#stobinmonth2026

The fourth year of platonic Stobin Month is almost upon us!

Platonic Stobin month is an event that runs from March 1st to March 31st centred on the duo of Steve and Robin from Stranger Things.

This blog will serve as the designated blog for the event, so posts will be reblogged to here!

Day Five: Role Reversal

WC: 1,686

"You think it's all out of our system?" Robin asked, staring up at the ceiling, letting herself enjoy the fact that it had stopped spinning. She never thought that would be a relief. To be fair, none of what had happened was something she ever would have thought.

"Maybe. Ask me something. Uh-" he hesitated, then in a terrible Russian accent, he said, "interrogate me."

"Interrogate you, okay, I can do that," she ran through her mind of questions that Steve wouldn't answer unless forced. "When was the last time you… peed your pants?" she landed on.

"Today," Steve said, no hesitation.

"What?" A laugh bubbled up in her throat.

"When the Russian pulled out the pliers," he clarified.

"Oh my god!" She let the laugh out from somewhere deep in her gut.

"It was just a little bit, though, I swear."

"Yeah, it's definitely still in your system, hotshot."

They let their laughter fizzle out for a moment.

"Alright, my turn," Steve said.

"Okay."

"Have… you… ever been in love?" he asked in a much more sincere tone of voice. A genuine question, picking at something a little too sensitive, like poking at an injury still in the process of scabbing.

She forced down her automatic answer, practically choking on it. On the other side of the stall door, Steve had no idea what she was learning about their state. She could hold back the truth, aware enough to keep it hidden, but it was tough. Truth serum still in her system, but it was fading.

"No," she forced out. "I don't think so."

"Oh." He said it quietly, disappointed, for sure. "Do you… like anyone? Like, right now?"

And she thought about it, really letting herself sit with it. If there was anyone, any man in the whole wide world who she would want herself to fall in love with, it would be Steve Harrington. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it? If maybe she could have an exception or something? No fear of Small Town Hawkins, because she had a boyfriend! It would be so nice, wouldn't it? To be safe?

If she was to love any man, it would be Steve.

And maybe it was selfish, what she was convincing herself of. Because she knew Steve wouldn't be an exception, just a shield, but she had seen some of the looks he sent her way, and she had a pretty strong feeling he wouldn't turn her down.

She pried herself off the ground, and leaned back on the wall.

"Maybe," she said. "There is this guy."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "I used to hate him, you know. He was such an asshole and he spent all his time with people who were somehow even bigger assholes than him, and I couldn't stand him and the dumb questions he would ask in class, but… something happened and he changed." It came easier, words falling out smoother. She wasn't lying, exactly. "First of all, he's actually funny, like I have laughed more this summer than I have laughed in a really long time. He's perceptive. He can pinpoint the location of a Russian Transmission based on the music playing in the background. He is so unlike anything I could've expected of him."

Silence. Doubt pervaded after her little speech. He didn't respond at all. Then, as she listened, she found she couldn't hear him move. Or breathe.

"Steve?" She asked, knocking on the stall.

Oh god. His voice had been quiet before, and they still didn't know what the side effects of the Mystery Russian Drug were. Oh god, what if he was dead, what if he had internal bleeding they didn't know about, what if—?

"Steve, did you OD over there?"

"No," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "No, I'm still alive."

He didn't say anything else. Carefully, she peeled herself off the floor and stepped around into Steve's stall, setting herself onto the floor gently. Steve's face was unreadable, eyebrows pinched, mouth flat. His thinking face.

"So…" she started. "What do you think?"

"About?"

"This guy?"

Steve swallowed, then took a breath. "He sounds great."

"He is great. The greatest. It kind of shocked me to my core how great he is," she agreed. "What about… what about the girl?"

"I think she's on drugs," he said. "And she's not thinking straight."

That was true. In any other situation, at any other time, she wouldn't have even dreamed of it, but… she felt safe with Steve. Steve would keep her safe. So she pushed.

"I think she's thinking a lot clearer than usual."

"She's not," Steve insisted. "Look, she doesn't even know this guy. Not really. If she did, if she really knew him, then she wouldn't even want to be his friend."

"No way!" she argued. It didn't fit, what he was saying. He'd spent so much of the summer acting like the most confident person in the room, none of his flaws were his fault, it was the hat or it was the uniform, or it was something else, but Steve… this Steve, he was scared.

"That's not true at all."

"Robin," he said, and his tone was defeated, but she couldn't imagine what he was feeling defeated by.

"I wasn't ready for it at all, but I like you. I really like you, Robin, but there is still so much about me you don't know. I'm not— I'm nothing like I was. I am not King Steve," he told her, begging her to turn back.

"Steve," she said, desperate for him to see. "That's exactly why I like you."

He eyed her for a long moment, still wearing that unreadable expression. She didn't know what she expected him to say, but it definitely wasn't what came out of his mouth next.

