Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He may be stalling, for several days, to reconvene with Eddie about his avoidant behavior. He still hasn’t figured out a way to approach it. He doesn’t expect Eddie to come to him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie responds to that as he forces his way past Steve and into the house, “look, I was tired of anxiously waiting for you to approach me, but I’ve been thinking about it.” He’s buzzing with nervous energy. “Look, you made the claim that I’m afraid to get close to people, and it seemed ridiculous at the time, because I’ve been close to people before. But not really at all recently, so I couldn’t stop thinking about it- and I think-” He takes a breath, reorienting. “The only really close friends I had were the original members of Corroded Coffin, and I never really needed to open up to them in any way, because I’d been friends with them since kindergarten, so they just… they knew me.

“I didn’t need to tell them things about me; they could just pick it up. But then they graduated and I just never heard back from them. I knew these people inside and out and the last I heard from them was when I used my van to help them move for colleges.”

“Eddie, that sucks. They shouldn’t have-”

“No, shut up. You’re missing the point. I get that college separates people. I expected it. And it’s not like they were just using me for my services. They’re the reasons I have the van in the first place. I would still trust them with- well… almost anything now. But I’ve never needed to open up to them before. They already knew, just, everything about me. I’ve never done this before. And I was managing fine, because I always had one person too, like you were talking about. Wayne, but I can’t tell him about… you know. And he knows me well enough to know I’m hiding something from him, but I’ve never done that before. I have to be honest, I’m way more upset about worrying him than any of you guys.”

“Ok… Well, that still sucks. And you can come to me about just the Upside Down stuff if you want. You don’t need to give me your life story to help with that. Anyone else too. Just… make sure you are getting help.”

“Yeah, yeah. I just had to explain myself before I chickened out. Again.” He lets out a deep breath. “Already starting to regret it, if I’m honest.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t tell anyone else. I just had to tell you. I… I don’t like that I… Look, I know more about you than I want to admit. And I hate that it’s so imbalanced.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. There’s only so much you can figure out from someone’s house. Especially mine.” He gestures around him, bringing its blankness to attention.

“Not just from the house…”

“Well… I mean, how much can you really trust rumors, right?”

“Steve… It’s not- No, I can’t do this right now.”

“Eddie, what do you think you know?”

Eddie’s lips press together and he looks almost concerned. Then he books it out the door.

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The issue with Eddie had previously been at the back of his mind, burrowing deep, but mostly hidden. The thing was that it was hard to say if it was actually concerning until Sunday. So despite the light concern that had clung to him, he hadn’t really told anyone about it. It’s not like he and Eddie had been close prior, so it’s not like Eddie not spending time with Steve was much to go on in terms of how well he was managing. Still, Steve had hoped Eddie would have confided in him once the dust settled.

Which is why he’s excited to talk about this new development at dinner with the Hollands. Of course he can’t give them all the details, but they do know that Steve was involved in the situation which publically surrounded Eddie. They’ve asked after Eddie a few times actually, and Steve simply did not have a response for them. He’d tried not to let his disappointment show that Eddie didn’t seem to feel as close with Steve as Steve did with him. He thinks the Hollands might have been able to tell though.

He did the same thing with Nancy. For a long time he felt like… they went through this scary thing together, but apparently she only ever saw it as something she went through with Jonathan and Steve just showed up at the tail end of it. So, maybe Eddie didn’t have nightmares about Steve dying or anything, the way Steve had them about losing Eddie—in so many possibilities—but that was ok. Steve can make sure that Eddie stays safe now.

“Just don’t wait for him to come to you,” Mrs. Holland warns.

“I… didn’t. Obviously.”

“No, what I’m saying is that it isn’t healthy to have a relationship revolving around nightmares. So make sure not to limit your interactions to the negative.”

“Maybe invite him over here sometime,” Mr. Holland suggests.

Steve laughs awkwardly. “Not anytime soon.”

“Well, if he’s a friend of yours, we’d love to meet him,” Mrs. Holland says.

“I don’t know if we’re ‘friends’ yet, but I’d like to be.”

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He asks Keith if he can have the day off Saturday, and he says it’s really up to Robin whether she wants to fully cover the shift. She whines and complains when he calls her after work to ask, but eventually relents. And maybe she’s quicker to fold than she otherwise would have if she wasn’t running late for her ‘totally not a date’ with Vickie at the skating rink. Apparently when he calls, Vickie is already in her driveway, waiting to pick her up. Still, she agrees. Now to make sure he actually has permission to do the thing he’d be off for in the first place.

He heads over to Hopper’s cabin and thankfully it’s the man himself who opens the door. Having to ask for him might have made things more akward.

“Hey, kid. What’s going on?”

Steve steels himself, taking a deep breath. “Look, I know you don’t like me that much, but I’d hope that after everything you at least-”

“Whoa whoa whoa, I’m gonna stop you right there. Why do you think I don’t like you?”

Steve rubs the back of his neck and has to force himself to maintain eye contact. “Because you think I’m dumb. And I encouraged a relationship you didn’t approve of.”

“Oh, jesus…” Hopper runs a hand down his face.

“Anyway, I was hoping that after everything, you’d at least trust me enough with El? She talked about not knowing what her favorite song is, so I was thinking about taking her to a music store in Indy, where there’s a lot of options. And then I figured maybe we could just spend a day touring, basically.

“And I mean, that’s something you could do with her if you want. I just thought it would be nice since you guys are going to be leaving in, like, two weeks.” Steve reminds himself that the worst outcome is that Hopper says no.

“Don’t you work on Saturdays? For some reason?”

“Robin said she could cover me.”

“Well yeah, of course I trust you. At this point? Are you kidding?”

“Great!” Steve beams. “I haven’t actually really discussed this with her. I kept forgetting. You can tell her and call me if she doesn’t want to. Otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow when I pick her up.”

“Why tell her? Why not make it a surprise?”

Steve stops, one foot on the first step off the porch. “Does she like surprises?”

“She loves surprises!”

“Well, at least make sure she doesn’t have other plans.”

“Steve,” Hopper levels. “She never gets out and… her and Mike are having a rough patch. She’s got nothing to be doing tomorrow, and this will be a good thing to get her to cheer up a bit.” Steve nods, taking another step off the porch, only to be interrupted again.

“-Steve, I don’t dislike you. I need you to know that.” Steve turns back to look at him quizzically. “I think… I vaguely remember what you’re referring to when you said that, but I was in a bad place at the time. I don’t really think that about you. You’ve been nothing but reliable and a steady source of comfort for the kids after everything. Not to mention all you’ve done while that ‘everything’ was going down.”

Steve can’t find a response for the rant that was just dumped on him. He finds himself just staring back. Eventually Hopper must take some kind of pity on him and makes his own exit, bidding him ‘til tomorrow.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He gets his first call from Eddie that night. He talks about his nightmare of playing a DnD game and the figures grow into real monsters and attack him and the rest of Hellfire. He refuses Steve’s offer to come over. And that’s just as well. He wants to be at his house for if Robin needs to call. Maybe he should network that so both of them will know where to call if he’s not answering.

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When Steve gets to the cabin, this time it’s Will who answers. He immediately calls for El, so even if it was kept to be a surprise for El, obviously word had otherwise spread through the house. She seems happy to see him, but confused.

“Hi Steve?” she says. Her hair is starting to grow out, curls beginning to sprout once again making her head look fuzzy, and she’s clearly putting effort into making it look nice, with a red bandana wrapped around like a headband and tied at the top. “What are you doing here?”

“We talked about taking a day to figure out who we are. I figured we could go to the city and look at all kinds of stores there. I know you and Max explored the mall last year, but with Starcourt down, I figured we might as well go even more all out. Go to Indy, window shop.”

“Right now?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah, supergirl.”

She doesn’t even respond; just makes a beeline for his car.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

“I know last time you did this with Max. Do you want me to pick her up, and we can all go together?”

El shakes her head. “Today is Lucas and Max’s date day. They have been planning it for a while.”

“So, I hear you and Mike are going through a rough patch.”

“A ‘rough-’ Oh, yes. Not really. We broke up but we are still friends. Well, I want to still be friends, but Mike thinks it’s weird to do that.”

“Why did you break up?”

“I do not think he loves me. Not the way I want him to. He only ever says it when there is danger. He used to want to spend time with me more often.” What she’s describing sounds really familiar. Very similar behavior to his experiences with Nancy. Seems like it runs in the family to avoid confrontation around a relationship that isn’t working. “I think he might like Will anyway.” She doesn’t seem to realize the ramifications of her statement, and Steve’s eyes widen at what she’s saying. He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, prepared to have a very complicated conversation with her. “Last year when me and Max had our ‘Girl’s Day’ we decided to because I could not spend time with Mike, because his grandma was sick. But he accidentally told me, um… re… ‘recently’ about a DnD game he played last summer, but I did not remember, so I asked and it turned out he lied about his grandmother to play with Will.”

“Oh… I’m sorry. That sucks.”

She sighs. “It was hard, but I do not want to keep wanting him to like me more. Well… I do want him to like me more, but I do not want to wait for it to happen.”

“That’s… really smart. I didn’t even realize when Nancy stopped liking me.”

“Well, I talked to Bob about it.”

“Ah, gotcha. So… you know, it’s not very common for boys to like other boys?”

She hums. “I guess not. I have not seen any married men in my dramas. Or women.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of… a tricky subject. First of all the idea that Mike might like boys is kind of unlikely. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, just that you can’t judge that idea as easily as you could if you thought he liked another girl. It gets complicated, especially because of my second point. A lot of people don’t like it when boys like boys or when girls like girls, so you need to be more careful when talking about that.”

“But I like girls. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, but some people are just… Since it’s not something they get, they assume it isn’t right.”

“Do you like boys?”

“No. You know, I don’t think that’s something you should ask people. It’s a secret for a lot of people, so… yeah, just don’t try to pry it out of them. Also- You know it’s probably gonna be really uncomfortable if they think you suspect them.”

She hums. “So… I cannot tell people I like girls?”

He sighs. “Just… be careful who you tell. Really careful.”

She nods.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

It’s a day for figuring out who they are a little bit, and since the topic was brought up with music, they visit a music store first, and go through the store's selection, finding things that stand out and taking it up to the listening station. It’s a pretty big place, which guarantees variety, but it also means that the place is crowded, which means that if you sit at the listening station for too long people get pissy. So they can only really listen to samples of songs before someone comes along and does all but yell at them.

El ended up with a few pop songs, but she also found she had an interest in this weird kind of synth music. It sounded to Steve the way he felt when he was high. He doesn’t understand the appeal of that as a song at all, but El likes it.

Steve finds himself being more drawn to some light rock. It’s very up front on the displays which makes it easier to find things that he likes. The synth music El likes is mostly put in the back, things she has to dig around for a bit. But a lot of the songs Steve finds himself drawn to are about war. He tries to only get a few of those in the end, because he doesn’t want to find himself too focussed on how shitty everything related to the Upside Down is, and sometimes when he can relate the lyrics to his parents. So most generally he likes a sort of soft rock.

They’d picked up breakfast on the way into town and by the time they get out of the music shop with a decent amount of items picked out, they’re pretty hungry again.

“We should see if there is a Scoops Ahoy around,” El says.

“We aren’t having ice cream for lunch.”

El looks confused. “Scoops Ahoy does not serve real food? The ice cream shops in Lenora do.”

“No. It’s not a shop or restaurant like Dairy Queen. It’s a booth chain, like Auntie Anne’s. They’ve got a few things, but they stick to their specialty for the most part.”

“Well, we should get ice cream after we eat lunch. I liked the Scoops Ahoy strawberry ice cream better than the strawberry at Chip’s.”

“Sure. What’s… your favorite food? Besides Eggos.” he asks, going back to their mission of figuring themselves out while also looking for options on the next course of action.

“What’s your favorite food?” she fires back.

Steve sighs a bit annoyed. “I’m the worst person to ask that question.” El tilts her head in response, and he continues. “I’m too used to bland food I think. So I don’t know what tastes good.”

El hums. “That’s weird.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I did not have good food either, and now I love so much food so much. But… I really like sweet things the most.”

“Alright, well I’m gonna limit how sweet we get for lunch. Ice cream after.”

El nods, understanding this rule of the universe. “I like tacos. I like very sweet things, but I like things with a lot of flavor at all. I like the spicy. Ness. The spicyness.”

“Yeah, I think there’s another point where we’re different. I don’t like the feeling of my tongue burning. But yeah, tacos work.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The day seems to go by so slowly and so quickly all at once. Besides testing music and mild food experiences, they also go to a clothing store. El is definitely more in her element here, having experimented during her first girl’s day with Max, but she didn’t actually get a lot of outfits from then, and apparently Lenora didn’t have a lot of clothing stores with the style El likes, so most of her clothes are a bit more bland than she prefers.

She quickly pulls together a few items that she wants to add to her wardrobe, and Steve is ready to head to the next place, but El looks confused.

“Are you not going to get something?” she asks. “Today is about both of us, isn’t it?”

To tell the truth, Steve has been avoiding this. Has always avoided changing his image, too afraid of how life-shattering it would be to like something else. He’s been forced into presenting a certain way for his whole life and finding out or confirming that it’s not him. That he’s been forced to wear so many layers of masks that he didn’t even know about some of them.

It’s scary. What if this isn’t even the last mask? Taking it off only to realize how many more lie underneath it. The effort that goes into all of this. It’s so much. The valley he sits in is suffocating, but he doesn’t know how high the mountain he must climb is to get out of it. He’s already started, but mostly he’s afraid to find out that this isn’t, in fact, the last hurdle. He’ll get to what looks to be the top only to find it’s just a ledge, and he’s not even halfway up.

