#stevieweek24

[steddie-island]

Long Haul

Written for day 2 of @stevieweek | Companion piece to Wallpaper Rating: G | WC: 1,150 | Tags: Eddie Munson POV, Coming out, MTF Steve Harrington ao3 | Divider credit

If Steve and Robin both have to be there to break this big news to Eddie he knows it must be something really bad.

That's how it always goes, bad news. He's told to sit down and listen while the grownups talk at him. Not to him, no, he didn't get anyone actually trying to talk to him until Wayne.

Still, Eddie tries not to look like he's ready to throw up while Steve and Robin stand in front of the couch. The way their hands are clasped together, and with how straight and tense they're standing, Eddie can't help but think of the fucked up twins from The Shining.

The thought makes him laugh, but the laughter only heightens his anxiety– which is then heightened even more when Robin shoots a Look at him that he can't quite figure out.

"Stevie… sweetheart, I can't read your mind. If this is bad news, I'd really rather you just tell me." Eddie shifts uncomfortably. The fingers of his right hand fidget with one of the rings on his left, spinning it around and around. "I can take it, whatever it is."

The look Steve gives Robin drops a bowling ball right into the center of Eddie's chest. Steve has tears in his eyes, and he's shaking, and fuck . This is very fucking bad.

Eddie wracks his brain, tries to think back on what he said or did. Maybe there was something he didn't do that he was supposed to do and now Steve is dumping him over it. Really, it was only a matter of time. Steve is good, so fucking good, and Eddie never deserved him in the first place.

And of course Robin's going to be here for it, because Steve dumping him as a boyfriend means Robin is dumping him as a friend. They're a package deal, you don't get one without the other.

"Eddie!" Robin's voice breaks through his mental spiraling.

Eddie clears his throat, drops his hands between his knees again and looks at the two of them. "Sorry. Sorry, yes. I'm here."

"Did you hear… any of that?" Robin asks.

Eddie flushes, opens his mouth, digs for anything that one of them might have said.

Steve takes pity on him, and Eddie is graced with one of those patient smiles. It’s that soft smile that got him through the hell that was physical therapy. "We're making him nervous, Rob."

"You're nervous, too," Robin reminds him. Still, she gives Steve's hand a squeeze before stepping to the side. It's one on one instead of two on one, which does help the knot in Eddie's chest loosen a bit.

"I can take it, Stevie," Eddie says with a small smile. "Whatever it is, just… lay it on me."

Steve glances at Robin, then back at Eddie. His hands have that fine tremor to them again, so he wraps his arms around himself and tucks his fists against his sides.

"I've been thinking… and I've talked to Rob, and… I don't… I'm not…" Steve stops, has to take a few slow breaths.

This is it, the death blow. The last glimpse of the sun before it gets snuffed out, removed from Eddie's life forever. Eddie wants to close his eyes so he doesn't have to watch, but if this is his last sunrise he doesn't want to miss a second of it, either.

"Eddie, I'm not… I'm not a boy." Steve shifts on his feet and swallows loud enough for Eddie to hear it. "I don't want to be a boy anymore. I think— no, I know I am — I'm a girl."

Eddie can only blink up at her while Steve explains it, explains lip gloss and nail polish and old girlfriends. She talks about how she's given this a lot of thought, really, and if Eddie doesn't want to be with her anymore she understands.

Eddie's listening, really he is, but the relief is so instantaneous that he can't help but start laughing, quietly at first and then louder.

Steve stops talking and looks at Eddie like he's lost his mind. "What? What is it?"

"No, no, baby, I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you." Eddie rubs both hands over his eyes, wiping away unshed tears. "I promise, this isn't about you." He reaches out for Steve's hand and pulls her around the coffee table to sit down on his lap.

"Why are you laughing?" Steve asks. The hurt in her eyes has Eddie sobering up immediately.

"I thought you were breaking up with me." Eddie brings a hand up to tuck Steve's hair behind her ear. "I thought that was why you brought the reinforcements. Maybe you were afraid I would lose the rest of my mind or somethin'."

"What?" Steve shakes her head and touches the jagged scar on Eddie’s jaw. "Why would I be breaking up with you? I love you, Eddie."

Eddie catches Steve's hand, pulls it to his lips to kiss over her knuckles. "Because you're the best person on the goddamn planet, and I don't deserve you."

"Eddie—"

"I'm serious, Stevie." Eddie wraps an arm around her waist to pull her that much closer. "You're amazing. You're smart— don't try to deny it, I've seen that beautiful brain of yours in action." He gently, so fucking gently, taps in the middle of her forehead to emphasize his point. "You're funny, you're so goddamn brave. You have the biggest heart in the world." He cups Steve's cheek, and she leans into the touch. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I still can't believe how lucky I am."

Steve's lower lip trembles just a little, and Eddie can't help but brush his thumb over it. "Even now?" she asks. Eddie hates the uncertainty in her voice. Steve Harrington isn't ever uncertain, unless it's about D&D or Lord of the Rings or some other nerdy shit that the kids try to throw at her.

"Are you kidding?" Eddie brings his other hand up, to hold her face between his palms. "Yesterday morning I woke up with the most gorgeous guy in Hawkins in my bed, and tonight I get to go to sleep with the most beautiful girl. That's… amazing ." He shakes his head and brings their foreheads together. "I love you, Stevie. No matter what you do, no matter what you change, I'm in it for the long haul. You're it for me, baby."

"Fucking sap," Steve says wetly, but she's smiling when she says it, when she leans in to kiss Eddie again.

It's a kiss full of love and hope, that speaks of a future that stretches out in front of them, just waiting for them to decide what they want to do with it.

It's a kiss that has Robin murmuring "Dinguses" under her breath before sneaking out the front door to give them privacy.

[formosusiniquis]

Robin's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Your Newly Adopted Former Mean Girl

Happy @stevieweek everybody! This is Day One: Stobin with none of the bonus prompts, but keep an eye out cause i've got a few more incoming this week.

Robin Buckley & Stevie Harrington; Pre-Stevie Harrington/Eddie Munson WC: 9483 | T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Tags/Themes: transfem!Steve Harrington; Platonic Soulmates Steve & Robin; Robin Buckley is the Stevie Harrington Defense Squad

AO3

On July 4th, 1985, Steven Joseph Harrington died in the Starcourt Mall Fire. 

The story Robin Marie Buckley tells, after two weeks of hospitalization and an additional month in Indianapolis for “personal reasons,” when she returns to her senior year at Hawkins High a full week after the first day of school is one of abject heroism on the part of Steve.

It’s true, even if it isn’t the whole story. Just like it isn’t hard for her to play morose and avoidant, because that’s how she feels. She might know Dustin, but it’s too hard to spend much time with him and she doesn’t want to be the weird friendless senior who only talks to freshmen. She’ll leave that to Eddie Munson, who snatched Steve’s weird little child friends up only a few weeks into the first semester. 

Nancy and Jonathan avoid her as much as she does them, she doesn’t think they know what to do with the new girl in the know. It paints a picture, well she realizes later that it paints a picture, but she doesn’t want to sit at a table and eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Nancy Wheeler’s big beautiful eyes are staring at her like she’s an article that’s half an inch too long and needs to be dissected while Jonathan Byers is also there.

So she drifts through the halls of Hawkins High like a ghost, she’s Cathy on the moors. Avoiding anyone who might try to ask her too many questions about the final days of Steve Harrington and Starcourt Mall.

Until the day she spots a baby blue jeep pulled into the Henderson’s driveway, a tall brunette unloading a single suitcase from the back. She’s got her bike across the road before she can even think of a game plan. A noise that’s almost like a scream erupting from her mouth the entire time she coasts over.

“You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!” It’s an uncharacteristic bit of grace, that lets her drop her bike to the ground and use its momentum to catapult herself into the other girl’s arms. Too excited for a second to remember that she’s in a place where small town gossip exists, and a new neighbor can fuel the mill for days.

But she enjoys her hug for a second before settling into a more appropriate character. She extends a hand, ignoring the laugh it gets her, “Welcome to Hawkins, I’m Robin, occasional Dustin babysitter.”

The girl’s smile pulls lopsided at her mouth, kissed with a bit of irony and undeniably charmed. “It’s nice to meet you Robin,” her voice is soft, and a little unsure. Wavering like Becky Simpson’s tone deaf oboe playing, unsure of what pitch and timbre to land on. “I’m Stephanie Henderson, Dustin’s cousin.”

The bit crumbles immediately between Robin’s fingers.

“Stephanie? You went with Stephanie? Are you kidding? We workshopped so many names!”

“I liked my name! But it’s weird apparently to be a girl named Steve.” She distributes finger quotes randomly throughout the sentence like Robin hadn’t been the one to say she didn’t know any girls named Steve. “Stephanie is pretty!”

Robin looks her best friend dead in the eye, unsurprised that there’s not a hint of humor even underneath the drama. “Never mind that it sure would be strange for Steve Harrington to die just for girl Steve who looks like she could be his cousin to move to town.”

“Affair baby,” Stephanie presents the solution with a flick of her hand. Robin notices that her nails are still chewed short, more noticeable  after they talked about what it would be like for her to grow them out and manicure them.

“Give me the whole name right now,” Robin demands, “I wanna hear how it sounds.”

Steph, cause they’re going to have to figure out nicknames immediately they just aren’t the kind of friends that can go around being Robin and Stephanie, kicks the curb with her scuffed up Nike. Her arms crossed across her middle accentuates the way her body has already started changing, Robin feels like a creep for a second for noticing her friend’s boobs before deciding that they weren’t the kind of friends with those kinds of boundaries.

“Stephanie Marie Henderson.”

“Oh my god!”

“Shut up, don’t even.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“You’re already making a big deal out of it, which it’s not.” Stevie insists.

“You stole my middle name, you’re so obsessed with me.” It’s the best thing she’s ever heard actually, that Stevie might be as into this friendship as she is. She’s always the friend that’s too much.

Stevie’s smile is small, shier than she’s used to seeing it. “Yeah well whatever Stephanie Robin sounds like a straight to VHS Winnie the Pooh movie character or some shit.”

Dustin comes scrambling out of the house before Robin can make another joke. “You were supposed to call before you left! Ma isn’t finished setting up your room, and Tews is stuck under your bed.”

They share a look, and Robin thrills a little that she has a friend that she can share looks with. “Henderson,” Stevie shouts, sounding a little more like she did this summer. “Are you really going to make me carry my own bags in? I'm a fucking lady, dickhead.”

“Sure don't fucking talk like one,” Dustin hollers back from the door, already trudging out of the house.

“Gonna have to work on your feminism,” Robin says. wondering what kind of weird shit a person would have to sort through when they realized they were transsexual. “Just because you're on estrogen doesn't mean your arms are atrophied.”

The butter-wouldn't-melt smile is still the same, even though her face looks softer. She hands off her suitcase, patting Dustin on the head as he visibly stumbles under the weight. “Don't drag it on the sidewalk, it's new,” she directs. 

He can't flip them off when it takes both hands to lift the luggage in his hand, “How are you more of an asshole, oh my god.”

“Is that anyway to talk to your cousin, Dustbunny?”

Dustin doesn't answer directly, but he's muttering under his breath the whole way to the house. 

“My ribs still hurt some when I'm doing heavy lifting,” Stevie says when he's out of earshot. “Better to be a high maintenance girl all of a sudden than someone he doesn't think he can count on.”

“Don't love the way you used girl in that sentence, Dingus.” Robin shoves at her shoulder, “Let's go look at your room, we can plan how you want to decorate.”

“I'm not saying I'm upset we got the job, Rob, just that it's weird the way Keith was acting. He always hated me, you know that. Before all this,” she gestures down her striped top, well Robin supposes she’s actually gesturing down at the way it hugs her figure, “he hated me. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire.”

“That seems a little dramatic, but welcome to your first workplace sexism.” Robin gives Stevie a comforting pat. Hopeful that it communicates a ‘welcome to the bad parts of everyone knowing you're a girl’ and not how she’d been prepared to work some of that sexism to their advantage. But apparently Keith was charmed by Stevie’s list of favorite films, he’d even laughed when she said her favorite Star Wars movie was the one with the teddy bears. When they’d gone to pick out movies last week she’d heard him lecture a guy for five minutes on how it was Episode VI not ‘the third one.’

Stevie flips her hair, sending Robin a playful glare, “I’ve experienced sexism, thank you, have you already forgotten what I used to look like.”

“I’m sure he’ll go back to hating you once he realizes you working here is going to mean this is one more place that Henderson and the brats are always hanging around.” She went with Stevie to the arcade once and she almost understood why Keith always hid in the back when they walked in. 

“Probably, but at least then I can stop being nice to him. He’s such a-” Robin can hear the way Stevie swallows the rest of the sentence. A frustrated, red blush flooding her cheeks as she bites down on her bottom lip. It’s confusing, the small shake of her head and how upset she suddenly seems to be with herself. “Sorry, sorry, never mind.”

Maybe it’s stupid, but for some reason that’s when Robin realizes that Stevie was about to say something mean. That Stevie stopped herself but she is, Robin supposes, frustrated that the instinct is still there. And it’s not like Robin doesn’t remember that they’ve talked about this before. Stevie with that eyepatch on from where they reattached her retina and Robin laying in the hospital bed next to her still under doctor’s supervision. Neither one of them were high anymore, it had been almost sixteen hours since Everything, they were only in the hospital at all because Robin’s mom had found them both passed out in her bed and panicked. When Mrs. Henderson had seen them both in Hawkins General and did what Stevie said was panicking and had them shipped to the city, her car speeding closely behind.

The only thing they could possibly be high on was the sudden crushing awareness of their own mortality, when Stevie’s one good eye locked with hers and she said, “I don’t want the first thing people think of when they remember me to be how I was a douche or an asshole. Or a bitch, I guess, if they actually let me change like they said they would.

“All the girls I know,” she paused and seemed to consider that, “all the girls that I still like, are good and kind and badass.”

“Including me?” Robin had teased, but she had remembered the way she had given Stevie such a hard time from the second they started working together until the moment they as the ‘adults’ realized they were going to have to protect Dustin and Erica from something that might kill them all.

“Especially you.”

So yeah, of course, when she catches herself about to verbally eviscerate Keith behind his back two weeks after being back in town she shuts down. But Robin isn’t about to let that happen. Stevie is good and kind and definitely a badass, if Keith were in trouble she would absolutely risk her life to save him -- as long as saving him didn’t keep her from saving one of the kids. 

Stevie was a good person who had some mean girl tendencies, Robin wasn’t going to make her feel bad about that. As long as she was using her powers for good, or like Claire in the Breakfast Club she was kind of Mean Girl lite.

“He’s kind of a slimy creep,” Robin admits. The kind of comment she thinks, but couldn’t ever really say with her last group of friends. It would break the loser code.

Stevie’s shoulders drop from around her ears. She’s still idly picking at the nail polish they just painted on her thumb, but she smiles over at Robin. A little sly, a little catty. “He touched my shoulder while we were leaving and I swear to god he left orange cheese puff residue behind.”

“Maybe half of your new clothes shouldn’t be dry clean only.”

“ Maybe he should help cover my dry cleaning bill if he’s going to put his hands on me in the workplace. I could call Family Video HR, probably. You know his dad owns like half of this strip mall, and people gave me shit about having money, I’m pretty sure they own the dry cleaning place too.”

“So why do these polyester nightmares smell like the BO of employees past?”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

With the job and Stevie back, Robin almost forgets that she spent the first three weeks of school sad and miserable. She’s maybe even a little distracted that they have plans tonight, and forgets that there are reasons other than the threat of bacterial infection to avoid the girl’s room in the language hallway. And more than any of that, it’s really hard to think about any of that when she can feel her bladder starting to pickle her brain.

