#Stevie Henderson

[formosusiniquis]

Robin's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Your Newly Adopted Former Mean Girl

Happy @stevieweek everybody! This is Day One: Stobin with none of the bonus prompts, but keep an eye out cause i've got a few more incoming this week.

Robin Buckley & Stevie Harrington; Pre-Stevie Harrington/Eddie Munson WC: 9483 | T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Tags/Themes: transfem!Steve Harrington; Platonic Soulmates Steve & Robin; Robin Buckley is the Stevie Harrington Defense Squad

AO3

On July 4th, 1985, Steven Joseph Harrington died in the Starcourt Mall Fire. 

The story Robin Marie Buckley tells, after two weeks of hospitalization and an additional month in Indianapolis for “personal reasons,” when she returns to her senior year at Hawkins High a full week after the first day of school is one of abject heroism on the part of Steve.

It’s true, even if it isn’t the whole story. Just like it isn’t hard for her to play morose and avoidant, because that’s how she feels. She might know Dustin, but it’s too hard to spend much time with him and she doesn’t want to be the weird friendless senior who only talks to freshmen. She’ll leave that to Eddie Munson, who snatched Steve’s weird little child friends up only a few weeks into the first semester. 

Nancy and Jonathan avoid her as much as she does them, she doesn’t think they know what to do with the new girl in the know. It paints a picture, well she realizes later that it paints a picture, but she doesn’t want to sit at a table and eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Nancy Wheeler’s big beautiful eyes are staring at her like she’s an article that’s half an inch too long and needs to be dissected while Jonathan Byers is also there.

So she drifts through the halls of Hawkins High like a ghost, she’s Cathy on the moors. Avoiding anyone who might try to ask her too many questions about the final days of Steve Harrington and Starcourt Mall.

Until the day she spots a baby blue jeep pulled into the Henderson’s driveway, a tall brunette unloading a single suitcase from the back. She’s got her bike across the road before she can even think of a game plan. A noise that’s almost like a scream erupting from her mouth the entire time she coasts over.

“You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!” It’s an uncharacteristic bit of grace, that lets her drop her bike to the ground and use its momentum to catapult herself into the other girl’s arms. Too excited for a second to remember that she’s in a place where small town gossip exists, and a new neighbor can fuel the mill for days.

But she enjoys her hug for a second before settling into a more appropriate character. She extends a hand, ignoring the laugh it gets her, “Welcome to Hawkins, I’m Robin, occasional Dustin babysitter.”

The girl’s smile pulls lopsided at her mouth, kissed with a bit of irony and undeniably charmed. “It’s nice to meet you Robin,” her voice is soft, and a little unsure. Wavering like Becky Simpson’s tone deaf oboe playing, unsure of what pitch and timbre to land on. “I’m Stephanie Henderson, Dustin’s cousin.”

The bit crumbles immediately between Robin’s fingers.

“Stephanie? You went with Stephanie? Are you kidding? We workshopped so many names!”

“I liked my name! But it’s weird apparently to be a girl named Steve.” She distributes finger quotes randomly throughout the sentence like Robin hadn’t been the one to say she didn’t know any girls named Steve. “Stephanie is pretty!”

Robin looks her best friend dead in the eye, unsurprised that there’s not a hint of humor even underneath the drama. “Never mind that it sure would be strange for Steve Harrington to die just for girl Steve who looks like she could be his cousin to move to town.”

“Affair baby,” Stephanie presents the solution with a flick of her hand. Robin notices that her nails are still chewed short, more noticeable  after they talked about what it would be like for her to grow them out and manicure them.

“Give me the whole name right now,” Robin demands, “I wanna hear how it sounds.”

Steph, cause they’re going to have to figure out nicknames immediately they just aren’t the kind of friends that can go around being Robin and Stephanie, kicks the curb with her scuffed up Nike. Her arms crossed across her middle accentuates the way her body has already started changing, Robin feels like a creep for a second for noticing her friend’s boobs before deciding that they weren’t the kind of friends with those kinds of boundaries.

“Stephanie Marie Henderson.”

“Oh my god!”

“Shut up, don’t even.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“You’re already making a big deal out of it, which it’s not.” Stevie insists.

“You stole my middle name, you’re so obsessed with me.” It’s the best thing she’s ever heard actually, that Stevie might be as into this friendship as she is. She’s always the friend that’s too much.

Stevie’s smile is small, shier than she’s used to seeing it. “Yeah well whatever Stephanie Robin sounds like a straight to VHS Winnie the Pooh movie character or some shit.”

Dustin comes scrambling out of the house before Robin can make another joke. “You were supposed to call before you left! Ma isn’t finished setting up your room, and Tews is stuck under your bed.”

They share a look, and Robin thrills a little that she has a friend that she can share looks with. “Henderson,” Stevie shouts, sounding a little more like she did this summer. “Are you really going to make me carry my own bags in? I'm a fucking lady, dickhead.”

“Sure don't fucking talk like one,” Dustin hollers back from the door, already trudging out of the house.

“Gonna have to work on your feminism,” Robin says. wondering what kind of weird shit a person would have to sort through when they realized they were transsexual. “Just because you're on estrogen doesn't mean your arms are atrophied.”

The butter-wouldn't-melt smile is still the same, even though her face looks softer. She hands off her suitcase, patting Dustin on the head as he visibly stumbles under the weight. “Don't drag it on the sidewalk, it's new,” she directs. 

He can't flip them off when it takes both hands to lift the luggage in his hand, “How are you more of an asshole, oh my god.”

“Is that anyway to talk to your cousin, Dustbunny?”

Dustin doesn't answer directly, but he's muttering under his breath the whole way to the house. 

“My ribs still hurt some when I'm doing heavy lifting,” Stevie says when he's out of earshot. “Better to be a high maintenance girl all of a sudden than someone he doesn't think he can count on.”

“Don't love the way you used girl in that sentence, Dingus.” Robin shoves at her shoulder, “Let's go look at your room, we can plan how you want to decorate.”

“I'm not saying I'm upset we got the job, Rob, just that it's weird the way Keith was acting. He always hated me, you know that. Before all this,” she gestures down her striped top, well Robin supposes she’s actually gesturing down at the way it hugs her figure, “he hated me. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire.”

“That seems a little dramatic, but welcome to your first workplace sexism.” Robin gives Stevie a comforting pat. Hopeful that it communicates a ‘welcome to the bad parts of everyone knowing you're a girl’ and not how she’d been prepared to work some of that sexism to their advantage. But apparently Keith was charmed by Stevie’s list of favorite films, he’d even laughed when she said her favorite Star Wars movie was the one with the teddy bears. When they’d gone to pick out movies last week she’d heard him lecture a guy for five minutes on how it was Episode VI not ‘the third one.’

Stevie flips her hair, sending Robin a playful glare, “I’ve experienced sexism, thank you, have you already forgotten what I used to look like.”

“I’m sure he’ll go back to hating you once he realizes you working here is going to mean this is one more place that Henderson and the brats are always hanging around.” She went with Stevie to the arcade once and she almost understood why Keith always hid in the back when they walked in. 

“Probably, but at least then I can stop being nice to him. He’s such a-” Robin can hear the way Stevie swallows the rest of the sentence. A frustrated, red blush flooding her cheeks as she bites down on her bottom lip. It’s confusing, the small shake of her head and how upset she suddenly seems to be with herself. “Sorry, sorry, never mind.”

Maybe it’s stupid, but for some reason that’s when Robin realizes that Stevie was about to say something mean. That Stevie stopped herself but she is, Robin supposes, frustrated that the instinct is still there. And it’s not like Robin doesn’t remember that they’ve talked about this before. Stevie with that eyepatch on from where they reattached her retina and Robin laying in the hospital bed next to her still under doctor’s supervision. Neither one of them were high anymore, it had been almost sixteen hours since Everything, they were only in the hospital at all because Robin’s mom had found them both passed out in her bed and panicked. When Mrs. Henderson had seen them both in Hawkins General and did what Stevie said was panicking and had them shipped to the city, her car speeding closely behind.

The only thing they could possibly be high on was the sudden crushing awareness of their own mortality, when Stevie’s one good eye locked with hers and she said, “I don’t want the first thing people think of when they remember me to be how I was a douche or an asshole. Or a bitch, I guess, if they actually let me change like they said they would.

“All the girls I know,” she paused and seemed to consider that, “all the girls that I still like, are good and kind and badass.”

“Including me?” Robin had teased, but she had remembered the way she had given Stevie such a hard time from the second they started working together until the moment they as the ‘adults’ realized they were going to have to protect Dustin and Erica from something that might kill them all.

“Especially you.”

So yeah, of course, when she catches herself about to verbally eviscerate Keith behind his back two weeks after being back in town she shuts down. But Robin isn’t about to let that happen. Stevie is good and kind and definitely a badass, if Keith were in trouble she would absolutely risk her life to save him -- as long as saving him didn’t keep her from saving one of the kids. 

Stevie was a good person who had some mean girl tendencies, Robin wasn’t going to make her feel bad about that. As long as she was using her powers for good, or like Claire in the Breakfast Club she was kind of Mean Girl lite.

“He’s kind of a slimy creep,” Robin admits. The kind of comment she thinks, but couldn’t ever really say with her last group of friends. It would break the loser code.

Stevie’s shoulders drop from around her ears. She’s still idly picking at the nail polish they just painted on her thumb, but she smiles over at Robin. A little sly, a little catty. “He touched my shoulder while we were leaving and I swear to god he left orange cheese puff residue behind.”

“Maybe half of your new clothes shouldn’t be dry clean only.”

“ Maybe he should help cover my dry cleaning bill if he’s going to put his hands on me in the workplace. I could call Family Video HR, probably. You know his dad owns like half of this strip mall, and people gave me shit about having money, I’m pretty sure they own the dry cleaning place too.”

“So why do these polyester nightmares smell like the BO of employees past?”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

With the job and Stevie back, Robin almost forgets that she spent the first three weeks of school sad and miserable. She’s maybe even a little distracted that they have plans tonight, and forgets that there are reasons other than the threat of bacterial infection to avoid the girl’s room in the language hallway. And more than any of that, it’s really hard to think about any of that when she can feel her bladder starting to pickle her brain.

The door to the bathroom swings open before she can exit the stall. Voices she recognizes as Patty Taylor and Molly Smith already mid-conversation filter in. “I mean she’s pretty, like really pretty, but I mean why would you even move to Hawkins.”

It’s definitely too late to leave.

“Carol said that she heard from Heather that she moved in with her aunt, she was from the city or something.”

The squelching sound of a lipgloss wand leaving the tube is punctuated by a bitchy hum, “Well, you know who spent all that time in the city this summer.”

“I mean yeah, but how would they have even met? I’ve heard like six different stories about why she was there.”

Patty’s voice echoes, through the crack in the stall door Robin can see her lean over top of the sink putting her face even closer to the water spotted mirror above it. “Well she was in that mall fire, but I heard she had to stay so long after initial treatment because she…”

There must be some facial expression she’s missing, Patty trails off like she’s dropped some grand secret. Robin isn’t a total loser, she hears gossip. She knows that Mrs. Click is going through a bitter divorce from her husband because he had that affair with the gas station attendant from the Chevron by the highway. She knows that Tim Morris got sent to military school after he put a cherry bomb in Mrs. O’Leary’s mailbox. She knows that Vickie is definitely a shoo-in for clarinet first chair even though Michael Lewis had it last year and he’s a senior this year.