But El looks at him so expectantly and… he knows he can’t avoid it forever. Robin’s been on him about it too. And he knows he’s never going to even know how much further he needs to go if he doesn’t make this last climb. And he’ll need to get to the top eventually regardless, if he wants to truly find himself. Which is the point of the trip.

“I will find some ideas for you,” El says, seeming to note his hesitance, even if she isn’t aware of the source of it. He waits for her to come back and tries to think of things he knows he likes in particular. He likes his shoes, at least he thinks so. Besides their appearance, he likes a shoe that’s good for supporting exercise, which he hasn’t actually been participating in much since his injuries.

He likes stripes too. Most of his shirts that don’t have stripes on them are shoved to the back of his closet. Though, now that he thinks about it, it’s probably just that he prefers wearing multiple colors at once, since his options have always been striped or plain. At least until recently. He’s been cycling through his few plain turtlenecks lately, too aware of the scars on his neck. He knows for a fact Keith thinks he’s practically covered in hickies, but he hasn’t actually had a date since the recent event from almost two months ago.

He also likes his uniform vest and what it adds placed over top of his existing outfit. He also realizes that since getting that job he’s been wearing his jacket more often, even when it hasn’t been cold enough to need it. He likes the layers of it. It feels less plain. He thinks Robin probably has the same thing. She regularly wears multiple layers, even under her work vest.

El comes back with a few armfuls of T shirts in a variety of colors.

“I think that we should look at what colors you like to wear, then we can look at what type of shirts you want,” she says.

“Is this what you did with Max?”

“No. And I realized I do not like wearing so many colors at once. I like, um… when the colors are very bright, and when it’s on black, but I do not like so many of them at once. And I do not like most greens. I did not know that at the time.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

They find that he likes the more colorful end of the earth tones. Subtle blue, oranges and greens. Dusty blush pink is one he likes the look of on his skin and with his hair, but he’s not so sure he’s confident enough to up and wear pink. Then again, it’s not like he’ll be wearing these outfits in the open anytime soon anyway. He’ll just hide the clothes away in Robin’s shed and hope they don’t run out of comfortable space any time soon.

Trying different cuts makes him realize how much he likes when things hang loose on his frame. And he’s proud of his body, he is. Even now, when it’s softer from misuse, it’s not exactly out of shame or anything. He likes his body. But he does like the way it looks shrouded in draping fabric.

He does like feeling soft, and maybe that’s why he hasn’t been as preoccupied with his body, even with the panic of what it would mean if he no longer has the strength for defense. He likes appearing soft. Approachable. But he prefers to have a dependable strength about him. And wearing clothes that don’t cling to his form, accentuate all his hard edges. It’s why he’s always gotten excited to break out his winter wardrobe. Thicker clothes that dwarf him just a little bit.

He gets a few tank tops to wear under a couple of looser, probably technically oversized, jackets. El is ready to look around for pants for him, but he’s ready to move on to the next activity. They only have so many hours in the day and he’s already made a hurdle with this. He feels like he wants a break for a while before making the final clearing to that ledge. But he’s feeling more confident in his ability to do so on his own, in his own time.

The cool thing about being in Indy is that he can wear these items out of the store. He picks a dusty blue tank top and a creamy yellow jacket. Soft. It feels so weird to wear them, especially in the open. He’d gotten used to wearing things other than polos, even back when Robin had given him that first t-shirt. Well, his first aside from plain white workout Tees. He’s gotten used to how it feels to wear other things at all, but he doesn’t go out in public in these things often. Even the yellow sweater, now probably at the bottom of Lovers’ Lake, was probably up to his parents standards, but he only really wore it when he wanted some kind of comfort, so he wasn’t just wearing it around town. And it feels like everyone’s staring at him. Especially with his scars visible. But he takes comfort in the knowledge that no one here is going to see him again, in all likelihood.

El says that the creamy yellow jacket on blue makes him look like a beach, before slyly smiling and saying it looked ‘beachin’.’ Steve laughs more in shock than actual amusement, not having ever expected something like that to leave her mouth.

El suggests they go to an arcade next, but Steve doesn’t think he’d find it that fun. He’s dropped the kids off there often enough, and with Keith as his boss he hasn’t had no experience with it, even second hand accounts. He’s aware of how a lot of the games work, but doesn’t carry much interest. Still he goes with her. He knows she always feels out of place when the boys talk about things like games and movies, not getting much opportunity to experience them herself, and even if she doesn’t find any kind of game that she can connect with, she’ll at least get a point of reference for what they’re even talking about all the time.

He waits around mostly, though he does watch El figure out the machines, mostly getting frustrated with them, and he usually has to guide her away from them before she does something she might regret.

They’ve never been here before, so it takes a while before they realize that there’s a back room with pool, pingpong, air hockey, and foosball tables.

Steve shows El how to play foosball, and she definitely cheats a few times, but he doesn’t call her out on it. She lets them tie anyway.

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“Does anyone know you like girls?” he asks her on the way back.

“I told Max on our girl's day.”

“What did she say?”

El hums as she tries to pull up the memory. “She seemed surprised. She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it.”

“Did she start acting differently around you?”

A few beats as she tries to remember more. “I think so. She was stiffer than before, and didn’t touch me that much. But she doesn’t do that now.”

“Do you think maybe she forgot about it?”

“No, I do not think so.”

“Ok- I just… that scares me, El. I want you to be safe, and these things can be surprisingly dangerous. I know that with everything we’ve gone through, it shouldn’t seem like it would be, but it is. People can be cruel about it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Something about the bible. I don’t know, I didn’t read it when I was supposed to.”

“There’s a boy in Lenora who talks about the bible all the time. I think it doesn’t sound right. And I learned in school about the big bang, and where is God supposed to have come from?”

“I am not the person to ask this stuff. Ask Dustin. I’m sure he knows.”

“Well, it seems weird to me.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

El is asleep in her seat by the time they get back into town. Hopper carries her inside and Steve brings all the things he bought for her in after him. Steve is pretty tired himself, even though it’s not even that late yet, and it must show, because Mrs. Byers stops him on the way out and asks if he would like to stay the night. He’s a bit hesitant, but she frames it as giving back for the service he provided El with today. And he is really tired, so he takes the couch that night.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The next morning he heads out to put all the things he bought out to the shed. Robin barges in as soon as he plops his bags down on the bed ready to be sorted.

“Steve-o, you abandoned me!”

“What? I told you I was-”

“Blah blah blah, yeah I know you told me, but I haven’t seen or heard from you since then. Also it was a last minute decision, and it was really busy, which I guess made for a pretty good distraction, and, yeah again, it was busy so it’s not like I could have actually talked to you about it at work, but I had a date with Vickie and didn’t have anyone to talk to about it for a whole day!”

“So you admit it was a date!”

“Well it’s kind of hard to deny now!”

“Why? What happened?”

“Well now I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to wait for it. Because I had to wait to talk about it. Thanks a lot.”

“You’re just keeping yourself from talking about it.”

“I’ve already had to hold it in. I’ve learned to sit on it and now you do too. So what’d you get?” She moves over to his side, looking at the bags on the couch. Steve finds himself weirdly hesitant to talk about it. It’s just Robin, but he’s also very well established to her a certain way he presents himself. It’s not like he actually thinks Robin would leave him if he started presenting differently. She’s probably the last person who would pull that shit. But he also can’t lose her.

“Let’s see…” Robin says, taking initiative herself. She reacts as soon as her hand reaches inside one of the clothing bags. “Soft. Checks out.” Steve crosses his arms, feeling studied. “The colors are a lot more muted than I would have guessed,” she says, pulling out the jacket he’d worn the previous day, which he didn’t dare wear back into town.

“I think I look good in them,” he defends.

“Well let me see then,” she encourages. “Oh, and you can try on some of my old shirts like we talked about.”

“Robin, we have to go to my place for Erica’s campaign today. You know that. That’s why I had you cover for me yesterday instead of just doing the trip today.”

“Uuuugh, fine. But you can’t get away with this forever.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

So much for her ‘I’ve gotten used to sitting on it so you’ll just have to wait to find out what happened,’ because she caves as soon as they’re on the road.

“Vickie kissed me,” she blurts out and Steve has to fight his urge to swerve the car.

“What!”

“Ok, so like, I don’t want to make it seem like- I mean, it was a cheek kiss, you know. But it was so great,” she gushes. “She picked me up and we were technically attending someone else’s birthday party, but it was like she was the only person there. Which was weird and conflicting because I was constantly paranoid about everyone watching us.

“Anyway, She picked me up and she was wearing shorts, Steve. Shorts! I mean, not like short shorts. They were overall shorts that went to her knees. She looked great… And then when we got there I was like, well shit, why did I think this was a good idea? I have terrible balance. I’ve known in the past not to go to roller rinks. I’ve known to avoid these things forever. It’s so obvious!

“But then… she let me hold onto her. And she’s really good at it apparently. Like, when I went to get us milkshakes, she stayed on the floor and she was just skating circles around everyone else. Well- That’s probably an exaggeration, but like, she can skate backwards and shit. No effort.

“Then she drove me home. She told me she had a great time and kissed me on the cheek.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah, until I fell out of the car in panic and just ran to my house.”

Steve grimaces. “Don’t think that just because you embarrassed yourself once means it’s a lost cause.”

“Are you kidding! She likes girls and she happens to be my type. I’m not stupid enough to let that go. But hopefully Monday I’ll be able to clear up my image somehow.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Eddie shows up for the campaign this time, and Steve gives him context for what’s going on quietly from the side the majority of the time when Erica doesn’t consult him. Spirits seem to be higher, and Steve theorizes that Dustin at the very least is happy to see Eddie here. Steve is too.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The next day at work is pretty weird and interesting. First of all, when he came in Keith had a bug on his shirt and Steve jumped about ten feet, before Keith explained that it was a cicada shell.

“Maybe best you don’t wear that at work.”

Keith shrugs. “I just wanted to show you because Mal gave it to me and then I asked her on a date and she said yes.”

And Steve really wants to be able to fulfill his role in this conversation and be enthusiastic for him, but he’s just caught on one thing because- “You guys weren’t already dating?”

Keith falters slightly. “No… Why did you think that?”

Steve shrugs. “I guess I’m the last person to make that assumption since everyone thinks me and Robin should date. But I already knew you had feelings for her and when you said she went to your house, I don’t know, I assumed that’s when you told her you liked her.”

“No. And yeah, you are being a hypocrite right now. I know Robin goes to your house all the time.”

“Whatever man. When’s the date?”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Erica’s campaign ended spectacularly. Not that it was a surprise to Steve, having already combed through the narrative she’d been planning for months. Knowing how it ended made for some heavy anticipation on Steve’s part, waiting for everyone to catch up on the interesting things. Seeing their reactions. It was all very satisfying.

Eddie, it turns out, is very expressive even when he’s not in some of the most stressful situations imaginable. It’s just his default to be emotive. And maybe Steve could have guessed that; Eddie is very dramatic.

Eddie leaves as soon as the game is over, everyone left inside to clean up after themselves. In all fairness, he had only been an observer tonight, but he’s clearly trying to avoid Steve again, though not as adamantly as before. He did still come after all.

Steve finds himself booking it after Eddie, managing to catch up to him just before he enters his van right in front of where the Sinclairs are parked, waiting to pick up their kids once they're done packing everything back up. Eddie already has his hand on the door handle.

“You know, when I heard her first campaign ever was going to be a three day long homebrew I was kind of concerned, but the little scamp pulled it off,” Eddie says, nervously trying to keep the conversation from their previous interaction.

“Whatever you think you know… I just don’t understand why you feel like you can't just tell me.”

“It’s complicated…”

“Is that what you say about everything you don’t want to talk about? ‘ Oh, I promise there was a real reason I couldn’t reschedule the DnD club for Lucas’ game, but it’s just too complicated for your pea-sized brain to understand .’”

Eddie’s mouth falls open slightly. “… Whoa.”

“And, like, I don’t know, maybe you’re right, but like… I’d like you to at least try for me. Even if I don’t get it, it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Eddie sighs. “Yeah, ok, I can explain that much.”

That’s when Robin bursts out of the house. “Steeeve,” she grumbles. “My parents aren’t picking up the phone. I need you to drive me home…”

“Take Buckles home,” Eddie says. “Then you can come over to my place and we can talk some things out.” Then Eddie gets in the van and is already driving. Steve makes sure to grab Eddie’s phone number from Dustin before either of them take off.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

“I thought you had your parents lined up to drive you today.”

“I guess they thought I’d be good for just the one ride, even though I mentioned I’d need to be driven back.” She yawns. “I used to be more direct and made sure I was clear about what I’m asking for. I guess I’ve gotten a little too used to you not trying to avoid me. God, that sounds rude. But they also knew they were just dropping me off at yours, and they know you drive me around a lot.” She shrugs from the corner of his eye.

“God, how did you parents end up this way?”

“That’s interesting. That’s what I wonder about your parents.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve’s honestly not entirely sure Eddie will be at the trailer when he gets to it, given his behavior patterns. Though he’s at least been a little more reliable recently, and he hasn’t exactly had an actual moment where he said he’d talk about something only to flake. He’s never actually lied about his willingness to talk. Though he does seem to chicken out at times when it seems like he does plan to talk sometimes.

The door opens before he knocks.

