Archive of Our Own

Set off to the side in a dark little nook, the R rated movies were kept carefully separated; hidden from the children's section on the opposite side of the Family Video store. Dustin casually leaned against the PG-13 movies to the right, and then slowly peered over. His hand was inches away from a copy of Aliens, when a sudden shout of 'Hey! Get away from there!' startled him into the shelf behind him. Copies of Ferris Bueller's Day Off toppled to the floor in a noisy spectacle, and he gathered them up hurriedly before frowning at his supposed friend.

"Steve!"

"Pretty sure you aren't eighteen, Dustin," the older boy answered, perched on the counter while Robin grinned in the background.

"I've seen worse than that in real life!" Dustin scoffed and then gestured rudely when Steve just laughed. "When I was eleven!"

"Yeah, well, tell that to your mother. She's still not over The Great Mouse Detective."

"Hey! That rat shouldn't have been in a Disney movie!"

"Don't call him a rat!" Robin sang out, shoving Steve off the counter before setting the tub of returned VHS tapes down where he'd been sitting.

Dustin rolled his eyes and moved to a different section, making sure to glower at Steve when he realized he was still being watched. "Get to work, loser!"

"Yeah, loser, get to work," Robin agreed. She passed the rewinder to him along with several tapes. "People weren't feeling very kind, I guess."

Steve sighed and popped the first one in. A brief buzz of tape zooming the opposite way filled the silence between them, before Robin triumphantly held up a movie. "It's back!"

"What's back?"

"Labyrinth!" She chuckled at his chagrin. "Now you have no excuse! Check it out, and get Eddie to watch it with you!"

"I don't think-"

"He plays D&D. There's no way he wouldn't appreciate this masterpiece."

Steve sighed and grabbed another tape from the dwindling pile. "It's got puppets, Robin."

"Hey, Dustin!" She hollered, ignoring Steve's frantic efforts to shush her.

The boy's head popped up around a shelf suspiciously close to the R rated section. "I'm not even looking that way!"

"Think Eddie would like Labyrinth?"

"Sure," he shrugged, "What's not to like?"

She grinned an 'I told you so' at Steve, who was pretending to ignore the conversation.

"Why?" Dustin asked after a couple minutes without acknowledgement.

"The tape came in, and I was telling Steve that he should-"

"Hey, Robin," Steve interrupted. He gestured towards the family waiting at the counter. Holding up the box of rewound tapes, he put them on the return cart and pushed it out.

Dustin appeared from his left at the first break in the shelves. Steve took an involuntary step back, then narrowed his eyes at the giggling high schooler. "Ha ha, Dustin. Watch out, or I'll make you help put these away."

"And I'll tell everyone that Family Video uses child slave labor."

"Then they'll ask me why the prices are so high," Steve complained, swiftly setting videos behind their display boxes, "since our labor is free."

"Capitalism," Dustin shrugged. He moved out of the way as Steve started back down the other side. "You recommending movies to Eddie?"

Steve coughed in an effort to buy time, before answering, "Robin's the one recommending."

"Oh. Well, you know what I think he'd like?"

Steve sighed. "What?"

"Aliens."

"He's already seen it, and he did like it. Good call."

"How's he already seen it?! You just got it in last week!"

Robin approached them from the far end of their current row, carrying another bucket of tapes. She gleefully dumped them into the nearly empty bin. "A certain someone got them an advanced copy."

"It doesn't work like that," Steve muttered, rocking back with the shove Dustin gave his shoulder.

"Not cool, Steve!"

"Perks of dat-"

Steve knocked the cart into Robin's gut, and watched with fake concern as she wheezed. "Oh man, I am so sorry! Maybe you should go back to the counter and hang out for a bit, Robin?"

"Anyone in here?" Mike's voice hollered from the entrance. "I mean, anyone who works here? There's kind of a line-"

Robin shoved the cart back at Steve, who dodged, before hissing, "You have to tell him at some point."

Steve shrugged, watching the boy join his friends. "At some point."

