Chapter Text
robin buckley had had an epiphany the summer between her freshman and sophomore year. she was not going to spend the rest of her high-school career the way she had spent it up until that point. she was no longer going to stand in the bleachers in some less than desirable band costume. she was no longer going to slouch down in her seat that was positioned about as far away from the front of the classroom as possible. she wasn’t going to be awkward when people talked to her. she wasn’t going to just keep her head down and bolt out the door the second the last hour bell rang.
she was going to leave her mark. she was going to be one of the most well known students in hawkins high history. if not for the pride and popularity, then for the amazing college applications she’d get out of it. she was /going/ to get out of hawkins when she turned eighteen. even if that meant becoming a whole other person for a few years.
finally, much to her mother’s approval, she started putting effort into the way she looked. it was a low effort— more feminine clothing, a new haircut that framed her face, some highlights that gave her some color. it was pretty easy, honestly, just wasn’t . . . ‘ her ‘. whatever, though. bygones will be bygones.
the second part of her plan was attitude. to convey such a thick, fake sense of self confidence that she’d gather up some popularity. this part deemed itself harder. a few failed attempts before she found the sweet spot, before she found the /right/ people to project this obviously false (at least to her) facade of the kind of woman who cares more about applying a fresh layer of lipgloss than anything else happening in the world at that particular moment.
steve harrington had been her in. made a few stupid jokes, stroked his ego, and he was just about begging her to come sit with him and his friends at lunch. bingo.
now, most of the way through her sophomore year of highschool, she had everything she wanted. everyone in school knew her name. /the/ robin buckley, someone everyone wanted to be. no longer just some loser band nerd no one had ever heard of. in fact, most people hadn’t even put those two together. most assumed she was a transfer, moved to hawkins the beginning of the school year. her old band mates knew, sure, but any attempts of them to acknowledge her on campus was shut down with a cruel joke about them simply wanting to associate with her. her newfound posse would laugh, tell the kid to get lost, and then robin would have to pretend like she didn’t feel an overwhelming feeling of guilt as someone who formerly considered her a friend walked away biting down on their lip as to to not burst into tears in front of their peers at that rather public display of embarrassment.
she had everyone fooled.
well. all but one person. vickie campbell.
vickie had always prided herself on being observant. she wasn’t popular, wasn’t well known. spent a lot of time by herself, simply watching. not in a creepy way, just a, ‘i have nothing better to do’ way. she had most
of the ‘populars’ figured out.
carol was a lot smarter than she projected around tommy and her friends. she did the whole giggling at stupid jokes, pretending she didn’t know her left from her right act to survive. while vickie herself could never see herself doing something just for the sake of popularity, or to keep a boyfriend, vickie could see the appeal. how it may seem like it’s the only choice in this world.
nicole and tina were just shallow, and mean. vickie was about eighty percent sure she remembers them both being severely bullied in middle school, and then had a glow up the summer before highschool. became bullies themselves, as the never ending cycle prevails. neither had much going on for themselves— average in their classes, not involved in very many extracurriculars. these years were definitely their peaks.
steve harrington was an interesting one. acted out a lot, disrupted the general peace around him on the chance of a few laughs. his parents are well known, rich business people. if vickie had to guess, she’d say he’d do anything to make up for the lack of attention he gets back home. parents probably go on a bunch of business trips, leave him alone in some giant mansion that he hosts almost weekly parties at.
steve had a new girlfriend, nancy wheeler. this was abnormality number one of the populars. nancy wasn’t popular. she was in the yearbook club, she and vickie had ap bio together. a win for the ‘nerds’, vickie had heard a group of her peers say. the sentiment had made her laugh, although what seemed to have taken hawkins high as a complete surprise made perfect sense to vickie. she was different— new, fun. she was gorgeous, too, not unlike any of steve’s past girlfriends. at any case, steve was branching out, perhaps trying to prove to himself that his entire existence was not based around shallow things like popularity. who knows, maybe dating nancy will be the start of his ‘ redemption arc ‘.
abnormality number two, however, was what interested vickie the most. robin buckley. she used to be in band with robin, freshman year. they even went to band/camp/ together, back in middle school. they didn’t talk much, their greatest form of communication seemed to be stolen glances from both parties when the other wasn’t looking. robin didn’t go to band camp the summer between their freshman and sophomore year. unbeknownst to vickie, robin had instead spent that time ‘bettering’ herself, preparing for the years to come. it had bummed her out, made her realize just how much robin truly effected her day to day life. just not being around her suddenly seemed like such a drag, and all she wanted was for summer to end, so they could go back to their schedule of not talking to eachother in the same room.
but then, the first day of sophomore year, she wasn’t in period one band. they were both in chamber, the highest level of band hawkins high offered, and this level only had one period, while the lower levels, with more students, were split into two. panic arose that perhaps robin had become so out of tune with her trumpet that she had flunked the audition to stay in chamber, and was pushed back down.
