#buckley

Manifesting eddie gay arc ✨

Obsessed with this tshirt 😍

Tags: besties to lovers, lesbian!reader,wlw, confessed love, SFW, fluff, cute, First kiss

MY REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!

Synopsis: Between late shifts at Family Video, movie debates, and a surprise mixtape, your friendship with Robin slowly turns into something more,culminating in a confession that changes everything.

Family Video was cold, dead, and quiet that night, the kind of silence where even the hum of the lights sounded bored, honestly, the only active sound was the rain spitting against the window and there you were sliding tapes back onto the shelf they belonged to, that’s when you heard it, a loud thud, a slightly louder curse, and the sound of plastic hitting the floor, Robin Buckley, she was quite literally a human tornado, she dropped an entire stack of VHS returns, again, it made you chuckle a bit,

“Are you okay?” you asked, hiding your slight smile,

“I’m fine,” she said, which probably would’ve been more convincing if she hadn’t been on her knees scrambling around like a kid who dropped his pack of weed in front of his mom,

You bent down to help her, “You’ve been… jumpy today,”

“Me, jumpy? Nope, never, I’m the picture of calm, I’m a literal monk, in fact—” here it came, the Buckley rant is what you and Steve liked to call it,

“I think I’m actually achieving some sort of higher plane of existence, Enlightenment, even, really, I think I could sit on a mountaintop and meditate and totally ignore the fact that human interaction is terrifying and awful and—” she flung a tape into the bin and sighed, “Okay, maybe not a monk, maybe like… a very anxious raccoon,”

“Right,” you said in between chuckles, Robin froze before either of you could speak, the lights flicked once, twice, and then it completely shut off

“Oh perfect,” Robin muttered, you pulled out a flashlight, “looks like we’re stuck in here till the storm calms,” Robin swallowed nervously, she couldn’t be alone with you, without Steve, without making it awkward, her brain visibly combusted,

“Yeah,” you nodded,

With nothing to do, you two shuffled behind the counter trying to find anything that would light up besides your small flashlight, Robin opened a drawer and rummaged through it, then her hand froze, “No no no no, don’t look in that drawer!” which of course made you look, there you found a cassette tape with white tape on it that had your name on it, “…Robin?”

“It’s nothing, it’s—it’s—a… okay fine, it’s a tape, but don’t—I didn’t… that’s for testing audio, for like… science,”

You picked up the cassette and examined it, raised an eyebrow and looked into her blue eyes, “Science, huh?”

“Yes, you know, variables, hypotheses, definitely not feelings,” she said, her voice cracking, “don’t play it, seriously, it’s not done and it’s stupid,” you hesitated but the curiosity wouldn’t shake, “let’s just listen to a second of it,”

You protested softly, Robin stared at you like you were committing a federal crime but she didn’t stop you, you slid the tape into the battery-powered player on the counter, a click, a hiss of static, then Robin’s voice, quiet and shaky:

“Uh… hey, so… if you’re hearing this, either I finally got brave or I had a huge mental breakdown and forgot to hide it—”

Robin slapped her hands over her face and groaned so loudly it echoed in the dark, you couldn’t help smiling,

“…keep going?” you asked,

Robin peeked through her fingers, cheeks flushed, heart visibly doing gymnastics, and despite the storm, despite the blackout, despite the panic, she whispered, “…yeah,”

“-Okay, so… this is stupid, I know it’s stupid, Steve says it’s stupid, I said it was stupid, but I made a mixtape and—no, wait, that sounds even worse—” Robin let out a sound somewhere between a dying animal and a squeak,

“Please turn it off, please, I’m begging you, I will literally mop the entire store for a month,”

You didn’t, you pressed play again, her recorded voice came back, a little breathy,

“It’s just that I like you a lot, like a lot a lot, and I keep trying to say something but it somehow feels like I say too much but not enough,” she took a deep breath, “and every time you smile at me I can’t even finish my train of thought because I get so wrapped up in the beauty of your face,” you slowly looked next to you and there sat a shaky Robin, she was pacing a tiny circle behind the counter, hands in her hair, mumbling, “Oh my god, oh my god, why did I say that, why did I say ANYTHING, I’m going to build a time machine out of VHS rewinder parts and erase myself from existence—”

“Robin,” you said softly,

“Nope, no talking, talking is illegal now, in fact, communication in general is outlawed, I’m moving to the woods and becoming a hermit, a hermit with tapes, a tape hermit,”

“Robin,” you said, she froze,

The tape kept playing behind her, drifting into the first song, something soft, dreamy, heartbreakingly careful, you recognized it immediately, it was Take On Me, your favorite song, which you had told Robin once and she remembered,

“You put this song on here?” you whispered,

Robin winced like it physically hurt her, “It was an accident,” she lied quickly, “my hand slipped, onto the record button, and the stop button, and the labeling sticker,”

You stepped a little closer, “It’s a love song,”

“It is not a love song!” she hissed defensively, then after a beat, “…okay, it’s a love song, but not on purpose, it’s—it’s an ambiguous song, it could be about friendship, or… deep platonic… yearning,”

You raised an eyebrow,

“Fine,” she groaned, “it’s a love song,”

The song faded out, and the tape clicked to the next track, another soft melody, another painfully obvious choice, Robin slumped onto the counter like she was giving up her mortal form, “I’m in hell, this is hell, hell is Family Video,”

You gently stopped the tape, the sudden quiet made the storm outside sound louder, rain hitting the windows like static,

“Robin,” you said again, softer this time, so soft she actually looked up at you, her eyes were wide, nervous, vulnerable in a way you rarely saw,

“Did you make this for me because you like me?”

Robin swallowed so hard it was almost audible, then she nodded, not big, not dramatic, just one tiny, terrified nod,

The flashlight on the counter cast a warm circle around the two of you, and somehow the whole store felt smaller, softer, like the world had shrunk down to just you, her, and that mixtape,

“I didn’t mean for you to find it,” she whispered, “I was going to… throw it out, or never look at it again, or set it on fire, maybe, but I—I couldn’t help making it, I kept thinking about songs that reminded me of you, and then suddenly I had a whole tape, and then suddenly Steve was calling me a disaster gay, and then suddenly I FOUND IT RIGHT NEXT TO YOU—”

You touched her hand gently and she shut up instantly,

“Robin… I like you too,”

She blinked once, twice, three times,

“Like… like-like?” she asked carefully,

“Like-like,” you confirmed, smiling

Robin’s face went red so fast it was like a special effect, she looked away, laughed nervously, rubbed the back of her neck, then covered her face with both hands,

“Holy shit,” she mumbled into her palms, “this is the best and worst day of my life,”

You laughed softly, “How can it be both?”

“Because I got what I wanted but also made a complete idiot out of myself!”

You lowered her hands gently, “I think you’re adorable,”

Her breath hitched,

Outside, the storm had finally softened into a quiet drizzle, inside, Robin Buckley stared at you like you’d just changed the laws of physics,

“…can we, uh—” she started, then immediately lost courage, “—never mind,”

“What?” you asked,

“…can we listen to the tape together?” she whispered, “Like… from the start?”

You hit play, and the two of you leaned close, sharing the little circle of light, listening to the mixtape that was supposed to stay a secret,