-

Trunk wide open, Eddie glanced around the mostly empty parking lot for his cast of ruffians to help unload. No dice. Sighing, he leaned in and started stacking six packs of cans in an unsteady pile. He debated for a moment, lifting a double vs a triple stack to determine which was safer, before saying "fuck it" and grabbing a triple stack. He'd cleared the trunk, with the leaning cans carefully balanced in one hand, when Henderson appeared beside him.

"Hey, Eddie!"

Startled, he reflexively jumped, and the top six pack of pop toppled to the ground. "Fuck, Henderson!"

"Sorry!" The boy yelled, snatching it from the ground. He held it away from his body as if it might explode at any second. Grinning cheekily, he hefted the angrily hissing cans. "At least it's not my pop!"

"I can fix that," Eddie muttered, handing the boy another stack and reaching in for the remaining two.

Lucas and Mike called out a greeting as they approached from the other side of the parking lot and stopped by the trunk, eagerly laying claim to their favorite snacks and pop from the treasure trove.

Henderson somehow ended up with only a bag of chips, his six packs passed on to the others at some point. He happily trotted next to Eddie, relating an amusing anecdote from his weekend, before stopping in his tracks.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" He reached into his bag.

Eddie glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "Forgot what?"

A black hoodie was pulled from the bag and held out to him. Eddie sucked in a sharp breath; reminded of where he had misplaced that particular article of clothing, and why he had been distracted enough to forget it. His foot caught on a dip in the concrete, and pop cans almost went flying before he caught his balance and righted himself. Raising an eyebrow, he gave a significant look from his burdened arms to the outstretched hoodie.

Henderson smiled sheepishly and shoved it back in. "Sorry, I guess it can wait until we're inside. Steve gave me this, and said to give it back to you."

"Tell him-" he paused, realizing how strange it must seem to the boy; for Steve to have an article of his clothing. "I, uh-"

"He said you left it in his car," Henderson blithely continued, seemingly unperturbed that Eddie had been in Steve's car, when he had his own.

“Oh that’s weird; I didn’t even know it was missing.” He shrugged at the boy's confusion before walking off. "Shit happens, I guess."

"Guess so…" trailed off behind him.

Grimacing, Eddie twirled around with a shit eating grin on his face. "Thanks, though, Henderson. 'Preciate it."

"Yeah, no problem," he smiled back, getting to his feet and jogging to catch up. "Anyway, so my mom was trying to set Steve up with Tracie from down the street-"

"No shit?" Eddie interrupted, "So, uh, how'd that go?"

"Should have seen Steve's face! He was so red, stammering something about already seeing someone, and my mom kept badgering him-"

"He said he was with someone?"

Henderson frowned and gave him a strange look. "Yeah?"

"Oh, cool. Gonna hop up ahead; get things set up."

"Uh…yeah, ok, cool. See you in a few."

Eddie was gone before Henderson finished the sentence.

-

"I don't think this is a good idea," Steve said, holding the bag of fireworks to his chest as the Freshmen surrounded him with eager faces. Even Max had a big grin on her face, which was hard to resist considering how rough the past couple years had been on her. "I was told Nancy and Robin would be here."

"They had something come up," Dustin cajoled, hands reaching for the bag. "Right, Mike?"

"Uh, well, yeah. Totally."

If his arms weren't already full, Steve would have set them on his hips. He gave Dustin a judgemental frown anyway. "You never even asked them, did you? Do any of your parents know we've got fireworks?"

Max actually laughed at him. "No. Why would we tell them?"

"You're here," Dustin wheedled, ignoring Max as the others shushed her, "and they trust you to look out for us. My mom loves you."

"Surprisingly enough, that doesn't make me feel better." Four sets of pleading eyes were impossible to ignore, and eventually he broke. "Fine. No one lights anything up without me, though."

"Not even the sparklers?" Max snarked, "Or the snakes?"

Steve found himself feeling less sorry for her. Her brother had been an asshole, anyway. "Keep acting like that, and I won't even let you hold one."

Ignoring her eye roll, he grudgingly set the bag on the ground and passed sparklers and snakes out. He kept the bottle rockets in the bag, noticing the covert, nonverbal conversation going on around him.

"Hey, Steve," Max called sweetly, holding an unlit sparkler towards him, "Would you be so kind? I forgot my lighter at home."

