Chapter Text
“I’m telling you. It’s the hat.” Steve huffs as Robin draws yes another line under the ‘you suck’ column of the whiteboard she’s been taunting him with.
“Really?” she asks, and, well, ouch. She doesn’t have to look quite so skeptical. He’s got it, or at least he had it once. Back before monsters started coming out of the walls and Hawkins had the distinct misfortune of acquiring one Billy Hargrove. Or, maybe just before he realized he wasn’t going to be getting into college.
“Yeah, really,” he snarks back because apparently his ability to formulate a quick comeback has fucked off to wherever the charm he’s usually been able to take for granted went.
Robin’s head cocks a little to the side, features scrunching doubtfully. It’s a fleeting expression, drowned out by a short bark of laughter. “Wait, wait, wait. So, are you telling me that your only redeeming quality is your hair?”
“No! No, I-” And, okay… okay, he walked right into that one, but it doesn’t stop Steve from bristling. He points at her maybe a little more emphatically than he needs to. “You know what? It’s not like you could do any better.”
“Set the bar any lower and I won’t even have to lift my foot up to get over it.”
Despite Steve’s irritation, despite knowing he’s the butt of the joke, Steve has to fight to keep from laughing. That’s the thing about Robin. She’s acerbic and a little bit mean, but she’s also quick witted and funny. She would be funny, he amends, if literally anyone else were on the other end (She… might still be a little bit funny anyway).
“By all means, then-” Steve gestures with both hands as if presenting the space behind the cash register to Robin. “Show me how it’s done.”
“Uh, no. Nope. No can do.” Robin jiggles the whiteboard almost violently at Steve. “I’m keeping score.”
The time in his life spent being King Steve hasn’t been entirely useless. Steve may have left those days behind, but he brought a number of skills that he’d picked up in the meantime. He was more bystander than bully, but he knows when he’s hit on a sore spot. Once upon a time, that would have been a prompt to keep pushing, but Steve isn’t that person anymore. He hasn’t been in a while, so when he notices the odd tension at the corners of her mouth, he eases up a little. Heaven only knows why this of all things is getting to her, but obviously it is, so it’s more of a genuine question than a taunt when he asks, “What? You don’t think you can do it?”
“Of course I can do it. Or, well, I could, except that…” He’s started getting used to Robin’s occasional rambles, but the trailing off is sort of new.
“Except that…?” Steve prompts when she doesn’t seem to get around to finishing the thought.
“Except that I’m seeing… someone.” The words are all drawn out just a little too far, like she’s making every word up on the fly.
“You have a boyfriend?” Steve asks, realizing a little too late how it sounds.
And just like that, his verbal misstep seems to suck all the levity out of their conversation. “What? You think just because I’m not popular like you, I couldn’t have a love life?” “No! No, it’s not like that,” Steve immediately backpedals. Of course it’s not like that, not like he believes it’s some inherently unbelievable thing. Robin’s sense of humor is just on the right side of sarcastic. She’s smart and she’s objectively cute if you like the whole band geek… thing. She’s not the sort he ever would have thought to pursue in school, but she would definitely be someone’s type. “You just said it like it was a question.”
Whatever excuse Robin might have given is interrupted by a gaggle of kids. Not his kids (And Jesus, when did he start thinking of those little shits as his?), but kids all the same. In all the… okay, admittedly not that long they’ve been working together, he’s never seen Robin so eager to do her job. “Would you look at that? Customers!”
Robin is suddenly the most committed ice cream slinger Scoops Ahoy has ever seen, handing out samples with what’s probably deliberate slowness. She’s probably banking on Steve forgetting what they were talking about by the time she’s done, which, honestly, as many times as he’s been hit in the head that would have been a safe bet if she weren’t drawing so much attention to it. As it is, Steve waits until the kids are back out into the mall atrium before prompting, “So, what’s his name?”
“Who- You’re still on about that?” She holds her hand up before Steve can even open his mouth to answer. “Nevermind. You know what? I’m going on break. The counter is all yours.”
“You practically just got here,” Steve protests, though, truth be told, he has no idea what time it is.
“That’s how breaks work, Steve. You show up. You work a while. You go on break.”
With that, Robin is out of the store, disappearing into the crowd. She’s always been a little bit odd, but that was decidedly weird, even for her. Steve stares out at the people passing by just beyond the entry to Scoops Ahoy, not really focused on any of them. “Was it something I said?”
X
Eddie wouldn’t say he’s very much a fan of Starcourt Mall. It’s overwhelmingly crowded, and not in the fun, concert mosh pit sort of way. It’s entirely the wrong kind of loud. Going requires acclimating oneself to being surrounded constantly by neon colors in bold, mismatched patterns. The whole experience is too mainstream to hold much appeal.
But even Eddie Munson can’t resist the siren call of Sam Goody, and the promise of having somewhere he can acquire actual music without trekking all the way out to Indianapolis. That would be why, on a Friday afternoon, Eddie is in the same place as approximately the entire rest of the town of Hawkins.
“Eddie!”
Automatically, his shoulders tense. Look, Eddie knows he’s got a flair for the dramatic, for pulling eyes in on him whether they want to be there or not. Being the loudest, brightest presence in the room is a great defense mechanism as it turns out. The more he forces the world around to see him, the more they want to look away, and anything more than name calling is suddenly too much of a chore for them. The point is, he’s used to putting himself in the spotlight, but people don’t tend to seek him out.
But when he turns to look, all he sees is Robin, decked out in the most ridiculous sailor suit Eddie has ever seen. Hat and all. “Buckley?”