And yeah okay two of those she had heard from Stevie.

But she thinks she should have had some clue that there was some kind of rumor going around about her. Molly wrinkles her forehead, maybe she isn’t the only one who has no clue about this rumor. “Because she what?”

“Because she lost the baby and they put her in the psych ward,” Patty says loud enough that it bounces off the tile walls of the bathroom. A hand covers her mouth and they both look around like they’ve just remembered that they’re in public. Robin pulls her feet up on the toilet seat with her.

“What baby?” Molly asks in a whisper that seems even louder with the way she forces it out.

“Come on, everyone knows the reason she was so upset that Steve died. He knocked her up while they were working together and with the stress she lost the baby. She was such a freak already, the new girl and her must have been in the same padded cell in the loony bin.”

“Really? I mean with Steve Harrington? ”

“I mean Carol said it so I’m pretty sure it has to be true, you know how close she used to be with Steve.” 

The bell rings, sending them both fleeing from the bathroom with muttered curses. Robin stays in the stall too stunned by what she’s heard to move. Stunned and filled with the thought that all she wants right now is to see Stevie.

She bumps into Eddie Munson on the way to the payphone. He gives her an unreadable look, mostly eyebrows that she can’t see beneath his bangs anyway, so she isn’t sure why he even bothers. Is he wondering why she’s skipping class? Or did he see her running from the bathroom and now he’s wondering if maybe the rumors were only partially true, that she’s still pregnant and she hadn’t lost the baby like apparently half the school thinks.

If a wet rat like Munson knows more about her status in the school than she does she really might have to go back and hurl.

She puts in her change and dials the increasingly familiar number for the Henderson place.

“Hen-”

“I need you to come pick me up, now.”

It isn’t hard to convince the school nurse, who’s more worried about when she can slip away to sneak her next cigarette than she is about doing any nursing, that she’s too sick to stay. So she’s waiting out front when Stevie’s new Jeep rockets into the parking lot, the woman of the hour flinging herself out of it before it’s fully in park. 

“What happened? What’s wrong? The kids are fine right?” She’s pressing the back of her hand to Robin’s forehead, the other at her side clenching into fists as she looks over Robin’s head for any creature or person that might need to be put down.

“Everything’s fine,” she lies, “I needed to see you.”

A single eyebrow raises, Robin helped her pluck that eyebrow into that arch and now it’s being used in disbelief at her own blatant lie. “Fine,” she relents, “I’ll tell you when we aren’t standing in the middle of the parking lot, okay?”

The radio is off but so are the doors, so even as Robin refuses to talk the sound of the wind rushing past them fills the silence of the car. With no destination in mind, Stevie seems to be driving a slow meandering circuit of Hawkins.

“I overheard Patty and Molly talking about us in the bathroom today.” She says only after they’ve passed Melvalds twice with no sign of parking.

“They were talking in the bathroom about us or they were talking about us in the bathroom.”

“That’s the same sentence twice.”

“No it’s not. In the bathroom or in the bathroom.” The emphasis is nonsensical, but after a second it clicks.

“They were in the bathroom. I guess I was also in the bathroom but it was definitely not about our bathroom conversation.”

“What were they saying?” Stevie noses out gossip like a search dog noses out missing kids.

Robin sticks her hand out the side of the car, dancing it up and down in the wind like a wave. Letting the force of it glide up and over her like she wishes she could just get over whatever it is that has her so upset. Gossip and rumor that she knows isn’t true.

“Technically you got to be two characters. They think we know each other from the psych ward because boy you got me pregnant and when you died I lost the baby and went crazy.”

Her seatbelt catches her hard against the chest, forcing the air out of her lungs. Stevie’s hit the brakes so hard that the smell of rubber is in the air, uncaring that they’re in the middle of a main road. She’s just looking at Robin with something, disbelief or outrage, maybe a little bit of that rage she gets when her people have been hurt.

“Patty said that? Patty Taylor? Patty with the retainer breath whose lipgloss makes it look like she’s always drooling on herself, Patty?”

A nod is enough answer for Stevie to let out a little humph, setting her eyes back to the road and easing them into drive like they’d just been caught by a stray redlight.

“What?” 

She shakes her head, gazing around the upcoming turn like they don’t both know it’ll be the rundown place that used to be Benny’s. It’s going to be something mean, something she’s worried will make her sound too much like the person she used to be.

As far as Robin is concerned whatever it is won’t be any different than when she swung that phone at that Russian guard. Or crashed that car into Billy’s. It’s all just different ways of helping to protect the people she loves that aren’t as good at protecting themselves.

“Tell me,” she insists, wheedles even. “Whatever it is I won’t tell anyone else. It’s time honored girl code you have to tell me.”

“Girl code?”

“I’ll mimeo you a copy of the handbook, tell me. It’ll make me feel better.”

Stevie’s sigh is audible over the wind rushing past them, her side eye not bad enough that Robin is at all worried about it. “I just think it’s funny that she’s passing judgment on you and your possible pregnancy when everyone knows she’s banned from the U of I campus because she went streaking to impress a guy that wasn’t even interested in her. The only reason she doesn’t have an arrest record for it is because her dad is a former professor or donor or something and threatened funding if the Dean pressed charges.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“Totally, the guy was on the basketball team. He came back and told everyone when he came home for the pre-season kegger.”

She grabs Stevie’s hand off the gearshift, holds it just because she can. Relishes in the closeness the two of them can have now that she’s back and everything is better again. “You are the strongest woman I know, all this knowledge and you just keep it to yourself all the time.”

She snorts, squeezing Robin’s hand, “I literally don’t, I just told you something. Pretty sure that’s like if I had the nuclear launch codes or something and I gave them out to just one person because they’re having a really bad day.”

“Oh! Do you remember doing those stupid duck and cover drills in elementary school?”

“Oh that's really nice of you, Mrs. Buckley, but Aunt Claudia is expecting me home for dinner.” Stevie's voice calls from outside the door, only a surprise because they didn't have plans to hang out today.

She scrambles from her bed, the wire on her headphones tangling around her neck until the weight of her walkman drags them off her. Flinging the door open she's just in time to save her best friend. “Thanks for bringing her up, Mom, we’re just gonna hang out in my room til Steph has to leave, okay?”

Shoving Stevie toward the bed before her Mom has a chance to say anything else, Robin at least smiles before she shuts the door in her mother’s face.

“What happened?”

Stevie is digging through her jewelry box, has a ring Robin picked up at a garage sale because it looked cool and didn’t think about trying on, and doesn’t bother looking ashamed at being caught snooping. “Why does something have to be wrong?”

She slips the ring on her finger, the gold band and mossy green stone looks better on her than it would have Robin. “You can keep it if you admit something happened.” Stevie starts to raise an eyebrow, but it halts half way up her forehead when Robin gives the Family Video vest she’s still wearing a tug.

Her smile goes lopsided, tilts too high on one side before she wanders over to flop down on the bed. “I, maybe, did something stupid.”

Flopping down beside her, Robin swears when she lands on her walkman first. “Stupid like when you put Re-Animator in the romance section or stupid like when you tripped into the Back to the Future cutout and apologized cause you weren't wearing your glasses.”

“Stupid like I don't know, Rob, you know how at first I was pretending that I didn't know anyone when they came in right, cause I'm supposed to be new in town.”

“Like bad witness protection because they put you right back where you left.”

“Right, well I kinda forgot to do that this morning when I was working by myself?”

Looking now she can tell this is something that has had Stevie really worked up. The strands of hair at the front of her face have lost some of their beachy wave from where she's been fussing with it, pushing it back, tugging at it. Waiting for when she saw Robin again.

Sitting up from the bed, she grabs Stevie's hand in a too tight grip. “What happened? You're okay right? They didn't recognize you and do anything shitty, right?”

“Well that's the thing,” she somehow looks even more distressed, it gives Robin another clue. Stevie is afraid she's broken some unspoken rule of girlhood by doing whatever it is she's done. Which means the story will be interesting.

“So Roger came in, you know Roger right? Second stringer on the basketball team, his footwork was too slow to ever actually be any good on the court but he had an amazing three pointer as long as no one was ever anywhere near him. So he'd make a great professional HORSE player but not really going anywhere with the actual game. He came in with his girlfriend-”

“Mindy Peterson.”

“Right, and when did they even get together?” She shakes her head. “Not the point, I was flipping through the Tiger Beat that Cindy left in the drawer after her shift, cause this months Car and Driver was a total waste of money. And he wanders up, surprising me cause the bell over the door still doesn't work and I thought I was alone in there. He starts talking to me like he already knows me.”

“He was flirting with you in front of his girlfriend!”

“That wasn't flirting, he was just being friendly; and I didn't know Mindy was there, she was back in the romance section picking something out.”

“So he's flirting with you while his girlfriend is picking out something for date night.”

Stevie rolls her eyes, shoving not so gently at Robin's shoulder. “He was talking to me like he already knew me, and I do know him so I did the same. I mentioned the last game he played in, well we played in. And then he starts looking at me and I realized what I look like.”

She gestures down at herself, and Robin isn't sure if this is a compliment time or a diffuse the situation time. Stevie really doesn't look that much like she used to. Her face has softened, her hair is longer, and she's leaned into the blonde highlights that she had in the summer.

“He's all ‘Do I know you?’” She continues, and Robin laughs, it's crazy how deep she can still get her voice and even though Roger does not have anything approaching the bass that Stevie has given him. It makes the situation feel even more bizarre. “it's not like I can say, ‘What you don't recognize me from all the times I gave you advice on how to keep yourself open on offense so you could actually get a hand on the ball?’”

Robin reaches for the nail polish on her bedside table, the robin's egg blue Stevie has taken to and the taupe brown that she likes but doesn't clash with Stevie's. They both pick at their nails when they get nervous, and Stevie has definitely been nervous.

“You could have said that,” she says just to be contrary, Stevie hand held in hers it means Robin avoids the smack that would have come.

She puts blue on every finger but one, letting Stevie think as she caps the polish and grabs the taupe to finish the hand. “Hi remember me, I faked my death so I could get boobies without getting murdered in the pumpkin patch I already avoided almost dying in once. Did you know they give you a new social security number for that?”

“So what did you actually do?”

“I lied, obviously.” She blinks twice, opens her eyes wider so she looks doe-eyed and vacant. “Oh gosh, well I guess you wouldn’t remember me. I used to only come to Hawkins during the holidays to babysit my little cousin, and I always try to catch a basketball game when I’m in town. Sometimes I’d sneak out and go to the parties, but I’m shy so...”

“Oh my god, like you’ve ever been shy in your life.”

“I’m going to have to be now!” She throws her hands up, fingers spread wide to avoid accidentally smudging her fresh nails. “It’s not like I can lie my way out of admitting to sharing homeroom with someone next. I’m just lucky Roger’s never took his eyes off the bottom button of my blouse.”

“Do you remember that movie I made you watch a couple months ago, the black and white one?”

“Oh yeah, that really narrows it down.”

“Gaslight, the one with the opera singer’s niece and her new husband tries to make her think she’s crazy. We just lie until everyone is convinced that it’s the truth.”

“The truth being that Stephanie Henderson always existed?”

