Ronance Oneshots! (And other ST oneshots!)

Oneshot 10- "when tomorrow starts without me, do not think we're apart"

(Title from the poem "When tomorrow starts without me")
~~Movie nights are supposed to be comforting. Movie nights are supposed to help distract from a town in ruins, slowly getting back to normal. Movie nights are supposed to be a way to get together and forget about the inevitable return of Vecna. Movie nights are NOT supposed to be traumatic. Movie nights shouldn't have you looking death in the eye and screaming to be saved~~

WARNINGS: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH (Robin), Angst, Mild mention of gore, being shown a vision of friends being homophobic. Please don't read if you don't definitely want to! I sobbed writing this haha

Word count: 4,939

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Movie nights have admittedly, never been a more stressful concept. Robin didn't even think movie nights could be stressful. Granted, the few she had through childhood are ones she barely remembers and the only other ones she's ever had are with Steve in the past less than a year. But someone thought it would be a good way to connect and destress for a while, what with everything going on with Vecna being on pause. Every waking moment is spent helping with the town, visiting Max in the hospital, grieving, or getting no rest while anxiously waiting for something bad to happen. Even for the random Hawkins residents, life has been uneasy. The atmosphere of the town is grim, whether walking down the streets or driving through them. It's emptier now that people have left and those that have stayed are scared. A big 'earthquake' like this is devastating. People don't know how to cope.

Someone a few weeks ago finally suggested doing movie nights at Steve's place every few days. It could have been anyone. Robin wasn't exactly paying attention when it was suggested.

This week, it's only her, Steve, Nancy, Dustin, Mike, and Jonathan, who's sitting a lot closer to Nancy than Robin likes. Max has woken from her coma but is still in the hospital, and Lucas and El have barely left her side the entire time. They certainly won't leave now, anyways. The older adults are all getting back to things like jobs— Joyce as a new officer alongside Hopper, one of the few things to celebrate recently. Apparently the owner of Family Video fled Hawkins, and until a new owner is found, Robin and Steve are once again devoid of a job with the Upside Down and its creatures to blame. First the Mindflayer's awful rat-human creation. Now Vecna.

Steve comes back from the kitchen, having just been making some popcorn. He hands a bowl to Nancy before placing the other one on Dustin's lap, before flopping back down on the couch in between them. Dustin thanks Steve, smiling at him as he grabs the bowl. The smile doesn't reach his eyes like it used to, though it's understandable. The kid has been through a lot, and was one of the most hurt when Eddie died. It's hard to deal with. Nancy and Jonathan sit on another couch with Mike on the same one albeit at the very end of the couch away from them.

Shortly after Steve sits down, Robin gets up to put the chosen movie in— some old action movie she doesn't care about but Steve and Dustin picked and even Nancy was happy. She kneels next to the tv for a few seconds and waits for the movie to properly begin before standing back up. About to sit back down, she realizes there are no drinks out, and quickly asks if anyone wants a coke or anything from the fridge before making her way to the kitchen. She rummages through all the random drinks in the fridge to make sure she only grabs coke. When she's grabbed 6 cans and managed to balance them in her arms, she heads back to the living room.

It's oddly quiet when she enters. The movie is no longer playing and the tv is even turned off. Everyone else is watching her, and she hesitantly places all the cans down on the coffee table in the middle of the room. There's something that feels off, wrong, about the faces of her friends staring back at her, but she can't tell what. Did she do something to upset them?