inspired by @flashyysins
Two days after Hawkins was almost split open, Robin saw a woman pacing in the hospital waiting room.
There were plenty of other people as well, sitting or standing or walking the length of the room in a similar pattern, but there was something about the woman that Robin noticed. It wasn't just that she was beautiful, which she was- it's that there was something familiar about her.
She was in blue jeans and an old-school Hawkins High Letterman jacket, light brown hair twisted up in a claw clip. Robin had never met her before, she'd remember that at the very least, but still.
Something about the angle of her nose or the gentle waves of her hair felt like something Robin had seen before, something she'd be able to find in a crowded room or across a street.
But Robin had somewhere to be, so she shook off the odd feeling, and followed the familiar path to Steve's room.
---
"Hey Stevie."
Steve's smile was tired, but he was looking more lively than when he'd passed out in the waiting room the other day, so she'd take it.
"Robbie, you left me hanging yesterday."
She snorted and dropped into one of the chairs by his bed, swinging her legs over the arm rest and cradling the bag she'd brought with her in her lap. "You're the one who fell asleep during visiting hours."
He rolled his eyes, and she happily noted the colour returning to his skin. "You should be exempt from visiting hours, you're like...essential to my recovery or something."
She laughed to hide the way those words curled soft and warm around her heart, eyes stinging until she blinked it away. The dumbass had almost over-worked himself to the point of no recovery. "'Exempt?' Someone's been reading a dictionary- did one of your children leave theirs behind?"
"Oh fuck you-"
They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Robin was startled to see the woman from the waiting room hovering behind a nurse.
"You have a new visitor Mr Harrington."
Even knee-deep in confused intrigue, Robin couldn't help but dramatically mouth Mr Harrington over her own shoulder, pleased at the face he pulled in retaliation.
And then the door shut, and Steve looked up to find the woman-from-the-waiting room standing at the end of the bed.
Robin saw his brain grind to a halt at the sight of her.
It was silent (well, as much as it could be in a hospital room, what with all the beeping and whirring) as they took each other in, and Robin slowly brought her knees in closer to her chest like it would shield her from the vague awkwardness chewing at her.
And then-
"Fucking hell, Eve." The woman breathed out, white knuckling the bar at the end of his bed.
At the same time, Steve's face scrunched up as he demanded: "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean 'what am I doing here'? You're in hospital!"
"I thought you were in New York!"
"Yeah and then I got a call from Hawkins General that my little brother was dying in a hospital bed! Thank you for keeping me as your emergency contact, by the way."
"Well-" Steve spluttered and then crossed his arms over his chest, wincing at the pressure on his injuries. "Obviously."
Several things clicked into place like undone locks. Steve had almost been too comfortable about "feminine" topics for as long as she'd been an active member of his life- and even slightly before.
(He'd once run out of Scoops to buy her pads when she'd started her period in the middle of a shift. At the time she'd figured he was just trying really hard to beat the still a douche-bag allegations.)
Then there were the sweaters that he wouldn't confess to the origin of, the jokes he'd make about Robin "not being the only woman in his life" that she'd thought were about Nancy Wheeler, the vehement denial that the rom-com collection in the theatre room were his.
And, while Robin hated to enforce gender stereotypes, he'd always had the kind of mean girl cattiness that was usually only forged in teenaged girls and merely rubbed off on others.
Of course Steve Harrington had a sister.
Now Robin understood why she'd seemed so familiar in the waiting room.
"What happened to you?"
Simultaneously, Robin and Steve shifted uncomfortably, meeting each others eyes and coming up blank on both ends.
Steve's sister swallowed, jaw clenched and lip quivering as she look back and forth between them. She seemed suddenly fragile, like Steve after a nightmare, or right before he'd collapsed in the waiting room after carrying Eddie inside.
Steve cracked first. "Lou-"
"Don't fucking lie to me, Stephen. This is the third time you've ended up in hospital since your senior year."
Steve blinked, startled. "How did you-"
"I'm your sister." She seethed, and Robin could see flickers of Steve with an axe in his hand in the arch of her shoulders. "You might have told the hospital not to call but I still have friends in this town. If that Hargrove asshole wasn't already dead-"
"Lou-"
"Don't-"
"It was a serial killer." Robin blurted, drawing Steve's sisters' attention to her. "I don't now if you heard about it, but someone was going around killing teenagers. It started with Chrissy Cunningham- she was a cheerleader? kind of cute in a preppy sort of way, but, um- she was killed in our friends living room and then he sort of got blamed for it because, I mean, it was pretty sketchy but he didn't do it! I promise, Eddie didn't- anyway, there was this whole witch hunt, and two more people died which just sort of made it worse for Eddie and a group of us were trying to, like, clear his name, you know? Because we knew he didn't do it and we didn't want him to get killed next, but then one of our other friends - this girl, Max, she's a riot - she was being targeted by the real killer so we came up with this...really stupid plan to catch the killer but everything went sort of tits up and Eddie and Steve both got, well-" She waved her hands at the bandage around Steve's throat and the bruising around his wrists from the vines. "And Max, she broke her elbow and her knee when she fell, and I think Dustin twisted his ankle? So now Max and Eddie and Steve are all in hospital and Dustin has these crutches that he doesn't want to use but, I mean, Steve always makes him because it's Steve, and we don't really know if Eddie's okay yet but no one's come to tell us he's not so we're still hopeful-"
"Robin."