Eye contact isn’t easy, unless it’s Stevie. They hold each other’s gaze as the excitement bubbles between them. “Exactly,” Robin says, “and that if they think anything else, they’re crazy.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She says, but it sounds like ‘you’re on.’

“Can I be a bitch for a second?” Stevie asks. She doesn’t look up from whatever magazine she was already flipping through when Robin walked through the door. It’s too casual, too calculated.

Progress has been slow but she’s slowly getting Stevie to the point where she doesn’t feel like she has to be nice all the time just because she’s a girl. Where she still acts like the bitchy dingus she'd been before, just a happier version.  

“Obviously, just let me clock in.”

When she gets back Stevie has a stack of returns that she’s working on rewinding. One thumb in her mouth as she chews at the cuticle. “So what’s-?

“If I hear one more word about Eddie the Freak, I’m going to lose it, Rob. I mean what’s he got that’s so great? I could have taken us to the All State Championships if I hadn’t gotten that last concussion saving the twerps. I’ve saved all those twerps’ lives at least two times! I was cool. I am cool! But all I get to hear these days is ‘Oh, Stevie, Eddie just did the coolest thing in the campaign today.’ ‘Thanks for the advice, Stevie, but I’m going to go with what Eddie said instead.’ ‘I know it’s your only day off, Stevie, but could you pick us up late after school? There's Hellfire today.’ ‘Stevie, since Keith actually likes you could you hold Ladyhawke for us. Oh, no we’re going to do a movie night with Eddie.’”

She’s panting slightly when she’s finished, like she’s been holding this in for weeks. With all the quotes she’s racked up she probably has been.

“You know he kicked my tray off the lunch table last week,” she encourages. She snags a box of Sour Patch Kids from the candy counter. Popping one in her mouth before waving the bag under Stevie’s frowning face. She doesn’t even have a movie turned on. Well she does, but it looks like it was one of the weekend returns Stevie wasn’t going to put on Watership Down.

“Well he’s inconsiderate,” Stevie says, digging around in the box until she finds a red one and popping it into her mouth. “Everything is all fuck the man until he’s the man in question and then he’s the only one anyone should listen to about anything. Lucas is going to make the basketball team, he’s been working really hard on it with Jay and some of the other guys on the team.”

She’s basically taken the whole box of candy at this point. Robin doesn’t even care, just watches as Stevie picks out her favorite colors and lines them up on her magazine on the counter like a sweet and sour army. Completely oblivious to the quiet devastation that’s playing out on her face. Her brow furrowed and tight when she talks about Lucas, basketball another thing Robin wonders if she’s being unintentionally left out of.

“I just know Munson’s going to turn it into some us or them thing, like it isn’t possible to like more than one thing.”

“Maybe you-”

“And maybe that’s why they’ve been so cool with all of this,” she shrugs her shoulder in place of gesturing down at herself, too busy tearing apart a lone sourpatch general, “like it was a send off before they moved on to an actual guy who can actually do something for them. That’s probably a better send off than I deserve even right, like I mean, the kind of person I used to be. Maybe I don’t get more than one happy thing.”

Robin flattens the little red and green army underneath the flat of her hand, “Absolutely not. You are not going to let a… a… a dumpster raccoon with Mrs. Goble’s mystery meat on the bottom of his stupid shoes make you think that you don’t deserve the entire world.”

“But-” Stevie tears at the cardboard of the box between her fingers, leaving little pieces of it on the floor between her feet.

“But nothing, your little shithead kids might have latched onto the first giant nerd that looked at them when they crossed through the doors of the high school like freshly hatched ducklings but you’re the coolest person they’ve ever had the chance to meet and it’s their loss if they don’t notice.”

“I mean they’re in high school so-”

“So they’ve decided to get all the stupid decisions out at the start. It’s a bold decision but maybe that will keep them from-”

“From crashing their dad’s truck into half the cars at prom?”

“I wish one of them had been yours,” she steals the last red Sour Patch from between Stevie’s fingers, popping it into her mouth before her best friend can do anything about it.

“You’re never going to pass your driver’s test, I hope you like the bus.”

“You’re going to drive me to work forever because you love me,” she drags love out as she dances away from Stevie’s slapping hands, snagging a stack of tapes to return to the shelves as she goes.

There’s no way Stevie isn’t rolling her eyes, but Robin also knows that she’ll look all soft and pleased. Knows because a yellow candy smacks hard against the copy of The Breakfast Club that’s right beside her head.

“What the hell is going on with that rabbit?”

“Pretty sure it’s proof that you should never be trusted to pick the shift movie.”

“Stevie’s being a total headcase this week, will you tell her to chill out,” Henderson delivers what Robin is going to generously call a request after cornering her between fourth and fifth periods. Cause if it isn’t a request then it’s an order or a demand, and her small friend is not going to be happy with what she has to say in that case.

“Well that depends, Dusty, why are you calling my best friend a headcase?”

He rolls his eyes at her, a trait that Stevie might put up with but Robin is not about to. “Because she’s being one, every time I try to talk to her it’s like…” he trails off. That’s probably for the best.

“It’s like all you can talk about is your new best friend Eddie? It’s like you aren’t interested in her now that you’ve got some new brother that you can hang out with instead? It’s like all she’s good for is a ride to see the boys? It’s like you can’t ask her how to talk to girls anymore or how you should do your hair because she’s not the same anymore.”

“I didn’t say that,” he shrieks, hands waving between them like he can swipe away the thousand bees that are her accusations. She feels stinging mad actually now that she’s started putting words out there for the things that she’s feeling.

“You don’t have to say it, it’s what you’ve been doing.”

“Did she say that?” Robin gently swings her locker door just shy of closed. Dustin looks younger than she thinks she’s seen him since the first time they met. Looks smaller than she’s seen him in her life. Looking up at her with big watery eyes, waiting for her to make it okay.

Stevie’s gonna be pissed if she doesn’t at least try to make it okay.

She picks each word carefully, not wanting him to feel completely off the hook, “She didn’t say it exactly like that.”

Dustin looks at the floor, his hat obscuring his face enough that she can’t tell if he’s followed through on the watery eyes to full crying. The ambiguity makes him easier to talk to for a second, now that she doesn’t have to worry about watching what his expression is doing.

“She’s still the same person who walked down the train tracks with a kid she barely knew looking for his runaway science experiment. She’s still the person who did your hair for the snowball. She’s the person who went hunting for Russian spies with you. She’s the person that would like to keep giving you terrible advice on how to date.”

His next breath is phlegmy and ragged. “It wasn’t terrible advice.”

“Right, right, your Moonchild Empress or whatever.”

Dustin hasn’t been quiet once in the entire time that she’s known him so Robin assumes the quiet means he’s done talking. Swinging her locker back open she goes back to what she was doing before he interrupted, which had, coincidentally been Stevie related. Deciding whether or not she was going to bring her copy Watership Down to work with her so Stevie could see what was up with the rabbits.

“They should meet.”

Robin had also been leaning toward introducing her to Fiver and Hazel, but she doesn't think that’s what Dustin means.

“Who should-”

“Stevie and Eddie,” he looks at her with a wide grin. An expression she recognizes from shortly before she found herself in an elevator to hell. Dustin thinks he's just had a good idea. “Stevie can see that Eddie's super cool, Eddie will stop- And once they know each other we can hang out all the time, why didn't I think of this before!”

It does occur to her that she could remind Dustin that Stevie existed before July of 1985. That she went to school here and definitely already knows Eddie, that's where half the problem comes from even. But then she thinks of how much fun their next sleepover will be, when Stevie has brand new things to hate and make fun of.

“Maybe you're right Dustin, maybe that is the problem.”

He pumps his fist in time with the warning bell. “This is going to be great, I can't believe I didn't already think of this.”

He's still talking to himself as he starts to scamper off to a class he's going to be late to. But she isn’t about to let him leave without making sure he took away the real lesson he was supposed to. “And pass along to your little friends that her new meds didn't lobotomize her brain or amputate her legs. She can still tell you how to talk to girls, she can still shoot a free throw, she can still show you how to change a tire after it's blown out on the interstate.”

Dustin's staying with the Wheelers, Claudia has the night shift which means she and Stevie have the whole house to themselves.

Robin is making herself at home in Stevie's room, moving extra quilts and pillows from the linen closet into a fort she's making on the floor. Because today is going to be the best bitch day in the world, once Stevie makes it home from playing chauffeur. Because today Stevie gave in and went to lunch and a movie with Dustin and his new best friend Eddie.

She keeps trying to imagine what Stevie will say. Maybe Munson dips his fries in syrup or something disgusting. Maybe he showed up to the movie in his nerd brigade shirt. Maybe he showed up thirty minutes late! And the Stevie in her head has devastating things to say about all of those things, but she knows none of them are right. She just can't manage the right amount of even toned bitchery that Stevie can, the clever double entendre that makes the person she's insulting look all the dumber for getting upset at the blatant quips.

“Did you really bike here, you weirdo? You know I would have picked you up.” Stevie's voice carries down the hallway, accented by the sound of her keys hitting the bowl by the door and her shoes getting picked up from the floor and set down in the shoe tree.

“You got that bike rack for the Jeep. I wanted to make sure it actually got some use.”

The answering laugh is the one Robin possessively thinks of as hers, a little ugly, high pitched and snorting. It makes it to the bedroom just a second before Stevies face. A face that's wearing the lipgloss with the glitter in it, the one she saves for when she's trying to impress someone or make them look at her mouth.

“You look nice?”

“Such a charmer, Rob, no wonder you've got so many girls banging down your door.” She eases herself down onto the floor beside Robin, smoothing out a buttery yellow skirt that has to be new. She knows every single item in Stevie's closet, except this skirt.

She isn't going to think about how Stevie went out shopping without her though. She'd rather focus her attention somewhere more entertaining. “How was lunch?”

Stevie fusses with the edge of her skirt, rolling the hem of it between two fingers. Her face pinking though under that she's smiling. “Ugh you wouldn't even believe Henderson was a twerp, as usual. Insisted that he had to have one side of the table to himself, ordered two milkshake flavors so he could mix them together, and of course I'm paying for the whole thing.”

“Dustin being a dweeb is old news, what else happened at lunch.”

“I mean,” she trails off, making a face Robin has never seen before. Which shouldn't be possible, she thinks she is supposed to have seen all of Stevie's faces.  “Munson was a total freak, obviously. Kept calling me ‘My Lady’ and all that nerd shit. You’d think I came in with a cast with the way he opened every door and kept pulling out my chair.” 

It all sounds decidedly unfreakish to Robin, in fact it sounds like Stevie finds the guy charming. She realizes with something close to horror that she does actually recognize the expression on Stevie’s face. Just not on her best friend. It’s the bashful, twitterpated expression of a girl at a sleepover trying not to admit she has a crush. An expression that might as well be a death knell, cause the only time she’s ever seen it is right before date night started beating girl’s night.

“Not that it matters, the guy doesn’t know how to take a joke,” Stevie goes on, her smile still too shy to fully bloom but no less in place. Even as she pretends that whatever this is is supposed to be some dealbreaker. “I asked him what he gets out of playing Halflings and Half-wits with the dweeb squad and I thought he was going to climb on the table right there. Ed-weird went on for like five minutes on how the gremlins are some of the best players he’s ever played with, and they're an endless fount of creativity that keeps him perpetually on his toes.”

