Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At the end of another boring, yet grueling, day working at Scoop’s Ahoy Steve picked up the tip jar and shook it sadly.

“This sucks, how are we supposed to earn a living in these conditions?”

“Uh…we’re not?”  Robin asked, she was his constant coworker since he never seemed to get scheduled with anyone else.  In fact he didn’t even know if anyone else worked here.  “Besides, what do you need a living wage for?  Don’t you live with dear old mummy and daddy in a McMansion?”

And another thing, she hated him.  Although he wasn’t sure if she actually hated him, or she was trying to hide some deep-seeded attraction.  He wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter, he knew he had a certain charm.

“Yeah,” he emptied the jar on the back counter, which Robin had just cleaned, “but they’re charging me rent and stuff now.  It’s punishment for not going to college, like to teach me a lesson about how I won’t be able to get a good job without a degree or something.”

Robin started counting and dividing until they each had a pathetic pile, mostly made up of coins.  “Well so far it seems like they’re right.”

“ Ughhh …” Steve sighed and slid down to put his head on the counter.

“Hey!  I just washed that, stop getting your dandruff all over the place!”

“I don’t have dandruff.”  He mumbled against the white surface.

“Oh no, of course you don’t.  Because you’re so special, right?  You’re too good to have skin flake off of your head.”

Steve stood up to meet Robin’s cynical look.  “Know what?  I am special.  Or maybe it’s just because I take care of my appearance, unlike some people.”

Robin crossed her arms, defiant.  “And what people would those be?”

“Just…some people.”  For being younger and smaller she could be kind of scary.  “All I’m saying is that I take a lot of pride in how I look, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that the ladies love it too.”

That caused Robin to break as she snorted.  “Oh, oh right, sure, all the ladies that come in and are subjected to your awful flirtations.”

“They’re not awful!”

“They’re really bad dude, I’m keeping score.  You have not scored one single date, not even a phone number.”

Steve could huff and puff all he wanted, but that wouldn’t change the truth.  Didn’t stop him from trying though.  “Well that’s because I’m in such an awkward situation!  It’s really hard to flirt with someone when you’re up to your elbows in ice cream!  I used to have girls fawning all over me in high school.”

Robin rolled her eyes.  “Trust me, I know.  We went to the same school, dingus.”

“Right?  So you know!  If my only job was to look good and flirt I would be making way more money and getting way more babes.”

“Steve…Steven.”  She looked like she was fighting down a smile.

“What?  What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, nothing!  I just…well there are some jobs where that’s the requirement, but I really don’t think they’re up your alley.  In fact a lot of them take place in alleys.”

He stared at her for a few moments until it clicked.  “Oh, oh…Jesus, Robin no!  I didn’t mean it like that !”

“Then how did you mean it?”  She was still snickering.

“Like…like…” Steve tried to think of a different way of explaining it.  “Oh!  You know in high school we sometimes did those fundraiser things for the dances?  One year we had a kissing booth and let me tell you, I raked in the most cash out of anyone.”

“Let me guess, they didn’t have any other options?”  One of these days Robin would die from an overdose of sarcasm.

He made a disgusted face at her.  “Nyah, nyah, no other options…  Hilarious, but I’ll have you know we had guys and girls and-”

“And they both came to your booth?”  This time her eyebrows were up.

“What? No I…I meant that we had multiple people doing it, but I still managed to make the most money.  So what I’ve been trying to say, before I kept getting interrupted, was that if I could have a job like that I’d make way more.”

“Hm, sure.  It’s just a shame Scoops doesn’t have an opening for a professional kisser.”  Robin shrugged as she picked up the rag from the counter and started wiping the sliding window since the malt machine splashed a bit.

Steve sighed and watched her.  And watched.  And watched.  Then all of a sudden an idea came to him.

“Robin!”  He grabbed her shoulder and she immediately shook him off.

“What?”

“I could open one here!”

“ What ?”

“I could open a kissing booth right here in the store, we could use the window.”

Robin held up both her hands, waving them in front of her face.  “Hold on, hold on did you say ‘we’?”

“Well I would need a little help, in high school we had someone sitting at a table to take the money.  So just hear me out…” he ran around the counter to pretend to be a customer, “someone walks in and they want a kiss, right?  You would take the money and then take them back here to the window,” he ran to knock on the window before rushing to the back room, “then I can open it and ta-da!  It’s a perfect system.”

She stared at him through the open space.  “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Please, you’re just jealous.”

“Even if that were remotely true, there’s one teeny-tiny problem…you already have work to do here.  You can’t just leave it all to me while you’re frenching strangers!”

“Huh,” he rested his chin in his hand, “you have a point there.  I know!  We’ll have limited hours, so like whenever things are slow or at the end of the day.”

Robin nodded along.  “Okay, okay, but it still sounds like I’ll be doing a lot of extra shit so what do I get out of all of this?”

“Fair enough, so how about this deal?  Whenever I’m running the booth you won’t have to split the tip jar with me.  We’ll divy it up before I go to the back, and everything after then is yours.”

“Hm…I guess that’s a suitable arrangement.  I do enjoy extra money, and I have no doubt I could earn more tips without you annoying my customers so…sure, what the hell?  I’ll help you run your flop of a side business.”

“It’s not going to flop.”  Steve shut the window and walked back to the front.  “I bet I’ll make more money from my booth than you will from tips.”

“Oh yeah?”

“ Yeah .”  Now he was the one to cross his arms.  “Let’s go one whole month and then we can compare totals.  What do you say, deal?”

Robin started to go for his hand, but then pulled away.  “If this is a bet, what are the stakes?  Because if I win I’m going to want you to abandon this stupid booth idea and then I want to take longer breaks so you’ll have to cover for me.”

“Sure, and when I win…I’d like to keep the booth running, and from then on we’d continue to split the tips evenly, even when I’m in the back.”

“Tough sell but…you’ve got yourself a deal Steve Harrington, and I can’t wait to wipe the floor with you.  Or more accurately, I’ll make you wipe the floor when I’m relaxing on one of my many many breaks.”

They shared eye contact as they firmly shook on it.

The next day Steve came strolling in with all the confidence he'd collected in high school.  He was King Steve after all and this was his court of stars, at least that's what he told himself.  Robin was quick to shoot him down as soon as she came walking in with her bike helmet under her arm.

"Oh my God .  What is…what is happening here?"

"What's happening where?  What are you looking at?"

She started to laugh and she stepped behind the counter and gestured to his general face area.  "Dude…please don't tell me this is all part of your kissing booth idea."

He frowned, running a hand through his hair.  It was true, there may be a reason he'd put extra effort into his appearance today.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  This is just how attractive people look when they want other attractive people to notice them, I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"And I wouldn't expect Steve Harrington to wear more makeup than me."

She looked at him and he stared right back.

"Shut up, Buckley.  That's actually a dig on yourself if you think about it."

"Oh yeah?  How so?"  She leaned on the front counter, waiting for him to continue.

"Shut up, Buckley."

The first part of the workday passed by per usual, but then it was time for Steve to switch gears.  He disappeared to the back room and returned up front with some important supplies.  Well only two - a sign he had made himself last night and his own money jar.  He had decorated both with fancy, swirly, red letters that spelled out "Steve Harrington's Kissing Booth" with a pair of red lips stamped on the side.

Robin had to crouch behind the counter she was laughing so hard.

Steve ignored her as he taped his sign to one side of the pass-through.  "I don't know how many times I've told you this, but shut up."

She was still wheezing as she stood up.  "Who the hell did your advertising?"

" I made these, thank you very much."

That caused her to go into another fit of laughter.  "Oh…oh man that wasn't a compliment.  So uh…what's the plan here again?  I already cut your half from the beginning tips, and now mama is ready to make bank while you sulk in the back and realize you peaked in high school."

The last bit seemed uncalled for.  "For your information, I have not peaked yet, and I can't wait to rub it in your face when hot chicks are lined up outside our door."

"Hm…" her eyes gazed off in the distance, "yeah sure, that'll really show me."

Steve caught her attention again when he set his separate money jar in front of her.  "As for the plan, people will put their money in here and then you'll bring them behind the counter to the window, and knock on it to get my attention.  Super simple.  Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah seems straightforward."  She played with the jar a bit and then scooped it up.  "Holy shit you're charging $2 for a kiss?  We only get paid $3 an hour, you're expecting people to pay about an hour's wages for a stupid kiss?!"

"Robin, Robin, Robin…people pay for quality."

"For the love of…"  She shook her head and scoffed.  "But hey, I shouldn't complain, this will just guarantee my victory."

"You can laugh all you want, but this'll pay off, I'm telling you."  He walked to the back and opened the window.  "I think the real reason is you're just jealous .  You can't stand the thought of any other girl kissing this beautiful face."

"Okay now that is the most ridiculous thing you have said the entire time you've been here."

"Uh huh, sure, but I'll tell you what, anytime you want I'll give you a discount."  He puckered his lips.

Robin slammed the windows shut, and he barely had time to move out of the way.  He called through the glass.  "You can't hide the truth forever!  You're into me, admit it!"

"Spoken like someone who isn't delusional and desperate."

Steve didn't need that kind of negativity right now.  No, all he needed to do was sit back and relax as the babes came rolling in.  He did a lot of sitting and waiting.

Robin finally knocked on the window and Steve jumped up from his chair to open it, ready for his first customer of the day.  “Well hello there…Robin?  Oh, I see, you just couldn’t resist, could you?”

She blinked slowly and then handed him a rag.  “Nope.  I just didn’t feel like walking around the wall.  Besides, shift’s over so we need to clean up.”

“Wait, what?”  Steve looked past her at the rest of the mall which was also starting to empty out.  He then looked at the clock.  “No, but…"

"But what?  You can't believe that you had zero customers all day?"  She didn't even need an answer since she knew it was true.  She did add more though.  "Okay well technically you had someone inquire about purchasing a kiss, but she was like a 13 year old kid so I turned her away, even when she tried to argue for at least a peck on the head."

"Ugh."  He ran a hand down his face.  "Well thank you for that.  I'm running an illegal business already. I don't need to dig that hole any deeper."

"Mhm.  On that subject though…you got some age-range I should be keeping an eye on?"

"Not 13 obviously."  Steve walked to the front of the store to help wipe down tables.  "Like…it wouldn't be weird for me to date or kiss a Junior would it?  I mean I only graduated last year.  Or should I stick to Seniors and up?"

Robin started closing up the ice cream cartons.  "I'm making the decision to have high school Seniors be your minimum.  And by 'up' do you mean like… all the way up?"

He thought about it and then shrugged.  "Hey, if a little old widow wants to give me money for a smooch, who am I to deprive her?"

"Gee, what a heart of gold."

"Why do you ask?  You haven't been turning away more of my customers, have you?  You wouldn't be sabotaging me like that, would you?"

"Hey, no!  I want to win, but I don't need to cheat to do it.  I'm just asking for future reference, I need to know what your kissing boundaries are."

"Oh.  Well…thank you."

"You're welcome."  She nodded as she started flipping chairs onto the tables.  "It's a little thing called 'respect' in case King Steve never learned that in high school."

He shot her a look, but she was just smiling.  It was more a joke than a jab.  Steve still rolled his eyes, but he gave her a quick smile back.

Chapter Text

The second day of Steve's new job he was determined to do better than last time.  He had made an even bigger sign, and he planned on actually having the window open a bit.  He had to show off the goods after all.  With Robin's help he added a little '18+' specification on his jar too.

Surprisingly enough…this worked, and he had his first ever customer.  He was more than happy to get some business, but after she had gotten her kisses, she'd actually paid for two to Robin’s disbelief, he couldn't help but wonder about something.

"I think I knew her."  He dropped to Robin as he leaned through the window.  "I want to say she's one of the moms from my parent's country club."

"Hm."  Robin raised an eyebrow.  "Do you think she knew you then?"

"I don't know.  It'd be weird if she did, right?  Like…I've been going there for years.  I'm pretty sure I golfed with one of her kids."

"Honestly?  I still think this whole fucking idea is weird so I don't think I'm the best judge of the situation."

"Hmm…"  Steve mulled it over.  "I'm not going to think about it.  Money is money after all."

Robin scoffed and walked away to tend to the register again.  "Wow, what a fascinating conclusion you've come to.  I hope all the rich moms come through now."

"Laugh all you want, but I'll be the one laughing when my jar is full."

"Oh trust me, it'll be me laughing when you go to your fancy country club again and can't look anyone in the eye."

Steve leaned further through the window, talking as if there wasn't a young lady getting ice cream.  "It's just a harmless kiss, it's not like I'm sleeping with these moms."

Robin scooped out some strawberry.  "Rationalize it all you want, I still think it's weird."

"I think you're biased because it's good for my business."

She let out a groan.  "You get one customer and you become insufferable."  Then, to make things worse, as she handed over the ice cream she actually addressed the customer.  "You're an outside opinion, what do you think?  I'll even give you the cone for free if you answer."

Steve hissed from his spot.  "Robin!"

The lady looked between them, her eyes were certainly wider than normal, but she didn't go running out of here.  "Well um…I think I'd need to know more of the situation.  So maybe I'm not-"

Robin started talking before the lady could finish.  "Ok so here's the thing, he's got this kissing booth and some older woman who he may or may not know bought two.  Now, is it weird or is it just business?"

"Um…" she seemed to actually think about it and then she looked at Steve, "I think…as long as it's not weird for you it's fine.  I mean I'd say that woman would be more in the wrong since she's the one going around paying for the kiss."

Robin sighed and shook her head before walking away to tend to something else.

That opinion wasn't the response he was expecting, but Steve smiled.  "Thank you, thank you for your support!  That's what I'm thinking, it's just good business."

"You're welcome, and…with that being said, you uh, you're running a kissing booth ?"

Steve paused, sensing some interest.  He leaned an elbow on the windowsill and looked her over quickly.  "Why yes, I am.  $2 a kiss, but I assure you it's worth the price."

" Well …" she swayed a bit, "I did get my ice cream for free so I've got a few dollars to spare."

Steve could see Robin out of the corner of his eye with a shocked, near disgusted, look on her face.  Yeah it's a good thing she wasn't handling this particular interaction.  Steve gave his potential customer a winning smile and gestured to his window.