"You know the You Suck/You Rule Board?" he asked. "How I couldn't get a single date?"

"Yeah," she said, a little thrown by the change of topic.

"I didn't want to succeed. I didn't want to get a date with any of them. I was just keeping up appearances. I did it because that's what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to want to get a date, to be a ladies' man. The person I wanted to date, the real one I wanted, didn't even come into Scoops. I never even talked to 'em."

Her heart dropped. She'd read it all wrong, and he was turning her down. Oh god, how embarrassing was that? Still, he thought she wouldn't want to be his friend. She ran through the conversation in her mind again and… oh. He thought she only liked him because he was hot, because he was romantically desirable. She had to fix that. She had to fix it right away.

She had to know. "Who?"

"Eddie Munson," he said, and Robin's whole world stopped. "He works at the record store across the mall, and I see him sometimes, passing through the food court. He never comes in to Scoops, but I always look. I just want him to look back."

She couldn't process what he was telling her. She couldn't seem to force the words into her mind, like trying to shove the square peg through the circle hole. It just didn't fit.

"Steve," she tried, "Eddie Munson is a boy."

She half expected him to take it back at the reminder, to tell her that he didn't mean it or that he only meant it platonically, but he just gave her a heartbroken expression.

"Robin." That was it, just her name, but it finally clicked into place. He was like her. She felt like an idiot. Or maybe a genius.

"Oh," she said. "Holy shit."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Holy shit."

She went quiet, processing. She should tell him. She knew she could. He was even safer than she ever knew, but… how? She had never said it out loud and just five minutes prior she was fully prepared to pretend to be straight for the rest of her life by marrying Steve Harrington and becoming Robin Harrington. She was out of her depth.

"Robin?" he broke the silence. "Did you OD over there?"

"No," she reassured. He sounded terrified. She had to fix that, too. Break the tension. Levity. She could do that, she could do levity.

"I'm just thinking," she said.

She took a deep breath and let it out.

"I mean, I guess Eddie Munson is cute, but… he's a total loser!"

His eyes widened in surprise, cutting through the fear there. "He is not!" he argued.

She nodded, getting into the momentum of it. "He totally is! He wants to be a musician! He's in a stupid metal band!"

"He has dreams!" he argued.

"He can't even sing! He's practically tone deaf! Have you heard him?" she summoned the memory of the middle school talent show, she was in sixth grade at the time, Munson in eigth.

She screeched out a few lines of Bonnie Tyler, making it obnoxious.

"He does not sound like that!" he insisted.

"He totally does!" she argued. "That is a fantastic impression of him!"

Steve rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. That look of fear had melted off his face and he was smiling and Robin felt like she won something.

"You sound like a muppet!" he told her.

"He sounds like a muppet!" She burst out. "He sounds and looks exactly like a muppet!" She could see it too. It was painfully accurate, she was kind of upset she didn't think of it herself.

She kept singing to prove the point and he rolled his eyes and he joined in.

Yeah, she definitely won something.

Days later. After flesh monsters and girls with superpowers. After Billy Hargrove died and they went home, Robin would tell him the truth. She would tell him about Tammy Thompson.

Vecna's Curse

WC: 1,393

CW: Gore, Blood and Injury, Violence, Homophobia (but, like terribly described), Torture

She honestly didn't see it coming. She never saw herself as a main character. She was the sidekick, the best friend of the babysitter. She was the one to come up with the ideas. She was the supporting role.

She was not supposed to be the one who was cursed.

It caught her off guard. Everyone together, describing her symptoms. Things she'd been complaining about. With how Steve was looking at her, she could tell he already knew, or the very least he suspected. He didn't say anything. Watching. Waiting.

As if taking her realizating as a cue, the final symptom came up. The clock, lodged into the wall of the Wheeler basement.

She told the group, but her eyes stayed on Steve. Steve, who's expression stayed steely. He nodded once, firm. 24 hours left to live. It was strange, knowing with absolute certainty what her expiration date was.

As she looked at Steve she wondered if he'd ever felt like that before, or if even after all he'd been through he never truly thought he was going to die.

She didn't know if that was something she was supposed to ask.

She didn't sleep. It felt wrong, wasting that time on sleep. She wrote the letters instead. One for her parents. One for Steve. One for Barb. She didn't have a lot of people in her life, even after Starcourt, after joining the group of people in the know.

It was mainly just her and Steve.

So, when Nancy went off to Pennhurst the next day, she asked Steve to take them to her house, then to the cemetary. She dropped the letter of in her room, where her parents would no doubt look after… After.

She sat herself down in front of Barbs grave and opened up the letter.

It was a little bit dramatic, to be honest. Reading a letter to her old friend that she could have sworn was just like her.