Stevie never actually stood a chance. And if Robin had been paying attention she would have realized that. 

There wasn’t anyone who loved passionate, nerdy people as much as Stevie.

Eddie Munson wore his king of the loud mouthed nerds crown with pride. And he was as obsessed with the gremlins as Stevie was 

“Why are we talking about him?” She flops over until her head is in Robin’s lap, flopping one arm outside of the pillow fortress to reach under the bed. She crows, victorious, holding a jar that's pond scum brown like it’s treasure. “Had to hide this after Dust put it in his hair. Put this goop on your face and tell me about what Vickie said in band yesterday again. Cause I'm pretty sure she was dating Dan Summers last year, and he didn't really seem like the type of guy to stay with his high school girlfriend.”

It's coincidence, pure and simple, that puts her right outside O'Donnell's fourth period class. Thompson's study hall, her own fourth period, was technically across the building but everyone knew Mr. Thompson came to work on Mondays too hungover to care about attendance.

And study hall didn't have a certain wannabe friend-dater standing outside it, debating whether or not he was going to go inside.

She is still figuring out her angle of attack when it looks like he's decided he is actually going to class. Considering O’Donnell is the type to write office referral slips to kids who aren’t meant to be in her room for ‘being a distraction’ there isn’t really any time for subtlety. Still, she’s surprised by the tone of her own voice when she shouts, “Munson!”

Heads turn in the hallway, of course they do. Faces she only knows by virtue of twelve years of school watching on with a lust for future violence she recognizes from that concrete bunker. But if Munson is concerned that a girl he's never spoken to is yelling at him, he doesn't look it as he turns on both heels to face her.

He smiles first, benignly pleasant. But Stevie taught her that trick, smiling to diffuse anger or hide how she has no idea how the person talking to her actually knows her. Munson is doing both, they had two classes together last semester and she was in the orchestra for the last school musical.

The blankness eventually clears from his eyes, “Bye Bye Buckley!”

Not about to be distracted by the dumbest reference she's ever heard, and with the eyes of at least two people she can see on her, she drags Munson away from class. It's bound to be all around the school by the dismissal bell, but rumor is less important than the mission.

The girls room by the library is always abandoned. The mirrors are dingy or cracked and it always smells like cat piss for no discernable reason. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” He looks around the bathroom with an inquisitive eye like the grimy bluish tile is somehow more interesting than her. “I'm not actually carrying if you were-”

He doesn't have the decency to stumble when she shoves at his chest, trying to push him back into the stall doors.

“What are your intentions with Stevie?”

“Ah yes, the mysterious cousin Henderson. Who says I have intentions?” His only saving grace is that it takes her too long to get her thoughts in order. A miasma of rants at the tip of her tongue about Stevie and how she was too good for him and any thoughts he might be having about her. 

But in the time it takes to see through her friend based rage, she’s able to watch a transformation take place on Eddie’s face. The smug aloofness that had taken over his face from the moment she cornered him in the hallway washes away. Leaving behind something giddy and young, bright eyes and a flushed face. “Unless she was asking about me. You two are bosom friends, are you not Diana? That would make me Gilbert Blythe, hell of a role.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of people who wish they could break a slate over your head.”

“You’re probably right, doesn’t answer my question though. Was your dear Anne Shirley talking about me?” He scuffs a boot against the floor. Doing an impressive impression of a bashful school boy while standing in front of her in his ratted out, heavy metal glory. There are at least four chains that she can spot on his outfit right now but his face would be just as at home on Opie Taylor.

But she isn’t going to get fooled by some routine. She has something to say and she’s going to make sure she says it.

“She’s really special, Munson. She’s not some cheerleader you fuck in the woods because she wants to get back at her parents that are divorcing and you’re the scariest thing available that isn’t actually dangerous.”

“Tell me how you really feel, Buckley.” The retort seems to drag itself from his mouth on instinct. Cause the aw shucks routine he’d been giving is lying broken on the floor replaced by open mouthed shock.

“I am.” The bell rings, marking them both officially late for class. She glares him down, waiting to see if he’ll leave, effectively flinching first. He glares back. “She’s an athlete, likes sports.”

Maybe it’s wrong to list the things about Stevie that she knows Munson won’t like. But she also isn’t about to let her best friend water herself down for some stupid boy.

“Wayne will be thrilled to have someone who understands what he’s talking about. Go team.”

“She hates fantasy. Dustin loaned her his copy of Fellowship of the Ring and she gave it back when they kept singing.”

“I’m sure she’d like it if I sang them for her.”

“She isn’t going to become some demure, church mouse just because you’re around. She’s snarky and confident and, and…”

He sets a hand on her shoulder in a way that is so patronizing she wishes she were as good at being a bitch as Stevie was. But she suppresses her first instinct to bite him if only because she’s working at keeping up her record of 4578 days without biting a classmate.

“I don’t know what any of that means,” he says, “but it sounds like you and your hot best friend have been talking about me. So thanks for that intel, Bucks.”

People wearing leather and motorcycle boots shouldn’t be able to skip. The stupid hanky in his stupid pocket flaps behind him like a wagging tail as Munson leaves her in the girls room with the smell of ammonia.

Stevie has Breakfast at Tiffany’s playing on the TV when Robin makes it to work. Keith let them have most of their shifts together but drew the line at letting Stevie shut the store down to come pick her up after school. So on days where Stevie works a double, she’s stuck arriving to work sweaty and guessing at whatever movie will have ended up on the big TV.

And today she gets to catch Stevie standing in the middle of the floor, a stack of tapes in her arms, while she watches the party happening in Holly Golightly’s apartment. Audrey Hepburn swaying with her guest in the middle of the floor.

“Someone’s in a mood.” 

From over her shoulder, Stevie sends Robin a look. Something loaded with dry humor and a smugness that usually means something juicy happened in the time before Robin got there.

Usually.

There’s something about the look today that feels personally directed at her.

“Well it was this or Some Like it Hot, and the stay at home moms are weird about black and white movies that aren’t the first few minutes of Wizard of Oz.”

“That’s sepia.”

“Bless you.”

Making sure Stevie can see her rolling her eyes, she heads to the back to clock in. By the time she makes it back, Stevie has the volume turned down on Holly Golightly’s romantic disasters. She’s back behind the counter, head pillowed in her hands and Robin remembers why people used to be a little scared of her popular kid cabaret. Walking up the center aisle, she feels like she’s headed straight toward a tiger with its mouth open and she’s about to put her head in there. 

“So you’ll never believe what happened earlier,” Stevie taps her nail against her cheek.

“Paul Collins came in with his mistress to look at porn again?”

Humming, Stevie doesn’t say anything as Robin comes behind the counter with her. There’s a stack of tapes that need to be rewound and a roll of Be Kind Rewind stickers that need to be stuck to cases.

“Still time for that,” she says right as Robin started to think they were going to drop it. “Sally Tyler called from the payphone.”

“Sally from the basketball team?”

“Yeah,” that smile is even wider. This is almost certainly payback for the You Suck board. “I’m thinking about joining her rec team but we’ve played one-on-one in the park once or twice.”

“And she had a Family Video emergency that only you could solve?”

“Sorta. She was just really concerned, she’d heard a rumor that my best friend was dragging the guy she saw me having lunch with this weekend into the girls room.”

This is definitely payback for the You Suck board. Stevie’s looking a little too pleased with herself as she smiles at what can only be Robin’s slack jawed surprise.

“I get if you're mad,” she says and that’s all she can assume is happening, she isn’t sure how else to read what’s happening on Stevie’s face. “But-”

“Thank you.”

“I was just trying to- What?”

“Come on,” she rolls her eyes, swipes a half hearted smack to Robin’s shoulder. “I’ve been on the other side of that, you know. Well meaning friends pulling me aside to ask what my intentions are.”

“Oh my god, did she follow us in there?”

Delight makes Stevie’s eyes sparkle, “Did you actually? I love you. Did you give him hell?”

“I think he got the upperhand.”

“I think it’s all the playing pretend. The shitheads will run circles around the unprepared too.”

It seems a little too good to be true. “You really aren’t mad?”

Someone abandoned The Breakfast Club at the scene where Ally Sheedy gets the makeover. It had seemed like a stupid scene when she’d seen it in theaters, now it makes something weird pit in the bottom of her stomach. She doesn’t get the chance to hit rewind, to send Allison back in time so she can be strange and herself again, because Stevie is flipping her around and pulling her into a bone crushing hug.

“First of all,” she says into the side of Robin’s hair, “the only thing I’m even a little miffed about is you thinking I couldn’t kick Munson’s ass myself. But no one’s ever done anything like that for me before so I’m cool with letting it slide.”

“But we are acknowledging that you definitely have a thing for the guy with the rattiest hair in the school. Probably even Roane county.” Robin says, face pressed into the meat of Stevie’s shoulder.

Stevie shoves her away with a groan that Robin’s laughter is already drowning out. “Yeah, alright. He’s kind of okay I guess.”

“Such sweet words for the father of your brood.”

“He’s not the father of my anything,” she flips her hair over one shoulder, “anyway I think he gets off on it so I’m gonna keep being mean to him.”

“That was more than I wanted to know about either of you.”

“No it wasn’t, you like that I’m mean too. You get all sad faced when you think I’m trying to bury my impulses.”

For the second time today Robin is left too surprised to say anything. She’s left gaping, not that Stevie is looking at her now; too busy picking at the nail polish left on her pinky. 

“I like it,” she says quietly after a moment. Robin has shut her mouth by the time Stevie looks up at her again, something soft but serious on her face. She reaches across the counter to grab Robin by the hand, melding what’s left of their coordinating manicures by linking their fingers. “You’re my number one. Even if Eddie does anything about anything, he’s going to have to compete with you.”

Neither of them move as the weight of the moment surrounds them like one of Mrs. Henderson’s quilts. Heavy and homey and right. But they are still at work and as the bell beside the door dings, and they break their silence to greet their new customer in tandem, they shrug off the heavy sincerity for something more functional. Stevie’s smile turns sly, and she tugs Robin closer while keeping an eye on the man now browsing the comedies. “You’ll never guess who came in earlier to ask if we had Nine and a Half Weeks yet.”

[envyenvys]

Some scenes from the Stevie Harrington au I’ve been rotating in my mind for months

Details & IDs under the cut:

[ID 1: Stephanie Harrington speaking into a walkie-talkie, her text bubble reads:

“Sound off, shitheads.”

She has long brown hair with big waves, and is wearing a white tank top and blue jeans. She looks vaguely annoyed or exasperated. End ID 1]

[ID 2: Steph lying stomach-down on the end of a bed, propped up on her elbows so she can hold hands with Chrissy Cunningham, who’s speaking. Chrissy’s text bubbles read:

“Jason just doesn’t get it. I wanna hang out, and shop, and cheer, and beat the shit out of interdimensional man-eating monsters. You know, I wanna do girly stuff!”

Steph looks indulgently down at Chrissy, who’s smiling and sitting on the floor. Steph’s wearing a red crop top and blue jeans, and Chrissy has on a yellow and white striped headband, a white and pink floral print button-up shirt, and sunny yellow overalls, which have multicoloured flowers embroidered around the hips and ankles. End ID 2]

Chrissy’s dialogue here is inspired by a similar quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because I thought it would be a fun & cute thing for her to say, and her outfit is inspired by one of princess Diana’s bc she’s a fashion icon.

