#jonathan has already called argyle as a witness

[eddies-artofsuffering]

Part I: Sweet Tooth

(Part II)

Eddie stares down at his wristwatch. One minute to noon. Just one more minute.

“Want us to clear the path?” Argyle claps him on his shoulder and squeezes. “It’s almost time.”

“I don’t – I don’t know. Maybe you guys could stand behind the kitchen doors? You can see through the windows, right?” Eddie scrunches his nose.

He can feel it, he’s been conditioned to it by now, the familiar pit of anticipation. Other people may call it butterflies. Eddie thinks it’s more like pterodactyls breathing fire inside his stomach. He desperately needs someone to hold his fucking hand during this hardship.

But he also really, really doesn’t want anyone up close to witness him making a fool of himself in front of Hot Steve - a new regular customer at their cafe. An incredibly attractive guy who works at the bookstore next door.

Eddie can NOT fuck this up. It only happens once a day, for a maximum of three minutes.

“Maybe today’s the day you ask him out,” Jonathan smiles. Dude never smiles with his eyes. It’s kind of unsettling.

“Absolutely not, have you seen Hot Steve?” Eddie groans. “There’s no way he plays for my team. He’s –“

The doorbell chimes. Eddie’s head snaps towards the entrance, mouth falling open. Hot Steve is walking towards him, holy shit. It’s go time. Eddie shoos his coworkers away with a frantic wave, straightens his name tag, and rests his chin on his palm and bends over a little, elbow on the counter.

This is always the way he greets Hot Steve. It’s his signature move. Although, it hasn’t really worked yet. If it worked, Eddie would’ve won Hot Steve’s attention by now. But this is the best he got at the moment, damn it.

“Hi, Eds, how are you doing?” Hot Steve is wearing a baby-blue button-down today, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His name tag pin on the left side of his chest glints.

Eddie loves that Steve came up with that nickname on his own, despite only having seen him here at Cafe Byers for, like, two weeks now.

“Better now that you’re here.” Eddie gives him a cheeky smile, If Argyle and Jonathan were here, they might’ve been impressed with how smooth it sounded; they always comment on the way he flirts, the things he says. If you ever said shit like that to me, I’d be hella blushing, brochacho. You know you got game, right?

What they don’t know is that these lines are rehearsed in his head, so many times. It’s all Eddie ever does: practice pickup lines for Hot Steve.

“Right out of the gate, huh? You're makin' me blush,” Hot Steve smiles, and honestly, it’s hard to tell if he’s blushing at all. Or if he’s even flustered. Hot Steve's always so confident. “I’ll get a latte. With oat milk, please?”

“Oh?” Oat milk? That’s new. Steve didn’t care last time what milk he was getting. Interesting. Or is it? Eddie decides to file that information away for later. “Yea, coming right up.”

“Thanks.”

Another thing about Hot Steve that really does something to Eddie’s overworked pterodactyls, is that he never has a phone with him. Or on him. If it is, it's never visible.

Which is odd, because the entire café is littered with folks who cannot tear their eyes away from their little gadgets and devices, especially their phones; most people can’t even wait for their drinks without looking at them, checking something constantly, emails or texts or whatever. 

And, well, Hot Steve never does any of that. He always waits at the end of the counter, patiently watching Eddie making drinks. It always makes him feel so self-conscious. Eddie’s burnt his hands under hot steam a couple of times, actually.

But these two, maybe three minutes of Eddie making a fresh beverage for Hot Steve – this is the only time he gets to make small talk with him. Each time, he learns something new about him, or confirms something that Eddie’s already inferred. The grand question of the day is: “So, who’s the drink for?”

Hot Steve blinks rapidly, as if coming out of a daze. “Uh – what?”

“Whose drink is this?” Eddie says, tamping the coffee grounds. “I’m assuming it’s not yours.”

“How… did you know it’s not mine?” he narrows his eyes.

God. It’s really telling, isn’t it, that Eddie’s noticed these things? “First time for you to ask for oat milk, so. I don’t know, I figured,” he shrugs.

Hot Steve opens his mouth as if to say something. Then he doesn’t. In the corner of Eddie’s eyes, he sees him nodding with pursed lips, with a hint of a smirk. It’s so distracting that Eddie almost heats up regular milk despite this whole conversation being around someone’s (not Steve’s, apparently) preference for plant-based milk. Oops.

