Chapter Text
Returning to normalcy never gets easier. Steve has always struggled with the first week or two of peace. If the lights so much as flicker he finds himself reaching for a nonexistent baseball bat out of pure habit. How could someone be expected to go about their day like everything was fine after defeating life-sucking monsters? But he’s done it before and he knows, somehow, he’ll do it again. He just needs to get back into the groove of the mundane.
He leans against the register counter, mindlessly flipping through an old magazine Robin had bought to work a few weeks back. The pages are full of glossy models staring at him with round eyes and pursed lips and hair almost as big as his. Usually, they’d keep Steve’s attention just fine but now there’s something about their emotionless, unblinking stares that unsettles him. He keeps thinking of Nancy, frozen still, eyes rolled back, moments away from a horrifying death.
He slaps the magazine shut and pushes it away from him, rubbing his hand over his face and through his hair with a frustrated sigh. “This sucks!”
Robin clicks her tongue across from him as she sits scrolling through the computer. The store is dead - as it usually is on a school day. They’ve probably served four customers the whole day and there are only so many tapes they can rewind and restock. At least being on the computer makes it look like she’s at least attempting to do something work related.
“Did you know Ryan Davidson has rented Sixteen Candles eight times in a row?”
This piques Steve’s interest. “Really?” He asks, coming over to peer over Robin’s shoulder. She shrugs.
“Maybe he really appreciates the art of the romcom.”
“Maybe he’s trying to impress hookups by acting like he’s sensitive and into movies made for chicks.”
Robin smacks his arm. “Maybe he actually likes movies made for chicks, Mr. Grease 2 is Better Than Grease.”
“Hey! Michelle Pfeiffer is hot, okay?”
They both laugh and for a moment everything feels normal. Robin is good at that - making it seem like nothing bad or traumatising ever happened. Steve doesn’t know how she bounces back so quickly. The day after it all happened - after they saved Nancy and found Eleven and destroyed Vecna in a rather gruesome display of power - Robin invited everyone out for breakfast, as if they’d all partied too hard and the cure was hidden in a stack of pancakes. With the way El had wolfed down her waffles, you’d think maybe it was.
He’d tried talking to her about what happened. Max told him once that the school counselor insisted you couldn’t heal without talking. Robin hadn’t wanted to though and who was Steve to push?
He looks at her now with her head thrown back and shoulders jiggling and eyes crinkled and thinks she can’t be doing too bad. But he’ll be there if that ever changes.
The bell above the door jingles and Steve’s eyes jolt to the source of the noise. A familiar figure strolls through dressed in tight jeans and a leather jacket. There’s no denim vest. That still sits folded up in Steve’s closet. But even without it, Steve recognises him instantly.
Eddie Munson.
Robin’s smile gets even bigger when she sees him and she jumps up, hauling herself over the counter instead of going round to meet him. They perform some ridiculous handshake that Steve doesn’t know when they had the time to choreograph that ends with Eddie flinging an arm around Robin and pulling her in for a brotherly hug. He then looks up, finally noticing Steve, and nods his head in greeting.
“Sup, Harrington.”
Steve offers him a polite smile and nods back. “Munson.”
“Thank God you’re here. Today has been dull with a capital D.” Robin draws a ‘D’ in the air with her finger, adding a little flourish at the end. Eddie chuckles and pats her shoulder.
“Just you wait till school gets out. Once this place is infested with teens you’ll wish it went back to being a ghost town.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school right now?” Steve says and the moment the words come out he realises how awkward he sounds. Telling a twenty-year-old he should be in school? Very, very uncool. Plus, it feels a little hypocritical considering Robin skipped school herself to cover Keith calling in sick last minute.
Eddie rolls his eyes and releases Robin, sauntering forward to lean against the counter. “Has King Steve ever heard of ditching?”
Steve cringes at the old nickname but tries to hide it, probably unsuccessfully with how Eddie’s smile widens the tiniest bit. “Yeah, well, obviously. I just thought, you know, to pass this year you actually have to go to class.”
His hand shoots to his heart and Eddie’s face contorts into an overdramatic wince at Steve’s words. A few strands of dark, curly hair fall over his face, adding to the overall effect. Steve has to fight not to roll his eyes back. “Ouch, Harrington. Words hurt,” he says through his teeth. Then, he opens his eyes and drops his hand back on the counter, all hurt wiped from his face. “But, if you must know, Dustin’s little girlfriend has agreed to change some of my grades from F’s to D’s so class or no class, this nerd,” he gestures to himself with his thumb, “is graduating.”
Steve raises his eyebrows because he can’t think of anything else to do. “Congrats, man.” He eventually lands on responding.
He still hasn’t figured out how to act around Eddie. Mostly, he reminds him of the kids. He’s sort of a strange mix between Dustin and Will but he can’t exactly put on his cool but stern babysitter persona when around him. To be honest, Steve thinks he’s forgotten how to have guy friends his age. Not that he would call Eddie a friend, necessarily. More like an acquaintance who he shared a traumatising experience with and now sees everywhere all the time.