"Maybe that's why you left, you know? You saw something in me that no one else did at the time, and it disgusted you. God knows it disgusted me. I was so scared for so long that you would say something, but instead you just acted like I didn't exist, but… you were still my first friend, you know? You were my first friend and I can't ask you why anymore.

I guess I'm sorry I never asked."

"Oh, poor baby," a voice came from behind her. "Sad because you're god's mistake, huh? Sad you couldn't be the person you wanted to be? Liked? Accepted? Normal?"

Robin turned around and came face to face with her. Barb. Alive and well, just standing there.

"I knew. Of course, I knew. Why do you think I left you for Nancy Wheeler? Huh? Why do you think Steve prefers Nancy Wheeler to you?"

Barb looked at Robin like she was something vile. Something disgusting.

It was fake. It didn't take a genius to figure out that 24 hours wasn't an exact measurement, and Vecna was giving out her ticket early, but it sucked. She came to the conclusion that any horror movie enthusiast would, and she ran like her ass was on fire, and she refused to look back, even as Barb called after her.

The scenery shifted, and instead of the cemetary, she was underneath Starcourt. Running through those endless hallways, all crisp white, mysterious beeping rang through it all. She hated it.

She hated it more when the screaming started up.

Steve, somewhere she couldn't reach, screaming, sobbing, begging. Steve, right around the corner. It echoed off the walls. She lost sight of her original mission for a moment, desperate to get to him. It cut through her rational thought and all she could think was that she needed to protect him. She couldn't protect him before, but she could. She would.

She made a left turn and booked it down that hall, then the scenery shifted and she was standing in front of a single door, and the screaming had stopped. Blood seeped out from underneath the crack in the door, already pooling under her feet. It was so much. It was so much blood, but she had to find Steve, and there was only one way for her to go.

She stepped through the door and it slammed shut behind her, lock clicking into place audibly.

Steve was laying on the floor, unmoving. He looked so much worse than he had the first time. His face was black and blue, his nails were gone, his shirt was soaked with blood, his hair matted and wet with it. Long gashes were cut into his legs and arms, and he was twisted and broken.

"Why did you let this happen?" Steve's asked, mouth opening to reveal missing teeth.

"I died because of you," he said.

Reality clicked back into place. It was fake. It was all fake. They got out. Steve was alive. She had to remember that. Steve was alive, he was alive, he was alive.

"No! This is fake! This is fake!" she turned and tried to run out the door, but it wouldn't budge. Wet cracks and snaps filled the room. Not-Steve was standing up, rising from the ground on broken legs, twisted and unsteady. It was nauseating.

"This is very real," Not-Steve said. He smiled, but it wasn't her smile. It wasn't the smile that she loved so much, where it was just them and he scrunched up his whole face. It wasn't the smile that she rightfully earned as his platonic soulmate. It wasn't her Steve.

She pulled at the door harder, slamming her full weight into it. She pushed and pushed, then finally it gave way under her weight and she didn't hesitate, running off again.

She didn't pay attention to where she was running until she got there, red light surrounding her as the scenery shifted yet again. It was awful. Red light and red ground and red, red, red everything. She'd seen the gate, red and pulsing. She'd heard stories of tunnels, dead and full of monsters, and she let herself wonder for just a second of that's where she was, in that fucked up mind palace— The Upside Down.

Vecna gained on her faster than she would have liked.

"Now how did you get here?" he asked. He was grotesque to look at. He wasn't wearing Steve's face anymore, instead taking the form of something worse. Visible flesh, pulsing and moving, like claws, and blood. It was awful.

Vines wrapped around her limbs and pulled, dragging her into a house. Something straight from a horror movie.

Inside, there were four pillars, two already occupied. Chrissy Cunningham and Fred Benson, exactly as Eddie described, held up on the pillars like they were crucified. Robin didn't have long to look before she was joing him at the third pillar.

Vecna said some stereotypical villain shit, but she could barely focus on it as the vines holding her limbs got tighter and tighter and he got closer. His hand reached out and hovered over her face. Pressure built in her head, and right as she was ready to close her eyes and wait for release, something caught her attention.

Music.

Fucking Bonnie Tyler.

Vecna staggered, and behind him, the light shifted. A portal, or a hole in the universe or something. She saw herself, floating above the others. She saw Steve, staring up at her, terrified. Her Steve. Her platonic soulmate, Steve.

She let herself remember the good.

Movie nights, random shifts at Family Video, the better shifts at Scoops, the diner, the floor of the bathroom at Starcourt, all of it. It played in her brain and the vines got looser.

Energy surged through her and she threw herself forward, grabbing at Vecna's neck and pulling, taking a chunk of him with her. He stumbled back and she took the chance to run. She ran far and fast, pumping her legs as hard as she could. Debris fell from the sky, and lighting cracked, and she didn't focus on any of it, because she could see Steve and he was looking up at her like he would die, too if she did and that meant something.