He finishes making the latte and walks over to the cash register, handing over the drink. Steve receives it with a small thanks. 

But Eddie knows Steve's not quite done here today. Because, when you have a tiny (massive) crush on a near-stranger, you just, kind of look for patterns. That’s just how human minds work; Eddie has been carefully collecting all the little information about Hot Steve, just based on the few minutes that he spends at the café at noon.

Which is how that Eddie’s almost certain (almost, because there’s always room for anomalies) what Hot Steve’s about to do when he asks, “Is that it for today?”

“Oh – um,” Hot Steve scans the glass case of assorted desserts and baked goods, subconsciously wetting his lips. “Actually, yea. Can I have the blueberry crumble, please?”

This is one of the very few predictable things about him. Eddie doesn’t know why Hot Steve even looks at the shelves of sweets each time as if he’s ever going to make a different choice, because it’s always the same, the only constant pattern besides his entrance that he’s ever shown Eddie: the house blueberry crumble, the ones that Eddie bakes himself.

And every time Hot Steve asks for it, Eddie has to turn around and flex his arms, letting out a silent scream of victory, because Hot Steve is fucking hooked on those things. It’s truly incredible to know that he wants it. Eddie pours his heart and soul into those.

“Of course, babe,” he swoops down, takes a small square piece out with tongs, wraps it in a pocket of parchment paper. “D’you know I bake these every morning?”

“You – it’s you?” Hot Steve’s eyes widen comically. “Wow. I thought they were, like, shipped over from a bakery or something.”

“We do have an oven,” Eddie points behind the kitchen with his thumb and looks back, makes a mistake of drawing attention to the door, only remembering then that Argyle and Jonathan are probably watching this whole thing. Really hoping that they’re being discreet. 

“That’s amazing. I – I love them,” he says, not at all looking behind, thank God. “Guess you’re good with your hands.”

Eddie could practically hear the angelic chorus from the sky. Holy shit. Hot Steve loves his crumbles. Fuck. He could cry. 

But, you know. Everything always comes to an end, and that’s usually how far their conversation goes. Nothing more than just small talk, and then Hot Steve would pay for the stuff, go back to the next-door bookstore where he works. And until the next day, it’s as if he doesn’t even exist. A mythical creature that only appears during those three minutes in time and space, then vanishes afterwards. 

So he tries, just one last time before he leaves. “Steve?”

“Yea?” Hot Steve looks up, batting his lashes. They’re – so – pretty. So long, delicate. Such a fucking contrast to his muscular arms and chest that his thin blue shirt does nothing to hide, sleeves and buttons ready to pop. It’s sinful.

Fuck, and time’s ticking, yet there are so many things Eddie wants to ask. What is your drink, then? ‘Cause you never get the same drink twice.

Why is it always at noon? Is that your break?

Where are you from? When does your shift end? You do work at the bookstore, right?

When are you free?

All of these are more or less reasonable, if not a tiny bit creepy questions. But any of these would’ve been so much better than what Eddie actually blurts out, so out of the left field that he surprises even himself: “So, uh, how much do you bench?”

Oh, fuck. Where the hell did that come from? Eddie cringes hard inside, unsure how those words, that kind of vernacular even came out of his mouth, please, he wants to rewind time - 

But it's spilled oat milk. Guh. He crinkles his nose to prepare himself to apologize. Sorry. That was so – I’m not a gym bro. I’m not! Look at me! He's about to say, but:

“You wanna know?”

Hot Steve has a shit-eating grin on. That’s a first. There might even be a faint blush on his cheeks. Holy shit. Hot Steve took the fucking bait. Not that it was bait – it was just Eddie being a fucking disaster – but he nods all the same, stupidly. Of course he wants to know. He’s committed, now.

“Let’s see.” Hot Steve’s now circling around the counter to take a closer look at Eddie, eyes travelling up and down. It feels like Hot Steve is undressing him with his eyes. It’s kind of insane that they’re doing this in public.

Hmm. 140, 145 at the most – Hot Steve mutters under his breath. “Oh yea. Easy,” he says, still smiling wickedly.

“What do you mean, easy?” Eddie croaks.

His breath hitches when Hot Steve leans over the counter, inches away from Eddie’s face. “Probably could do twenty reps of you,” he whispers, winking.

Eddie’s brain short-circuits. He stares open-mouthed at Hot Steve, unable to move until he exits the café with the drink and a brown bag, fading away from view. Gone for the rest of the day, rest of the evening. Rest of the next morning. Only to return the next day at noon, like a fucking reverse-Cinderella.

