Chloe had spent a while berating the hologram and getting it to explain what clusterfuck she had found herself in. If this had happened before the whole time travel shit with Max, she’d think she was in a coma. Right now she believed it, but also didn’t care. She was supposed to be dead, maybe she was, maybe this was some sort of heaven. Who gave a fuck?
Whether or not this was heaven, it needed exploring. Naturally, Chloe clocked both the music store and the tattoo parlor first of all, and decided to stay well away from diners and schools for the foreseeable future. While offhandedly wondering where to find heaven’s resident weed dealer, she walked into the music store. Where they had CDs and actual records.
“Cool.” She murmured, smiling a little while she perused. She raised her head towards the clerk briefly before asking, “hey, uh, you got some… no dudes section?”
Although Robin had spotted the girl when she first stepped into the store (how could she not? The girl had the hair in the most brilliant shade of blue), she hadn’t spoken up at all. Even once the other girl asked her a question, it took Robin a full minute to find her voice again. “Uh,” she started, eyes wide. The girl was one of the most striking people Robin had ever seen before. Get it together, Buckley, she scolded herself. How could she have spent all summer making fun of Steve’s inability to get a girlfriend and not be able to do her job in the face of a beautiful person?
Her cheeks flushed despite herself, and she ducked her head a little as she came out from around the counter. “It’s funny you say that, because I totally just curated a section of bad ass female artists to highlight. C’mon.” She gestured towards one of the aisles. “What are you looking for?”
Chloe wasn’t one to make shit easier for anyone else, so while anyone else would have looked back down to the music while the clerk got her shit together, Chloe continued staring in silence at the girl in question. Kinda hot, maybe, like a mix between Pris from Blade Runner and Max - definitely more of an edge than Max, less of one than Pris. And why those were Chloe’s two references was beyond her, except one was her most recent love and the other had been a feature in the spank bank for years.
“Oh, cool.” Chloe said again, following the clerk in her very gangly way to move around, trying hard not to look like she was trying hard at being chill. “Just… I don’t know, this seemed like a better place to spend cash than the local weed dealer. Kinda like anything from melancholy bullshit to angry rock. But female vocals.”
The snort that escaped Robin’s body was so not suave, but once it was out there, there was no taking it back. “I think I’ve had enough bad trips to last for the rest of my life,” she commented. “And this’ll come with less of a hangover.”
Melancholy bullshit to angry rock was a range Robin knew she could handle. She flipped through a few records once she got to the right section, waiting to see what might jump out at her. She knew she’d know when she found the right one. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”
Chloe snickered, brows shooting up in surprise and a little unexpected awe. "So you go a little wild huh? What's your story?"
She perused the records while the girl flipped through them, nodding here and there. "Just got here, actually. Like, at most an hour or two ago. I'm Chloe."
“God, I wish I was that cool,” Robin muttered, the words slipping out before she could stop herself. She wanted desperately to seem cool, but she really, really wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
She glanced up and smiled. “Robin. I’ve been here for like, two weeks? So I still feel like the new kid. It’s weird as all get out.” The cool thing about Atlantis was that it had music from every universe imaginable, not just her own. The downside was that two weeks wasn’t nearly enough time to become an expert, especially given she was still catching up on decades of Earth music. “Last time I got high, it was because a bunch of crazy Russians tied me up and drugged me to get information,” she blurted out. She’d been cagey with other people, but it felt… right to be honest about it. Who knew, maybe it’d be impressive?
Chloe blinked, glancing at Robin during the girl's muttered wish. "You wish you were cool enough to go wild? You know they're not, like, related, right?" She bumped her elbow into Robin's side softly. "Trust me."
Smiling, Chloe nodded at the name - cool name - and at the sentiment. This shit was all weird and it probably still would be in two weeks. Of course Chloe staggered and leaned one hip against the shelf as Robin explained the last time she was high. It was Chloe's turn to be a little starry eyed, wondering if she was in the presence of some kind of kid spy. Spy kid? Whichever. "What the fuuuuuck girl? What kinda mess were you into? MKUltra? Some kind of CIA sleeper agent teen recruitment shit?"
“If that was some sort of recruitment test,” Robin started, “I think we failed because no one offered us a job.” She exhaled, blowing her bangs out of her face. “It was totally a secret agent base though. Right under the mall in town. In the middle of nowhere, Indiana. The perfect cover, really. Who would ever suspect that?” Except for a handful of teenagers, anyway.
It was decidedly less cool considering they’d stumbled upon the base by accident, and no one really believed them. “Turns out Indiana is not as boring as I thought it was.”