"A few dollars to spare, huh?  If that's the case you're more than welcome to step right up, donate to a worthy cause."

She giggled a little before sticking her cash in the jar and claiming her kiss.  He licked his lips after she pulled away.

"Sweet, just like a strawberry."

She held her ice cream in front of her blush and then walked around the counter again.  "That's a terrible line."

"The line is terrible, but the kiss is still good.  And so you know, I'm here pretty much all afternoon every day if…you've got a few more spare dollars lying around.  Or if you just want to come by, talk, maybe grab dinner sometime."

"I'll have to keep that in mind."  She smiled as she gave a little wave and walked out.

After she was gone, Robin came swooping in to block Steve’s view.  “Okay first off, ew.  Second, double ew.  Third, how the hell did that work out?  I mean that lady literally heard you talking about kissing moms for money and then…she spends her own money to kiss the mom-kisser?  Like…what part of that did she find attractive?”

Honest to God, Steve didn’t know either, but he wasn’t about to give Robin the satisfaction.  “Most of the time women don’t like a man who kisses other women, unless he’s still single.  Then they see how badly other people want him and just like that he’s a hot commodity.  Or you know, maybe she just couldn’t resist my charms.  Either way, I’m starting to rake in the dough and you’re just jealous.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Brag all you want, but I guarantee this’ll be your only business for the whole day.”

Somehow she was right, and Steve started to wonder if Robin cursed him.  She could be a witch, that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.  After all he knew El, and that was a little girl who could move things with her mind, so maybe Robin was a witch out to ruin his life.

Thankfully his luck returned the following few days and he had a decent string of ladies stop by his window.  He credited his success to the pictures of himself he attached to the sign and his jar since he didn’t want to have the window open the whole time.  One of his clients was probably close to seventy, but she was Steve’s favorite.  She had given him a whopping ten dollars, maybe she had misread the sign or something, but he wasn’t going to question a good thing.  She had also come in from the nearby jazzercise class, which actually gave him quite a few customers now and then in varying age ranges.  Robin teased him endlessly about having a thing for older women, but he tried to ignore her the best he could.

One time though, after the jazzercise rush, which was really more of a trickle over the course of an hour, the instructor came in.  He was a well-built man with long blond hair, and brightly colored spandex.  Steve shot Robin a look and she mouthed ‘You’re in trouble’ at him.  He didn’t really believe her, but…instead of proving her wrong he just ducked below the window.

Robin was going to shout ‘Coward!’ after that sleaze Harrington, but then the service bell dinged and she turned to the register.  It was hard to take a man like this seriously, but she tried her best as she smiled at the instructor.

“Hello, welcome to Scoops Ahoy, how may I help you?”

“You may help me quite a bit.  I’ve noticed several of my students have been making their way over here the past couple of days, and I must say I’m concerned.  Their health is of the utmost importance to me, and this business you have here serves nothing but temptation.”

Robin stifled a laugh, barely, and she only hoped Steve was listening closely through the open window.  She’d love to peek back there and tease him, ‘Hear that, dingus?  Your stupid booth is nothing but a den of sin and temptation.  For shame, for shame!’ . Instead she continued to let the instructor go on his spiel.

“I personally think having a place like this so close to mine is an affront, and if I had anything to say about it I’d have you removed.  I know I can’t, so instead I would ask that you stop serving your sweet treats so liberally.  I don’t think losing a little revenue from a few ladies would hurt the company’s bottom line, would it?  You’d still be getting paid after all.  So…do you think we have an understanding?  I just want to protect the hearts of my ladies who are working so hard for a healthier future.”

When he finally stopped talking she nodded her head.  “Oh absolutely.  Now with that out of the way, would you like some ice cream?”

“Would I like any?”  His eyes narrowed.  “Didn’t you hear anything I said?  I in no part support your ice cream business!  All this frozen sugar is a heart attack waiting to happen.”

“ Ohh .”  Robin dragged out the word, trying to sound as clueless as possible.  “You were talking about the ice cream this whole time!  I thought you were talking about our other business.”

“What other-”

She stepped aside to gesture at the sign behind her, and then to the jar by the register.  “Why the famous kissing booth of course.  That’s the sweet treat all your clients have been stopping by for.  Although a couple of them also get a banana boat.”

“A kissing booth?  Is that legal?”

Robin shrugged, it probably wasn’t.  “Hey, so long as you don’t tell anyone, it’s legal.”

“I don’t believe that’s how the law works.”

“Look, if I knew the law I wouldn’t be working here.  But all I know is that if you have a problem I can let you talk to the founder.”

The instructor raised his eyebrow.  “The founder?”

“Yeah sure, he’s right back here.”

Steve could’ve killed Robin.  After overhearing the entire conversation from his spot beneath the window he had considered sneaking out the back through the interconnecting hallways.  That was until Robin poked her stupid cheery head through the divide and spoke right at him, loudly.

“Hey Steve!  You’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you, I think they might have a complaint.”

He stood up, giving her a tight-lipped smile.  “Why thank you for letting me know, Robin.”

“Anytime, buddy.  Oh and I’m going to take a little break now so uh…just come get me when you’re done.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“What was that?”  She asked cheekily.

“I said, ‘will do’.”  He gave her a two finger salute until he dropped his pointer, leaving only one specific finger up.

Satisfied, Robin mumbled something more to the jazzercise instructor and then walked out the front to wander the mall for a few minutes.  Meanwhile Steve had to drag himself up to the front desk, dreading having to explain himself to this man.  With women it was easier because he could usually find a way to turn it flirtatious, into more of a sales pitch, but now he had to try and do the opposite.

“Hello sir, you uh, wanted to speak with me?”

The blond assessed him slowly.  “So you’re the one running an illegal kissing booth out of an ice cream establishment.”

“I mean…is it really illegal?  Has anyone actually checked the books?”

Mr. Jazzercise didn’t say anything for a moment, choosing to look Steve over again.  “How old are you?”

“Uh…19.  So, you know, old enough .  I can vote, so I can run a business too.”

“A kissing business.  Inside of a Scoops Ahoy.”

“If you want to get into the nitty-gritty details, but what’s so wrong with kissing people?”  Maybe Steve could appeal to this guy’s hippy side.  This dude had to be a hippy.  “I’m just trying to spread a little joy and happiness to people who want it.  Peace and love, man that’s really what I’m selling here, peace and love.  F-For everyone, no matter what, you know it’s all about uh, acceptance and…affection?”  Now he was just throwing out buzzwords.  “That sort of thing, because don’t we, as a society, need more of that?”

Jazzercise’s face softened like he might cry as he slowly brought a hand to his heart.  “You are so right, such a beautiful sentiment.”

“Thank you, thank you.”  Steve put a hand over his own heart, trying to look just as deeply moved.

“This world needs more people like you, like us, just trying to put some good out there to combat the hate and stigmas.  You ought to be proud.”

“Oh I am, very.”  Steve shrugged a little as he smiled.  “Loud and proud, supporting the cause, that’s me.  So um…so I take it this…solidarity means you won’t be tattling to anyone, right?”

“Oh honey, of course not!  We’ve got to support each other in these trying times.  In fact I hope you don’t mind me giving a little support right now.”  Out of nowhere, or maybe Steve just didn’t want to think about where , Jazzercise pulled out two dollar bills and dropped them into the jar.  He was also smiling, or maybe it was closer to a smirk, the kind of smirk Steve would identify as flirtatious .

“Oh.”  Steve fought very hard to keep his face in the ‘pleasant to neutral’ range.  “ Oh .”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck shit fuck goddamn fucking shit.

Good one, he’d really backed himself into a corner here.  Now he had the right to refuse service to anyone, that was a pretty standard line in the business world, but this particular someone had, only a few minutes earlier, threatened to shut him down.  At least the guy seemed genuinely interested, and this wasn’t some blackmail attempt.  Unless…gay people were much nicer when they tried to blackmail you.

In all honesty this was the first interaction Steve ever had with a gay person, you don’t get a lot of those in Hawkins Indiana.  Now he wasn’t against gay people, sure he made the same jokes that everyone did, but in the end he took a ‘live and let live’ stance.  He never really saw what the big deal was, humans all had the same lips so who cares if two boys kiss?  In this current moment he fell back on that kind of thinking instead of the internal panic he was feeling.

He had a business here, a kissing business, and he had never specified that it had to be a straight business.  After all he was operating illegally, selling a product that was already toeing the line of public morals and decency so why shouldn’t he extend his practice to the queer community?  More importantly, gay money was just as good as straight money.

Steve hoped his mental debate hadn’t taken too much time, and finally returned his newest customer’s smile.  “Hey, I’ll take all the support I can get.  Especially if it’s coming from someone with such great hair.”

The compliment might’ve been unnecessary, but it was still true.  The guy did have nice hair and he clearly worked out.  All said and done Steve was getting a pretty lucky deal here.  He even leaned over to twirl a piece of blond locks before kissing the man just like any other client.

Jazzercise pulled away and waggled a teasing finger at Steve.  “Oh you are just as bad as your desserts, I see why some of my ladies keep stopping by.”

“Well, I’m just glad we could come to an understanding.”

“As am I.”  He patted Steve’s hand before he walked away.  “Best of luck, Steve, I’ll be rooting for you.  Gotta stand with the community.”

Steve’s response was to give him a thumbs up until he disappeared around the corner.  Then Steve himself vanished to the backroom where he finally dropped his smile and took a gasping breath.

“What the fuuuuuuuck?  Holy shit that…I…  Okay, okay that happened.  That actually happened, but no big deal.  No big deal at all.  It was just like kissing any girl, didn’t feel any different or anything.  So it’s fine, everything’s fine.  And the store was empty so it’s not like anyone-”

“ Steven !”  Robin’s shout came first and then she threw open the swinging door to the back.  “Steven what the hell?”

“Uh…” act dumb, that was easy for him, “w-what do you mean?”

She marched right up to him, her voice a loud whisper.  “You freaking kissed jazzercise dude!”

“Oh.  That.  You saw that?”

“Yeah!  I lied about taking a break. I just went a little ways away to spy, but I wasn’t expecting to see you locking lips with Richard Simmons!”

“Whoah.”  Steve raised his hands.  “Jazzercise is way hotter than Simmons, I take offense to that.”

“Gah!”  She threw up her hands.  “That’s not the point, the point is you kissed a boy , Steven!”

“First, not loving the full name thing.  Second…” he felt he had to phrase this carefully, not knowing how Robin would react, “so what?”

She blinked at him, just blinked at him for several seconds.  “So what?  So what ?  That’s all you have to say on the matter of ‘Steve Harrington kisses a boy in broad frickin daylight’?”

“Look, if you’re going to be hateful I don’t-”

“ Hateful ?  Were you just going to call me homophobic?  Me ?  Homophobic ?”  Robin tossed back her head and laughed until she was out of breath.

“Robin!  Robin, pull yourself together for Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you?”  Now he was starting to get a little annoyed with her antics.

“I’m sorry I just…shit.”  She took a few seconds before looking at him.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know he was going to kiss me until it happened, and I didn’t have a chance to tell you before you barged in here and started shouting.”

“I mean, why didn’t you tell me you were gay ?  That would’ve made me like you so much more.”

Now it was his turn to blink at her.  “I’m not gay.”

“You’re not?  Then why the hell were you making out with Mr. Ken Doll?”

A good question. Steve shrugged.  “He gave me two bucks, and it wasn’t making it out per se.”

Robin pinched the bridge of her nose and took a breath.  Then she opened her eyes to roll them.  “Got it.  So you’re just gay for pay.”

“No!”  He was honestly offended she would even think something like that.  “That’s not it, I just…  Well you see it’s different because…”  Nevermind, he could see why she would think that.  “Okay maybe a little bit, but I don’t see why you should care.”

“I care ,” she put a hand over her heart, “because I saw former Hawkins High royalty and totally straight ladies man Steve Harrington kiss a dude.  This is earth-shattering news for me, alright?  You used to make fun of people, like calling Jonathan Byers gay and stuff, but now you kiss dudes?  Surely you can see why I’m having this reaction.”

Sighing with resignation, Steve sat down at the table.  “Yeah okay I guess I can understand.  But…I’m not the same person I was in high school, or I’m trying not to be.  Except for the ladies man thing, I’d like to keep that, but I’d like to work on not being a jerk.”

She sat across from him with her hands folded.  “Wow you’re serious about this shit, aren’t you?”

“Of course I’m serious!”

“Again, forgive me for not instantly believing you want to change literally everything about your personality.”  Robin rapped her knuckles against the table a few times.  “If I may ask though…why?  Why the sudden desire to not be a douche?”

Another good question, man Robin should be a journalist with Nancy or something.  “Uh…I don’t know.  I’ve kind of…been through some shit recently,” if saving the world counts, “and with Nancy breaking up with me it kind of helped me realize that high school isn’t super important.  Like popularity and stuff is all kind of…well Nancy said it best with bullshit.  So now I’m trying to find things about me that aren’t.”

“Hm…and you think you’re going to discover yourself by serving ice cream and kissing guys?”

Steve rolled his eyes with a huff.  “ Now who isn’t taking things seriously?  I would also like to remind you that it was one guy, a singular kiss with only one man.  It was a business transaction, I’ve kissed plenty of women too.  Money has no gender, Robin.  Maybe open your mind a little, huh?”

“Oh trust me,” she smirked at him, “my mind is way open now.  If people like Steve Harrington can turn over a new leaf and be gay for pay anything’s possible.”

After a moment of silent staring, Steve snatched the hat off her head and threw it back at her.  “Get back to work Buckely, middle-schoolers are probably robbing the cash register.”

Robin just laughed as she walked back to the front, but then a short while later she poked her head through the window.  “By the way…I do actually think you’re cool now.  At least kinda cool, just a little bit.”

He looked at her, waiting for some kind of punchline, but it didn’t come.  So then he was able to return her smile.  “Thanks Robin, glad all I had to do was kiss our health conscious neighbor to go from loser to cool.”

“Oh I never said you weren’t a loser.  And for the record I still think this booth is a dumb idea, but I guess a little good came out of it.”  She batted her lashes.  “Peace and love for the community , right?”

“Ok so when you said you were spying, you were spying on the whole entire thing.”