The door to the bathroom swings open before she can exit the stall. Voices she recognizes as Patty Taylor and Molly Smith already mid-conversation filter in. “I mean she’s pretty, like really pretty, but I mean why would you even move to Hawkins.”

It’s definitely too late to leave.

“Carol said that she heard from Heather that she moved in with her aunt, she was from the city or something.”

The squelching sound of a lipgloss wand leaving the tube is punctuated by a bitchy hum, “Well, you know who spent all that time in the city this summer.”

“I mean yeah, but how would they have even met? I’ve heard like six different stories about why she was there.”

Patty’s voice echoes, through the crack in the stall door Robin can see her lean over top of the sink putting her face even closer to the water spotted mirror above it. “Well she was in that mall fire, but I heard she had to stay so long after initial treatment because she…”

There must be some facial expression she’s missing, Patty trails off like she’s dropped some grand secret. Robin isn’t a total loser, she hears gossip. She knows that Mrs. Click is going through a bitter divorce from her husband because he had that affair with the gas station attendant from the Chevron by the highway. She knows that Tim Morris got sent to military school after he put a cherry bomb in Mrs. O’Leary’s mailbox. She knows that Vickie is definitely a shoo-in for clarinet first chair even though Michael Lewis had it last year and he’s a senior this year.

And yeah okay two of those she had heard from Stevie.

But she thinks she should have had some clue that there was some kind of rumor going around about her. Molly wrinkles her forehead, maybe she isn’t the only one who has no clue about this rumor. “Because she what?”

“Because she lost the baby and they put her in the psych ward,” Patty says loud enough that it bounces off the tile walls of the bathroom. A hand covers her mouth and they both look around like they’ve just remembered that they’re in public. Robin pulls her feet up on the toilet seat with her.

“What baby?” Molly asks in a whisper that seems even louder with the way she forces it out.

“Come on, everyone knows the reason she was so upset that Steve died. He knocked her up while they were working together and with the stress she lost the baby. She was such a freak already, the new girl and her must have been in the same padded cell in the loony bin.”

“Really? I mean with Steve Harrington? ”

“I mean Carol said it so I’m pretty sure it has to be true, you know how close she used to be with Steve.” 

The bell rings, sending them both fleeing from the bathroom with muttered curses. Robin stays in the stall too stunned by what she’s heard to move. Stunned and filled with the thought that all she wants right now is to see Stevie.

She bumps into Eddie Munson on the way to the payphone. He gives her an unreadable look, mostly eyebrows that she can’t see beneath his bangs anyway, so she isn’t sure why he even bothers. Is he wondering why she’s skipping class? Or did he see her running from the bathroom and now he’s wondering if maybe the rumors were only partially true, that she’s still pregnant and she hadn’t lost the baby like apparently half the school thinks.

If a wet rat like Munson knows more about her status in the school than she does she really might have to go back and hurl.

She puts in her change and dials the increasingly familiar number for the Henderson place.

“Hen-”

“I need you to come pick me up, now.”

It isn’t hard to convince the school nurse, who’s more worried about when she can slip away to sneak her next cigarette than she is about doing any nursing, that she’s too sick to stay. So she’s waiting out front when Stevie’s new Jeep rockets into the parking lot, the woman of the hour flinging herself out of it before it’s fully in park. 

“What happened? What’s wrong? The kids are fine right?” She’s pressing the back of her hand to Robin’s forehead, the other at her side clenching into fists as she looks over Robin’s head for any creature or person that might need to be put down.

“Everything’s fine,” she lies, “I needed to see you.”

A single eyebrow raises, Robin helped her pluck that eyebrow into that arch and now it’s being used in disbelief at her own blatant lie. “Fine,” she relents, “I’ll tell you when we aren’t standing in the middle of the parking lot, okay?”

The radio is off but so are the doors, so even as Robin refuses to talk the sound of the wind rushing past them fills the silence of the car. With no destination in mind, Stevie seems to be driving a slow meandering circuit of Hawkins.

“I overheard Patty and Molly talking about us in the bathroom today.” She says only after they’ve passed Melvalds twice with no sign of parking.

“They were talking in the bathroom about us or they were talking about us in the bathroom.”

“That’s the same sentence twice.”

“No it’s not. In the bathroom or in the bathroom.” The emphasis is nonsensical, but after a second it clicks.

“They were in the bathroom. I guess I was also in the bathroom but it was definitely not about our bathroom conversation.”

“What were they saying?” Stevie noses out gossip like a search dog noses out missing kids.

Robin sticks her hand out the side of the car, dancing it up and down in the wind like a wave. Letting the force of it glide up and over her like she wishes she could just get over whatever it is that has her so upset. Gossip and rumor that she knows isn’t true.

“Technically you got to be two characters. They think we know each other from the psych ward because boy you got me pregnant and when you died I lost the baby and went crazy.”

Her seatbelt catches her hard against the chest, forcing the air out of her lungs. Stevie’s hit the brakes so hard that the smell of rubber is in the air, uncaring that they’re in the middle of a main road. She’s just looking at Robin with something, disbelief or outrage, maybe a little bit of that rage she gets when her people have been hurt.

“Patty said that? Patty Taylor? Patty with the retainer breath whose lipgloss makes it look like she’s always drooling on herself, Patty?”

A nod is enough answer for Stevie to let out a little humph, setting her eyes back to the road and easing them into drive like they’d just been caught by a stray redlight.

“What?” 

She shakes her head, gazing around the upcoming turn like they don’t both know it’ll be the rundown place that used to be Benny’s. It’s going to be something mean, something she’s worried will make her sound too much like the person she used to be.

As far as Robin is concerned whatever it is won’t be any different than when she swung that phone at that Russian guard. Or crashed that car into Billy’s. It’s all just different ways of helping to protect the people she loves that aren’t as good at protecting themselves.

“Tell me,” she insists, wheedles even. “Whatever it is I won’t tell anyone else. It’s time honored girl code you have to tell me.”

“Girl code?”

“I’ll mimeo you a copy of the handbook, tell me. It’ll make me feel better.”

Stevie’s sigh is audible over the wind rushing past them, her side eye not bad enough that Robin is at all worried about it. “I just think it’s funny that she’s passing judgment on you and your possible pregnancy when everyone knows she’s banned from the U of I campus because she went streaking to impress a guy that wasn’t even interested in her. The only reason she doesn’t have an arrest record for it is because her dad is a former professor or donor or something and threatened funding if the Dean pressed charges.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“Totally, the guy was on the basketball team. He came back and told everyone when he came home for the pre-season kegger.”

She grabs Stevie’s hand off the gearshift, holds it just because she can. Relishes in the closeness the two of them can have now that she’s back and everything is better again. “You are the strongest woman I know, all this knowledge and you just keep it to yourself all the time.”

She snorts, squeezing Robin’s hand, “I literally don’t, I just told you something. Pretty sure that’s like if I had the nuclear launch codes or something and I gave them out to just one person because they’re having a really bad day.”

“Oh! Do you remember doing those stupid duck and cover drills in elementary school?”

“Oh that's really nice of you, Mrs. Buckley, but Aunt Claudia is expecting me home for dinner.” Stevie's voice calls from outside the door, only a surprise because they didn't have plans to hang out today.

She scrambles from her bed, the wire on her headphones tangling around her neck until the weight of her walkman drags them off her. Flinging the door open she's just in time to save her best friend. “Thanks for bringing her up, Mom, we’re just gonna hang out in my room til Steph has to leave, okay?”

Shoving Stevie toward the bed before her Mom has a chance to say anything else, Robin at least smiles before she shuts the door in her mother’s face.

“What happened?”

Stevie is digging through her jewelry box, has a ring Robin picked up at a garage sale because it looked cool and didn’t think about trying on, and doesn’t bother looking ashamed at being caught snooping. “Why does something have to be wrong?”

She slips the ring on her finger, the gold band and mossy green stone looks better on her than it would have Robin. “You can keep it if you admit something happened.” Stevie starts to raise an eyebrow, but it halts half way up her forehead when Robin gives the Family Video vest she’s still wearing a tug.

Her smile goes lopsided, tilts too high on one side before she wanders over to flop down on the bed. “I, maybe, did something stupid.”

Flopping down beside her, Robin swears when she lands on her walkman first. “Stupid like when you put Re-Animator in the romance section or stupid like when you tripped into the Back to the Future cutout and apologized cause you weren't wearing your glasses.”

“Stupid like I don't know, Rob, you know how at first I was pretending that I didn't know anyone when they came in right, cause I'm supposed to be new in town.”

“Like bad witness protection because they put you right back where you left.”

“Right, well I kinda forgot to do that this morning when I was working by myself?”

Looking now she can tell this is something that has had Stevie really worked up. The strands of hair at the front of her face have lost some of their beachy wave from where she's been fussing with it, pushing it back, tugging at it. Waiting for when she saw Robin again.

Sitting up from the bed, she grabs Stevie's hand in a too tight grip. “What happened? You're okay right? They didn't recognize you and do anything shitty, right?”

“Well that's the thing,” she somehow looks even more distressed, it gives Robin another clue. Stevie is afraid she's broken some unspoken rule of girlhood by doing whatever it is she's done. Which means the story will be interesting.

“So Roger came in, you know Roger right? Second stringer on the basketball team, his footwork was too slow to ever actually be any good on the court but he had an amazing three pointer as long as no one was ever anywhere near him. So he'd make a great professional HORSE player but not really going anywhere with the actual game. He came in with his girlfriend-”

“Mindy Peterson.”

“Right, and when did they even get together?” She shakes her head. “Not the point, I was flipping through the Tiger Beat that Cindy left in the drawer after her shift, cause this months Car and Driver was a total waste of money. And he wanders up, surprising me cause the bell over the door still doesn't work and I thought I was alone in there. He starts talking to me like he already knows me.”

“He was flirting with you in front of his girlfriend!”

“That wasn't flirting, he was just being friendly; and I didn't know Mindy was there, she was back in the romance section picking something out.”

“So he's flirting with you while his girlfriend is picking out something for date night.”

Stevie rolls her eyes, shoving not so gently at Robin's shoulder. “He was talking to me like he already knew me, and I do know him so I did the same. I mentioned the last game he played in, well we played in. And then he starts looking at me and I realized what I look like.”

She gestures down at herself, and Robin isn't sure if this is a compliment time or a diffuse the situation time. Stevie really doesn't look that much like she used to. Her face has softened, her hair is longer, and she's leaned into the blonde highlights that she had in the summer.

“He's all ‘Do I know you?’” She continues, and Robin laughs, it's crazy how deep she can still get her voice and even though Roger does not have anything approaching the bass that Stevie has given him. It makes the situation feel even more bizarre. “it's not like I can say, ‘What you don't recognize me from all the times I gave you advice on how to keep yourself open on offense so you could actually get a hand on the ball?’”

Robin reaches for the nail polish on her bedside table, the robin's egg blue Stevie has taken to and the taupe brown that she likes but doesn't clash with Stevie's. They both pick at their nails when they get nervous, and Stevie has definitely been nervous.

“You could have said that,” she says just to be contrary, Stevie hand held in hers it means Robin avoids the smack that would have come.

She puts blue on every finger but one, letting Stevie think as she caps the polish and grabs the taupe to finish the hand. “Hi remember me, I faked my death so I could get boobies without getting murdered in the pumpkin patch I already avoided almost dying in once. Did you know they give you a new social security number for that?”

“So what did you actually do?”

“I lied, obviously.” She blinks twice, opens her eyes wider so she looks doe-eyed and vacant. “Oh gosh, well I guess you wouldn’t remember me. I used to only come to Hawkins during the holidays to babysit my little cousin, and I always try to catch a basketball game when I’m in town. Sometimes I’d sneak out and go to the parties, but I’m shy so...”

“Oh my god, like you’ve ever been shy in your life.”

“I’m going to have to be now!” She throws her hands up, fingers spread wide to avoid accidentally smudging her fresh nails. “It’s not like I can lie my way out of admitting to sharing homeroom with someone next. I’m just lucky Roger’s never took his eyes off the bottom button of my blouse.”

“Do you remember that movie I made you watch a couple months ago, the black and white one?”

“Oh yeah, that really narrows it down.”

“Gaslight, the one with the opera singer’s niece and her new husband tries to make her think she’s crazy. We just lie until everyone is convinced that it’s the truth.”

“The truth being that Stephanie Henderson always existed?”

Eye contact isn’t easy, unless it’s Stevie. They hold each other’s gaze as the excitement bubbles between them. “Exactly,” Robin says, “and that if they think anything else, they’re crazy.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She says, but it sounds like ‘you’re on.’

“Can I be a bitch for a second?” Stevie asks. She doesn’t look up from whatever magazine she was already flipping through when Robin walked through the door. It’s too casual, too calculated.

Progress has been slow but she’s slowly getting Stevie to the point where she doesn’t feel like she has to be nice all the time just because she’s a girl. Where she still acts like the bitchy dingus she'd been before, just a happier version.  

“Obviously, just let me clock in.”

When she gets back Stevie has a stack of returns that she’s working on rewinding. One thumb in her mouth as she chews at the cuticle. “So what’s-?

“If I hear one more word about Eddie the Freak, I’m going to lose it, Rob. I mean what’s he got that’s so great? I could have taken us to the All State Championships if I hadn’t gotten that last concussion saving the twerps. I’ve saved all those twerps’ lives at least two times! I was cool. I am cool! But all I get to hear these days is ‘Oh, Stevie, Eddie just did the coolest thing in the campaign today.’ ‘Thanks for the advice, Stevie, but I’m going to go with what Eddie said instead.’ ‘I know it’s your only day off, Stevie, but could you pick us up late after school? There's Hellfire today.’ ‘Stevie, since Keith actually likes you could you hold Ladyhawke for us. Oh, no we’re going to do a movie night with Eddie.’”

She’s panting slightly when she’s finished, like she’s been holding this in for weeks. With all the quotes she’s racked up she probably has been.

“You know he kicked my tray off the lunch table last week,” she encourages. She snags a box of Sour Patch Kids from the candy counter. Popping one in her mouth before waving the bag under Stevie’s frowning face. She doesn’t even have a movie turned on. Well she does, but it looks like it was one of the weekend returns Stevie wasn’t going to put on Watership Down.

“Well he’s inconsiderate,” Stevie says, digging around in the box until she finds a red one and popping it into her mouth. “Everything is all fuck the man until he’s the man in question and then he’s the only one anyone should listen to about anything. Lucas is going to make the basketball team, he’s been working really hard on it with Jay and some of the other guys on the team.”

She’s basically taken the whole box of candy at this point. Robin doesn’t even care, just watches as Stevie picks out her favorite colors and lines them up on her magazine on the counter like a sweet and sour army. Completely oblivious to the quiet devastation that’s playing out on her face. Her brow furrowed and tight when she talks about Lucas, basketball another thing Robin wonders if she’s being unintentionally left out of.

“I just know Munson’s going to turn it into some us or them thing, like it isn’t possible to like more than one thing.”

“Maybe you-”

“And maybe that’s why they’ve been so cool with all of this,” she shrugs her shoulder in place of gesturing down at herself, too busy tearing apart a lone sourpatch general, “like it was a send off before they moved on to an actual guy who can actually do something for them. That’s probably a better send off than I deserve even right, like I mean, the kind of person I used to be. Maybe I don’t get more than one happy thing.”

Robin flattens the little red and green army underneath the flat of her hand, “Absolutely not. You are not going to let a… a… a dumpster raccoon with Mrs. Goble’s mystery meat on the bottom of his stupid shoes make you think that you don’t deserve the entire world.”