“Why were you guys whispering?” Jonathan appears from behind, nudging him on the arm. “What did he say? Did you finally ask him out?”

“I’m about to ask him out myself if you don’t,” Argyle says lazily, earning a sharp smack from Jonathan. “Just joking, man, you know you’re my main dude,” he squeezes a squirming Jonathan on the side.

“He… “ Eddie gulps, closing his eyes, and pictures Hot Steve’s tantalizing smile. “He winked.”

Continue reading on Ao3

Read the sequel: Savour

[fastcardotmp3]

cw: substance abuse, addiction, stobin drugging-related PTSD I'm home sick and found this fully written in my drafts? from march?? apparently?

Steve and Robin, who make jokes about that time we did LSD like it's a funny anecdote to the point where no one knows the actual context of the situation.

(Dustin and Erica would know, if Steve and Robin weren't still self aware enough to decidedly not make jokes about it where those two can hear)

(But still.)

Steve and Robin, who only trust a drink if it comes from the other, who trade off sober duties even if someone else is already designated driver because it's not the same as making sure one of them always has their wits about them.

Steve and Robin who, in the very immediate aftermath of Starcourt, develop two drastically different relationships with substances-- Robin who is detrimentally afraid of the glass of wine her parents sometimes offer her on special occasions versus Steve who can and will try everything available to him just to prove again and again that it was never going to kill him even if he felt like he was dying at the time.

They self destruct in equal but opposite ways for the rest of that first summer before the looking out for each other starts, before the coping via humor starts, before the decision to just call it LSD Steve because if I have to try and process that it was something that I can't read and learn about on top of everything else--

It's not like it ever leaves them though, this way that this specific trauma has fucked them up.

(It's not like Dustin and Erica don't notice, no matter how hard their friends try to hide it.)

It's not like there's anything they can do about it when Steve relapses and goes on a bender that has him losing a whole day of time and waking up to Robin checking his heart rate or when Robin thinks she's in a good enough headspace to do shots with their friends and ends up on the floor of another dirty bathroom with Steve holding her hair back, less from the booze and more from all the hyperventilating, the tears that won't stop until long after she's sober.

(It's not like people don't notice when Robin's jokes about their little LSD trip get pointed on nights Steve's had a bit too much, or how Steve cuts her off from making those jokes at all on nights her hands can't steady around a plastic cup; it's not like they could hide anything from people like this, who hunt monsters and solve mysteries and swallow horrors like the smoothest of whiskeys.)

(It's not like Dustin hasn't gone to Eddie when he gets worried, even if he never spills the whole story. It's not like Erica hasn't asked Nancy unsubtle questions about how to help people with dependency issues. It's not like Eddie and Nancy haven't spoken their own concerns into the quiet dark of night over crackling phone lines where no one else can hear.)

There are nights like this and they happen like clockwork, nights in the little house in Indy for which only two of them are technically on the lease but four and then six and sometimes a whole gaggle of high schoolers still pass through like transients every weekend.

There are nights like this, when the youngest of their ranks aren't around and the booze flows freely and they're out on the porch watching the sun set late with the lift and pull of summertime, when a conversation goes sour with a comment that betrays something that has yet to be spoken aloud.

Steve and Robin.

Steve and Robin who have clearly been through something the rest of them aren't privy to; Steve and Robin who mention it offhandedly without any proper details; Steve and Robin who are hurting right there in front of them and how are they supposed to help how are any of them supposed to--

"Okay, that's it--"

"Nance..."

It's Eddie's warning tone but it's also Jonathan giving her that look from where he's perched on the porch rail and it's also the sudden tension in Robin's brow and confusion in Argyle's and something painfully close to resignation in Steve's.

But this is Nancy Wheeler. It's a miracle she's let them go on like this for as long as she already has.

"No, I'm over the secrets," she shakes her head once, definitive, and levels her gaze on those twin hearts curled together on the porch swing. "You two are going to tell us what happened to you-- who hurt you-- and we're going to fucking fix it."

Steve and Robin, who lean impossibly closer into each other's space.

Steve and Robin, looking ready to bolt.

Steve and Robin, who don't look hopeful for any sort of fixing.

But it's not like it was going to stay unspoken forever.

