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When Robin Buckley was a baby, a couple of her parents’ friends lived in Hawkins. They had a little boy who was maybe a year younger than Robin, and they were always together. Robin didn’t remember it all too well of course, because she was a baby, but they grew up together. And when Robin was old enough to form memories, she was able to say that the boy was her friend forever.
When he was two, the boy got meningitis. He spent time at the hospital and Robin would visit him and bring him drawings and flowers that she picked from the garden next to their houses. She told him stories about the adventures she went on that he missed.
But by the time he was out of the hospital, he couldn’t hear anymore. Her parents tried to explain what happened, but Robin was still very young. If she was being honest, she didn’t even really remember what it was like when he could hear at this point in life, but apparently when she was three it was devastating.
Robin’s first real memory with him is of a woman who came to spend the morning with them. She was very tall and had a warm smile and Robin remembers how she brought them chocolate. It was unusual for anyone to spend this much time with them. Usually, it was one parent staying back with the two of them and not some stranger.
The woman spoke using her hands. She didn’t use her mouth at all. Robin remembers being confused at first, and then there’s a haze that somehow ends up with another memory of the three of them, talking to each other, using their hands.
When Robin was six, and the little boy was set to start school, they moved. Her parents explained that they needed to find a place that offered services for Deaf people, and Robin understood on some level, but it was still heartbreaking.
And that’s the story of how Robin Buckley became fluent in American Sign Language. She is pretty sure that this was what sparked her passion for learning languages, but she can’t be certain of course.
*
Steve and Robin share everything. Their secrets, their nightmares, their lonely nights. Even Steve’s clothes. Well, not really. Robin just steals them when she spends the night, but Steve lets her, so maybe it can count as sharing. They share most of their shifts at the video store. That’s to say – they share all of Robin’s shifts. Steve just gets some extra shifts in the mornings when Robin’s at school. But she doesn’t let him skip an afternoon shift, so sometimes he just pulls doubles.
It's a Monday afternoon, and after he picked her up, they pulled into Family Video for another dull shift. The store is empty and Steve is bored. The store’s been empty for the past two hours.
Steve is sitting on the counter, legs folded under him, while Robin is standing by the register looking miserable. She is babbling about AP Lit as if it’s even remotely interesting, but it feels up the space so Steve just lets her go. He usually lets her go. He would probably listen to Robin forever if it made her happy.
And then the doorbell dings.
He lifts his gaze just as the door slams, and from the corner of his eye, he can see Robin stand up, excited. What’s to be excited about, he is not sure. He mumbles a bored “welcome to Family Video”.
Steve recognizes the man the second he is close enough as Larry, the man who works at Hawkins High’s library. He saw him in passing a few times, but he can’t remember ever actually speaking to the man. Tommy was always an ass to him, but Larry rarely even gave them a glance.
Robin waves at him and Larry waves back. Suddenly they are deep into what seems like a conversation, done entirely with their hands. Robin moves them at an amazing speed, gesturing and making faces. Steve is mesmerized.
He watches as they walk around the store, as Robin leads Larry to their new Close Caption section that they set on their last shift on Friday. He watches as they pick a couple of tapes and as Robin leads Larry to the register to check him out. Then he waves politely when Larry leaves the store, and turns to Robin with an open mouth.
“You look like an idiot, she remarks.
“What just happened?” he asks, completely ignoring her remark. The confusion is clear on his face, he is sure, so Robin will probably call him a dingus in just a second.
Robin shrugs. “Don’t you know Larry? Have you never been to the school library?”
“I know who Larry is,” he says, defensive. “He’s deaf, I didn’t know that”.
“Yeah,” Robin nods. “I told him this morning that we got the new CC section on Friday so he said he’ll stop by to take a look”.
“You told him,” Steve repeats, then stops to take a second to think. “How do you—” Robin looks at him but says nothing so he sighs and continues. How do you know how to do that?”
Robin shrugs again. “I learned it as a kid,” she says, unphased, and tells him a story, surprisingly with a beginning and an end, about a little boy with meningitis.
Steve gapes at her because, wow, he wasn’t expecting this answer at all. It takes him a couple of seconds to even process the entire story, but when he does, his mouth speaks before his brain can catch up with it and register what he is even saying. “Teach me”.
Robin looks at him, confused. “Teach you,” she repeats, eyebrows knit together.
“Sure,” Steve smiles. “It looks super cool. Besides, it can be like, our secret language or something”. He wiggles his eyebrows and Robin chuckles.
“Ours, and every Deaf person’s,” he corrects. Steve just shrugs. “I mean,” she says after a beat, “I’m not Deaf. You really should learn this language from a deaf person. But, I guess, we have limited resources in this shit town, so, I guess yeah, okay. You’ll have to practice, though, a lot.”