“But-” Stevie tears at the cardboard of the box between her fingers, leaving little pieces of it on the floor between her feet.

“But nothing, your little shithead kids might have latched onto the first giant nerd that looked at them when they crossed through the doors of the high school like freshly hatched ducklings but you’re the coolest person they’ve ever had the chance to meet and it’s their loss if they don’t notice.”

“I mean they’re in high school so-”

“So they’ve decided to get all the stupid decisions out at the start. It’s a bold decision but maybe that will keep them from-”

“From crashing their dad’s truck into half the cars at prom?”

“I wish one of them had been yours,” she steals the last red Sour Patch from between Stevie’s fingers, popping it into her mouth before her best friend can do anything about it.

“You’re never going to pass your driver’s test, I hope you like the bus.”

“You’re going to drive me to work forever because you love me,” she drags love out as she dances away from Stevie’s slapping hands, snagging a stack of tapes to return to the shelves as she goes.

There’s no way Stevie isn’t rolling her eyes, but Robin also knows that she’ll look all soft and pleased. Knows because a yellow candy smacks hard against the copy of The Breakfast Club that’s right beside her head.

“What the hell is going on with that rabbit?”

“Pretty sure it’s proof that you should never be trusted to pick the shift movie.”

“Stevie’s being a total headcase this week, will you tell her to chill out,” Henderson delivers what Robin is going to generously call a request after cornering her between fourth and fifth periods. Cause if it isn’t a request then it’s an order or a demand, and her small friend is not going to be happy with what she has to say in that case.

“Well that depends, Dusty, why are you calling my best friend a headcase?”

He rolls his eyes at her, a trait that Stevie might put up with but Robin is not about to. “Because she’s being one, every time I try to talk to her it’s like…” he trails off. That’s probably for the best.

“It’s like all you can talk about is your new best friend Eddie? It’s like you aren’t interested in her now that you’ve got some new brother that you can hang out with instead? It’s like all she’s good for is a ride to see the boys? It’s like you can’t ask her how to talk to girls anymore or how you should do your hair because she’s not the same anymore.”

“I didn’t say that,” he shrieks, hands waving between them like he can swipe away the thousand bees that are her accusations. She feels stinging mad actually now that she’s started putting words out there for the things that she’s feeling.

“You don’t have to say it, it’s what you’ve been doing.”

“Did she say that?” Robin gently swings her locker door just shy of closed. Dustin looks younger than she thinks she’s seen him since the first time they met. Looks smaller than she’s seen him in her life. Looking up at her with big watery eyes, waiting for her to make it okay.

Stevie’s gonna be pissed if she doesn’t at least try to make it okay.

She picks each word carefully, not wanting him to feel completely off the hook, “She didn’t say it exactly like that.”

Dustin looks at the floor, his hat obscuring his face enough that she can’t tell if he’s followed through on the watery eyes to full crying. The ambiguity makes him easier to talk to for a second, now that she doesn’t have to worry about watching what his expression is doing.

“She’s still the same person who walked down the train tracks with a kid she barely knew looking for his runaway science experiment. She’s still the person who did your hair for the snowball. She’s the person who went hunting for Russian spies with you. She’s the person that would like to keep giving you terrible advice on how to date.”

His next breath is phlegmy and ragged. “It wasn’t terrible advice.”

“Right, right, your Moonchild Empress or whatever.”

Dustin hasn’t been quiet once in the entire time that she’s known him so Robin assumes the quiet means he’s done talking. Swinging her locker back open she goes back to what she was doing before he interrupted, which had, coincidentally been Stevie related. Deciding whether or not she was going to bring her copy Watership Down to work with her so Stevie could see what was up with the rabbits.

“They should meet.”

Robin had also been leaning toward introducing her to Fiver and Hazel, but she doesn't think that’s what Dustin means.

“Who should-”

“Stevie and Eddie,” he looks at her with a wide grin. An expression she recognizes from shortly before she found herself in an elevator to hell. Dustin thinks he's just had a good idea. “Stevie can see that Eddie's super cool, Eddie will stop- And once they know each other we can hang out all the time, why didn't I think of this before!”

It does occur to her that she could remind Dustin that Stevie existed before July of 1985. That she went to school here and definitely already knows Eddie, that's where half the problem comes from even. But then she thinks of how much fun their next sleepover will be, when Stevie has brand new things to hate and make fun of.

“Maybe you're right Dustin, maybe that is the problem.”

He pumps his fist in time with the warning bell. “This is going to be great, I can't believe I didn't already think of this.”

He's still talking to himself as he starts to scamper off to a class he's going to be late to. But she isn’t about to let him leave without making sure he took away the real lesson he was supposed to. “And pass along to your little friends that her new meds didn't lobotomize her brain or amputate her legs. She can still tell you how to talk to girls, she can still shoot a free throw, she can still show you how to change a tire after it's blown out on the interstate.”

Dustin's staying with the Wheelers, Claudia has the night shift which means she and Stevie have the whole house to themselves.

Robin is making herself at home in Stevie's room, moving extra quilts and pillows from the linen closet into a fort she's making on the floor. Because today is going to be the best bitch day in the world, once Stevie makes it home from playing chauffeur. Because today Stevie gave in and went to lunch and a movie with Dustin and his new best friend Eddie.

She keeps trying to imagine what Stevie will say. Maybe Munson dips his fries in syrup or something disgusting. Maybe he showed up to the movie in his nerd brigade shirt. Maybe he showed up thirty minutes late! And the Stevie in her head has devastating things to say about all of those things, but she knows none of them are right. She just can't manage the right amount of even toned bitchery that Stevie can, the clever double entendre that makes the person she's insulting look all the dumber for getting upset at the blatant quips.

“Did you really bike here, you weirdo? You know I would have picked you up.” Stevie's voice carries down the hallway, accented by the sound of her keys hitting the bowl by the door and her shoes getting picked up from the floor and set down in the shoe tree.

“You got that bike rack for the Jeep. I wanted to make sure it actually got some use.”

The answering laugh is the one Robin possessively thinks of as hers, a little ugly, high pitched and snorting. It makes it to the bedroom just a second before Stevies face. A face that's wearing the lipgloss with the glitter in it, the one she saves for when she's trying to impress someone or make them look at her mouth.

“You look nice?”

“Such a charmer, Rob, no wonder you've got so many girls banging down your door.” She eases herself down onto the floor beside Robin, smoothing out a buttery yellow skirt that has to be new. She knows every single item in Stevie's closet, except this skirt.

She isn't going to think about how Stevie went out shopping without her though. She'd rather focus her attention somewhere more entertaining. “How was lunch?”

Stevie fusses with the edge of her skirt, rolling the hem of it between two fingers. Her face pinking though under that she's smiling. “Ugh you wouldn't even believe Henderson was a twerp, as usual. Insisted that he had to have one side of the table to himself, ordered two milkshake flavors so he could mix them together, and of course I'm paying for the whole thing.”

“Dustin being a dweeb is old news, what else happened at lunch.”

“I mean,” she trails off, making a face Robin has never seen before. Which shouldn't be possible, she thinks she is supposed to have seen all of Stevie's faces.  “Munson was a total freak, obviously. Kept calling me ‘My Lady’ and all that nerd shit. You’d think I came in with a cast with the way he opened every door and kept pulling out my chair.” 

It all sounds decidedly unfreakish to Robin, in fact it sounds like Stevie finds the guy charming. She realizes with something close to horror that she does actually recognize the expression on Stevie’s face. Just not on her best friend. It’s the bashful, twitterpated expression of a girl at a sleepover trying not to admit she has a crush. An expression that might as well be a death knell, cause the only time she’s ever seen it is right before date night started beating girl’s night.

“Not that it matters, the guy doesn’t know how to take a joke,” Stevie goes on, her smile still too shy to fully bloom but no less in place. Even as she pretends that whatever this is is supposed to be some dealbreaker. “I asked him what he gets out of playing Halflings and Half-wits with the dweeb squad and I thought he was going to climb on the table right there. Ed-weird went on for like five minutes on how the gremlins are some of the best players he’s ever played with, and they're an endless fount of creativity that keeps him perpetually on his toes.”

Stevie never actually stood a chance. And if Robin had been paying attention she would have realized that. 

There wasn’t anyone who loved passionate, nerdy people as much as Stevie.

Eddie Munson wore his king of the loud mouthed nerds crown with pride. And he was as obsessed with the gremlins as Stevie was 

“Why are we talking about him?” She flops over until her head is in Robin’s lap, flopping one arm outside of the pillow fortress to reach under the bed. She crows, victorious, holding a jar that's pond scum brown like it’s treasure. “Had to hide this after Dust put it in his hair. Put this goop on your face and tell me about what Vickie said in band yesterday again. Cause I'm pretty sure she was dating Dan Summers last year, and he didn't really seem like the type of guy to stay with his high school girlfriend.”

It's coincidence, pure and simple, that puts her right outside O'Donnell's fourth period class. Thompson's study hall, her own fourth period, was technically across the building but everyone knew Mr. Thompson came to work on Mondays too hungover to care about attendance.

And study hall didn't have a certain wannabe friend-dater standing outside it, debating whether or not he was going to go inside.

She is still figuring out her angle of attack when it looks like he's decided he is actually going to class. Considering O’Donnell is the type to write office referral slips to kids who aren’t meant to be in her room for ‘being a distraction’ there isn’t really any time for subtlety. Still, she’s surprised by the tone of her own voice when she shouts, “Munson!”

Heads turn in the hallway, of course they do. Faces she only knows by virtue of twelve years of school watching on with a lust for future violence she recognizes from that concrete bunker. But if Munson is concerned that a girl he's never spoken to is yelling at him, he doesn't look it as he turns on both heels to face her.

He smiles first, benignly pleasant. But Stevie taught her that trick, smiling to diffuse anger or hide how she has no idea how the person talking to her actually knows her. Munson is doing both, they had two classes together last semester and she was in the orchestra for the last school musical.

The blankness eventually clears from his eyes, “Bye Bye Buckley!”

Not about to be distracted by the dumbest reference she's ever heard, and with the eyes of at least two people she can see on her, she drags Munson away from class. It's bound to be all around the school by the dismissal bell, but rumor is less important than the mission.

The girls room by the library is always abandoned. The mirrors are dingy or cracked and it always smells like cat piss for no discernable reason. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” He looks around the bathroom with an inquisitive eye like the grimy bluish tile is somehow more interesting than her. “I'm not actually carrying if you were-”

He doesn't have the decency to stumble when she shoves at his chest, trying to push him back into the stall doors.

“What are your intentions with Stevie?”

“Ah yes, the mysterious cousin Henderson. Who says I have intentions?” His only saving grace is that it takes her too long to get her thoughts in order. A miasma of rants at the tip of her tongue about Stevie and how she was too good for him and any thoughts he might be having about her. 

But in the time it takes to see through her friend based rage, she’s able to watch a transformation take place on Eddie’s face. The smug aloofness that had taken over his face from the moment she cornered him in the hallway washes away. Leaving behind something giddy and young, bright eyes and a flushed face. “Unless she was asking about me. You two are bosom friends, are you not Diana? That would make me Gilbert Blythe, hell of a role.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of people who wish they could break a slate over your head.”

“You’re probably right, doesn’t answer my question though. Was your dear Anne Shirley talking about me?” He scuffs a boot against the floor. Doing an impressive impression of a bashful school boy while standing in front of her in his ratted out, heavy metal glory. There are at least four chains that she can spot on his outfit right now but his face would be just as at home on Opie Taylor.

But she isn’t going to get fooled by some routine. She has something to say and she’s going to make sure she says it.

“She’s really special, Munson. She’s not some cheerleader you fuck in the woods because she wants to get back at her parents that are divorcing and you’re the scariest thing available that isn’t actually dangerous.”

“Tell me how you really feel, Buckley.” The retort seems to drag itself from his mouth on instinct. Cause the aw shucks routine he’d been giving is lying broken on the floor replaced by open mouthed shock.

“I am.” The bell rings, marking them both officially late for class. She glares him down, waiting to see if he’ll leave, effectively flinching first. He glares back. “She’s an athlete, likes sports.”

Maybe it’s wrong to list the things about Stevie that she knows Munson won’t like. But she also isn’t about to let her best friend water herself down for some stupid boy.

“Wayne will be thrilled to have someone who understands what he’s talking about. Go team.”

“She hates fantasy. Dustin loaned her his copy of Fellowship of the Ring and she gave it back when they kept singing.”

“I’m sure she’d like it if I sang them for her.”

“She isn’t going to become some demure, church mouse just because you’re around. She’s snarky and confident and, and…”

He sets a hand on her shoulder in a way that is so patronizing she wishes she were as good at being a bitch as Stevie was. But she suppresses her first instinct to bite him if only because she’s working at keeping up her record of 4578 days without biting a classmate.

“I don’t know what any of that means,” he says, “but it sounds like you and your hot best friend have been talking about me. So thanks for that intel, Bucks.”

People wearing leather and motorcycle boots shouldn’t be able to skip. The stupid hanky in his stupid pocket flaps behind him like a wagging tail as Munson leaves her in the girls room with the smell of ammonia.

Stevie has Breakfast at Tiffany’s playing on the TV when Robin makes it to work. Keith let them have most of their shifts together but drew the line at letting Stevie shut the store down to come pick her up after school. So on days where Stevie works a double, she’s stuck arriving to work sweaty and guessing at whatever movie will have ended up on the big TV.

And today she gets to catch Stevie standing in the middle of the floor, a stack of tapes in her arms, while she watches the party happening in Holly Golightly’s apartment. Audrey Hepburn swaying with her guest in the middle of the floor.

“Someone’s in a mood.” 

From over her shoulder, Stevie sends Robin a look. Something loaded with dry humor and a smugness that usually means something juicy happened in the time before Robin got there.

Usually.

There’s something about the look today that feels personally directed at her.

“Well it was this or Some Like it Hot, and the stay at home moms are weird about black and white movies that aren’t the first few minutes of Wizard of Oz.”

“That’s sepia.”

“Bless you.”

Making sure Stevie can see her rolling her eyes, she heads to the back to clock in. By the time she makes it back, Stevie has the volume turned down on Holly Golightly’s romantic disasters. She’s back behind the counter, head pillowed in her hands and Robin remembers why people used to be a little scared of her popular kid cabaret. Walking up the center aisle, she feels like she’s headed straight toward a tiger with its mouth open and she’s about to put her head in there. 

“So you’ll never believe what happened earlier,” Stevie taps her nail against her cheek.

“Paul Collins came in with his mistress to look at porn again?”

Humming, Stevie doesn’t say anything as Robin comes behind the counter with her. There’s a stack of tapes that need to be rewound and a roll of Be Kind Rewind stickers that need to be stuck to cases.

“Still time for that,” she says right as Robin started to think they were going to drop it. “Sally Tyler called from the payphone.”

“Sally from the basketball team?”

“Yeah,” that smile is even wider. This is almost certainly payback for the You Suck board. “I’m thinking about joining her rec team but we’ve played one-on-one in the park once or twice.”

“And she had a Family Video emergency that only you could solve?”

“Sorta. She was just really concerned, she’d heard a rumor that my best friend was dragging the guy she saw me having lunch with this weekend into the girls room.”

This is definitely payback for the You Suck board. Stevie’s looking a little too pleased with herself as she smiles at what can only be Robin’s slack jawed surprise.

“I get if you're mad,” she says and that’s all she can assume is happening, she isn’t sure how else to read what’s happening on Stevie’s face. “But-”

“Thank you.”

“I was just trying to- What?”

“Come on,” she rolls her eyes, swipes a half hearted smack to Robin’s shoulder. “I’ve been on the other side of that, you know. Well meaning friends pulling me aside to ask what my intentions are.”