[dubiousdisco]

Jonathan Byers' application to the "Mike Wheeler Hate Club" is still under review because Jonathan is the founder of the "Will Byers Protection Squad" of which Mike is president. MWHC founder Hopper and MWHC president Max think there might be a conflict of interest

Jonathan has appealed and is now writing his formal explanation regarding the so called 'conflict'. He will have it submited in 3 days time.

After this, Max and Hopper shall deliberate for 5 to 15 days before publishing their decision.

[starboygrove]

Surviving Eddie Munson - Chapter 1

It’s a gorgeous June afternoon in Hawkins today. The sun is shining, there are large, poofy white clouds rolling across the bright blue sky. It’s the perfect temperature outside, warm with a slight summer breeze. Normally this would put Steve Harrington in a very good mood, but that is not the case. Unfortunately for him, he has to spend his time indoors, watching the beautiful day go by from his perch at the customer service desk in Family Video.

He doesn’t even get the welcome distraction Robin’s presence usually provides for a few more hours, as she has a shorter shift today than he does. Sighing, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and props his head up on the counter, making a miserable and failed attempt to stave off the boredom by counting the cars going by.

Steve allows his thoughts to drift off, finding himself recounting the last few months’ events that followed the destruction of Vecna. He thinks about Jonathan first, of all people, and Nancy’s drunken play-by-play of their anticlimactic break up that led to him moving back to California. Maybe he’ll give Jon a call and see how he’s been doing, or maybe he will just wait until Will updates them again on his brother’s Cheech & Chong style adventures with Argyle.

It was a lot longer until he found out about Mike and El’s breakup, but he couldn’t blame anyone but himself for that. He hasn’t been spending as much time with the younger teens as he used to, finding himself more often than not taking long walks in the woods either alone or with Nancy, or Robin, or sometimes both. Sometimes, Eddie finds him, refusing to leave his side and talking his ear off about some nonsense or another.

Eddie Munson. His chest tightens at the thought of the other man, a nervous pit falling in his gut. Steve sighs harder this time, rubbing at his eyes perhaps a little too aggressively. He just doesn’t understand it, why he always feels so…weird when he thinks about Eddie. When he looks at him, or talks to him. The small jolt of panic that shoots up his spine whenever someone mentions him out of the blue.

At first, Steve was able to just chalk it up to his natural protective instincts. He nearly witnessed Eddie’s death, and then once he was released from the hospital, there were a few scrapes here and there with some of the less forgiving citizens of Hawkins. The ones who refused to believe the cover-up story, burning crosses into the already dead grass outside the Munson trailer or egging the Record Store Eddie works at. That almost got him fired, too, which boiled Steve’s blood something ferocious. If it wasn’t for Eddie, this town would be up in flames, but of course no one will ever know that.

It’s been over a month since anything like that has happened, though. Actually more like closer to two months, he realizes, glancing at the small tabletop calendar near the store phone. So what is Steve’s excuse, now that all reasonable forms of danger are no longer existent? What is his excuse for his mind constantly drifting back to Eddie any chance it gets, recalling their most recent conversations, analyzing all the little facial expressions he would make, dwelling on the sounds his rings make when they clink together.

Logically, in the back of his mind, there is a nagging part of him that has a very good theory for all of this. He doesn’t like that theory, though, because it just doesn’t align with his reality. So Steve stomps it down, bottles it up, and throws it in the closet where it will fester incessantly. If the bottle threatens to burst, as it does more frequently these days, he just finds a way to distract himself.

Like going on a nice, long walk in the woods. And if he carries his bat with him on these long walks, no one ever says a god damn thing. Because let’s face it, Nancy still sleeps with a gun under her bed, Robin with all of the lights on, and Eddie? Eddie doesn’t sleep much at all.

Neither does Steve. That’s usually when they find each other, varying degrees of sobriety, trampling through the woods in the dark as if they’re looking for something. Maybe they’re looking for their sanity, lost in the ether of The Upside Down. Maybe they’re trying to find it in one another.

They’ve had some really personal discussions on these late night walks, things he never even told Nancy when they were in the height of their relationship. About how he can’t even get within five feet of the pool in his backyard without thinking about Barb, or how Eddie made peace with the fact he was going to die and now he doesn’t know what he has to live for anymore.

The chime of the bell dangling on the front door snaps Steve out of his reverie and he stands up straight, only to slump back down when he realizes its just Robin. How long has he been lost in thought exactly? Had he really been thinking about Eddie for that long, again?

