#with cameos by steddies number one shippers gareth and jeff

[alchemistc]

You can find part one of this headcanon that I should really just fic at this point (but won't because that's a commitment I will 100% abandon 120k words in when there's still 10 more chapters to go) here.

Have some more "Eddie befriends a concussed Steve after season 2 headcanons-that-are-basically-fic-at-this-point"

Steve gives himself two blissful weeks of Eddie Time before he starts his job hunt, and Eddie pouts about it like the world is coming to an end. Offers to pay for Steve's gas and insurance himself because he really, really enjoys the bubble they've built themselves full of kissing and fucking and talking until six in the morning about nothing and everything and Eddie is only marginally more well-adjusted than Steve is about Love.

"Sure, yeah, my dad throws a fit because I don't get into college, and you think he'll react to 'hey in the same vein, I'm also a raging homo and my drug dealer boyfriend wants me to be his kept man' with anything but violence."

Eddie rants about capitalist greed while Steve gathers applications from shops in the mall, glares at the Sam Goody sign going up and doesn't shut up about how fucking stupid he thinks the mall is the entire drive home, but he changes his tune the first time Steve tries on his uniform. Then immediately rethinks that idea because "Steven, I will pay you to quit right now and keep the uniform, no one else is allowed to see this much thigh on display on the daily, these are my slutty thighs."

Robin nearly quits the first time Scoops has a staff meeting and she finds Steve Harrington lounging in the backroom in the stupid fucking outfit they all have to wear. Begs not to be put on shift with him and then isn't super surprised when she checks the schedule and nearly all of the shifts with Buckley listed have Harrington right next to them, because absolutely fuck her life.

He's kind of a fucking dweeb, if she's being honest, and way less of a flirt than she remembers him being, and every time he strikes out with a pretty girl (because of fucking course she notices exactly how cute they all are) he doesn't actually seem all that put out about it and sort of laughs at her little You Suck marks like there's a joke she's just not in on, which is categorically unfair.

And - he's weird, actually, the more she thinks about it, because sometimes Robin will go on a tangent about a band she's into who just put out a shit album, and Steve will nod along like he knows a thing or two about the band in question (but he can't because this particular bands music is super fucking queer and they're not popular, certainly not in goddamn Hawkins), or she'll start in on one of the popular girls from school once the girl leaves the shop and Steve will tell Robin fucking secrets about all the dumb shit his old crew used to get up to and he'll whisper all the embarrassing stories he has about them like she's a good buddy and he's always secretly wanted to gossip about those dickheads.

And, like, the one thing they do actually have in common is their attraction to girls, not that she's ever telling him that, only - only once, some dude from the jazzercise class came in and Robin is seventy-three percent sure she caught Steve checking out the guys ass when he left, which - no way. Right? He'd just zoned out, or something.

As it turns out she actually kind of enjoys being around Steve, who seems to have a few working braincells beneath all that hair and is surprisingly funny when he's not thinking too hard about it and hangs out with the weirdest people, like - Robin could have tossed the names of the entire population of Hawkins into a bowl and pulled out names at random and still wouldn't have chosen a weirder group of people for The Hair Harrington.

She can't decide if the more inexplicable is the revolving door of children who come to visit him nearly daily and often charm a free cone or a sneak through the backdoor to the theater - or the trio of metalheads here nearly as often. Eddie Munson buys them all cups of ice cream and then they sit in the corner booth menacing terrified suburban moms and hounding Steve until his break and then Steve saunters over with a dopey little grin on his face and argues with Gareth E for five full minutes about something that makes Munson boom in laughter.

And - okay, so Robin is firmly in the closet where she's safe and so is everyone else queer in Hawkins but Munson's never actually denied all the snide comments that get tossed his way and you can't ever assume but like - he doesn't exactly hide the way he ogles Steve Harrington in his stupid uniform and Steve - notices? She thinks he notices. He'd have to be an idiot not to notice, she thinks, but then - well, he's definitely an idiot because sometimes when he gets up at the end of his break Munson shoots a pining look his way and gets an elbow in the ribs from Jeff or Gareth and Robin is actually like a little desperate to know how the hell that particular dynamic was struck up but there's no way she's letting Harrington know he intrigues her.