“Oh my god, did she follow us in there?”

Delight makes Stevie’s eyes sparkle, “Did you actually? I love you. Did you give him hell?”

“I think he got the upperhand.”

“I think it’s all the playing pretend. The shitheads will run circles around the unprepared too.”

It seems a little too good to be true. “You really aren’t mad?”

Someone abandoned The Breakfast Club at the scene where Ally Sheedy gets the makeover. It had seemed like a stupid scene when she’d seen it in theaters, now it makes something weird pit in the bottom of her stomach. She doesn’t get the chance to hit rewind, to send Allison back in time so she can be strange and herself again, because Stevie is flipping her around and pulling her into a bone crushing hug.

“First of all,” she says into the side of Robin’s hair, “the only thing I’m even a little miffed about is you thinking I couldn’t kick Munson’s ass myself. But no one’s ever done anything like that for me before so I’m cool with letting it slide.”

“But we are acknowledging that you definitely have a thing for the guy with the rattiest hair in the school. Probably even Roane county.” Robin says, face pressed into the meat of Stevie’s shoulder.

Stevie shoves her away with a groan that Robin’s laughter is already drowning out. “Yeah, alright. He’s kind of okay I guess.”

“Such sweet words for the father of your brood.”

“He’s not the father of my anything,” she flips her hair over one shoulder, “anyway I think he gets off on it so I’m gonna keep being mean to him.”

“That was more than I wanted to know about either of you.”

“No it wasn’t, you like that I’m mean too. You get all sad faced when you think I’m trying to bury my impulses.”

For the second time today Robin is left too surprised to say anything. She’s left gaping, not that Stevie is looking at her now; too busy picking at the nail polish left on her pinky. 

“I like it,” she says quietly after a moment. Robin has shut her mouth by the time Stevie looks up at her again, something soft but serious on her face. She reaches across the counter to grab Robin by the hand, melding what’s left of their coordinating manicures by linking their fingers. “You’re my number one. Even if Eddie does anything about anything, he’s going to have to compete with you.”

Neither of them move as the weight of the moment surrounds them like one of Mrs. Henderson’s quilts. Heavy and homey and right. But they are still at work and as the bell beside the door dings, and they break their silence to greet their new customer in tandem, they shrug off the heavy sincerity for something more functional. Stevie’s smile turns sly, and she tugs Robin closer while keeping an eye on the man now browsing the comedies. “You’ll never guess who came in earlier to ask if we had Nine and a Half Weeks yet.”

[fuctacles]

The first one of many

for @stevieweek Day 4: Special Outfit + first dress + fantasy and for @steddiemicrofic "one" G | 1111 | no cw | ren-faire, pre-relationship, transfem Stevie, smitten Eddie | Ao3 Stevie Week: Day 1 | Day 2 (art) | Day 3 (art) | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

"Do you like this one?"

Eddie appears by her side so abruptly, she jumps out of her skin. He smiles apologetically.

"Sorry," he says, but doesn't let himself be distracted. He reaches out to touch the sleeve of the dress Stevie's been eyeing.

It's yellow and white, with a floral pattern and a square neckline. The sleeves are slightly puffy, and the corset can be laced on the front for adjustment. It's one of the flashier ones at the stall, but Eddie wouldn't expect anything less from the girl standing next to him.

He's still surprised she agreed to come with them, to for a few days taste and touch the world her friends love so much. She told him earlier, that she liked everyone's costumes, but it's the first time anything has captured her attention like this.

"Do you want to try it on?" he asks.

"No, that's okay." She shakes her head immediately, but he won't be having it.

"Come on, we're here to have fun, all of us. And if trying on dresses is fun for you, then let's do it!" he encourages her, putting his infectious enthusiasm into the words.

She's still hesitant, but he can tell the garment in front of them is like a siren's call.

"I don't know..."

Dustin bumps into them while eyeing some of the leatherwork displayed nearby, and Eddie holds his breath, hoping it's one of these times his lack of filter is helpful. The boy looks at his friends and the garment they're facing.

"You guys buying a dress?"

"No," says Stevie.

"Maybe," says Eddie.

Dustin studies the dress with his judgmental eyes, gaze darting from it to Stevie and back again.

"You should at least try it. It's your color," he says, before walking away.

Eddie turns to his friend triumphantly.

"Well?" he grins. He can see in her eyes that she wants to but is having a hard time admitting it.

"I guess?" she says eventually. "I mean, it's just for fun, right?"

"Of course!" Eddie quickly flags down the seller, before she can change her mind. "Excuse me, good sir! Is there somewhere we can try it on?"

Which ends up with them ushered to the back of the stall, with instructions on how to operate all of the dress's clasps and lacings.

"I'll wait here. Tell me if you need any help," Eddie says before pushing his friend behind the partition, dress in her hand.

He can hear the rustle of fabric behind the heavy curtain, Stevie's clothes dropping heavily to the grass beneath while he's doing his best not to think about her undressing. She's cursing and huffing while pulling on the new dress and it helps to quell his nasty thoughts a bit. And then everything goes silent.

"Stevie?" He frowns. "You alright there?"

"Yeah," she answers, but it's so tiny he can barely hear it.

"Can I come in?"

"Uh-huh."

He pushes the edge of the green fabric aside and slips inside the little alcove. In the tight space, Stevie is staring in a full-body mirror, hands smoothing down her hips, pulling her hair forward, pushing up her breasts.

Eddie finds himself enchanted by her, not for the first time.

"You look beautiful," he says.

"You think so?"

"Yeah. Though, your corset lacing needs some practice." She huffs at that. "Can I?"

The way she turns to face him, full of trust, makes his heart melt and slide down his ribs.

Delicately and trying not to touch her chest, like a true gentleman, he unlaces the corset to tighten it at the waist. Her gasp makes him bite his lip painfully.

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine. You can go a bit tighter."

They work together until her waist and hips make a beautiful curve, and her tiny breasts are pushed up in a flattering way. She seems to be especially fixated on them, on the bit of skin peeking out from the low neckline.

Eddie can share that sentiment.

"Thank you," she whispers once she's facing the mirror again, fingers tracing the newfound shape of her body.

"There's nothing to thank me for, you're just naturally beautiful." Eddie smiles, reaching out to tug her hair forward again, so it falls against the bare skin of her collarbones. The sight makes his mouth go dry so he decides to move his thoughts elsewhere. "I think it's the first time I've seen you in a dress."

Stevie hums.

"That's because I don't have one."

"Huh?"

"I've tried on Nancy's or my mother's, but I don't have one of my own," she clarifies with a shrug.

"That's unthinkable," Eddie declares. "We're getting it." The thought that her first dress could be a nerdy, ren-faire one, makes his stomach flip.

"It's too expensive." She shakes her head, but he can see she's sad about it. "I can get a dress at the mall for a third of this price."

Eddie nods along.

"Yes, you could get a cheap, boring rat mall dress," he agrees. "Or you could buy one of a kind, handmade with passion and care, worthy of a princess."

Watching her cheeks flush is worth the risk of exposing his feelings.

"Where would I even wear it?" she keeps digging her heels in the ground. And, while she has a point...

"Here, for starters. And any other ren-faire I'll take you to just so I can show off how pretty you are."

With the way she looks up at him, she might already know.

He just hopes he has enough money. He pulls out his wallet and Stevie frowns.

"You're not getting it for me."

"Oh, I am." He hopes he is, at least. In a rush of bravery, he smiles to add, "Consider it my first courting gift," and leaves before she can protest.

When he's counting his money and wonders who he can beg for a loan, Dustin approaches him with a wad of cash.

"I saw the price earlier and figured you guys could need it." He smiles with that self-satisfied smirk of his, but for once, Eddie doesn't mind.

He hands the money to the merchant and runs back to Stevie.

"Hey, does it count as a courting gift if the twerps pitched in?" he asks through the partition and is promptly pulled inside.

"Are you serious about the courting?" Stevie asks, with her face so close to Eddie's, he has trouble processing her words.

"Deadly," he whispers, hoping they're on the same page.

"Is there, like, a nerdy ritual I have to follow for it?" she asks.

"Uh, a kiss would be nice," he says. Pleads.

She smiles and leans in.

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

give it up for @stevieweek day 3- girls' night! using the sports prompt to spread my sporty stevie agenda like let that woman put her ponytail through her baseball cap!!!!!

wc: 812 | rating: G

Today, Stevie Harrington is a woman on a mission. She’s gonna revolutionise girls’ night.

Before her transition, she spent most of her time with the boys of the party (and also Robin), and while she’s still pretty close with them and has maintained her hybrid sibling-chauffeur relationship, the girls have started muscling in on her time a lot more under the pretense of ‘showing her the ropes’ of femininity. Which mainly seems to entail Erica dragging her through stores in the mall a few towns over and El practising her new nail painting skills on Stevie’s hands.

And don’t get her wrong, Stevie loves it. There’s a certain sense of joy that warms her heart every time the girls make a point to involve her in anything, especially something overtly feminine. Her hair, skin, and nails have literally never looked better thanks to their new weekly girls nights.

But recently, Stevie’s had something of a revelation. She’s always been a sporty gal, but with the exception of Lucas, none of the boys have shown any interest in joining her in her hobbies. In fact, they’ve repeatedly shown an interest in doing anything but her hobbies. She’d pretty much given up on getting to play any kind of sports with the kids a long time ago, beyond the occasional one-on-one with Lucas.

At least, until she realised that while the boys had banned all mention of sports, she’d received no such ultimatum from the girls.

The more she thinks about it, the more perfect her plan seems. Max is already kind of sporty- she’d taken Stevie out skateboarding once and that shit was hard, involving a lot of muscles and balance skills that Stevie wasn’t really used to. Erica and Nancy aren't specifically big sports fans, but they have a lot of rage within them that Steph thinks could really be put to use in, say, swinging a bat around or throwing a ball real hard. If anything the only real concern Stevie has there is that they might become too powerful. El tends to just be happy being part of a group, and Robin is dedicated in her role of Stevie’s Best Friend Slash Twin Sister, so while she’ll probably complain the entire time about how she’s too uncoordinated for sports, she’ll still do it as if not doing it wasn’t even an option.

So now she’s sitting in her living room, the designated venue for girls’ night, surrounded by various sports equipment while the other girls stare at her.

“It could be fun! Like a bonding thing!” she says, eyes big and pleading.

Erica squints at her. “You look like a dog begging for food right now.”

Before Stevie can even begin to get offended by that, El pipes up from where she’s inspecting a tennis racket. “I saw a pretty dog the other day that was playing with some children. I think you would be that kind of dog.”

Max nods sagely. “Golden retriever. You have golden retriever energy.” She picks up a baseball. “Explains why you want to play ball so much.”

The one-two punch of almost compliment and harsh critique is frankly kind of devastating. Luckily Robin seems to sense Stevie’s distress. “I think it’ll be fun! And, like, this could be a girl power thing, right? Like, look at us go- bam, baseball bat.”

“Bam, baseball bat?” Nancy says, failing to hide a smile behind her hands.

Erica picks up a baseball bat, swinging it a little too vigorously a little too close to one of Stevie’s lamps, but she guesses she had to have seen that coming when possibly handing something that could do damage to Erica Sinclair. “I guess I could see the value of bam, baseball bat.”

“I have never played a sport before. I would like to learn,” El states in her matter-of-fact way. Max visibly softens at that, so Stevie knows she’s got both of them on board.

“That’s great!” Stevie pops out of her seat, excitedly walking over to her supplies. “What do you think you’d like to play? I have a couple different things-”

“We better be playing something competitive, you people need some humbling,” Erica mutters, but the small smile on her face shows she’s in.

Nancy smiles at Erica, one of those sharp smiles that reminds Stevie how much the two girls have in common. “Anything’s competitive if you try hard enough.”

Five for five. A grin overtakes Stevie’s face, and she quickly gathers up a basically random selection of balls and bats and rackets, excitedly running into the yard. “This is gonna be great! Best girls’ night ever!”

She’s so thrilled with a plan well executed that she even graciously decides to ignore the whispered remarks of “yeah, definitely a golden retriever,” coming from behind her.

Retribution will just have to come in the form of sports.

[stevieweek]

Ao3 Collection | Days 4 - 7 | Prompts

hand-me-down, fic by allthewaytothechapel G | - | Steddie

Untitled, art by @stevieharringtonwifeguy G | + Scoops/uniform | -

I'll see you at the reunion, fic by @stevesjockstrap E | Stobin + lingerie | Steddie

Robin's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Your Newly Adopted Former Mean Girl, fic by @formosusiniquis T | - | Steddie

Strawberry, fic by @machtaholic - | + Scoops/uniform | -

An offer you can't refuse, fic by @fuctacles M | + Dom!Stevie | Steddie, Buckingham

prettier now, fic by @lingeringmirth T | - | -

I Wanna Be The One To Walk In The Sun, fic by @augustjustice T | + sapphic + the party | Sapphic Stobin

Wallpaper, fic by @steddie-island G | - | -

mauve, fic by allthewaytothechapel G | + lingerie | Steddie

Untitled, fic by @stevieharringtonwifeguy M | + lingerie | Steddie

Bobby pin, fic by @machtaholic - | + the party | -

find your Suzie, fic by @formosusiniquis T | + t4t + Scoops | Steddie

Still the one, fic by @augustjustice T | - | Steddie

Gender Euphoria, art and playlist by @hawkinsleather G | - | -

Who Is That Brand New Babygirl?, fic by @stellarspecter T | + Stobin + lingerie | Stevie&Robin

Long Haul, fic by @steddie-island G | - | Steddie, Robin&Stevie&Eddie

New Lipstick, art by @fuctacles G | - | -

What's in a name?, fic by @midsummer-semantics T | + Stobin | -

Contemplation, Action, fic by @talanashta G | + first dress | -

Untitled, fic by @stevieharringtonwifeguy G | + sports | -

it's a girls' night out. fic by allthewaytothechapel G | + first dress | Stevie&Robin&Nancy

Second Mate, fic by @steddie-island E | + monsterfucking | Steddie

Powerpoint Night, art by @fuctacles G | - | Steddie

You're the One that I Want, fic by @augustjustice T | - | Steddie

Silk, fic by @machtaholic - | + lingerie | -

Vampires and Werewolves and Demons, Oh My!, fic by @stellarspecter T | + monsterfucking | Argyle&Robin&Nancy&Stevie

smelling like a bonfire, lost in the haze, fic by @midsummer-semantics E | + sapphic | Steddie

[stellarspecter]

Who Is That Brand New Babygirl?

@stevieweek Day 1: Stobin | Day 2: Gender Euphoria | Dice Roll: 7. Lingerie

(since there were 10 extra prompts provided, i decided to roll a d10 each day for an extra prompt along with the daily theme! and i combined day 1 and day 2 because i didn't get anything out yesterday and it fit my idea anyway lol) (also divider by @/thecutestgrotto)

read on AO3

“How about this one?”

Stevie took the lacy scrap of fabric that Robin had shoved in her face. “I like the color.” The panties were blush pink, with a wide band of lace at the top. 

“There’s a matching bralette, too.” Robin pointed across the aisle to a rack of bralettes, some of them the same color as the panties she held in her hand.

Stevie flushed. “I don’t know…” Wearing panties was one thing, but a bra? “I don’t even have any growth yet.” She gestured aimlessly to her chest, where the hormones she had only just started taking still had yet to work their magic.

“That’s why it’s a bralette, not a bra. No cups,” Robin explained. “Think of it like a training bra. My mom made me start wearing them in middle school and it was kind of weird, but it does make you more used to wearing one. And feel more grown up, which I guess you don’t really need help with because you’re already an adult, but you know. More like a woman.” She stopped talking with that look on her face that meant she was trying to hold in a patented Robin Ramble™. 