“Eddie!” She says again, closer, like she thinks he has somehow missed her enthusiasm the first time. “Oh, this is perfect. This is totally going to work.”
Eddie listens to her ramble on, hands sort of flapping the way they do when she’s excited or nervous or whatever it is that’s going on. He’s admittedly not really following, staring blankly at Robin for a moment before remembering he actually has to ask the question out loud. “What’s going to work?”
“What? Oh! Right. I need a favor.” The words all sort of spill out over each other, as quickly as she’s speaking. Nervous then, which seems weird. “I need you to pretend you like me.”
“I… do like you?” He doesn’t mean for it to be a question. It’s not, really. They may be different brands of weird, but there’s a sort of camaraderie between them. They’re just divergent flavors of outcast, after all. And… maybe because he’s pretty sure they both recognize something else in each other, something ‘other’ about them both that runs deeper than band or dungeons and dragons. They’ve never really talked about it outright, but Eddie is all but certain they’re on the same page in that respect.
Which is why Robin’s follow-up is probably the weirdest thing he’s heard in recent memory. “No. I need you to pretend you like like me.”
“Wait. Are, like, your parents onto you or something? Is everything okay?” Eddie asks, the tape he’d been looking at forgotten in his concern. Absently dropping it back into the bin, Eddie reaches out like he might clasp her arms just beneath her shoulders, but stops short of touching. While he can’t imagine he’s the kind of guy Robin’s parents would be thrilled about her bringing home, he’s more than happy to deal with that if it protects her from something worse.
“Huh? Oh, no. No, no, no, it’s not like that. Wait, you know? How do you know? Actually, nevermind that. See, I, uh-” Robin’s cheeks have gone bright red, the only warning Eddie gets that this is going to be about 200% more ridiculous than he was imagining when Robin first opened her mouth. “So, there’s this guy at work, and like, he’s insufferable. You don’t even know how insufferable he is. And I might have been making fun of him, a little, because naturally. Like, you try being stuck behind a counter with him for four hours while he whines about striking out with every girl who walks in the store. But, of course he was all ‘Well, it’s not like you do any better’, and of course not, dingus. I wasn’t trying. Except, then he tried to make a bet and I couldn’t exactly tell him there’s not a guy on the planet I’d actually choose to hit on, so I kind of maybe told him I couldn’t do it because I was already seeing someone. You know how it is! I get nervous and I just, just say things.”
For a second, Eddie just blinks down at Robin, trying to fit the jumble of sentences together in a way that makes sense to him. “Okay, so, you made up a boyfriend to get out of a bet, and you want me to pretend to be said boyfriend? Why does pretend boyfriend have to be a real person anyway?”
“Okay, one, I didn’t say boyfriend. He just assumed, so that’s all on him. And two, because he doesn’t believe me.” Robin opens her mouth and closes it again, visibly taking a breath before she starts again, a little slower. “Look, it’ll be like, five minutes and I will totally make it worth your while.”
“Oh, will you?” Eddie asks, fighting a laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. He’s done any number of strange, spontaneous things, but this is definitely a new one. “And how will you do that, pray tell?”
Robin’s face scrunches up in thought, and eventually she offers, “I don’t know. You can break up with me as dramatically as you want?” Eddie grimaces. Is that a thing straight guys enjoy? He knows plenty about being humiliated with an audience. There’s not a circumstance on the planet where he can imagine wanting to do that to someone else, even in jest. Well, maybe some absolute asshole, maybe, but definitely not Robin.
His expression must give away how much of a selling point that isn’t, because Robin is quick to follow with, “Uhh… all the ice cream you could possibly want?”
And alright, that’s kind of tempting. Eddie has more of a sweet tooth than he’d really like to admit. “You’re not, like, expecting me to kiss you or something are you?”
Robin looks very much like she’s bitten into a lemon. “Ugh, please don’t. That would be such a shit show, even Steve Harrington wouldn’t be dense enough to buy it.”
That, more than anything else in the last two minutes, grabs Eddie’s attention. “Steve... Your insufferable coworker is Steve Harrington? Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“I wasn’t aware it mattered,” Robin replies slowly. Eddie isn’t entirely sure he likes the considering look she’s giving him while he mulls the request over.
Eddie couldn’t strictly say why knowing the person they’re trying to fool is King Steve changes the equation. Maybe, it’s because of that party two years ago, when Steve was drunk enough to forget he shouldn’t be seen voluntarily in Eddie’s vicinity. For almost ten whole minutes, Steve sat on the stairs beside him, and looked at Eddie like no one in the upper echelons of the Hawkins High student body ever does. Like a person. It never happened again, but there was this brief glimpse under the mask, like maybe there was something more to Steve Harrington than popular rich kid.
Or it might be everything Steve represents, everything Eddie despises about student hierarchy. No matter how much quieter and more isolated he’d been senior year, he’s still practically a legend. Eddie won’t be surprised if they’re still talking about Steve next year when the king of Hawkins High is no longer even gracing them all with his presence. And it’s not like… well, Steve wasn’t actively awful to Eddie personally, but he stood by and did nothing when his little minions were. He could probably stand to be taken down a peg or two.
Whatever the reason, Eddie shrugs, huffing out a sigh as he gives in. “Yeah, alright. What do you need me to do?”
X
There’s supposed to be a lesson in Steve’s parents making him spend the summer slinging ice cream for minimum wage. The joke’s on them though, because it turns out he’s pretty good at it when there’s no audience to heckle him or failing attempts at flirting. The job itself is straightforward, so already miles better than anything else in his life at the moment. Despite Steve’s occasional complaints, the customers mostly aren’t too bad, having something task oriented keeps him focused, and Robin is honestly pretty pleasant company when she’s not actively making fun of him.