Steve nods. He is excited, and he lets her know that, so they spend the rest of their boring shift going over some basics of Sign Language grammar. Robin tells him it’s not even the beginning, but he takes what he can, listening intently as she speaks and shows him. At some point, he thinks that Robin explains things so well, even if she loses her train of thought every two sentences, that he would have actually had a chance to pass English without such a struggle had he met her then,
It takes Robin another week and a half to come up with a study plan. She gathers books from the library and consults with Larry. And shows up at his house one night like a woman on a mission. He loves how determined she gets when she has a goal.
The second they start, Steve thinks he had fallen in love. The language is beautiful, and he loves finding signs that just make sense. There’s something about how visual it is that just works for him. He picks it up with an ease that he had never experienced in his life before. No confusing letters bouncing off pages. Everything right in front of his eyes.
They practice together every day. She shows him new signs by pointing at random objects and tests him on ones he should already know. When they aren’t together, which thankfully is something that doesn’t happen often anymore, he reads books about deaf culture and sign vocabulary.
By the time Vecna is hurt and the so-called earthquake hits Hawkins, Steve is proud to say that he can hold a conversation comfortably. He has enough vocabulary, and what he doesn’t know he makes up by fingerspelling and asking Robin for the sign.
At some point, he thinks Robin has decided that he can hold a conversation too because she stops vocalizing sentences after she signs them. She still signs a lot slower than how she signs to Larry. Steve is thankful for that because he isn’t ready for that just yet. But they can hold silent conversations, which they both love.
Everyone is still shaken and having something like a new language to practice and concentrate on is very nice. But it doesn’t mean that the stress doesn’t get to them.
They are spending the night at Steve’s one night. Steve loves how it came to be, spending nights together whenever one of them is home alone. Of course, he’s more alone than Robin is, her parents rarely living her to visit friends in different states. Robin’s parents love him and trust him, he has no idea why. It’s a great bonus, anyways.
He comes back from the bathroom with his hair still wet to find Robin hunched on his bed with his Walkman on and his headphones on her head, blasting music in her ears.
He smiles this pained smile because the instinct to blast music the second they are alone is something they all became very familiar with lately. And it pains him deeply to see her hurting like that.
He sits next to her, but she doesn’t lift her head to look at him. He snakes his hand and fits it between her head and her folded legs, where she can see it. Then curls it into an O, then a K. “Okay?”
Her head lifts and she looks at him. She is wearing a weak smile. “She nods, but her eyes betray her. When he doesn’t look convinced, she sighs. “Just overwhelmed,” she signs.
He nods. He doesn’t need to say anything, just pull her closer to him and hug her. They aren’t okay, it’s not a lie. But they will be, hopefully, with time.
And just like that, in one small conversation, Sign Language becomes an escape language. When words are too much or the world is just a little bit too hard. It’s a way to communicate but stay silent. Keep everything between them like they aren’t letting their secrets out. It creates a distance that only a second language can create, and it works. For both of them.
It’s a great way to avoid the judging eyes and snooping rumors when they want to tell each other things that don’t go well in the eyes of others with the whole ‘Platonic with a Capital P’ thing they have going on. Robin would sign a quick ‘I love you’ when he would drop her off at school, and he would wave his Y-shaped hand, signing that he loves her too and will see her back at four.
So, pretty soon, Sign Language also becomes their love language.
It becomes their main form of communication when they are alone. One time having Robin tell him how proud she is at how fast he picked it up is enough for it to become his favorite thing in the world. Except for Robin herself, of course.
In fact, it comes so naturally to him that he sometimes forgets that it isn’t ideal in some situations. Like when they are in his room, in the dark.
“I’ll go get us some drinks,” he signs one evening. He can see Robin making an effort to see what he’s saying when it hits him. The room is very dark.
“Either use your mouth or turn on the lights, dumbass,” she says, then bursts out laughing. He joins her right after.
He gets up. “I’ll go get us some drinks,” he says, a bit too loud, and turns on the lights on his way out of the room.
When he returns a few minutes later, he has two cans of soda and a bag of chips in his hands, because why not. He finds Robin standing in the middle of his room with her eyes wide open and alarmed. She is holding one of his swim trophies in her hand like a weapon, her finger pressed to her mouth when she sees him.
“What?” he signs, placing the cans and the bag on his bed with as little noise as possible, then looks back at her for her response.
“I think I heard something,” she signs. It’s a bit shaky but Steve ignores it. He grabs the bat, and they go together, checking room by room.
They sigh at the same time and it sounds very loud and misplaced when they realized it’s only the wind knocking the bathroom window open. The sigh feels so out of place it makes them both wince. They still stay quiet for the rest of the night, signing silently.