“I thought you hated bras,” Stevie pointed out. Robin always made a point of complaining about her bra digging into her ribs, and at this point Stevie thought there might be more of them scattered around her house than in Robin’s, since she always hurried to take them off when she walked in the door.

“I do, but that’s because of the underwire. These ones don’t have that, see?” Robin showed her the simple elastic band at the base of the cups. “Bralettes like this are usually pretty comfortable unless the lace is too scratchy or something.”

Stevie hummed in acknowledgement and ran her fingers across the pink lace. It was soft to the touch, and she couldn’t help but imagine what it might feel like sliding across her skin, under her shirt, a secret from the rest of the world.

She really wanted it.

But what if it wasn’t right? What if she put it on and looked in the mirror and all there was staring back at her was a man playing dress-up, brutish and muscled and ridiculous? She didn’t think she could take the disappointment.

“I…” Her hand hovered over the rack, that fear holding her back. 

“Here, we’ll get a few sizes,” Robin said, businesslike as she combed through them and plucked a few out. “You can try them on in the dressing room and see which one you like best, okay?”

“In the dressing room? But won’t someone — I mean, they’ll see that I have —” She stumbled over her words and just waved her hands at the pile of lace in Robin's hands. 

Robin considered it for a moment, and then shrugged. “We can say it’s mine and you’re just helping me. Come on.”

With that, she led them to the back of the store, where a bored employee pointed them towards an empty fitting room all the way in the back, much to Stevie’s relief. They shuffled into the little cubicle together, the closeness not even close to a problem for them.

Stevie fingered the edge of her shirt nervously. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean what if —” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “— what if it doesn’t fit?” She finished lamely.

“Then we go back out and get another size,” Robin answered. She seemed to understand the unspoken fear beneath her words, and took Stevie’s hand. “I’ll bring the whole lingerie section in here one by one if I need to, okay? We’re not leaving until we find something you feel good in.”

Stevie let out a shaky breath and squeezed Robin’s hand. “Okay. Okay, let’s do this.” With a burst of confidence, she whipped off her shirt and threw it down on the little bend built into the wall. Robin cheered like she was at a sold-out show, not in the back hallway of a department store where other people could definitely hear them. It made Stevie laugh, though, which was almost certainly the point, based on Robin’s satisfied smile.

She pulled a bralette off of its hanger and stared at it for a moment. Would the thing even fit over her head? Were her shoulders too broad? It didn’t have a clasp, so she had to try. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and put it on.

“Let me help you with the straps,” Robin murmured, soft hands fiddling with the fabric stretched across her back. After a moment, she smoothed her hands across it and stepped away. “Perfect.”

Stevie’s eyes watered under her closed lids. “Perfect?”

“Yeah, Stevie,” Robin whispered, gentle in a way that most people who knew her probably didn’t think she was capable of. But Stevie knew her down to her bones, and she got this side of Robin that barely anyone else got to see — the caretaking, loving, protective side of her that knew the nuance of a gentle touch. “Perfect. You wanna take a look?”

Stevie nodded, heart pounding in her chest, Robin’s hands on her shoulders, steering her towards the mirror. She felt paralyzed with the weight of the moment, this one thing that could make or break her whole transition. What if it didn’t fit her? What if she didn’t fit it?

But Robin had said she looked perfect.

Stevie opened her eyes.

In the mirror in front of her stood a woman. Brown hair just brushing her shoulders, moles dotting her tanned skin, blue jeans starting just under her belly button. The blush pink bralette cupped her breasts — her pecs — her boobs in a gentle curve. The wide lace band at the bottom secured it all, and the thin straps drew attention to her shoulders, yes, but also to her delicate collarbones and throat framed between them. The woman in the mirror reached a shaking hand up to feel, and at the first touch of lace to her fingertips, Stevie couldn’t help but sob.

“Oh, Stevie,” Robin said, bundling her in her arms immediately. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you want to find a different one? Just tell me what you want, I’ll go find something for you, okay?”

“No, it’s — it’s perfect,” Stevie sobbed, tear tracks rolling picturesque down her cheeks. She hoped they wouldn’t drip on the fabric. “I just — I look like a woman.” 

“Oh,” Robin breathed. She smiled softly over Stevie’s shoulder in the mirror. “So you’re finally seeing how the rest of us see you, huh?”

That made her start crying all over again, her smile staying fixed on her face. “I — Really? You’re not just saying that or buttering me up, you really — you really see me like this?”

“Really really,” Robin confirmed somberly. “I mean, I don’t know why you said you didn’t have boobies. Have you seen these?” She brought her hands up to Stevie’s chest, stopping just below the end of the bralette to frame them. 

Stevie huffed out a wet laugh. “I guess they do fill it out pretty nicely.”

“You guess?” Robin said incredulously. “We gotta find some measuring tape so we can figure out your actual cup size. I bet you’re a B cup already, at least. It’ll be crazy to see how they look in a year.”

“Oh yeah,” Stevie said faintly. “I’m — going to get bigger.” She stared at herself in the mirror intently, analyzing where she might change. “Should we even be shopping this early? I’ll probably grow out of it in a few months.”

Robin shrugged. “It’s a rite of passage, Stevie. Every girl has their first bra. Their first training bra. Then their first real bra. Then they realize bras suck and stop wearing them. Then they realize they’ve been showing full nipple in public on accident for the last week and regrettably, go back to it.”

“That last part might just be you,” Stevie teased.

“So what if it is, it could happen to anybody!” Robin said indignantly. “But seriously, it’s normal to have to go bra shopping a lot while you’re still growing them. I’ll keep going with you, if you’d like.”

Stevie smiled at her in the mirror and caught her hand. “I would like.”

Robin met her eyes through the glass, warmth pouring out. “Awesome.” She stepped back and cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s have you try on the other sizes, just in case, and then maybe we can go find a couple more colors? I think they had some more in this style.”

“Okay,” Stevie agreed. “Thanks for doing this with me. And for being such a good friend.” She took the bralette off and turned around to hand it back to Robin, only to be met with her suspiciously shiny eyes.

“Of course, Stevie,” Robin told her. “Anything for my girl.”

[fuctacles]

The sound of a promise

For @stevieweek Day 6: Queer culture | M | 1997 | Steddie | some gender dysphoria (voice), cat lady stevie universe sequel, transfem Steve, age gap, pre-relationship, spice&fluff Stevie Week: Day 1 | Day 2 (art) | Day 3 (art) | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

!We dive straight into smut but it's not very descriptive!

Steph makes a few aborted sounds in her throat before slapping her hand against her mouth while Eddie pounds into her. Her muffled sounds make him look up and notice that she's silencing herself and his hips still. 

She blinks up at him, confused at his sudden stillness.

"Does it not feel good?" he asks with a slight pout to his lips.

She shakes her head immediately.

"It does," she croaks out before slapping the hand back over her mouth. Eddie frowns.

"Then I want to hear it. Please."

She shakes her head again, but it's small and hesitant this time. She spreads her fingers, not ready to take the hand away, but wanting to be heard.

"I can't control my voice, you know..." She makes a vague gesture to her mouth, her neck, and the vocal cords beneath. "Like this. There's only so much estrogen can do."

Eddie's heart breaks for her. He sits back, most of him slipping out, and caresses her thigh. 

"What do you mean?"

She sighs, but the soft touch on her skin helps her calm down and gather her thoughts. 

"Hormones don't just... change my voice. They kind of help expand my vocal range so that I can hit the higher notes, and sound the way I do every day. But I can still use the lower notes, and sometimes they just... slip out." She winces.

"Stevie." She looks up at him. "Stephanie, Steph." Eddie leans forward again, and she presses her lips together when his dick moves inside her too. "You're a woman, and your voice won't change that, not to me. I want to know I make you feel good. I want to hear it's so good you can forget yourself, and let loose. I want you to trust me that it won't change how I see you."

Despite his words and the blush on her cheeks, she doesn't seem convinced. So he adds, mercilessly:

"Please."

Stephanie nods and lets him take her hand away from her face. He presses his lips to her palm, watching her cheeks redden further.

"Thank you."

Wayne has taught him to be polite and respectful to women but he never knew such simple words would make someone squirm under him like that. It makes him want to bring her flowers and kiss her goodnight, knowing she'll eat it up and turn these beautiful shades of pink and crimson just for him.

He presses her hand to the mattress and resumes his movements. Slow at first, because his dick lost the plot for a second, but as soon as he felt himself get into full hardness again, he braced himself with the intent to bruise.

"Let me hear you," he said, slamming into the woman beneath him. 

She whimpered, at first, and Eddie let her ease into it, observing her slowly part her lips and let the music flow. The breathy little ohs and ahs, the whines that follow, and finally, when he hit the right spot, a choked-off moan.

"Like that," he praised immediately. "Shit, you sound so hot."

And when she looked into his eyes, moaning and whining unashamedly, her self-consciousness gone, Eddie lost it.

He dove down to bite into her mouth and she accepted it happily, sharing her moans, the high ones, and the low ones, directly into him. With her free arm, she grasped his shoulder, trying to pull him even closer, and he let go of her other hand so they could wrap around each other, pressing tight until their bones crushed, only their mouths and hips allowed to move freely.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Eddie chanted into the corner of her mouth. "Steph."

"Eddie. I'm gonna—"

It's all the warning he gets before her heels dig into his back to pull him impossibly deeper and she comes. Her blunt nails digging into his skin are the last straw for him. 

"Fuck!" he grits out, spilling into the condom, and his thrusts finally weaken, turning into a shallow sway until he stills, breathing heavily against her neck, where he presses his mouth because not touching her wherever he can right now would be torture. Slowly, as he regains control over his muscles, he starts pressing light kisses there. 

"You were perfect. So beautiful. So hot. And you sound divine."

Despite his body's protests, he pushes himself up, because he needs to look her in the eyes.

"So good I could record you and take you with me to Indy, for the lonely nights."

"Oh my god, stop." She turns her head away, face twisting with embarrassment. But Eddie presses on. 

"Those little moans you make, the ohs," he tries to imitate the breathy sounds she made and watches her cheeks bloom. "The ahs. Perfect. Thank you for letting me hear them."

"Uh, sure," she offers.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. 

"You sound like you don't believe me."

All she can give him to that is a shrug. So he moves his hips, making her hiss from how sensitive she is, and pulls out from her. He can feel her eyes following as he gets up to dispose of the condom and goes for the door, closed against the four-legged intruders. 

"Towel? Shower?" he asks, but she shakes her head, lifting herself on her hands to point towards the window.

"Just throw me this one. It's going into the laundry anyway."

Eddie grabs the towel, smelling faintly of hair conditioner, off the radiator. Instead of handing it over though, he sits on top of Stephanie's thighs to wipe the cum off her belly himself. 

"Such a gentleman," she comments, with amusement in her tone. 

"Well, I try to treat a lady how she deserves to be treated." He gives her his winning smile, the one he uses to charm his way out of trouble and get an extra cookie at the cafeteria. It must be working, because she finally softens, the lines on her forehead smoothing out as her expression opens up like she's starting to believe his words. 

"You saw my... you know."

"Sure did." Eddie nods with a cheeky grin. "And she's pretty like the rest of you." He grabs her dick to clean thoroughly around it and wipes gently at the tip to make his point. Steph's breath hitches at the way he addresses her genitals. 

"And you heard my voice."

"I hear It all the time," he points out, nudging her knees up to gently wipe the lube from around her rim.

"Yeah, but not like this," she says, lowering her voice on purpose. Her eyes are piercing and testing, and Eddie looks up to meet them.

"I'm a musician, I love a woman with a wide vocal range." He sits up though, his smile wilting. "Do you want to scare me off? Because it's not working, but if you want me to leave, just tell me," he says with a frown. He's been doing his best to be gentle and accommodating. True, he's not dealt with trans people before, but he thought he was doing well. "If I crossed a line somewhere, or did something wrong—"

"No, no, you're good," she cuts him off with a furious shake of her head. "I think I just need a moment."

Eddie gives her a puzzled look. He folds the towel in his hands nervously. 

"Okay. Do you want me to leave, or..."

"No, just come here."

Instead of being shunned out of her flat, he's being pulled down, chest against chest. He quickly gets the memo and straightens his legs until he's laying like a blanket on top of her, arms bent awkwardly to cradle her shoulders, head in the crook of her neck. 

Stephanie tries to be quiet, but eventually, she can't hold back the wet sniffle that alarms Eddie.

"Shit, are you crying?" He tries to look up, but she presses his head back into her neck so he can't move.

"Shut up," she says, but doesn't sound angry. So he settles back down, tries to wrap his arms around her to provide the comfort she clearly needs, and lets her feel whatever she's feeling, fingers gently tracing her skin. 

When he can feel her breath and heartbeat settle down, he asks without looking up:

"Were these good tears?"

She snorts.

"Of course they were, idiot."

He huffs out an amused breath against her neck, making her shoulder jump against the ticklish feeling. 

"I haven't been treated this nice in a long while. It's a lot."

Eddie hums against her skin. He doesn't have the words to help, but he understands the feeling so he hugs her tighter against him.

"I get it," is all he can offer. It's like the first time Wayne had praised him after years of living with his parents. He bawled his eyes out back then, not understanding why. "I'll treat you nice every time, I can't imagine doing it any other way."

Her breath quickens again.

"See?" she asks wetly, almost accusingly. "And now you're promising me more. You can't do that."

"Why not?" Eddie frowns. But he's still not allowed to look up. 

"You go to college. You don't even live here."

"I live here sometimes," he corrects. "And I have a feeling I'll be visiting more often now."

She huffs but doesn't say anything. 

"What? Long distance doesn't work for you?" he half-jokes.

"You make it sound like it's a relationship," she says and Eddie cannot decipher her tone. She sounds accusatory, hurt, and annoyed all at once. 

He finally breaks from her grasp but gives her the comfort of no eye contact. Just settles more comfortably against her collarbone, not crushing her to the bed anymore. He throws his leg and arm over her, wrapping Steph in a comforting touch she so clearly lacks. 

"It could be," he says. 

She doesn't say anything at first, but he senses another scoff on the tip of her tongue.

"Could it?" she counters eventually. Eddie hums.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't it?"

"I'm older than you."

This time it's Eddie who scoffs. 

"You're beautiful and funny and have only one too many cats. I think you're fine. And if you have like, a deadly old-lady disease you haven't told me about, that's all the more reason to spend the time you have left being properly fucked and wooed and courted."

"I like how you set the priorities there."

He slaps her hip gently.

"Like you didn't like it."

"I did, I did." She reaches into his hair to gently scratch his scalp. "Can we come back to this?" she asks, but there's an almost pleading tone in her voice. "Next time you visit, we can talk about it."

He doesn't like the idea of waiting until his next break, but if she needs that space, he'll give it to her. 

"Of course."

The signals he's getting are confusing, but he hasn't been told a straightforward 'no' yet, and the hand in his hair is nice and gentle, so he thinks his odds are quite good. He understands the need to think things through even if he's a man of impulsive decisions himself. 

"When do you have to leave?"

Eddie turns to look at the Garfield clock on Steph's bedside table. If he doesn't leave right now, he'll run into traffic outside of the city later. But if he waits a few hours, he'll catch a nice view of the sunset and will be back in his flat shortly after sundown. He doesn't have classes until noon tomorrow anyway. 

"I have enough time for a nap and round two," he decides, looking back at her.

"Perfect." She smiles sweetly, craning her neck down to kiss him. Then she flips them until she's the one cuddling into him, and he positively shudders when he wraps his arms around the soft body pressed against him, cradling her to his chest. 

"Yeah, perfect," he agrees, closing his eyes.

