t have my jacket? Plus, you know all the guys are wearing theirs. It’s good for team unity, and I have to set the right example as captain. I thought you girls were wearing your sweaters today. She half entertains the idea of sneaking into her father’s room to borrow one of his sport coats. What would Robin think if she showed up in a blazer of her own? Or could Chrissy maybe not pull it off the same as Robin does? Robin always looks so cool and effortless in her outfits, like putting them together comes as naturally to her as breathing. Her style is so — her own compared to most of the other girls at Hawkins High. Maybe if Chrissy tried to copy it, she’d just look exactly like she would be: a little girl playing dress up in her father’s closet. Maybe she could squeeze into one of PJ’s. His size probably isn’t so different from hers. As long as he has something that fits over her shoulders, it wouldn’t matter too much if the arms were a little short. She could roll the sleeves to her elbows the same way Robin usually does. Chrissy doesn’t typically wear anything tight, though. Her own sense of style tends to favor a looser fit, her closet full of long cardigans and pleated pants, structured jumpsuits and billowy dresses that can be belted in at the waist. Her mom would call those sorts of items forgiving. Things that can change with or hide her fluctuating weight. It also tends to mean it’s less noticeable when her mother buys her clothes a size too large or decides she’s gained another few pounds and takes it upon herself to let out all the seams. Oh. Her mother. Her mother would never let her leave the house in something like that. Not ladylike enough. Of course, it’s one thing to wear her boyfriend’s jacket at school, but it’s another to include men’s clothing as part of her regular wardrobe. And it’s not like she’d be able to hide it from her parents. Even if she managed to sneak into someone else’s closet without being discovered, she couldn’t just stuff a blazer into her backpack and pull it out later. Not if she also wanted to fit any of her books in there. She’s pretty sure there isn’t a world where her mother would be swayed by any claims that it’s some sort of new trend either. Laura Cunningham always insists that truly well-dressed women always look timeless. Classic. They don’t chase trends that will look silly in pictures they’ll be showing their children one day. There’s no use, really, in trying to prepare for a conversation she’ll just lose. She keeps the cardigan on.

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 8, a season 4 buckingham au

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“Chrissy!” her ex calls out, barking her name like it’s a command. True to his tone, her feet immediately stop moving. She turns to face him like some sort of well-trained dog, automatic, even as she cringes and shrinks into her shoulders. “Chrissy, where the hell have you been?” Carver demands, stomping towards them across the gravel. “And what are you doing with him?” “What’s it to you, ball boy?” Eddie asks. “What, did you suddenly discover that the world exists outside of your basketball court?” Jason shoots him a glare. “Is anyone fucking talking to you? Stay out of it, freak. This is between me and my girlfriend.” Chrissy doesn’t respond. She’s still frozen. As Carver takes another step forward, though, so does Eddie, hovering within grabbing range just in case he needs to — what, haul her over his shoulder and hightail it to the van? He doesn’t fucking know. But he’s not going anywhere, either. “Hey, Jason, looks like your girlfriend’s got a new boyfriend,” Andy drawls with a smirk. “Eddie’s my friend,” Chrissy finally cuts in, shoulders going rigid even as she straightens up. “Your friend?” Carver asks. “Freaks like him don’t have friends, they have customers and criminals. Jesus, Chrissy, you’re not actually doing drugs now, are you?” Eddie practically sees the lightbulb go off. Watches it appear over her head. For a split second, he imagines himself stopping her, tackling her to the ground to keep the words in her mouth before they come spilling out. Instead, he just edges a little closer to her, bracing for impact. “What if I am?” Chrissy asks. Andy snickers. Patrick winces. Chrissy takes a small step forward, lifting her chin. “What if I am doing drugs?” she asks again. ”Does that make you want to dump me?” “It makes me think you’ve officially lost your mind,” Jason says, staring at her in disbelief. And then he’s stepping forward to close the distance between them, grabbing her arm so he can start hauling her over to his car. “Now let’s go.” “Hey!” Eddie barks. He’s moving before he knows it. “Don’t fucking put your hands on her!” “Stop!” Chrissy protests, trying to squirm out of his grip. “I’m taking you home,” Carver announces, ignoring them both. “You’re not being yourself right now.” “Jason, let go!” Chrissy insists, pushing at his shoulder. Eddie can hear the sound of gravel shifting under her shoes, even as she tries to dig her heels in. It’s enough to have him seeing red.