The lack of otherworldly monsters doesn’t hurt either.
At the very least, Steve likes the work enough to throw himself into it, even if that does mean constantly having to contend with hat hair on a regular basis and making the stupidest sentence known to man a frequent part of his vocabulary. Steve dutifully greets everyone who comes to a stop in front of his counter, all but forgetting he’s supposed to have backup.
Customer demand ebbs and flows and right now it’s very definitely flowing, so it takes a little while for Steve to recognize Robin is still missing. It takes longer still for Steve to really wonder if she plans to come back after all. The question is a fleeting one, interrupted by a bright blue sailor shirt sticking out from the throngs of shoppers in the atrium, complete with one Robin Buckley, someone’s arm slung lazily over her shoulder.
“I was starting to think I’d have to send a search party,” Steve calls out before Robin is even properly in the store, despite not having the foggiest idea how long she’s been gone.
Robin opens her mouth to reply. Steve knows that much, but that’s as far as he gets before being distracted by the person she appears to be more or less dragging into the store with her. It’s not like Steve thinks Robin is lonely and friendless or anything, but somehow it never occurred to him that she might pal around with Eddie of all people.
“Munson?” Steve says, the name ticking up at the end like a question despite the obvious evidence that Eddie is standing in front of him. He has made a concerted effort to be better than his high school self, but outside of Eddie providing the entertainment at some of the parties Steve was invited to, they’ve always run in different circles, so he doesn’t really know where to start. It doesn’t stop him from trying anyway, the words coming slow and stilted. “It’s, uh, been a minute. What… brings you in?”
“Alright, don’t hurt yourself.” Eddie jokes. From most people it would sound mean, but Eddie’s mouth turns up at the corners in a smile too genuine to be mocking. It suits him, Steve thinks offhandedly, warmer and less guarded than Eddie usually looked around their classmates. He’s dislodged himself from Robin’s shoulder, but doesn’t get far before she grabs Eddie’s arm, looping hers around the crook of his elbow. Eddie tilts his head towards the side Robin is standing on. “The ice cream, obviously. Well, and Robin. She’s alright too, I guess.”
“Hey!” Robin smacks Eddie’s chest with the back of one hand, which swiftly devolves into a playful scuffle that rivals the kids. Under other circumstances, Steve might chide them for it, but mostly he’s too bewildered to do anything but watch until Robin finally remembers he’s there. “See? I told you I was seeing someone.”
“Is that why you took off so fast?” Steve had thought Robin was retreating or something, but this makes more sense. It might have been a while, but he knows how quick he was to drop everything for Nancy when they were still together.
“Yup. Yes, that is definitely why,” Robin immediately agrees, and then, much to Steve’s chagrin, says nothing else. He’s never been much for small talk, even less so with people he knows so little about.
It’s a small comfort that Eddie and Robin don’t seem any better equipped for this than he is. There’s probably less than a minute of awkward, stilted pleasantries, but it feels like hours before Eddie extricates himself from Robin’s grip. She frowns at his arm like it’s personally offended her before her expression shifts like she’s seeing Scoops Ahoy for the very first time.
“Right! Well, break’s over. Back to work and all that,” she announces as she makes a beeline towards the counter. It’s the single most responsible thing Steve has ever heard come out of her mouth, which would be admirable if it made any kind of sense. As it is, the counter is just as empty as the rest of the store.
Robin makes it about ten feet before she turns back to hug Eddie goodbye. The way his eyebrows shoot up, you’d think no one had ever hugged him in his life. “Oh. This is- right.”
Either they’re a new couple or have very different ideas about how much affection is acceptable to show in public, because that is the single most awkward embrace Steve has ever seen. It’s an uncoordinated tangle of limbs as Robin tries to lean in and hug Eddie from the side while Eddie tries to do… something else entirely judging by the fact that he tilts his body and Robin’s face ends up smooshed against his chest. Honestly, Steve isn’t sure whether to laugh or feel a little bad for them, but given the luck he’s had as of late, he figures he doesn’t have much room to judge. He could be wrong, but Steve is pretty sure they both look a little relieved when it’s over.
“Yeah, I should probably let you get back to your-” Eddie pauses, his mouth quirked in an obvious effort to stifle a laugh as he gestures at their uniforms. “-sailoring.”
“We’re not-” Steve shakes his head, not sure why he’s bothering to argue when Eddie obviously already knows. Their goodbyes are every bit as disjointed as the rest of their conversation, and As Steve watches Eddie walk back out into the mall, he’s still not entirely sure what to make of the last few minutes.
It’s not until an hour later, midway through Robin rambling at him about the travesty that is pistachio ice cream, that Steve remembers the weirdest part of the whole encounter. “He never even got any ice cream.”
X
It was supposed to be the one visit, just a few minutes, long enough to fool Steve, but the whole encounter was so off kilter that a do over only seems fair. Eddie has always prided himself on his ability to improvise, serving him incredibly well for gaming purposes. Apparently that ability has a limit though, and that limit is… fake dating.
The second one goes better in ways Eddie hadn’t even anticipated. Despite Robin’s insistence that he’s ‘insufferable’ (which she hasn’t actually said since she was trying to convince Eddie to do this), Steve is nothing at all like the jock Eddie remembers. Well, okay, maybe a little like what Eddie remembers, given the amount of time he spent sitting on the bleachers to watch Steve running around in embarrassingly short gym shorts. But King Steve’s allure shattered the minute he opened his mouth, a trait he thankfully shed somewhere in the blank space between captain of the swim team and captain of whatever ship is involved in sailing on an ‘ocean of flavor’. Against all odds, the twenty minutes or so that Eddie spends loitering in the ice cream shop with Robin and Steve are an unexpectedly pleasant diversion.