“Yep.  I literally just walked around the corner, close enough to see and hear everything.”  She flashed him another smile and then a little wave before sliding the window shut.

Steve pulled up a second chair so he could lay down.  He didn’t expect any other customers today, but that didn’t mean he wanted to go out and actually work the rest of his shift.  He made a deal with Robin after all, she agreed to take over the second part of the day.

Which…Robin was kind of a mystery.  He couldn’t get a clear read on how she felt about him, somehow he was cool and a loser.  And the only reason he was even somewhat cool in her eyes was because he’d kissed another man and hadn’t been an asshole about it.  Her bar was so low and so high at the same time.

Chapter Text

On the other side of the wall Robin was having herself a fucking blast.  She found herself actually smiling while helping a few of the late customers who came in.  The kissing booth idea was still beyond stupid, but she never thought she’d get any satisfaction from it.  But no!  She, Robin Buckley, had bared witness to the one and only Steve Harrington kissing a man in rainbow spandex.  She had a secret, a powerful secret and it filled her with a fiendish sort of glee.

Now she knew she would never tell anyone, as a fellow gay herself she wasn’t going to go around spreading rumors, she just took a personal joy in this new information.  Even if Steve was doing it for the money, the fact that he seemed so casual about kissing men gave her hope.  Part of her hoped Steve would be some kind of gay purely for the irony, but the biggest part of her hoped that she could find an ally.  She never could’ve expected that ally to be Steve Harrington, again the irony, but at this point she’d take what she could get.

Robin knew she liked girls from a pretty young age, she’d never understood the hype over dumb boys and she always felt drawn to strong female leads in movies.  However, as Robin understood such things about herself, she started to understand that she was pretty much on her own.  She obviously knew that Hawkins had to have more than one lesbian, but she had no idea where to find them, she was bad at finding any of the gays that were lurking around.  So for a long time she was alone, and now her best option for a friend was the kid who used to be a high school bully.  It was sad and laughable, and she was curious to see how this would all play out.  Maybe she could bring herself to confess her biggest secret, form a bond, or at the very least telling Steve she was gay might get him to stop occasionally flirting with her.

As she was contemplating her life, she noticed a man lurking by the entrance.  She whistled sharply at him.  “Hey, no loitering!”

He quickly ducked to the side, almost running out of her sight, his dark brown hair the last thing to disappear.  Robin could’ve sworn she’d seen that same dude skulking around their storefront before.  Long curly hair, all black clothing in the dead of summer, pins on his jacket, tattoos on his arms when they were showing.  Yeah she’d definitely seen him around the mall a few times, but he never actually came into the store.  Which was odd because it was like he was casing the joint, even though no one in their right mind would choose to rob an ice cream store.  Besides, even if he did, it’s not like Robin would put herself at risk for a corporation, she’d easily hand over the cash and not even nark on the guy.

About thirty minutes later something unique happened, Robin saw the guy show up again.  She was getting ready to shoo him away when he actually walked through the storefront.  He approached timidly and she put her chin on her hand to watch him the whole time.  When he eventually made it up to the counter he spread his ringed fingers over the white surface before speaking in a voice too even to be natural.

“Evening.”

Robin hadn’t moved a muscle, but now she smirked up at him.  “Hi there.”  She stood up straight.  “Anything I can help you with today?”

He tapped his fingers a few time, talking slow as he turned his head to look at the rows of ice cream, but his eyes were glued to the kissing jar.  “Mmmaybe.  Just uh… browsing for now.”

“Browsing, huh?  You seem to do a lot of browsing by our store when you’re lurking by the windows.”

“I-I’m not, I don’t…I don’t lurk .  I-It…it’s called window shopping.”  He waved his hands around as if they would give him a better answer.

“Window shopping?  For ice cream?”  When he didn’t respond or even look at her she leaned forward a bit.  “Or…something else?”

He still didn’t look at her, pretending to be perfectly casual and aloof even as she could see his face turning red.  “S-Something else?”  Finally he met her gaze with curious brown eyes.  “I wasn’t uh, I wasn’t aware you sold anything else here.”

“No?  You didn’t happen to notice the big sign or the jar that says ‘Kissing Booth’ on it?”  Robin gestured at both items.

This guy had to be in theater the way he dropped his mouth and raised his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise.  He even scoffed.  “W-What?  I didn’t even see that, I had no idea you had something like that here.  Wow, such an interesting concept, what’s that all about?”

She spoke as plainly as she could without laughing.  “It’s a kissing booth.  A booth where you pay people in money to kiss you.”

“Uh huh.  Yes, two dollars, it looks like.”  There was silence until he cleared his throat.  “Seems a little pricey, huh?”

“Hey I’m not the one who set the amount.  It’s not my name and face on the jar, is it?”

“No?  It’s not?”  The man pointed between her and the jar as he leaned down to inspect it, as if he hadn’t been staring at it the whole time anyway.  “What do you know, Steve Harrington, hm, hm interesting…interesting.”

It was apparently fascinating since it took Robin snapping her fingers to get the guy to look up again.  “Yeah sure, now are you going to buy something or get out?”

“I-I might buy, don’t rush me.”  He straightened his jean vest.  “I just have a couple of questions first.  Like uh…I happened to see a blond man walking out of here without any ice cream in hand so I was wondering if he happened to buy the ‘something else’ being offered here?”

“If you mean, ‘Did he get a kiss?’, then yeah.  He did.”  She shrugged.  “I’m as surprised as anyone else.  Booth’s apparently open to girls and gays.  I mean guys .”

“Ah.  Cool.  Cool, cool, cool.  Cool .”  The man was twisting and twirling his hair in a very un-chill manner.  “Another question if you will.  These kisses being offered, how long do they last?  And…is it just a simple kiss or is there um…is there…”

He struggled with his words, and had to lean in, signaling Robin to do the same before whispering.  “Does there happen to be a uh, international option?  Say a…French version for sale?”

Robin never wanted to unhear words so badly.  Somehow she managed not to laugh in this poor guy’s face.  “You know, I’m not sure.  I could always ask.”

She went to knock on the window when the man yelled.  “No!  No uh, n-nevermind it’s not important.  Nothing worth bothering your uh…associate over.”

“Oookay.”  Now she was tempted to knock just to see what would happen, but she didn’t and instead there was another bout of silence that she had to break.  “So, is that what you want?”

“What I want?  W-What I want, do I want a kiss from Steve Harrington?  I mean, I-I don’t know, haven't really thought about it.  Just give me a second.”

Robin gave him his second, knowing damn well he had made up his mind before even walking up to the counter.  But as he thought, she thought too.  He was familiar, and not just because she’d noticed him around the mall, she felt like she knew him from somewhere else.  She took in the rings and the hair and the clothes until she finally focused on his shirt enough to read it, ‘Hellfire Club’.  Oh.  Yeah she knew this loser.

“Hey, you go to Hawkins High, don’t you?”

He stopped all movement, just his wide brown eyes moved to her face.  “Me?  N-No I uh, I’ve never been to a school in my life.”

“Yeah…” Robin leaned on the counter and pointed a finger at him, “yeah you go to school with me.  You’re the guy who walks on lunch tables ranting about society and shit.”

“I think you must be mistaken, young lady, I know not of these circumstances you associate me with.”  As his speech pattern changed so did his movements, acting like some fancy gentleman, except his fingers kept fidgeting with nerves.

She definitely recognized him and it only took her a moment to get the name.  “Munson.  You’re Eddie Munson, aren’t you?”

“N-No I’m not.  Who’s Eddie Munson?  Sounds rad though.”

“Trust me, he’s not.”  Robin smirked, having won.  “He’s spent over a month staking out a Scoops Ahoy because he wants to lock lips with Steve Harrington.”

“Excuse you, I have not been staking out !  Besides you didn’t even open the kissing booth until earlier this week so your month prediction is way off.”

“True, which is something you only would’ve known if you’ve been paying attention.  Also Steve started working here almost two months ago and I’m pretty sure that’s the same time I caught you hovering in that bush over there.”  She pointed to a shrub display not too far from the Scoops’ doorway.

Eddie looked behind him, and then at her, back to the bush, and then back at her.  “Huh.  I didn’t think you could see that from this angle.”

“Yep.”  Robin popped the ‘p’.

“Ah.”  He continued to stand in front of the register, kicking his feet at the floor.  “Well now that you know my secret identity…”

Robin was expecting a more solid confession, or another inquiry about Steve’s booth, or really anything besides what happened.  Eddie put one hand on top of Steve’s jar, pausing, and then suddenly he reached up further to knock the container of sprinkles off the ice cream case.  Little bits of rainbow sugar spilled everywhere and Robin had to struggle to grab the glass container before it shattered all over the floor.

“What the hell man!”  When she stood back up to look over the counter she saw Eddie sprinting off into the mall.  “Fucking asshole!”

Shortly afterwards, Steve came through the back door to see the mess.  “Jeez Rob, what happened?”

She opened her mouth to tattle, but just like with Jazzercise…she decided to save the truth for another time.  “Oh you know, typical customer service stuff.  Some idiot knocked over the sprinkles.”

Steve didn’t look totally convinced, but then he sighed.  “Okay, I’ll get the broom.”

The next few days were great for Steve’s side gig.  He had his usual single moms coming in from jazzercise practice, and while the instructor would sometimes walk by and wave he never came up to the counter again.  However…there was another gentleman who casually slid into the store when it was almost empty, saying that a ‘friend’ had brought this booth to his attention.

This new guy looked young, maybe even Steve’s age or a year younger.  He had been so nervous at the window, and before getting his kiss he had just covered his face.  Steve made a few jokes, gave a few smiles and got the guy to admit that was his first ever kiss.

“Ever?  Like ever ever?”  Steve rested one elbow on the window, propping up his head.  “And you want to waste it here?”

The guy, Brad as he introduced himself, scoffed.  “Seems a bad business practice to call yourself a waste.”

“Well I’m not a waste, but…but surely you’d rather have your very first kiss with someone you care about, right?  Something special.”

“Yeah I…everyone wants that I think, but it’s not always…easy for everyone.  To even find someone who would, you know, it’s not always uh, widely advertised.”  He gestured to the booth’s sign, but Steve caught the deeper meaning.  “So even hearing about someone like you was pretty rare.”

“Oh no I’m not-” gay.  Which he wasn’t, Steve still liked girls plenty.  His openness, or indifference, to men didn’t change that, but…he didn’t need to explain all that to poor Brad.  “I’m not the end all be all, of course.  You’ll find someone else, I know it.”

There was a brief pause between them and then Steve smiled again, waving Brad forward with his hand.  “And when you do you won’t have to worry about all those first time jitters.”

They kissed, Steve being a bit more gentle and attentive since he could feel Brad kind of shaking.  After the nerves subsided, Steve pulled back.  “There, now you’ll be a pro for the next handsome guy.”

Brad was blushing and he ran a hand through his hair.  “Y-Yeah, sure.  Anyway, uh, thanks.”

“You don’t need to thank me, you’re the one who paid for it.”

“Sure, but I mean thank you for doing this, like…being a safe spot in the middle of,” he swung a hand towards the mall outside, “everything.”

Steve felt a sense of pride in his chest.  He wasn’t sure if he’d ever had anyone call him ‘safe’ before.  That was certainly never his intention with this booth, but maybe his spiel about peace and love was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he had no problem with that.

Robin came back from her spot as ‘look-out’.  “Okay we’ve got a family of screaming kids coming our way, time to clear out, remove the kissy stuff so no one gets fired.”

Brad practically dashed out of there, nearly colliding with the customers that came in.  Meanwhile Robin stashed Steve’s jar under the counter and he pulled his sign from the window.  Flipping his scoops and working quickly with Robin they served a whole evening wave of people hungry for dessert.  Twirling his utensils back into his pockets he leaned against the back counter with Robin.

“We make a real good team if I say so myself.”

“And you can keep saying it all by yourself.”  She glanced over at him, attitude in her voice.  “Because now’s the time when I take everything in the tip jar for myself .”

“What?  Wait, hold on here, did you not just see all the work I put in?  I know we had an agreement, but I should at least get a fraction of it.  After all, I could've just left you out here to do it all alone!”

“But you didn’t.”  She scrunched up her face as she poured the coins and a few dollars into her pockets.  “Not my fault you chose to help.”

“Well excuse me for trying to be a decent human being.”

“You’re excused.”

He rolled his eyes and looked back at the tables of people.  Then he felt her nudge him before she mumbled.

“But thanks.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, dingus.”  But then she did anyway.  “I said thank you.  Maybe you’re really not a total asshole anymore.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile and nudge her back.  “You are more than welcome, Robin.  After all, I only live to impress you.”

“Well then again, you are excused from life."  She snorted.  "But before I murder you I do have a question."

"Yeah?"

Robin opened her mouth, but then some kid came up to ask for napkins.  "Eh, we'll talk after closing."

The rest of the shift passed quickly, Steve didn't set his booth up again, even after most of the customers filtered in and out.  Instead he stayed up front with Robin, letting her do most of the work, but occasionally helping as well as quietly judging a few people.  They were sweeping and cleaning tables when Steve looked at her from across the store.

"So…I believe there was something you were going to ask me?"  He pushed back his hair.  "Wouldn't happen to be 'out on a date' would it?"

"Gross."  She dumped her dustpan in the trash.  "No, I was going to ask you about that guy who came in earlier."

"Which guy, there were a lot."

"Booth guy."

"But I'm booth guy."

"Steven."

"Yeah that's me, what's the problem?"

"Please tell me you're joking and you're not genuinely confused."

The pause gave him time to think.  "Oh you mean Brad!"

"Oh my God…" Robin ran a hand down her face, "yes I mean Brad.  Like…why'd you even bother to learn his name, what'd you even spend so long talking about?"

Steve flipped his rag to wash another table.  "Well…I don't know why.  He seemed nervous, like almost scared.  I thought it would help to chat first.  You never want someone to be scared of a kiss, especially their first.  I don't want to ruin his experience for all other dudes."

Robin laughed, which seemed an unusual response.  She looked at his confused face and laughed again.  "Do you hear yourself?  Like…you're just talking about kissing gay guys as if it's no big deal."

Now Steve started to frown.  "Why, should it be a big deal?"