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 11, a season 4 buckingham au

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“Thanks for staying with me, Eddie,” she says in a quiet voice. “You’re a really good friend.” “The best even, some might say,” he teases, gentle. “Or at least so I hear.” Her head gives a slight bob. “Yeah.” She sounds far away again, but it’s different from before, different from the way she’d been at The Hideout. Less like she’s floating on a cloud and more like she’s tucked deep inside of one. Eddie gives her hand another squeeze, and her fingers twitch in response, as if she’s trying to give her own in return, but can’t quite manage. “Well, it’s an honor to be here with you, your highness,” he promises. “When it comes to the queen of Hawkins High, I live to serve.” For some reason, though, that makes Chrissy’s brow furrow, and then she’s giving her head the tiniest shake. “I’m not really the queen, Eddie.” He furrows his own brow, an exaggerated show of mock-confusion. “You’re not?! Then how come I just dedicated a whole Queen song to you earlier tonight?” That doesn’t make her smile. She’s too far away for his jokes to really land. She just gives her head another little shake. “Everyone expects me to be the queen, and to be perfect, but I’m not really — I’m not really anything,” she says, her voice as soft as a whisper. “I just do whatever Jason and my mom tell me. If I was the queen, it was only because he wanted to be the king, but now I’m not even that.” Eddie can’t stand the way she says that. I’m not really anything. Especially when it’s so fucking untrue that he could choke on it.

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 13, a season 4 buckingham au

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For a second, an ugly, mean, bitter part of him cranks the metallic screech of microphone feedback in his head to full volume. Because of course. Of course. Of course Chrissy Cunningham is literally lying here with him in his van, wearing her cheer uniform and tracing a finger across his chest — something he’s never even dared to let himself dream of — and he’s already lost her. Of course she’s headed straight from Wanna Be Golden Boy Carver into the arms of Steve The Hair Harrington. Not that that doesn’t make about a thousand times more sense. The idea that the queen would ever actually deign to fraternize with the freak is laughable, really. Which he probably should’ve known from the second she asked him if she could buy some drugs. This is a criminal transaction. Has been the whole time. God forbid he ever for a second take for granted that most people in this fucking small ass hick ass bitch ass town might ever look at him and be able to see something more than that degenerate Munson kid, more likely to end up in prison with his pop than he is to ever graduate high school, though if he ain’t beating the odds so far with those extra two years of trying — “Lunch with the queen of Hawkins High must be a hot ticket,” he spits sullenly. “Please don’t tell me Buckley landed that invite by trading a date with King Steve now that he’s back on the prowl. Not that that wouldn’t at least be a step up from your sentient eye booger of an ex. Is that why you dumped him? Why have some cheap imitation when you can go straight to the source, right?” Chrissy’s sitting up to glare down at him before the words have even hit his own ears, really. She crosses her arms over her chest, narrows her eyes and scrunches her nose and twists her little mouth up at him. “Steve and I are just friends,” she tells him in an insistent, impatient tone, hitting practically every word with emphasis. “Boys and girls can be just friends. You sound like Jason.” Eddie’s jaw drops. And then he jerks his whole body back to the floor of the van, flailing his limbs, grabbing for something invisible held tight to his neck. “Jesus Christ, Chrissy, should I go ahead and saw through my jugular or do you want to be the one to do it?” he asks, holding his pretend weapon out to her. Her own mouth falls open at that, but no words come out, so he brings his fists back towards his body, cutting harsh imaginary lines across his neck. He wrestles with the air and mimes spurting blood and pretends to die for another half minute before he’s done. “I think that’s the worst thing anyone's ever said to me,” he says as he flops back to catch his breath. “Wow. Point taken. Put me in my place, Cunningham, that was brutal.”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 9, a season 4 buckingham au

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She wonders what it might be like to — to wake up next to Robin. If Robin is the kind of sleeper that takes up all the space in a bed, maybe. Or if she’s the type to curl in on herself, wrap her whole body around a pillow. Chrissy could find out. They are friends, after all. Whatever else she feels, she knows that. And friends have sleepovers. Plus, Robin is a girl, so she wouldn’t have to lie about where she was. They could have their own sleepover, if Chrissy ever gets ungrounded. If her mother ever lets her leave the house again. When she closes her eyes, she can almost picture it. They were close enough the other day, in the theater, when she’d had her head on Robin’s shoulder. Robin’s face, her lips, her freckles — they’d all been right there. If Chrissy had tilted her chin up just a little, she would’ve been able to look right into Robin’s eyes. They could’ve been nose to nose. Would they wake up that way on their pillows?

