#Stevie and robin...

[italiansteebie]

They’d been drinking. 

They’d been drinking and it was that point in the night where everything got a little fuzzy and a little too funny. 

Robin peered up at Steve from where she was laying against his chest. She giggled, causing Steve to laugh along with her. “What’s so funny?” He said in between giggles. “Nothin’, nothin’, you’re just.” She paused to laugh, “You’re just so pretty, Stevie,” 

Steve let out a small laugh, suddenly sober, “Really?” there was an insecurity to his voice. Robin’s face softened, “Yeah, Stevie.” She reached and brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear. “You’re the prettiest friend I’ve ever had…” The softness was gone, and the giggles came back. 

And he laughed with her, but… But he was deep in his thoughts. Was he- she? Could she really be that pretty?

—-

Steve had receded into himself after that, the conversation still floating around her brain. 

Robin hadn’t seen him in weeks, and she was getting scared. So when she showed up at Steve’s house unannounced, she was in for a ride.

The door was unlocked, first of all, second of all, there was music floating throughout the house, but no Steve to be found. “Steve?” She called out. Wandering around the house, pausing when she walked passed his parents downstairs bedroom, seeing the bathroom light on. “Steve?” She walked into the bathroom slowly, only to find Steve passed out with a champagne glass in his hand, and red lipstick smeared across his lips. “Oh, Stevie.” If she wasn’t so scared, the sight would have been funny, but under the circumstances, it was worrying. 

She shook his shoulders. “Wake up, Stevie.” She said softly, patting his cheek lightly. His eyes fluttered, “Rob?” it came out muffled, and slurred. “Yeah, Stevie, I’m here. Wanna tell me what happened?” She whispered. Tears pricked his eyes, lips wobbling, “Rob… I-” And the dam broke. His face crumpled and his shoulders shook heavily as he sobbed. 

She pulled Steve into her arms, rubbing their back. “It’s okay, Stevie… Just let it out.” She soothed. After they were a bit calmer, and their breathing returned to normal, they let out a shuddering breath. “I- I’m not a boy, Rob… I-” Their voice cracked, and they sniffled. “I- I just wanna be pretty.” Her lips wobbled again, and Robin resumed the soothing movement up and down her back. “Stevie, you are pretty. So pretty. I mean it. You’re the prettiest friend I’ve ever had.” She assured, and her voice was honest. 

—- 

A few weeks had passed, and Stevie was coming into her own. She used Robin’s old makeup, the colorful palettes that she didn’t touch anymore, and the makeup her mother left in their too large bathroom. 

Robin was there through it all, the dysphoria, the euphoria, the dress shopping. All of it, and she held Stevie’s hand the whole time. And she found herself wanting to spend all of her time with Stevie. 

The closeness they had, had only gotten closer, and now… Now that Stevie was… Stevie, and her soft eyes caught Robin’s, pink, plush lips spreading into a smile, Robin couldn’t help but think about her. 

Stevie was her best friend, just two girls, taking on the world.  

[2jihiir0]

Stevie and Robin ✨🩷

platonic soulmates in every AU

[gr3yearl]

absolutely adore that (from what i’ve seen) even with a transfem stevie, stobin is still 100000% platonic

like imagine the party being aware robin’s a lesbian and stevie’s a trans woman, and dustin going “!!!! now you CAN date it’s perfect!!! i always knew you two were made for each other!!”

and stevie and robin immediately give their standard, joint response of “ew no wtf that’s literally my sister i think i’d rather die”

[whathehonestfuk]

Rockstar! Eddie and transfem! Hoh! Stevie

Eddie being aggressively enthusiastically publicly in love with her because that's his fucking wife! (No matter if they can't get legally married because Stevie can't change her gender marker and gay marriage isn't legal yet)

Eddie getting worried for all of five minutes when the transphobia and abelism start rolling in but Stevie is a mean girl and a bitch at heart and puts it to good use

Robin being Stevie's go to asl interpreter who signs all the stupid shit people say so she can laugh at them with Stevie

Corroded coffin refusing to be interviewed or photographed ect by anyone who has been openly transphobic or abelism to anyone not just Stevie

Their poor pr manager whose trying to get them to tone it down a little bit to be more "mainstream and palatable to people" which only gets them to double down because fuck that

[ikarakie]

the nickname 'evie' wasn't one steve ever imagined getting, nor liking, but robin had a weird little wormy brain and one day steve became stevie and then stevie became evie; and steve found he kinda loved it. mostly because, well, it was always said with affection. even when she's scolding him, his heart warms at the fact someone cares enough for him, feels close enough to him, to craft him a loving nickname. one that isn't said with vitriol or fake awe.