*
Nancy calls one morning just as he returns from dropping Robin off at school. ‘Hey,’ he breathes when he hears her voice. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, and he can feel himself relax.
“Good”.
“Yeah, umm, right. Sorry. I’m calling from the newsroom at school, it’s a bit hectic. Mike wouldn’t leave me until I called. He said you guys should come over after school today. I think their Hellfire meeting got canceled or something”. For obvious reasons, is what neither of them dares to say.
“Cool,” he says. “We’ll join a little after four, I guess. Robin has band today”. He doesn’t say anything about how even Nancy at this point knows that they’re a packaged deal. He likes it.
When he pulls into the school a few hours later Robin is already sitting on the bench waiting for him, Max sitting right by her side. She is holding on to her hat and they are laughing. He loves that they finally get to be happy. Plus, he must admit, max looks adorable in her new glasses, even if the circumstances aren’t great.
He rolls down the window and gives them a smile, guessing Robin is already p to date with the news about going to Mike’s. ”Hey Max, you joining us?”
Max nods, fixing her glasses. ‘Yeah, the boys left hours ago and El had to go home before coming over so she ran off, so I thought I’d wait for Robin instead of going home”.
Steve worries for a second but Robin is quick to assure him. “She watched the practice from inside the auditorium,” she smiles at him. “She stopped by to tell me about meeting at Mike’s so I invited her to stay”.
Steve nods and he can see from the look Robin gives him that his relief is clearly visible. He signs a small thank you just as Max turns to get into the back seat.
In the car, Robin loses her green jacket and chucks it at Max. “Is there a green sweatshirt there?” she asks her, because of course she would steal Steve’s clothes and put them in the car in advance for her to change into. He sighs when Max throws his sweatshirt at Robin’s head.
By the time they walk into the Wheelers’ basement, everyone is already there, and it’s very, very loud. He glances at Robin. He can already see her stress building.
With every glace he steals in her direction he can see the stages of stress she is going through, until the one time when he lifts his head to look and sees her head disappear into the bathroom. Her world has become a little too much for her. He gets up immediately and follows her.
“t’s me,” he calls when the knock on the bathroom door does nothing. He knows Dustin is giving him a suspicious look, but he makes a conscious effort to ignore it. The door unlocks but doesn’t open, so he opens it himself and lets himself in, locking the door again behind him.
Robin is sitting back on the floor. Her back is against the wall by the door. “Hey,” he murmurs softly, and she shakes her head so hard he is momentarily worried she is going to band it against the toilet.
“Sorry,” he signs. She gives him a grateful smile like that’s exactly what she needed him to do. He slides down and sits in front of her, careful not to touch her as he does. “How do I help?”
“It’s loud,” her hands move slowly. “I forgot”.
“It’s been a while,” he signs with a nod. He gives her a small smile. “Do you want to go home?”
She shakes her hand again but this time it’s not so violent. “Just need a minute,” she signs slowly.
“Okay,” he spells with a smile. “Want a tight hug?”
“Tight,” she repeats the sign, and he nods and lifts his arms. She moves until she melts into his arms with a soft sigh.
They stay like that for a bit, until Steve can feel Robin relax in his arms. He pulls back a bit then and waves his hand slowly in front of her to get her attention silently. His hands curl into R shapes and he smiles. “Ready?”
She nods after a second, taking a deep breath. Stee helps her up, bracing himself for the noise that is outside. Her hand curls into his and he squeezes tightly, as if saying whenever you’re ready, and they brave it together.
*
One morning he wakes up before she does. They are in her bedroom, the door closed and the room dark. He thinks the outside is still dark as well but doesn’t take the time too check. It’s very unusual for him to wake up before she does, so he does his best to get out of bed without waking her up. He stumbles to his feet and walks slowly until he reaches the corner of the room. Then he slides down the wall until he is sitting on the floor, his hand between his knees, sweatshirt hoodie pulled over his head.
His eyes are filled with tears that he refuses to let spill. He can hear Robin wake up at some point, but he can’t bring himself to look up, to acknowledge that.
“Steve?” she asks in a worried voice, but he doesn’t respond, because he just can’t breathe.
He can hear the rustle of the bedsheets as she gets out of her bed but she doesn’t come close enough to touch him just yet. Then he can feel her hands suddenly cup his face and she slowly guides him up to look at her. He does his best not to resist. It’s clear in her eyes when she registers that he is crying.
“Hey,” she says, “what’s going on?”
He is suffocating, and the words just won’t come out. So, instead, he lifts shaky hands. “Can’t.” he signs, and his fingers hit each other with such force that he has to wince, “breathe”.
Somehow, Robing is not panicking. She gives him a knowing smile and asks – “would it help more if I stayed quiet or if you could hear my voice?”
“Voice,” he signs, only because he really wants to close his eyes.