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 12, a season 4 buckingham au

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“Eddie?” she says after the movie is over, as the credits play quietly in the background. “I’m really glad I met you. I don’t know what I would be doing right now if I wasn’t here.” Eddie feels his heart squeeze, so he squeezes her again, too. “Yeah?” he croaks. “Yeah,” she says, pressing her cheek down against his chest in something that feels like a hug, sort of in the same way a dog leans against your legs. “But, um, can I ask you something? Can I ask you why you’re here with me?” “What’s that supposed to mean, Cunningham, huh?” he asks, giving her a little shake, jostling another little giggle out of her. “Where else am I supposed to be?” “I just mean you’re a really good friend. And it sounds like you have lots of other friends with your music and your game and all that stuff,” she says, shifting to tuck her hands underneath her head, propping her chin up on her fingers so the sharp point of it doesn’t dig into his chest. “So, um, how come you wanted to be here with me? How come you wanted to be with me all night last night and all day today and all night again tonight?” Eddie sighs, considering that. Considering how best to answer it. “Well, don’t get me wrong,” he starts slowly. “I do have to get back to my regularly scheduled band practice tomorrow. But, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I’m really glad I met you, too. Like met you for real this time, not like last time. And I’m glad I can help you with… whatever’s going on with you right now. It’s truly an honor, Chrissy. I know what it feels like to be different and to feel like you’re alone. And if I can stop someone else from feeling that way, then that’s one of my favorite things.” She nods along with that, pressing her cheek to his chest again, and he tightens his hold around her. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, “but I guess I sort of have a thing for misfits? For herding up all the lost little sheepies out there.” “Like Jesus,” she says, and his grip on her falters. He stares at her, jaw slack, because he can’t have heard that right. Must not be processing things correctly. “What?” he asks automatically. “Chrissy, what did you just call me?” Chrissy giggles at whatever expression his face must be making now, and then she hides her own face against his chest before looking back up at him. “Well!” she says, still laughing, pink-cheeked. “He was a shepherd! Plus, you have the hair.” She reaches to curl a lock around her finger the same as she had last night, and it takes Eddie a long second to let that sink in, a long second to gather all his wits back about him. He can’t help but shake his head at her, even as he fights a grin. “The town Satanist,” he says. “I’m literally the town fuckin’ Satanist, and she accuses me of embodying Christ. That’s a new one, Cunningham. That’s a really fucking new one. You truly are one of us freaks.”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 11, a buckingham season 4 au

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“But… how would I even know?” she asks in a tense, tiny voice. “I mean, if I… like her or just… like her? Or — or how do I know if she likes me?” “Chrissy,” he says. “You’re the Queen of Hawkins High. Everybody likes you.” She cuts her gaze back over to him, shaking her head fast. “No, Eddie, I mean it,” she pushes, her hand finally falling away from her hip, and then he’s reaching to take that one in his, too. “Look,” he tells her. “We don’t have to make a whole thing out of it. It doesn’t need to be complicated. We can just try Family Video again when we get back to Hawkins. Maybe Buckley and Harrington were out for their lunch break earlier and they’ll be back now. We can swing by and get a movie like you wanted to earlier. You can talk to Robin. See how it feels. Maybe pick out something gay to rent and see if she says anything about it. You mentioned you’ve stopped by before, and she already knows you’ve seen your cowgirl romance, so hopefully that doesn’t feel like too big of a deal. And then, you know, we can have a movie night or whatever for additional research. See what you think. Take things from there. Or, hey, if it’s going really well, you can invite Buckley to watch with us. Totally casual. Group setting, so there’s no pressure for it to be too date-y if you don’t want it to be. I’m cool with whatever so long as we don’t invite Harrington.” “Steve’s nice,” Chrissy argues again automatically, but Eddie just rolls his eyes without letting go of her hands. “The guy is a royal fuckin’ douche,” he corrects, “but that’s beside the point. C’mon, Ozzie. What do you think? Is it a plan?” Chrissy considers it, rolling the idea around in her head, biting her lip again before she finally makes up her mind. “Well,” she says, “if we’re going back to Family Video, then, um — then there’s something else we should do first.”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 10, a buckingham season 4 au

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All the Best People See You (All the Best People Know), Chapter 13

new chapter alert!! if anybody wants to read and leave a comment on the new installment of my season 4 robin/chrissy au then i will blow a kiss your way!!