More than that, it was successful. By the end of it, Steve is no longer looking at Robin and Eddie together like they’re some inexplicable thing. That was the whole point, so there’s no reason at all that Eddie needs to be at Scoops Ahoy for a third time in four days.
In Eddie’s defense, it’s not like he meant to be. He had had every intention of just walking right by. He probably would have, even, if he hadn’t happened to look in for just a second.
At first, it’s not Steve that draws Eddie’s eye. It’s the group of teenagers making the incredibly ill advised decision to play Dungeons and Dragons in public. Granted, the mall is quiet enough on a Monday morning that it only barely qualifies as public, but it’s the principle of the thing. The four boys are spread out around one of those rounded family sized booths, three of them physically leaning in to hang on every word the DM - a scrawny boy with a truly unfortunate haircut that reminds Eddie of the terrible in-between time when his own was still growing out - is saying.
But, as strange as it is to witness his game of choice being played out there in the open, Steve is the strangest addition of all. There’s nothing Eddie would ever describe about the bold blue sailor’s uniform Scoops Ahoy employees wear as ‘intimidating’. To be fair, what had been imposing about King Steve back in high school had always been more about status and the company he kept than it was about Steve himself anyway, but the uniform does no favors. So, when Eddie spots him, in the midst of heading off some guy who has at least forty pounds on him and clearly means to go give the kids a hard time, it’s difficult to imagine things are going to go well.
But the joke is on Eddie, he guesses. From the main thoroughfare of the mall, it’s impossible to hear what Steve is saying, but it’s the most emotion Eddie has ever seen on his face. The sailor suit doesn’t hide how he squares his shoulders like he’s gearing up for a fight, and whatever words go with his sharply dipping eyebrows and angrily pursed lips are enough to make the guy back off, physically taking a step back before stalking out of the shop with his slightly melty ice cream cone. It’s… maybe the hottest thing Eddie has ever seen, which is an objectively ridiculous thing to learn about himself, he decides.
Steve lingers by the kids afterwards, hands on his hips, appearing to be delivering some sort of lecture. And, well, shit. That’s disappointing. Eddie thinks for a moment that maybe he’d been wrong, giving Steve undeserved credit for sticking up for the kind of kids who would have run in very different circles in school, but when he gets in earshot (and when had that even happened? Eddie doesn’t recall deciding to go in.), Steve isn’t insulting their gaming the way it looked like he might be.
“This is exactly why I told you setting up out here was a bad idea,” Steve complains, but this close up it’s much easier to spot the softness around the edges of his irritation.
The DM scowls at Steve, which seems sort of rude all considered. “Mom is shampooing the carpet in the basement.”
“We don’t really have room,” says the soft spoken boy beside the DM.
Eddie can’t see the third one’s face, but they must be doing something that successfully pulls at Steve’s heartstrings from the slight loosening of his posture. “Have you ever tried to do, like, anything in the house with Erica? It’s impossible.”
One of the boys, a curly haired kid in a baseball cap, beams up at Steve like the guy hung the damned moon. “Besides, we’re totally safe. You’re here.”
“Not for long if I keep having to piss off customers looking out for you shits.” Steve’s gaze sweeps lazily upward, abruptly sharpening when he spots Eddie. “Eddie! Hey. Um, Robin isn’t here today.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” Eddie stumbles through a reply. Is that the kind of thing he’s supposed to know? Technically he isn’t lying. He does know, because Steve just told him. “I just saw them and thought I’d check out the game.”
Steve’s response ought to be insulting. Eddie maybe would be insulted if he weren’t too busy being helplessly charmed. The movement is relatively subtle but unmistakable, a small shift in Steve’s stance that puts him more firmly between Eddie and the kids. “They get enough shit about it at school. They don’t need it here.”
Eddie had been ready to laugh at Steve, if not for the wild misunderstanding then for how badly that uniform lends itself to playing bodyguard for a gaggle of not quite high schoolers. Nevermind the… chapstick? Lip gloss? Whatever it is, it leaves Steve’s mouth with a distracting shine that Eddie’s eyes disobediently track back to every time he’s not actively looking elsewhere. The point is, it’s objectively funny, and he’d probably be laughing if his throat hadn’t gone too dry for him to do anything aside from swallowing around an aborted huff of amusement.
“I think you maybe missed the part where I literally run the Dungeons and Dragons club at Hawkins High,” Eddie points out. It’s not like he really owes Steve answers, but he finds he wants to give them anyway.
“Oh.” Steve sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, the wariness clearing from his expression. “I didn’t even know there was a club.”
And that does make Eddie laugh, if only because the guy standing in front of him is exactly nothing like the version of Steve that lives in everyone’s minds. Or at least his mind. “Somehow I don’t think it would have been your scene.”
Steve grimaces about something, but he sounds terribly earnest when he replies, “No. I don’t suppose it would have been.”
That’s all the conversation the kids let them have before they more or less burst with questions about the Hellfire Club, tripping over each other in their eagerness. Before he even quite realizes, he’s planted himself in the booth beside the boy in the baseball cap (Dustin, he soon learns), letting the conversation sweep him up. It’s Eddie’s favorite sort of pandemonium about pretty much his favorite topic, but he still finds himself just a little bit disappointed when he looks up and finds the place Steve had been standing now empty.