it becomes second nature to reply to it. plus, robin becomes 'rob' or 'robbie' and they both find it sort of funny that they're basically swapping genders. sometimes they play into it when they're bored- robin putting on this macho, overly masculine persona and steve fluttering his eyelashes and acting ditzy and helpless. (shut up, robin, he's not always like that!)

so when the party are hanging out at steve's sometime in the summer, everyone basking in the post-vecna victory bliss, neither really think twice. robin cups her hands around her mouth and screams, "EVIE! DRINK!"

everyone glances around, wondering who the hell she could be talking to. steve waltzes out of the kitchen, a coke in each hand. tosses one to robin.

"thank you, darling!" she coos. he just rolls his eyes and meanders over to where the kids are splashing about.

"what did you call him?" nancy asks, looking at her over the top of her sunglasses. eddie leans in, as does jonathan, to the conversation.

"hm? evie?" robin asks. they all nod viciously and it's the first time she realises that having a nickname like that for guy like steve probably isn't very expected. "oh, well. y'know, stevie-evie." she waves a hand. "im rob, he's evie."

the other three eye each other. she gears herself up to get stroppy. her and steve are best friends, obviously they have nicknames. and she can tell he likes them, and she does too, so they can keep their opinions to themselves! only she doesn't have to, because nancy looks to where steve is with the kids. smiles warmly and leans back into jonathan's chest.

"cute." she says, "i like it. suits him. he always liked pet names." it should probably be awkward, talking about her ex that way, but jonathan just hums in agreement. eddie's eyes sparkle, grinning at the new information.

"you can use whatever you want, munson." she warns, already seeing where his mind was going. "but evie is my one. come up with your own."

[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.”

[little-princes-things]

stobin and my eddieeeee, from like a month ago

[infinite-orangepeel]

learning how to become fluent in pet names with the girls

[tink27]

Steddie ficlet (might do a follow up to show Eddie's reaction)

"He likes a boy"

after years of friendship, and being joined at the proverbial hip, Robin liked to think she could read Steve pretty well, however, his love of being just vague enough to confuse her made this difficult.

"who likes a what now?" still trying to get a read on Steve's feelings, but as of right now he just seemed, disconnected. Since showing up unexpectedly at her house, he had maintained that far-away sort of look that showed that even Steve didn't know what he was feeling.

"Eddie... he... we were hanging out and he" finally he fully met Robin's gaze, and the heartbroken edge to his vacant stare became evident "he was implying, heavily, that he likes me"

"... likes likes you?"

Steve's expression briefly switched to mocking disbelief at her childish choice of words, but he didn't have the energy for any kind of clever retort

"Yes Robin! like likes me!" throwing up his hands before allowing them to smack down against their Jeans ("their" because they fit them both and had been making the rotation between both Steve and Robin's wardrobe for months, she wasn't entirely sure who they belonged to to begin with, not that it mattered)

"And you're... upset?" This was baffling because in the months since Eddie returned for the upside-down, the two had never been closer. Far too many shifts consisted of Steve waxing poetic about Eddie while Robin vaguely tried to relate and be supportive. Although why Steve seemed so utterly smitten as he talked about Eddie's hair or musical elitism would never really make sense to Robin. But still, she saw how they were together.

Steve had a bad track record for love, pouring every part of himself into another person in a way that was truly heartbreaking to watch. However, it became significantly less heartbreaking when it was accompanied by Eddie's eyes following Steve around every room, and always looking to him in conversations no matter who was there because it was Steve's opinion and thoughts that mattered to him most. They truly were obsessed with each other, and honestly, Robin had been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So Steve's stricken expression made no sense, nor did his frustration that Robin - despite being his platonic soulmate - didn't magically understand the issue he was having.

"I dont know Robs, its just he likes... Steve Harrington" his voice was defeated as he said it, but it still explained nothing

"....you're Steve Harrington" The confusion in her voice was evident "Am I missing something here, this isn't a 'King Steve' thing is it, because Eddie has made it pretty clear that he thought you were a jerk back then"

the noise of frustration from Steve showed she clearly had missed the point and never had she wished so badly to read her best friend's mind as when the tears began to well up in his eyes. She wanted to hug him, but knew from experience that Steve needed to get the thoughts out first.