[ID 3: Steph and Robin Buckley, both in their Scoops Ahoy uniforms, complete with the hats. Robin’s holding up a whiteboard divided into ‘hit’ and ‘miss’ sections. ‘Miss’ has twelve tally marks, and ‘hit’ has a single tally with a small question mark beside it. Their dialogue reads:

Robin: Board’s getting full, Harrington. You’re a real heartbreaker today.

Steph: Told you I could make this outfit work.

Steph is smiling, holding an ice cream scoop, and her hair’s braided over her shoulder with a red scrunchie. Robin looks amused, like she’s teasing. End ID 3]

[ID 4: Steph and Dustin Henderson in the scene from season 2 where they’re leaving a trail of meat for Dart on the railroad tracks. They both have yellow gloves and are holding buckets of meat, and Steph has her bat over her shoulder. Their dialogue reads:

Steph: I’ll bring you some of my Farrah Fawcett spray.

Dustin: Isn’t that for girls?

Steph: It’s for hair.

The word ‘hair’ is underlined. Steph is wearing a light blue and purple jacket over a red turtleneck and blue jeans, and her hair is in a ponytail with a red scrunchie. Dustin is wearing his canon outfit, complete with the baseball cap and headset. He looks skeptical. End ID 4]

Bonus transcript of me explaining the single tally + question mark in dms:

🍓[me]: Snappy dialogue to indicate that the board is abt men failing to flirt with her and not the other way around 👍

🍇[beloved]: who's the hit?

🍓: Eddie lmfao

🍓: The question mark is there bc Robin was so baffled by Eddie’s complete lack of rizz that she’s not sure she even interpreted that correctly

🍇: KNEW it

🍇: robin watching the entire time: 🤨

🍓: He wasn’t even trying to flirt is the thing he just got up there and lost his mind and his friends were standing behind him clearly being like “we don’t know this guy” and somehow steph got like… giggly??

🍓: Robin, afterwards: what the hell was that

🍓: Steph, clueless: what was what? 😀❓

🍓: Eddie crouching down behind one of those large decorative plants for ten straight minutes desperately holding his head in his hands shinji-style to stave off the cringe

🍓: His ice cream melts btw

🍇: his friends are standing a full meter away from him, pointedly not looking

🍓: Yeah they’re on the other end of the food court sitting at a table facing him but very carefully avoiding actually looking at him. They’d put their backs to him but the last time they did that (different mall, long story, they aren’t allowed in anymore) Eddie got kicked out by mall security and it took them like three hours to find him

🍓: This was before Gareth’s time and no one’s ever actually explained the full situation to him bc 1) they keep embellishing it and 2) eddie gets screechy when they try

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

after corroded coffin make it big there's headlines about lead guitarist edith 'eddie' munson's close friendship with her roommate, stephanie henderson, and every time a magazine goes on and on about how wholesome it is seeing girls supporting girls eddie's like wow. steph this is how we know we pass as women i spent the entirety of the last awards ceremony with my hand planted firmly on your ass and STILL people are talking about what good friends we are

[ymdslf]

transfem stevie who comes out sometime in the 90s and when she tells dustin his only reaction is: “wait so you and robin can date now?”

[wormdebut]

Part One | Part Two | Part Four -

Steve had been popular in high school, he never asked for it. He didn’t really want it, but he was the captain of the Swim Team and the Basketball team, he had happily coasted through the Hawkins High Show Choir Revolutionaires. (Blame Robin for that one, he didn’t know he would have to dance, which he did not like to do but he sang like a song bird thank you very much.)

Popularity just kind of came to him. He was in the GSA, which Robin had been the president of (she was also the choir president) and when he came out as bisexual his senior year, that kind of solidified his King of Hawkins throne. He and Robin had been Prom King and Queen of the class of 2019.

Robin thrived with it, but honestly? It burnt Steve out. So when he and Rob moved to Chicago to “expand their homosexual horizons”, thought courtesy of one Robin Buckley, Steve was happy to take a back seat and let her be the social butterfly she loved to be. Steve was happy just taking things a step and breath at a time. High school and the years following had moved so fast, it was nice to just listen to people and see things that he may not have had an opportunity to before.

Ever the codependent pair, they had gotten jobs together at an insurance office in the city. It was graphs, phone calls, and paper work but Steve didn’t mind it temporarily. They both had accepted the job with the intention of getting to their destination, neither Steve nor Robin were intending to keep the position with Murdock Insurance Agency.

It had been a few days since Steve had had his absolute shit rocked by the hot as fuck barista at the coffee shop he and Robin had decided to try,

“Steve, he liked you and their lattes were delicious can we please go back? You’re being just a little teensy bit irrational with this.”

“Robin he’s just so—he—oh my god, I can’t talk to him again.”

‘Talk? That’s a little generous Steve, I’m pretty sure you like, heavy breathed at him like Ghostface does on the phone in the Scream movies.”

“Oh come on Rob! He had just gotten through a super hot, sweaty, ridiculously sexy fi—“

“Steven Richard Harrington I am begging you to shut the hell up and go get us coffee on your lunch break, please. If not out of love, then due to the fact that you owe me for listening to whatever the fuck that just was.”

“Fine, okay, but if he’s there and I embarrass myself, you’re going to miss that experience, so sucks to suck.”

Robin laughed and waved as Steve made his way through the office floor, taking the elevator the few floors down to get to the exit in the lobby. It was nice weather, a little chilly, but nothing Steve wasn’t used to from Indiana. He would’ve put in effort if he knew he was potentially seeing Eddie the sexy ass barista today, but alas, all he could hope for was that his khaki pants and the olive green windbreaker on his back made him look decent enough.

The Daily Grind was surprisingly quieter than it had been the morning Steve and Robin met Eddie. He stepped inside and vaguely recognized the curly headed kid that had been with Eddie last.

The kid popped his head up from the register at the tingling sound of the bell above Steve’s head, “Welcome to—“ curly head cut himself off and his eyes doubled in size, “Oh my god you’re the guy! MAX” he yelled towards the back of the store, “Max! Eddie’s guy is here, right now! Oh my god he’s gonna be so mad.”

Eddie’s what? Steve blushed, and he wasn’t able to hide it, he was kind of overstimulated by the very loud greeting from this kid and was suddenly very confused by whatever was happening here, “Um hi?” Steve questioned more the greeted walking up to the register.

The kid smiled a toothy grin at Steve and stuck his hand out for him to shake, Steve didn't necessarily want to shake this strange little mans hand, but it was the polite thing to do, “I’m Dustin and this—MAX,” Dustin yelled again. Steve politely pulled his hand away, Dustin was so loud. Steve turned his head the direction Dustin had yelled and saw a red head pop her head out through the door.

“Christ Dustin What—“ Max turned her eyes to Steve and gave him the full once over. What was with kids these days? Were they all so loud and unapologetic? Jesus, Steve was clearly older than this girl and she was just full on ogling, “Well hello. I’m Max, it looks like you’ve met Dustin, you are?”

Steve went to speak, hoping the heat he felt on his cheeks wasn’t painfully present and showing his embarrassment on his face. He left Hawkins to get away from the spotlight, he wasn’t fond of having it forced upon him these days. “I-I’m—“

“Hes the guy that Eddie was telling you about? You know the dude he met after he cussed out Cappuccino Brenda?”

Steve really didn’t have much choice but to watch the exchange, no one had come in after him and these two seemed very distracted by Steve being here, so he just waited for them to finish talking…about him apparently.

Max’s eyes went wide “Oooh, Oh! Yes! Hi, what’s your name?”

She looked at him expectantly and Steve was so confused about this whole situation. His fairly impenetrable fortress of wall that he had built up over the King Steve of high school cracked just a little, and while King Steve loved most everybody, King Steve was also a bit of a bitch, “Oh do I get to speak now, instead of being spoken over?” He looked to the two baristas with a smirk and his hands found their way to his hips.

They both looked at him with eyes wide, out of the corner of her mouth Max said, “I thought you said he was shy?”

Dustin broke out in a goofy grin, “I like him.”

Steve huffed, “I’m seriously right here, what is even happening right now?” Steve dropped his hands from his hips and tried to rear in whatever pieces of him that had come lose, “I’m Steve, so what do I gotta do to get a couple medium lavender oat milk lattes?”

Dustin went to speak, but Max cut him off before he could, “Y’know what? They are totally on us, as long as you just give us your number for our new loyalty program.” Dustin looked at Max with an eyebrow raised.

Steve watched her wave him off toward the machines, and shrugged, “Okay? Sure.” Max tossed him a sticky note pad and a pen, he scribbled his number down, “Uh—Thanks Max, this has been great.”

She grabbed the notepad and hopped to the back with a two finger salute, “Catch ya later Pretty Boy.”

Steve gave a brief wave and shuffled over to Dustin, who smiled as he handed off the lattes, “Nice to officially meet you Steve! See you around.”

Steve offered a small smile and a brief thanks, before stepping back out onto the street, god. The Daily Grind was trip, every time.

-

Taglist - @gay-stranger-things @savory-babby @trashpocket @itsfreakingbats @steddiereid @lovelyscot @booksandsience @breealtair @nightmareglitter @misty-inferno @dazedandinked @child-of-cthulhu @bookworm0690 @martzja @exhibit-no-restraint @imzadidragonfly @live-the-fangirl-life @sidebarre @bejeweledbaby

if you wanna be added or removed just let me know ✨

[infinite-orangepeel]

dustin: so i heard you went on a date last night, how was it ?

steve: …well whoever told you that is wrong. i didn’t go on a date, i just saw a movie with eddie.

dustin: hmm…interesting. that’s not what he said. sounds like you guys have different definitions of the word “date”

steve: hold on, are you telling me that eddie said we went on a date ? he called it a date ?

dustin: you didn’t hear it from me, but he might have—

steve: i think i’m gonna pass out. give me the phone, i need to call robin immediately

[domsaysstuff]

Eddie makes so many your mom jokes that when he tells the kids that he's dating Stevie, Dustin thinks he's just making another one, the rest of the party give him so much shit for thinking about Steve as "mom" later

[lukas-dusk]

Stranger things characters as things me and my friends have say

Steve : I want to be fucked so bad.

━

Robin : Steve, can you wear my breasts please?

━

Jonathan : Mike if you touch my brother we're going to fight.

━

Erica : I'd rather test a dick.

━

Argyle : Isn't your father a thief? 'Cause he took my virginity!

━

Max : Eat pussy as long as it's legal.

━

Eddie : I couldn't aim for the hole, that's why she left me.

━

Nancy : If you could moan silently.

━

Dustin : They put a phone in my ass.

━

Eleven : Pissing together strengthens the bonds!

━

Lucas : I have a video where he suck it.

━

Will : I drink my piss without hesitation.

[hubba1892]

Btw being thankful for everything Hendo has done for the club and appreciating his role in the team (that all players and coaches have pointed out repeatedly) yet being disappointed by this transfer and everything it represents are two things that can co-exist.

[formosusiniquis]

diana prince and stevie h.: variations on a theme

Inspired by this post by @secondconcussion cause I saw it earlier this week and couldn't stop turning it around in my mind

also on ao3 for easier reading

It's not Eddie's fault he got lost.

