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Steve clocks in an hour late to Family Video with cold sweat beads streaking down his face, shivering in his step.
“Robin, am I gay?”
She looks at him, nose scrunched.
“Are you joking?” She asks, already settled in - covering last minute, “Is that why you wanted me to cover? The store is barren in the morning, have your crisis here.”
Steve, running on no sleep collapses into the stool they keep under the counter in secret, pressing his forehead up against the smooth cold.
“I’m not joking,” He reaches a hand up to massage at his scalp, “Can you suddenly become gay? Is that a thing? I’ve been pretty set on boobies since I hit puberty, Rob, but now I don’t know.”
Robin thumbed at the copy of Annie on my Mind in her hand, letting her head tip a little in thought. Realizing he was serious, she brings a hand up to rub her face before answering.
“Stop saying boobies, you’re an adult,” She starts with - slowly moving into an answer, “Well, no,” She starts, “You can’t just-” She stops herself, “Well, you can realize, but if you’re gay - you’ve always been gay?” Robin leans her head a smidge too much and shakes it a bit, face scrunched in thought; “Who you want to have sex with, sexuality, is all about your desires, right? It’s just about what you want.”
Steve groans, “I don’t know what I want, Rob.” he moves himself off the stool, clambering onto the counter; “Do I seem gay? Is that why I can’t get laid?” His eyes shoot wide, “Am I having these- these thoughts because I can’t get laid? Can a dry spell do that?”
Steve’s feet dangle from the Family Video counter, propping himself up by the hands. They both sit in the quiet contemplation of each other, tangled by the mutual understanding. Robin had been in Steve’s shoes, and Steve’s shoes felt like they didn’t fit his feet.
She looked back down at her book, getting through a few pages while she let Steve contemplate.
The silence got to Robin, “You figure it out yet?” She asks, “I can hear you overthinking. It’s getting annoying.” She cracks a big smile, and Steve feels a bit better.
“Is it girls, is it,” He pauses, “guys” implied and hanging tense in the air. “I can’t figure it out, Rob. It’s like- like this constant thought whenever I hit on a girl that a,” He pauses, “You know what I mean, that it would be different. With a not-girl. In a situation like that.” In his panic, Steve’s hand had moved to his leg and he’d begun squeezing nervously at his knee. “Then I think about,” He clears his throat, “Girls and I like it, I really like it - but then when I think about… the other situation, the other situation I’d be in with dating or having sex, and I think I’d really like that too. In theory.”
“Y’know you can like both, right?” Robin glances over from the book she’s been absentmindedly reading, “Like David Bowie?” Steve’s head cocks to the side in slight confusion, lips pursed and eyebrows raised. Robin looks exhausted, “Bisexuality,” She glances back down at the page she’s read over and over for the past ten minutes; giving up and dogearring the place she was at, “Bi, two, both. Dingus.”
Steve looks at her, half-astounded and half like a lightswitch flicked on in his brain, “Oh, shit.” He blinks slow, “Oh, shit dude.”
“Yeah,” She mumbles a bit, “not my first rodeo” Robin’s fingers thump on the counter in a tense silence, Steve tapping his heels against the sides.
“Yeah, ok.” Steve’s face is a bit firm, a little scared, “I think, yeah.”
Robin glances to the side, “You can think?” Steve explodes laughing, a big grin stretched across his face.
“Surprisingly, yeah,” He takes a deep breath, “I can!” Statement laced with sarcasm, he hops off the counter, picking up the stack of return tapes from the early-morning stragglers. “Who finally returned Top Gun?” He mumbles low, starting off toward the shelves.
The day goes by slowly, Robin and Steve killing time by taking turns on the rewind pile- bothering each other during smoke breaks, anything to kill the panic Steve managed to stifle temporarily earlier.
Their shift draws to a close, and when the next person clocks in to take over - Steve and Robin climb into his car and sit in the parking lot for a moment.
“Wanna go back to my place?” Steve throws out the idea, not wanting to be alone with the creeping thoughts in his mind, “Y’know my parents are never home, plus I’ll buy us pizza.”
“Yeah, why not? I don’t have any plans today,” Robin kicks her feet up on the windshield, “No pineapple,” Steve scowls, “Did you steal a good movie, at least?”
“Yeah, Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” He starts the car, Robin cranks her window down, “We both like the boobies,” that word earning him a stern glare, “And I watch it for the plot, anyway.”
“Just say you like the pecs,” Robin stifles a yawn, throwing her hands behind her head, “It’s not like it wasn’t implied this morning. Welcome to the Hawkins gay club, by the way. It’s just you, me, and one other guy.”
“So like, am I officially not.. Like, am I certified gay?” He asks, “Are you and that other guy the council? You two decide if I am?”
Robin chucks the book at his head, Steve ducks and laughs. It hits the window, just like normal. He starts to drive them back to his house. Maybe things would be okay.