There was a minute of silence that Robin had to try desperately to not break, every instinct wanting to spit out an awkward and unhelpful comment to lighten the mood, but she knew she just had to wait.

"I'm not..." the words seemed to get lodged in his throat, even those two words came out scratchy and uncomfortable

He squeezed his eyes shut "I'm not a boy"

Steve opened their eyes, with a desperate expression "I'm not a boy"

It was a statement but also a plea. Begging for Robin to know exactly what to say. She didnt.

"you're not a boy." Robin made sure to sound confident, at least she could pretend to know what she was doing. It seemed okay because they gave an awkward nod, head moving slightly too much for it to seem natural

"you're.... a girl?"

the tears seemed to spill the second she said it, and a choked noise lodged itself in their (her?) throat, but after a moment of panicked pause their eyes screwed shut and they nodded but also shrugged. Clearly just as confused by their discomfort as Robin is.

"Okay, thats okay Ste-" shit, stupid "that's okay babe, you're still you, and hey I might be... severely romantically challenged but even I know Eddie is obsessed with you"

there's a brief watery smile before the corners of her lips are pulled down "He likes Steve, he wouldn't like me"

"Horse shit" Robin wasn't as confident as she was trying to sound, but she knew that her best friend was still her best friend and that anyone who didn't adore her was an idiot (as all best friends know)

she moved to sit next to her friend who had ended up on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest, and once again the silence was allowed to stretch out before them, only broken up by heartbroken sniffles and shakey breaths

"so..." Robin wished more than any other moment that she wasn't so awkward "Not Steve?"

"I-" the thought gets broken off " It doesn't feel right, doesn't feel like it's me"

"whats you?" two words encapsulating a question that was near impossible to answer, but it still felt right to ask, to show that Robin wanted to know the answer.

the expression on her face showed that her friend also thought the question unanswerable, and a frustrated shrug fell from her

Robin hated that defeated expression, so she tried "Michelle?"

Clearly, the scrunched-up expression implied it wasn't a fit

"Hannah?" no not that

"Sarah?" seemed less disgusted but still no

"Becky?" okay back to disgust, moving on

"OH! Punch me if this sucks, but... Stevie?" Robin felt the need to justify her choice, showing that she wasn't just trying to make her keep her old name "Like Stevie Nicks! I could see that, dye your hair blonde, get some bangs"

the comment about changing her hair was obviously met with a scowl, but after a soft smile found its way onto her face "Stevie feels better"

Robin had never felt so smart, she was a fucking genius "Stevie is it babe"

Stevie spent moments looking at her, seemingly deep in thought before softly speaking "Thank you Robin"

it seemed too formal for them, to say it so directly with her name like that, but she could tell that Stevie was really grateful so Robin held back the tears (one of them had to be the butch one in this relationship)

"no problem babe" it was spoken just as softly as the thanks, and for now it seemed enough

"Now, tell me what happened with Eddie"

[eddiethebrave]

🩷 part two

one

494 words

Stevie knew she should have offered to drive. This is what she gets for wanting a break from chauffeuring. 

Curse Robin for calling shotgun. When no one was looking, Stevie had shot her a glare and she'd only stuck her tongue out at her in return. Stevie guesses she can’t blame her for wanting to keep Nancy company up front while she drives. 

But going by her smirk when Eddie offered up his lap, that wasn’t her only motive. Sharing a seat with Eddie wouldn’t be that bad if she weren’t the one on top. Or if Eddie weren’t so…lithe. Not that that’s a bad thing!

It’s just that, Stevie is quite aware she’s not exactly small. She’s tall and has a not an insignificant amount of weight and bulk on her. After all, she always has been, and always will be, a jock.

If she had gotten the chance to choose between Eddie, Jonathan, and Argyle, she honestly would’ve gone with Argyle, but she guesses Eddie isn’t a bad third option - choice number one being Robin, if only she weren’t a traitor.

Eddie was honestly just too enthusiastic to turn down.

Fear not, fair maiden, for I will accompany you on this perilous journey! 

Like, who even talks like that. He’d even had the gall to swipe her hand and plant a chaste kiss there. If anybody besides Robin noticed the way her cheeks tinted pink, they didn’t mention it. 

So, here she is. Perched on Eddie’s lap as everyone buckles in. Well, everyone besides her.

That is until Eddie’s hands find her shoulders and pull, encouraging her to lean back into his chest. Once she does, he winds his arms around her torso and clasps his hands together low on her stomach. “Come here, princess, safety first.”