Not that he’s gone far. A quick glance at the cash register finds Steve behind it, ringing up a customer. Which, okay, that probably makes sense. There’s a bit of a line, so Eddie turns his attention back to the kids for the time being. “So how did you fall in with Steve Harrington of all people, anyway?”
Dustin seems like he almost physically lights up, which should be weird or off putting or something given the person in question, but mostly it’s just endearing. “I know he seems like he’d be an annoying jock, but he’s actually really cool!”
“We only ended up with him because Dustin lost his…” Mike complains, clearly not quite sharing Dustin’s enthusiasm for Steve. “-dog.”
“Yeah, his dog! In the woods. And he asked Steve to help so it wouldn’t get, you know, hurt or something,” Lucas adds, punctuated by Will’s emphatic nodding.
The more detail they give, the more the story sounds made up, but Eddie doesn’t get out more than a skeptical ‘uh huh…’ before Dustin cuts in. “So, obviously Steve helped because he’s just like that-”
Mike sighs loudly through his nose, just audible over Dustin’s chatter. “Yeah, only because you pretty much kidnapped him.”
“How could I kidnap Steve? He was driving! And he’s got the nail bat.” Dustin abruptly brightens, his smile a little wicked. “You’re just mad because he used to date Nancy.”
“He did, and we all agreed he was a jerk.”
Dustin nods along with Mike’s protest, which, having known Steve in highschool, it’s probably fair. “Right. But now we agree he’s not actually.”
Making a face, Mike mutters at Dustin, “I didn’t agree.”
“Honestly, what kind of people would we be if we didn’t revise our opinion in the face of new information?” It’s a fair point, even if Dustin is currently using said point to poke fun at his friend. Not even ten minutes in and Eddie loves the kid already.
“He does take us to the arcade.” Will had been so quiet that he had nearly faded into the background before choosing to speak up. Eddie knows very little about him beyond him having gone missing a couple of years back, but he seems like a nice kid.
Not that Eddie gets much time to think about that before the boys are rattling off a laundry list of unexpected good deeds. The more Eddie hears about Steve, the less sense he can seem to make of the guy. Still waters or something like that, Eddie supposes.
“And he lets us into the back door to the theater.” Dustin’s admission cuts through Eddie’s straying thoughts. It pulls his attention in time to see Dustin’s eyes widen as he realizes he’s divulged something that he probably wasn’t supposed to.
Before Eddie can reassure Dustin that he’s not going to go blabbing, Lucas says something that gives him pause. “He punched Billy Hargrove in the face.”
“He got the snot beat out of him.” Though it’s couched in vaguely insulting commentary, even Mike appears to agree with them on this being a point in Steve’s favor.
“Yeah.” Dustin shrugs it off like that’s some kind of recurring theme. “Which meant Lucas didn’t.”
“Wait. Was that- was that an actual possibility?” Eddie doesn’t exactly have anything nice to say about Billy, finding it best to just steer clear of the guy entirely, but it takes a pretty special brand of asshole to pick on a kid like that.
“It’s complicated,” Lucas hedges, only for Mike to cut in.
“It’s really not. Lucas is dating Billy’s little sister and he has a problem with it. Not with her dating. Just that it’s someone like Lucas,” Mike explains, the meaning clear even if he never says the words.
“Shit,” Eddie breathes out, wondering what he’s stumbled into exactly. It’s a lot to think about, and far too serious for a table full of dice and character sheets. Definitely too quiet, Eddie thinks as the conversation tapers off. It’s as good a time as any to steer back towards what he tells himself is the reason he came here in the first place. Grinning at the boys, he asks. “So… You wanna tell me about the campaign?”
X
Steve has learned a number of unexpected things about the world and himself since the ill-fated party that dragged him into the wildest, most impossible babysitting job on the planet, but this is maybe the most unexpected. At the very least it’s the most embarrassing. Of all the things the guy might have done to win Steve over, it really would just be his luck that watching Eddie all but throw himself out of the seat he’s sitting in while he tells the kids some story would be the thing that does the trick. One day he’ll strike up a relationship of some sort that isn’t tied to those kids, but today apparently isn’t that day.
Not that it’s a romantic thing, obviously. It’s not that he’d have a problem mooning over a guy. Steve can’t exactly acknowledge it out loud, but he’s known for longer than he’d care to examine that sometimes he looks at guys in a way his former friends would have treated him entirely differently over if they knew. That might have inspired some measure of panic once, but monsters from an alternate dimension have a way of putting things in perspective. It wouldn’t even inherently be a problem if it were Eddie, who Steve never would have given a second glance when he was still chasing after things that seem so unimportant now. He’s… fun, as much as Steve is loathe to admit it, flitting over to Steve while the kids are playing like he belongs here.
But Steve is loyal before all else, and even if Robin weren’t steadily growing on him, he’d never pursue someone in a relationship. As it is, Robin is something of a friend and though he teases her as mercilessly as she does him, the idea of hurting her - really hurting her - makes him ill. Besides, as he watches Eddie engage with Dustin, it’s obvious that the guy fixates on whoever is in front of him, so it doesn’t mean anything.
None of it means anything. He’s so rarely the subject of positive attention when he doesn’t have something specific to give, that it’s not really a surprise to find the feeling a little bit addictive. Steve adamantly squashes the flicker of warmth in his chest that comes with being the subject of Eddie’s focus, even for a little while.
The most ridiculous part isn’t even how easily Steve finds himself won over by Eddie’s antics. It’s just decidedly ridiculous that, even before Eddie started luring him into conversation, it was watching the guy with the kids of all things that so abruptly won Steve over.
