#robin buckley st4

[gr3yearl]

robin buckley as chappell roan and steve as her backup dancer and platonic soulmate (obviously)

something something they go to the vmas, perform, look cool as fuck whilst doing it, and eddie munson, lead guitarist of corroded coffin, is physically incapable of not making a fool of himself on social media, much to his manager's chagrin

everything goes along swimmingly between the two and with robin's career until someone, probably a rabid corroded coffin fan, digs into steve and discovers robin and steve are married, and have been for years

cue an extensive media circus where a not-small minority of robin's fandom cancels her for lying about being a lesbian. robin and steve work together to search for the patience to explain midwestern homophobia and lavender marriages to 12 year olds on tiktok and are reasonably successful, much to their surprise

roughly half a year after the fiasco had died down -- besides the occasional over-zealous kid trying to remind people why their fav is #problematic -- eddie tweets 'i <3 sleeping with married men', followed by a frantic reply of 'THERE WAS MNEAT TO BE A PICTURE WITH THIS', before he finally manages to post the intended picture of him and steve

robin, Shit-Stirrer Supreme, innocuously posts a week later a wedding picture of her and steve, captioned 'the only man i'd trust to always be faithful to me' and eddie quite publicly unfollows robin

the groupchat with all three of them in it is full of screenshots and videos of reactions for them to laugh over, reaching its peak when robin features on a corroded coffin song

[ikarakie]

steve’s pretty shit at expressing his emotions. (he has his dad to thank for that.) and he has this weird habit of staring at people, face either totally blank or a little bit pinched. people tend to misinterpret this as hostile, but as robin had come to learn, he’s actually just an idiot and is doing something to the effect of: i love you so much and if i stare at you hard enough maybe you will feel it

so she indulges him, naturally. when she catches him doing it to her she stares right back, both of them dead still, and this smile slowly creeps onto his face the longer they do it. whoever breaks first has to hear “ha! i love you more, im the better friend!” a lot until it happens again.

and then one day eddie walks in while they’re mid staring contest. he looks confused as they— in what must look very crazy to him— just smile at each other from opposite ends of the family video counter. steve loses to look at him, and robin starts to celebrate.

she shouts things like: “i love you more! i stared longer! suck it, you dick!” and he smacks her shoulders while laughing his ass off. eddie approaches, weirdly dazed, and a normal conversation ensues until steve has to run into the back.

the second he’s gone eddie asks her, “what the fuck is the staring about?” and she tells him. watches him go pink as he understands.

finally, he says, “oh, i thought he was looking at me like that because he hated me.” and oh, this is going to be so fun.

[will80sbyers]

#tiredofstraightpeople

[livsmessydoodles]

pining loser support group

inspired by this other piece of mine!

[yellowsweater-bluevest]

“I don’t think I’m straight.”

Steve had reached that conclusion exactly ten seconds before saying it out loud. Laying upside down on the couch of his house with his best friend draping her legs on top of him.

“Is that what you were thinking about?” Robin asked, not lifting her eyes from her book.

“Yeah, it just makes sense.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Steve hummed thoughtfully. Did he want to talk about it? Was it important enough? Did it change anything?

“I feel the same,” he said. “I thought being gay would feel different.” For a second, Steve was sure Robin would tell him that was a stupid thing to think.

“Are you gay?” Robin asked instead, because she is Robin. She was able to ask something in a judgemental tone without being judgy.

“I'm not straight.” he repeated.

“Pretty sure there are more than two options.” She explained with a joking tone. It was lucky, she thought, that she found a zine hidden in a library when she visited her aunt in Indianapolis.

“How do I know what I am?”

“I don't know, actually,” she said, putting her book down. “I've never seen what the big deal with men is.” Robin explained, crossing her arms. “That's how I knew.”

“I definitely see the big deal with women,” Steve responded simply.

“What about men?”

“I think I always saw the big deal, I just pretended it did not exist.” Steve explained.

“Oh, sweet old denial.” She teased. “How do you feel about this?”