the reality of the situation, as vickie would soon put together, was even worse. robin had /quit/. she had traded her instrument in for a purse that couldn’t possibly hold all the things she needed for school. vickie almost stormed right up to her the second she saw the new look, demanded to know what in the world could’ve happened in the few months of summer that made her lose everything that made robin . . . / robin /. after a few moments of thought, though, vickie realized that would be absurd. she’d look crazy, and most definitely be responded with a ‘i’m sorry, who are you?’. days later, after observing some of her other band peers go up to try to talk to her, only to be humiliated where they stood, she was suddenly very glad she had taken those two seconds to think.
they had ap history together. it was the only time vickie seemed to see robin without the company of her new friends nowadays. it was interesting to vickie, how robin’s posture seemed to slouch. how she’d stop twirling her hair, and start chewing on the ends of her pens. how she never crossed her legs like she normally did, but rather sat with her legs opened, feet reached forward to rest of the metal basket underneath the desk in front of her more times than not. perhaps vickie was just looking too far into it, but she seemed a lot more— relaxed. more like the robin vickie had observed since middle school.
on october fifteenth, vickie could be seen struggling with her locker’s lock for about a minute longer than normal. a tiny shift in her schedule, didn’t seem like anything in the moment. but boy, would you be wrong if you assumed that.
vickie would show up for ap history a minute later than normal. still on time, mind you, but while she was always one of the first there, meaning she always had first pick on where she sat (and, she always picked the same seat. second to last row, third seat from left), she was now one of the last. her seat was taken. and her second choice seat. and her third choice seat. in fact, by the time she showed up, there were only three options.
option number one. last row, last seat from left. it was too far away from the board, vickie had ran out of contacts that morning, and couldn’t find her glasses in the midst of all the commotion that was the campbell household from the hours of 7 to 8 am. that wasn’t going to work.
option number two. front row, middle seat. it was right next to a kid named will gonzalez, who had pe right before this period, and was a firm believer that deodorant only ‘ blocked his natural manly scents ‘. absolutely not, over vickie’s dead body would she put herself through that.
the only true option seemed to be the last. second row, second seat from left. right next to the woman of the hour, robin buckley herself.
“is this seat taken?” a question only asked out of formality. vickie knew robin didn’t have any friends in this class, (of course, all the ap kids were friendly enough to eschother, but robin had kind of alienated herself from those types of kids since gaining popularity. she mostly just kept to herself.) but figured if anything, perhaps it’d strike a conversation, and they could become more than what they were. which was, in fact, nothing at all.
this didn’t pan out.
robin glanced in vickie’s direction, an eyebrow cocked almost in a ‘ are you actually talking to me right now? ‘ kind of way. a look that made vickie feel rather small, like she had shrunk down several sizes. a verbal answer was never given, only a shrug of her shoulders, and then her attention was torn off of vickie, and back down to the notebook in front of her.
vickie let out a soft huff of air, but sat down none the less. it was now that she questioned if this perceived version of robin was maybe completely made up in her own head, if she was giving the other too much credit. after all, this had been their only interaction in over a year, and robin couldn’t even be bothered to say anything out loud. it was disheartening, to say the least.
while the redhead had been considerably bummed out, the brunette to her left was positively spinning. heart beating, cheeks blushing, the whole nine yards. robin had had a crush on vickie since the summer before freshman year, the year they official met in band camp. for a while, robin had been so wrapped up in her new life, new personality, new friends, she was sad to say she hadn’t spent as much, if at all, time as she used to daydreaming about holding her hand. putting flowers in her hair, kissing her forehead. in that one moment, a moment of vickie asking if the seat next to her was taken, all those thoughts, desires, & emotions came rushing back like a wave pool. what could be, and what /was/ interpreted as an act of being unfriendly, was simply the only way she could think to react in her state of being completely overwhelmed by the reminder of what once was.
robin was the first to glance over, and it was only for a split second, eyes torn off vickie almost as soon as they landed on them. vickie looked over some time after, and her look lingered for a while longer, more used to the act of stolen glances. this went on for the rest of the period, unbeknownst to both that the other party was reciprocating.
when the bell rang, both girls got up at the same time, piled their things into their arms, and made a beeline for the door. this, of course, only added to the awkwardness, as they made it /to/ the door, again, at the same time.
“i’m sorry, go ahe—“
“my bad, you go—“
soft giggles elicited both girls’ lips at the unanimous declarations of apology, until robin finally broke the eye contact to go through the door.
neither one could get those moments out of their heads all day. both trying to convince themselves that they meant nothing. developing feelings for vickie would not only be catastrophic in the way of heterosexual normalcy that was expected in the small town, but would also throw a pipe-bomb in her fully thought out, well articulated three year plan to be the best, well dressed, perfectly poised, most popular version of herself she could muster up. no offense to vickie, but she was what robin /used/ to be. a bank geek, a loser, a nobody. she couldn’t go back to that. not if she wanted to get out of this damn town the second she graduated. no, she couldn’t, /wouldn’t/ go down that road.
she would be okay. today was only a fluke. right?