“Well hello, Sunshine!” Robin greets him sarcastically, throwing her bag on the counter and hopping up to sit.

Steve just grumbles a response, flexing his legs and storing her bag for her.

“Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’?” She snorts out, getting a good look at him. The boredom has yet to melt off his features, the lack of mental stimulus for hours on end etched into his eyes.

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t even be open until 3pm in the summer. No one wants to rent a movie in weather like this!” He complains, but he’s smiling, always happy to see his best friend.

“Hey! There are starving kids in Africa who would kill to get paid to stand around in air conditioning and look pretty.” She jokes, and Steve just rolls his eyes in response.

He walks over to one of the shelves and picks up the nearest VHS case, dusting it off, nervously digging the toe of his sneaker into the carpet. He’s nearly tempted to talk to Robin about his recent thoughts, but something stops him from choking it out. Shame and guilt, mostly. Ashamed and guilty about what, exactly? He can’t even pin point that either, or more specifically he doesn’t want to.

Instead he asks her about what she has been up to the last couple of days, as they haven’t seen each other since Tuesday morning when Steve dropped her off at her house after a sleepover. With his parents gone for weeks at a time, he finds himself alone so often that he doesn’t even ask Robin to come over anymore. She just does it, almost every night his parents are gone so long as she doesn’t already have plans to stay over at Nancy’s – an activity that has grown in rapid frequency since they graduated.

She gushes about the latest mundane feature about Nancy she’s decided to hyper fixate on – this time it’s about Nancy’s supposedly inhuman ability to coordinate colors – and it makes Steve break out into a wide, genuine smile. One of the few things that makes him happy these days is seeing the people he loves so full of joy. When Robin revealed her crush on his ex-girlfriend, she was nervous about how he would react, but he couldn’t be happier for her. Especially because he’s been noticing lately the way Nancy looks back at Robin when she’s not looking.

“You should see her closet! Well, you probably already have, huh? It’s incredible the way her mind works, I could never.” Robin sighs dreamily, kicking her feet out into the air, lost in full-blown crush mode.

“I think you’ve invented a textile fetish, Buckley,” he jokes, earning a scoff from his freckled friend.

“It’s not a fetish! I’m simply admiring her organizational skills. It’s not just her wardrobe, you know.” She huffs out, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Only you could make a well-organized closet sound like a romance novel, you are so gone on her!” He laughs when her face begins to flush, never failing to get a kick out of teasing her.

She mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously a lot like ‘not the only one gone on someone’ but he pretends he didn’t hear her. A few weeks ago she attempted to broach the topic of Eddie in a way Steve wasn’t interested in hearing. They’ve trauma bonded, that’s all, and Robin gave up quickly when she realized Steve simply wasn’t ready for that conversation yet. It’s not a conversation they should even be having, Steve thinks bitterly, and sets the VHS case back on the shelf a little roughly.

“You know, Steve--” she’s cut off by the chime of the bell, and he’s know he’s just been saved from rehashing the subject based on her tone alone. He smiles a triumphant, knowing smile at her and goes to greet the first customer of the day.

The moment they are alone once more, which is far too quickly in his opinion, Robin starts up again.

“I was thinking,” she begins, toying with the cord on the store phone.

“That’s dangerous,” he jokes, in an attempt to deflect. She glares at him and he holds his hands up in surrender, gesturing for her to go on.

“My parents are gonna be out of town early next month, what do you say we have a babysitter’s club night?”

Oh.

He didn’t anticipate this. He searches his mind quickly, for any feeble excuse possible, but he knows it’s a futile attempt. There is no logical reason for him to turn this offer down. Especially when Robin has been bragging about the new hot tub her parents just got, and her fully knowing how much Steve has wanted to come over and check it out.

“Eddie already said he’ll come,” she adds on, a mischievous glint in her eyes. There it is, the scheming he knew she couldn’t resist. Once she gets an idea in her head, she does everything in her power to see it to fruition.

“I don’t see what that would have anything to do with getting me to say yes. I was already thinking of saying yes. You saying that isn’t what is making me say yes. It’s mostly the hot tub, if I’m going to be completely honest with you.” He runs a hand through his hair, trying not to make note of the fact his palms are oddly sweaty.

“Ahh, the hot tub, yes. Where we will all be in our bathing suits. Interesting…” She trails off, chuckling when she turns and gets a glimpse of his expression.