Stevie’s breath hitches and she forces herself to laugh quietly. “Yeah right, Munson. You just wanna cop a feel.”

Eddie snickers. “You caught me.”

This is something they do. The flirting. Stevie doesn’t know if anything is ever going to come from it, but she sure as hell knows she isn’t gonna make the first move. No way. Especially when she's not out to him. As much as she knows that Eddie is an ally, she’s been fooled before. 

She won’t do it; no matter how good it feels to be wrapped in his arms with his hair and breath tickling her neck. Or how good his hands look decorated with chunky silver and pressed up against her stomach. Or the way his grip on her tightens when the car stops a little too abruptly as they reach their destination.

It’s the last showing at the drive-in before it closes for the winter.

“Remind me why we couldn’t take the van again,” Stevie says, turning slightly to meet Eddie’s eyes. 

The boy grins. “Well then I wouldn’t get to do this.” He nuzzles into her neck. 

Stevie rolls her eyes and pushes him away halfheartedly.

three

[slavicviking]

Yellow

@steddiemicrofic December prompt: pine | wc: 508 | G | cw: none | tags: misunderstandings, pre-Steddie

“Looking good, Nance. Did you do something with your hair?” Nancy did not. She knew for a fact her curls looked worse for wear thanks to the raging wind outside. Steve knew that, too – had to, with his in-depth knowledge of maintaining hair, curls or not. Eddie stiffens next to her. “I’m here to return this,” Nancy pulls out a Breakfast Club tape from her bag with a forced smile. “Great movie choice,” Steve trudges on with otherwise admirable perseverance. The ugly green Family Video creases inelegantly as he leans forward. “I think it sucks,” Eddie jumps in. He grins but Nancy knows him well enough to tell how tense he really is. And isn’t that a wild thought in itself? Nancy would never expect to get along so well with Eddie Munson and yet here he was, dare she say it - her best friend at the moment. Steve lets out a nervous laugh, red dotting his cheeks as his hand ventures out to rub his neck. Robin’s bright eyes keep darting back and forth between two boys, an unreadable look on her face. “This is getting ridiculous,” Nancy says once she slips into the driver seat of her car. Eddie joins her on the other side, uncharacteristically quiet. Her eyebrows drop lower. “He’ll get over it soon. You’ll see.” “I don’t know, Wheeler. He seems pretty dedicated.” The thing is, Nancy’s observant. She pays attention to her close circle of friends, and that includes Steve. Something about this isn’t adding up – the compliments, the showering with attention. And it’s not only because she’s usually left with a morose Eddie, unfairly pining away, in the aftermath. It’s been going on for weeks now. Something’s got to give, eventually, she’s sure. It does, a week later, when Steve Harrington knocks on the Wheelers’ front door in the middle of the day, clad in an ironed shirt and beige khakis. “Here,” he hands her a bouquet of yellow roses. “They’re for you.” She makes a point of not taking them. They hang awkwardly between them until Steve drops his hand with a grimace. “We’re not getting back together,” Nancy tells him bluntly. Steve’s a good guy, he is, but he can be a bit obtuse sometimes. To her surprise, Steve doesn’t deter her. Instead, he blinks. “What?” “It’s sweet that you’re trying,” she tries. “But we wouldn’t work out. We just wouldn’t.” He blinks again. “I don’t-uh. This is awkward.” Understatement if she’s ever seen one. “I don’t want to date you, Nancy,” Steve finally says. He winces before adding. “No offense.” “Then what’s with this?” she points to the flowers. “The compliments? All of it?” He sighs. “I know we didn’t really end on good terms. And your opinion matters to him- I mean, he's just so-” “Him?” Nancy questions before realization dawns on her. “Eddie?” “Wait, does he think I – shit!” Steve’s eyes grow wide as he shoves the flowers into Nancy’s chest and backs out towards the car. “Shit! Sorry, Nance. Gotta go!”

Yellow Roses are the symbol of friendship <3

[italiansteebie]

in a shocking turn of events, steve harrington has siblings. quite a few actually. and in another turn, steve isn't even his first name.

in fact, it's his third.

finding this out was a shock, especially since it wasn't from steve that everyone found out.

steve was in the bathroom fixing his hair when the phone rang, and he shouted down to robin who was in the living room to go ahead and answer it.

"hello, harrington residence?"

"uh. can i talk to eli, please?"

robin paused. who the hell is eli?

"um, sorry. there's no eli here..." she trailed unsurely, moving to hang up the phone.