[steddie-island]

Cuffing Season

Written for @steddie-week day 3, prompt 'long', and written for @stevieweek prompt 'sapphic' Rating: E | WC: 1,424 | Tags: Sapphic Steddie, handcuffs, squirting, PWP See ao3 for full list of tags | Divider credit

Eddie fucking hated Stevie Harrington. Hated her from the soles of her expensive running shoes to the top of that head of chestnut hair. Eddie couldn't fucking stand her.

She hated herself even more for falling into bed with Stevie again and again, for letting those perfectly manicured hands grab onto her wrists and her waist. Hated that she loved the way those hands felt against her bare skin.

"That all you got, Munson?"

Eddie hated the way Stevie worked the two fingers inside of her pussy like she had a map of Eddie's body telling her where and how to touch to make her feel good.

To make her beg .

"Jesus Christ—" Eddie gasped as Stevie's head lowered back down, as the other girl dragged her tongue from her opening up to her clit. There was a hint of teeth that had Eddie's back bowing up off of the mattress.

"One more, and then I'll fuck you." Stevie crooked her fingers again before speeding up the movement of her hand. That smart mouth was on her clit again and Eddie practically wailed.

"Stevie— oh my fucking god don't stop—" Her fingers flexed like she wanted to tangle her hands in Stevie's hair, to mess her up the same way she'd been messed up already, but the bitch had found the cuffs and had her hands attached to the headboard.

Stevie groaned, adding to the wet sound of her fingers fucking into Eddie's pussy again and again.

Eddie's thighs trembled on either side of Stevie's head. Her mouth dropped open, and with another flick of that skilled tongue and another stroke over her g-spot she was coming with a rush of liquid. " Fuck— fuck— "

When Stevie lifted her head her chin was wet. She slipped her fingers out of Eddie's body. For a moment it looked like she was going to pull her fingers into her own mouth, but at the last second she decided to reach up, to press them against Eddie's lower lip instead.

Eddie parted her lips and took them in easily, tasting the brininess of herself. She didn't let them go until her tongue had ran over the edge of Stevie's nails, over her knuckles, between her fingers, until she could only taste Stevie's skin again.

Stevie pulled her fingers back only to catch Eddie's lips in a hard kiss. It was all teeth and tongue, meant to bruise as much as to soothe.

It didn't last long. Stevie was off of the bed and digging into her duffel. She stripped out of her stupid skimpy shorts. They pooled around her feet along with her panties, which were joined by the sports bra she hadn't taken off yet.

For a long few moments Eddie could only watch as Stevie got the harness ready. She slipped it on over muscular thighs, had to adjust and thread the cock on the inside of the harness into her own body before she could tighten the straps the rest of the way. Eddie wanted to sink her teeth into the soft flesh where the straps dug in around her hips and her thighs both.

"Enjoying the show?" Stevie teased. The other cock bobbed in front of her as she came back to the bed and climbed between Eddie's thighs.

"Shut up," Eddie said even as she parted her legs to make room for Stevie again. "You know you're fucking hot."

"Yeah, but I like that you think so, too."

Eddie ignored the flush of warmth that sent through her chest. This was just sex. It couldn't be more than that. Girls like Stevie didn't get with girls like her for more than just sex. She pushed the thought down and focused instead on the golden goddess pushing her knees up towards her chest.

Stevie pressed the cock against Eddie's pussy but didn't slide inside yet. She just let it rest lightly between Eddie's folds as she rolled her hips.

Eddie writhed as it bumped over her clit before the tip was just barely pressed inside. "Thought you were going to fuck me."

"And you accuse me of being an impatient brat."

"You are! Always running your mo— fuck !"

Stevie drove into her with one fluid motion. She braced her hands on the bed, her arms holding Eddie's legs.

There was nothing gentle about it. Stevie fucked into Eddie hard and fast, which in turn worked the cock inside of her own body.

Back and forth they moved together— at least, as much as Eddie could with her hands still locked to the headboard and Stevie pinning her legs. Every deep thrust had them crying out. They shared breaths, drank down each other's moans. Eddie's teeth caught Stevie's lower lip, Stevie's nails scraped over Eddie's ass.

"Fuck— fuck— right there!" Eddie urged. She tugged at the handcuffs not to get away but because she needed to do something, to grab on to something if she couldn't grab on to Stevie's hair or her back.

"Yeah? Gonna come for me?" Stevie panted. "Gonna come on my cock?"

" Fuck— " Eddie stared up at Stevie's flushed face, her spit slick lips, those big brown eyes. She wanted to bite into the moles just under Stevie's jaw, too. "Almost—"

Stevie moved one hand, letting Eddie's leg fall to the bed. She worked Eddie's clit hard and fast as she kept driving in deep. "C'mon. Do it, Eddie. Come all over me again."

Eddie clenched down hard around the cock and came with a choked moan. If not for the way Stevie held on to her, keeping their bodies together, she was sure the cock would've been pushed out of her body as she came with another rush of fluid.

Stevie barely waited for her to stop twitching before she was moving again. Her thrusts weren't as deep, and it was clear she was trying to grind down on her own cock.

Her forehead came to rest against Eddie's shoulder as she worked her hips with movements that sped up and became more desperate. Eddie tried to kiss her, tried to rock up towards her, tried to listen as Stevie's sounds became breathier.

Eddie loved those sounds, loved the way Stevie's cheeks turned pink and her lashes painted shadows against her cheeks.

She loved the way Stevie bit down on her collar bone again, leaving more evidence of herself pressed into Eddie's skin as she finally came, too.

As soon as she was steady enough Stevie sat up to uncuff Eddie. She dropped the cuffs on the nightstand, then brought one and then the other of Eddie's wrists to her mouth to kiss over the pink marks left behind.

"Are you okay?"

Eddie snorted and rolled her eyes, ignored the way her traitor heart flipped in her chest. "I'm fine, Harrington."

"Harrington now, is it?" Stevie grinned as she rolled over to lay beside Eddie on the bed, out of the wet spot they had made.

Eddie didn't even try to hide the fact that she was ogling Stevie's tits until she went still again.

"It's always Harrington." Eddie shrugged one shoulder.

"Not true. It's 'Stevie' when I'm fucking you. Sometimes you just call me 'more' when I've got my tongue on your—"

"That is not a nickname!" Eddie laughed. "And it is not always!"

"Almost always!" Stevie cracked up and dodged another shove before Eddie straddled her legs.

"Sometimes I call you 'good girl." Eddie watched the way Stevie flushed all the way down her neck, between her breasts. "When you're the one tied down. I think I've heard you call me 'baby'…"

"Shut up, Munson," Stevie said. There was no heat behind her words. Her eyes were fixed on Eddie's lips as she leaned in to sink down around the dildo still proudly standing at attention between Stevie's thighs.

Those perfectly manicured hands threaded into Eddie's hair. Eddie melted into the fingernails scratching over her scalp and running down to rest against the back of her neck. Stevie just held on to her, not pulling and not pushing, just touching her to touch while Eddie took her time cleaning the toy off with her tongue.

The truth was, Eddie knew that maybe she should hate Steve Harrington just on principle.

But she didn't.

As her body sank down around Stevie's cock, and as Stevie pulled her in for a deep kiss, Eddie let herself think about the fact that something that might have started out as hate fucking had become something else for her a long time ago.

[fuctacles]

He's so cute when he howls

for @stevieweek Day 5: AU | T | 633 | Steddie | age gap, trans Stevie, mutual pining, concert, idiot4idiot | Eddie ver | Ao3 Stevie Week: Day 1 | Day 2 (art) | Day 3 (art) | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

It was a happy coincidence that Eddie's band was playing on the weekend Robin was visiting, sparing her the awkwardness of going out alone. The Hideout was holding a live music night to celebrate the Spooky season, and the groups of alternative people dressed on par with the theme made her feel out of place even with company.

"You look fine," Robin told her for the tenth time, hanging off her elbow. "Your boy is gonna love it."

"He's not my boy!" Stephanie hisses, looking around as if they could be heard over the commotion inside. 

"Uh-huh." Robin nods along. "Just point me which one is him."

She knows the name of his band - Corroded Coffin - but doesn't know the order of the line-up. She's determined to stay the whole night if needed because she told him she'd see him play if she ever got the chance, if only to prove she's not that old, not too old for a rock concert. 

And to see the hot college student shred on his guitar.

She's wearing a Blondie t-shirt from a couple of years back, and dark jeans. It doesn't stand out, but Robin blends in much better in her borderline punk layers and jewelry. Everyone around them looks more than ready for the Halloween month.

They order their drinks and find a good spot to observe the stage, where a  few people are adjusting the equipment. Someone jumps up on the platform, wild curls flying, and Steph taps Robin's arm.

"That's Eddie."

Robin stares at him without shame, of course, studying his heavy boots, denim vest, and long hair.

"Didn't know you were into the bad boy type," she says, raising her eyebrows. 

"He's not a bad boy," Stephanie protests. "He just... dresses like one."

"Not protesting that you're into him, I see," Robin smirks. 

Stephanie rolls her eyes, looking away from Eddie who's speaking to someone from the staff, one hand draping through his hair and exposing his neck. 

"You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"No I wouldn't," Robin agrees happily.

It turns out that Corroded Coffin is opening, and soon the lights around them dim, focusing on the stage instead. Stephanie is not surprised to see Eddie approach the mic. His energetic persona screams 'frontman'. 

He introduces the band and she's trying to remember the names - Gareth, Jeff, Doug - and then breaks into a howl, with his bandmates joining him close by. 

"It's a full moon tonight. C'mon guys, get wild with us." Eddie grins at the audience. 

She doesn't feel drunk enough to do it but doesn't want to disappoint Eddie, so she throws her head back and joins in as one of the few audience members. Robin looks at her in disbelief but follows suit, giving a loud melodic howl. Show-off.

Eddie looks in their direction, but she's not sure he can even see her under the lights. She didn't tell him she'd be here either, not sure until the last second if she could make it. (If she dared to make it.) The drum sets the beat, the bass joins right after, and the howls become more intent, blending into the opening notes of the song. 

"I'm going to need these howls again for the chorus, okay?" Eddie asks with a smile, starting to play his part. His eyes fleet back to where Stephanie and Robin are standing, and he leans closer to the mic, almost caressing it with his lips. "Thanks, Steph," he croons, before throwing his head back in a loud howl that properly starts off their first song.

Her cheeks grow hot, her knees wobbly, and she has to ignore Robin's pointed gaze for the rest of the song. She's too busy howling with Eddie anyway.

How can he make something so stupid be so cute?

[fuctacles]

An offer you can't refuse

@stevieweek Day 1: Stobin + Dom!Stevie | T | 2127 | no cw | bar setting, modern au, Steddie, Buckingham, Stobin, Hellcheer, mentions of polyamory, everyone is horny, Eddie is a switch for hot ladies | Ao3 Stevie Week: Day 1 | Day 2 (art) | Day 3 (art) | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

"I hate you so much!" Robin slurs slightly, her hand slapping against the bar. Stevie presses her lips together, trying not to laugh at her distressed and intoxicated friend. 

"Why this time?" she inquires, calmly sipping her drink. 

"You're so pretty!"

"Why, thank you," she beams, but Robin huffs. 

"Stevie," she says, putting her drink away and grabbing Stevie's face. "You did this on purpose," she accuses, though her tone has no real anger. "For not dating you when you wanted to."

"Uh-huh."

"And now you got so cute. But I know what your farts smell like!"

Stevie snorts, but Robin presses her cheeks harder together until her lips pucker out. She stares at them, dark and shiny with the lipgloss she uses. 

"Robs..."

Robin only shakes her head with her hands, making a wild sound of distress and frustration. It forces Stevie to put away the drink and grab her. 

"Stop it, you're ruining my hair!"

Robin grumbles but lets her pry her hands away.

"You hate me because I'm hot?" Stevie asks, amused. Robin huffs.

"I didn't say you're hot," she protests.

"But you think that?"

"Evie." Her fingers flex like they're itching to abuse her hairdo and makeup again but Stevie keeps her wrists in a tight grip. "You know you're hot, you bitch. And I'm stuck here—a 6 with a 10 for a best friend. And if we weren't best friends, if I didn't know about your gross pickle breath, you'd be exactly the kind of girl I crush on, but—!"

"But you're stuck with a hot best friend?" Stevie asks, pouting sympathetically.

"Exactly!" Robin deflates angrily.

"I mean, we can make out if you want," she offers with a shrug.

Robin, in her drunken state, seems to be considering it, before she crunches her nose.

"No, thanks." But then, her frown deepens. "But if we had, like, a threesome? Or foursome?"

"Ooookay." Stevie pushes her away, so she sits fully on her barstool instead of perched on the edge to be right in her friend's face. "We can get back to it when you sober up. See if you still want to see me naked then," she snorts. There was a time when this kind of confession would lead them to the back of their current workplace, but Stevie shares the sentiment that their relationship had evolved in a completely different direction by now. Robin was too much like her sister. 

And she doesn't want to think about a threesome with her sister right now. Not with the alcohol pumping through her to the beat of the music.

It wasn't Robin's usual scene, but ever since Stevie's transition, she's been helping her to get out more. Thanks to that, her experience with women has been expanding. Stevie got something from these outings too, they helped her feel better in her skin, feel like a real woman, and be treated like one. Back when her features were stronger, and her makeup skills lacking, the club lights helped to hide them. Now they both felt comfortable in these settings and knew where to go to to feel safe and have fun.

But sometimes it was nice just to be in their tiny New York apartment, just the two of them, and a mildly amusing sitcom on their second-hand TV. Stevie presses the back of her fingers to her friend's shoulder.

"Do you want to go home?"

Robin shakes her head slowly.

"Not yet. Let's dance for a bit."

Dancing was also something that hadn't been a Robin thing until Stevie dragged her into it. She was still uncoordinated and awkward but after a few drinks, neither she nor other people seemed to care. So they finished their drinks and Stevie pulled her onto the dancefloor.

She usually dragged her friend out to the bar in hopes of helping her find a girlfriend or at least a hookup, but having fun with her friend was more than enough after a week of working in a quiet bookstore. So, with a pleasant buzz fueling their movements, they dance close together, hands laced because they are that comfortable with each other. And since it was a queer-friendly club, someone unfamiliar with them couldn't tell if they were friends or lovers. 

People would bump into them and make offers they have to decline. It's been assumed they were a pair of lesbians looking for a threesome more than once. But since Robin wasn't into dicks and Stevie was afraid of how people would react after finding out she had one, it's always been a 'no'. Even if she liked the idea of having sex with multiple partners. It was tricky being born a woman, and even more becoming one. 

So when someone gently touches her shoulder, she sobers up in case she needs to defend herself and her friend.

"Do you mind swapping up?"

She turns to see a long-haired man wearing a leather jacket, one of many frequenting a club like this. But instead of another man accompanying him, he has a petite blond girl by his side. 

Stevie hesitates and turns to Robin to find out what she thinks about it. She does seem wary as well, but interested in the blonde girl nevertheless. So, hesitantly, Stevie nods. 

"One dance," she decides, accepting the man's extended hand. 

But she's not about to let him dream up impossible scenarios in his head. Halfway through the song, a pleasant mix of energetic and sensual, she leans into him, so she can be heard over the music. 

"If you're hoping for a foursome, it's not happening. We're not a couple," she says before pulling away to watch his reaction. He seems surprised at first before shaking his head. He's the one to lean in now, and his breath hits her neck in a way that makes her body throb. 

"Don't worry, I'm just wingmanning for my friend tonight," he says and they both turn to where their friends are dancing next to them. They seem to be getting into it, hands grasping at hips or thrown over shoulders, bodies pressing tentatively together, shy yet hungry.