Eddie can’t imagine it’s going to go well when Chrissy’s mom finally shows up and discovers a drug-dealing super-super-senior metalhead at her daughter’s bedside.

read it on ao3 here

“You doing OK, Ozzy?” Eddie asks when they’re finally alone in her hospital room.

It’s late now, nearly the middle of the night, but they’d been sitting in the emergency room waiting area for a while before a nurse finally came to look at Chrissy’s ankle and bring her back for x-rays. It took even longer for a doctor to check in, for them to send Chrissy to get her cast, but at least they’d let Eddie tag along the whole time. They’d almost let him take her home until someone finally noticed that her file listed her as 17, not 18 like she’d claimed during intake.

Now that they’ve discovered she’s underage, things have gotten a little trickier. Apparently, they need a parent or legal guardian they can release her to — her parent or legal guardian, specifically, though he’d tried to see if he couldn’t swing Wayne for a jailbreak — and a call to the Cunningham home had gone unanswered. Which means they’re probably stuck here ‘til morning at least.

Eddie’s not sure exactly if that’s a bad thing. Seems like Chrissy could use the extra time, maybe. He knows she’d wanted to see his show, had wanted to give all of the guys their posters (and, OK, he’d wanted to sing his song for her, too), but he’s also pretty sure she’d put off going to the hospital specifically to avoid any calls made home.

He doesn’t know what goes on in the Cunningham house. Doesn’t know exactly what makes Chrissy so scared. But the way she lies to her mom — practiced, expert, creative in the way she’d come up with details about workout tapes and salads and absolutely no Jane Fonda — makes it clear that she’s developed some elaborate systems over the years. He’s also noticed the way she seems to go to pieces when those systems fail, the way she’d lost her lunch almost immediately when she found out her mom knew she was lying, when she realized she couldn’t fall back on Jason or her cheer friends as cover.

Eddie can’t imagine it’s going to go well when Chrissy’s mom finally shows up and discovers a drug-dealing super-super-senior metalhead at her daughter’s bedside. Especially since he’s struggling to come up with some sort of helpful story to feed her. They could say she tripped, or fell, had some sort of benign accident that could’ve befallen anyone at any time, but there’s no real getting around the part where none of that would have happened if she hadn’t snuck out. Not unless her mom might somehow buy that Eddie was just driving around Loch Nora when he saw her stumble on her way to get the mail, and that instead of taking her inside to her dad, he’d ferried her away to the hospital without telling anyone. And he’s, uh, pretty sure that isn’t going to cut it.

Even the truth won’t work, Eddie’s sure. It should be enough. Should be some sort of fuck you to snobby suburbia that the guy who broke Chrissy’s leg was a member of the basketball team, presumably one of the few boys Chrissy’s parents trust to hang around their daughter, but Eddie’s sure the fact that it had to do with him and Jason Carver getting into a fistfight means that won’t exactly go over well, either.

At least they’ve got time. Hours still, probably. And the doctors gave Chrissy the good pain meds, so she seems to be feeling OK, something she confirms with a wobbly sort of smile when he squeezes her hand.

“Thanks for staying with me, Eddie,” she says in a quiet voice. “You’re a really good friend.”

“The best even, some might say,” he teases, gentle. “Or at least so I hear.”

keep reading

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He’s fumbling this. He can already tell he’s fumbling this. He’s rolled a Nat fucking 1 on charming the cheerleader. Plus, he’s a freak, so his general everything had all but shot him in the foot before he ever even started. But he just kind of can’t believe what’s happening right now. That Chrissy Cunningham is really just standing in front of him with her big blue eyes, asking him if she can please buy some drugs. He’s sort of fantasized about this, over the years. She’d, uh — she’d made an impression back when they’d first met. Sort of because of that exact same wide-eyed gaze she’s got now. She’d been just a teeny tiny sixth grade cheerleader back then, a little whisper of a girl, and she’d cautiously walked a poster up to him at the middle school talent show sort of the same way she’s approaching him now. Like he’s some sort of scary monster that might leap out of the shadows to gobble her up. Like she, bonafide Queen of Hawkins Fucking High, is sort of afraid that he might make fun of her and not the other way around. Jesus. Can I have some drugs please. He’s imagined her asking him that about a million times (after all, as creative as he is, he’s never been able to come up with any other reason she might be voluntarily talking to him), but he never thought she’d be quite so polite about it. Shows what little he really knows about her. Now that she’s standing directly in front of him again, closer than she’s been at any other point in the last six years, he can see it all over her face. Can I have some drugs please. Of course she’d use the magic word. “Shit,” he says, and then again when he realizes he hasn’t actually answered her yet. “Oh, shit. Yeah, uh, yeah, I'll sell you drugs. Are you sure?”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 9, a season 4 buckingham au