"oh sorry. uh, steve. can i talk to steve? it's his sister, marianne."

robin almost dropped the phone, steve had a sister?

"oh, sure. one second."

she covered the phone with her hand and called out for the boy. "steve! your sisters on the phone!"

she didn't get the response she thought she would, because he called back, "which one?"

"marianne!"

and suddenly he was beside her, grabbing the phone and shooing her away.

while he spoke to his sister, robin made herself busy, grabbing steve's walkie and alerting the rest of the party of the new development.

"guys. steve's name isn't steve, it's eli! and he has siblings! plural!"

the cacophony that this statement caused was almost overwhelming, and by the time steve was done talking to marianne, eddie, dustin, and the rest of the rugrats were at the door begging for explanation.

steve was confused, until eddie looked him in the eye with a smug glint and breathed, "hey, eli." and the time it took for steve's face to turn cherry red was record breaking.

"uh. what? why- uh. why did you call me that?"

robin looked at him blankly, "i answered the phone, dingus. marianne started asking for eli."

steve sighed, "okay so like. here's the thing. Steve is my middle name- well one of them. and i only go by eli around family." the group stared. "we didnt know you had a family." dustin said flatly.

"well i had to get here somehow." steve retorted, and eddie chuckled. "he meant we didn't know you had siblings, eli."

"okay. don't call me that, and yeah. i have six, im the seventh. everyone else is a lot older than me."

his audience was placated with that answer, for now at least.

and when everyone but eddie left, the house was filled with breathy sighs of "eli." followed by soft giggles.

and soon they weaseled out his full name. which turned to be a resounding "Eli Reginald Stefano Harrington. The third."

followed by a shocked,

"The third?!"

[augustjustice]

You're the One that I Want

@steddie-week prompts: dizzy, drunken confessions @stevieweek prompt: girls night @steddiemicrofic prompt: one | wc: 1111 words rating: T | tags: transfem steve harrington, platonic stobin, sleepovers, phone calls, love confessions

AO3 Link

When the phone rang right around eleven, Eddie had to admit he was sort of surprised.

Not that he was any stranger to nighttime phone calls. One caller in particular had become something of a regular, post-nightmare soothing sessions in the first weeks after Spring Break soon morphing into inane chats about anything and everything. 

But he knew she was busy tonight.

Eddie had been quick to learn, once he’d gotten closer to the Upside Down crew, that weekly Steve and Robin Nights were a sacred tradition. Ever since Stevie came out, the title had transformed into Girls Night, much like their very own lovely jock herself. 

The importance of the day, however, remained the same.

And, it being Thursday, Eddie definitely didn’t expect to hear from her tonight. 

Crossing the trailer, he mused over who it might be instead. Gareth, maybe, since he was still sorting out the kinks of his drum solo in Corroded Coffin’s latest song. 

“Joe’s Pool Hall,” Eddie chirped when he picked up. “We rack ‘em and stack ‘em so you don’t have to!”

“Munson!” Robin’s voice burst out over the line, loud enough Eddie pulled the phone a few inches away from his ear. “Stevie needs to tell you something!”

In the background, he could hear Stevie’s muffled Robbie, nooo.

“Stevie-Evie, come on! Tell him, tell him, tell him.” The speed at which Robin chanted her words left them slurred, tripping over each other. “Exactly what you told me. It’s like–sleepover law. You gotta.”

From the shrieks and incomprehensible arguing that broke out after, Eddie could surmise they’d fallen into a drunken scuffle.

Finally, Stevie’s voice rang out from the receiver. “Hi, Eds!” 

The happiness in her tone made actual butterflies erupt in his stomach. Goddamn, he was such a mess for this girl. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Eddie answered, twirling the cord around one finger. “Sounds to me like you two lovely ladies are having a fun night.”

“Oh, yeah, totally. We totally were. But then Robin,” in her inebriated state, Stevie put extra emphasis on the end of her best friend’s name, “got this bright idea to play, like. All the girls’ sleepover games I missed out on because…well, you know.”

Though Stevie sounded put-out now, Eddie had no doubt the suggestion had delighted her. Indescribable fondness for both girls swelled in his chest. 

“That right? What game are you at–prank call the hottest future rock star you know?” 

“No, sillyhead!” Stevie tittered.

Eddie could practically see her, smile bright and nose scrunched up adorably. The image was so distracting, he almost missed Stevie’s next words. 