“So I was thinking,” Eddie starts immediately, “because my biggest anxiety about telling you what I’ve found out has to do with a power imbalance. I don’t want you to feel like I have something over you, and I’m aware that not telling you about it doesn’t help. I know, but saying it makes it real. Anyway, I was thinking that if I just expose myself to you then it might be easier. It could balance out. And, like, you know what, telling you about Hellfire would be the perfect thing for that! What do you think?”

“Uh… can I come in?”

Eddie’s eyes widen at the realization that he’s been blocking the door this whole time. “Oh, yeah, of course.”

“That plan sounds great and all,” Steve says as he makes his way to the couch, “but I don’t want to know about your Hellfire club. No offense. I just want to know why Lucas couldn’t be a part of it.”

“He was always going to remain in the club; it’s not like we were going to kick him out. He just couldn’t participate in that one campaign.”

“Why.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever tried running a group of anti authoritarians who are just young enough that at least some of that is performative combined with the already festering rage of everything out of their control, and since they aren’t adults yet there’s a lot out of their control, and they’re just old enough to be able to recognize it. I disagree with the herd and I get overrun, then I lose basically my only two hobbies.”

“Oh. So you’re a hypocrite.”

“What? No. I encourage them to stand up for themselves, and I let them.”

“But you’re just letting yourself ‘conform’ to your group out of fear they’d leave you.”

“Loyalty is not conforming!”

“It is when your ‘loyalty’ comes from being afraid they’ll leave you. I’m pretty sure loyalty is supposed to come from trust.”

“I’m loyal to my ideals.”

“Which are?”

“‘Do what you want.’”

“While harming others, apparently.”

“What? No!”

“Do you think that Lucas liking basketball means he cares any less about DnD? He was so disappointed when he found out what happened… I’d promised him that branching out wasn’t going to come between him and the group. It shouldn’t have .”

“It’s not like I didn’t give him a choice. He could have ditched the game if he wanted.”

“You could have rescheduled if you wanted. He couldn’t have.”

“Not if I wanted the guys on board. And they wouldn’t have. I can’t DM without players.”

“And they can’t play without a DM! Speaking from experience, if you’re afraid that your friends will leave you if you stand up for yourself, you probably should!”

“And what if they do leave?”

“You don’t need them anymore. You already have the party on your side, and after everything… they won’t abandon you. You’ve been avoiding everyone, and everyone has been worried. Do you not realize that?” Eddie looks contemplative. After several seconds of silence, Steve speaks up again. “What was different about me, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Forever ago, you were doing a tabletop speech. You said I was alright. You said that in front of your group. You weren’t afraid to say that then .”

“You’d just quit the basketball team. I assume that’s why that guy brought it up in the first place. But I knew I’d at least have some defense if I was questioned about it later, plus I had some anecdotal defenses at that point if it came down to it. And I figured it would be good to show them that you were an exception to the rule. That there are exceptions to the rule. But Julie said you were definitely sexist, and quitting basketball wouldn’t change that, and Matt said that the only reason you quit in the first place was because you were afraid of Billy, which is, like, pathetic or whatever, so you’d clearly never stand up against the norm. They graduated last year.”

“Your friends sound awesome,” Steve sneers before walking right out the front door. He does stop himself from storming all the way to his car and just leaving. He’s aware he won’t get his answer from Eddie, about what he claims to know if he leaves. So he just stands on the porch with his arms crossed, soon moving over to lean against one of the porch beams. 

It takes Eddie about five minutes to come out, apparently realizing that Steve isn’t going anywhere.

“I guess you still want to know what I know.”

“That’s why I’m still here.”

“You know you’ve said that after everything, no one in the party would just leave me. But I don’t believe you. I told you what you wanted and you still had to storm out of the place about it. The only reason you’re still here is because you want to know more stuff, but I’m so certain you’ll want nothing to do with me after that.”

“I didn’t storm out because I don’t like that your friends think I’m this shitty guy. I just want you to admit that you should have- that you deserve better friends.”

Eddie blinks a few times in rapid succession before averting his eyes. “I’ve brought you home from several parties now. Drunk you is a talker. So, no, I’m not just talking about rumors. I was still hesitant to tell you about that time you talked about Barb, but then you just kept getting more personal.” And that’s scary; because what’s more personal than Barb?

Eddie continues. “I think you should probably avoid getting drunk at all, because you’re really suggestable. It’s kind of scary.”

“How is me being suggestable scary to you ?”

“The same way it’s scary to wait over a minute for you to breach the surface of the lake, Steve! I know you could be hurt! Probably already have been!”

“Relax, I haven’t been.”

“Do you know that? You’ve never been taken advantage of?”

“I said I’d never been hurt.”

“That- Steve!”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been taken advantage of either. I know what I’m getting into when I get drunk.”

“What difference does that make? Just because you know there’s a chance you’ll have to- and that shouldn’t even be a concern you need to consider. You shouldn’t need to worry about the possibility anytime you want to party.”

“What makes you think it’s something I worry about? I-I like having sex.” And Eddie looks so sad. “I do,” Steve insists.

“Ok, but… you don’t have to, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know how you act about it when you’re drunk and you don’t seem to want it, you just… let them.”

“It’s not like I don’t enjoy it.”

“Every time? You know that for sure?”

“What difference does it make? There’s a reason I let myself black out when I do drink.”

“How can you say that and also say you aren’t being taken advantage of?”

“Because I already know what to expect! If you get on a roller coaster,  you might throw up! That’s just part of it!”

“Would you ever make these arguments about Robin ?” And the world stops. “If she-”

“Don’t! Don’t say that! Why would you say that?”

“So you wouldn’t want that.”

“Robin wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that anyway.”

“So, what, you think you deserve it for… being stupid ?”

“It just doesn’t matter!”

“Why not? Because it’s you ?”

Steve can’t deal with this anymore. He storms down the stairs and to his car. As he pulls out, he sees Eddie’s disappointed but resigned face. Because Steve just proved him right, didn’t he?

But he really can’t deal with this right now.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He drives to Robin’s, dropping onto the couch in his room. He scratches on the rough fabric until his hands stop shaking. Then he drives to his parent’s house. He bundles up on his bed and grabs the phone on his nightstand. He pulls out the number he got from Dustin earlier and dials. He doesn’t get an actual ‘answer,’ but the tone stops ringing, and there’s the shuffling sound that phones make when moved against someone’s ear, so…

“Hello?”

“Steve?” Eddie sounds genuinely surprised.

“I just thought I’d let you know I’m home now. Robin likes to know that I got home safe if I’ve been driving while upset.” Something established after the Christmas party he stormed out of. “So I thought I’d just… let you know, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m- I’m glad you called. I thought…” He doesn’t finish that statement, seemingly unsure as to how.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow when I drop off Robin and Dustin, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll… see you tomorrow.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Tommy enters the store a couple hours into his shift. Keith is on his lunch break at the time, so Steve can’t just retreat. Whichever college he got into must have let out for the summer; and he’s sure Tommy got into college, because he hasn’t seen him around.

The grin that curls on his face when he sees Steve is chilling.

“Still in the field of minimum wage, Your Highness.” He says, emphasizing how low he’s fallen, like that’s what he’s ashamed of and having thought so highly of himself once upon a time. His nerves fade at the realization that Tommy no longer knows him. He’s changed so much, he’s so fundamentally different as a person that he wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to messing with him anymore.

“Hey, Tommy,” Steve says, putting on his laziest customer service smile, because Tommy is technically still a customer, and there is a policy. “How’s Carol? You two still in touch?”

And it’s crazy that Tommy already looks pissed. Steve isn’t even trying. “You wouldn’t fucking know, would you Steve?”

“Nope. That’s why I asked.”

Tommy leers before disappearing into an aisle. When he comes back he’s got a bit of a pile collected, and Steve can just picture this as a marathon with Carol as she visits for the summer.

“You still keep in touch with Carol?” Steve asks as he scans the item. He can’t exactly assert his prediction of the situation like that.

“If you came back you’d know,” Tommy snaps.

“Forget I asked. I’m not coming back.”

“And why the fuck not! You always came back before!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve always been such a pussy. Didn’t always stick around for the shit we wanted to do, but you always crawled back the next day.”

“You really think TPing Jordan Thomas’ house at all compares to putting up a slut statement on the most viewed sign in Hawkins?”

“Oh come on. We talked about it; hardly anyone was gonna be around to see it with that dead kid situation. Everyone was sulking indoors or searching the woods.”

“Yeah, but she saw it, and she wasn’t the only one. Word still spreads around here.” He’s doing his best not to yell, trying to maintain a modicum of customer service, despite everything.

“Who cares? She cheated on you!”

“No she didn’t. I jumped to conclusions.”

“Well why didn’t you come back after she publicly dumped you.”

“Why would I?”

“After everything we’ve been through?”

Steve can’t stop himself from scoffing, customer service be damned. “After everything I did for you two ? Played referee between you and Carol’s relationship while you two bonded over how stupid I am. Why would I ever want to go back to that?”

“You act like we did nothing for you! We’re the only reason you know how to get people to like you past all that stupid!”

“Oh please, I’m the only reason you and Carol even liked each other . I take it you don’t keep in touch with Carol.”

He hears the crack of skin on skin before he feels the sting of the slap on his face. Then Tommy shoves the VHS stack he’d brought up to the counter onto the ground, as well as the stack of returns Steve had organized before he came in.

“Pick it up, college reject,” Tommy sneers, then storming out of the store, but not before delivering one final, “Fuck you!”

Keith comes out of the back room a few minutes later, wordlessly hands him an ice pack before retreating back into the room. He must have seen it on the cameras. He doesn’t know what to think about the fact that Keith didn’t feel the need to intervene, but he also knows Keith has likely had bad experiences with Tommy, maybe even worse than Steve’s had.

Keith being technically in charge of the place probably wouldn’t mean anything to Tommy, especially if he recognizes him from high school. At least Keith isn’t getting on Steve for how quickly and far he dropped his customer service etiquette. 

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The ringing in Steve’s ears has been so loud since Tommy stormed out, but it stopped hurting after only a few minutes, the pain settling into a comfortable, non-literal suffocation. He barely hears the bell for when people come in, which is why it’s so startling to turn around to find Eddie standing at the counter.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you come in,” Steve says, chuckling awkwardly.

“What time’s your break?” Eddie asks.

“Hours ago, but I get off in a couple hours.”

“Damnit, I really just can’t visit you at work on a school day then can I?”

“School ends, like, this week.”

“Oh, you don’t- Have you not talked to Nancy?”

“Oh my god, why do you always want me to talk to Nancy?”

“No, just in general. You two haven’t been talking at all? Not after everything?”

“I think she talks to Robin some, but we haven’t really been in the same place really. She gets really focused on school when there isn’t anything to distract her from it. Like, you know, the apocalypse.”

Eddie hum. “Ok, well, I’ll tell you about it when you get off then. Oh by the way, I booked it here to avoid the swarm Robin tells me always comes after school hours, so that’ll probably be here soon.”

“There’s usually a cool off period,” Steve shrugs. “It usually starts a few minutes after Robin gets here.” With that he barely makes out the ring of the bell, and only because he can see the door open, and the woman herself steps through.

“Meet me after work at…” Eddie taps his chin in thought, “my place?”

“Sure,” Steve says, smiling. Eddie smiles back, before spinning around towards the door and leaving. Steve watches.

“You’re driving me for graduation, right?” he barely hears Robin ask.

“What? Oh, yeah, of course.”

“My parents left for a road trip yesterday.”

“Oh… Your parents work at… a gas station, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How can they afford to do these things?”

She scoffs. “They can’t; not really. You know the gas station tackle shop combo at the end of town?”

“That’s the one they work at?”

“Yeah. It’s really lax, so they can leave for a bit without it being a big deal as long as they do a bunch of the bulk while they’re there. Also they don’t get paid on days they aren’t there. So they work really hard for a few days, have an extravaganza, then repeat. I’m pretty sure they dine and dash pretty often when they spring for road trips but I honestly couldn’t tell you. But they do schedule each of their extravaganzas like a year ahead of time. They’re big on scheduling. I’ve known they weren’t going to show up for my graduation for about a year. It’s hard to remember to make sure they can make time for things over a year ahead of time.”

“God, I’m gonna be teaching you how to drive soon.”

Robin snorts. “Then what? I don’t exactly have a car. And I don’t exactly want to blow my college money on getting one.”

Steve hums in thought. “Maybe Nancy could help you. Her family’s doing pretty good for itself.”

Robin snorts again. “I don’t think her dad would be down for that.”

“True.”

“What if you wrote me a little ol’ check like you did for the War Zone?”

“That was an emergency.”

“Have you… gotten in trouble for that?”

“No, they haven’t brought it up at all. Which worries me more about pushing my luck. Because if they just didn’t notice that missing money before, I might not get so lucky a second time.”

Robin nods. “Is the ringing bad today?”

“How’d you know?”

She shrugs. “You keep looking at me when I talk.”

The bell rings and in comes the swarm.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve marvels at Eddie’s room when he enters.

“It’s not like this is the first time you’ve been in here,” Eddie laughs and plops on his unmade bed, which is really just a mattress on the floor.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t looking at it. I hope I can get my room to be like this.”

“You… want your room to look like this ?” he asks, kicking a pair of underwear on the floor towards Steve. He yelps and dodges it.

“You dick!” he laughs. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just… so you. Like, wall to wall, it looks like you. I’m working on that with my room, but it’s slow going.”

“Last I checked, your room was, like, blank. I hope when you say you’ve been working on it, that’s been within the last two and a half months.”

“Oh, you’ve only seen my… house room…”

“You have a room outside of the house? Why did I have to hide in your pool shed?”