Eddie learns about the You Rule You Suck board and has a minor freak out about it while pacing a hole into Jeff's bedroom carpet because "He's bi, Jeff, and Buckley's totally his fucking type, they spend literally all day together, Jeff, he's going to leave me for a band nerd, Jeff." and Jeff has to remind Eddie that Steve is ass over tits in love with Eddie and spends every moment not at his literal job either carting around his merry band of kiddos or with Eddie.

Eddie demands secrecy from Jeff about the freakout and Jeff crosses the fingers of one hand behind his back as he runs his fingers over his lips like a zipper, so the moment Eddie leaves, Jeff calls Steve to give him the scoop, and maybe Steve lays it on a little extra thick and does some stupidly romantic shit but it's not like that's far out of his wheelhouse, he romances the fuck out of Eddie whenever he can and Eddie totally knows Jeff spilled his secrets but actually this is sort of okay too.

Eddie picks Henderson up the day he gets back from camp, drives him over to the mall and gets caught by Buckley making cow eyes at Steve when Steve and Henderson get to the lightsaber part of their little handshake.

And. Okay. Sure, Eddie's always kinda figured there was more to the story behind Steve's journey into Being A Better Person but he didn't expect the Russians.

So, when it all goes to hell in a hand basket Eddie's tucked in the backroom of Scoops with the rest of them listening to a Russian recording and handing a coin off to Steve so he can listen to the sound of the Indiana Flyer and -

Fucking. Russians?

And then they're sneaking into a secret base because they got trapped in a secret elevator, and they're sneaking through an underground lab and the Russians are boring a hole into the inside of the world and "Babe, we don't really have time for Twenty Questions when RUSSIANS ARE CHASING US but I promise I'll tell you all about it if I make it outta here alive." and it's the sort of ridiculous bullshit he'd throw into a campaign if the players were really pissing him off so of course, of course they get separated, and Eddie nearly bites Dustin's head off trying to figure out how they're gonna fucking save Steve and Robin.

Steve goads the torture guy into fucking him up so he lays off Robin and Robin is high as shit but like, she knows, okay, she knows what he did for her and that's.

"Have you ever been in love?" Robin asks later, after she's already sort of laid her heart out hoping he won't stomp on it and Steve doesn't hesitate.

"Yep. Nancy Wheeler," and he mimes a gunshot to the heart, makes the sound effect because even though he's found something different and heartstoppingly epic, sometimes that still stings. "And-" but Robin's scoffing and calling Nancy a priss so Steve gets sidetracked from telling Robin he's head over fucking heels for Eddie goddamn Munson. For a second, anyway.

"Are you still in love with Nancy?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Because - because the sun shines out of Eddie Munson's ass and Eddie looks at him like Steve hung the moon and the stars and because somewhere along his journey of self discovery he realized how very much he wanted to love and be loved in return and that Nancy probably was never gonna be the person to share that with him the way he wanted, and damn the world and his parents and his former shitty friends for thinking there's anything wrong with that but also - shit, he likes Robin, thinks she's great, thinks maybe if things were different he'd probably be harboring a terrible fucking crush on her but that doesn't mean she's gonna want to stick around once she finds out he's already planning out the rest of his life with the metalhead she barely tolerates hanging out in the store until closing time three nights a week.

So he tells her about this person he's super into and how weird and cool and so not the type of person he would have gone for in high school they are, and she goes quiet, and he slides under the stall and settles his weight across from her and she's looking at him like she's terrified and - yeah, okay, yep, this fucking sucks. Anyone else who already knows had learned how to not be shitheads about it from Eddie long before Steve had his revelation, or they'd never been the type of people to judge that kind of thing anyway and - and he'd told Gareth that Eddie was worth the hassle and he is but this sucks.

And.

And then she's telling him about how she'd hated him because Tammy Thompson was obsessed with him and - and it takes more time than he's proud of for everything to sort of click in his head but he's got at least a few broken ribs and he's pretty sure that stinging feeling in the side of his skull is gonna amount to another fucking concussion so at least he's got a hookup for good weed - "But Tammy Thompson's a girl," comes out of his mouth anyway and he blinks half a second later because - holy shit. Holy shit.