“I’m s’posed to call…” she dropped into a hushed whisper, the crinkling sound the receiver made suggesting she had cupped her hand around the phone, “my biggest crush!”

The sentence hit Eddie like a truck, nearly incomprehensible. He felt dizzy with it, the bottom of his stomach dropping out the same way it had on the Gravitron at last year’s Fourth of July Fun Fair. 

“S-Sorry, uh,” he stuttered out, “bad connection, I think. You know how shitty the service down at Forest Park can be. Cuz, for a second, I almost thought you said–”

But Stevie barrelled on, as though he hadn’t said anything at all.

“You’re the one that I want!” she sang out.

Her voice carried all the passion and fervor as the times she was alone in the car with Eddie, taunting him with her favorite new pop hit, or when she and Robin were goofing off, having a dance off after hours at work. Eddie could hear it when Robin joined in for the follow-up chorus of Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey!

The absurdity of it made Eddie cackle, momentarily distracted from the racing of his heart. 

“Harrington…did you seriously just sing Grease at me?” 

“I did not!” Stevie protested. 

Eddie wouldn’t have been surprised if she had punctuated that claim with a stamp of her foot. But she followed it up with a little hmph, contemplative. 

“–Well, yeah, okay. So what if I did? That-that isn’t the point. The point is…I want you, Eddie Munson.”

He gulped against the nervousness welling up in his throat. “Princess…you’re actually serious right now, right? This isn’t just, you know…the booze talking?”

“‘Course I’m serious, Eds. Don’t know how you didn’t notice–Robin said my mooning was getting so annoying. But that’s only cuz I’m like…totally in love with you, to be honest.” 

It wasn’t as eloquent and romantic, Eddie suspected, as a sober Stevie Harrington love confession would have been–but, heart flipping in his chest, he cherished it just as much. 

“Oh. Well, shit. Looks like…I better shape up, then.” 

And even though he knew what he was about to do would make him sound completely ridiculous–he couldn’t help but smile, knowing it would be totally worth it. 

So, Eddie took a deep breath and belted back, “Cuz my heart is set on you!”

“Eddie!” Stevie gasped like he had just performed a magic trick. “You know Grease?!”

“Stevie, you gotta swear you’re gonna take that one to your grave. But…sure I do, darling. You think I wouldn’t go out and see one of your favorite movies?”

“Really?”

The excitement in her voice was tempered by a sudden hint of shyness, the kind she usually hid behind a bold, confident exterior. Eddie knew exactly what that was like–and he felt lucky, that Stevie trusted him enough to let him see the vulnerability underneath.  

“Really really. I’m gone for you, Stevie. Have been for…well, hell. A really long damn time.”

Stevie sighed, lovelorn and wistful.

“Me, too.”

Eddie was really glad he wasn’t the one that was drunk right now, or he might have suspected he was dreaming.

“Wanted to tell you for so long–” But whatever sweet thing Stevie had been about to say was cut off, as she suddenly huffed into the phone. “Oh my God, okay! I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying!”

“All good over there?” 

“Sorry. Robin says I’m hogging the phone,” Eddie could practically hear her eye roll, before her tone turned mischievous. “Besides…now it’s her turn to call Vickie. Talk tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, Stevie. See you bright and early.” Bright and early for Eddie usually meant around noon, but, for this, he was willing to make an exception. “And tell Buck–I owe her one.”

You’re welcome! he heard Robin sing-song just before Stevie hung up, evidence she’d probably been listening in on every word. 

As he wandered back to his bedroom in a daze, 11:11 blinked at him from the digital alarm clock on his bedside table.

Eddie didn’t even need to make a wish.

Travolta and his flying car had nothing on him. 

[estrellami-1]

We’ll Help You

Started as Steve and Robin platonic soulmate fluff. Devolved into *vaguely waves hands* whatever the fuck this is. I considered writing more but realized it would very quickly become Just Words, instead of a story, and I want y’all to have this because personally I think Steve and Robin are Goals in this one. As it is, there will not be a part 2 to this one… at least, not one written by me! If y’all want to do something by with this, go right ahead; just tag me in it!

“Bye, Mom, Dad, I’m going to Steve’s!” Robin calls into the house.

“Have fun!” Her mother calls back.

“Use protection!” Her dad yells.

“Dick!” Her mother yells back.

“That’s what I’m saying!” He says.

Melissa sighs. “Richard,” she says, faux-sweetly, “Robin and Steve are not together. She’s told us this many times.”