“No, I have a room at Robin’s.”

Eddie snorts. “Isn’t that room also a house room?”

“No, it’s in the shed.”

“Oh! They don’t use that for anything?”

“Not really. Robin used to keep her bike in there I think, but now she just locks it to the porch.”

“Dustin says that you and Robin refuse to date. Would that happen to be for the same reason you refuse to date Nancy?”

“Nancy’s in a relationship, first of all.”

“Is Robin in a relationship?”

“Oh, she’s working on it,” he chuckles lightly. “Uh, with someone you probably don’t know, by the way.”

Eddie hums. “I just feel like if you told Nancy you liked her she’d break up with Jonathan. I mean, long distance can’t be easy to maintain. I’m sure Jonathan would understand if she didn’t have the effort in her. Especially since you guys seem to be on good terms. He’s kind of living with you now isn’t he?”

“He spends more time at the cabin than at mine. He pretty much only sleeps at my place now that I’m all healed up.”

“But you are on good terms.”

“I mean, yeah?”

“So he can’t be too upset about-”

“This isn’t about him, man. Some people just aren’t meant to be in a relationship. Me and Robin, me and Nancy. We aren’t for each other. We broke up for a reason.”

“And what if that reason doesn’t apply anymore? What if you’ve both grown since then? I saw you two interacting while that whole situation was going down, and all I saw was chemistry.”

“Did you even pass chem?”

Eddie thwaps his leg for that. “I just don’t see why you won’t even consider it when there’s a clear tension.”

“Tension does not mean chemistry. Sometimes it means you both understand that you’re the only ones who can lead the pack and if you fail everyone dies and the world ends.”

Eddie seems to wilt at that. “Well… That’s too bad then. You’d have gotten a real badass on your side.”

“I’d like to think she could be by my side if we weren’t in a relationship.”

“No, not like… in a fight or whatever. I mean in general.”

“Oh. Well, I could see myself still being friends with her. She’s the one who gets all weird about how relationships are supposed to look or whatever. Jonathan had to have a talk with her about me and him being friends. She made a whole thing about it. Pretty offensive to your anticonformist ideals.”

“I supposed then, I’d like to think of her, not as a conformist, but as a nonconformist in the making,” Eddie says, pointedly.

Steve snorts. “Is that how you think of every conformist?”

“Nah, but Nancy’s already got her whole ‘defy expectations’ thing going on.”

“What about her anyway? You brought her up earlier at Family Video.”

“Yeah, so, turns out I just barely didn’t graduate again-”

“Oh, Eddie, I’m sorry-”

“No, hey, listen though. Because Principal Higgins tried to convince me to just let graduation go. He was all pitying about it; it was disgusting. Anyway, I complained about it to Robin, I didn’t want the kids to treat me all sensitive about it, because they would .

“I guess Robin brought it up to Nancy and she marched down to Higgins' office and demanded- Ok, you might not know this actually. So a lot of Chrissy and Jay’s friends were given the special privilege of attending summer school to make up for issues they may have faced as a result of ‘the tragedy.’ And Nancy argued that I should be given the same privilege since I was arguably more affected by the situation than anybody, even if I wasn’t as close to the people involved.

“So he checked my grade records or whatever and saw a deterioration around spring break, and decided I should get the opportunity to try to graduate this year through summer school. I won’t be involved in the graduation ceremony though…”

“Ups and downs.”

“Yeah. I’m so glad to finally be over everything. And Nancy said she’d tutor me to make absolutely sure I’ll be able to pass.”

“Oh, Nancy’s the best tutor, dude!”

“Remind me again why you don’t want to get into a relationship with Nancy.”

“God, why do you even care so much?”

“It just seems right, doesn’t it? The jock with the girl next door.”

“You’ve said yourself that there are exceptions to the rules. And what makes Nancy the girl next door anyway? What does that mean ?”

“It’s the person you’ll always find there. Reliable. I mean, you guys broke up, like… three years ago or something. But you were led back to each other again when… Doesn’t it just feel right?”

“First of all, we broke up like a year and a half ago. I don’t know where you got that number. Second, we were both already involved in the Upside Down situation. We were always going to run into each other if it showed up again. We did last year too, we just happened to have more time between everything this time. And no… it doesn’t feel right. We’ve both changed so much-”

“Isn’t that part of it though. You were too different to stay together, you break up, you both grow into the people you need to be to work out when you’re brought together later in life. How incredible is that?”

“Yeah, it’s cool as an idea of something that could happen, that doesn’t mean it’ll work out that way.”

And Eddie seems to misunderstand what he means, because he says, “But you do want it to.”

“No man. It’s a fun story. Maybe you should write it down or something. But that’s not where we are.”

“Apparently you don’t talk often enough to even know that!”

“I’m just not interested in dating her anymore! Can’t that be enough?”

“Ok, ok,” Eddie puts his hands up in defeat. “I believe you.”

“Sorry.” Steve deflates. “It’s just… for some reason everyone seems to think they know what I want. Dustin keeps trying to get me with Robin- I mean, he’s pushed less lately. Maybe it’s because I started dating again.”

“Oh! You already have a girlfriend?”

“Huh? Oh, no. But I did get back into casual dating for a while.”

“I don’t think I know what that means. Like, a friends with benefits situation?”

“No, it’s like dating around.”

“Oh.”

“You ever been on a date before?”

Eddie scoffs, then tilts his head in thought. “Eh… I guess I have. We just didn’t label it as such at the time.”

Steve almost says, ‘The dates are my favorite part,’ but Eddie’s already really weird about Steve liking sex, and he really doesn’t want to get into it by revealing that he prefers the dates themselves. So he doesn’t.

“They’re nice, right?” he says instead.

“Yeah.” There’s a half finished glass of water on Eddie’s bedside table. It seems to have been sitting there for at least a day, little tiny air bubbles sticking to the innerside. Eddie picks it up and takes a sip anyway. “I’ve only been on a few, and they weren’t public or anything.”

Steve shrugs. “Isn’t that better? It doesn’t feel more intimate to have a date, just, at your house.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ve ever lived in a whole-ass house.”

“Shut up, man. You know what I mean.”

“Nah, we had our date by a creek. We, uh, pretended to fish. That sounds kinda dumb, huh?”

“No,” Steve says softly. “It doesn’t. Sounds nice. Tell me about it?”

“Well, I obviously play DnD, but both of us were people who played make believe long after we were considered too old for it. I mean, it was like middle school but still. Tuna is cheap, you know, and we’re both—presumably still are, definitely in my case—pretty broke. So we both got tuna sandwiches a lot, and we would sit by the creek and pretend to catch our own meal. ‘Living off the land,’ you know. It certainly made it easier to scarf down the same thing every day.

“I guess that doesn’t really sound like a date, but trust me, you-” He straightens up slightly and lets out a small chuckle. “My eyes are up here,” he says, pointing.

Steve’s eyes snap up. “Sorry.” Robin’s really been spoiling him, huh? “My ears have just been ringing a lot today,” he stammers, “and it’s sometimes hard to make out what you’re saying. I didn’t mean to.”

“Hey, whoa, it’s ok, man. Honestly I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. There’s no reason you can’t look at my mouth, ok?”

The bit of tension that Steve gained in his body leaves and he nods.

“Anyway,” Eddie continues, “It doesn’t sound like a traditional date, and we didn’t call it a date, but… this was with one of my old friends, you know? And, the whole group, we didn’t always need to talk about things for them to be known between us. We didn’t say we were dating, but it was just known, by us and by the rest of the group. We just started kissing one day and hanging out separate from the group. We didn’t talk about being exclusive, but we were. It was an unspoken thing.”

Steve hums. “That sounds nice, but you probably definitely should have talked about it.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I think I was too afraid of ruining it at the time though. Again, to this day, I’m pretty sure it was real and everything, I was just afraid that speaking it would make it all fall down. And I think everyone else knew I was afraid, so they didn’t refer to it either.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“You do? I mean, I’d get it if you didn’t, it’s kind of weird.”

“When I was dating Nancy, she never told me she loved me back. She always acted like it though. Maybe it was just my imagination or wishful thinking, but I thought the issue was about expressing it or whatever. So I kept telling her I loved her, and that she didn’t need to say it back if she felt weird about it. Maybe she thought I knew she didn’t, and that’s why I was saying that. I don’t know. But I thought that me saying it would make it easier as a thing in her brain or something.

“That it might be easier to say once she got used to hearing it.” He shrugs. “And I do think that maybe telling her made her feel pressured to try to love me back, staying in the relationship longer than necessary. The longer I was with her the more I loved her, you know? So it hurt more. I think it’s made finding a new girlfriend harder. Because I don’t want to start anything moving too fast or whatever, but… I’m too… needy, I guess… It’s just causing a lot of problems. Sorry, I don’t mean to dump this on you.”

“What is it you said? The Upside Down brings people twice as close or something. It’s fine.”

Steve laughs lightly. “Something like that.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Keith shows up at Steve’s place at—motherfucking, no joke—11:30 PM. He’s lucky the ringing has kept Steve up.

“Buckley says Jonathan has been staying at your place lately.”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I wanted to talk to him about some photo stuff.”

“Ok. Vague.”

Jonathan happens to be awake. Apparently he’s been staying up later and sleeping in class because he graduates in mere days, and can’t be bothered anymore.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He gets one of his ‘old nightmares’ that night. It’s a nice change of pace from the recurring bats tearing through him.

This nightmare more epitomizes the description of ‘old’ than any of the ones he’d told Robin about before, because he’d definitely had this one before, but he’d almost forgotten about it. Where he goes to school, and his locker is nowhere to be found. And it’s so stupid, but while it starts with him worrying about getting his things so he can get to class it ends one of two ways.

The first is not how it goes today, where he starts questioning if he ever existed. No one passing him acknowledges him, though he begs.

The other way it can end, the way it ends tonight, he goes up to Tommy and asks what happened to it. But he just responds, “Uh, we got rid of you.” Like it’s obvious. “You aren’t even supposed to be here right now,” he snarls

Except this time it’s not Tommy. It’s Robin.

He wakes up and grips the phone on his bedside table, but he just can’t pick up. He’s never been hesitant to talk to Robin before, and he’s still not really, but he doesn’t know what he would even say over the phone. How he’s supposed to tell her that, on some subconscious level, he thinks she’s capable of dropping him like that. After all, the only reason he developed the nightmare in the first place is because he was aware it was possible with Tommy or Carol.

He gets in his car, because he can’t make himself pick up the phone, can’t make himself ask her to reassure him that she’ll never leave, because she shouldn’t have to. He knows though, that her presence alone will be of enough comfort.

The revelation that Tommy thought he would crawl back is insane. That’s what he thinks about on the way to Robin’s. Because sure, Steve had disagreed with Tommy and Carol’s idea of fun before, but he’d only ever backed out before, never called them out on it. But he’d never joined them either, never felt the wave of regret. And maybe he would have still crawled back had Tommy not threatened him about having pushed back.

Actually, no… He still would have. But the fact that Tommy did threaten him and still just assumed he’d be back is weirdly telling. Again, not that he was wrong. There’s a reason Steve hadn’t pushed back until then. He was afraid of being alone. Tommy probably knew that too. If he knew that Steve was aware how little he cared about Steve, willing to knock his teeth out for finally expressing what they all already knew he thought. It’s crazy that he would have crawled back.

Really the only reason he didn’t do so wasn’t even because of the demogorgon, in realizing that some things are bigger than a barely stable friendship. It was just Nancy showing genuine interest. Just the hope that maybe he wasn’t doomed, that some people might actually be capable of liking him. With Nancy it was a ruse, but thank god he fell for it. Because apparently the hope was still warranted.

He can’t thank Nancy enough for getting him Dustin, Erica, Max, everyone, but mostly Robin. His Robin. He’s at her house now.

He taps on the window of her ground level bedroom in their established pattern. Loud enough she’d hear it if she were awake, but not loud enough to wake her. Just being here is making him feel better, so if she’s not awake he’ll just let her be. She’s always awake after his worst nightmares, because he always calls first. This isn’t one of those times.

But she is awake. He hears a scramble after he taps and the curtains are pushed aside, the window thrown open with a clunk.

“I’ve been trying to call you, asshole!”

“Whoa, hey, hey…” He draws her in and they hug through the window. She’s unwilling to give much distance, crawling out the window instead of going around through the door. Most days that it’s necessary they see each other in person there’s a call, and then she can wait impatiently at the door.

“What happened?” he asks, once they’ve settled on the couch, Robin playing koala to Steve’s tree,  with his arm draped over her shoulder.

“You died again. You know how when Jay died, like… half his face was carved out?”

“Yeah…”

“I didn’t think I’d see anything worse than that until it was you. And I feel shitty saying that, because Jay was his own whole person, who didn’t deserve that, but I didn’t really know him. It was mostly just gruesome, but when it was you…”

“It’s ok, Robin.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Then… can I look at them?”

“Oh… Why? I just… don’t see why that would help.”

“I need to see that it’s healed.”

“It is.”

“Then let me see it.”

“It’s not pretty, Robs. It might not help.”

Robin sighs. “We got it to stop bleeding before we fought Vecna, and then they broke open again, and that’s why we had to take you to the hospital. In the dream, you’d been hiding the fact you never healed right, and you just kept bandaging it and holding it together. Then you just tripped and started bleeding everywhere and those demo–creatures- they’re attracted to the smell of blood, and they just swarmed out of nowhere. So I need to see your gross scarring so I know it’s not even grosser scabbing.”