Stevie huffs out a chuckle. 

"Same here," she says, raising her palm. The guy seems surprised but he laughs and slaps her hand in a high five. 

"Wanna grab a drink, give them some space?" he offers, and Stevie nods. They give their friends a heads up, and they both seem to be equally reluctant about being left without their human shields, but with the assurance they'll be waiting at the bar, they let them go. 

Stevie's the one to lead the way, and she likes the feeling. To be leading a guy where she wants him. She's always been a people pleaser and still is, but there's something about being in charge that just tickles her brain the right way. Which has been something she's been missing since she's started being hit on as a woman.

"What do you want?" she asks once they reach the bar, before catching her mistake. But the man doesn't seem to either notice or mind.

"A simple screwdriver," he answers without missing a beat. "Just need to let loose tonight."

Stevie nods and flags down the bartender. She orders the screwdriver for him and a strawberry daiquiri for herself. After she's done with the order, she can feel him leaning over her. He's not touching her, his hand dropping to the bar counter, but his presence hovering over her makes her feel caged in. In a good way.

"I'll pay," he offers, flashing his card, and the bartender nods, reaching for the terminal. 

Stevie looks up at him, but craning her neck like that is uncomfortable, so she turns, which in turn makes her chest to chest with him.

"I have money," she protests with a pout. 

"I don't doubt that," he agrees with a nod. Behind her, he reaches out with his card to swipe it through the terminal. It brings them even closer together for a second, and she tries not to fucking smell him because she's not a creep. "But I haven't paid for a cute lady's drink in a while. Please let me have it," he asks, and he's not doing the I'm better than you routine so she nods.

"Fine. I'm paying for the next one, though."

"Of course." He smiles, tucking his wallet into an inside pocket of his jacket. She notices the dimples appearing on his cheeks. They're stupidly cute.

"There's an empty seat there, wanna sit while we wait?" he offers and she nods. No matter how often she wears heels, they never feel easier to deal with. 

He leads her to the stool he pointed out, but then before she can hop on it, he grabs her hips and puts her on the leather cushion himself.

"That was unnecessary," she murmurs, knowing full well she's on the heavier side. She tries her best not to blush while he leans against the bar next to her, in the already limited space. She has a ridiculous urge to spread her legs for him, to make more room, but she kills that thought immediately. 

"Sorry." He looks actually apologetic. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just don't have many opportunities to treat a woman properly. My friend Chrissy, you see," he points his chin to the dancefloor where Stevie notes with pride that Robin's hands are now confidently wrapped around Chrissy's hips. "She's strictly on that feminist lesbian agenda, and while I'm completely on board, of course, I still want to treat someone like a princess, you know? She used to let me..." he trails off, hesitating before he catches Stevie's curious eyes. He sighs. "Okay, so we do have this friends-with-benefits kind of thing? But we're not like, together-together," he starts rambling. "Only when we get really unlucky on dates. She's more women-leaning. And we're both dominant? So I swear we're not looking for a foursome—"

Stevie has heard enough. She pressed two fingers to his mouth.

"It's fine, shut up. We've been thinking about it anyway."

"About what?" The man blinks.

"A foursome." She shrugs, and he suddenly seems to be choking on air. Stevie observes it with amusement while the bartender slides their drinks to them. She grabs her daiquiri. "It's just a thought," she reminds him. "You might not be into me."

The guy blinks. He grabs his glass like a lifeline.

"Why is that?" he asks curiously, but his eyes wander down her body like he already has an idea.

"I have a dick," she confirms what he's probably thinking.

He closes his eyes, and she braces herself for the inevitable rejection. It's happened countless times before, she can handle it once again. Even if he's insanely hot. 

"Damn, I was hoping but I didn't know how to ask."

She blinks at him owlishly, her face falling.

"Huh?"

"Is that weird?" The guy retracts into himself and she can sense another incoming word vomit. Robin has similar tells. "I just think it's hot. I go both ways but I prefer women and I love a girl who's packing. But strap-ons kinda kill the mood for me? Of course, it's fine if you don't want to use it, I wouldn't make you do anything that makes you feel anything less than the beautiful girl that you are."

He holds her gaze for two seconds and then busies his mouth with the drink in his hand. 

Stevie leans on her elbow, eyeing the man curiously. It seems her flirting skills won't be needed tonight. The man was gone without her doing much of anything. 

"You sure you're a Dom?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. "You don't sound like one."

He doesn't take offense, to Stevie's pleasant surprise. His cheeks get redder in the neon lights.

"I make exceptions," he says with a shrug. "For exceptionally beautiful women." He's laying it on thick but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't eating it up. 

"And that would be me?"

"Absolutely," he nods eagerly. She considers him for a long moment and he holds up the silence, albeit he goes twitchy under her gaze.

"What's your name?"

"Eddie," he answers immediately like he's been waiting for her to ask. "Yours?"

She moves her mouth thoughtfully, feeling his eyes on her lips before she makes up her mind.

"Miss Stephanie," she says with finality.

The shift is immediate. His pupils blow out and he straightens up, ready to listen to orders and serve. A feeling of power shivers through Stevie's body. 

"Finish your drink and we'll go somewhere quiet."

"Yes, Miss." He nods obediently, sipping on his orange drink.

"You won't be needing your friend's help tonight."

[steddie-island]

Wallpaper

Written for day 1 of @stevieweek | Prompt: Stobin Rating: G | WC: 1,144 | Tags: MTF Steve Harrington, Coming Out, Robin Buckley's POV ao3 | Divider credit Now with a part 2!

They’re sitting in the bathroom. Steve’s thigh bumps against Robin’s, and he can’t stop biting on his thumbnail.

It’s a nervous habit, Robin knows, one he only gets when things feel like they might be spiraling out of his control in a major way. Sometimes she’s surprised it’s not something he does more often, but she knows he likes to look nice. Likes for other people to think he looks nice, too. He’d also crudely pointed out once upon a time that “No one wants to be fingered by someone with a bloody hangnail, Robin, Jesus.” It was gross, but now that’s one habit she’s managed to break herself out of, thanks to him.

“Hey.” Robin bumps his leg and watches as he jumps, like he’s forgotten that she’s there. “It’s just me. You know you can talk to me about anything.”

That’s true, too. Steve’s seen every lump (“It’s cancer I swear to god it’s cancer!” “That’s a zit.”) and she’s seen Steve’s right back (“That’s an ingrown hair, dingus, I think you’re supposed to shave in the other direction. Also maybe try it with your eyes open.”) They’ve helped talk each other off of the ledge so many times. When they traded the stomach flu back and forth, it was the two of them taking care of each other for one disgustingly hellacious week.

There’s nothing they can’t talk about, or help each other with. It makes Robin a little nervous that Steve is nervous, but she knows that whatever it is it’ll be fine. It always is.

“C’mon. We’re sitting on your bathroom floor. I know this is important.”

Steve pulls his thumb away from his mouth and crosses both arms across his chest. It’s then that Robin notices his hands are shaking a little.

“I’ve got something really… really important to talk to you about,” he says. His voice is a low rumble, and there’s a slight tremor, a wetness to it that she’s only heard a few times before.

“Yeah, I gathered that part,” she teases. Her shoulder bumps Steve’s, and then she reaches out to take one of his hands. As soon as their fingers lock Steve lets out a breath that he’s been holding. The tension eases from his shoulders, but only a little.

“I…” Steve clears his throat. His jaw works, and then he swallows hard. “I’ve been thinking, and… I…” He has to swallow again, so Robin tightens her grip and closes her other hand around his fingers, too.

She’s not going anywhere.

“I don’t think… I’m a boy?” A tear trails down his cheek and Steve quickly wipes it away. “I was thinking about all of these girls I’ve been with, and I liked them, but I think there might’ve been more to it? Like… like maybe I wanted some part of them to rub off on me. Like… I feel better when you paint my nails, and I like wearing lipgloss. I– I liked when we got our legs waxed together, and I like…” He bites his lips and brings his thumb back to his mouth to stroke the rough edge against his lip. “I know that all feels like… little stuff maybe, but it’s… I was thinking about it more, and… and I…” His next sigh is shakier, and there are more tears falling now.

Robin holds his hands even tighter and rests her chin against his shoulder. “That’s okay,” she says softly. “You don’t have to be a boy if you don’t want to be.” Her heart nearly breaks when Steve’s lower lip actually wobbles, and then he’s curling into her side.

“I– I don’t want to be,” he says. “I don’t want to be a boy. But I– I don’t want anyone to be mad at me–”

Robin lifts one hand to wipe his face. “No one’s going to be mad at you. No one who matters, anyway.” It’s not like the senior Harringtons have been around for a while now. The Party wasn’t surprised when Will came out, and they all dressed up to go to his first Pride with him. They’ve been okay with Eddie and Steve, and with her and Vicki.

And she knows that it’s not the same, being gay and not feeling like who you are fits who you’re supposed to be. But…

“They’ve faced hell dimensions and fought monsters,” Robin says. Her thumbs stroke over Steve’s knuckles, and she’s moved to sit in front of him instead so their knees knock together. “We almost lost Max, and came even closer to losing Eddie. You being a girl? That should be a piece of cake to them." She rests their foreheads together and brings Steve's hands up to kiss his— her— knuckles.

"What if it's not?" Steve grips Robin all the tighter and bites down on her lower lip. "What if they hate me?"

"Eddie will kick their asses, and then I'll send them packin'. If they won't love you for who you are, then we don't need them in our lives." It's something easier said than done, of course, advice Steve had given when Robin decided it was time to come out to her own parents.

There'd been an adjustment period, but come time for Will's first Pride, her parents were right there beside her.

"I haven't told Eddie yet," Steve says. That tremble is back in her voice, and more tears flow over her cheeks. "What if… what if he says he can't be with me anymore? What if he doesn't love me, Rob? What if he leaves because I'm a— a—" "A freak?" Robin finishes softly. "You, Steve Harrington, are worried your metalhead boyfriend, with his kitchen scratch tattoos and his tabletop speeches, will think that you're a freak?"

Steve blinks, then starts giggling. Quiet at first, then louder, until it's bubbling out of her and she's got her head resting against Robin's shoulder and an arm holding her ribs. "Fuck— you're right. Maybe I wasn't freaky enough before!"

"I walked in on you two once, I think there was more than enough freaky going on in that room." Robin laughs and takes Steve's hands again. The shaking has calmed, and Steve at least doesn't look like she's going to vomit— or worse, faint and get another concussion.

"Will you tell him with me?" Steve asks. "Just in case?"

"You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, dingus." Robin pokes lightly at a fleck of turquoise paint on Steve's thumb. "Want me to paint your nails for you again before we go?"

Steve gives another wobbly smile. "I would like that a lot. Thanks, Rob."

"You're welcome, Stevie." Robin stands, tugs Steve to her feet, too, then towards her bedroom. "You know, if you're making big changes, this might be the perfect time to get rid of this ugly fucking wallpaper."

[fuctacles]

The day Eddie quit his job

Me: it would be fun to mix this months microfic prompt with last years Me: hey I don't have anything for rarepair *proceeds to write CheerScoops for STEDDIEmicrofic prompts*

ANYWAY

for @stevieweek Day 7: Rare Pair + sapphic (+ one + pool) | M | 1111 | Stevie/Chrissy &Eddie, mentioned Chrissy/Eddie | open relationship, streamer!Stevie, FanslyModel!Chrissy, friends with benefits (?) lots of wiggle room for interpretation, CHAT FIC

Short stream, big announcement!

elderning: is it time????

beatred: Cheer100 this better be about the pool stream

"Chat, chat, calm down, it is about the pool stream." Stevie is rolling her eyes as soon as she appears on the screen. "I had a nice speech prepared and you're ruining it." She frowns, pouting her full lips. "Can you stop yapping for five seconds and let me speak?"

bimbothelotrguy: No yapping

ballstothewall007: Proceed queen

bimbothelotrguy: :x

"So, we recently hit one million subscribers on YouTube, which, thank you so fucking much, holy shit!" She grins. "And, true to my word, I'll be doing a pool stream as promised. Don't know when yet, but stay tuned, I'll give you a heads-up. And thank you again, though I know you had ulterior motives." She smirks at the camera.

mojito_chan: ulterior motives?? us??

mojito_chan: must have mistaken us with a different chat

bimbothelotrguy: BADONKERS

powerdrill1000: message deleted by a moderator

"Yeah, exactly," she snorts. "Okay, I don't have much time today, but there's this one game I want to check out and we can talk out the details while we're at it."

MasterOfChatters: I have a bad feeling about this

Stevie looks at her chat, and smiles.

"Are you high again, Master?"

MasterOfChatters: would you fire me if I was?

"No!" she laughs.

MasterOfChatters: then yes

She leans close to the mic.

"There's someone in your house, Eddie."

MasterOfChatters: FUCK OFF

big stream big surprise!

beatred: oh

bilbothebimbo: oh no

mojito_chan: I mean...

Stevie's not there yet, but they can see the set-up for today's stream. The pool behind SailorSteph's house is right there. Still behind her house. Still behind the glass door. Behind a huge inflatable pool full of colorful plastic balls.

ballstothewall007: is there at least some water in there?

footjoblover: -slow clap- well played

MasterOfChatters: STEPH YOU MINX

MasterOfChatters: KNEW YOU WERE COOKING SOMETHING

MasterOfChatters: @footjoblover nice nick

SailorSteph: @MasterOfChatters oh I'm not done cooking

footjoblover: @MasterOfChatters thank you good sir

The chat starts flooding after her brief appearance, and her moderator has to put it in slow mode.

"Chat, I'm coming! Calm down!" the microphone picks her up from somewhere in the house, and soon she appears in the camera's view. Her outfit is skimpier than usual, with a tiny crop top and bootcut shorts. She's holding a colourful drink and she steps into the ball pit to settle down.

footjoblover: F E E T

MasterOfChatters: @footjoblover I'll let it slide this once

She sips on her drink while adjusting the stream settings.

"I know some of you might be disappointed..." She skims over the chat briefly. "Yeah, I'm not sorry about that. If you didn't see it coming it means you're new here. Anyway, since you're not getting your softcore fix, I have another surprise for you big babies. We're having a guest today."

ggiirrllss: is it ChiChi???

prawncocktail: please be cheerscoops

bimbothelotrguy: oooo a collab?

elderning: if it's a secret boyfriend announcement imma kms

thepizzaguy: is your hot mod visiting? owo

MasterOfChatters: @thepizzaguy nope, still in my basement. thank you though

bimbothelotrguy: @thepizzaguy boooo sucking up to the mod

MasterOfChatters: @bimbothelotrguy you're just angry you weren't first

bimbothelotrguy: @MasterOfChatters u got me there hot mod daddy

"I'd be angry that I'm playing into your guy's sick fantasies, and I've seen your fanfiction, okay?" She looks straight into the camera, leaning in, eyes squinting. "So don't even try denying. I know what you're thinking about. Anyway, I would be angry if she wasn't such a genuinely lovely person. And she agreed to play with me today."

prawncocktail: SHE

bimbothelotrguy: chichi???

prawncocktail: please be chichi please be chichi please

"Come on babe, don't be shy." Stevie smiles at someone off-camera, and then stands up to help them step into the pool.

"You know, chat..." The mic picks up a new voice. "I've actually been lied to as well, and I flew in here with a bag full of swimsuits." The girl pouts and when she sits down you can indeed see she's wearing a bikini with a kimono-cut short robe thrown over it.

"I didn't lie, you all just assumed pool means water." Stevie rolls her eyes. "Besides, we can still go take a dip later." She sends a suggestive smile to the girl on her left, who takes a sip of her drink and wiggles her eyebrows with a smile.