It makes a weird kind of sense, in all honesty. There are few things Steve can say he really aspires to. Just one, really. When he pictures the future, he doesn’t think about awards or fancy houses or his name on an office door. He thinks about road trips with an RV full of kids and a partner in the passenger seat. He thinks about family. In the absence of anything resembling one at home, that table is the one he’s made, and Eddie… Well, Eddie just fits right in. Not romantically, obviously, but the connection is there, plain as day.
-
The day passes easily enough. Mondays are always slow, Steve is finding. No one is chomping at the bit for a table, so there’s little reason to kick the kids out until the mall is nearly closing.
Even after the whole day spent on their little game, herding the kids out of the store happens with no small amount of complaining. Somehow, Steve had expected Eddie to be part of the problem, but he shoos them off like he’s the one who needs to close up shop. It should maybe be a little bit insulting, but mostly Steve is too amused and too grateful for the backup to mind too much.
“I guess that probably means me too,” Eddie ventures once the kids are out of sight.
“Probably,” Steve agrees. “Unless you plan to have a sailor suit in your future.”
“I think I’ll leave that to you and Robin. Blue isn’t really my color.” Eddie musters up a surprising amount of gravity as he gestures to the black fabric he’s entirely ensconced in despite the sticky, damp heat of summer that’s already creeping in around the fringes of June.
Steve shrugs. “I dunno. You could probably pull it off.”
“No thank you.” Eddie reaches out, and before Steve can even think to question the gesture, is tugging the hat brim down over his already matted bangs. “I draw the line at that hat.”
“I know!” At least someone agrees with him. Steve starts to pull the hat off, but then remembers that his hair has been squashed down under it all day, and he does have some dignity. “No one looks good in this hat.”
Eddie makes a sound that might be a laugh… or a cough. It’s really hard to tell. Either way, he tucks his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and take a step back. “Well, I probably ought to let you close up. See you around.”
Steve starts to tug the gate down, watching Eddie wander through the largely empty atrium towards the door. The metal hits the floor just before he impulsively calls out. “Eddie, wait!”
“Yeah?” Eddie complies with a surprising amount of urgency, immediately spinning back around on his heel. It’s only when he’s looking back with wide, expectant eyes and a bright smile tugging at his lips that Steve realizes he hasn’t the foggiest idea what to say.
“I- uh- thanks. I just wanted to say thanks. Y’know, for hanging out with the kids.” It comes out more or less smoothly, a sentiment he did mean to express even if it wasn’t originally what he’d been going for right this second. “I don’t know the first thing about that game and they could, I dunno, use more positive people in their life.”
There might have been more, but Steve is saved from grasping for a coherent sentence by Eddie’s laughter, thankfully far too pleasant to be mocking. “I’m sorry. Did you just suggest I was a good influence? I don’t think anyone in my entire life has called me that.”
“Yeah, well-” Steve pauses, feeling a little bit wrong footed. He had expected, watching the kids fawn over Eddie, to be jealous or defensive, but mostly it just leaves him warm to see someone else dote on those gremlins the way Steve valiantly tries to stop himself from. “They get a lot of shit for things I never had to think much about. And you’re so, just… unapologetic about who you are. It’s good for them to see that, you know?”
He knows how it must sound, coming from him. Worse than that, the moment he’s said it, Steve worries Eddie might think he’s insinuating something negative, even though nothing could be further from the truth. Eddie is, from what little he knows, maybe the weirdest person Steve knows, but there’s something refreshing about that.
To his relief, Eddie just beams at him. “You’re gonna have to tell me sometime how you ended up with an entire herd of nerdy kids to call your own.”
“It’s a long story,” Steve hedges as he tries to come up with an answer that doesn’t involve otherworldly monsters.
Thankfully, Eddie saves him the trouble. “Yeah, I’ll bet.
-
“And then he just… stayed. Like, until the kids left, and they didn’t leave until I kicked them out, which was basically when I was bringing the gate down. Like he was here all day,” Steve recounts, washing off the ice cream scoop he’d been wielding. He’s not certain if it’s weirder that Eddie chose to spend the day here or that he’d actually kind of liked the company. It was mostly ambient, animated gesturing at the edge of Steve’s vision, a bright, bubbling laugh that cut through the mall music. But every now and again, when the store was empty of customers, Eddie had drifted over to the counter to keep Steve company instead. He might have complained about it, but Steve is not too above it all to admit he took a little bit of pleasure in Mike’s protests every time Eddie meandered his way.
Robin shrugs like there’s nothing the slightest bit strange about Eddie’s behavior. She probably knows him better, so it could be that there really isn’t. “Maybe he likes you.”
Fairly or not, that particular phrase has always meant something less platonic than what Robin has to be suggesting. It throws him off to hear before he realizes she probably means exactly what she said. “What? What, like a… friend? Are we friends?”
That might be the most pathetic thing he’s said in the last six months, but it feels like a fair question. He’s not sorry to have ditched Tommy and Carol, and he doesn’t begrudge Nancy for keeping her distance since they split, but the reality of things has left Steve sort of adrift in the companionship department. He can’t even hold it against her when Robin laughs. “Sorry. I’m not laughing at you. I mean, I am, but not like that.I just…Geez. When was the last time you had a friend who wasn’t a child, anyway?”
“Umm…” There is no truthful answer that isn’t going to be even more embarrassing. Steve looks away, glancing out into the mall and wondering if he could just flee the conversation entirely, or if that would just make things worse.
Thankfully, he’s saved from making a decision by none other than Eddie, who surely has better things to do than hang out at Scoops Ahoy. But, if that’s truly how the guy wants to spend his day, Steve supposes he can’t complain too much about it.