Chloe snickered again. Robin’s tale was familiar, but not too familiar. “Yeah. Small, shitty, sleepy towns all over America seem to be more than meets the eye, huh. Mine had all kinds of crazy shit going on too. Not Russian mob shit but still.”
Drugs, dog fighting, murder, corrupt District Attorneys… And that was just what Chloe had personally known about. She crossed her arms. “So how did you get out of that mess anyway? I thought the mob didn’t really let people go.”
“Noooo, they don’t.” Robin grimaced. She and Steve had gotten really lucky. The Russians hadn’t believed a word they said, not until she’d admitted that they heard the code over the radio. Although, honestly, she’d been so high at the time that she wasn’t sure they believed that, either.
She finally found the album she had in mind, and held it out. It was an album from 2017 of a band called Pvris, and it was only one drop in the bucket of brand new decades of music that Robin was catching up on. “A fourteen year old saved us, tased the creepy Russian doctor,” she answered, in reference to Chloe’s question. “A friend of mine and Steve’s.” She paused. “He’s my best friend,” she added quickly. Too quickly, she thought.
Chloe, being from 2013, had no idea what album it was that Robin was holding out so she shrugged. “Put it on.”
A very unbecoming snort then escaped her at the idea of a fourteen year old saving anyone from Russian torture doctors but hey, stranger things had happened. “Must be one hell of a kid.” She had no idea who “Steve” was, so she nodded and shrugged. “Cool. it’s good to have friends.”
God, I really am a dingus, Robin thought. She was grateful for something to do with her hands so she wouldn’t feel so antsy, using the time to put on the album as a distraction for how stupid she felt (and, shamefully, as a way to turn her head so it wasn’t super obvious how embarrassed she really was).
Talking about Dustin was a distraction of its own, too. “Yeah, I don’t think any of them really get just how bad ass they are,” she said. Dustin, Erica, and all of their little friends -- they’d saved the world more than once now. Looking back on Hawkins now, Robin felt really lucky to have been there at all. She hit play, and then stepped back, arms folded across her chest. “It’s okay if you hate it. Luckily there’s a whole store full of music from every universe imaginable. We’ll find something you like.”
“Any of them? How many kids do you hang around with? You a babysitter or something?” Chloe asked, snickering yet again. She didn’t seem like a stunted weirdo so far but if she hung out with kids on purpose Chloe was out of here. For now, she walked over to the clerk counter and sat up on it, then eventually laid back onto the surface with her legs bent at the knee, ready to enjoy the music. She turned to Robin. “Take a break, spy-kid.”
Robin rolled her eyes, but she didn’t really blame Chloe for asking. She’d thought it was really, really weird that Steve hung around Dustin, after all.
After glancing around to see if there was anyone else in need of help (there wasn’t), Robin relaxed and hopped up onto the counter too. “Not babysitting. I don’t make it a habit of hanging around fourteen year olds. We all just happened to be fighting the same big bad monster.” That wasn’t quite right, because she hadn’t done much fighting. She wrinkled her nose. “The kids, Dustin and his friends, Steve, they got wrapped up in some stuff before that I didn’t know about, and it wasn’t as over as they thought it was.”
“Whoa,” Chloe looked up at Robin. Chloe suddenly had a lot of questions, which was good. Meant she was distracted. “The mob and a monster? What the hell? Now you gotta tell me how you fought that monster. What kind of monster was it?”
Pulling the lighter from her pocket, Chloe started playing with it. “So um what’s the smoking policy in here anyway?”
“Umm. Not in the shop.” Robin pulled a face and shrugged. “Sorry.” That was something she was still getting used to. Smoking was so common place in 1985. It was more rare to walk into a building and not see someone smoking than the reverse. “But I think you can smoke outside, as long as you’re not right in front of the door.”
The other question was a little more complicated, since there was a lot Robin didn’t see herself. She looked down at her feet and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before reaching for a nearby receipt and a pen. “I didn’t do a lot of fighting,” she explained, scrawling a quick picture of the Mind Flayer on the back of the receipt, complete with the multiple legs and the mouth-inside-a-mouth. “But we threw fireworks at it. More like as a distraction.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Chloe protested, but instead of lighting a cigarette she continued playing with her lighter. She would have gone outside, but she was enjoying the music and the company a lot more than she’d enjoy a cigarette.
Imagining a bunch of kids throwing fireworks at a monster made Chloe laugh, but when she saw the receipt she stopped, contemplating whether this was the real thing or Robin was a really bad artist. Or really good. “What the fuck is this thing? Where’d it come from?”