“You’re okay. Just panicking. I’m right here,” she says. He can feel her pulling him closer to her.
“Never like that. So strong,” he signs. It feels weird, wrong, signing with his eyes closed. So, he opens them just a tiny bit. There’s a pained look on her face.
“That’s okay,” her voice is soothing. “I’m here. You will be just fine. Focus on your breathing”.
She holds him until he can breathe again. Until he can apologize for whatever the hell that was. When he does though, she throws a pillow in his face.
*
Sometimes they use it just because they can. Steve would turn to her at work when a customer Is not looking, and sign – “She’s hot!”
“You still suck,” she would sign back.
“I know,” he returns, and then he would flip her off.
And Robin’s rambling is way cuter when it’s done in Sign Language, is what Steve thinks. At some point, she realizes that his level of signing is good enough and she starts signing faster and faster. It’s so fast at some point that it’s faster than when she speaks, which means that it’s easier for her to catch up with her brain, and Steve gets to see her inner thoughts that her mouth isn’t fast enough to produce when she speaks.
She can easily go on about something for ten minutes straight, completely losing her train of thought. He loves watching as scenes unfold with her hands in a way that is so visual Steve can actually, most of the time, keep up.
“Rob,” he would speak, and after long minutes of silence, it would catch her so off guard that she would stop mid-sign and stare, blushing. And he would smile, and give her a pointed look as he signs “you didn’t even answer my question”.
But they try to only sign when they are alone. It is mostly because they try to stay respectful and polite, but there is also something in them that wants to keep it private.
This is exactly why he is caught off guard when he walks one day into the Family Video breakroom to join Robin, Max, and Dustin, and Robin signs to him over Dustin’s head.
“He’s in an asking mood,” her signs are sharp with anger. Max is sitting right there, staring at Robin with confusion. Steve wrinkles his nose. “He asked if I had a secret crush on someone. If that’s why we wouldn’t date”. She is signing so fast that Steve is pretty sure he’ll get dizzy soon enough.
“What the hell is happening,” Max says then, just as Robin’s D-shaped hands clash together over Dustin’s head with a thud. He ignores her.
“Dude,” he turns to Dustin, “would you drop the topic of me and Robin already?”
Dustin’s mouth drops, it’s kind of funny. “Are you guys telepaths now?” he asks and it sounds like he is only half joking, the seriousness in his voice causing Robin to snort behind him.
“Yes,” she says from behind him. “So you better drop this. I already told you, Plato—”
“—nic with a capital P, I know,” Dustin rolls his eyes. “Idiots.”
*
Steve stands, worried, in the middle of a way-too-crowded street. Max is standing next to him, Robin nowhere to be found. Mike’s voice is still ringing in his ears. Heard something. Going to check the woods. Get Max and Robin and meet us at home.
He drove to meet them and when he found Max, she was waiting for Robin to get back from going to buy them both some drinks. Great time to wander around town.
“You have to do that thing,” Max grits. Through her teeth. She is scared, he can tell.
“What thing?” he hisses. He isn’t even really listening, eyes moving around the street looking for Robin.
“The thing you and Robin do where you speak with your hands, Steve,” she sighs. He looks at her, about to point out that he needs to be able to see Robin for that to even work, when he says that she is pointing at something. He follows her hand, and finds Robin on the other side of the street, waving at them as she tries to cross the waves of people to get to them.
Fuck, he hisses under his breath, lifting his hands in the air. Here’s to hoping Robin can see from so far away.
“Mike,” he fingerspells, then waits. Robin’s hand flies as up as she can.
“Yes,” she signs. Good.
“Heard something,” he adds.
Her eyes grow wild and she tries desperately to cross the street. “What?” she signs.
“Maybe,” he prefaces, then fingerspells. “Demobats”.
Robin starts running. Max lets out a sigh, realizing she finally knows what’s going on.
They look until it’s three in the morning and they are all too tired to keep going. The relief in everyone’s eyes is drowned by how tired they are so they decide to call it quits and regroup in the morning.
“We can meet at nine and go look at key points around town,” Steve tells everyone, but his hands are communicating something different to Robin. You, home, with me.
They get to his house and she calls to let her parents know that she’s spending the night because even though it’s the middle of the night, she would rather not have them wake up to realize she isn’t there and completely panic. Steve uses the time to make them two cups of tea.
“Thanks,” she whispers when he hands her the cp/ His hands linger to make sure that she is stable enough to hold it.
When he almost drifts off to sleep right there on the couch, he feels a finger aping on his shoulder. He opens his eyes and turns to look at her.
“I love you,” she signs, keeping her folded hand up in the air.
“I love you,” he signs back, and their hands come together until they book them together and laugh out loud.
Gosh, it feels good to laugh.