“Yeah, and neither were we when you-”

“Richard!” Melissa takes a breath. “Bye, Robin. Have fun, okay?”

“Okay,” Robin says, and closes the door, getting into Steve’s car with wide eyes.

He chuckles at her expression. “You good?”

“My parents have scarred me.”

Steve makes a face. “What, did you walk in on them?”

“No, they were talking about when they had me! I don’t need to know this, Steven!” She hisses back.

Steve just snorts, shakes his head, and drives on.

Robin is suddenly hit with a familiar, unwelcome pain. “Fuck,” she hisses, bending over and clutching her stomach. “Steve? I need to turn around.”

“What? Why? What’s wrong?”

She wants to cry. “I, uh. Just started? And I didn’t bring anything with me.”

“Oh.” A pause, “What medicine do you usually take?”

She blinks. “Um. Advil?”

“Okay. Then I’ve got you covered.”

“No- Steve, it’s not just-”

“Robin,” he says calmly, “I’ve got you covered. I’ve got supplies at home.”

She blinks at him. “Since when?”

His cheeks pinken. “Since we became friends? I just… I dunno. I knew we were gonna be forever, y’know? And I want you to have access to anything you’ll need. So I got some stuff.”

“What the fuck,” she whispers, tears beading in her eyes. “What the fuck, Steve, I’m gonna cry, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Steve shrugs. “I just want you to have what you need.”

She sniffles and leans her head against the window. “Fuck, I love you.”

Steve smiles, puts a hand on her arm, squeezes gently. “Love you too, Robin.”

They get back to his house and get settled in on the couch. “I’ve got a heating pad, if you want it,” Steve offers.

Robin blinks at him. “Marry me.”

Steve laughs. “I thought that’s exactly what we’re trying to convince your parents isn’t happening.”

“I don’t care,” she responds, groaning in relief when she positions the heating pad. She collapses back into the corner of the couch. “I want to have a dick.”

Steve laughs. “You can’t even look at a dick, Robin.”

“I could if it was mine,” she argues nonsensically.

“You don’t want a dick,” he assures her, then pauses. “If you were a guy, would you still like girls? Or would you still be gay?”

“I… don’t know,” she says, thinking. “I mean, there’s people who were born one gender and are the other now, right? And they still like the same gender. So I would too.”

“Okay, but are we talking you were born a guy? Or you’d turn into a guy? Cause if you were born a guy, that might change things.”

Robin groans in frustration. “I wouldn’t care, as long as Satan stopped throwing parties in my uterus every month.”

Steve snickers. “I can’t fix that, but I do have chocolate ice cream.”

“And again I say, marry me.”

He smiles at her, affection shining through. “We’d be the best platonic husband and wife ever.”

Robin smiles, best she can through the pain. “Only if I’m the husband.”

“Okay,” Steve shrugs. “I can be the wife.” He pauses for a second, then asks, “Is that… is that something you’d want? Being a guy?”

Robin hums. “No. Much as I hate certain things that come with being a woman, I definitely wouldn’t want to be a guy.” Steve hums, frowning, and Robin shifts on the couch. “Hold on,” she says, “I know that look. What’re you thinking?”

“Just…” he runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t get what the big deal is? I don’t have super strong feelings about being a guy. There’s nothing telling me, this is who you’re supposed to be.”

“Okay,” Robin says slowly, carefully, “and how about your feelings on being a girl?”

Steve shrugs. “Same. I don’t care either way.”

“Huh,” Robin says, and leans back. “That’s… I mean, that’s okay, obviously, but that’s not… what a guy would typically say.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Right, ‘cause you’re such an expert on guys.”

Robin groans and thinks her head on the cushion. “Okay, so call someone. Call Eddie, he’d know, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve says, and hops up from the couch. “Hey, while I’m over here, should I order a pizza?”

Robin snickers. “Call Eddie first. Maybe he’ll come over and it’ll be the three of us. Actually, don’t even tell him, just invite him over. I wanna see his face when you tell him.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Robs. Eddie, hey! Wanna come over? Pizza and ice cream with me and Robin?”

Robin hisses at him, so he says, “Sorry, ice cream’s been spoken for, actually. Wait, Robs, are you sure? The whole tub?”

“Do not test me, Steven,” comes her response.

“Yeah, okay. Yeah, if you want to get one for the two of us to share, that would be great. See you in twenty? Okay, cool. I’ll order the pizza. Bye!”

He orders the pizza without a hitch. He’s promised delivery within fifteen minutes and wanders back over to the couch, where he grins at Robin. “Wanna pick a movie before Eddie gets here and can veto it?”