Robin and Eddie are friends. Steve isn’t sure he knows how to get to the stage anymore.
“Anyway…” Robin drawls, coming to join them on the counter. “I get off at three so luckily I won’t have to deal with the swarm of hormonal teens.”
“Aren’t you staying till I get off? I thought you needed a ride home.” Steve reaches over the counter to grab the discarded magazine and throw it back in the drawer. He notices Eddie’s eyes following him as he moves but doesn’t think much of it.
Robin clears her throat. “Uh no, someone else is gonna pick me up.”
Steve gives her a puzzled look. “Who do you know that drives?” He looks at Eddie but he’s shaking his head already.
“Don’t look at me dude. My van’s still in the shop after,” he makes a vague hand gesture, “everything.”
Steve vaguely remembers Eleven hauling the beat-up van at an army of Demogorgons.
He turns back to Robin who has grabbed a copy of The Shining off the shelves and is studying it like it’ll be on her final exam. He waves a hand in front of her face and she looks up, blinking way more than usual.
“Buckley?”
“Nancy said she’d pick me up after school,” she says nonchalantly, looking anywhere but his eyes. “We’re going to the movies.”
Steve stares for a second. He knew Robin and Nancy had gotten closer after everything that happened but he hadn’t realised they’d gotten that close. He assumed they were ‘we can hang in a group setting’ friends not ‘let’s hang out 1-1’. It kind of made sense though. After Jonathan moved back to California and the two decided that long distance just wasn’t working, Nance probably needed a girl friend to talk it out with. What did he expect? That Nancy would come crying to him? Steve shouldn’t be that surprised.
“What’re you guys seeing?” Eddie pipes up, moving towards the snack aisle of the store. He picks up a bag of salted popcorn and tears it open, shoving a handful unceremoniously in his mouth.
“Hey! You gotta pay for that!” Steve says without even thinking. Eddie winks and tosses a ball of crumpled up dollars towards the counter. Steve stumbles to catch it, feeling suddenly caught off guard. He punches some buttons on the register and shoves the money away, flustered.
He really has lost all sense of basketball skills.
“There’s a showing of Alien I think. Nancy said she’s never seen it.”
Nancy has always told Steve that film looked too scary and no matter how many times he’d promised he’d protect her, that she could hide in his arms, she held her ground. Perhaps after all they’d been through, a movie didn’t seem all that terrifying anymore.
Suddenly, Eddie snaps his fingers and points at Robin with a huge grin. Steve notices the ridiculous amount of rings decorating his fingers, all glinting under the shitty fluorescent light of the store. Steve finds himself wondering how Eddie doesn’t clink everywhere he goes with all that metal on his body.
“That reminds me!” Eddie exclaims, “they announced this year’s prom theme. A Night Amongst the Stars!” He swipes a hand in front of his face as if revealing the words in the air.
Robin wrinkles her nose. “That sounds awful.”
“Tell me about it,” Eddie says with a snort. “But I thought you’d want to know - in case you get the balls to ask her.”
“You thinking of asking Vickie to prom?”
Steve knows Eddie is already aware of Robin’s fondness for boobies. Apparently, Robin had mentioned how hot Susan Sarandon is while they were getting high a week or so ago and he’d figured it out pretty quickly. Steve remembered feeling a pang of jealousy when Robin told him but he still couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was because he wasn’t the only person who knew anymore, maybe it was because he wasn’t the only person Robin had gotten high with. But when he thinks of those things now, he doesn’t feel anything similar, so it really is a mystery.
Robin shrugs and heads over to Eddie, stealing some popcorn from the bag. He doesn’t say anything, just adjusts how he’s holding it so it’ll be easier for her to grab more. “Uh, maybe. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
Steve furrows his eyebrows. “Not really. You just… ask her. People do it all the time.”
“It’s different when we’re both girls, Steve.”
“It’s not that different,” Eddie says, turning his attention to Steve. His eyes soften and he looks so sincere that Steve feels his brain stop functioning for a moment. “Harrington, will you go to prom with me?”
Steve splutters for a second, feeling himself blink rapidly. If his heart skips a beat, he tries not to pay it attention. No one had asked him that before. He’d always assumed he’d go to prom with Nancy, and when that didn’t work out… well he just decided he wouldn’t go at all. Hearing it with such sincerity pushed him off balance a little.
Almost as soon as the softness entered his features, it melted away into his usual big grin. He looked back at Robin and waggled his eyebrows. “See? Easy peasy.”
Steve feels his body relax instantly. God, why is he such an idiot sometimes?
“I don’t even know if we’ll be allowed to go together!” She throws her arms in the air. “And even if the school technically lets us, it’ll be social suicide. I don’t want to do that to her.” Robin goes quiet on her last sentence, eyes trained on the ground. Steve lets out a sigh and goes round the counter, coming behind Robin to clap a hand on her shoulder.