"Yes!"  Robin threw her hands out to the side.  "This is Hawkins fucking Indiana!  You're Steve 'Golden-Boy' Harrington!  You shouldn't be the number one ally here.  Yet…yet you're giving gay men a first kiss, you're talking them through their nerves, it's…it's just weird .  You can see how weird this is, right?"

"No Robin, I can't."  He straightened up defensively.  "I think what I'm doing isn't weird at all, I think it's a good thing."

"Something can be good and weird!"  She raked a hand through her hair.  "So I'm not like trying to insult you, as I said I think it's really cool what you're doing, but…it's just not what I expected.  And maybe…maybe I am wrong for having those expectations, but…I don't know dude.  After years of being afraid of guys like you it's just really weird to…to see you so differently."

"You," Steve abandoned his last table and walked up to the register, "were scared of guys like me?  Why?"

"Because you jerks were jerks!  You were mean to people like me!"

"Band nerds?"

She shook her head with another loud laugh.  "Oh my god no it's…well yes, but… I'm gay, Steven.  You can't even imagine what life is like for me, and yet…yet somehow you're waltzing around as if you've never made jokes about gay people being evil or how you and your jock buddies talked about making lesbians straight with your perceived 'hotness'."

He stared at her, just stared at her for a few seconds.  That was a lot of information to process, and he was also trying to decipher if she was somehow mad at him, or just surprised.  "Oh.  I…I didn't know you were gay.  So wait, is that why you kept rejecting my dates?"

Okay now he could tell she was actually mad at him by the look on her face.  "I…Jesus.  You know what, forget it, it's my time to clock out anyway."

She walked to the back room to punch her card.  Steve followed after her.  "Wait, wait!  I'm sorry, Robin, come on."

"Do you even understand what you're apologizing for?"  She had her bike helmet tucked under her arm.

"Uh…for making you upset?"

"And do you know why what you just said upset me?"

Steve blinked.  "Um…no?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought."  Robin walked past him.  "Look I just…I'll see you tomorrow."

She kept walking out the front, into the rest of the mall.  Steve waited a few seconds, but then he ran out after her.  "Wait Robin, what did I do?"

He was pretty sure she didn't want to talk to him, but he wanted to talk to her .  He didn't want to leave her angry at him, not when she just threw this new information out there!  Except he didn't catch up with her.  Instead, he was running past the bushes outside Scoops on his way to the escalators when he ran into someone.  They both tripped to the ground and Steve had to abandon his Robin chase, they'd see each other tomorrow anyway.

"I'm sorry!  I didn't even see you, I thought the mall was empty at this time."

"O-Oh yeah no it's fine."  The guy's limbs seemed to be all over the place as he scrambled to stand up.  "I was just um…"

He gestured awkwardly at the shrubbery without providing any explanation.  Steve watched him flounder for a few seconds before jumping in.  "Oh, do you work with the janitors?  Like taking care of the plants?"

The man stopped, a blank look on his face before smiling wide.  "Yes!  That's…that's exactly it.  I was just uh.. making sure this bad boy was um…green enough."

Steve chuckled, a little of his anxiety from Robin's conversation fading.  "Well I'm no expert, but it looks like you're doing your job then."

"Oh.  Oh yeah.  Yeah, heh, bush humor."  He pulled some of his hair towards his mouth.  “ Hedge -sterics you might say.”

Even though his words were slightly muffled Steve managed to hear them and laughed again.  “Well if you weren’t a janitor I’d say you were a comedian.”

Despite the man’s best efforts to hide, he let his hair down and grinned.  “Maybe I’m both, just as long my job includes making you smile.”

It wasn’t often Steve found himself on the receiving end of a line, if it was indeed a line instead of a joke.  Ever since his encounter with Jazzercise he was questioning a lot more.  Innocent or not it made him blush.  “Can’t imagine that pays too well.”

“I don’t know, it’s a wage I could live off of.”

This had to be flirting, right?  Steve could’ve sworn there was a dreaminess to the guy’s tone, but apparently he was terrible at social cues so he tried to read the facial features.  As he subtly tried to examine the man’s face he had a weird sense of deja vu.  Slowly Steve furrowed his brows.

“Wait, do I know you?  Have we met before?”

The man blanched and deployed his curtain of hair again.  “Uh, n-no.  Nope, nothing ringing a school bell I mean…no.  I don’t think so.  U-Unless you’ve seen me around town, small world and all.  Anyway I should get going.  I've got lots of uh…stuff and…things.”

Then he turned and started speed-walking away.  Steve stood in place and called after him.  “Well I hope you have a good night then!”

The guy didn’t turn around, but he raised a hand in a kind of wave.  “Y-You too, Steve!”

That was odd.  Steve was going to ask how the guy knew his name, but then he glanced down at his uniform.  Nametag, duh.

“Hey, wait!  I didn’t catch your-” Steve looked up again, but there was no one to be seen, “name.”

What was it with people today?  All of them seemed to run from him before finishing a conversation.  The best Steve could do was shrug it off for now, he’d hopefully be able to talk with Robin tomorrow and then…well if he ever saw that guy again the first thing to do would be to get a name.

He walked back into the store to finish closing up before driving home.

Chapter Text

Robin walked into Starcourt dreading work for an entirely different reason today.  Alright so maybe she was a little dramatic last night and maybe she shouldn’t have gone off on Steve so hard, but…but the dude was a douchebag for most of her life!  She deserved to be a bit bitchy!  He didn’t get to have a sudden, surprise, character arc and then act like everything was fine all along!

She went to drop her helmet and bag in the backroom, but instead of seeing Steve like normal there was a middle-aged woman sitting at the table with a purse slung over her shoulder.

“Oh thank god.”  Her name tag said ‘Mandy’.  “I was waiting for one of you evening people to show up.  I almost left the store empty, not like I get paid enough to sit around and waste my time waiting for you kids.  I’ve got a life of my own you know.”

When she strutted past Robin there came the strong scent of smoke that almost made her gag.  Robin detested smoking,  and now she had another reason to get Steve back on her good side - she could ask him to never be late again so she’d never have to be the one to relieve Miss Mandy.

Robin punched in her timecard and started to go over her checklist of duties.  As she did she would throw glances at the clock, and as it ticked by she got a little worried.  Maybe Steve had called in sick and Mandy forgot to deliver the message.  Maybe he was stuck in traffic, or his stupid fancy car broke down and he was late getting it fixed.  Maybe he died and Robin would never get the chance to apologize or-

"Hey Rob, sorry I'm late."  Steve ran breathlessly into the backroom, gripping his timecard in his mouth a moment as he fished his hat out of his bag.

"Jeez you slacker, what the hell took you so long?"  Thank goodness he was alive.

"The kids were absolute shits today and I had to drive them all over town, and then I had to get gas but there was no open pump.  It was just a nightmare."

Robin crossed her arms and huffed.  "I should still write you up."

"You wouldn't .  Do you even have the authority?"  He struggled to get his card into the machine and then set it back in his slot.

"I've got authority you couldn't even dream of, Harrington."  That was a lie, she was pretty sure she was the lowest ranked employee here.  "But…I will show you mercy."

"Gee, thanks."  Steve pulled the red ascot out of his bag next, hurriedly tying it in front of their small mirror.

Robin watched him for a few seconds.  "I uh…I'm also going to ask for mercy after like…the stuff last night."

He stilled before finally tightening the knot.  "Why?  You didn't do anything wrong.  I was the one who-"

"Ugh, can you stop being noble for like five seconds?  I'm trying to feel bad and you're ruining it."

"Oh, sorry."  He sat down at the table.

She sighed before pulling up her own chair, sitting on it backwards.  "Look, I snapped yesterday because-"

"Was it the date thing?  Sorry, I kind of meant it as a joke, but it probably wasn't the right time."

"Are you going to let me finish ?"  She waited for him to mime zipping his lips.  "But you're right, it was terrible timing, and on top of that it was an awful joke.  Because what's a joke to you, is actually hurtful to me."

"Oh come on, how-" he caught himself and shut up before she could lecture him again.

"I'll tell you how," she pointed a warning finger, "only because I have a tiny amount of faith in you to understand; as opposed to other meatheads."  Also she had already blurted out that she was a lesbian so she was kind of stuck with her secret-holder.  "When you 'joke' like that it makes it seem like I can choose to date men, but I can't.  Not unless I want to be really fucking miserable because plain and simple, I like women, just women.  However, joking about it could make idiot men like yourself believe they actually have the power to change my mind and then I end up constantly getting hit on by jerks, or worse.  Same with your stupid gay jokes, yeah you might laugh and maybe you don't actually believe them, but some people do.  Now look me in the eye…you know Tommy, Carol, Jason, some of those other old buddies of yours?  You used to tell the same jokes with them, right?  Now…how do you think any of them would react if they saw you kissing Jazzercise or Brad?  You think they'd just laugh it off, or would they spit on you, call you a 'curse on society', all that shit?"

She stared at him, honestly surprised he held her gaze for so long before glancing at the ground.  He rubbed his foot against the tile.  "I…I guess you're right.  They'd probably kick my ass, actually."

"Yeah."  Robin brought her voice down a bit.  "Yeah.  So…do you kinda get what I'm saying?  What's so upsetting about your jokes?  And why it's a little hard to believe that you, of all people, are suddenly cool with gay people?"

Steve licked his lips before pressing them together.  "I…yeah.  When you put it like that it does sound pretty crazy.  And…for what it’s worth, I'm sorry.  For yesterday and well, all the other days I didn't know about."

Robin chuckled with disbelief and scrubbed both her hands over her face.  "Stop.  I can't-  Ugh, when did you get so nice?  Why are you so nice now?"

She heard Steve laugh, a bit somber himself.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Really?  Try me, I just unloaded a shit ton of stuff on you, so now it's your turn.  Spill your guts, Stevie."

He looked at her, and as he opened his mouth the bell dinged up front.  "Guess my guts will have to wait since we have to fill those of our customers.”

He walked past her and she groaned, not ready for the workday to start.  If only she could get paid to sit around and educate former Hawkins royalty on queer theory.  Maybe she’d get another chance when things slowed down for the night.

Her chance came when Steve was hanging up the sign for his booth, the dining area mostly clear.  " Hey ."

"Hey."  He stood back to make sure it was level.  "What's up?"

"I mean clearly not much since it's dead in here, but…" she cut her small talk.  "Look, I'm sorry if I came off a little intense this morning."

"A little?"  Steve's tone was serious, but when he looked at her he smiled.

"Okay maybe moreso, but you can get why , can't you?"

"Yeah I…I can get why."

"Hm."  She nodded in acknowledgement, and after a beat of silence Steve left for the backroom.  That's when Robin opened the window to poke her head through.  "So…that means we're good, right?"

He looked up from his seat at the table.  "Uh…yeah, if you're good with me that is."

She scoffed.  "Dude you know my biggest secret, I'm pretty sure we have to be friends now."

"Oh now we're friends ?  Best friends, perhaps?"  His eyes lit up in an annoying way that made Robin want to throw something at him.

"Don't push it."

She closed the window, but shortly after Steve opened it behind her.  "Well now that we're best friends, can I ask you something?"

"Ugh, I regret apologizing."

"How can you, like, tell when someone's gay?"

Robin paused and then turned around to blink at him.  "Excuse me?"

"How can you tell when someone's gay?  There was this guy yesterday who-"

"Oh my god Steven you can't just ask that!"

"Well how am I supposed to know!"

"I don't know, but…" she gestured vaguely, "I don't know!”

“But you’re the gay expert here!”

“ Shhhh! ”  Robin pushed his face back through the window to whisper harshly.  “Don’t go around shouting that to the world!  And look, I never claimed to be a gay expert in the first place.  I can only tell you what I know from my own experiences, which, this may surprise you, doesn’t include thinking about men very much.”

“Sure,” Steve shrugged, “but there’s gotta be obvious signs or something.  Like uh, you know, wearing fancy clothes, make-up, caring about their hair and nails.  Being loud and obnoxious, that kind of stuff.”

Robin pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.  “So stereotypes.  You’re asking about gay stereotypes.”

“Yeah!  Like on TV!  Whenever there’s a gay character you can always tell, but…you’re not exactly like the lesbians that have been on TV, you seem so normal, so I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing.”

“I seem normal ?”  She resisted the urge to snap back with something harsher.  She bit back her tongue, now knowing Steve’s questioning came from a place of ignorance instead of insult.  “Well I’m sorry for not fitting your ideal of a lesbian.  And honestly, given your description of a gay man…sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?”

Steve raised an eyebrow.  “Wait, who do we know is gay?”

She huffed and rolled her eyes before putting on a little performance.  “ Robin I chipped my nail on this scoop!  My hair is such a mess today, it must be the humidity!  Oh Robin, I can't find my lipgloss! ”

He continued to watch her blankly for a second, and then it sunk in.  “Whoah, whoah, whoah!  Are you trying to say I’m gay?”

“Well if the stereotyped shoe fits.”

“But I’m not!  I kiss girls, and date girls, and do…other stuff with girls.”

“I don’t know, you’ve also been kissing guys a lot recently.”

Steve frowned and held up two fingers.  “Two is not a lot!”

As much as Robin wanted to be petty and explain that any number above zero was a lot for any straight guy, that wasn’t the main topic.  “Okay, well…then that disproves your earlier theory, doesn’t it?  Just because someone acts a certain way doesn’t mean you should assume their sexuality.”

“Huh, I…I guess.  So then…maybe that guy wasn’t flirting with me.”  He sunk back on his side of the wall, no longer hanging through the window.

“I feel like I’m going to regret asking, but what guy?”  Robin sighed.

“There was this janitor, gardener, guy I ran into last night.  I kinda thought he was flirting with me because he mentioned my smile, but now I’m starting to think he just noticed I was worried and tried to help.”

“You were worried?  About what?”

Steve ducked his head a bit, even though his tone was snippy.  “Well I was worried about you, duh.  I thought you hated me, or that you’d quit, or something.”

“Oh.”  Robin was touched, and still a small part of her hated it.  That small part that didn’t want to feel for Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington, or be friends with him.  But the larger part of her heart warmed up to the idea, especially after their recent discussions.

“But clearly you didn’t, so now I’ll never have to worry about you ever again.  Especially now that we’re best friends.”  He made a face at her and she made one right back.