He reluctantly pulls up the hem of his shirt until the scarred over gash is visible. She holds her hands up, hovering them over the scars. She gives him a look and he nods, so she resumes her action, fingers brushing along the scars. He shivers.

“Sorry,” she says.

“It’s ok. It doesn’t hurt or anything. I just… usually try to ignore them. I guess they’re still a little sensitive.”

She hums. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I… couldn’t…”

Robin blinks a couple times. “Is… your phone down?”

“No, it’s not that. Just… it’s stupid.”

Steve can practically see the gears turning in Robin’s head, and damn it she knows him too well. “Old nightmare then?”

Steve sighs. “Kind of. Different. Needed to see you, but I didn’t know what I’d even say over the phone.”

“You can call just to say you’ll be over. In fact, please do.”

He chuckles lightly. “Sorry. I should have thought…”

“So what happened?”

“It’s not… Your dream was-”

“My dream. Is over.”

“So’s mine.”

“Come on.” She nudges him. “I could use the distraction.”

He sighs. “Tommy came into the store yesterday. I think… he was willing to, like, ‘let me be his friend again’ and then got really pissed when I made it clear I didn’t want to. And it’s weird, because even when I did call him my friend, I didn’t really think he liked me that much. I was always worried he’d realize that and then dump me and I’d have no one left.

“And then the one time I decided to call him out for shit I’ve never liked he threatened me, so I figured… That’s obviously it. That’s why I’d never called him out before, but that was the only time it was ever, like… worth it.

“But then he came in today, acting like he expected me to come back. Like, he was more pissed at me for not still wanting to be friends with him after he threatened me than he was for calling him out and telling him he was an asshole.”

Robin stops roaming her hands over his scars and leans on his shoulder, sinking into place. “What a bag of dicks.”

“I just don’t get it.” Steve sniffs. “Why would he-” He cuts himself off with a sigh.

“I think he knew you were lonely, and overestimated the lengths you’d go to keep people around. I think threatening you was… I mean, that was, like, the first time you tried to stand up to him, so… I think he was trying to put you in your place, basically.”

Steve sniffs. “Fuck, I’m pathetic.”

“No. He was wrong. He’s just pissed he miscalculated the fact you do have boundaries.” She rolls her eyes. “How he maintained his unearned confidence is just… I mean, I know where it comes from, I’m just surprised it maintained through high school. Obviously the self entitlement would probably stick around, but how he managed to not get any pushback from his fellow students before is a mystery to me.”

“You never said anything to him either.”

“Yeah, but I’m me, whereas Eddie is… not.”

Steve hums. “Where does it come from?”

“Hm?”

“The unearned confidence. You said you know where it comes from.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s funny because I used to assume every rich kid would have the same deal, but apparently not. Always defying expectations, you. But most rich parents don’t care too much about what their kids get up to. So they just never tell them no to anything. ‘You wanna go blow up the factory? Have fun I guess. It’s not like we don’t have the funds to casually bail you out of jail.’ That kind of thing.”

Steve snorts. “God, I think even Tommy couldn’t get away with blowing up a factory . That kind of behavior reflects back on his parents, and they wouldn’t want to be known as the people who let their kid do that.”

“You know that about Mr. and Mrs. Hagan?”

“Well… I’ve never really met them. Tommy always wanted to do things at my house since it was empty a lot. See, there probably were things he wasn’t allowed to do.”

“Or he just liked the idea of having a big space like that to himself. Would his parents really get him in trouble if he fucked Carol on the couch, or would he just be bothered they even found out about it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Do you know Tommy to have ever gotten in trouble for anything?”

“I know he got grounded one time for breaking his grandmother's urn.”

Robin raises her eyebrows at him as if to say, ‘Yeah, seems like a real disciplined kid if it took that just to get him grounded.’

“But it’s not like he knew anything about how I would get in trouble.” And now he’s thinking about the closet again, which is something he’s still just… not gotten around to telling her about. But well… Eddie had figured it out, so maybe… “Do you know about that?”

“Hm?”

“How I would get in trouble?”

“You got cut off.”

“Yeah, for not getting into college, but like… I still had to be punished for bad grades in middle school,” he laughs. “Stuff like that.”

She doesn’t laugh with him. “‘For bad grades?’ Has your mom burned your stuff because of bad grades?”

“Oh! No, no, no, nothing like that. I forgot you knew about that actually. No, she never burned my stuff as punishment, she was just getting rid of, like, the ugly stuff. Like when I got too old for toys. Anything that’s not a good look- To still have them. That’s why she does that.”

And there’s a beat. “What, are you defending that?” she exclaims.

“No! I’m just… aware there’s a difference.”

“Ok, so… if that wasn’t a ‘punishment…’ what was?”

“You know that closet that’s kinda next to the stairs.”

“You have a few closets kinda next to the stairs…” she answers tentatively.

“No, not the hall closets. The one, like, around the corner. Downstairs.”

“Oh, that’s a closet? Who puts-” she cuts herself off… “locks… on a closet… Shit. How long?”

“Well, the first time was in… third grade? I think?”

“No, I mean… How long would they leave you in there?”

“Well… When I was younger they just waited for me to stop crying, for the most part. Or, it was more like once I manned up and stopped crying and they remembered to pull me out. But when I got older they’d usually just wait for… a while.”

“How long is a while?”

Steve shrugs. “It depends on how bad they thought I needed it I guess. But usually long enough to-” He takes a deep breath. This is so embarrassing, but Robin is supposed to be his person. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about. In his mind the two know each other inside and out and there’s no barriers between them, so why can’t he talk about it?

“Long enough to what?”

“Long enough… that I’d have to change my pants when I got out,” he talks around it, letting the implication linger. The steady few seconds of silence is interrupted by the battery powered alarm clock they put in there and Robin has to get ready for school.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

When Steve gets to work it’s immediately obvious what Keith needed Jonathan’s help with, because the front desk has an enlarged copy of Tommy’s yearbook photo with a “Do Not Provide Service” label on it.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

When Robin comes in after school, she seems pretty somber. They didn’t talk about it on the drive to school. He thinks she wasn’t sure how to bring it up again without embarrassing him. Or… embarrassing him further. She can’t so easily bring it up at work either, because it’s the after school rush, and it won’t die down until after they clock out entirely.

She finally brings it up once they’re in the car, driving back to her place.

“You got in trouble for bad grades?”

“Not in too much trouble. Just a couple hours. And, uh,” he forces a chuckle, “the grades were pretty bad. And you know how my parents are all about image. Dumb didn’t make them look good.”

“Why do you still feel the need to defend them?”

“What? I’m not. I literally just said that they only got me in trouble about grades for making them look bad.”

“Yeah, but you also downplay it. ‘Just a couple hours.’ That doesn’t make it more reasonable just because they’ve also stuck you in there for however long it takes you to-” She cuts herself off before she verbalizes the fact he’s pissed himself in that closet.

“I’m not trying to defend them! I just don’t want you to think it’s like… Like, yeah, it was shitty for them to do that, but I mean, a couple hours isn’t too bad.”

“Steve, what's the longest you’ve been in there?”

“Don’t… get weird about it…”

“ Steve .”

“A couple days.”

“Stop the car.”

“I told you not to get weird about it.”

“ Steve! ”

He sighs and pulls over. Robin gets out of the car and just starts pacing. Steve pulls himself out of the car and rests his arms on top, just before she stops pacing and squats to the ground, sticking her head in her hands.

“Robin-”

“Did you eat?” she asks as her head whips toward him and her arms fall limp, and the question sounds almost accusatory.

“When… When Vanessa could get away with it.”

“How often was that?”

“... Once.”

She takes a deep shuddering breath and enters the car again. “Finish taking me home,” she says.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

When they get there, she makes no move to get out.

“I don’t even think you’re dense enough for it to get past you how fucked up that is,” she says. “I know that… when you get used to an environment, certain behaviors seem normal, but… you have to know that it’s not.” She’s looking at him pleadingly.

“Yeah, I know Robin,” he says sincerely. “We’ve already been over this. My parents actively don’t like me. They only had a kid because it was what they were supposed to do, or maybe they were just… you know… horny? But I wasn’t who they thought I was supposed to be and… I guess it pissed ‘em off.”

“My parents aren’t great,” she says, “but when my grades started slipping because Barb started spending more time with Nancy and less time with me, well… they didn’t notice immediately, but when grade cards came out… my mom sat me down and talked to me about it. And it wasn’t the best talk, you know, but it was something. And my grades did start to slowly improve after that.”

“What did she say?”

“Hm?”

“She talked to you about it. What did she have to say about it?”

“Basically that if Barb couldn’t like me for who I was then fuck her. It kind of helped, but mostly it just made me realize how she thinks of other people. Like, people can’t be upset about anything she does because at least she’s ‘living her truth’ or whatever, and fuck anyone who doesn’t let or want her to do that.”

Steve hums. “Not the worst advice.”

“Do you… have any issues with tight spaces?”

“What, from the closet? I don’t know, maybe. I don’t really find myself in tight places all that often. But the closet does freak me out…”

“What about… car washes? I know you wash your car pretty regularly. When soap covers the windows so you can’t see out and you can’t exactly exit the car while it’s-”

“Stop talking.”

She draws back from where she was leaning subtly into his space. She opens her mouth before seeming to think better of it.

“I just,” he stammers. “Don’t talk about it.”

“Don’t talk about… car washes? Like, the whole nine yards?”

“No, no, it’s not-” He gets out of the car, and leans against its door. Robin follows suit, standing next to him. Getting out of the car, he’s already significantly calmer, and he thinks she can tell.

“I think it’s safe to say you don’t deal with tight spaces that well.”

“Sure…”

“So… Do you clean your car by hand then?”

“Usually.”

“And… otherwise?”

“I can do car washes, Robin! I just don’t- I can’t think about the fact that I can’t leave the car while it’s happening!”

“Oh, ok… Hey, can you drive me to Benny’s?”

“Burgers? Why? You know the place closed down, right?”

“Yep! And it’s got a… decently sized parking lot. You said you’d teach me how to drive.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

As a surprise to probably no one, Robin’s even less coordinated in a car than she is in her body. Obviously the fact she has to operate the car using her body doesn’t help. She’s a panicky mess the whole time and Steve has to cut off the lesson after a half an hour, despite Robin’s insistence that ‘No no no no no, I can do this.’

And maybe she can, but it’s gonna have to be something that she’s super eased into.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Friday is the last day of school, the graduation ceremony set in for a week from it. The Hopper-Byers were supposed to leave today, but it’s been pushed to Wednesday, which means they have one more Sunday than expected. Two more full days with them that Steve doesn’t have to work.

Erica complains about how she was so stressed on getting the campaign set up in time and she had a whole extra week the whole time. But Steve is glad to have the extra days; thinks he could set up the hang out he’d suggested to Nancy back at the Creel house. It’d be nice to hang out with Jonathan and Robin together.

He figured since Nancy and Jonathan were together it would make things easier, but now he knows they’ve been having some kind of issues, and he doesn’t even know if Nancy is aware of those issues yet. Jonathan’s not exactly confrontational. But when he brings up the idea of the hang out, Jonathan gives a handwave and says that he and Nancy could hang out, but he asks if Argyle can come hang out too.

“Sure, if I can bring Eddie.”

Jonathan lets out a small laugh. “To the hang out you’re organizing? You need my permission? Bring whoever you want. Isn’t that the point?”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He’d initially wanted to go to a diner or something, the idea of being able to hang out as a group and just be normal is so appealing, but there’s a lot of them, and the fact that the only thing all of them share in common is being involved with the Upside Down means that it would likely come up. So he orders pizza and sets it up at his own dining room table.

It’s pretty interesting, because—and he’s only really now just realizing—he usually only really hangs out with his friends one on one, besides Dustin and Robin. It’s a bit awkward before Nancy gets there, because no one really knows what to talk about now that this is really happening, but Nancy apparently had some conversation starters ready, because she actually thought ahead. It’s honestly kind of embarrassing, since this was all Steve’s idea.

“Since Dr. Owens explained some of the situation to the Pennhurst warden on Steve’s insistence for the sake of the coverup, he knows about The Situation, and I’m thinking about contacting him. I felt bad for the Ruth Rose thing, and want to tidy things over. And since he knows now that Victor Creel was innocent, he’s been getting better treatment, so maybe I can talk to him some too. I just think it might be nice for him.”

“That is nice,” Robin says.

“Yeah, I was hoping you would come with me. Since you're the Rose to my Ruth.”

“Oh… um…”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” Eddie asks. “Didn’t you guys almost get arrested for that stunt?”

“Well, I’m hoping that with proper context, he’ll be understanding of why we had to do that. Us going would be kind of an olive branch.”

“But what if he isn’t though?” Robin asks. “What if he thinks you should have just explained the situation in the first place?”

“As if he’d have ever believed me!”

“I know he wouldn’t have, but there’s a foresight there that changes perspective. If he knows the situation now, and he knows it’s true, it might make it hard to conceptualize a time when he didn’t know those things and wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Anthony Hatch is a reasonable man. He’s made it to his position for a reason.”

“Is he?” Robin asks. “I had to go on a rant about disrespect for him to let us see Victor.”

“There's a procedure.”

“Which he let us pass through after I called him out! Obviously it wasn’t that important in the first place. He just didn’t like that we didn’t go through all the propper and apparently unnecessary bureaucracies.”

“Well, to be entirely honest, I don’t exactly feel comfortable with the fact he has knowledge of the situation and he’s just out there, unconnected from the group entirely.”

“And that’s fair, I’m just saying if you want to contact him again, maybe don’t do it in person this time. Like… call first. Maybe even have an emergency ride set up for the first trip if things go ok with the call. Set up precautions.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “You aren’t exactly known for being cautious.”