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"Alright, Cunningham," Eddie says, wriggling his way into a comfortable position on his side so he can face her, both of them in matching band tees and sweatpants. “So, I’m no expert like you, but I’m pretty sure this is the part of the slumber party where we talk about all of our crushes. Should we start with the movies? What’d you think about King from Victor/Victoria?” He already knows the answer. She fucking hates the guy. He’d seen her face while James Garner’s character was on screen, watched her brow furrow into an angry frown and her nose wrinkle in disgust when King washed out Norma’s mouth with soap, when he spied on Victoria getting into the bath, when he told her to quit her gig as a female impersonator so she could come be his girlfriend in Chicago instead of his boyfriend in Paris. It’s kind of funny. King had actually been the reason he’d picked this movie. Eddie’s seen it before — Wayne’s got a real thing for Julie Andrews, so they’ve gone through pretty much her whole catalog — but it had been a while back. Still, he’d been prepared to have an entire conversation with Chrissy about King Marchand, the macho man who starts to fall for Victoria before he knows for sure that she’s a woman and not some guy in drag, a nightclub owner and general tough guy who ends up in a pseudo-gay relationship with Julie Andrews’s character. Eddie even had a speech half-planned in his head about how King met a person he didn’t think he would or even could like and found himself attracted to them anyway. About how sometimes you meet someone and their gender just doesn’t matter, the space they occupy in society doesn’t matter, because the connection that exists between you goes beyond that. The things that draw you together aren’t so simple. Don’t always stick to the rules you thought you’d established. How there aren’t really any rules at all. Sometimes you just love someone in whatever way you can. However you can. No matter what the rest of the world thinks when they look at you. The same sort of stuff she’d been saying about her queer cowgirl flick last night. And then they’d gotten to those parts of the movie and, honestly, they were a lot less gay than he’d remembered. It was also clear that Chrissy was not impressed by the love interest — but she holds her tongue now, offering only a tiny shrug. “Um, I didn’t really see what Victoria saw,” is her only answer. “No?” he asks. “Well, how about Lesley Ann Warren? Maybe Norma and her little strip tease is more your type?” “She was OK,” she hedges. “I liked Toddy and Victoria.” “Oh yeah?” It’s interesting to see her mention Toddy, one of the two actually gay men in the movie, but Victoria he can see, especially when she’s dressed up in the tux. “Julie Andrews in tails,” he says. “Kind of like Buckley wearing those blazers.” Chrissy flushes a little, and from the way her mouth twists he can tell she’s biting the inside of her cheek. “Think maybe you’re into that?” he pushes gently. “Girls in coats?”

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 11, a season 4 buckingham au

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She’s not sure how long she’s been there before the door from the hallway creeks open. Somehow, Chrissy knows it’s Robin even before she hears her voice. “Chrissy?” she calls over the sound of footsteps coming closer. “Are you OK?” Chrissy sucks a big breath in, forcing her face into a smile even though Robin can’t see it. “I’m OK!” she calls back. “Sorry. You didn’t have to come check on me. I think, um. I think maybe my breakfast didn’t agree with me, but I’m OK.” This time, Robin’s voice comes from right outside the stall. “What did you have?” Chrissy doesn’t answer. After another minute or two, she hears Robin moving around again, leaning against the stall door, sliding down against it so she can sit on the other side. She doesn’t say anything either, but Chrissy can see her hand where it lands on the floor, close enough that she could reach out and touch it if she wanted. She doesn’t try. “I’m OK, Robin,” Chrissy says after a long moment of silence. “You can go back to class. It’s OK.” “Chrissy, it’s the last day before spring break, and Strickland has us doing silent reading. I don’t think I’m going to miss anything important.” She doesn’t know how to argue with that exactly. Instead, she plucks at the hem of her cheer skirt, worrying it between her fingers. “Is there anything I can do for you? Get you, maybe?” Robin asks after another long, heavy silence. “Do you want me to take you to the nurse? Do you want me to… leave you alone?” Chrissy shakes her head before she remembers that Robin can’t see it. Maybe she could if she peeked through the crack in the stall, but Chrissy knows that Robin is sitting the same as her, her back to the door, only facing the opposite way. She’s close, but she’s still giving Chrissy her privacy, at least a little. Still, Chrissy can’t bring herself to say anything. When it sounds like Robin might be moving, though — might be just about to get up — Chrissy reaches. She touches her pinky to Robin’s underneath the door. For a second, Robin doesn’t react. Doesn’t make a sound. And then her pinky shifts, just a little at first, and then more until her finger is covering Chrissy’s.