After helping a customer quickly, Robin went back to their conversation.  “Okay, now back to this mystery man of yours, can you tell me more about him?”

“Uh, not a whole lot since we didn’t talk much.  I just ran into him over by those bushes there and-”

“Wait, wait, wait.”  She waved her hands through the air, a good idea of where this was going.  “Now did this man happen to have dark hair down to here, a tattoo or two, and big brown eyes?  Also happened to move like he had noodles for arms and legs?”

Steve gasped, almost throwing himself through the window.  “Yes!  Do you know him?”

“ Jesus Christ .”  Is what Robin muttered to herself before speaking up to be heard by Steve.  “Yeah I think I’ve seen him around before.”

“So do you know his name?  He walked away last time so I didn’t catch it.”

Eddie Munson, Robin definitely knew his name, but she hadn’t spilled the beans before and she didn’t plan on doing it now.  Besides, it might be more fun to watch one, or both of them, flounder.  “No, sorry.  We’re not that close with each other.  But just to clarify, he flirted with you?  Actually flirted?”

Steve momentarily threw up his hands.  “I don’t know anymore.  I thought so at first, but then I thought he couldn’t possibly be, and now I’m just confused.”

“Hm, that is interesting.  If only I could help, but I can’t read minds.”  She shrugged very casually.  “On a completely unrelated topic…you ever consider expanding your kisses internationally ?”

He tilted his head at her like a confused puppy.  “Do they have Scoops stores outside of America?”

Robin laughed, maybe she should’ve been a little more clear.  “No dingus, I mean maybe you should add some variety to your menu.  You know, offer more than a basic kiss.  Perhaps something european?”

It took him a moment, but then his face lit up.  “Oh like those double cheek kisses!”

“Uh huh, uh huh that works too, but I was getting at something that rhymes with ‘wrench’.”

“Greenwich.”  Steve was so quick and confident with his answer, Robin would’ve been impressed if it wasn’t completely wrong.

“ French.   The answer we were looking for was French.”

Then he made a judgmental face.  “French is a language , I thought I was guessing a country.”

“I never once specified country.”  She shook his head and then snapped it up.  “Wait, do you think Grennwich-”

“Oh!”  Steve talked over her first.  “You mean like a French kiss!  Robin, that's genius!  You know I think I can actually do both ideas though.  Cheek kisses for a dollar, basic for two, and then french for three.  Maybe I could even do a deal of all three for five bucks, or is that too much?”

“It’s too much, I’m pretty sure I would gag.”

“Fair enough.  Now I need some markers, stat.”  He disappeared from the window only to reappear a second later.  “ Wait …why are you helping me?”

Robin tried to look nonchalant.  “Who says I’m helping?  Maybe this idea will get you in trouble, forcing you to close down.  Or maybe…I’m so confident in your ability to suck at anything that even with my suggestion you’ll fail.  Then again, I must confess it was never my suggestion.  Someone else mentioned it to me, might be a potential customer someday.”

Steve continued to eye her suspiciously.  “A potential customer, eh?  So there is a demand for my kisses?”

That made her snort.  “Sure.  There is one known demand for your kiss.”

“You have so little faith.  I’ll win this yet, Buckley!”  Then he disappeared for the last time to fetch a marker.

Chapter Text

Over the next week Steve’s business boomed, or well it didn’t boom , but if he were keeping track he’d guess that he was doing really well.  He and Robin were supposed to keep their totals a secret until the end, but he couldn’t help flaunting his stack of ones after a particularly good day.

“You see this, Buckley?  You see all this?  At the end of the summer I’m going to be able to fill my pool with dollar bills.”  He started to fan himself with his cash as he sat perched in the window.

She didn’t look impressed.  “I’m going to start a venn-diagram.  On one side, Steve Harrington, on the other, a stripper.  This moment right here would go smack-dab in the middle.”

He stuck out his tongue at her.  “You disguise your jealousy with petty jabs.”

“It wasn’t a jab, I just don’t know any other kind of person who would wear little clothing, lots of makeup, and all their cash is in dollar bills.  Wait…maybe I should be writing these down for my diagram.”  She pretended to look for a pen and paper.

Steve slid out of the window and walked around to join her up front.  “Very funny, but there’s one of those you can’t use.  I’m wearing an appropriate amount of clothing, this is a uniform after all.  I’m legally required to wear it, and in a food service job no less.”

“Hm, okay fair.”  She shrugged but then gestured at both their outfits.  “Although I still think it’s odd that your shorts are shorter and tighter than mine.”

“What?  Are not.”

“Are too, look how much of your fucking thigh is on display, dude.”

“Not any more than yours!  Stand over here, we need to compare.”  He ushered her over, throwing his arm around her as they stood pressed side to side.  “Wait!  No way, why are yours longer than mine?”

“For one, I’m shorter than you so our hips aren’t even aligned.  With that aside…I don’t know dude, I think they clandestinely knew you were going to abuse your uniform to open a kissing booth.  So they knew they had to make your outfit sluttier.”

“My outfit is not slutty !  If it were, I’d cut the bottom half of this shirt.”

Robin looked up at him, her face neutral.  “We have scissors.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, frowning at her.  “You know what, we also have a ruler, and I’m going to grab it so we can have an accurate measurement.”

“Ooo a dick measuring contest, I can’t wait for you to find out mine’s longer.”

He paused in the back doorway and then looked her over.  "Wait…really?  Well…c-could I see it?"

Robin's eyebrows looked like they would go through the roof.  "Excuse me?"

"Well…I've never met a chick with a dick before.  Like, is it different?"

She put her hands over her face, letting out a laugh that turned into a groan.  "It was a joke , dingus.  I don't have a dick.  And even if I did I wouldn't show it to you.  What, do you go around asking your guy friends to see theirs?"

"Well…I don't know, most of my close friends have been on teams with me and when you're using communal showers it's not… uncommon to look."

She scoffed and leaned against the counter.  "Every new thing I learn about you somehow makes sense and yet baffles me to no end."

"In a good way or a bad way?"

He waited to see her expression change, and she ended on a smile.  "In a good way.  I'm really starting to like this new Steve Harrington.  Now get that ruler I need us to solve this mystery.

With a laugh Steve started to walk into the back, but stopped himself again.  "By the way…if you were a chick with a dick I'd still be friends with you."

She rolled her eyes, but her smile never dimmed.  "Thanks, Harrington.  Glad to know there's at least one progressive in this town.  Would the same be true if I was a dude with a vagina?"

"...Are you?"

" Steven ."

"What?  I don't know you that well!  I only just learned you're a…you know!"  He threw up his hands and disappeared into the back, only to pop his head through the window.  "But…I guess?  Although if you were, I'd demand you wear the same uniform as me.  Then you wouldn't be able to make fun of it."

Robin laughed and then leaned on her elbows, close to his face.  "Or…I could wear whatever the hell I want because who said clothes have to have a gender?"

Steve was going to say something sarcastic back, but then he got to thinking about it.  "Holy shit…I…I guess it doesn't matter too much?  Like, girls wear pants all the time, and guys can have long hair and stuff.  I mean, we're practically wearing the same thing now so-  Wait…wait does that mean I can wear your shorts?"

"I…" she blinked a few times, taken aback, "I suppose?  Not like my specific shorts, but I think we have some extra girl uniforms if you really want to."

"Hm…actually, I think I'm good.  I don't think the wider leg would look as flattering on me.  The shirt though, I could maybe make that work."  Steve tried to picture himself in stripes.  "But first, I still want to know which is longer!"

He finally closed the window and began his search.  He could’ve sworn they had a ruler or measuring tape or something in one of these drawers, but after opening and closing them all twice he decided to look elsewhere.  He went through the filing cabinet, he dug through the supply closet, but found nothing.  Well he did find something, the extra uniforms.

He held up one of the girls’ shirts to look it over.  It could be that he was biased from wearing the same thing every day, but he rather liked the solid dark blue he already had on.  However, the little ice cream cone on the girls’ vest was too adorable to resist.  It was at least worth getting a second opinion on.  So, since he was alone in the back room, he decided to make a quick swap.  It felt…tight, and he wondered if he should’ve grabbed a large instead of a medium, particularly for the arms since there was a slight poof to them, but the cuffs were elastic and snug.

After checking himself out as much as he could in the small break room mirror, he slid open the window to pester Robin about it.  “Hey Rob, is a woman’s medium different from a man’s?  Because this shirt feels kind of small, not saying it is a small since I definitely grabbed a medium, but-”

He stopped talking when he saw a customer on the other side of the register.  Not just any customer either, it was the dark-haired man from before.  Steve pointed right at him with a huge smile.

“Hey!  Bush guy!”

He was pretty sure he heard Robin choke as she snorted, covering her mouth with her hand.  Meanwhile, the dude went completely white and then pink.  “H-Hey…um, Bush Guy?  Is that the name we’re sticking with?”

Robin recovered enough to reply.  “If you keep lurking in bushes with binoculars, then yeah?”

He laughed awkwardly, looking between her and Steve.  “I-I don’t…she’s joking, I don’t have binoculars.”

Robin just scoffed and then started scooping up a pile of coins from in front of the register, presumably the man’s.  She took them to the back counter to start counting, meanwhile Steve stayed focused on their current customer as he walked in from the back room.

“Well, if you don’t want to be ‘Bush Guy’ you’re going to have to give me something else to call you.”

Robin butted in.  “How about ‘sweetheart’?  That would be a fun nickname.”

The guy looked about ready to pass out and for a second Steve thought he might have to jump over the display case to catch him.  But he stayed standing so Steve was free to turn around and lightly kick his co-worker.

“Aw, but that’s what I was planning on calling you.”  He blew her a fake kiss.  “Can’t have two.”

“Shut the fuck up.”  She kicked him back, but the difference was hers hurt .

Steve winced and lifted his leg to rub his calf briefly before looking back at the dark-haired man.  “Change of plans, I’m calling her ‘bitch’ now so ‘sweetheart’ is up for grabs.  Although personally, I’d prefer to know your name.”

“M-My name, yeah, yeah of course.”  But then he was quiet until Steve prompted him with raised eyebrows.  “Oh, you wanted that now ?”

Steve scoffed, the guy had a sense of humor.  “Yeah?  Sooner rather than later.  Unless of course you aren’t ready, I wouldn’t want to rush you.”

“Thank you, thank you.  I really appreciate that.  It seems like our world is just moving so fast sometimes, no one takes the time to slow things down.  Some people just jump into things, jobs, decisions, relationships, but even when you’re ready to jump it’s okay if something stops you.  We really ought to evaluate and savor each moment instead of rushing to the next thing.  After all, the only thing we’d be rushing towards is death and no one wants that.  I mean I don’t want to die and I assume you don’t want to die either, right?”

“Uh…”  Steve had no idea how they got on the topic of life and death.

Robin loudly cleared her throat and walked up beside him, jingling the money in her hand.  “ Anyway .  You’re right, there’s exactly two dollars worth of change here.  So Mr. Death, what would you like to do with your two dollars at our fine establishment?  You could get some ice cream or maybe-”

“Ice cream!”  Mr. Death, formerly Bush Guy, stood up straight.  “Yes, yes ice cream.  I mean what else would I get at an ice cream parlor, huh?”

Steve had taken a second to consider the amount Robin said.  “Well…you could always buy a kiss.  This particular establishment is half ice cream shop, half kissing booth, and for exactly two dollars you can get a quality kiss.”

“A-A quality kiss you say?”  Mr. Death was fiddling with one of the many rings on his fingers.

“Mhm,” Steve thought he could sense an impending sale so he leaned a little closer, “satisfaction guaranteed.  And if you’d rather get a ton of cheek kisses, those are only one dollar, or for three …you can get it with tongue.”

To give a teasing example Steve flicked his tongue across his lips and winked.  Mr. Death’s fidgeting stopped, but it seemed like everything else about the guy did too.  Steve wasn’t even sure if he was breathing anymore.  So he glanced at Robin and they shrugged at each other.

Then she leaned over and blew in the guy’s face.  He scrunched up his nose and gave her a disgusted and confused look.  She just smiled.

“What?  I was seeing if I could knock you over.”

That only made him frown harder, but it made Steve laugh as he waved his hand.  “Is that a uh, common thing for you?  Looking like you might pass out?”

“Or does it just happen in this store?”  She and Steve snickered together.

Mr. Death huffed even though it looked like he was blushing.  “I think it only happens in this store because the employees are too busy with themselves to take care of their customers.”

Steve gently pushed Robin aside.  “You’re right, you’re right we shouldn’t joke like that.  But I, for one, care about you very deeply , so tell me what you want and it’s yours.”

Mr. Death met his eyes and they were such a deep brown no chocolate or espresso ice cream could match.  Wide too as he stared at Steve for a beat, but then he blinked a few times.  “Uh…”

Suddenly he snapped upright and smacked his hand on the counter with a wide smile before slowly backing away.  “Know what?  Uh, k-keep the change, it’s a tip!  Because I um, I actually had to- to do something!  Yeah, yeah I gotta go um, go…shuck…some…corn?”

He briefly scrunched his face and then basically ran the rest of the way out of the store.  Steve was left staring after him for several seconds, just trying to process the whole conversation.  Then he slowly looked at Robin and turned his hands palm up in a half shrug.

“So what the fuck was that?”

She was trying not to laugh, but failing.  “You heard the man, he had to shuck some corn, important business.”

“Is corn even in season yet?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know, maybe that’s what the metalhead was trying to figure out.”

“Metalhead?”  Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah because E…” then Robin’s eyes went wide a moment, “-E he is really into metal music.  Heavy rock and stuff.  I mean didn’t you see the shirt?”

“Well yeah it had like a skull and fire or snakes or something on it, but I just thought that was a cool design.  I didn’t know it meant anything.”

“How can you not know?  Didn’t you make fun of guys who wore those shirts in high school?”

Steve stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder.  “Robin…when you’re as popular as me you make fun of everyone so they all sort of blend together.”

“ Wow .”  She rolled her eyes and then walked past him to dump the handful of coins in her jar.

“Hey, hey, hey!  What are you doing?”

“What do you mean ‘what am I doing’?”