Robin shut her mouth, and took a deep breath through her nose. Steve's sister was staring at her in the startled sort of awe that Robin was used to seeing when she got going. She had the lungs of a trumpet player, it wasn't hard for her to talk until she forgot where she'd started.
"You fought a serial killer?" Steve's sister - Lou? - asked, and Robin hysterically felt like she should offer up her seat.
Steve, bless him, only nodded. Lou stared, lips pressed into a thin line and nostrils flared slightly.
And then, quite abruptly, she was straightening her back and stepping around the bed to hold out a hand to Robin. "Louisa Harrington."
Robin blinked, and shook her hand. "Robin Buckley."
Louisa nodded, like that made sense, and smiled the same cupids-bow smile as her brother. "The best friend- it's good to meet the other half of my brothers brain. Clearly the better half, considering you aren't the one in the hospital bed."
Steve made an offended noise, and Robin grinned.
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"One True Love"
Solomon hated those three words.
To most people, they were considered the epitome of many a romantic plot; the neat and tidy way to wrap up a story and let the viewer know that the couple indeed loved each other very much, oftentimes ending with a "happily ever after".
To others, it was a goal. Something and someone to strive for. Your "One True Love". The only person in the world that was meant for you.
It made him sick.
What kind of goal was that? Why would anyone resign themselves to such a fate? Glorify it? Place it on the highest pedestal as the ultimate relationship to ever exist?
What kind of cruel joke would that be for an immortal?
He couldn't imagine it. Couldn't imagine never meeting and falling in love with his lovers past. He loved them, truly loved them, with all of his heart. Each and every one of them.
He could picture their faces. He could hear their voice. When he was alone in bed, and the darkness obscured his covers, he could imagine each and every one of them laying beside him.
He could feel the pain of losing them. Each new way his heart had shattered. An agony that he would forget each time his heart mended, a new loss now fresh and new and biting. Until it faded again. Until he began feeling normal again.
And then he met someone new.
And the exhilaration. The flirting and teasing and banter that made his heart race and face flush in spite of the aloof front he tried to put up, every single time.
The thrill of returned feelings, of first dates and subtle touches, of early stages that went by entirely too quickly, but always settled in to something much greater.
The comfort, the absolute comfort of someone who knew you. By far, his favorite part was the settling in to each other, no more firsts or surprises to be had, just a home to return to. A safe space, in the shape of a person who looked to him for the exact same things.
And then it would be over, and the cycle would repeat. Endlessly.
And while in many ways he hated it, hated the curse of immortality and the grief of losing every person he ever loved, who would he be if he hadn't loved them? Who would he be if his story had been one of "One True Love", destined to end when he himself could not?
He couldn't fathom it.
How twisted by grief would he have become? How bitter would he have been for millennia, witnessing generation after generation fall in love and die in turn? What kind of man would he have become?
He never thought himself much a romantic, but maybe he would have to reconsider that.
Because he couldn't live without love. He couldn't live without the feelings of accepting and being accepted by someone in the most simple yet intimate of ways. He couldn't live without the inside jokes whispered in crowded spaces with hands intertwined, or the evenings spent apart yet together in the same room, the mere presence of each other being enough.
And as he bore witness to new feelings blossoming, as he nurtured the familiar feeling in his chest, beating together with his heart, he realized...
...He couldn't live with "One True Love".
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ok but i actually have sm to say about qi rong's relationship with anger. i could honestly just link a fic i wrote about it here bc i think i worded it better there than i ever can again but my ao3 links to my main twt and i prefer to keep rp stuff separate from my personal stuff for reasons sooooo lemme try to write it differently
cw for mentions of domestic violence bc holy shit like 99% of his character traces back to that in some way
the key thing is, of course, that anger is a trauma response for qi rong. he has every reason to be fucking pissed at like, all times, but fundamentally, his anger is not rational. rage and violence are all he knows! his earliest childhood memories are of being abused and seeing his mother be abused! even when he got out of that, he and his mother were bullied and ostracized, and his mother was eventually murdered. violence and cruelty shape his early childhood and in turn shape who he is today (enabled in large part by the queen's reluctance to properly discipline him when he began exhibiting cruel behavior himself).
in many cases, it's about revenge--getting "even", though he usually takes it much farther than the original offense. his father was abusive? he'll delight in warring against people from the same town as him. the yong'an rebellion tore away the one good thing he had in his life--his royal status? he'll crush their entire royal & noble classes in a single night. xie lian fell off the pedestal he held him on, "failed" and "abandoned" him? unforgivable.
very often, it's simply lashing out. the world has been cruel to him, so he'll be cruel too.
mostly, though, his anger just keeps him going. if he doesn't have his anger, then what does he have? sadness, loneliness, despair, heartbreak, misery.
being a ghost adds another angle to it, too--he can't let go of his anger, even if he wants to. well, he could, but then he'd disappear, and he doesn't want that. not yet. it's his source of life. it's also his source of power! and it's easy to forget with how often the rest of the cast and the narrative itself dunks on him, but he has a lot of power. #4 in the entire ghost realm! a near-supreme, one successful furnace trip away from becoming a full-fledged ghost king!
just--imagine, for a moment, being him. an abused kid--powerless--who suddenly learns that he's actually a prince--powerful!--and then, before even reaching adulthood, his kingdom crumbles, and he eventually dies just as powerless as he started. and then all that resentment causes him to come back even more powerful than before. it's no wonder he leans into it.
idk this is getting long-winded but i guess what i'm trying to say is--his anger is both justified and overblown, it is both understandable and irrational, it is something he needs to hold onto no matter how much it hurts him. he is his anger.
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