She gives him a playful glare.

“Oh wow, Steve,” Eddie says. “Because you’re, just, the most cautious person ever.” He turns to Jonathan. “Did you know that his bat bites reopened because he kept running head on with an ax at the guy with telekinesis?”

“What?” Jonathan says. “ No ?”

“He was fine,” Nancy says, putting up a placating hand. “The method worked, and something had to be done. The world was at stake and Steve knew that. He’s matured a lot since all this started.”

“Well… How do you know?” Argyle asks.

“What? I dated him.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never seen him when the world was at stake before. I mean, I don’t think so.” He looks over at Jonathan for confirmation, who nods. “Yeah, so, how do you know he wouldn’t have done that before?”

“He ran from the demogorgon the first time, and it was just one.”

Steve’s honestly trying not to interrupt. It’s really interesting seeing people discuss him like this, and he’s really hoping it doesn’t occur to them that they’re talking about him in front of him. Jonathan’s been watching him though, and when he realizes that Steve isn’t going to defend himself says, “He did come back for us though,” around his pizza. “And it wasn’t even the stake of the world that time, it was just us two.”

“It’s not like he was actually scared.”

And that shocks Steve enough to contribute. “Wait, why do you think that?”

“Come on, Steve. Obviously you were ‘scared.’ You ran the first time, but you weren’t exactly mortally terrified. You weren’t risking your life or anything. You ambushed the thing and didn’t even give it the time to lunge at you if it wanted. You didn’t give it the leverage so there was nothing for you to even be scared of.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Of course I couldn’t give it time to lunge at me. Because I knew I would have died if I gave it that time. Of course I ambushed it. Because if it had time to see me before I got to it. I. Would. Have. Died .”

More silence follows before Nancy responds again. “Oh. You seemed so confident in the moment. I always thought you were running on unearned jock confidence.”

Steve scrunches his eyebrows and puts his hands up in exasperated confusion.

“Well, he won didn’t he?” Eddie chimes in, draping his arm over Steve’s shoulder. “I’d say it was well earned.”

“You know what I mean.”

There’s a short silence before Robin launches into a complete non sequitur. “You know, if I knew you guys were just letting other people tag along I would have asked Vickie to come.” Everyone turns to her, wondering how her train of thought conjured that up. “Sorry, I just wanted to bring that up earlier and there was no point for it and I didn’t want to forget. It seemed like a decent point of conversation and I’m not usually very good at that so I wanted to throw it in there.”

“It’s a good point of conversation, Robin,” Steve confirms. “How’s that friendship developing anyway?”

Her face turns red slightly, then scrunches in annoyance. “Aw come on, really?”

“This was your conversation starter.”

“Vickie Knight?” Nancy asks.

“Y-yeah, that’s her.”

“Well, I don’t think it would have been a good idea to invite anyone outside the party here anyway.”

“Yeah fair point,” Steve says. “There’s a reason we’re just doing this at my house. I’d have really liked to take this somewhere.”

“What if we went to a theater?” Argyle suggests. “It’s not like having to cram everyone into a booth, and we’d be more focused on the movie to really be thinking about all this ‘Upside Down’ government experimentation coverup stuff, so it’s not like we’d slip up and reveal anything. And then Robin can invite her friend.”

Steve groans and sinks down his chair. “Steve can never focus on new movies,” Robin explains briefly.

“Bummer.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

“So how is your ‘friendship’ with Vickie developing?” he asks as he drives Robin home.

She sighs long and hard. “I think I’m gonna have to break up with her already.”

He almost swerves. “Whoa! What, why? You haven’t even used the g word yet.”

“The g word?”

“Girlfriends.”

“Are you in middle school?”

“Stop avoiding the question. Why would you need to break up already? So far I’ve only heard good things.”

“Yes, she’s great, but… she keeps getting closer and… I don’t want to want to tell her everything. Like, she hasn’t been super pushy or anything, but she’s suggested staying over at each other’s houses before, and I don’t want to have to keep declining because I know I’m gonna wake up screaming in the middle of the night. And… as nice as it sounds to get so close to someone that I’d be willing to risk telling them, even with the NDAs, I don’t want that. I don’t know if that makes me a coward or something, but I just feel like breaking up with her now would be safer. Before I get too close.”

“Well, Robs, come on, if you use that logic you’ll never get a girlfriend.”

“It’s just- It’s so recent, so I think with time it will get better, but everything’s too soon, and it’s been so hard not to talk about. And I definitely don’t want to live in Hawkins forever, so I think that leaving will be really good for that too. Remember before we went after Vecna, and I told you that the whole situation was putting things into perspective. I can’t be in a relationship until I’m ready for it, and that means time.”

“Well it puts things into perspective for me too. You can die at any time, Robin. Don’t you want to be happy with what time you have?”

“I don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy. I mean, shit, it makes me so happy, but… it also hurts, being in a relationship I have to hide myself from because I’m just… somewhere else right now. I can’t be fully happy in a relationship until I’ve worked my own shit out.”

“I guess… Do you want to stay friends with Vickie?”

She sighs. “I don’t know… I think… because if she knows I’m breaking up with her because I have my own issues to deal with, she’s still going to want to help, and I’m just going to fall more hopelessly for her.” She sighs. “She’s great.”

“Are you… ready to be breaking up with her?”

Robin doesn’t answer.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

One Tuesday he helps the Byers pack up everything they had left in the cabin into boxes, and into the car. There’s not a lot they have left, since they aren’t moving exactly. Hawkins was just a pit stop while everyone recovered in varying ways, and they already have things like furniture in their house in Cali. So it’s mostly stuff they had to buy to make do in the space they weren’t set up in, kitchenware and clothes. They don’t technically need them, but they’re going to make use out of what they paid for.

Once he fills his box up, he closes it and takes it outside. He pauses at the edge of the porch when he sees Bob walking toward the cabin. He didn’t know he was coming and it’s already really throwing him off. He opens his mouth to say something, but he doesn’t really know what, but Bob puts his finger to his lips. He looks giddy. Oh, he’s surprising Joyce. He nods, a smile working its way on his face, and makes his way over to the truck and drops off the box.

He hears squeals of delight from several of the residents of the house, and several more clattering footsteps. He comes back inside to see Joyce peppering Bob’s face with kisses and the kids looking conflicted, standing at a distance and not coming any closer, but vibrating with anticipation until Joyce finally stops and they rush in and everyone is holding each other close.

And Steve just watches, because what else is he going to do? Join in? He knows Bob, and he likes him, but he was never really close to him. It occurs to him then that Bob has been all on his own in Cali, maintaining the house and the financial situation, having to live with the knowledge that the woman he loves is in Hawkins, the place they both could have died together twice. Where he had to come in clutch to save people in both cases, and he wouldn’t have had access to them.

Steve could never do that. If he moved away from Hawkins, and then the Upside Down showed up again, he could never let Robin go to investigate it herself. Even though he trusts her intuition, trusts that she would call if something turned out risky. He’s not… brave enough? He already had so much respect for Bob, but the amount of stress he must have maintained, knowing Joyce was here, but that if he followed he would likely upend the life they’d made for themselves in Cali. Not just their social standing, the way it had been when they left Hawkins, but their ability to support themselves financially.

And watching this… Steve wants; he aches . He wants someone who would be willing to support him through all the kinds of things Joyce has, who will hold no ill will about it, and would surprise him like this. Someone whose presence would be a surprise enough for Steve.

But he’s been thinking about what Robin said, about needing to get better before putting yourself on someone, and maybe that’s why this hurts so much now. Because he’s considering putting relationships off, and realizing that he’s already been doing that and it’s been so long since he’s been held and held another, the way Bob and Joyce are holding each other now. And he’s been considering putting it off even longer and it hurts.

And now Bob’s here, and his respect for him isn’t only something he’s reminded of, but something that was just reinforced, and Bob doesn’t approve of… the way Steve does relationships. But he doesn’t know how else to go about it.

His spiral is cut short by the sound of thrashing guitar through radio speakers and tires on gravel coming from outside. When the group hug starts parting at the interruption, Steve makes a gesture with his hands to say, ‘You guys can stay here. I’ll take care of it.’

“You came here all on your own?” Steve asks from the porch as Eddie approaches. “No convincing needed?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get sappy on me,” he says as he closes the van door. “Look, you’re probably right. Don’t let it get to your head. But I think… It probably does more harm than good to keep this barrier up.” He lets out a deep sigh. “This fucking sucks.”

“Wow, should I tell Dustin you said that? That you think we suck.” He was trying to keep the tone light, but Eddie doesn’t follow along.

“God, shut up, man. You know what I mean. I’m just… Look, I’m gonna go into this slow and see how it works out. If Dustin were here I wouldn’t have even come, because he’d make a big deal about it.”

“He didn’t for the DnD nights, did he?”

“I guess not.” He sighs. “Which is a real surprise if I’m honest.”

“Dustin’s a little shit, but he knows when to be sensitive. After everything we’ve gone through, he can be trusted with this kind of stuff.”

“Well, I’m just here to help pack up. Figured it would be a good starting point to, I don’t know, let people know I can be around if I need to be? I don’t know.”

“Good, that’s good. There isn’t that much to pack up though actually, and we’ve kind of hit a stopping point. Mrs. Byers’ boyfriend just showed up all the way from Cali.”

Eddie squints. “I thought Hopper was her boyfriend. He is the one who’s… been here .”

“Oh, no, they’re just… bonded? From- And their kids are like siblings after everything so it’s just good to keep them together, you know?”

“Are you sure? Because I’ve come over to the cabin a few times to do business with Argyle and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them kiss.” He quickly puts his hands up in a sort of defense pose. “I could be wrong though. I may have simply been mistaken.”

“Ok, well… You know we’re pretty much done packing everything up. I think it’s mostly clothes left, and I think everyone’s just doing their own. It would be a little weird to be rooting around in other people’s laundry.”

“Oh, ok. I was a little unsure about coming here anyway. I don’t think Will likes me very much.”

“What? Why do you think that?” Will is the sweetest of all the kids, and Steve has a hard time imagining that he would dislike anyone who doesn’t actively seek out to harm him or his friends first. And Eddie is like… the opposite of that. He encourages people to be themselves and shits on people who try to enforce otherwise.

“First day of school, I may have tried to get him to embrace his ‘zombie boy’ nickname and he didn’t take it well. Guess I know now that it wasn’t just a social issue that had him upset about it.”

“Even if it was though, not everyone is as brave as you, Eddie. Sometimes it’s easier to let the bullshit ride through, then let it go when you can.”

Eddie snorts. “‘Brave,’ right…”

“You can’t tell me that embracing the names thrown at you isn’t intimidating.” Even if Steve had embraced his sexual nature for a time, he’s still never been able to proclaim the associated terms as his own. The words his mother would call him, or at least imply.

“I think it’s more intimidating to let other people own the words that are already going to be associated with me.”

“Well, maybe you should talk to Will about it then. He’s not someone who doesn’t like people like that. I think maybe you could talk it through.”

“What, right now?”

Steve hums in thought. “They’re kind of having a reunion right now. I think we should leave them to it.”

“So that just leaves tomorrow for me to talk to him then. Cool, procrastination was always my strong suit.”

“Do you wanna do something?”

“I always wanna do something. I can’t just not do anything.”

“I’m thinking of inviting Dustin over to play uno-”

“To play uno ? You helped DM a campaign and you want to play uno?”

“I helped with the story part, and I barely did anything. I was more reassurance for Erica than anything else. I still don’t know anything about the game; not really. And I just figured it could be fun and a good way to ease you back in like you wanted, but forget it.”

“No, Steve, that’s not what I mean. I can play uno with you if that’s what you want.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know… It’s like you’re… treating me like a kid.”

“What? How?”

“‘Oh, you wanna play uno?’” he says, putting on the most condescending bitchy voice he can muster. “‘No really, that’s great, if you want to play the color number game, we can do that, sure.’”

“Wow, ok. You just put a lot of words in my mouth.”

“I don’t need to be told that I have the brain of a baby, ok? I know.”

“Well that’s dramatic.”

Steve scowls, quickly turns, and starts heading for his car. When he first asked Eddie if he wanted to go do something he was going to tell everyone he was heading out, but now he just needs to leave.

“Wait, Steve! I had no right to say that. I’m literally the most dramatic person I know.” Steve stops. “I just meant… you’re not a genius, but to say that you have the brain of a baby is so unnecessarily scathing.”

Steve rolls his eyes at the use of the word ‘scathing’, as he turns back to Eddie. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Then why are you upset?”

“Things can be true and upsetting.”

Eddie sighs and pulls his fingers down his hair. “Ok, look. I don’t think the fact you want to play uno instead of DnD makes you dumb just because it’s not all complicated and doesn’t have lore. I’d love to play it with you; it just threw me off guard, because you’re right, I haven’t played it since I was a kid, but not because it’s just a kids game. I don’t think you’re some kind of baby for wanting to play it.”

So Steve tells the family he’s going now, and takes Eddie the Hendersons’ place. He doesn’t know what he expected, but he just keeps thinking about how Eddie didn’t say ‘I don’t think you’re dumb;’ just that he didn’t think wanting to play uno made him dumb. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up that maybe someone would tell him that- well, not that he’s smart. That’s never going to happen. But just… smart enough.

What did he expect Eddie to say anyway? ‘It doesn’t matter if you can only play uno, because uno is a smart enough game?’ That’s stupid.