It’s a shame, actually, that Eddie coming into the store also seems to remind every Wednesday morning mall walker that ice cream is a thing that exists. He can’t bring himself to take Robin away, so he barely manages more than a quick hello before scurrying back to the cash register.
He knows how it goes when you’re smitten with someone, so it’s not all that strange to Steve that Eddie and Robin are huddled together off to the side. It is maybe a little bit weird that every time he glances over at them he finds himself meeting Eddie’s eyes. In between smiling at old ladies and doling out ice cream cones, he prays to whatever higher power might be listening that Robin didn’t relay their conversation to Eddie, or he might just melt through the floor through sheer mortification.
Eddie isn’t laughing at Steve though, and nothing in his expression suggests pity, so it’s probably something else. He won’t admit that he sort of hopes Robin is right - not out loud at any rate - but there’s definitely some appeal to the prospect of a friend who is ostensibly an adult.
Eddie is still there when Steve gets through the line of customers, and still looking at Steve when he makes his way over to the two of them. “Do I have something on my face?”
Now, Steve adores the kids. Even Mike (sometimes). And Robin sometimes makes him want to smother her with a pillow, but in spite of his best efforts, he’s found himself warming up to her particular brand of humor. The thing is, given the people he surrounds himself with, he’s used to being the one being laughed at, so Steve doesn’t have the slightest clue what to do when Eddie startles at the question, scarlet splashing across his cheekbones like he’s been caught at something profoundly embarrassing.
“No? No. I just, ah…” Eddie trails off, gesturing expressively with his hands. Or at least that’s what Steve assumes, though he’s not sure what Eddie is trying to express exactly.
“We were just making plans for a movie night,” Robin offers, which would seem entirely innocent if not for the toothy little smile that punctuates the sentence. One would think that would be a promising thing, but Eddie mostly looks like he’s swallowed a mouthful of rocks. “You should come.”
Look. Steve may be a little slow on the uptake, but he’s not stupid, he’s pretty sure. He hasn’t forgotten the conversation Eddie interrupted, so Steve can’t think of any reason other than pity that she’d be offering such a thing. “I’m not going to interrupt your date.”
“It’s not a-” Outside of the first time he came in, Eddie has generally been quick and sure of himself, so it’s strange to watch him cut himself off, shaking his head and looking to Robin.
“It’s cute how you think that was a request,” Robin teases, nudging Steve’s ankle with the toe of her shoe. “Come on. You have to hang out with actual adults sometime.”
“It’s cute how you think you qualify as actual adults.” Steve mimics the cadence of Robin’s voice, smiling in spite of himself. She does kinda sorta have a point, and he could do worse for company than Robin and Eddie.
Robin nudges his ankle again, if one could call the way she kicks him a nudge. “Hey!”
Whatever had silenced Eddie passes, and he laughs as he watches the two of them. “I dunno. He kind of has a point.”
They fall into easy banter, comfortable in a way Steve has only a passing familiarity with. A week ago he’d have been entirely bewildered by the idea of socializing with Eddie Munson, but he knows better than just about anyone how much a few days can change the trajectory of a life.
Hopefully this change is a little more positive than the demogorgon.
X
“See? Like a ninja.” Steve’s voice carries from outside even before Eddie answers the door in a way that is not at all like a ninja.
Not that Robin is any more subtle, cackling the way she is. “Yeah. The way you knocked over that entire display was the stealthiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
If not for the laughter, Eddie might worry they were really arguing, but half Steve’s face is taken up with the way he’s grinning at Robin. “Yeah, which means they weren’t looking at you, Buckley. You’re welcome.”
“He’s, you know, tanking for you obviously,” Eddie says in lieu of an actual greeting when he pulls the door open. “Guess we know who the party paladin is.”
“Nooooooooo. Don’t make this a geek thing,” Robin whines, pushing past Eddie into the trailer. It’s not like hanging out is a new thing, so Eddie is unsurprised when she flops down in the middle of the couch.
Steve is much more polite, waiting for Eddie to motion him inside. His brows are scrunched in the middle, looking at Eddie more than his surroundings. “I know… most of those words individually.”
Eddie tsks playfully at them both. “How on earth did I get to be friends with you guys?”
Steve looks every bit as perplexed as Eddie at this turn of events, but Robin pipes up exactly the way he expects her too. “Good luck on your part.”
And it is, isn’t it? Eddie has had to revisit everything he thought he knew about Steve, but he’s never been happier to be wrong than right now, with a movie already queued up on the little television in the living room and Steve shifting restlessly from one foot to the other by the door like he’s waiting for Eddie to wizen up and kick him out.
“That’s a really terrible vantage point for watching anything,” Eddie teases, barely stifling a laugh as Steve is visibly startled from his thoughts. When Steve doesn’t actually move, Eddie makes a shooing motion towards the couch where Robin has already made herself at home. “Go sit down.”
-
The thing about a movie is that it is simultaneously the best idea and the worst one.
It’s the best because with everyone’s eyeballs glued to the television, Eddie doesn’t have to come up with ways to convincingly be Robin’s ‘boyfriend’ and there isn’t much in the way of conversation to carry. Plus, he’s already seen the movie, so the fact that Steve being here in Eddie’s living space is so distracting doesn’t feel like it’s robbing him of anything. Which is good, because Steve being here is incredibly distracting, which is a problem for so, so, so many reasons.