Robin grins back. “You know I’m gonna pick something you hate.”

“I know.” His smile turns more genuine. “As long as you’re happy.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

He waves her off. “Course you do. You gonna pick?”

“I’m surprised you doubted me,” she says, and picks something he hadn’t realized he had.

The pizza arrives a short minute before Eddie does. They all eat before Robin makes Steve and Eddie sit so she can recap everything.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, shrugging. “I just don’t care.”

“So our question is,” Robin says, “do you? Is there something in you that says you’re a guy, or would be wrong as a girl?”

“Definitely,” Eddie nods, studying Steve. “Y’know there’s people in between? Who aren’t really a guy or a girl?”

Steve’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “They go by they or them, and a lot of times they’ll change their name to be something more in-between too, like Avery or Taylor.”

“Huh,” Steve says, tipping his head back to stare through the ceiling as he thinks. “So… so if I were to do that… and maybe go by Stevie-”

“Then we’d call you Stevie,” Eddie nods. “We’d say they’re so cool, they have a nailbat, I’m so glad I’m friends with them.”

“Oh,” Steve says. His voice is shaky.

“Stevie,” Robin murmurs. “You’re crying.”

“Oh,” he says again, wiping his face and giving a little laugh. “Sorry. I dunno why. I think… that makes sense.” They look at Eddie, then Robin, holds eye contact when they say, “That’s who I am.”

Robin’s tearing up, too. “Nice to meet you, Stevie,” she whispers.

They choke out a little laugh and move to sit next to her, pulling her into a hug. “Love you, Robbie.”

“You too,” she whispers. “Hey, can I still call you dingus?”

Stevie laughs. “Sure, Robs.”

“Cool.” She beams and pulls them into a tight hug. “‘M glad you figured this out.”

Stevie giggles. “Me too.” They turn to Eddie, “Thanks for helping me figure this out.”

Eddie smiles warmly at them. “Anytime,” he promises. “And hey, now that you know, there’s plenty you can do, if you want to.”

Stevie furrows their brows. “Like what?”

“Well, you could grow your hair out, or cut it. You could change your wardrobe. You could get makeup, if you wanted. Anything that’ll help you feel more like you.”

Stevie frowns. “I don’t know what feels like me.”

“That’s okay,” Eddie says, smiling first at them, then at Robin. “We’ll help you.”

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[harringroveera]

Steve is getting a lil offended now!

[stevesbipanic]

Steve always felt like an outsider.

He knew from a young age he was different from the other kids. The other kids in his class giggled about kisses and cooties, Steve had no desire for these things. The other boys in his class didn't look at the other girls and want to wear their pretty dresses. The other kids didnt sneak into their mom's bathroom and put on lipstick.

The other kids weren't different.

As Steve grew up he felt even more different. Tommy had a girlfriend now, Steve got one because Tommy said he was a queer otherwise, Steve's dad taught him he didn't want to be one of those.

Steve felt nothing when he was kissed, the girls were nice but the only thing he liked was the lipstick they'd leave behind on his lips.

Maybe he was queer, he whispered as such to Tommy one night, Tommy kissed him, he felt nothing.

"Maybe you just need to find the right girl."

Maybe Tommy was right.

Nancy Wheeler should've been the right girl. She was perfect, smart, kind, beautiful. He loved Nancy but he still felt nothing when she kissed him, maybe Nancy was right, he was bullshit, he couldn't even love right.

Steve loved Robin, Robin was different to Nancy maybe she was the right girl. She wasn't but Robin would use Steve to practice painting nails and let him borrow her sweaters. Robin gave him soft pink Chapstick and told him mascara made his eyes look pretty. Robin told him it's ok to feel like a girl sometimes cause sometimes they felt like a boy. Stevie felt like herself with Robin.

Eddie was different, he wasn't a girl but he made Stevie feel alive. Not at first though. Steve hated him, thought he was stealing her kids. Then he saved Dustin, then they talked a lot in the hospital, then Eddie stayed with him while he recovered, then Eddie kept staying, then months past then Stevie had a nightmare, then Eddie called him Stevie and Steve corrected Eddie that it was a Steve day and all Eddie did was smile and nod, then they started sharing a bed cause they felt safer that way, then Steve woke up one day and he felt the feelings everyone had told him about for years.

"Oh."

Steve wasn't broken she was just different. Kissing Eddie felt right that morning and every morning after.