Steve pointed at the tip jar.  “You just dumped all that money in there.  What about mine?”

“What about yours?”  Robin crossed her arms looking completely neutral.  “He said it was a tip .  Per our agreement, once you open your booth all tips are mine for the rest of the night.”

“Yeah but-”

“But what?  You think he was going for a kiss?  Is that why you think you should get the money?”

“Well…”  In all honesty the answer was ‘yes’, but Steve couldn’t be sure the guy was here for a kiss.  Just like the bit of flirting yesterday, it could’ve been Steve’s imagination.  “Fine.  I don’t need a measly two dollars anyway, might as well give you a leg up on the competition.”

Then he walked past her to resume his station in the back room.  A few seconds later she shouted.  “I like the shirt on you.  Looks cute.”

He immediately flung open the window.  “Doesn’t it?  I wasn’t sure how I felt about the poofy sleeves, but I think the stripes are very slimming and I adore the vest.  I also think the neckline is cut lower, which is really the look I’m going for.”

“Oh, and what look would that be?  Slutty?”

“Obviously.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what shirt you wear, but you should definitely opt for the knee-high socks.  Or just cut one of the men’s shirts into a crop top.  Pair it with a skirt and I think that’d be as slutty as you could get.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t even be able to see the skirt from back here so what’s the point?”

She rolled her eyes and smiled before going to shut the window on him.  “You dork.”

Chapter Text

The next time Steve saw Metalhead, as he was now known since his name continued to elude Steve and at this point it kind of seemed like an inside joke, was when Steve went wandering the mall on his lunch break.  He had picked up a soft pretzel and started to walk around the different levels when he decided the best place to enjoy his treat was by the large fountain.

He sat on one side, setting his cup of ‘cheese-but-not-cheese’ next to him for dipping.  It was a good spot for people watching even though he usually got plenty of looks himself.  He was, after all, the one wearing a sailor suit, and to boot it happened to be a day when he decided to wear the even dorkier girl’s top.  So he’d usually try to smile or nod his head while also giving any onlooker a judgmental once over.

His cup of cheese had gone horribly cold to where he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to finish it, but as he was scraping at the orange mass he heard a lady’s indignant scoff.

“Well if that isn’t the most shameful thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Look I don’t comment on your lunch-”  As he looked up he realized she wasn’t even talking to him, it was something happening on the other end of the fountain.

Curiosity piqued, Steve casually snuck around the edge, hoping not to be caught by the lady.  “Don’t you have any respect for yourself or others?”

Steve turned around the big spout to finally see who she was chastising.  It was a man in a leather jacket with long dark hair.  It was his mysterious metalhead!

“I have plenty of respect, madam.  I’m simply taking back what belongs to me.”

“No you’re not, you’re a rotten thief!”

Steve wasn’t sure what was happening, or if he should even get involved, which he probably shouldn’t, but he did anyway, jumping to his pseudo-friend’s defense.  “Hey!  Who are you to accuse him?”

“Yeah!”  Metalhead looked back at him quickly.  “Where’s your proof that-”

Then he gave Steve a double-take, a triple-take actually, and on the third look of disbelief he jumped back.  More accurately he stumbled back and went splashing into the fountain.  The arguing lady just turned up her nose as she walked away.

“Hmp!  Well at least the coins are back where they should be.”

Steve was too preoccupied to listen to her, trying to reach out to Metalhead instead.  “Oh man, are you okay?”

Metalhead sat up, his dark hair sopping wet and stuck all over his face.  He pushed it aside to look at Steve and his spluttering stopped as his expression changed to surprise again.  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine I’m just going to um…drown myself real quick.”

And then he actually slumped lower so his head was under the water.  It made Steve laugh, but when it lasted longer than a few seconds he couldn’t tell how much of a joke it was.  Unable to fight his heroic nature, and just in case…Steve quickly pulled off his shoes and socks and stepped into the fountain.  He grabbed Metalhead by the shoulders to force him into a sitting position where he coughed and gasped for oxygen again.  His long hair was covering his face once more.

“When I open my eyes are you still going to be there?”

Steve scoffed, both amused and confused.  “Uh yeah, I should be.  If you can even see me.”

To make sure he could, Steve bent down to brush some of Metalhead’s hair out of his face.  That certainly got Metalhead to open his eyes, big and wide, as he looked over Steve from his bare feet to his poofy hair.  Metalhead’s cheeks were red, probably from the cold water, but maybe-

Metalhead closed his eyes again.  “How about any chance of you forgetting this whole thing?”

Steve chuckled and then grabbed the guy by the arm to help him up.  “Probably 0 to none.  Now come on, you should get out of there before that lady calls security.  What were you even doing that set her off?”

“I don’t know.  Nothing, just hanging by the fountain.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing.”  Steve was still holding on as they both stepped out of the fountain.  While he did, he tried to remember what was said beforehand.  Something about Eddie taking what was his and the lady saying the ‘coins are back where they…’-

Then Steve dropped his hands and gasped, indignant.  “Wait, were you stealing coins from the fountain?”

Metalhead was in the middle of wringing out his hair when he stopped and glanced aside.  “Um…”

“You were !”  Steve had always thought the best of this stranger, but now he pointed an angry finger at him.  “I know it’s, like, bad for the water or whatever, but people throw coins in all the time.  It’s pretty much a wishing fountain and here you are stealing people’s dreams!”

“Hey, hey!”  Metalhead held up his hands.  “I’ll tell you what I told the lady, I’m just taking my coins back, okay?  I’ve probably thrown a whole roll of quarters in here wishing, but now they’re more useful to my dream if they’re in my wallet.”

Narrowing his eyes, Steve also crossed his arms.  “Hm…but how do you know those specific coins are yours?  You know if you take someone else’s coin you’re messing with their wish.”

Now it was Metalhead laughing at him.  “Wow, who would’ve thought Steve Harrington knew so much about wishing wells?”

“What?  I…I don’t…” it left Steve flustered a moment, “it’s common knowledge!  Now answer the question!”

Metalhead just continued to smile, small and dimpled.  Then he dug in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a handful of coins with a sigh.  “I guess you’re right there’s no way of knowing if these are exactly mine, and the last thing I’d want is for anyone to mess with my dream so I shouldn’t risk messing with anyone else’s.  Wanna help restore balance to the universe?”

He offered some to Steve who took about half of the coins.  They scattered them into the fountain and Steve looked over at him, still somewhat suspicious.  “Why’d you take them, again?”

“I told you,” Metalhead took off his jacket and tried shaking any water off of it, “I was taking matters of my wish into my own hands.”

“What’s your wish?”  Steve off-handedly asked while he sat on the side of the fountain to put his shoes and socks back on.

Metalhead glanced at him and then quickly looked away as he folded his jacket over his arm with a smirk.  “Can’t tell, shouldn’t you know that’s the first rule?  And I thought you were an expert on magic.”

“I never claimed to be an expert.”  He stood up, maybe sounding a tad annoyed.  "I just wanted to know what was so important that you'd want to steal coins from a fountain."

"All I can say is it's the most important thing of all."  Metalhead put a hand over his wet shirt.  "But cross my heart I'll never stoop to this level again, Stevie."

"See that you don't."  Steve pointed a finger, trying to be as intimidating as he could, but it was hard to be mad when the nickname 'Stevie' made him feel soft.  "I'd hate to have to kick you out of here."

Metalhead smiled and gave a short bow.  "I'd hate to inconvenience you that way too, Harrington.  So perhaps I'll just take my leave willingly.  Til our next meeting, good sir."

"Uh…sure."  It was a little weird, but Steve should expect this from him by now.  He then checked his watch and realized his break time was quickly coming to an end.  "I gotta get back to work, but I hope you can get dry soon.  Bye, dude."

As he started to jog back towards the stairs he glanced back to see Metalhead smacking his own forehead a few times.  What an odd fellow.  Steve was almost back at Scoops when he thought of something else odd, Metalhead had called him 'Harrington'.  Now how would he know Steve's last name?  That certainly wasn't on a nametag.

Steve decided to ask Robin in case she had any insight to the investigation.  She did, that clever girl.  She pointed to Steve's kissing booth sign and jar, both clearly having his full name on them.  Maybe that wasn’t his best idea.  So another day, another rebranding it was.  Sign making should be his next business since he had plenty of practice at it.

Chapter Text

Robin thought the kissing booth idea was dumb from the start, and she still thought it was dumb, but ultimately it had brought her a lot of joy.  She thought this new job was going to be torture, and then finding out she would be working with ‘The Hair’ only made things worse.  Yet they were several weeks into this gig and now Robin could almost call Steve her friend.  She could only say ‘almost’ because she wasn’t yet sure if she wanted to be associated with him on a friendly level.  After all the dork was running a kissing booth in the back of a Scoops Ahoy, smooching girls and gays while fluffing his hair and wearing strawberry pink lip gloss.

The whole thing provided her a lot of entertainment though.  Seeing all sorts of people from old ladies to young gays, and sometimes they would get both a kiss and ice cream, all while giving Robin a small tip for her discretion.  She and Steve were both making more money, so even though the booth was an absolutely dipshit idea…she couldn't see any downsides, not really.  If she had to pick one, it would be how she was forced to deal with one awkward customer who wasn't even really a customer since he never fucking bought anything.

Eddie Munson came creeping in, glancing around like some paranoid criminal.  Robin sighed, putting her chin in her hand.  "He's in the back."

"W-What?  Who?  I'm not-"

She sighed again.  "Dude.  Before you were lurking in bushes, and now you're lurking in the store.  We both know why you're here so don't try to play dumb, although I don't know if that's possible for you."

He frowned, but continued walking up to the counter.  "Sorry Buckley, I was just trying to speak your language."

"Hm, you sure you wanna talk to me like that?  After all, I can open this window right now and tell Steve all about you and your little crush."

"You wouldn't."  He leaned in, making eye contact.

"Try me."

Eddie pulled back with a huff, but underneath the irritated look there was some nervousness there.  "Pft, what would you even get from that?  Just set on ruining my life?"

She snorted.  "Believe it or not I'm actually fucking rooting for you.  And it may have been a threat, but I really think just talking to him would do you both some good."

"Oh yeah, sure, because Steve Harrington would be totally cool with local pariah Eddie Munson having a stupid huge crush on him.  That would definitely go over well."

"You mean the same Steve Harrington who's been kissing boys left and right over the past month?  You're right, he'd be totally pissed, would probably kick your gay ass out of here."

Eddie laid his head down on the counter.  "Do you have to remind me?"

"You say that all whiny and pathetic as if you couldn't also be one of those boys."

"I don't have any extra money right now."

"Really?  Not even one dollar?"

"Well…I actually need three now, but…even then I don't have anything disposable ."

Robin couldn't imagine anyone so desperate for three dollars just to french Steve Harrington.  The thought made her sick.  “If you’re strapped for cash, maybe you could work here.  I would love a day off and that would give you plenty of time to flirt with your crush .  Then maybe you could get a kiss for free.”

Eddie lifted his head, but his spirits still seemed low.  “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Honestly?”  She shrugged.  “I don’t even think it’s that much of a joke, appears to me that he actually, kind of, sort of…likes you.”

“Buckley…I swear to God if you’re fucking with me-”

She raised her hands.  “I’m not, swear on my tip jar.  I can’t say for certain, but…Steve does talk an awful lot about a particular goofy metalhead, and he’s almost always smiling when he does.  So I think he’s got a soft spot for you.  Like I said, you could probably just ask for a kiss and he’d give you one.”

Eddie stared at her for several long seconds and then backed off.  “Yeah.  Anyway, could I have those two dollars I put in your jar the other day?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on, you know I didn’t mean to give it to you I was gonna…you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”  She raised her arms and stuck out her tongue, overexaggerating a make-out.

“You’re disgusting.”

“No, you’re disgusting.  And you’re also not getting your money back, all sales are final.”

“But I never even got to buy anything!”

“Because you ran away like a coward.  Now if you’re not going to buy anything this time, then you’re just loitering and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Who’s side are you on?  You said you were rooting for me!”

“Yeah well…you still knocked sprinkles all over my floor, so I can hate you and root for you.”

“Come on Buckley, help a poor guy out.”  He hit her with a wide-eyed pout.

It had zero effect.  “No.”

He kept it up though, at least for a few more seconds.  Then he suddenly reached a hand into her tip jar and that was the final straw.  She gasped and instead of punching Eddie in the face, as was her initial plan, she knocked on the divider window.  “Steve!  Come quick!  Your boyfriend’s attacking our store!”

Robin didn’t think she’d seen anyone run faster than Eddie as he sprinted, empty-handed, out of the store.  She almost thought he would bolt out of here on all fours.  Either way he was out of sight just as Steve came bursting through the back door with-

“Whoah, what the fuck , Steven?”  Robin backed up when she saw the nail studded bat he had in his hands.

“What?  What?”  He was still glancing around and bouncing on his feet like he was ready to fight.  “It sounded like an emergency!  You said we were being attacked!  That's my…”

Only then did he stop to look at her, letting his arms relax.  “Wait did you say my boyfriend ?  Robin, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“But apparently you have a fucking murder weapon!  Why the hell do you have that?”

Steve twirled the bat before getting a solid grip on it.  “Because you never know when shit goes down.  I never leave home without one of these babies, although technically the original is at home, but-”

“I’m sorry, you have more than one nail bat?”

“Oh of course, I can’t exactly carry one in my pocket.  So I keep one here, one in my car, and then my prized baby is at home by my bed.”

That was a lot to wrap her head around.  “Who are you?”

He just shrugged with an easy smile.  “Some like to call me a hero.”

“And who would that be, the children you’re friends with?”  With her shock fading, Robin’s sarcasm came back.

“Well I have used it to save their lives, so yes.”

“Save their-?”  Robin shook her head, so over Steve and his random-ass statements, at this point in working with him she should know better than to ask questions.  “Know what, I don’t care so sure you saved a bunch of kids from dying with a spiked baseball bat.”

“It’s true, I did!”  When he saw he’d lost her interest he shrugged and set the bat beneath the counter.  “Fine, don’t believe me.  The government swore me to secrecy anyway.  Now I’ve got a question for you…what did you mean by my ‘boyfriend’ was out here?  Who was attacking the store?”

“Who do you think ?”