"Ha ha," he muttered, reaching for the bag; determined not to let it out of his sight. There was a disappointed groan behind him, and he grit his teeth. He could think of many things he would rather be doing on a July Fourth weekend.

The sparks shooting from the sparkler were nothing compared to the happiness in Max's eyes. He sighed in resignation before lighting everyone else's. Standing back from the crowd as they began to chase each other around, he wasn't surprised to find Dustin at his elbow.

The boy was watching the ashes from his snakes spurt away from the concrete as the fire burnt through them. "You could have had Eddie here. I didn't ask him 'cus I thought you would."

"Why would I-?"

"I mean, you guys hang out now-"

"We- How do you know- I mean, he's your friend, so of course I've gotten to know him."

The fading light didn't hide Dustin's raised eyebrows. The startled yelling from Mike and Lucas was a welcome distraction from their conversation, until Steve realized that the bag of bottle rockets he'd set behind him was gone. His head shot up in time to see a rocket streaming directly at Dustin. He tackled the boy to the ground, feeling blistering heat across his back as they fell, and immediately sat up to yank his singed and smoking shirt over his head.

Thoroughly disgruntled, back stinging and hair a disheveled mess, he glared at Max and the boys.

Mike shoved Lucas, "You aren't supposed to aim it at people!"

"I didn't aim it at anyone! It slipped when Max was lighting it!"

Max sheepishly tucked her lighter into the back pocket of her jeans. "Whoops?"

"Hey, Steve?" A muffled grumble came from below him.

Glancing down, he realized he was pressing Dustin's face into the ground. He rolled to the side, hissing at the pull on his back as he did so, and turned to help the boy up. "Oh, sorry! My bad!"

"Well, I'll forgive you, seeing as my so called friends," Dustin sat up and wiped at the ash on his face from the snakes, before glaring at said friends, "just attempted to murder me!"

"We didn't mean-"

"It was Lucas' fault!"

"It was not! It was an accident!"

Steve pulled himself to his feet, and sighed at the remnants of his shirt. "I liked this shirt, guys. It was even Robin approved."

Max giggled before quickly covering her mouth and pretending to look contrite. "Sorry for your loss."

The boys, including Dustin, chuckled awkwardly.

Steve sighed and held his hand out for the remaining rockets. "I think we're going to wait on these until there's a better ratio of adults to kids."

The boys groaned and Max rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Steve!"

"We're already here!"

But even Dustin's patented, pleading, puppy dog eyes couldn't change his mind. That shirt hadn't been cheap.

-

Master, master
Where's the dreams that I've been after?
Master, master
You promised only lies
Laughter, laughter
All I hear or see is laughter
Laughter, laughter
Laughing at my cries
Fix me

Henderson sat on the other side of the small room; admiring eyes bright as Eddie played the guitar solo. It cut off in an abrupt, discordant note right at the end of a line, and Eddie threw his head back in glee when Henderson almost fell out of the rickety metal chair.

"You awake, man?"

Henderson scowled. "You know I was awake! I had my eyes on you the whole time!"

"Should've been watching my fingers, Henderson! You're never going to learn if you're admiring my pretty face."

"Maybe if you'd let me hold the guitar-"

"You're supposed to be getting your own, yeah? Besides, I need to practice for the show Saturday."

"By playing Metallica?"

"That's just to warm up."

Henderson rolled his eyes and stood, arching his back in a drawn out stretch. "That chair sucks, man."

"Yeah, well, don't get many visitors," Eddie paused and then shrugged. "We didn't used to, anyway. Now there's you and Steve, some of the other guys-"

"Steve comes over?"

"Uh, sometimes, yeah."

Henderson pointed at a Bruce Springsteen cassette tape lying incongruously on the floor next to a haphazard stack of Metallica and Megadeth tapes. "Is that his?"

"Yes?"

"That's a question, not an answer."

"Yeah, it's his. He's trying to pawn it off on me, but Born in the USA isn't really my jam, ya know?"

"Does he know you at all?"

"He knows what I like," Eddie muttered, absentmindedly picking at the guitar strings, "he just thinks I should try other genres."

Henderson chuckled. "He going to your show?"

