#I'll even answer people asking for help relatively quickly unless it's something they need to open their eyes and read in a SOP somewhere

[novadreii]

I like to wait between 5 and 20 minutes to respond to people's team's messages at work, depending on who it is. This is to discourage the notion that I am immediately available (as I am supposed to be working after all), in order to encourage the creativity, problem-solving and self-reliance of my colleagues. I know, pretty big of me lol.

[onthepyre]

Steve's life is going to fall apart, he thinks.

Dustin's away at summer camp, Nancy's left for college two weeks early. He has a late shift at six, a house to return to that's emptier than usual, and a funeral to attend at eleven sharp tomorrow morning. His mother is writing a eulogy and his father is cold and pale in a box in some back room of the funeral home. He can't get the image out of his head.

At half past five, he shakes himself out of the stupor he's been sitting in. It's been at least twenty minutes since he's last moved, but really, who knows — all he's aware of is his aching back and the sharp pain in his neck from the hunched position he'd assumed at the kitchen table. Steve's car keys have left an imprint on his hand. He'd forgotten he was holding them. The Family Video vest is in his car, tossed haphazardly over the dash, and he shrugs it on over his gray polo before he pulls out of the driveway. Robin's house isn't far, something he's glad for. Less time he has to spend alone. Maybe she won't notice how tired he looks in the quickly dimming light.

She does. It's Robin, after all. Steve can't hide much from her.

"Hey, Stevie," she says as she slides into the passenger seat. Her voice is gentle, the way she might speak to an injured cat. "How are you doing?"

"It’s pretty bad," he tells her, and it feels like he's confessing to a crime. "I didn't get out of bed until, like, two hours ago and I still want to go back to sleep."

"Yeah?" she asks. He can tell she isn't sure what else to say.

"Yeah."

"I'm really sorry. I know that's pretty much the least helpful, most generic thing I could say, but I mean it. I can’t imagine how… how hard it must be."

There's a long pause. Steve starts thinking they're just going to drive in silence for the rest of the time, which is weird, especially for Robin. It makes him want to cry, sort of — that she, of all people, can't find anything to say to him. Inadvertently, he grips the wheel tighter.

"We'll close early," she says finally, timid in a way she usually isn't. "Keith can suck my dick, I don't care. He'll get over it. And we'll go get ice cream, if you want, and then I'll come stay over. If that's alright."

"Yeah," Steve answers, and God, there are tears in his eyes. "That would be great." He's careful not to let his voice catch.

"I'm thinking 8:00 — we'll start shutting down at 7:30 and be out by a quarter past. Then we've got almost an hour until Dairy Queen closes, unless you want to go somewhere else?" Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see Robin twisting one of the rings on her left hand. Like a gut-punch, he knows it's the shitty tin band, the one he'd gotten out of a quarter machine at the arcade and fake-proposed to her with. She hadn't taken it off since that day.

Steve pulls into the parking lot, and turns to her once he's parked the car. She's still fiddling with the ring, so he reaches over to take her hand.

"Rob, listen," he says. "I'm not gonna fall apart. I'll be okay." He can tell that they both know it isn't true.

"You don't have to be," she tells him, and through slightly blurry vision, Steve can tell she's tearing up, too. "You can fall apart, it's all right. We'll put you back together. I'll be here the whole time."

Steve isn't sure why it's a problem, but he needs to make sure Robin doesn't see him cry. He gets out of the car and turns away. He can hear her, four feet away, doing the same.

———

The shift, short as it is, passes slowly and in relative quiet. Robin feels too far away, but the little bit of stability they've found since getting out of the car is fragile, winding between them like a spiderweb. If Steve reaches out, he'll break it.

They follow her schedule exactly, locking the door behind them at 8:15 — two hours before they're supposed to. Steve isn't one to get worked up about things like this, but he's even less worried than he usually would be. Nobody ever comes in on Thursday nights. The only people that will know are him and Robin.