“I don’t know , that’s why I asked.  I don’t have a boyfriend, I’ve never dated a boy, I’m straight.”

Great, another one of her jokes taken too seriously, but at least Robin got a chuckle out of it.  “Oh really?  Are you sure about that?”

She expected the usual adamant denial, maybe even for him to get offended, but Steve Harrington kept surprising her left and right.  He furrowed his brows, glancing away for a moment before giving her a confused face.  “Well…I think so, but how do you know for sure?”

“Excuse me?”  She blinked, questioning if she heard him correctly.

“How would I know if I’m straight?  Like, how did you know you weren’t ?  It’s gotta work the same way I’d imagine.”

“I-I don’t…I’m not…”  This wasn’t the conversation she thought she’d be having today.  “I don’t know, I just…knew?  Like…I never got the appeal of boys for starters, I tried to relate to my friends when they were gushing over celebrities and guys in our grade, but I never felt the same way.  Meanwhile girls were, well I always liked looking at girls and got these nervous feelings talking to them.  I realized I felt the way about girls that my friends did about boys.  The butterflies, the blushing, the…’do I think you’re cool or do I want to kiss you?’, ‘do I think a girl is objectively attractive or do I just think she’s hot?’ type stuff.”

Steve crossed his arms, propping up his chin on a fist.  “I see.  Interesting.  So that’s kind of similar to how I feel about girls too.  Noticing hotness, the giddiness in the gut, okay I can understand that.  You must really be gay.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, pretty much.  So like I said you just kinda know .”

“And you’ve never felt that way about boys?”

“Nope.  How ‘bout you, you ever feel that way about boys?”

He looked away again, running his tongue across his lips and leaving it sticking out.  “I…well I don’t know.  I’ve never really paid attention.”

Robin could’ve added her two cents on the matter, but she’s already been adding a lot of cents to Steve’s gay experience so she decided to refrain this time.  “Guess you just have to pay attention the next time you talk to Metalhead.”

Okay she tried to refrain.  Steve looked even more perplexed than before.  “What do you mean?  Do you think I…do you think I could like him?”

“What?  Whoah, no way, do not put words in my mouth.  I just thought that since you seem to be talking to him on and off he might be a good example, easy to find and talk to, that’s all.”

“Hm…that…makes sense I guess.  But…what if, on the off chance I discover I do like him, in a not so straight way?  What if I can’t tell if he likes me or not?”

Robin stepped forward, chuckling as she put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.  “Then you’d know for sure if you were gay because I literally can’t think of anything more relatable.  Also, I have to say you’re taking this really well, I wouldn’t have expected you to have such an open mind.”

Now it was his turn to scoff.  “Because you think I’m incapable of change.  But it’s like I’ve been telling you, I’ve had to go through a lot of shit that made me realize I shouldn’t care so much.  Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches, even when they’re being thrown by inter-dimensional monsters.”

She just blinked at him.  “ Right .  Well whatever it is, I’m really liking the new you, but if at any point you start to snap and have a breakdown over any of this…I’ll be here.  Mostly because I’m required to be here, but also a little bit because we’re friends.”

A small smile appeared on Steve’s lips.  “Thanks Rob, I’ll definitely let you know the results, or if I start to lose my mind.  Whichever comes first.”

Chapter Text

Steve had played his conversation with Robin pretty cool, but as soon as he took his bat to the back he was able to have more of a genuine reaction.  One that involved sitting down at the tiny table and folding his hands together while staring off into space.  Steve was straight, he’d always been that way and had no reason to ever question it before.  He liked girls.  He’d met the minimum requirement that made him normal like the rest of his friends, so he just thought he was on the same page as everyone else.  So when he would stare a bit during swim practice, or when he would comment on how attractive a male celebrity looked in a movie he assumed the other guys felt the same.  None of them ever disagreed that Kurt Russel was hot.

However, after talking with Robin, listening to the points she made over the past few weeks, he was starting to doubt how universal his experiences were.  Maybe the real reason why he was so casual about kissing other guys wasn’t because he just saw it as a job, or because he had so much experience with girls that physical intimacy didn’t phase him anymore, but maybe deep down he enjoyed kissing men just as much as women.  His first kiss with Jazzercise, he’d felt nervous the whole time so that wasn’t super pleasant, but…then again it was kind of the same nervousness he’d felt when having his first ever kiss with Melanie Smith underneath the jungle gym.

He tried to compare the two, but it was hard to remember the exact feelings, to tell if they were casual or something more.  Platonic or romantic it was difficult to decipher.  He attempted to compare his feelings for Robin with those for Metalhead next, but that was just as jumbled.  He really wanted to be Robin's friend, much the same way he wanted to be Metalhead's so at first he thought he'd solved the case.  However he had to remember that he also had a crush on Robin in the beginning and even though he now knew she would never like him back in that way it was hard to just stop feeling a way about someone.  So maybe he had a lingering crush on Robin and if he felt comparable about Metalhead, maybe Steve had a small crush on him too.

He went over and over all of these different questions, sometimes switching Robin for Nancy as a baseline for his feelings, but in the end he was really just…confused.  So the next time he'd see Metalhead, or kiss a guy, or anything…he planned on paying close attention to his heart.  Any weird changes in pulse or butterflies would be taken into account, and from there he could come back to this tough question of being queer or not.  Which…if it turned out he was…well he'd cross that existential bridge if he came to it.

Whether lucky or not, no other customer came to his kissing booth so he was left alone in the back with his thoughts.  He talked a little bit with Robin as they closed up, but then he was back home and by himself.  He spent the majority of the night staring at the ceiling of his bedroom reliving almost every crush or interaction he'd ever had in his life.

Despite his best efforts not to think about it, Steve did come to terms with the possibility he may be anything other than straight.  And…if it was true that he was a 'bisexual', the proper term he learned from Robin when she came into work the next day, it wasn't the end of the world.  He'd literally faced the end of the world.  Twice.  If he could handle that, he could handle the truth that he was…different.

His kissing booth only had women coming through that day so he didn’t get to make any big comparisons, but he liked to think he’d paid more attention to each kiss.  So if anything, his customers were still benefiting.  The rest of the night was quiet, and Steve invented a new game with Robin where they tried to throw and catch balls of ice cream using their scoops and the sundae dishes.  They might’ve stayed extra late doing clean-up, but Steve let Robin leave first so she could get home to do homework.

The mall was almost entirely empty by the time Steve was able to shut off the lights and close down.  This wasn’t the first instance when he’d left late, but he wasn’t overly fond of it.  When there wasn’t any hustle and bustle going on, the mall felt…too quiet, unnatural, and it usually put Steve on edge.  He kept thinking that the lights would all start to flicker randomly, or that a monster would drop down from a higher floor any second.

He probably could’ve gotten Robin to stay with him, but he did want her to keep up with her schoolwork.  He had a pretty hard time passing his classes, he didn’t want the same for her.  Besides, he could never tell her why he’d want her to stay, she’d only have more ammunition for teasing if she learned that ‘Steve Harrington’ was afraid.  So if he had to speed walk to his car in the wide empty space of the parking lot with the fading light of the sun to guide him, that was fine.

When Steve got to his car though, he turned the key but it didn’t turn on.  Immediately, he knew what it was, a dead battery.  Dead batteries would be the death of him.  Steve leaned his head against his steering wheel, taking a moment to wallow in self-pity before he’d have to get out and think up a solution.

Sucking up his feelings, Steve got out of the car and popped his trunk.  He was lucky enough to have jumper cables, but unfortunately they wouldn’t do him any good if he didn’t have another car to give him a charge.  There were a few other vehicles still left in the parking lot: two vans, a few trucks, and a smattering of sedans, but all of them seemed miles apart.  He had two options here, wait by his car and maybe wave his hands to get someone’s attention when they left, or he could walk around to each car and hope someone was in it, or would show up soon.

As much as he hated the thought of creeping up to someone’s car wearing his stupid sailor suit, it probably gave him a better chance than sitting around on his roof and hoping to flag someone down.  The vehicle closest to him was a pretty rusty looking blue coup, but he could tell from here that there was no driver yet.  So he decided to go with option two - a black van which only seemed a smidge more welcoming than the white one on the other end of the lot.  Steve hefted his cables over his shoulder, considered grabbing his nail bat for a moment but decided it wouldn’t be a very friendly image, and then started his trek.

When he got close enough he couldn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat, another bust.  However, as he turned to leave he swore he could hear music.  So either there was someone in the car, or they were also going to run a dead battery soon enough.  Either way, Steve got closer to start his inspection.  Peering through the windows he still didn’t see anybody, but he definitely heard some kind of muffled music, but since the car and radio appeared to be turned off it had to be coming from elsewhere.  Next, Steve walked towards the back of the van and knocked on the doors, and then knocked louder to make sure he was heard.

After several seconds and some shuffling noises, the doors at the back of the van swung open.  Almost all of Steve’s senses were assaulted at once.  There was the blare of rock music, the strong smell of weed, and the sight of messy hair and dark eyes that could only belong to Metalhead.  They both seemed equally shocked to see the other.

Metalhead’s eyes and mouth were open wide.  “Whoah…are you…are you real?”

“Uh, I think so?”  Steve gave an awkward smile as he patted down his own chest.  “Why wouldn’t I be real?”

“I dunno, usually you only come knocking on my door in dreams.”

Metalhead’s speech was languid, casual, and Steve couldn’t tell if it was meant as a pick-up line, a simple statement, or if it was meant to be said at all.  Steve, a little confused, tilted his head.

“You…dream about me?”

“Mhm, lots of times.”  Then Metalhead was quick to shake his curly hair.  “I-I mean no.  No way, no I don’t.  I-I don’t even think about you when I’m awake.  You’re right in front of me and I’m trying not to think about your little sailor suit at all.  You’re completely wiped from my mind.  A-Anyway!  You’re here now and uh…why?”

“Right, right,” Steve slipped the cables off his shoulder, “I was wondering if you could give me a jump.”

“Oh I’d jump you, yeah.”  There was a beat and then they both opened their mouths, but Metalhead rushed to speak first.  “Car!  Jumpstart your car, that’s what I meant to say.  Heh, brain just stopped working mid-sentence, I’m sorry.  So yeah, why don’t you bring it over here and we’ll get you up and running.”

Another beat of silence and then Metalhead snapped his fingers.  “Right, right!  No, I’ll go to you because of the whole…dead battery thing.  You uh, want a ride over, or-”

“No.  Uh, no thank you.”  Steve put on his best, and least awkward, polite smile.  “I’ll walk.”

He pivoted on his heel and went back towards his car.  In almost any other situation Steve would’ve taken the ride, but at this point he was a little concerned about having Metalhead operate any machinery so this jumpstart might be mostly on Steve.  That was fine though, at least he was getting any kind of help.  And maybe if he was lucky he could get some medicinal help too, he hadn’t had a proper joint since early senior year.

The black van lumbered over to park directly across from Steve’s beemer.  Now Steve had never had to jumpstart a car before, and his dad certainly never took the time to show him, but he figured it couldn’t be too hard.  Except when he went to clip the ‘clippy-things’ onto the ‘nobbins’, Metalhead was right there grabbing his wrists and shouting at him.

“Whoah!  Whoah what are you doing?”

“Uh…connecting the wires?”

The shock and concern gave way to snark.  “Well I can see that but…do you even know where they go?  Because it looks to me like you want to get electrocuted, or damage your car, or do something else stupid.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve got your cables all wrong, red goes to red, positive goes to positive.  You were going to cause a whole lotta trouble crossing your wires like that.”  Metalhead didn’t let go of Steve’s wrists, but he did guide them to the proper position so Steve could correctly attach the clamps.  “There, much better.  Now we take the black one and-”

It seemed at that moment, Metalhead realized he was still holding onto Steve and immediately dropped his hands.  “W-Well now there’s only one place to clip that one so it should be pretty easy.  Just um, just don’t connect it to the live battery, you want to connect it to someplace else on the car.  Grounding and all that.”

Steve decided it was best not to address it, besides, he didn’t really mind that much.  He did as instructed and then stepped back.  “Thanks for the tip.  I didn’t know you’d be into cars.”

“I wouldn’t say jump starting a battery makes me ‘into cars’.  It’s just something everyone should know, something my uncle taught me.  Like checking your oil, changing a tire, all that stuff.  Meanwhile my dad was just teaching me to hotwire ‘em.”

“At least he taught you something.”  Steve scoffed, hoping his joke was taken lightly.  “My dad didn’t teach me anything.  Except maybe how to pay someone else to do it.”

“Oh?  So does that mean you’re going to pay me, Stevie boy?”

Steve may not know Metalhead’s name, but apparently they were at nickname level, which happened to be the same level as awful upbringings.  All it took was a little weed to turn Metalhead into a real chatterbox, but Steve didn’t mind a bit.  He wanted to learn more about this stranger, or maybe even acquaintance since they’d already run into each other multiple times by now.  Perhaps one day they could be friends, although Robin was calling them boyfriends, but just friends was all Steve wanted.  At least he was pretty sure.

But he continued to like the way ‘Stevie’ sounded coming from this man.

“Hey, you were willing to help me when it was free, so free it shall stay.”

“Or maybe you know you just couldn’t afford me.”  Metalhead laughed as he went back to his van and ran it for about a minute.

In that time Steve tried to commit the whole interaction to his notes.  How he felt, whether or not he thought Metalhead was flirting with him, things like that.  He was fairly certain that last line was meant to be coy, if he was saying it to someone else it would be, but maybe Metalhead didn’t mean it that way.  Ugh, if Metalhead were a girl this would be so much easier!  Because then Steve would definitely default to thinking it was romantic and he’d flirt right back.

After some revving and some idling, Steve was ready to check his own battery.  He sent up a quick prayer, but thankfully it turned on right away.  Relief flooded him just as electricity flooded his car.  He hopped out and shouted in celebration while he ran up to Metalhead.

“It worked!  You did it!  Thank you, thank you, you’re such a lifesaver.”  Steve didn’t even think about it, but he went in and gave Metalhead a tight hug.  As soon as he was conscious of it though, he immediately let go.  “Uh, y-yeah, thanks.”