"Come over here, man," Eddie said suddenly, pointing for the boy to sit next to him on the bed. He carefully passed his guitar into Henderson's hands, gratified at the awe on his face. "Let's try some scales."

-

The parking lot was deserted when Steve pulled up. He was a little early — Eddie had said their campaign could go until ten o'clock or later — but Steve held onto the hope that the session would end around their usual nine o'clock. He fussed with his hair in the visor mirror, before wrinkling his nose at his reflection and slamming it shut. He might as well go in.

There were yells and a couple 'boo's coming from down the hall as he approached, and Steve decided to take it as a good sign. Booing usually meant they were dying, and campaigns ended much faster when everyone died.

"Eddie! Are you insane?!"

The dungeon master — the title Steve had been told to use — sat back from the table with arms crossed and a smug smile on his face. "You chose not to heed the prophetess at the village. 'The Cave of Illusion holds ruin and treasure in equal measure; but beware the staff, or suffer its Lord's wrath' she warned."

"We didn't expect to encounter a Demon Lord!"

"Fraz-Urb'luu, Eddie? Seriously?"

"Fraggle what?" Steve asked, posing himself against the wall to appear as uninterested as possible. He inspected his fingernails as the boys hissed in protest.

"Fraz-Urb'luu, Steve! The Demon Lord of Deception and Illusions!"

"Uh huh…" He caught Eddie's eye and winked.

"What are you even doing here? I don't need you to get me home tonight, remember?" Dustin questioned with a frown. He glanced at Mike before continuing, "We're going to Mike's house. Nancy is getting us."

"Yeah," Mike agreed, pausing to glower at an unrepentant Eddie, "and apparently we're going to be creating new characters, since a certain someone just destroyed all of ours."

"Well that sounds just terrible, kids," Steve commiserated in a patronizing tone, "maybe you should get on that, then?"

"You never answered the question," Dustin doggedly pointed out, coming across the room to join him. The others were gathering their belongings and cleaning up the trash scattered around the table.

Steve gestured towards the still cluttered space. "Aren't you going to help?"

"I've got my stuff ready to go," Dustin shrugged. The bag hanging on his left shoulder rose up briefly before thunking back in place. "Did you forget I don't need you tonight? I appreciate you showing up anyway — very responsible of you — but it would be even more responsible if you actually listened to me."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dustin, I knew you didn't need me tonight."

"Then why are you-"

"For me, of course," Eddie proclaimed, slinging an arm around Steve's neck and grinning at Dustin. "Couldn't afford gas this week, and I remembered that little miss mom over here happily conveys you scoundrels-"

"Never said I was happy about it," Steve muttered, ducking his head under Eddie's arm.

"-around. So I sweet talked him into taking me home tonight."

"Oh," Dustin said after a moment of intense blinking, "That's why your car isn't out there?"

"Bingo, tiger, got it in one."

"But why-?"

"Dustin!"

The boy turned to his right, where Mike was frantically waving at him to come over. "Nancy is here, and she's pissed. Let's go before she leaves!"

"Steve is here if she ditches us," Dustin grumbled as he walked towards his friend. "Not sure I want to be stuck in a car with her."

"Bye bye, Dusty!" Steve called, unrepentantly smirking as Dustin turned back to flip him off. "Have fun making a new dwarf-lizard-thing or whatever."

"It's a kobold," Eddie interrupted, elbowing Steve in the ribs, "and I'm not running any creature campaigns currently."

Steve shrugged disinterestedly as the boys filed out. Hands in his jean pockets, he waited for them to leave the room before facing Eddie. "So what are we doing?"

"We're going to have a chat," Eddie said, jumping up on the table to sit next to his hoard of D&D supplies, "about Henderson."

"What about him?"

"He should know, Steve. He's a cool little guy, and he hangs out with us almost as much as he does the boys. It's getting real awkward pretending-"

"I'm not pretending-"

Eddie ignored the interruption, copying Steve's facade of examining his nails, "that we aren't-"

"I get it, Eddie!" Steve exclaimed, dragging his hands through his hair in frustration before sighing and letting them drop to his side. "How do you go about telling a kid that, though? 'Well you see, Dustin, it's not just when a boy and a girl love each other-'"

"He's not a little kid, Steve. I know he acts like a brat sometimes, but he's not a kid. He can handle it."