Because if she - and he - and Steve laughs and calls Tammy Thompson a muppet but then he's laughing harder and pointing to himself and saying "Listen, okay listen, Eddie - Eddie Munson, yeah, I didn't say it earlier because - I didn't mean you, Buckley, I meant Eddie."

And - he'd called Eddie babe and Robin hadn't really noticed it at the time because, like, running away from Russians but - god she's been an idiot because if she'd paid a lick of attention she probably could have put two and two together, like Steve eying the lines on the You Suck board with a secret smile and Steve leaping over the counter like a showoff every time he took his break with Eddie right there across the way, like Eddie leaning across the counter and pressing a finger against the skin and hair on display above the line of Steve's uniform shirt , like Steve blowing off a cute girl to lean across the counter and call Eddie a nerd wasn't the gayest shit imaginable.

And then Eddie and Dustin and Erica are pushing through the bathroom door and Robin is cackling and the comedown from Russian truth drugs is gonna suck but maybe Eddie will smoke them both up if they survive the rest of the night.

---

Eddie doesn't call him out on attempting vehicular manslaughter because he'd seen how fucking long it took Steve to actually recover from the last go 'round with Billy Hargrove, and when the dust settles and they're all sort of reeling because - because Hopper was like a superhero, alright, and they've got an actual superhero in their midst but Hopper-

Eddie and Robin sit across from each other on the end of Steve's bed and Steve drinks his water and tries not to whine too much about the fact that Eddie is taking Robin at her word that they should at least make sure he's not gonna die of a brain bleed before they get him high and then they're laughing about the fact that Eddie was fully fucking convinced Robin was gonna steal Steve out from under his nose and it's - they wake him up once an hour as soon as he starts to nap and Steve's pretty sure they're just gossiping about Steve half the time but he doesn't mind that much.

Because Robin's, like, the best, the best person and the best friend and just the best thing, and she's gonna hate it so much that Steve trusts her because she's going to hear so many truly horrible things about how stupid in love with Eddie Munson Steve is but it's important to Steve that Eddie and Robin give a shit about one another and if they've gotta bond over his ability to injure the shit out of himself any time he's given the chance then he'll nurse his bruised ribs and grin dopily every time Eddie leans over to place a fresh pack of frozen peas on his eye.

---

Robin isn't sure she's ready for anyone else to know and Steve gets that, he totally does, because the few minutes he'd thought she'd judge him for the person he's given his whole heart to were the worst minutes of his life. Gareth clocks her in about two days anyway, keeps it to himself until he can't stand the awkward silences every time Robin and Steve get handsy and they realize it and leap away from one another but it's the same kind of handsy Eddie gets with the band when he's feeling a little lonely and he knows he can trust them to not be total fucking dickheads about it.

"How is it that the only totally hetero one is the only one with a fucking gaydar?" Jeff asks and - okay, so the thing is maybe watching Eddie and Steve fall in love made him realize a few things and he's - well, Hawkins is small and close minded and until Steve he hadn't realized that liking both was a thing you could do.

At the end of the summer Steve arranges a trip up to Indy and Robin has to make up a ridiculous lie to her parents about a camping trip with a few of the band kids because there's zero fucking way they're letting her go up to the city with four fucking dudes but she pulls it off and only has like, two freak outs about being in a club full of women who are also into women.

Babyfaced Gareth is a hit and Jeff definitely maybe makes out with a dude in the alley when he steps out for a cigarette and Steve makes Eddie dance with him until Eddie complains his toes are bleeding and it's actually kind of a perfect night, a perfect trip, a perfect way to end the summer.

Steve and Eddie take turns driving Robin to school in the mornings and Robin couldn't explain to a single soul how they've become the most important people she's ever had in her corner but the thing is she doesn't really have to, because that noise is for people who haven't seen Russians try to jumpstart the apocalypse, haven't been administered torture drugs by horror-movie looking 'doctors', haven't gotten their asses handed to them to protect one another.

By mid November Steve calls a meeting of Gareth and the Gays because Robin's crushing hard on a redhead from band and as previously established only one of them has a working gaydar. Gareth takes all of thirty seconds watching Robin and Vickie interact before he's giving her a thumbs up from across the gym.

---

Gareth fucking hates how catchy Gareth and the Gays is.