He’s pretty sure he’s visibly bummed out the whole night, but it’s pretty easy to explain away. With the Byers and Hoppers leaving, and so close to Dustin’s departure to camp.

“Camp?” Eddie exclaims. “What? When?”

“Oh…” Dustin says, seeming to realize that he’s once again forgotten to inform his older male friend that he leaves early June. “Like Friday?”

“What!” Eddie springs from his seat, his hands jumping to his head, causing Steve to jolt in his own seat. He smiles a bit, despite his general low mood.

“You need to get better at making sure people know when you’re about to be gone for a month,” he teases.

“A month!”

“It’s not like he’s been around to tell!” Dustin says. “Why didn’t you tell him? You’re the one he keeps tolerating for some reason.”

“Are you saying I’m not… tolera- toler-ate-able?”

“Tolerable.”

“Yeah.”

“I just don’t understand why you’re the one he sticks around for.”

“I just don’t understand how your summer camp didn’t come up for months into knowing each other.”

Eddie sits down on his chair with a grunt, sliding down into a hunched position. “We mostly just talked about DnD. I’m not scientifically inclined, so such topics are banned in Hellfire. We aren’t in the business of excluding people mentally, so we stay on topic.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Eddie’s all fidgety on the way back to Hopper’s cabin to reclaim his van.

“What’s up, man?”

“I wish someone had told me that he was leaving for a month! I would have-” he cuts himself off with a groan.

“‘Would have…’”

“I don’t know, man. It’s so conflicting. This is so hard.”

“That’s ok. Opening up can be hard. Hell, I only recently told Dustin-” His breath hitches and he cuts himself off from telling Eddie about how his parents cut him off.

“Told him what?”

“It’s nothing.”

Eddie scoffs, but doesn’t press further.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

After dropping Eddie off, Steve heads over to Laurie’s house, hoping she’ll want to go down, and remind him that it doesn’t matter . It’s just fun. There’s nothing wrong with it. He makes it about halfway there before having to pull over to catch his breath and work on willing his hands to stop shaking so he doesn’t swerve into a ditch.

He goes to Robin. It was stupid to think he could do some kind of one and done thing and just get over it. He got way more out of talking to Robin about it than that one time with Laurie, it was just one comment she made afterward that finally got him fully comfortable, but the time before that Laurie just sent him home for being ‘clearly not into it.’ He just needed Robin to remind him how sex isn’t the significant thing people act like it is.

‘ What does she know anyway ?’ a voice hisses from the back of his mind. ‘ She’s a virgin. She doesn’t know how raw it feels to let someone take you apart .’ And Steve’s let so many people take him apart. Let them see and know and feel all of him. And he did it after he knew he shouldn’t. He went on so many dates earlier this year, and he didn’t enjoy most of them and they still ended in sex that he was… less than enthusiastic about.

This is why he prefers to do this drunk. He doesn’t have to think about it when he’s drunk. He’s always in his head about how close the other person is, and maintaining eye contact. If people get weird about eye contact usually, they get really weird about it during sex. But if he drinks he can wake up in the morning and not even remember about it and it’s fine.

Of course he can’t get fully drunk after a date just to have stipulated sex. That would be offensive.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He ends up at Robin’s just because he wants to be in his room, whether or not he thinks Robin will be much help with her lack of experience. Besides, whether or not she knows what she’s talking about, Robin always helps . Just by virtue of being present.

She works on Tuesdays, and gets back not long after he does. She biked today because they expected Steve to be packing most of the day and unable to pick her up. She enters Steve’s room, having apparently seen his car in the driveway. He’s draped over the arm of the couch. He hasn’t cried, but he feels like he has been; the way it feels after you cry for hours. The almost cathartic tired feeling flooding his body with a distant headache.

“Finish up early?” she asks.

“Way early,” he confirms.

“Did… something happen?” She sits on the other end of the couch.

“Not really. Just been thinking.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

And he doesn’t want to dredge up an old conversation they’ve already gone over. Doesn’t want her to have to restate everything he already knows she believes. But he has been thinking about a lot of things the whole time he’s been here before she arrived. “You know how you said to just be careful and safe about sex?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I was just thinking because… I mean, when I have sex now it’s during dates and stuff. I was a lot more active in high school, but I also remember way less of that. I don’t actually know how often girls were using condoms or whatever. And I did tests before I started dating again, so I don’t have any… you know, diseases or whatever. But I was also thinking… My family's pretty rich. Would it be that hard to believe that some of the girls who slept with me were trying to get some kind of in. Like if they got pregnant I’d have to marry them and they could marry up. I don’t know. Maybe it’s stupid to worry about, and maybe there weren’t any actual gold diggers, but with all the girls I slept with,” and those words were hard to force out, “what are the chances that all of them set up protection? And if… What if I can’t have kids?”

Robin blinks a few times. “Well… you can always adopt. I would honestly be more concerned about STDs if I were you though.”

Steve waves her off. “I’ve made sure to get regularly checked after my dad got one a few years ago.”

Robin blanches. “Why do you even know that?”

“Are you kidding? My mom wouldn’t shut up about it. He obviously didn’t get it from her. And she obviously doesn’t want to get it, so that’s causing problems in their relationship.”

“Jesus… Hey, so… you’ve mentioned before how you’ve had drunk sex, and it was honestly a little concerning. I didn’t know how to bring it up, but since we’re already on the topic…”

“How… is that concerning?” And for half a second he’s nervous that she’s going to agree. That it’s not good that he can’t keep track of how much sex he’s had, and that he’s probably all used up. That he’s ruined and, hell, maybe that’ll be the reason he can’t have kids.

“I mean, you can’t really agree to have sex if you’re drunk.” That’s all ? That’s her only problem with it? It actually makes him let out a bit of a relieved chuckle.

“Robin, it’s not like I wasn’t prepared for it. If I’m going to get drunk I’m gonna know it’s possible I’ll have sex by morning.” This doesn’t seem to be of any comfort to her at all, her bottom lip pinching between her teeth.

“That’s not really better. When… When I picked you up from the Christmas party you-” she takes a breath. “You told me that you were so glad that it was me because you knew I wouldn’t want sex from you and that you were relieved and you really didn’t want to have sex.”

Steve shifts uncomfortably. “Well, ok, but if I have to have sex I’d definitely prefer it drunk. Because then I won’t have to remember in the morning.”

“But you don’t have to have sex! Like you get that, right?”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course I know that, but-” He doesn’t really know how to put his points into words. How is he supposed to ask how to talk to people if he can’t give them what they want? How is he supposed to find someone to fulfill the other half of his picket fence dreams? And honestly it sounds so whiney and pathetic compared to Robin’s issues with forming the relationship she wants. She got Vickie just by being herself but… well Robin’s self is so much better than Steve’s. It’s best he starts off with the best first impression he can give and what else is he supposed to do? But he doesn’t know how he’s meant to word this without sounding more pathetic than he thinks it actually is.

“But…” she prompts.

“I don’t know…”

“Look, I know you have this weird complicated relationship with sex, but you need to know that sex isn’t supposed to happen when one party isn’t interested.”

Steve shrugs. “I’m always down for it.”

“You’re obviously not. You literally just told me you prefer having sex drunk so you won’t have to remember.”

“Yeah, but it still feels good. I just don’t like it when… It’s hard to explain.”

“Ok. When did you first start with the whole ‘drunk sex’ thing?”

Steve shrugs. “I was drunk the first time. I don’t remember if it was my first time drunk or not though.”

Robin’s eyebrows shoot up. “‘ The first time ?’”

“Stop freaking out, Robin. I already told you, I prefer it that way anyway. Like, I was actually pretty lucid the second time and it was horrible . I thought I was gonna pass out.” Her eyes widen and Steve realizes how bad that sounds out loud. “Not like- Look, Becca had spread around that I was good, but since it was both of our first times, so this one senior girl wanted to check for herself, and well… you know, she wasn’t the most experienced either, so I just had to figure out what I was doing really fast so I didn’t suffocate, since she wanted to use my mouth.” ‘Those are some ugly words for such a pretty mouth,’ he hears Billy’s voice in the back of his mind. He ignores it with a gulp. “But now I know what I’m doing, so everything’s fine.”

“ Everything is not fine, Steve ! It’s so very not!” She puts her hands over her mouth and rests her elbows on her knees. She’s sitting in the way you’re ‘supposed to’ for maybe the first time since he’s met her, with her feet flat on the floor. It’s weirdly a little unnerving. “I just need a minute,” she says, and he realizes she’s trembling. He feels incredibly lost, because he wants to comfort her, but every time he’s tried it’s backfired and made it worse.

After a good ten seconds he shoots up and all but runs back to his car. He can hear Robin calling after him, but every time he opens his mouth she just gets more stressed. Plus, and this feels like a selfish motivation, he’s really worried she’s going to decide that he was right the whole time. He’s contaminated by everyone he’s had sex with and that’s why no one wants more from him anymore.

He makes it to Laurie’s house. Going through with… everything… feels like an accomplishment. Especially because she doesn’t call him out for not being into it like she has in the past. Maybe that’s because he is desperate to get it over with. Fuck the thoughts out of his head. Keep him from worrying that it’s too late for him. Especially when it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. If it’s already true, he might as well get the most out of it.

It’s almost a relief when Laurie brings out the glass of water that she always provides afterwards. It’s a small comfort and he feels a lot better in a lot of ways. Thinking about it, he’s pretty sure he hasn’t eaten in a few hours.

He stops at a gas station and picks up a granola bar while shoplifting a beer. Not that he didn’t actually want the granola bar; the realization that he hasn’t eaten in a while bringing with it the sensation of hunger. He eats on the way there, with the intention of cracking open the can once he gets home; maybe drinking it in a hot bath.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He’s gotten used to coming home to their chatter and now he’ll have to get used to the vacuum again. But that’s fine; it’s what he’d always dealt with before. It could be fine. He’ll readjust.

He’s wished Barb would haunt him in the past. Wished she would become a vengeful spirit, disrupting Steve’s life until any warranted just deserts were fulfilled. Make him pay as much as necessary, until his guilt was outweighed. Sometimes in instances in which he was feeling particularly existential he just wished she would haunt him to show proof of consciousness, because he’d seen her in the halls every day and invited her to a party and talked to her and she can’t just be gone now.

That can’t be how it ends; she has to have stuck around. He still treats her like she’s around the pool, even though he knows she’s not, just because it’s hard to get his brain to wrap around the idea she’s not, even though he knows. Sometimes she feels just out of his grasp. Back when he thought she hated him he sometimes felt like she was intentionally holding out on him because she knew it would affect him more if she abstained.

Now he just wishes she would haunt him just so there would be some kind of sound to fill up the space. He’d much prefer his cabinets slamming repeatedly to the emptiness. She never does, her consciousness dissipated years ago.

He’s been dreading the arrival to the house empty, but once he gets there, Robin’s sitting on the porch. He doesn’t realize that until he’s already exited the car, and she rushes forward, eveloping him in her arms.

And it’s weird, because he’d finally just got himself to calm down, to feel fine, but the moment Robin’s hugging him he just breaks. Slumps against her as a sob claws its way up his throat.

“Where have you been?” she asks gently. He shakes his head and pulls away. He can still feel Laurie on him. “ Steve .” She moves her hands to cup face, but he turns his head out of her reach. He’d used his mouth on Laurie, not that he hadn’t cleaned himself off already but…

“Don’t touch me. I need a shower.” Don’t touch me; I’m disgusting . She draws back, her face a mixture of confliction and understanding.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He barely hears the soft knock on the door over the shower spray and the spiked ringing. Robin doesn’t wait for him to respond before entering.

“Whoo, it’s steamy in here,” she laughs nervously. “Um, I noticed you didn’t bring any clothes to change into so I’m gonna leave them here on the sink, ok?”

“Ok.”

When he finally gets himself to turn off the water and pull back the curtain, he sees that Robin set out a pair of his own sweatpants, but that the hoodie sitting on the sink is the same one Robin showed up in. He puts them on and looks to the mirror to find it’s still fogged up. He knows he should go about his skin care routine, but he can’t be bothered to treat it right now, especially knowing how reddened it’s become under the heat of the water.

He finds Robin on his bed, just waiting for him.

“I looked for your yellow sweater,’ she says, “because I know you find it comforting, but I couldn’t find it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve says, sliding under the covers.

“You ok?”

“This is so stupid. I should be-” He cuts himself off with a sniff.

“You’re allowed to feel however you feel about anything.”

“But I like sex. I mean, usually at least. It does feel good. I’m not, like, lying about that.”

“Ok, so like… I like the taste of chocolate, right?”

“Um…”

“But I hate eating it, because it hurts my teeth and it makes my stomach hurt, and my stomach doesn’t even hurt while I’m eating it, but if I eat chocolate I’m just gonna be dreading what’s gonna happen later. You know?”

Steve shrugs. “I guess.”

“You should stop ignoring yourself about it.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The Cali–unit are set to leave an hour after Steve and Robin get off work, so they head over as soon as possible to find everyone chilling outside, just chatting with each other.

“Missed you last night,” Steve tells Jonathan. “Guess I’ll have to get used to that.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss you too.”

“Have you broken up with Nancy yet?”

Jonathan startles slightly. “Did I not tell you? No man, she broke up with me first. Said the distance caused a drift, and if she felt a connection again while we were in college she’d be willing to try again, but that she didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. I told her that I’d prefer to go to a college closer to my family anyway, and I was worried about telling her.” He tilts his head in consideration. “I guess you could argue that it was a mutual breakup, but she did initiate it.”

“Oh, well that’s good.”