"So, Dairy Queen?" she asks as she opens the door. "Or do you want to go somewhere else?"

"Dairy Queen is fine," he tells her. Nothing will really make him feel better, he thinks, but ice cream can't hurt.

The drive isn't long, but it feels like it. Steve can hardly stand whatever version of Robin this is, the one that's treating him like he's about to crumble at any second. She's right, but that's part of the reason it's getting to him so much. If the silence was unfounded, it wouldn't hurt so bad.

She insists on paying, and Steve almost can't stomach the sweetness of the Oreos. Robin gets M&Ms so he can pick at hers, too.

"So, how's band been going?" Steve asks, just to break the quiet.

Robin tilts her head a little. There's pity in her eyes.

"Pretty good," she says slowly. "The directors always get super uptight around concert season, so that's starting to kick in. We just got our last piece. It's this stupid hard classical thing — Stravinsky, I think — fuckin' Russians. It would be awesome, though, if we could play it right."

This is the Robin he knows. Fuckin' Russians, he thinks. It makes him smile.

"That's great. What's it about?"

"Oh, I have no idea," Robin says with a grin. "It’s from the Firebird, and it has something to do with hell, and it's impossible to play."

"I'll have to come to the concert." Steve holds her eye for a second, but when it goes on too long and her smile shifts to an expression of sympathy, he turns his gaze down into his blizzard.

"Steve…" she starts, but she leaves it there, reaching across the table.

"Can we go?" He squeezes her hand and she does the same.

"Yeah, of course. Come on, we can go straight to sleep if you want."

They do — or they try to. As soon as they're home and settled, Robin in a pair of shorts she'd left there and one of Steve's old shirts, Steve much the same, they spread out blankets on the floor of his room and try to sleep. Robin's presence is a comfort, but not enough for Steve to get the coffin out of his head.

"Can you talk?" Steve asks, rolling over in his bed to face her in the dark. "About anything you want, I don't care. Just say something. Ramble."

She reaches up to put a hand on the bed, and he places his on top.

"I love you," Robin begins. "The other day, I learned that a quarter of the world's population has tuberculosis. Well, not has, like they're sick with it, but they have the bacteria in them. That's insane. Tuberculosis is up there with rabies for me, you know? There's a new outbreak of it that's resistant to the treatments, and I know it's not likely we'd get it here in Hawkins, but man, it would suck so much. Especially if it was one of those drug resistant strains. We'd end up sad little waifs like in the Victorian era and we'd die a slow death and there would be nothing they could do."

"I love you," Steve responds. "Can you come up here, Rob?"

"Yeah, for sure."

Robin stands up and climbs into bed next to him. He can make out the shape of her, squinting at him. Neither moves for a moment.

"How are you holding up?" she asks.

Only then, in the darkness, does Steve let himself fall apart.

It comes on slowly, but he knows it's coming as soon as she asks. He can't speak around the lump in his throat, so he just sits there fighting tears until she reaches out and pulls him into her chest. He breaks then. He sobs in Robin's arms for a while as she rubs his back and whispers reassurances to him. He feels like a little kid.

"Sorry," he gets out as it starts to die down.

"Shh." She buries her face in his hair. "Don't. It's alright. I'm not going anywhere, Stevie. This is what I'm here for."

Steve is hit with another wave of tears, this time a mixture of grief and gratitude. Robin, true to her word, stays. She holds him tighter still as he clutches her like she's the only thing keeping him tethered.

"I love you," she says under her breath. "I love you. It's alright. I'm here. I love you. I've got you. I love you."

She keeps going like that endlessly, quietly, into the top of Steve's head. Only when the sobs have slowed to sniffles does Robin stop, and even then, she keeps running her hands across his back, occasionally punctuated by a kiss pressed to his hair. There, cradled like a toddler against her chest, Steve starts to put himself back together. They fall asleep like that, intertwined, at home.