“I would feel better if I had better taste.” Steve deadpanned, causing Robin to laugh and kick him. He slid out of the sofa dramatically to the floor. “Kicking me while I'm most vulnerable, Buckley? I see your game.”

“I have been bidding my time to find your weak spot, Harrington.” Robin joked lightly, jabbing Steve’s legs with her foot. “You will fall, Steven!”

Steve retaliated by pulling her into the floor.

“Look who's falling now?”

“Whatever,” Robin pushed herself to sit upward, sitting on the floor with her back against the sofa. Steve mimicked her with his back against the coffee table. “Who is the guy?” she asked.

“I don't wanna tell you,” Steve whispered, more out of respect for their tradition than anything else. “You’ll make fun of me.”

“Of course I will,” she whispered back. Steve reached for her hand to intertwine their fingers and she held him without batting an eye. “That’s kinda my job as your soulmate.” Steve chuckled. “I have to make sure whoever it is doesn’t mess up our vibe, you know?” He didn’t.

“I’m sure he won’t."

"Are you really gonna make me guess?" Steve lit up at the suggestion. Before he could speak, Robin continued "I'm not gonna guess, just tell me."

"Are you afraid of getting it wrong and looking like a fool?" He teased.

"It's Eddie." She answered less than a second later.

Steve did not respond, shocked at her quick response.

"Who's the fool now, Steve?" The smile on her face was infectious to Steve, who poker her with his foot.

"How did you do that?"

"By having eyes."

"What do you think?" She closed her eyes and hummed as Steve waited for her response.

"I think he looks at you the same way you look at him."

"I should ask him out."

"I can be your wingman!" She exclaimed.

"Oh, my god, yes!"

"We have to make a plan," Robin yelled. She jumped to her feet, letting go of Steve's hand, and dashed up the stairs. "I'm going to get some paper."

Steve stayed behind, sitting more comfortably on the floor, and removing the magazines they had on the coffee table off.

They made a plan, that ended in more of a disaster which is a story for another time. There is only one thing that is important.

Eddie said yes.

[pxningfo0l]

It's a reoccurring pattern with Steve, getting come out to and then instantly shitting on the person's taste in people.

Robin comes out to him and tells him she liked Tammy 'The Muppet' Thompson and Steve immediately jumps onto making fun of her because obviously, he will. She sounds like a goddamn muppet! Robin may deny it, but he knows she knows he's right. And he never lets her forget it.

After the Byers family moves back to Hawkins, Steve gets closer to the Byer-Hopper twins (Not blood related twins, but with how similar they are they might as well be). He takes note of the way Will carries himself, the way he stares at Micheal Asshole Wheeler of all people when he thinks no one is looking.

The kid doesn't come out that quickly, so with Robin's advice, Steve takes his time, making it known how okay he was with Will's sexuality, even if he did have standards low enough to beat Robin's terrible Tammy Thompson taste (He says this to her and she reacts as predictably as ever- by throwing something at him).

When Will does come out to him, Steve makes sure he only freezes for a literal second, not wanting the kid to panic like he'd seen Robin do back then. Of course, as soon as he's done comforting and reassuring the kid that he's completely fine with him being gay, he immediately jumps onto making fun of his terrible crush on Mike, finding great joy in the bright blush burning the teen's face.

The next time someone comes out to him, he's more caught off guard than he was with Robin.

Not because he was shocked that Eddie liked guys, no. He might be stereotyping a little, but no straight guy goes that close to another man and calls him Big Boy all low and seductively, a teasing grin curling his lips, a glint in his eyes-

You get the point.

The reason why he's shocked is because Eddie comes out to him, and when Steve asks about crushes, Eddie says,

"Oh, I had the worst crush on you in high school."

Steve sits there, his jaw practically on the ground. The way Eddie says it, all casual, not caring about the consequences or the effect it has on Steve.

"Wh- I- Me?" He stammered out, incredulous. "Dude, I was the biggest asshole back then!"