Metalhead appeared frozen, like the unexpected hug turned him to stone.  “N-No problem.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck, nodded a few times and then shuffled back awkwardly to turn off his car.  “Right, well I’ll just detach these and let you get on your way.  Or back to whatever you were doing, I don’t know, maybe you just like hanging in parking lots.”

“I don’t!”  It was blurted out, and louder than necessary, and Metalhead seemed to recognize that.  “I mean…I-I don’t normally hang out in parking lots, I’m not stalking the mall or anything like some loser.”

“Oh, of course.”  Steve wrapped up the cords once they were safely removed and threw them back in his trunk.  Before he closed it he gave Metalhead a teasing smile.  “After all you don’t need to stalk a mall to be a loser.”

“Hey!  At least I’m not the one wearing a dorky sailor costume!  Who’s the real loser here?”  Similar to the hug, as soon as it was out of Metalhead’s mouth he looked like he wanted to put it back in.  “I…I’m so sorry I didn’t mean that.  You’re not a loser, I mean you at least have a job and the uniform’s not dorky at all, it’s actually very cute, or uh, fitting, slimming.  Whatever, I-I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.”  In fact Steve was actually blushing from the rambling onslaught of words.  He definitely heard a ‘cute’ in there which pointed in the direction of flirting, but it could just be nonsensical talk from a stoned man.  For the sake of his research he better investigate further because even if this boy was flirting with him Steve still had to figure how he felt about it.  “But if you’re looking to really apologize…maybe you could do so by allowing me a few minutes in your hotbox?”

“In my what?”  For dilated pupils, Metalhead’s somehow grew bigger until Steve nodded towards the van.  Then Metalhead did a short gasp followed by a laugh and a lot of moving hands.  “Oh!  The van, yeah duh because of the smoke and the small space and…yeah.  Oh man, that makes so much more sense because when you said hot box I was thinking-  Uh…of…um…like a toaster!  A box that is hot, yeah, but then that’d be crazy because, like, where would we get a toaster in a parking lot?  Anyway I’m, I’m going to shut up now, but please, come in my van.  Come sit in my van.”

It wasn’t usually wise to go into a stranger’s vehicle in the middle of the night, but Steve really didn’t consider Metalhead a stranger anymore.  Besides, if the guy wanted to kidnap or kill him he would’ve had plenty of chances already.  So when he slid open the van’s side door, Steve hopped right in.  The back was full of instrument cases and sound equipment and…junk, but at least it gave Steve plenty of options for seating.  He settled onto an amp as Metalhead climbed in after him and shut the door.

It was dark at first, the only light coming in from the windshield, and that wasn’t much at all.  Then Metalhead crawled towards the front, sticking himself between the two front seats to reach for the keys.  Meanwhile his jeans and the bandana shoved in his back pocket were practically stuck in Steve’s face until the van turned on and a strip of lights, probably old and poorly installed, gave the space a dim glow.

Metalhead eased himself back to sit across from Steve, he had a ziploc baggie now too.  Inside was a pre-rolled joint which he pulled out and handed to Steve, who immediately put it in his mouth without much thinking.

“You uh,” he pointed at the bag, “wouldn’t happen to have a lighter in there would you?  Sadly Scoops doesn’t give away free matches or anything.”

“Dude…how’d you think I lit mine earlier?  Of course, here you go.”  Metalhead didn’t just pull a scratched Bic lighter from his pocket, he clicked it and held up the flame.

It wasn’t what Steve expected, but he wasn’t going to complain.  So he leaned in close and took a few seconds to make sure his joint was properly lit before sitting back.  “Thanks, Metalhead.”

The guy froze up again, the lighter still flickering until he put it out when he was able to speak.  “What?”

Steve took a big, nervous, drag before answering with a half-cough, half-chuckle.  “Sorry, sorry that’s…just what Robin and I call you, since you won’t give us a name.  She pointed out your shirt the other day, said you liked metal music so…it just stuck.”

“I…didn’t think you’d talk about me enough to give me a nickname.”  For a moment he ducked his head, but Steve thought he saw a small smile beneath the curtain of hair.  Sure enough, when Metalhead looked up he did have a smile.  “It’s better than ‘Bush Guy’ though.”

They both laughed and then Steve had another hit.  “Although I still think your name would be the best option.  Because how is it that you can know me, but I can’t know you?  Like anything about you besides the fact that you like rock music, drive a van, and have really good fucking weed actually.”

“Well you never sell your best stock, just as long as no one knows you have it.”

“Wait…wait, what do you mean sell?  Do you…?”

Metalhead raised his hands in a shrug.  “Yep, you’re in the presence of Hawkins’ premiere dealer.”

“No shit.”

“Exactly.  I don’t sell shit, and that’s my motto for buyers…and when talking to the cops.”

Both boys chuckled again, and then Steve let out a breath of smoke.  “And here I thought you just trimmed bushes, but I guess you sell ‘em too.”

“Oh, so now I’m getting a lecture from the guy with the kissing booth?”  Metalhead put a dramatic hand over his heart.

“Pft, fair enough.  I wasn’t judging by the way, obviously I’ve got nothing against the trade.  I was just surprised is all.  You know, since I still don’t know your name, but apparently I can know you deal drugs.”

“Why do you need to know my name so bad?  Are you a cop?”

“Oh yeah, I’m totally a cop.  I’ve been working undercover at Scoops this whole time just trying to track you down.”  Steve didn’t miss the opportunity for sarcasm, or the opportunity to see Metalhead crack up.

“Okay, okay you’re not the fuzz.  Unless you count your hair.”

“Hey!  My hair is fluffy, not fuzzy you dick.”

Metalhead scoffed, mock offended.  “Wow, wow alright I don’t think I’m crazy about that nickname either.  But I guess it’s my fault for insulting ‘The Hair’ himself.”

“Hold on,” Steve took a pentulative hit, “how do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“‘The Hair’, that was my highschool nickname.”  He leaned forward, trying to study Metalhead in the dim light.  “Did we go to high school together?”

“Uh…n-no.  No I don’t think so, I mean I probably would’ve remembered you right away, or you would’ve recognized me by now, right?  I-I’ve dealt to high schoolers before, and they love to talk so I just um, I picked it up from them.”

“Are you sure?  Because you look a little familiar.”

“You know what it is?  You probably bought from me before.  Popular kid, throwing parties, that’s probably it.”

“Hm…” Steve was sure he’d seen this guy in the school before, but it could’ve just been on the grounds.  It would make sense.  “Yeah, that’s probably it.  So then, where did you go to school?”

“Why do you need to know?  Gonna look for my yearbook or something?”

“I think the more important question is why are you so reluctant to tell me?”  Steve blew a little smoke in his face as he leaned across the van.

“I just don’t know why you care!”  Metalhead tried to sound casual, but it came out kind of on-edge.

Steve hoped his tone wouldn’t betray him, hoping that he could be somewhat comforting.  “Because I want to get to know you!  We don’t have to be best friends or anything, but I’ve seen you around often enough I just…I wanna learn more about you.  Is it really so hard to believe that I’m interested in your life?”

Another thing that Steve could always count on was Metalhead seizing up and just blinking at him with those big brown eyes.  This time it didn’t take the guy very long to reboot, and thankfully he did it with a smile, even as he pulled the ends of his hair over to cover his mouth.  “A bit.  Most other people aren’t.”

“Well…then it’s good I’m trying this new thing called ‘not being a jerk’.  So,” Steve stuck out his hand, “hi, I’m Steve Harrington.  Graduated from Hawkins High and now I’m working minimum wage at Scoops Ahoy, pleasure to meet you, care to be friends?  Or at least acquaintances?”

Metalhead’s lips quirked up even more, creating dimples at the corners of his mouth.  He let his hair fall into place and met Steve’s hand in the middle, a little cold and rough, but a sturdy shake.  “Eddie.  And I guess I’m also trying the ‘get out of your comfort zone’ thing so…friends would be nice.”

“Then friends it is,” Steve gave his hand a quick squeeze before settling back on the amp, “Eddie.  Gotta say I like it way better than ‘Metalhead’, and leagues above ‘Bush Guy’.”

“Glad to hear it, not like I can change it.”

“Unless,” Steve took a deep drag, “you’re lying to me.”

At that Eddie crowed, throwing his head back a moment.  “Oh no you’re onto me!  It’s true, I could very possibly be lying.  Maybe that’s not my real name, maybe this isn’t even my van!”

“Exactly!  I don’t know fuck all about you!  So, you know…throw me a line, give me some details!”

“Like what?  What are you dying to know about the mysterious stranger you’ve seen in the mall?”

“Hm, how about a last name?”

“Nope.”

“Date of birth?”

“Eh…just know I’m a little older than you.”  Then Eddie reached across to pluck the joint from Steve’s fingers, taking a quick hit before passing it back.  “What’s your next question, want to know my social security number?  Because I’ll tell you right now I don’t even know.”

Steve chuckled, and then he slid off the amp to sit closer to Eddie.  “How about you just tell me what you want me to know?  Might be easier since you refuse to answer any of my questions.”

Eddie glanced from Steve’s face to his legs, and then finally settled on looking at his own lap to fidget with his rings.  During that moment Steve wondered if he was making Eddie uncomfortable, if he should’ve stayed on his own side, but since Eddie didn’t make any attempt to move away it seemed fine.  Especially when Eddie did look at him again and there was a cheeky grin on his face.

“Then why don’t I start with a question of my own, do you like Metallica?”

Steve didn’t, he’d heard of the band, but rarely listened to music like this.  Yet now he found himself sitting in the back of a van with heavy metal blaring through the speakers.  He supposed it was an entry fee of sorts because as long as he was listening to it, he could also listen to Eddie.

Steve got to hear all about the history of metal music, the culture, and finally something about Eddie himself - the guy was in his own band, Corroded Coffin.  He dug around the back of the van, showing Steve hand drawn posters, bits of sheet music, and all the various instruments and pieces of equipment that were lying about.  Upon the discovery of a weirdly shaped die, Eddie launched into a new topic, but thankfully one Steve knew a tiny bit about.  D&D was something all his friends, who now happened to be all children, talked at length about so when Eddie started dropping details about the game Steve wasn’t totally lost.  He was mostly lost, but Eddie seemed content to ramble while Steve just sat and smoked.  Although the one time he contributed something he knew, something about Demogorgans, he thought Eddie was going to fall over.  The guy really had a penchant for almost passing out.

The conversation was great, and by the end of it Steve felt like he had indeed made a new friend.  He also felt like he might fall asleep on one of the giant ratty blankets Eddie used as an equipment cover.  So before he could overstay his welcome, he crawled out the side door, ready to drive back home.

It was pitch black except for the mall, illuminated for security, and their cars were the only two visible across the barren lot.  Steve honestly couldn’t say how much time had passed while they were locked away in their chat bubble, but it must’ve been a lot.  He stretched his arms and legs, taking in some of the fresh night air before turning back to Eddie.

“Oh man I hadn’t realized it’d gotten this late, hope I wasn’t keeping you from anything.”

“You mean my plans to smoke and sulk outside an empty mall like a loser?”  Eddie’s delivery was dry until the end where the corner of his mouth twitched up.  “Nah man, my social calendar is pretty much non-existent.  Besides, I couldn’t think of anything better to do with my night anyway.”

The comment was accompanied by a cursory wave of the hand, probably more of Eddie’s rambling, but it still gave Steve a little inner warmth.  “Me either.”

Apparently it wasn’t the same feeling for Eddie because he just scoffed.  “Oh bullshit, surely you could’ve been having more fun on a date with some hot chick or something.”

“What?  No way I’d much rather spend my time being stranded in a parking lot.”  Then Steve teetered his head, unsure if he should say more or not.  “And admittedly…I don’t have the same string of endless dates that I used to.  I’m not sure I can even recall how long it’s been since I’ve had a date.”

“Come on, now you really are bullshitting me.”  Eddie leaned against his van.  “Steve Harrington without a girl on his arm?  Although I guess without a girlfriend that explains how you were able to open a kissing booth, but…that in and of itself!  You get lots of kisses, or maybe not lots, I don’t know, it’s not like I keep track but…surely one of those girls have asked you out.  Or said ‘yes’ when you’ve asked them out.”

Steve chuckled, but he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.  “Gee thanks, sounds even more pathetic when you say it aloud.”

“Sorry, sorry, didn’t intend to offend you.  I’m just trying to wrap my head around how someone could kiss you and then not want to date you.  Unless you’re like a really bad kisser or something.”  A second later Eddie smacked himself in the face.  “Ugh I’m sorry, my mouth’s moving before my brain can catch up.  I didn’t mean that either, you’re probably a wonderful kisser, a great kisser.  With lips like those, how could you not be?”

Another second and then Eddie had both of his hands covering his face, muffling his voice.  “Did I mention that my brain’s not working right now?  Because I think I should mention that my brain’s not working.  Anything I say should be disregarded forthwith.”

It was kind of endearing to see, and it ended up leaving Steve a little flushed.  “I’ll make sure to scratch anything said tonight from the record.  But…thanks I guess, for the attempt at a confidence boost after, you know, also insulting me.  Although I’ll have you know that it’s not really the lips themselves, I think the cherry gloss is doing most of the work.”

Slowly, Eddie dragged his hands down his face to uncover his eyes.  “Well whatever it is you should keep it up, seems like it’s good for business.”  Then he curled his fingers down just enough to show his joking smile.

Steve scoffed and started heading for his car.  “Thanks for the advice, I’ll be sure to follow it even though it’s my own.  And thanks again for the jump start, you’re a real hero.”

“You flatter me too much, sir.  I am but a humble drifter with electrical magic.”  After saying it, his face fell and he opened his mouth, but Steve already knew what he was going to say.

“Scratch that from the record, I got it.”  Steve opened his door and started his engine, but then he stood again to give one last wave.  “Have a good night, Eddie.  It was nice to officially meet.”

“Yeah, yeah you too.  See you around, or maybe not, I don’t know, whatever.  Drive safe Harrington, Steve, Stevie, Steve.”  Eddie’s smile twitched and then he quickly clamored into his own vehicle.

Steve just laughed to himself as he began his drive home.  Maybe it was the lingering haze from the smoke clouding his judgment, but that might’ve been the best night all summer.  And he did hope they’d see each other around, preferably not in bushes or fountains though.