That's the first thing he wants to get out of the way. He'll take his lumps if he has to, Uncle Wayne can be a surly fucker when he's woken up before his alarm, "Not all those who wander are lost, Ed, isn't that what you said. Just wander your way back home." But Eddie's heart is gonna wait to be warmed that Wayne loves him enough to quote Lord of the Rings until after he's back in the part of Hawkins he recognizes.

"It's the ‘not all’ that I need you to wrap your head around old man, cause I, your dearest nephew, am very lost."

"Your my only nephew, and gettin' less dear by the second," Wayne lied like a liar.

He wasn't above begging, not when he'd already walked fuck knows how far to fuck knows where. "Please, Wayne!"

He hears a grumbled sigh and knows he's won, "Where are ya?"

"Um, woods?" He can hear the thunk of the phone being slammed against something hard, but at least Wayne doesn't hang up.

Hawkins is a small town, by Eddie's standards, but it expands in strange ways. Every summer he spent with Wayne it seemed to unfurl in different directions, a flower blooming a little different each year. It was not the gridded out cityscape he'd grown up in.

So when Eddie came down from Indy every summer to escape parents who managed to toe the line of awful just well enough that CPS kept their noses out of the Munson’s business, he would wander but never far. Just far enough to find the park and the playground that Wayne hadn't thought to mention. Far enough to find a corner store where he can pocket the extra candy bar he couldn't afford with the spare change he had -- and he wasn't going to put back the magazine he was buying, Wayne had nothing good to read and he couldn't make a library card yet. Far enough to find an abandoned picnic bench to smoke up at so his borrowed bedroom didn't smell like weed. Far enough to make some friends.

Only now that he's twenty, and some change. Now that he's graduated high school, third time lucky. Now that he’s decided to leave the trouble he could feel stirring in the city for someplace that always felt more like home. Now that he is an official Hawkins resident, he's wandered a little too far.

And it's not his fault, but he's not gonna tell Wayne that.

Cause the thing is, Eddie has always thought better when his feet were moving. After an hour of pacing around his trailer, still full with half unpacked boxes of things he hadn't realized he'd collected -- boxes that make him feel like a caged animal, that he'll be living out of for the next two months at least -- he has to leave. His first mistake, trusting that his feet will lead him around the parts of Hawkins he knows.

His mind twists plot hooks and campaign NPCs around his head, determined to get ready for when his friends come around later that afternoon with the pack of freshmen, now sophomores, that they'd adopted. He won't apologize for wanting to impress a new group of kids and wanting to convince Jeff he wouldn’t be sorry about passing off his DM mantle to a guy they used to only see two months out of the year. As he's thinking about a sect of female warriors -- a mix of barbarians and rangers, buff and leveled way above where the party will be -- and whether it'll just come across as horny the way the DILF-y elven mages he'd tried to include last year did, he sees her. Notices her, more like; a nymph, a dryad, a goddess sprung fully formed from his imaginings.

She crosses his path at a light jog. The shortest green athletic shorts he's ever seen clinging to the shape of an ass he could bounce a quarter off of. He can see the way her broad and muscled shoulders shift beneath the white sports bra she's wearing. It's the cool down portion of her workout, he guesses, from the way he can mostly maintain the small distance between them and the way sweat runs in rivulets down her back and trim waist. He wants to lick it off of her. She looks like she was built to fire a bow or break him in half, a Kinsey Five, it's the women who could kill him that always capture his attention.

He trails behind her, mind still turning over his session prep for the day and maybe thinking a little bit about whether she had a boyfriend. Hindsight will grant him that it's weird, the way he trailed behind her like a stray dog like this. But then, as he's sitting in the cab of Wayne's truck, he'll remember the way her thick, muscled thighs moved, how she bounced on the balls of her toes. He'll remember the way her ponytail swished over her shoulder as she glanced back at him, his first look at the lady's fair face, the way she'd smirked at him before bounding off of the roadside into the woods.

So totally not his fault he got lost. It probably happens all the time. The payphone on the opposite side of the road for sorry suckers like him who fall into her snare. Shit, maybe he should have stayed put, he hadn’t been thinking about why she might have a snare.

Wayne found him eventually, even if he spent the drive back to Forest Hills muttering about how Eddie had even found his way over to that side of town. How next time he aimed to get lost he should bring a map or a compass or a dog, and find his own way back. So he doesn’t ask his uncle about the mystery girl that could snap him over her knee like a dry twig, cause in the mood he’s in right now Wayne might go find her and embarrass the hell out of him.

Later, when Jeff and Gareth and Joey have piled onto the broken in couch that Wayne had given him. When the first teen that he doesn’t know knocks a little too quietly on his door, but grins wide enough to split his face that they’ve got a new campaign and a place to play over the summer. When they’re waiting for the last one to arrive, Eddie thinks about asking about her. She had to have overlapped with them in high school for at least a year or two.

Eddie knows already though that he won’t. Plus there’s a chance they’ll tell him anyway. He’s been on the receiving end of enough ‘Is that supposed to be Ronnie James Dio’s’ and ‘Wait are you describing Sigourney Weaver’s’ to hope that once he starts describing the Amazonian warrior who will hopefully be haunting his dreams he’ll get a ‘Doesn’t that sound just like…’

And yeah, maybe he’s starting to get a little impatient. But with the way he’s got the campaign laid out it will be at least two hours in before he gets a chance to describe her. At least, and he has to know who she is tonight.

“Dude,” Gareth starts, probably sick of the way Eddie’s bouncing his leg, “where’s Dustin?”

Will, the quietest so far of the new recruits looks almost too concerned, “He knows where it is right? Has anyone-”

Sinclair, he thinks the group arrived in mass and he’s not sure he’s partnered faces with the rush of names correctly just yet, pulls a walkie talkie with bells and whistles he didn’t even know you could attach from a backpack on the floor. “Dustin, come in, what’s your ETA?”

The tension in their corner of the room ratchets up enough to have Eddie’s palms start to sweat. Will brings his thumbnail up to his mouth, worrying it enough that it’s sure to start bleeding soon. “I’m sure it’s-” Sinclair starts to say, interrupted by a clattering outside then a bang to his door that yanks on the frayed edges of Eddie’s nerves.

He feels a little like a squirrel trying to cross a highway, the way the babies about to join the party are watching him with the knowing terror you watch something about to die.

Except the thing at his door is not Jason or Freddy, it’s a half-pint with a white hat pulled low over his head. The missing Dustin, who has no problem bullying his way through Eddie’s now open door.

“Ew, dude, why are you sweaty?”

"Because, Michael, I had to bike all the way across town." Eddie, and it looks like half the group, is about to ask some variation on why when Dustin holds up a hand shutting them all up masterfully "Because," he stresses each letter like they're what's wronged him, "five minutes before we were supposed to leave mom catches Stevie gossiping with Robin and she totally flips out about how she didn't take Stevie in just to watch her get herself killed. And then when I asked who was taking me here, Ma said she 'didn't buy me that bike just to have it sit in the garage!'"

The kid is incensed so it doesn't feel like the time to ask what the fuck is going on. Not when everyone else snorts and snickers at Dustin's expense. "Damn Stevie really fucked up if Dustybun got sent out on his own," Gareth jeers.

"Your mom does know what Stevie keeps in her trunk right? And she ruptured Preston's balls when he grabbed her ass last year," Lucas points out.

Hawkins, Eddie is learning, might just be full of girls to fall in love with.

"Stop saying that like it's hot, that's my sister you're talking about. I'll tell Max."

"Max still thinks Stevie's hot, dude."

"Are we gonna have to walk home just because Stevie's done something stupid again?" Mike complains.

"You didn't care about Stevie doing something dumb when she climbed that tree in heels to get you down after you got drunk at winter formal. Or when she took her bat to those… things." Lucas shares a sly grin with Will, who looks torn between feeling awkward at the inclusion and the teenage bloodlust for giving your friends a hard time. "You can just admit you feel weird about having the same taste as your-"

"Oh my god!" Dustin shouts cutting Lucas off and sending the room, Eddie included into a burst of snorting laughter. "Dustin Henderson," Eddie gets himself under control enough to accept the offered hand, "excited to have a DM who isn't a total asshole."

"Eddie, sorry about your hot sister. Not sorry for being a new kind of asshole Dungeon Master. Let’s see them character sheets, kiddies, this ain’t your mommy’s book club, we aren’t just here to gossip.”

Things go off pretty well, for a seven person table where he barely knows half the players. Lucas has an impressive tactical mind, Mike is a passionate role player, Will has a character built so well it’s basically an art form, and Dustin is a wild card who can’t decide whether he wants to win or to walk into the obvious trap just to see what will happen. It’s not hard to adjust, even if the way Jeff keeps looking at him when he describes new NPC's is throwing him off his game a little bit. He can duck behind his DM screen and recollect himself, but seriously what the fuck.

“She stands taller than the tallest of you, bronzed skin and hair, imperious, she looks at you, Sir Jeffrey, and offers you a deal, ‘Best our strongest warrior and you can take him back with you. Fail and his impunity will be punished by death.’” He lets the threat hang heavy in the air, all eyes on him and desperately hanging on to every word. Minus Jeff who was giving him that look again. “And that’s where we’ll end things this week, boys.” Cause he really, really hadn’t expected any of them to just straight up steal the enchanted bow of the Amazons that they needed to fell the dragon; and he really, really hadn’t planned for the botched stealth rolls.

Everyone grumbles as they pack up their things, it’s music to his ears. A four hour session -- if he didn’t count the hour they riffed about character builds and backstory once Eddie had his hands on their sheets -- and they’re still itching for more. It’s almost enough to have him just call a dinner break, so he can hole up in his room and churn something out. But someone is beating out shave and a haircut on his front door before he can change his mind.

“It’s probably Wayne getting revenge,” Eddie says, “woke him up early this afternoon.” He taps back his two bits, swinging open the door, expecting to see Wayne’s smug looking face grinning back at him. He’ll take his ‘Don’t feel too good getting interrupted in the middle a something, does it?’ with grace.

Only instead of an old man with two days of scruff, the door opens on his modern day Aphrodite. A worn, grey athletic shirt bragging about being a 1985 Hawkins Swim Team Region Champ has covered the white sports bra, cropped it shows off a distracting sliver of toned stomach above a short green tennis skirt, and her perky ponytail is down in loose waves around a mole kissed face.

And he’s gaping like a fucking idiot at her.

“Dust, wanna introduce me to your new friend?” she asks, voice bourbon smooth as molten eyes rake down his body from the doorway.

“Eddie, this is my sister.”

Like her brother before her, Stevie has no problem shouldering her way through the door. Where Dustin had slipped through on a size difference technicality like a halfling, she places a warm hand against his shoulder and gently pushes until his feet and brain get it together enough to move with her. Even then they’re still screaming, god he’s positive she could have just picked him up. He really wants her to pick him up, maybe push him against the wall a little.

“Hi Eddie,” she says. Still in the doorway they’re hedged in by boxes marked ‘Kitchen Shit’ and ‘Unpack this first asshole’ breathing the same air almost, all because Eddie in his genius had dropped the last load of stuff from the back of the van right by the door. “Are we going to be seeing more of you around?”

“Obviously,” Dustin cuts in, “we only just finished the start of a totally epic campaign.”

“Obviously,” Stevie repeats, with a mocking tilt to her gorgeous smile. One he recognizes from this morning.

