Work Text:
Have you seen me?
Robin stands in front of the bulletin board, bag slung over her shoulder and the sounds of lunch period echoing down the corridor. It’s almost 1:00pm, and she’s not going to make it to the cafeteria before it closes. A boy grins at her from two near identical head shots, and people say that you can tell a lot by a picture, but looking at him she gets... nothing. An empty face, a complete stranger. Will Byers. Age 12. Jeans, a red vest. The intercom had announced an assembly after the first bell, something something, Byers something. She hadn’t been listening, too preoccupied with trying to wedge her locker closed so she could get to class. Have you...?
I’ve never seen you before in my life.
She only knows of one Byers. Jonathan Byers, the shy kid in her class who works for the school paper and never says anything, never looks anyone in the eye, never draws attention to himself. She’d had no idea he even had a brother. She hadn’t cared. What a crappy way to find out.
She takes five minutes to memorize his face before finally stepping away and turning towards the doors. She’s always loved solving puzzles. 27 down, where do lost boys go? Because even if this is different, she knows about disappearing: she’s been doing it for years. So maybe she’ll find him. Maybe she’ll see something that no one else does. Maybe there’s a different piece to this puzzle that only Robin Buckley can recognize, a place in this tragedy only she knows how to fill.
“They’re saying it’s some queer.”
Her dad makes the announcement over dinner, mouth full of mashed potatoes and gravy sliding down his chin. He reaches for a napkin, and Robin stabs her beans with perhaps a little more force than necessary, and ignores him. I don’t care .
Her mother’s eyebrows pinch together, and just as predicted she immediately changes the subject. “Not now, Richard. Let’s talk about something more pleasant. Robin, honey, how was school? Did you have fun at band?”
“No, this is important! A kid is missing, Melissa. Who knows who could be next?”
“You’re going to scare her - ”
So what if Jonathan’s brother was kidnapped? So what if they were... queer. There are people looking even now, they’ll find him, maybe she’ll find him, and it won’t matter who the guy likes and who he doesn’t. It doesn’t make a difference. I know, shut up, it doesn’t matter .
“That’s what I’m saying though. The police have nothing right now, and it’s better to be prepared. Robin.”
She looks up. And up and up, until she’s rolling her eyes at the ceiling. “What?”
Her dad frowns. “Don’t take that attitude with me, young lady. There could very well be some pervert on - ”
“Richard!”
“- the loose and you need to be careful. Do you understand? Now I’ve talked with the Michels across the way, and starting tomorrow you’re going to be riding to school with Francis and her brothers every morning.”
Robin considers protesting. She considers pointing out that between her and Francis and the twin monsters, there’s no way they’re all getting to school on time. She considers pointing out that being a pervert and being queer are two completely different things. She considers making the case that she’s fifteen and she can take care of herself just fine, thanks.
Have you seen...?
She sees her mother, pretending for her sake to be horrified, pretending like this is something that only happens in nightmares. She sees her push the potatoes around her plate, mouth pinched down and not meeting her eyes, and she sees the silent agreement: you need to be safe. She sees her dad, who works two and a half jobs just to keep them afloat, who talks and talks and pretends to be tough but really, really isn’t.
But what about me. Do you see me?
“... fine.”
Melissa sighs, Richard nods, and Robin feels suddenly, suffocatingly invisible.
The obituary appears two days later.
She recognizes the picture immediately. It’s the one from the right side of the poster, from the puzzle she failed to solve, now laid out complete before her. The boy crashed his bike, got lost in the woods, panicked in the dark, and ran off a cliff and drowned. Funeral on Friday .
She stares at the photo and the paragraph beneath for far too long. Maybe this is shock. Maybe she’s grieving, and this is denial, the first of five. (I never even knew you existed.) And maybe it’s something selfish. Maybe it’s an awful, perverse longing, and the question that’s been haunting her since she was eight and discovered that girls weren’t supposed to see each other that way, and that she needed to hide. (Have you seen me?) Will Byers disappeared, and she hadn’t even known he existed. Robin Buckley hid herself away from the world at eight years old, and hasn’t emerged since. She wonders distantly what would happen if she died this way; would they put up posters with a stranger’s face? Would anyone ever find her? (Have any of you ever seen me?)
They don’t go to the funeral. She doesn’t have anything presentable to wear, and both her parents are at work. When they do come home, Richard fumbles in his briefcase for a minute before silently handing her a page snagged from the office newspaper. It’s the crossword of the day, completely blank. Melissa asks her about her day, about the assembly, and then does the unimaginable, and pulls her into a hug. Robin stands still, and for just this once doesn’t pull away.
Monday rolls around, and normal returns with a vengeance. Jonathan Byers has bruised knuckles, a bandaged hand, and his little brother is back from the dead. Steve Harrington has a black eye, is no longer friends with Tommy Hagan, and is still an ass. Robin hears crying in the girls bathroom every day, and it takes her a week to figure out that it’s Nancy Wheeler. It takes her twice as long to figure out why, and to realize that Barbara Holland is gone, and isn’t coming back.
Hawkins returns to normal, and so does Robin. She watches Tammy who watches Steve, she does crosswords in World History, she goes to band and plays soccer, she argues with her parents and rebels for all she’s worth just to prove she can. She talks and talks and pretends to be tough, and even when she can’t, when all she can do is scream at the unfairness of it all, no one notices. No on sees Robin Buckley, and she remains, for the time being, invisible.