The complications of his and Robin’s ruse aside are no small thing, of course. He’s not about to out her just because his eyes keep tracking back to Steve every time the guy is in the general vicinity. Besides, even setting that aside, Steve didn’t get his reputation in high school for no reason. The guy is utterly, tragically straight.
None of which matters because Eddie inexplicably likes the guy who wears the face of King Steve, but bears no other resemblance to the person who roamed the halls of Hawkins High. Five minutes with those kids told him everything he needs to know about who Steve has become, the group of them unwittingly confirming Eddie's suspicions. And now, despite hailing from the nicest neighborhood in Hawkins and having a family who treats a normal job like it’s mean to be a punishment, Steve looks genuinely happy to be here. It’s weird and it’s nice and it’s worth hanging onto, so despite how difficult it is to ignore the urge to kiss the guy senseless, Eddie puts his budding relationship with Steve squarely in a box marked ‘friendship’ and tells himself that it’s already more of a gift than he’d been expecting.
-
One night quickly becomes something of a tradition as the summer begins to wear on. It’s easily the weirdest thing that’s happened to Eddie in recent history, but he’s not sorry for it. Not even a little. At least once or twice a week, the evening sees the three of them squeezed together on Eddie’s couch, or Steve’s car, or some random diner booth, and the strangest part is mostly that it doesn’t feel strange at all. It doesn’t even feel new so much as it’s like the visible confirmation of something that was always supposed to be there.
Attraction isn’t such an easy thing to prune down, creeping the way it does like vines up the wall of a house. Still, Eddie thinks he does an admirable job of it, hiding the truth under jokes, always steering away from anything too close to the truth. Steve never seems particularly suspicious, rarely looking more than mildly perplexed by the way Eddie can’t help the occasional flirtation he passes off as a joke or the way he unthinkingly sways into Steve’s personal space now and then. If anything, Steve treats these moments as less and less noteworthy, so really, Eddie is pretty sure he’s hiding his incredibly inconvenient crush very well.
-
Or not.
“You like him,” Robin cackles prodding Eddie in the side with one finger. It’s just the two of them, which is uncommon enough to feel weird, much to Eddie’s confusion. When the hell did that happen?
Eddie flops backwards on the floor of his van with a loud huff. “Of course I like him. The three of us are practically a package deal at this point. It’d be weird if I didn’t.”
He doesn’t look for Robin, but he really doesn’t need to, what with the way she shuffles to loom over him. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
It’s not. Of course it’s not. And the kicker is that she’s right. Eddie isn’t in denial about that part. He can absolutely acknowledge the stutter of his heart when his gaze lands on Steve in that absurd Scoops Ahoy uniform. He’ll admit in the privacy of his own mind that he’s careful how often he touches Steve, always afraid he’ll hang on for too long and give himself away. Because the thing is, he likes the idea of kissing Steve senseless, but the momentary satisfaction could never be worth it if it means he has to give up what they have now.
“I know it doesn’t matter,” he says in lieu of trying to lie. And it doesn’t. If the price he has to pay to keep Steve in his life is to set aside whatever has gotten into him, he’ll do it.
The argument Eddie is expecting never comes, but when he meets Robin’s eye, she’s giving him a theatrically skeptical look. “Hmm.”
“I don’t like how that sounds. ‘Hmm’ what?” Eddie pushes himself up on his elbows to get a better look at her in the waning light, but the shrug she greets him with gives away nothing. “What, Buckley?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she replies, offering a toothy smile that suggests ‘nothing’ is about as far from the truth as it gets. “I hereby absolve you of your fake boyfriend duties.”
It should be good news. Eddie hasn’t ever exactly been a good liar, and the ruse he’d actually agreed to came and went ages ago. At this point, Steve must think they’re the least lovey-dovey couple on the face of the planet. But his friendship with Steve feels so new and fragile that he can’t help worrying that losing that tether might make it blink out of existence entirely. His voice sounds small, even to his own ears. “Right. O-okay.”
“What’s with the face? I thought you’d be happy. Now, if you refuse to stop mooning over Steve and just do something already, it can be your own damned fault.” Robin raises one eyebrow at him like she’s trying to puzzle something out. The only strange thing as far as Eddie is concerned is that it’s taking her so long. He’s sure the irrational sting of the fake end of their fake relationship is written all over his face. Eddie has never had a crush safe enough to pursue to have any idea if this is what a real breakup feels like, but it’s certainly not pleasant.
“Jesus, stop worrying. I can hear you thinking over here. Steve likes you. It’s not like he’s just tolerating you for my sake.” And alright, maybe Robin saw through him after all. “The only thing that’s going to change is that you can ogle my coworker all you want and not look like a cheater doing it.”
She has a point, and she’s probably right, but Eddie still makes a face at Robin as he levers himself back upright. “Do you make a habit of being on friendly terms with your friends’ exes?”
“Seriously? He’s not going to decide he has to choose just because we’re broken up.” Robin lifts her hands to make truly obnoxious air quotes at him as she speaks. “Besides, even if he did, you don’t know he’d ditch you.”
“Have you seen the two of you? You’re like siblings or something.Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” Eddie smiles in spite of himself. “I’m pretty sure Harrington would follow you anywhere.”
“Well, lucky for all of us, then-” Robin shuffles, leaning close enough to sling an arm around Eddie’s shoulder. “-that where I will be is still hanging out with you. I’m sure once he sees that things are okay, it’ll be fine.”
It would be easier if he could just tell the truth, but Robin’s secret isn’t his to divulge, and he’d never ask her to. Not for his sake. She’s probably right anyway. It’ll most likely be fine, so for the moment Eddie shoves his worry about it off into the corner it crept out of and lets himself hope for the best.