Eddie’s a loud person, so when he walks out of the cabin, Steve notices. It’s pretty startling because Steve really didn’t expect him to want to come to a gathering so densely populated. Everyone in the party is here, including people Eddie’s certainly never met before, like El. It’s also pretty surprising because Steve would have noticed if Eddie’s van was in the driveway.

Jonathan’s still talking about how he and Nancy still plan on trying to maintain a relationship long distance, but that romance was hard to maintain that way even when the spark was still fresh. Eddie waves back to where Will stands in the doorway. Were they talking? Eddie mentioned Will didn’t take well to some of the things he’d said back when the school year had started, before the Byers moved. Was he here to clear things up before they left again? Will doesn’t seem upset, so it seems likely. That’s nice…

Eddie starts walking down the sidewalk. Did he walk here? He doesn’t exactly live close. Maybe he has a friend in this area. This is a more poor area, so it might make sense if one of his friends lived nearby. Is that a shitty thing to think? That Eddie’s friends would be poor? Although, Hawkins tends to have a hierarchy problem, so the idea that anyone significantly higher class wouldn’t want to be friends with Eddie isn’t unbelievable. And it’s not like Steve doesn’t think Eddie could make friends with more well off people at all. Steve has liked him pretty well even before he was cut off. Just that he would probably be able to relate to lower class kids more. Plus he’s always been big on supporting underdogs, so a lot of his friends might struggle financially. It just wouldn’t be surprising.

“Steve? Hello?” Jonathan calls lightly.

“Sorry. No, I’m listening.” Eddie’s barely in view anymore anyway.

Jonathan glances over in the direction Steve was looking. He nods a couple times. “Hey, so, um… You wanna know something funny?”

“Shoot.”

“Ok, so, you know how you called me a queer a few years ago?”

Steve takes a pause. “Really starting to question when this gets funny. But yeah, I remember that. I apologized for that, right? I’m pretty sure I did.”

“Yeah, you did. And I told you you shouldn’t call people that, even though I’m not.”

“Yeah, I remember that. Honestly I don’t even think it would have made a difference, you know? I was just trying to poke at things I thought would upset you, but like… I didn’t have much of an actual opinion on it. All I knew is that I didn’t want people thinking I was gay, because, well, I wanted a girlfriend. Kinda thought that was why most people didn’t want to be called gay for a while. So yeah, sorry about that.”

“ That’s what you thought people had a problem with?” Jonathan chuckles.

“Well, yeah. I didn’t really talk to anyone other than Tommy and Carol, and… looking back I think they kept a lot of things from me so they could make fun of me for not knowing about them later, and then that made me nervous to talk to anyone else, because at least Tommy and Carol already knew I was embarrassing. I didn’t know how other people would react to it.”

Jonathan hums. “They really had control issues huh? I mean, everyone knew basically they ran the whole school, but damn.”

“So, uh… what’s the funny part?”

“When I told you that you shouldn’t be using words like that, I said it doesn’t matter that the word doesn’t apply to me, you still shouldn’t be using it. Well the funny part is that it apparently does apply to me, I just didn’t know.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “Shit man, that’s great.” Jonathan doesn’t sag with any kind of relief like Steve expected him to. Hasn’t carried the tension Robin did when she came out. “I mean, it kind of sucks, because now you’ll have to deal with people about it.” Jonathan does snort at that. “But it’s always better to know things about yourself than to not realize it. I’m still working on figuring out a lot about myself.”

“Yeah, El told me about your trip to Indy. It was really nice of you to give her that.”

“So, when did you figure out- I guess also, how does the word apply to you? I mean, you dated Nancy so are you like… half gay and half straight? Is that a thing?” He asks hopefully, because he’s pretty sure that’s what Vickie’s got going on, but it’s not like he’s ever heard about that before. He’s not entirely sure it’s a thing that happens, but for Robin’s sake he hopes. And if Jonathan is like that, then that proves it’s possible.

“I wouldn’t say ‘half gay half straight.’ If blue and yellow are my favorite colors I wouldn’t describe blue as half my favorite color and yellow as the other half.”

“That would imply your favorite color is green,” Steve agrees.

“Ok, the analogy doesn’t work that well. But still. Not half gay half straight. Just… both gay and straight.”

“Cool. I’d still like to know how and when you figured it out.”

“God, it was probably the worst timing ever. How much do you know about what we were doing while you were dealing with ‘Vecna?’”

“Just what you guys told us when you first got here. Owens helped El get her powers back.”

“Initially we were just supposed to wait at home until she was ready, but apparently-” he rolls his eyes with a heavy sigh. “God, everything got so complicated and hectic, but basically there were people in the government who thought that El could stop all the deaths happening in Hawkins but a bunch of other people who thought that she was causing them. So the house got attacked and we had to track down a hacker to find her.”

“A hacker… Suzie.”

“Man, you caught onto that one faster than I did.”

Steve shrugs. “I’m sure I hear about her more often than you do. She’s the only hacker I know and she wouldn’t be too far away.”

“Anyway. We had Suzie track down El’s location while honestly blatantly lying about what we were looking for there. When we got back to the van we found Suzie’s sister Eden -” he sneers her name viciously enough that Stever raises his eyebrows- “snuggling up to Argyle. Like, who does she think she is anyway?”

“Hey, man…” Steve puts his hands up like he’s dealing with a startled horse.

Jonathan lets out an aggravated breath before shaking off his frustration almost entirely. “ Anyway , yeah. Worst timing ever. I didn’t immediately pin down why it made me so, honestly, pissed off, but I had two whole days of doing nothing but driving, so… lots of time to think.”

“Does Argyle know?”

“Yeah, I told him really soon after.”

“That’s… ballsy.”

“Yeah, well it was mostly an accident.” Steve snorts and Jonathan thwaps him lightly. “We’re, uh, together now.”

“That’s great man! Oh, does… does Nancy know about it?”

“No. No, the only other person who knows is Will. I told him pretty quick.”

“Well, thanks for telling me. I honestly wouldn’t have thought you’d tell me before Nancy, but… you can trust me.”

“Yeah and… you can trust me too. You know, if you learned anything… sensitive about yourself during your whole self discovery journey you’re working on.”

Steve laughs a little. “Like what? If I figure out how DnD works and turn out to love it? That would be a pretty major shift in my self image, huh?”

Jonathan looks almost confused for a split second. “Uh, just anything. If something comes up I guess… Hey, we’re gonna leave in about a half hour, probably before then, so if you want to say goodbye to everyone else, we’ve already been talking for like ten minutes.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

When he goes to find Will or El, he finds them together with Mike, already deep into a conversation with a somber tone. It doesn’t seem like something he should be interrupting.

He’d look for Argyle, but the only thing he can even think to talk about with him right now is his relationship with Jonathan and his perspective on it, but he wants to give the opportunity to Jonathan to let him know he already told him before he just goes up and starts talking about it. Hopefully he told Argyle that he was going to tell Steve first, and didn’t just do so impulsively.

Honestly now that he thinks about it he’s not sure how he missed it. They’ve acted as a unit the entire time they’ve been living with him. It was always ‘We’re going to the cabin.’ and ‘We order pineapple on our pizza.’ That one seemed weird at the time, because Steve knows Jonathan isn’t particularly fond of pineapple on pizza. It had come up during the dinner he had with the Byers after he first started working at Scoops. And now it’s his- their regular order. He feels like he should have picked up on it. Idiot. Whatever…

He does run into Mrs. Byers though.

“Steve, hey!” she greets enthusiastically. “El wanted to talk to you before we leave, which is—” she checks her watch, “—soon.”

“Oh! I didn’t um… I’ll check back with her in a minute. She’s busy right now. So you're still with Bob then? Through the distance?”

“Well it was a struggle, but we called every day.”

“Ok, so… what’s going on with Hopper then?” Her face falls slightly. “I-I don’t want to pry or-or make assumptions, but Eddie said he’s pretty sure he saw you kiss Hopper.” She pales slightly. “I respect Bob a lot- and not that I don’t respect you ma’am, but I don’t want- and your kids…”

“Steve, listen. I’m not cheating on Bob.”

“Ok.” There’s a relief, but acceptance is still hesitant. He has seen how Joyce is with Hopper after all. Maybe Hopper will be to Joyce what Jonathan was to Nancy, where she clearly wanted to be with him the whole time she was with Steve. But he saw how Joyce was with Bob too when he arrived. “I didn’t want to assume, but my dad isn’t… super faithful, and sometimes-” sometimes he thinks that if his dad wasn’t all of the ways that he is, his mom could love him. She’s said some things; about how much she had to give up to get where she is. If she didn’t have to make so many sacrifices… maybe she wouldn’t seem to think having Steve was a sacrifice too. “I’d just be worried about Will and Jonathan and El, but… it’s hard not to trust you after everything that’s happened.”

“Well I’ll be honest, I don’t think that’s the best line of reasoning. It’s easy to make the decision to save someone’s life, it’s harder to make everyday sacrifices I think. Especially after you’ve gone through something so hard… It can make it easier to justify smaller ways to hurt people. When you’ve been through hell it can make it seem like any other complaints are so miniscule that anyone with them is being overdramatic. That’s something I did struggle with a little bit when Hop was concerned about El’s relationship with Mike. Bob talked us both through our problems then. I could never betray him like that. It’s not cheating, because he knows.”

“Huh?”

“We’ve… made an arrangement. All three of our kids know, we sat down to have a serious conversation about it months ago, and we’ve mostly just been putting off telling everyone else in this…” she gestures vaguely, “group.”

“The party.”

“Yes, the party. We think it’s good for everyone to be aware of, but it’s also really important that no one else knows. It could get us harassed and affect our professional lives. It’s… tricky. But Bob knows about Hop, Hop knows about Bob, and all of the kids know about it. You can ask.”

“Ok… Do you want me to just tell everyone else then?”

“Absolutely not. I think we need more time to prepare to sit everyone else down and explain the situation. In fact I don’t even have time to tell you the whole of what needs to be discussed. For now I just needed you to know I would never do that and to not tell anyone outside of the household, especially because you don’t have all the information. We’re going to be back over for Christmas again this year. Hopefully by then we’ll be ready.”

“What about Eddie? He saw you kiss Hopper. What am I supposed to tell him if it comes up?”

She sighs deeply. Which is fair. They’ve gone through very similar things, but to Joyce that wouldn’t mean much. It doesn’t make Eddie any more trustworthy than any other kid with rumors of being a drug dealer. She doesn’t know him. Of everyone in the group, Joyce and Eddie are probably the least acquainted. Apart from Bob, but he hasn’t been in Hawkins at all since Eddie got involved. “Just don’t bring it up. If he asks, just tell him you’ve cleared up that there isn’t any cheating involved, but that it’s also personal business.”

“Ok, sorry.”

Mrs. Byers smiles gently. “Hey, come on. None of that now. I’m just gonna start rounding people up now. Go find El before we get all packed in and leave.”

He nods and takes off towards the house.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

It’s so nice sometimes, El’s straightforwardness. When he finds her and tells her he was told she wanted to talk, she doesn’t deny the claim for the sake of appearing indifferent for whatever reason. Steve doesn’t always hate when people do that; sometimes it can make for a fun kind of social game, but sometimes people seem to do it for no good reason. El isn’t like that though.

He says, “I heard you wanted to talk.”

And she says, “Yes,” as she clasps her hands together, gathering her thoughts. “Jonathan says not to worry about the kids at school when I go back, because Jonathan hit you and now you are friends.”

Steve shakes his head a bit in confusion. “Sorry, did you hit a kid at school?”

“Not during school,” she says, sinking into herself.

“Ok well… I’m sure if you did it, they deserved it.”

She hums, seeming to grow slightly more reassured by his response. “Do you think me and Angela could be friends? That she will learn like you did?”

Steve sighs. “I don’t think it’s that easy to say how people will react. I might have changed after a reality check, but like- Billy didn’t. There’s no way of knowing. She might be scared and try to avoid you or she could try to get revenge.” El’s eyes widen at the prospect of being targeted like that. “Come on, supergirl. Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure.”

She gives a small smile. It’s the last one he’ll see from her for a long time, because next thing they know they’re being pulled out to the yard and into a group hug. The somber departure begins.

The separation is easier than it was the first time, when they moved initially, but it’s harder than when they’d leave after visiting for the holidays. There’s been a build up, everyone being aware that they’d leave eventually and being able to prepare themselves emotionally with less unsurety of how life will go on without them, but also they’ve gotten comfortable with them back in their lives again.

Only to be reassured by the existence of phones, mail, and the knowledge of a plan to visit again for Christmas later in the year. The rest of the group watching as the car pulls away, the dense feeling of justified abandon in the air.

And maybe it’s just Steve, Steve and his insatiable desire for connection, but it’s made worse by the fact that Eddie isn’t here. He couldn’t have waited 20 minutes for the sake of the solidarity. Ok, so Eddie doesn’t know the Byers or Hopper that well, doesn’t know El or Bob at all really, but… he should be here, for the sake of the group he does know. Eddie knows how close everyone else is.

Robin notices his dejection as she always does, not that she’d need the intuition for it in this case. But she rubs his back soothingly, then lets her hand fall to his and holds it. It’s grounding; a reminder that while Eddie refuses to participate in the group of people Steve can call his own, that group of people still exists. He can rely on them, and even though Eddie’s not participating in the group, Steve can obviously still rely on him.

Steve looks around, surrounded by the majority of his family, the rest just down the road. The fact Eddie showed up at all is still progress. It’s probably selfish that Steve wants him here, but it would be nice if Eddie felt like these were his people too. If everyone could come together and keep each other from falling apart.