Eddie chuckles at that, a low sound that sends further heat into Steve's already flushed body. "The me back then did not give a shit, let me tell you that man." He turns to Steve then, giving him a slow look, a gaze more like, and smirks. "I certainly understood why the ladies were so desperate for you and your gorgeous locks."

His heart is pounding like crazy, an audible thump in his ears. Thoughts race in his head, one after the other, all jumbled up until what comes out of Steve's mouth next is,

"So what, you've got a thing for douchebags? Seriously?"

Eddie shoots him another look, more confused than ever. "What?"

"You heard me," Steve says, feeling the next words come out of his mouth like a waterfall. "I was a huge asshole in high school dude. How the hell did you have a crush on me back then? Did you seriously have no standards? You'd really stoop that low just because I had nice hair? I have good hair, and I'm nice now! What's stopping you from-"

Steve cuts himself off with an audible clack of his teeth, a sound that most often comes from Robin when she shuts herself up.

Goddamnit Robin.

Eddie is staring at him with wide eyes, the cigarette between his fingers burning away. Steve wants to watch the smoke curl away, but he's too transfixed on Eddie's doe-like gaze.

Then Eddie's features smooth over, a terrible, terrible grin curling its way onto his lips, deepening that dimple on his cheeks. He leans forward eyes lidded just slightly, and says,

"What's stopping me from what, sweetheart?"

[tarraing]

felt like drawing some stranger things characters in a new style

[sapphic-bats]

GUYS.

This image, but:

Steve and Eddie being the ones with an adopted daughter, and Nancy and Robin agreeing to ahem Steve and Nancy pretend to be the parents on paper and in public. Those two showing up to the conference and going out for drinks afterwards while Aunt Robin babysits.

This AU

[stevesbipanic]

Eddie coming to terms with the fact that if he wants to date Steve he's gotta have Robin around all the time.

[hellfireart]

Hawkins Mystery Gang

Vecna would have gotten away with it, too...

oh wait.

[I didn't decide on these characters by look or relationship but by personality traits and no. no I don't care if no one else agrees let me live in delusion]

[jwaman]

Crop top gang🗯️

[kaspurrcat]

I'm super excited to share the art for my final bang of the @steddiebang2024 season "your eyes can be so cruel (just as i can be) a Labyrinth AU by @formosusiniquis. I am obsessed with this fic and I have so many ideas to that I want to draw for it that doubt it will be contained to this bang season. Anyways enough of my chit chat, check out the summary below as well as some fun detail shots!

Fic

When Eddie was sixteen, he wished away his baby brother. He survived dangers untold and hardships unnumbered and rescued Dustin from the castle at the heart of the Goblin City and the Prince who had answered Eddie's wish to steal him. Now it's sixteen years later and Eddie still feels like he's fighting hardships.

When he goes back to his childhood home, he discovers things might be more dire than he realized. The Goblin Prince hasn't forgotten him and now that war is on the horizon for the Labyrinth, he's being called to return to make good on the promises he made all those years ago.

If his power really is as strong as Prince Steven's, Eddie is going to have to learn how to tap into it to keep the Underground from crumbling under the weight of the attacking army. If his will is as great, he'll be able to do it without falling for the charms of the man who kidnaps children at the whims of bratty teenagers, regardless of their claims of betrothal. But as the fight gets nearer Eddie isn't sure how many of those old oaths he'll be able to swear this time. His power feels faltering, his kingdom weak, and he's sure that Steve holds a great deal of power over him. He's not sure he wants the last one to change.

[ikarakie]

steve, bursting in family video: robin why won’t eddie kiss me :(

robin, unaware that steve is even into guys, let alone into eddie munson, and also its 7am in the damn morning: are you fucking kidding me

[nowmemoriees]

ok WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

[byler-alarmist]

Bitch I know that librarian was happy to provide a rendezvous point for lesbians, based on the way she excitedly handed Ronance the keys and told them to have fun

[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.