Jeff is still watching him, a set of eyes boring hard into the side of his face. “Eddie just moved to Hawkins, just spent summers here before.”

Something about that softens her. Her expression, her posture, easing into something a little less coiled to pounce but no less flirtatious. “To Hawkins?”

Shit, and she’s looking at him like he’s an idiot; but like a cute idiot that she’ll maybe want to put down on his knees. “Well the best band I ever played with is still in high school here, and a success story always sounds better coming out of a small town.”

“You’re in a band, huh?”

Dustin wrestles himself in the middle again, and it says a lot about his tenacity that he’s managed to rock Stevie back against the cardboard. “Whatever this is, I don’t like it and it needs to stop.”

“Load your bike up in the trunk then, shithead, and you won’t have to see it,” she fires back. He does push past her out the door, trying to let it slam shut behind him when she catches it in lightning fast reflex, “Scratch the paint cause you’re being a dick and your ass is grass!”

The rest of the sophomores are slow to pack up their remaining things, valuing gossip more than trying to comfort their friend on losing another soldier in the war of ‘thinks his big sister is the babest babe to ever hit Hawkins.’ 

“You should come to practice some time, band practice, for the um band."

Somebody behind him snorts, hears a whispered, "For the um band," that's probably meant to be a mimicry of him.

"Eddie's lead guitar," Jeff says, from a place of true friendship or pity. It's hard to tell.

Her eyes light up with a mischief, hair swinging as she cocks her head, and he can hear the requisite, ‘wow you must be so good with your hands,’ as clearly as if she had said it. Instead she says, “Gremlins, go get in the car. Tell Dustin, Ma’s pissed he didn't take his helmet and he should know first hand the dangers of head trauma.” It’s an inside joke, an unfunny one, from the way she grins as they grumble and groan and tell her to fuck off. Trooping out the door between him and Stevie they each let her pat them on the back or ruffle their hair, a little attendance check on the way to the car.

The trailer door shuts behind them with a slam, maybe not an attitude issue then and something to add to his to do list, but Stevie hasn’t left with them. “If you’re interested in what Hawkins has to offer, I could show you around.” She says casually. Conversationally. A comment for the room at large before she leans into Eddie’s space, warm breath against the side of his face making him shiver as she whispers, “I take the same run through town every day, and I always wanted a puppy to follow me home.”

Eddie is lost. In visions of the girl who just twirled out of his place on her heel after completely rocking his world. Has lost. His mind, his heart, and hopefully his status as single. But there are worse things he can think of than being lost in Hawkins.

[vyncentevelyn]

Steve has a crush on Eddie. He knows this.

Feels it every time the older boy invades his personal space or laughs or twirls a curl on his finger or when he goes on passionate tangents about anything…

But he cannot get a read on Eddie. Can’t determine if he has feelings for him or if Eddie is just naturally a flirt. Because Eddie does flirt. Makes naughty comments and touches Steve endlessly. But he also does the same thing with Robin and Argyle and Gareth and Jonathan…

There are too many mixed signals…and so Steve tells himself to ease up on the crush. To just be friends…

But it’s like Steve can’t stop his crush from growing. Everything Eddie does makes the crush dig itself deeper into Steve. But it’s just a crush. So…

But one day while they are hanging out in Eddie’s room something happens.

Eddie smirks at him and says, “I had a dream about you last night.”

And the butterflies which woke in Steve’s stomach at Eddie’s smirk do somersaults at the idea of Eddie dreaming of him. “Oh really? What was it about?”

And Steve is looking up at Eddie through his lashes, runs a hand through the front of his hair, and gives him an absolutely *royal* smile.

Eddie blinks. He twirls a strand of hair around his index finger and Steve thinks his blood is going to boil from anticipation, because this is it, his dumbass is finally going to admit he has feelings for him.

Nothing could prepare Steve for what Eddie says next.

He drops his hair and readjusts himself on the bed to turn and fully look at Steve, he gestures with his hands and says, “So it was like I knew something crazy was going on in my dream world, but I wasn’t really privy to it. But I found you in this like sewer. And -” he pauses leans in real close to Steve, “it was insane, Dustin was growing from your stomach. AND you had a robotic eye.”

Steve stares at the goofy grin and the excited eyes looking back at him, “Is that all that happened?”

Eddie shrugs, “More or less, sometimes I have a hard time remembering dreams. It’s like I’ll know I had a dream some mornings but can’t remember shit. Or I remember only the strange details. Or it can be like I just watched a life changing movie and it will haunt me the rest of my life and alter everything I do. But those kinds of dreams are very rare.”

“Huh.” Steve smiles.

Eddie goes into a tangent then about his dreams. Telling Steve about some of his movie like dreams…

Later that night he recounts the dream to Robin. He sighs and puts his face in his hands, “And all it really did was make me realize that I…I love him...”

Robin is silent for so long that Steve forces himself to pull his face out of his hands and stare at her.

She has a perplexed expression on her face as if she is trying to translate something from Russian.

She shakes her head and then says flatly, “Unless you were like birthing Dustin, there is no way that he would be the one conjoined with you. That would be me. Your twin flame. Your other half. Doesn’t that dingus know anything?”

“I just told you I am in love with Eddie Munson, and you are more concerned about why you are not the one growing from my stomach in his dream?” Steve asks.

“Well yeah. I already know you love him.” She tilts her head, her expression soft. Then she straightens up, “You didn’t know?!”

“NO!” Steve gestures wildly, “I thought it was just like a crush.”

“Oh babe…” Robin gasps through her laughter, “You realized you were…in love with him…because he told you he had a dream…where Dustin was growing…from your stomach…”

“Yes…I did…”

[sugarsblurbs]

Stevie boy loves hickies i mean look at his neck

Literally begging to be marked up 🙄

[findingnemosworld]

bro the caption, babe you know damn well you are not sad 😭

[jordiestardust]

Wet. Part one<3

Words: 2.2k

Warnings: Cursing, unedited, lowkey kind of shitty, use of y/n, mentions of breakup, steve being stupid, implied fem reader ( no intended use of feminine pronouns but if i fucked up and did put some in lmk please😭🫶🏾 )

Summary: Dustins older sister comes to visit with her band from Los Angeles, but her and Steve have some major unresolved conflicts

-Hawkins Indiana-

Steve had never really had to face serious consequences to his actions, not really. Growing up the way he did, batting his eyelashes or casually mentioning who his father was always seemed to do the trick for him. But it was never like that with you, which is why for all of today he felt like his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

“Isnt it insane that y/n was able to get this gig? ‘S so awesome!” Dustin was wiggling excitedly in his seat next to Steve on the couch, a bowl of dry Fruit Loops on his lap. Besides him was Will, whilst the young couples sat at their feet.

“Christ, Henderson, try not to explode. ‘S not even live, since Harrington doesnt know how to not pick up extra shifts” Eddie stated from his spot on the recliner chair on the end of the large living space. Still, he sported a large tee-shirt with your band name and picture on it.

Robin had been in the kitchen, getting Gatorades and beers to keep everyone hydrated. Though, the beers were mostly to keep Steve from spontaneous bursting into flames. She was the only one who knew the full extent of how hard this was for him.

“Oh, can it, Edward. Your excited too, their name is on your tit” Dustin said, referring to his shirt and causing Eddie to chortle loudly.

“Shut up guys its starting soon.” Max said from her spot on the floor, taking the bottle of Gatorade Robin offered her. Robin handed Steve his beer as she sat next to him on the couch, before the children, and Eddie, bursted into complaints about the fact that there was an opening act.

Steve nearly sighed in relief. He wasnt really sure he was ready to fast the history you two had. Even if itd been years, and you probably hadnt given him a second thought since high school. Hed been running from watching you preform, but he guesses if he really never wanted to see you again, he wouldve cut off his friendship with Dustin all those years ago, when you and Margo made it big. Thats what Robin told him, and hed been repeating it as though his life had depended on it ever since.

His thoughts were cut off as the speaker on the television introduced your band. ‘Now or never, I guess’ He thought to himself, as you took the microphone.

———————-

-Los Angeles, California. Two weeks earlier-

“You know, Dustin and everyone back home is going to watch this, right?” Margo, your drummer and right hand woman, had been pestering you about this for about a month. Both worried about how youd feel if Steve saw, and if she messed up and Robin Buckley bore witness to her mistakes.

“Im aware, Margs,” You reached for the next highest tuning peg, “But if you couldnt tell, im kinda trying to tune my guitar here.” You smiled up at her, but she could tell you were nervous.

“If it helps, hes kind of a himbo..” She smirked, causing you to erupt with laughter, and you knew she was right. Even if he did realize the meaning behind the songs, what was he to do about it? Not like youd answer whatever texts or calls he might send. But I guess this part wasnt in mind when you bought tickets to visit his best friend, your little brother, for two weeks.

Soon enough, the stage manager made his way into the dressing rooms, informing you it was time to go.

“Show time~” Margo whispered in your ear, poking the bassist, Ajax, in the back with her drumsticks.

“Fucking quit it Margs-“

“No dont be a baby, lets go asshole.”

“Real mature guys, ill be out in a sec” You called out as they left the room. Before you followed behind them, you quickly grabbed your good luck charms. Sunglasses. A black pair of Ray-bans, to be exact. Its been years, and still you couldnt bring yourself to throw them out. They were the last piece of him you had left.

Besides your fifteen year old brother-

It was mere minutes before you were on the stage. The lights hadnt been turned on yet, but you could hear the crowd murmuring in anticipation. You slung your guitar over your shoulder, hands running up and down the neck nervously, though careful not the hit any strings and risk stray sound. It wasnt long before the announcers voice began booming throughout the stadium.

“NOW WELCOMING” you adjusted the guitar again, barely able to hold onto your pick out of sheer nervousness, “THE CRYSTAL GRACE”

Deep breaths, y/n

——————————

-Hawkins Indiana-

“EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP ITS STARTING-“ Dustin screeched from his spot on the couch, waking Steve up from his trance. Hed zoned out halfway through the opening act complaints.

Steves eyes widened at the sight of you. He’d obviously seen pictures of you before. Online, on posters and magazines, splayed across Eddies chest, but somehow this was different. There was no photographer telling you how to pose, or paparazzis in your personal space, it was just you and the band. You were in your element.

He watched intently as you grabbed the microphone in front of you.

“Hi,” you chuckled lightly, full of charm and warmth, “Really quick before we get started, on behalf of myself and the band, id like to say thank you. Thank you for listening, enjoying what we do, and for being here tonight. Thank you to everyone at home watching as well, and to everyone who helped make this happen. Thank you to the man I wrote these songs about. In the great words of Kurt Cobain, “Thank you for the tragedy, I needed it for my art” The crowd went fucking wild, to say the least.

Though the thought of you having found someone else to write songs about left Steve with a weird ache in his chest, he was amazed. He never really understood your way with words, the way you knew how to turn words into art. How you always knew what to say, and were never, ever afraid to say it.

“This first one is called Wet.” The room went silent, and the crowd went as quiet as possible in all of the excitement.

———————————-

-Los Angeles-

“All alone in my bedroom, with the lights turned down and the music gone, I know its over still I cling on..” To you, preforming had always felt drastically different than rehearsals. Ever since middle school, when you, Margo, and Robin had gone out for the school plays. Rehearsals were repetitive. You said the same thing over and over until it was perfect. Performing felt more raw.