“Robin…. You’re already in band. That’s social suicide enough. What’s one more step?”
Robin spins around and offers him a too sweet smile. “I hate you, Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington.”
Eddie chuckles as the bell jingles again and a group of girls Steve vaguely recognises spills into the store. He shoots Robin a grin as they start browsing the shelves, spotting an opportunity to get his charm on. “I’ll handle this,” he says and beelines to a pretty blonde with glossy, Barbie pink lips, leaving Robin and Eddie to their popcorn.
He doesn’t manage to get her number but he does manage to grab her name and a casual invite to a party being thrown next Friday night so overall he considers it a success. Not that he thinks he’ll go; parties aren’t really his scene anymore, not since Nancy drunkenly told him that their love was ‘bullshit’ but it’s nice to know he can still score an invite.
Once the girls leave, he notices the familiar shape of Nancy’s car parked outside. She sees him staring and offers a closed mouth smile and a small wave. He waves back and then feels ridiculous for doing so.
He returns to Robin and Eddie and they’re talking about random musician things Steve doesn’t understand. Crescendo, andante, key: all that kind of stuff. He bumps his shoulder against Robin and gestures outside. “Your ride is waiting for you.”
Robin jumps to attention and looks out the window. She waves enthusiastically and Steve watches as a huge, genuine smile breaks out across Nancy’s face. It’s the kind of smile she used to reserve for him and later on Jonathan. Robin quickly leans over the counter to grab her backpack before rushing out the door.
“See you later, losers!” She calls over her shoulder.
Steve watches as Robin hops into the passenger seat, waving her hands wildly as she talks like she usually does when she’s nervous. Nancy laughs at something she says before they drive off and Steve feels a small amount of relief that despite everything, she also seems to be okay.
“They grow up so fast,” Eddie says behind him, sniffing as if he’s crying and wiping away an imaginary tear. Steve lets out a small laugh and returns to his usual spot behind the counter.
It’s just him and Eddie for now, but he knows Eddie was right earlier. Soon this place will be packed with teenagers and he’ll wish he never applied for work here. Hopefully, Carol will be arriving for her shift soon. He won’t be able to survive it alone.
“I hope she asks her to prom,” Steve hears himself saying. He doesn’t know why. Maybe he just hates the idea of standing in awkward silence and what else does he have to talk about with Eddie besides near death experiences and Robin?
“Same, dude, Although I get it. Being the first out gay kid at school is terrifying. Puts a target on your back. Makes sense that she’s hesitant.”
Steve hums in agreement, running a hand through his hair. Robin wasn’t helpless, she could definitely hold her own in a fight. He’d seen this girl go against Russians, demobats, and a creepy clock obsessed serial killer and come out of it basically unscathed. But, in some ways, being a complete social outcast is scarier than anything from the upside down. He understands that more than anyone but at least he’s not in school anymore so it’s a lot easier to handle.
An idea comes to mind then. It’s stupid, ridiculous, and totally illogical but in a way, it’s also genius. He looks at Eddie Munson, at the DnD obsessed, self-proclaimed freak, and it all clicks into place.
“Munson,” he says, “go to prom with me.”
Eddie cocks an eyebrow, curiosity glinting in his eyes. “I didn’t think I was your type, Harrington.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re not, man. No offense. You’re a very…” he waves at his tight clothes and dark hair and infectious grin, “attractive guy.”
“You flatter me,” he deadpans.
“But I’m definitely into boobs.”
“That’s great. I’m so happy for you. So why the prom invite?”
Steve huffs and rubs at his temple, trying to think of the best way to describe the plan cooking in his head. “Robin doesn’t want to be the only gay kid out, right? And she definitely doesn’t want to put all that attention on Vickie.”
“I’m following,” Eddie says, leaning forward against the counter and looking up at Steve through ridiculously long eyelashes.
“What I’m saying is, if we go to prom it’ll distract everyone. King Steve and The Freak going to the prom together? It’ll be a total scandal. No one will even notice the two band geeks slow dancing in the corner.”
Eddie is looking at him in a way Steve can’t decipher. There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips and something in his eyes that makes Steve feel like the world is tilting. He suddenly feels incredibly stupid.
“Wouldn’t that ruin your reputation?” Munson asks and Steve shakes his head.
“What reputation? I haven’t scored a proper date since graduating. What have I got to lose?” He runs a nervous hand through his hair, “Look, man, you don’t have to. It was just an idea. Forget I said-”
“Let’s do it.”
Steve blinks. “What?”
“Let’s do it,” He repeats, slapping his hand against the counter and standing straight. “As you said, what have we got to lose?”
The bell jingles again and, just like predicted, a horde of teenagers come spilling through the door. Eddie looks over his shoulder and laughs to himself. “Good luck, Harrington. Guess I’ll see you around,” he turns back and looks Steve dead in the eyes, “babe.”
With a wink, he turns and saunters out the door and all Steve can think is: what the fuck just happened?