"I don't think he's even had 'the talk'" Steve complained, frowning when Eddie guffawed. "What?"

"'The talk,' Steve? Seriously?"

Steve turned his frown to the floor, "He doesn't have a dad around, man, and his mom-"

"Seems like a nice lady, but not all there, it's true-"

"I just don't want to scare him off, you know?"

Eddie hopped off the table and clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder before pulling him in for a rough, one-armed hug. "Henderson doesn't scare that easy."

"But what if-?"

"It'll be fine, the dearest of all mother hens, he'll be cool with it. You just have to give him a chance."

Steve sighed and thunked his head into Eddie's shoulder. "Yeah, I guess."

"So here's the plan," Eddie began, with a glint in his eye.

-

It was too cold out for ice cream, really, but Steve thought — slowly licking at his chocolate cone while watching Dustin and Eddie tussle on the other side of the booth — that it was a pretty decent way to end an exhausting day full of arcade games and far too much nerd talk.

Eddie's grand scheme seemed to be panning out so far; Dustin was almost glowing with happiness, and it felt like he'd be reasonable about their confession. At the very least, the kid had gotten in a good day with the undivided attention of his role models. Steve just hoped Dustin would still look up to him after he knew.

"So, Henderson," Eddie started, giving Steve a meaningful glance, "We've taken you out for a reason-"

"I knew it!" Dustin yelled, trying to stand despite the edge of the booth digging into his thighs. "What's the bad news? Who's dying now? Are one of you guys moving away?"

"Chill, man, it's nothing like that," Steve said, rolling his eyes at the dramatics.

"You can't give me a heart attack like that, and then act like I don't have good reason to worry!"

Eddie set a steady hand on Dustin's elbow. "We just wanted to let you in on our secret-"

"Your what?"

"We're dating," Steve blurted, unable to hold it in any longer.

Eddie sighed, and the both of them watched Dustin for his reaction.

He blinked for a moment before laughing, "That's what this is about? You guys have been buttering me up to tell me your 'big secret?'"

Eddie's face was as confused as Steve knew his must be. "I don't understand."

"It's not a secret," Dustin enunciated slowly, as if he was explaining something simple to a small child, "literally everyone knows."

"Everyone?" Steve asked, panic rising in his chest. Surely not everyone knew.

"Well, all the important people. Hellfire club, Robin, Nancy, Max, Lucas' sister Erica randomly-"

"Not the adults, though, right?" Steve pressed. Eddie had leaned back into the booth, arms splayed across the top, with an amused smirk on his face. Ignoring him, Steve continued, "Your mom doesn't know?"

"Nah," Dustin said dismissively, "none of the parents. They don't pay attention to anything."

"Oh… ok."

"Thanks for the bribes anyway," Dustin chortled, taking an extra large lick of his slowly melting strawberry ice cream. A dab of it landed on his nose when he tried to clear the leaking edges. Steve sighed and held a napkin out for him.

"Well there you go, then, Steve. It's no big deal," Eddie chuckled, tapping his foot against Steve's shin under the table. "You spent a lot of money getting to this point, but I'm sure Henderson deserved it anyway."

Dustin nodded in agreement, "Of course I did."

Steve shifted his leg away from Eddie's foot, then frowned when it followed him. He froze as a thought occurred to him. "What about Robin?"

"What about her? I already said she knows."

"I mean do people know-" Steve paused at the confusion on his face and the sudden interest on Eddie's, "Uh… I mean-"

"Yeah, Steve," Eddie wheedled, leaning over the table to set a hand on his arm. "What about Robin?"

A deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming semi couldn't have felt anymore frozen and paralyzed than Steve did in that moment. He lurched to his feet, stumbled over Eddie's protruding foot, and pretended the awkward grimace on his face could be considered a smile. "Man, guys, it's getting late. Let me check with Dustin's mom on when he needs to be home."

"Ten o'clock, Steve!" Dustin hollered at his back.

Steve walked faster. Eddie's laughter followed him out of the booth and down the hall to the payphone.

"It's ten! Like always during the summer! Steve! Where are you going?!"