“No fuckin’ clue, dude.” That was the part of the entire story that still really didn’t make much sense. Robin followed the gist of it -- she knew there was a portal underneath the mall, and she’d gotten a briefing on what had happened before -- but it still blew her mind. “Another universe. A parallel, super dark universe. It can like, control people? Get into their minds like a parasite and make them do what it wants. It was, no lie, the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.” Remembering it made Robin shiver, and she crossed her arms over her chest like that might help warm her up.
“What do you think of the song?”
“What the fuuuuck,” Chloe murmured. Her monsters were all from this world, very real and attainable but also kind of scary. Probably not in the same way as a monster of the deep though. “Sounds Lovecraftian. Kinda cool but uh… really not.”
Smiling faintly, Chloe shifted to look up at Robin. “I like it, yeah. You’ve got good taste.”
She hadn’t given much thought to any similarities their story had with any other ones, but once Chloe mentioned it, Robin couldn’t help thinking about it … and Chloe really wasn’t wrong. The multiple legs, the ability to make people lose their minds… it sent a shiver down Robin’s spine again. She would be really, really happy to never see the Mind Flayer again.
It was easier to talk about music, and Robin allowed herself a small swell of pride that she’d done her job well. “It’s on the house, in that case. Provided you buy something else, too. They’d have my head if I just gave too much away.”
“Then it’s not really on the house, is it?” Chloe retorted, snickering. She sat up again, hanging her legs off of the counter. She had no idea what to listen to, and wasn’t sure she wanted to grab anything she liked before. Not yet. The only other option was to leave it all to Robin. “Okay grab me your favorite. Whatever it is.”
“Are you sure?” Robin looked skeptical. That was a big thing to put on someone else’s shoulders. It wasn’t like getting someone else’s favorite ice cream flavor. Music was important.
“Yeah. Hit me.” She shrugged. Music was important to Chloe but it was a great way to get to know someone. And so far, Robin hadn’t disappointed. “I’ve got time to grab my favorites later.”
Robin hopped off the counter. “Okay.” She still wasn’t convinced it was a great idea, but she should probably get used to people asking for her favorites. She was working there for a reason, after all. She flashed a grin at Chloe, partly in an effort to convince herself that she was confident. “Be right back.”
Be right back turned into five minutes, and by the time she was hurrying back with another album in her hands, she was starting to worry that Chloe might bail. Why she was so worried over someone she just met didn’t sit well with her, and she tried not to pay it any attention, but it wasn’t that easy to be chill. This was a make-or-break moment. “Don’t laugh.” In her hands was Joan Jett’s first solo album.
Robin had taken her sweet time and, being the impatient asshole that she was, Chloe was outside smoking after two minutes or so. She stepped on the butt as she saw Robin come back and expelled the smoke while walking back into the store. One eyebrow raised at the warning not to laugh, Chloe took the album and finally looked. “Why the hell would I laugh? Joan Jett kicks ass!”
She grinned and put the album under her arm. “I should let you get back to work now or something, right?”
Instantly, Robin’s posture relaxed. The only reason she’d worried was because either people didn’t know who she was, or because it was lame that a woman was making music, or because her most popular song was too popular to be cool for some of her music nerd friends. As aloof as she could be sometimes, deep down Robin really wanted people to like her.
“I mean… you don’t have to,” Robin answered, “but yeah, I probably can’t just hang out. As cool as this was.”
"Besides, I got my free stuff, so…" Chloe joked, trying to pretend not to be sucking at e-payments since this place apparently didn't do cash and she had less than a dollar on her. "Ring me up, buttercup. This thing says I've got cash to burn. And then I'll leave you to earn a living or whatever."
“Yeah…” Robin sighed, still reluctant to get back to work even though she knew she should. She’d have to pay for food and clothes and everything else somehow, even if she didn’t have to pay for a college education.
She dragged out ringing up Chloe’s purchase as much as she could, just so she didn’t have to leave, but she couldn’t put it off forever. “Okay, you’re all set. See you around?” Robin couldn’t help sounding hopeful, and she prayed it didn’t sound too strange.
Soon enough she too would be joining the workforce, which sounded strange and hella unusual to Chloe. She was used to being a waste of space… or a drug dealer's soft enforcer. No legal contributions to society there.
"Yeah, girl. Still gotta rebuild my collection." Chloe replied with a smile. She stalked out of the store backwards, waving awkwardly at Robin. "I'll be back."