1980s horror film - ronance

ch 1 // black licorice

A theater. A fucking movie theater.

Robin Buckley thought that her life would turn out to be something useful. Well.. maybe not that useful daresay, but anything other than this!

But no, here she was. Sweeping soggy popcorn off of the dingy carpet of a movie theater. Is this what her life had really come to? She shook her head with a self-pitying scoff.

Not to mention her work uniform. It made her look like a walking joke. The red and white striped shirt was not flattering. In fact, it made her look like a candy cane. She didn't know how people managed to look at her without dissolving into a fit of giggles. She barely managed, and she was the one wearing the stupid fucking thing!

"Buckley!" She cringed as the sharp voice of her shift manager cut through her thoughts. "Soda machine broke. Fix it up, eh?" She didn't even have to look at him to know that he was fixing her with a wolfish grin of sorts. With a sigh, she tilted her head in his direction, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of making eye contact.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming." It took a lot of might for her to make her way over to the soda machine, of which was flickering and whirring in a way that she easily supposed it wasn't meant to do.

Moments like this really had her questioning everything about herself. Was it really worth it? For fucks sake, she was nineteen! Couldn't she find something better to do with herself? Anything was better than a theater.

The machine seemed to whirr even louder. At least something in this stupid theater agreed with her.

She leaned against the soda machine, procrastinating. Finally, with a small groan, she kicked the base of the damned thing with all of her might. A loud clanging sound echoed around the room, catching the brief attention of the handful of people around her. She felt a small wave of satisfaction when the machine stopped making irregular sounds.

She turned around after hearing the shrill cry of girlish laughter as a couple, hand in hand, made their way to the register to buy their candy.. Ah. That was her cue to get back to her spot behind the register.

She looked at them for a second. There wasn't really much to look at; both were conventionally attractive and conventionally straight. The man was tall, with hair that looked like he spent far too much time on it in the mornings. He wore a baggy shirt and jeans. She shook her head a bit at his poor fashion.

She could appreciate the girl a bit more. She had her hair tied up in a loose pony-tail and wore a striped sweater with some high waisted jeans. Maybe it was her inner and outer lesbian talking, but she was definitely out of the guy's league. She kept that thought to herself.

After a second, she scoffed to herself, scanning the two's food. One of them got Skittles, which was relatively normal. The thing that truthfully caught her off guard was the fact that one of them had picked out black licorice.

"Do you have a problem?" The girl spoke out with an offended huff after Robin made a face. Her expression was pinched as she set her glare on Robin, her head tilted in a way that reminded Robin of a small, angry dog. Robin had to suppress a small laugh, immaturely.

"Er.. no. Sorry ma'am. I don't think I've ever seen anyone willingly order Black Licorice at a movie theater, out of all things. That's all." She rushed it out, not really in the mood to get in trouble with her manager for her 'rude customer service' again. Last time it had happened, she had nearly punched someone. In her defense, they one hundred percent deserved it. A lot of the people who came to this theater were massive douchebags.

"Well, maybe the people who go here don't have great taste." Her chin was raised in a way that could almost be described as haughtily. Jesus Christ, who gets this worked up over a candy choice? Robin was amused at the irony of this whole situation.

"You're here, aren't you?" She pointed out challengingly. The man besides her, who Robin kind of forgot about, raised a hand to stifle a laugh. She grinned internally as it drew an angry reaction out of the girl. Two could play at this game, couldn't they?

"Nancy," The man pointed out, seemingly done with this whole interaction although his expression revealed that it was slightly amusing to watch. "Please. Drop it. I love you, but she's got a good point, and I really want to go see our movie now. Please." Robin relished in this victory. It was a small one, but when your only source of income is coming from a movie theater - a win is a win.

The woman - Nancy, she assumed - wrinkled her nose. She looked a bit pissed off.

"Fine." She snatched the licorice out of Robin's hand, seemingly dragging the man she was with with her as she strode in the direction of one of the theaters.

Robin noted with a small hum that they were going inside the theater that was showing A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. Nancy's taste in candy might be shit, but at least she had a pretty reasonable taste in movies. If nothing else.

Robin went back to idly zoning out behind the register, pleased that she had at least one interesting thing happen today. Usually, it was a very boring and very slow couple of hours. She didn't even have any friends on her shift, or really anywhere in the theater! The only person who talked to her was her manager, and it was very clear that he was trying to get in her pants. She didn't know how to explain to him that she played for a different team without getting kicked out of her job.

But hey, it's all in a day's work for the fantastic Robin Buckley.

-

a/n

hi! i'm ghostie. i don't see a lot of ronance fics that are primarily ronance, so i've made it my personal burden to make this fic. it is most definitely obvious, but this fic is based off of the song '1980s Horror Film' by 'The Wallows.' 10/10 song, i would definitely recommend it.

thank you for reading! comments motivate me, so if you'd like to see another chapter than please let me know. <3