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 8, a season 4 buckingham au

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All the Best People See You (All the Best People Know)

a pre-season 4 buckingham/platonic stobin fic inspired by the @strangerthingsfemslashweek “80s gay culture” prompt, just a few days late

When Robin and Steve drive all the way to Indianapolis to see that new lesbian movie Desert Hearts, they're pretty sure they're not going to run into anyone they know — so it comes as something of a shock when Chrissy Cunningham walks into the theater, too.

read it on ao3 here

They’re tucked into seats at the back of the theater, the lights already dimmed for the previews, when Robin spots a familiar ponytail bobbing towards a spot in the front row.

“Oh my god.”

The handful of popcorn she’s delivered only halfway to her mouth spills out from between her fingers.

“Hmm?” Steve prompts. His own mouth is too full of whoppers to form proper words, the sound coming out muffled, messy.

“Oh my god!” This time she’s hissing, ducking down in her seat, the popcorn bag clutched to her chest as she crowds close to Steve.

She can hear him scrambling next to her, sliding low in his seat, automatically following her lead though he doesn’t know what exactly they’re hiding from. It’s a good thing he does, because it’s only a second more before he’s coughing, choking on the candy while he tries to swallow it all down. Robin stays low as she whacks him on the back, sending a spray of crumbs into the seat in front of them, and then she’s grabbing their giant Cherry Coke to shove in his hand so he can take a drink.

“Shh!!!” she urges him, pointing one of the two straws in his direction. “Swallow and shut up!”

Steve does as she says.

“What?” he finally asks when he can breathe again, when he can speak. “What is it?”

“It’s Chrissy,” Robin hisses.

“What?” Before she can stop him, he’s sitting up, looking around, and it takes a hard yank to his sleeve to bring him back down to her level. He nearly spills the soda still clutched in one hand, and she yanks it away to shove it back in its cup holder.

“Chrissy!” Robin hisses as she turns back to him. “Chrissy Cunningham! She’s here!”

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[hilarychuff]

It’s always made her nervous, sleeping next to Jason. They’re never alone together on the rare occasions they manage an overnight at Benny’s, always curled up in their clothes from the night before and surrounded by other people, so it shouldn’t feel that different from when he pulls her into his lap or presses his whole body up against hers outside the gym. But lying down next to him, letting him hold her, it’s impossible to relax. Long after he falls asleep, his arms going loose and lax around her, her own eyes determinedly shut, she can’t help but lie awake for hours. Which is why it’s weird, how not weird it is waking up in Eddie Munson’s van. Especially considering the way he’s half sprawled across her, cheek resting on her stomach while he hugs her tight against him. It’s like his sleepy body thinks she’s some sort of particularly large, sturdy pillow. It’s easy, though. Comfortable in a way that it shouldn’t be with his arms around her hips, one of his legs tangled with hers. But it had been so nice last night, letting him envelope her body with his while she laid practically on top of him. His hand had traced warm circles across her back for what felt like forever, the steady movement continuing even after she’d fallen quiet. The soothing warmth of his palm had been the thing that lulled her to sleep. She can’t remember the last time she cried like that. She doesn’t understand why she hadn’t been able to make herself stop. Why it had been so hard to get herself under control. Why it had felt like a relief when she finally quit fighting and surrendered to it. Maybe it was the breakup. Ending a relationship can be a big transition, Miss Kelly had said. Maybe that combined with the stress of the game had been overwhelming enough. It just — it isn’t fair. How hard everything is. How being good means giving up so much of herself. She’s not sure what she’ll do next, now that she’s ended things with Jason. She’s not sure what her mom will think of it when she finds out. What she’ll think of Chrissy. Here in the back of Eddie’s van, though, all of that still feels far away. Like it belongs to some different life. Some other girl. The her that’s here doesn’t have to worry about anything beyond being a little bit squished beneath him.

all the best people see you (all the best people know), chapter 10, a season 4 buckingham au