“Robin.” He warns her with his tone and she shrugs, playing dumb.

“Steve,” she replies airily, needlessly wiping down the customer service desk for the third time since she clocked in.

“Will there at least be alcohol?” He shoots for nonchalance, and thinks he scores.

“Of course, whom dost thou taketh me for? No glass, though, it’s a bitch to clean out of the tub. Not uh, speaking from personal experience or anything.”

“Nance said yeah?”

Robin snorts, as if he said something utterly stupid just now.

“It was her idea, dingus!” She replies gleefully, and he should be surprised but he really isn’t. From what he has gathered, they have never spent a night over at Robin’s house, always at Nancy’s. Of course she would jump on the opportunity to spend the night at Robin’s the first chance she could get. He’s going to have to have a talk with her, sooner rather than later it seems.

“Yeah, alright. ‘Course I’ll come, why wouldn’t I?” he asks rhetorically, pacing around the desk and smearing his hand across the top, just to piss her off.

It works, earning him a wet towel to the face, but it just makes him laugh. They get a little more banter in before the bell chimes again, alerting them to the presence of a new customer.

Except it isn’t a customer, Steve inwardly groans. It’s Eddie motherfucking Munson, here to bug him once again after his shift at the Record Store just down the street.

“Harrington!” he greets enthusiastically, opening his arms out wide. Even in the summer months, he’s dressed in black head to toe, contrastingly greatly with Steve’s usual light denim and pastel polo. The tight sleeves of his shirt wrap around Eddie’s arms in a way that makes Steve get a little light headed for some reason. Absolutely bizarre.

“Munson,” he grunts out, giving a stilted wave. The bulk of their interactions are usually away from prying eyes, so the intensity of Robin’s voyeuristic stare is making him flush. Yeah, that’s what it is.

“Gonna rent something for once, or are you just here to grace us with your heavenly presence?” Eddie laughs like he just told the world’s best joke, clapping Steve on the shoulder once he gets near enough to do so.

“You know me, just can’t stay away from my favorite video rental store.”

“This is the only video rental store in Hawkins, Munson.”

“Exactly!”

Steve rolls his eyes, muttering something about it not counting under his breath. The other man is close, far too close, as he typically is. It’s like he has no concept of personal space. Steve can feel the heat radiating off of his body he’s standing that close to him. As always, Eddie is completely unperturbed by their proximity while he chats to Robin, seemingly unaffected in the way Steve is when the bare skin of their arms brush together.

He must be dehydrated, or something, because he’s starting to feel really weird again. Excusing himself to the break room to get a drink, Steve stares at his warped reflection of the old beat up toaster on the counter. He looks like an alien, a warped version of himself he doesn’t recognize, mirroring the feelings he has inside. Steve hasn’t recognized himself in months, if he’s being honest.

When he starts to feel guilty for how long he’s been gone, he forces himself to return to work, feeling equal amount of elation and disappointment when he realizes Eddie has left already.

“Feeling okay?” Robin asks in that soft voice of hers she reserves only for when she knows something is wrong with him.

Steve just sighs, then shrugs, pointedly avoiding her gaze. He wouldn’t even know where to begin; knowing why he feels like this is more than half the battle. If he knew what was wrong, he’d be able to fix it on his own. A small voice in the back of his head tells him he does know what’s wrong, but he ignores it completely.

“Just tired, I guess. Been spending too much time here.” Robin chews on her lip before nodding, accepting his half-lie. It isn’t a complete fabrication, he has picked up more shifts over the last month. They lost two of their part timers, newly graduated seniors who no longer wanted to be tied down by a minimum wage job. Keith has yet to replace either of them, satisfied with having Steve and few of the others pulling extra shifts instead.

He is grateful that Robin drops the subject, and they spend the rest of their afternoon talking about music, movies, and other safe surface level topics. They have a few more customers come in just before close, and soon they are free to do as they please with the rest of their evening.

The sun is beginning to set, painting the sky in a beautiful shade of rusty orange when Steve drives Robin home, as he always does. He agrees to give her a ride tomorrow to the Wheeler’s, to surprise Nancy before she gets off work at The Hawkins Post. It will be Friday, and for once both he and Robin have the day off, an incredibly rare occurrence as of late. They make plans to catch a matinee of Ferris Bueller's Day Off; it’s his turn to pick this time much to the chagrin of Robin, and Steve drives home feeling more content than he has in a while.