To you, it was vulnerability. Your innermost thoughts put out to be perceived, mistakes and failures included. Put out into the world for teenage girls to scream their hearts out into. For your first love to hear. For your only love to hear. And you loved it.

“Cause im my own right hand girl, and I dont need anyone but, sometimes i miss your stupid face and your taste and your smoking gun~” On the bear drop, you nodded, hard enough to make the glasses on your head drop down to your face. See, the way you perceived preforming was weird. You wanted him to know.

———————————

-Hawkins-

“Oh my god” Robin murmured under her breath, mesmerized by the performance. Partly because of Margo, partly because of your voice, but mostly because you were wearing Steve Harringtons sunglasses on stage while singing a song about him on television.

Worried about her best friend, Robin looked up at him to see Steve sitting there, brain completely and utterly fried. His eyes were wide, his eyebrows furrowed, and his mouth hung open slightly. He was analyzing the lyrics.

“Its nights like this that remind me of my deepest fantasy. Where im all alone and i feel the cold dark earth caressing me. ‘Cus im six feet under nearly, and i dont need anyone, but this wouldnt be the first or last time that both my tears and I have come!” He watched intently as you pulled your glasses- his glasses- down your face and winked for a brief moment.

“Its so depressing how the tearducts in my eyes, are so much wetter than the space between my thighs. Oh oh oh, I can help it thinking about it only makes me cry, it keeps me wett, you know you keep me wet, till i run dry-y-y”

“Shes awesome” Eddie stated, to no one in particular. Steve knew you were good. Everyone did. Your love for performing was no surprise to any of them.

It wasnt long before that song was over, and the next one began. This time, Margo was doing the announcement. The two of you had always been a sort of package deal in that way. ‘The Dave to my Kurt’ youd tell him. He never really knew what that meant, but he pushed you away before he could ask.

“Watching my show the day i come to visit, huh? Couldnt even spring for watching it yesterday? Yall are fake”

Oh shit-

————————

“NOT COOL HENDERSON JESUS CHRIST,” Eddie clutched his chest rather dramatically, “Youre going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

“Yeah whatever Munson. Nice shirt.” You smirked at him, before you were bombarded with a hug from Robin. You were practically lifting her off of the ground, she was hugging you so tight.

“Missed you tons Y/n. Tons. Also, by any chance did you happen to, i don’t know this is kind of a shot in the dark, but did you bri-“

“Yes, I brought Margs, Rob, keep it in your pants” Her cheeks went pink, but she played it off like she had to sneeze. This was when you were approached by Dustin, his entourage not far behind him. He had nearly grown to your height. Last time youd seen him, he had to be maybe 11 or 12, and it was hard not to feel guilty about leaving. Dustin had seen you as some sort of higher life form for the majority of his life, and one day you- his fucking hero- just up and left. Sure you went on to make him and Mom proud, but it still really hurt sometimes, you know?

“Hey y/n” His voice cracked, and he quickly cleared his throat so you wouldnt hear it. “Missed you” You could tell he was trying to play it cool. Trying to show you that he grew up and matured just like everyone else, nearly rubbing it in your face that he didnt need you to help raise him. Nearly.

“Come here, asshole”. You pulled the latter into a tight hug, that lasted a few moments. It wasnt until you broke off the hug and said hey to the others that you made eye contact with Steve. He smiled at you, all crooked and adorable like always. It was infuriating.

Nobody ever really tells you how to act when your brothers best friend just happens to be the first man youd ever loved. And to make it even worse, its been four years and hes still the only man youve ever loved.

Unsure of how to act, you gave Steve half of a smile, careful not to give him as much of a reaction as you initially had wanted to, scared that youd slip up in some way. Before either of you could say anything, Margo entered the room loudly, Robin clinging onto her arm.

“So was nobody going to fucking help me?? Jesus, Steve this is Y/n, Y/n this is Steve. Youve met before assholes enough with the longing stares. Come on Harrington I need help with the amps.” Well, at least Margo knew how to dissipate an awkward situation.

————————————————

Steve had no idea how to act around you. After all, what could he say. ‘Sorry for leaving you for your brothers best friends sister, who also happens to be a friend of yours. Hope it didnt make anything awkward for you. We cool?’ Steve just didnt have a way with words like you did. Contrary to popular belief, Steve had a lot going on in that pretty head of his, he either just didnt want to, or genuinely could not voice it.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you Steve Harrington?”

“Whatd I do this time, Johnson?”

“Come on, really? You know what you did Steve, and so do they.” Margo gestured to you. The girl sure did know how to hold a grudge, but she was well within her rights to be pissed off.

Steve told you he couldnt love you anymore. You knew it was total bullshit and so did Margo.

Steve grabbed the handle of the amplifier, pulling it out of the trunk of Margos car. Sure hed made a choice he was less than proud of, but he wasnt about to grow up and accept the consequences like an adult. Bold of anyone to assume he would.

“Seriously thiygh, Steve. I care about Y/n. Talk this out with them, even if they say they dont want to speak with you or that they dont want to hear it, I promise they do.” Margo stated, being serious for probably the first time since Steve had known her, before walking off with the large guitar case in her hands.

You and Steve had made eye contact as you walked past him, and as hard as he tried to read you, the intense lack of emotion toward him you displayed really hit close to home. Steve nearly stumbled to the ground, the weight of his emotion and fear, and the amp, overwhelming him, but he forced himself forward instead, keeping his gaze ahead of him.

Margo, for once, was right. You guys had to talk it out. That was the only way to find peace in the situation, and maybe even emerge as friends. He knew it was a stretch, but if you were going to be visiting, the boy only had two options. See, and ignore you, as you had been ignoring him, or be a fucking adult and talk with his ex girlfriend about the fact that theyd broken up. And there was no way in hell he was going to let you leave again, feeling unwelcome in your own home for something that was nobodys fault but his own. He couldnt let you, or Dustin, down like that.

A/n: This is kinda crappy but i kinda like it.. the song is Wet by Dazey and the Scouts btw. TY FOR READING🫶🏾 Part two will come out soon enough<333

[infinite-orangepeel]

remember you may be at a stressful family function irl today, but in your head you can always be at the hawkins middle snowball of ‘84 & i hope that brings you comfort 🎄

[halfadoginatank]

Robin and steve accidentally join the mafia

I couldnt stop thinking about this post by @qprstobin so wrote a lil bit based on an idea in there

It's been about two years since vecna's defeat, and after two years of some of Robin and Steves most awful jobs in chicago. One month into this one and they've finally found peace.

"Okay can we be real here?" Rob waves a slice of pizza as they sit in the store room of the warehouse-like antique shop they work at. "The boss is lovely, I mean seriously! But isn't it weird that we've met his entire family?"

Steve squints at Robin from the couch. "I don't think so? Maybe this is what, like… Italians are supposed to be like."

"Aren't you Italian?"

"Yeah but my family was fucked up. Everyone's so close with Boss it's like, a clan almost." He settles his hands on top of his chest. To be frank it's the best couch he's ever been on.

"I think it's about time we start accepting the fact that they might be like. Mafia." Steve looks at her to continue. But she's too busy eating the last of her pizza, avoiding the crust.

She finishes and hands the crust to steve.

"I mean, the store is practically empty! Barely anyone shops here!" Okay that's true, it's almost like family video but instead of stocking shelves for new movies, their boss Mr. De Luka or one of his 'cousins' will drop off something so they can slap a price tag on it and find a good place to put it.

"Mmm but why would we care? We're not doing anything wrong! Plus are you gonna look Mrs. De Luka in the eyes and say 'oh sorry ma'am' which you know she hates! And go 'we won't come to dinner tonight on account of maybe you being the Italian mob!"

Robin cringes hard. Steve huffs in victory. Mrs. De Luka was a tall and beautiful woman with angular features, a roman nose, and hair the exact same color as Steve's. She was a force to be reckoned with. She may bake some of the best cream cake but she's also steadfast and can settle a table of eight full grown men with just a slap of her hand against it.

"Ugh. That's not fair, saying no to her is impossible, she's like… so incredibly hot."

Steve scrunched up his nose. "Ew robin dont say that she's like a parental figure."

"She's more like a friend's mom!"

"Yeah! My mom!"

Robin points an accusing finger "Ahah! So you admit it. She's practically your mother!"

Steve chokes on the last bite of his pizza crust, he sits up and hammers on his chest. "Jesus Christ, no robin she's not my mother!" He coughs out

Robin throws her hands up "I didn't say that. I said practically! Hell, Angelo calls you cousin!" Steve narrows his eyes… Angelo Ricci is their boss's cousin, actual, biological cousin. Because as Steve and Robin have learned, some of the cousins or aunts or uncles are just unrelated people they call family.

"Should you be calling him by his first name? He's old enough to be your dad."

Robin actually stops and sits back in her chair. "If he was my dad that would be weird." Steve nods.

"Because of Amara?"

"Yes."

Amara Ricci… Steve can still remember the first time they met.

[-]

It had to be at least a week after they were hired. Mr. De Luka thanked them both for being great employees and asked them if they would have dinner with his family. Mr. De Luka wasn't like Keith, and neither was his store. It seemed genuinely family owned, and Mr. De Luka himself was much kinder, and seemed to actually care. Which was novel considering their last boss told one of them if one of them got killed during a stick up, to not sue him because 'he warned us'."

They both took a cab to the house, which wasn't really a house but a manor. It was huge, and Steve thought he had seen huge. Turns out Midwest standards are nothing on city ones. Robin and Steve knocked on the door, that's when they met Mrs De Luka. She was harsh but loving, and most importantly. Insisted on being called Helena, or Ma.

There were so many people in the house, they only set about trying to find their boss and at least get to know his immediate family. Sure enough, halfway into the conversation with the man. Another man walked up to him and clapped him on the back. This man called their boss 'Carlo' and introduced himself, Angelo, his wife Luna, and finally their kids.

Behind them was a girl just about their age maybe a few years older. She was short and had Angelos curly black hair, Luna's tanned skin, and an arched nose that clearly came from Mr. De Luka. Robin lost her breath, and stumbled. She stumbled so hard her shoulder bashed against Steve and he got to witness his best friend make possibly the most hurried introduction ever. Luckily the girl, Amara, just laughed.

Next to him was her brother Dante, who was notably younger. When Steve looked at him he felt a pang in his chest. If he squinted his eyes and tilted his head to the left he almost looked like Dustin. And just about the right age too.

Finally they all sat down for dinner. Robin and Steve sit shoulder to shoulder. Robin across from Amara and him across from Angelo. An older woman sat at the end of the table. Helena's mother, Mrs Ricci, and to her left her husband Mr. Ricci. To say Steve was shocked was.. an understatement, in any dinner parties his family had him attend, there was always a man at the head of the table. Steve likes to think that that's when he started to feel a bit more comfortable.

The dinner went on incredibly long, eating was interrupted by conversations, bickering, and drinking. But it was amazing. By the end of the night, when Mr. De Luka and Angelo walked them out; they were both smiling. exhausted, maybe, but happy. Angelo slapped his shoulder and said 'cousin, come by anytime.' Mr. De Luka had walked back inside at Helena's call so the other man leaned forward. 'you two make my little brother happy, I've not seen it in a while.'