"I think we broke your chat," she points out. Stevie turns to one of her monitors to see what's happening.

Among the slew of emotes, only her mod's messages can be seen.

MasterOfChatters: CHRIS WHAT THE FUCK

MasterOfChatters: YOU SAID YOU'RE VISITING YOUR MOM

Chrissy, aka CheerCheer or ChiChi, as she's known online, stirs her drink slowly.

"No, I said I'm visiting Mommy." She grins, throwing her long, bare legs over Stevie's lap. Stevie smiles brightly and her mod, who's also Chrissy's boyfriend, knows it's directed at him.

MasterOfChatters: I'm

MasterOfChatters: appaled. speechless. mad.

MasterOfChatters: and so glad I put these fuckers in emote-only

MasterOfChatters: iF ANY OF YOU EVEN SUGGESTS A THREESOME I'M TIMING YOU OUT FOR 24H

emote-only mode is off

footjoblover: message deleted by a moderator

MasterOfChatters: OR A FOURSOME OR IS JUST NASTY IN GENERAL

milkpudding: message deleted by a moderator

milkpudding: I need fanart refs

MasterOfChatters: @milkpudding THIN ICE

Chrissy, unfazed, turns to Stevie.

"One hundred?"

"I'd do it for free." Stevie gives her the most charming smile while idly stroking up her shin. It finally makes Chrissy blush.

MasterOfChatters: GODDAMNIT CHRIS

MasterOfChatters: ENABLERS

MasterOfChatters: @SailorSteph UNMOD ME PLEASE I CAN'T HANDLE THE CHAOS

milkpudding sent $100

"Well," Stevie shrugs, already leaning in. "A hundred dollars is a hundred dollars, right?"

"Right," Chrissy says softly, parting her lips for the other girl to slot into.

The kiss is sweet and chaste, Stevie's hand squeezing briefly her knee before caressing her cheek and letting go. She smiles at her, pecks her nose, and turns back to the camera.

"Hope you got your money's worth, milkpudding. Thank you for the one hundred." She smiles sweetly.

milkpudding: yes thank you!!!

milkpudding: see you in #fanart on discord later! teheheh

prawncocktail shared a clip: CHEERSCOOPS IS REAL

"Should we tell them now?" They share a thoughtful look. Chrissy shrugs.

"Better get this out now before Eds gets a heart attack."

MasterOfChatters: ?????????

"We made something for Chrissy's socials too," Stevie starts, playing with the hem of her friend's robe. "We can't link it here, but keep an eye out in Discord and her Fansly." She smiles at her with mischief before looking back to the chat to see the chaos they've surely created.

emote-only mode is on

MasterOfChatters: GODDAMNIT GIRLS 

[fuctacles]

Powerpoint Night

@stevieweek Day 3: Girls' Night, with some Steddie Stevie Week: Day 1 | Day 2 (art) | Day 3 (art) | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

It's Powerpoint Night at Nancy's and Stevie pulls up her favorite rant topic.

Robin goes next with "10 proofs that Stevie is a tsundere"

[stellarspecter]

Vampires and Werewolves and Demons, Oh My!

@stevieweek Day 3: Girls Night + Dice Roll: 9. Monsterfucking

Rating: T | Words: 803 | platonic stobin, pre-steddie and pre-rovickie

just some silly girls night banter! wrote this in like an hour, bon appetit (and thank you stevieweek for making dividers for us!)

read on AO3

“Listen, I’m not saying I wanna fuck a werewolf,” Stevie says, “I’m just saying I maybe wouldn’t necessarily be against it.”

“Sounds like a werewolf fucker to me,” Robin dryly comments.

“No!” Stevie exclaims, yanking her hands away from Argyle’s surprisingly talented manicure so she can gesture suitably. “I just said I wouldn’t be against it! Like, if I met one and they were hot and they asked me to, I would, but I wouldn’t, like, seek it out.”

Nancy hums, considering, then nods. “Yeah, I can see it.” She rises from where she was hunched over Robin’s hands and caps her bottle of nail polish. “Besides, with how much you liked getting hickeys, you’d be more into vampires anyway.”

Stevie gapes at her, betrayed. Robin’s cackling joins Argyle’s stoned chuckles. “You —! I trusted you! What happened to ‘being exes doesn’t matter, we can just be friends?!’”

Nancy just laughs. “That doesn’t mean I don’t remember what you were like when we dated.”

Argyle nods sagely. “Using insider info for an accurate monsterfucking profile. I dig it.” He offers her a fist bump, which she carefully accepts. 

Stevie snorts. “Fuckin’ ‘monsterfucking profile.’ What are you even talking about.”

“Like, a video game character with different attributes,” Robin adds, hands spreading wide in front of her so as to not smudge her wet nail polish. “High score in werewolves, but you’ve maxed out your vampire stat.”

Stevie gives her an unimpressed look. “You sound like one of the nerds.”

“Oh, you mean I sound like Eddie, your best friend Eddie?” Her demeanor changes on a dime to a new simpering character, looking up at Stevie with wide eyes.

Stevie scoffs. “You’re my best friend, dingus, you know that.”

Nancy doesn’t hesitate to jump on the bait. “Oh, he’s not your best friend, he’s something else? Like, say, a crush?”

Stevie groans and falls back onto the pillow-covered floor from their earlier movie marathon. “For the last time, I do not have a crush on Eddie.”

“Are you into devils and shit too?” Argyle asks nonsensically. Stevie stares at him. “You know, like —” He mimics Eddie’s horns pose, tongue out. It looks a lot more silly when he does it. “Cause he does have vampire vibes but I think he sees himself as more of a devil/demon type creature.”

“Argyle,” Stevie starts calmly, although she doesn’t feel anything close to it. “Are you asking me. In real life. If seeing our mutual friend Eddie Munson do his stupid little devil horns. Gets me hot and bothered?”

Argyle shrugs in that unbothered way of his. Stevie doesn’t know how he does it. “Whatever greases your wheels, amigo.”

“Oh my god no it doesn’t fucking —” Stevie takes a deep breath. “I do not have a crush on Eddie. And if I did,” she sends a warning glance around the room. “It wouldn’t be because I want to fuck him as a vampire or a demon or whatever the fuck. Okay?”

Her statement seems to pacify Nancy and Argyle, but Robin will not be swayed. Typical. “Sure, Stevie,” she says with an exaggerated wink.

Stevie sighs frustratedly and crosses her arms. “Alright, do you want us to talk about monsterfucking your crush? You seem to like Vickie playing in band, I bet you want her to be a siren and lure you into dangerous waters or some shit.”

Robin splutters, and Stevie grins. Finally some satisfying payback. “I never said tha—”

“I bet you’d sail your ship into the rocks just to get a taste of fish pussy.”

“How do you know these words!” Robin’s arms flail, trying to disperse the laughter now filling the room at her bright red face.

Nancy parrots, “Monsterfucking her crush? So you do agree Eddie’s your crush?”

Stevie puts her hands over her face in a fit of despair. “Why am I being literally cross-examined about Eddie fucking Munson right now,” she moans.

“It’s Girls Night, Stevie,” Robin tells her. “This is what we do. I thought you wanted to be included?”

“I did,” Stevie says, guarded. “But that was when I thought it was just watching chick flicks and painting our nails. Also, why’s Argyle here if it’s Girls Night?”

They all turn to him.

“It’s my luscious locks, brochacho,” he explains. “And I give good relationship advice.”

“Really?” Stevie says, intrigued despite herself. “What’s your advice right now?”

“About you and Eddie?” He looks up at the ceiling, contemplative. “You should probably tell him how you really feel,” he says. “You’re doing a really bad job keeping it a secret.”

All Stevie can do in the face of such great betrayal is throw a pillow at his head. Good thing it turns out no Girls Night is complete with a pointless-argument induced pillow fight by the end of it.

[stellarspecter]

Better in Yellow

@stevieweek Day 4: Special Outfit + Sports + First Dress

Rating: G | Words: 1,652 | Pairing: platonic stobin

i don't know anything about pickleball pls pretend this is accurate and makes sense. okay? okay. read on and enjoy

read on AO3

Stevie, like every other goddamn millennial in America, has been getting into pickleball.

Robin doesn’t get it. What’s the point of playing tennis but smaller? Why not just play tennis? Why did the paddles have to give her so many splinters?

But Stevie loved it, and where Stevie went, Robin went. No exceptions. She loved her to death, always would, even when she was annoying or inconvenient or angry. That was what it meant to be platonic soulmates, and she knew Stevie would do the same for her in a heartbeat.

Sometimes, she just wished that devotion hadn’t dragged her into a goddamn pickleball club.

Like right now, hunched over with her hands on her knees and panting like a dog. 

“Hey, it’s alright, we almost had them! We were only a point away, I think you’re getting better!” Stevie’s relentless positivity in the face of Robin’s inherent clumsiness had been nice at first, but after a month or two of hitting the ball way off the court and tripping over herself to hit it in time, it felt more condescending than anything.

“I don’t look like this because I’m sad we lost,” Robin huffed out. “I look like this because it’s fucking hot out and I can’t breathe and I’m going to die.”

Stevie just rolled her eyes and grabbed both of their water bottles, handing the sticker-covered one to Robin and keeping her own sleek Hydro Flask. “Straighten up, hands on your head, you gotta give your lungs some room to breathe.”

“Tell you to straighten up,” Robin muttered, but followed her instructions anyway, breaths slowing predictably. Curse her jock knowledge.

“This is the last practice before the tournament,” Stevie said, idly spinning her paddle in her hand. “Like I said, you’re getting better, but I think we need to focus on our strategy. We need to —”

Robin’s groan drowned out the rest of her sentence. “Stevie, my brain doesn’t work like that,” she told her. “I just know I have to hit the ball. And I can’t even consistently do that. Please keep it simple. Please.”

Stevie’s mouth pressed into a thin line — trying not to laugh at her misery, Robin could tell. “Okay, okay. I’ll keep it simple: hit the ball instead of missing the ball.”

Robin slugged her in the shoulder as she laughed at her own joke. “Bitch!”

“Klutz!”

“Dingus!”

“Doofus!”

“Okay,” Robin says, rolling her eyes. She takes a big swig of water and starts walking off towards the side court to pack up their stuff. “So, clean up at your house, then tournament shopping?”

“Sounds good,” Stevie says, and follows her out.

It’s not even that big of a tournament, just the Hawkins Pickleball Club facing off against the Bedford Pickleballers. (It’s such a lame sport that they don’t even have proper team names. Robin curses her best friend for getting her into such a swagless situation.)

They don’t have uniforms, just team colors, which each team is supposed to dress in. The thing is, their team color is yellow, which neither of them have any athletic clothes in — Robin because she doesn’t have any athletic clothes, and Stevie because the wardrobe overhaul that came with her transition didn’t include any. In retrospect, a terrible mistake, because it’s Stevie. Of course she would get back into sports as soon as she could.

The two of them end up at an athletics store nearby with a surprisingly robust selection of women's clothing. Robin finds a yellow shirt pretty easily — neon yellow, which she doesn't quite love, but there's only so many options, and at least this way, she'll be hard to miss.

Stevie takes a bit longer perusing the racks. It's not that surprising — she's still relatively new to buying women's clothes, and though she's been easing into it with the help of Robin and Nancy, it's still strange to do it on your own.

Robin had barely glanced at the assortment of tennis skirts and dresses, completely uninterested in flouncing around the pickleball court and potentially flashing the stands. But Stevie seems entranced by them. There's not many yellow options, but she combs through each style anyway, meticulously inspecting each one.

Robin pretends to be looking at running shorts, not wanting to make Stevie feel like she has to pick something quickly. She should have the chance to take her time with this, and Robin should probably get some good athletic shorts anyway.

A few minutes pass like that before she hears Stevie's voice behind her.

“Robs?” She turns to see her best friend holding a couple hangers of dresses and skirts. “Do you think they have dressing rooms here?”

“You know,” Robin says with a smile, “I think they do.”

They locate them fairly easily, and she shoos Stevie inside with a grin. “Okay, come out when you're ready to model them for me.”

Stevie giggles from behind the changing room door. “Okay, okay. Here's the first one.”

She flings open the door, and Robin stares. She's not sure she's ever actually seen this much of her friend's thighs before. The skirt she has on is a pale yellow, which doesn't go too great with her complexion or with her t-shirt.

“It's... cute,” she settles on.

Stevie laughs. “You hate it.”

Robin grimaces, not wanting to be rude to her friend trying on femininity. “It's not really your color.”

“I like doing this, though,” Stevie says, twisting her hips to watch the skirt flare out, attached shorts peeking out from underneath. “But yeah, I mostly picked it because it's yellow. They had it in green also, I might get that just because.”

“Okay, that would be cute,” Robin decides.

“Wouldn't it?” Stevie grins. “Okay, next one.” She ducks back inside the dressing room.

The next dress she comes out in is much more of a statement. She took longer to put it on, and Robin can see why — the mess of straps in the back seem complicated as all hell. The gaps the straps leave wrap around to the side, leaving stomach cutouts that can be seen from the front. It's a much better color for her, closer to a honey yellow with white piping around the edges.

Robin whistles. “You trying to distract the other team? Cause goddamn, Stevie.”

She flips her hair over her shoulder, but it doesn't quite have the same effect when it's in a ponytail. “It's not my fault if dressing how I like is distracting for them.”

“If you wore that to a softball game every woman in attendance would melt,” Robin tells her. “Are you actually gonna get it?”

Stevie looks down at herself, pulling at the hem of the dress. “I don't know, it was kind of hard to put on. And I... I don't know, I know it's hot but I don't think I'm ready to wear something like this in public.” She looks nervous, like Robin would berate her for making the wrong choice or something, the dingus.

“Hey, that's okay,” she tells her. “I don't know that I'd be comfortable wearing that in public either.” They share a smile, Stevie's a little shaky at the edges. “We can always come back for it when you feel ready, right?”

Stevie nods. “Right.” She takes a deep breath, then releases it, shoulders slumping comfortably. “Okay. One more.”

Robin gives her a reassuring smile and waits for her to change.

“Oh wow,” she says when Stevie finally steps out. “That's kind of perfect.”

The dress is simple, just spaghetti straps, a subtle sweetheart neckline, and a short skirt. It's almost exactly the same color as Stevie's favorite sweater, and she knows they're both thinking of it as Stevie runs her hands down the smooth material.

“I think I'm gonna get it,” she confesses like a secret.

“You should,” Robin says wholeheartedly. “You'll be the prettiest girl on the court.”

She blushes and looks away. “What about you?”

Robin scoffs, ignoring the warm feeling that rises at being called pretty. “I'm the most handsome girl on the court. Obviously.”

“Of course,” Stevie agrees, then sobers and looks down at herself again. “I've never, um... I've never actually bought a dress before.”

Robin blinks. “Really? What about —”

“It's all hand-me-downs,” Stevie says, cutting off her question about her wardrobe overhaul. “And I really appreciate it, I do, I love those clothes, but I... it's different buying it for yourself.”

Robin softens. “Yeah,” she says. “For what it's worth, I think it's perfect for you. You look...” She takes in her friend's mustard-yellow dress, clinging to her curves in all the right places, revealing miles of thigh and muscled calves, brunette ponytail swaying behind her. “You look like a princess. But like, for tennis.”

“Aw, Robs...” In two steps, Stevie is engulfing her in a hug, those strong arms wrapping around her. “You're sweet.”

“It's true,” Robin says, pulling back to look at her again. “You look like if Belle played pickleball.”

That catches Stevie off guard, and she lets out a bark of laughter. “I'm never gonna unsee that, oh my god. Why does that fit so well?” She rushes over to the mirror to look herself over again, giggling at the Disney comparison.

“Your general color scheme, I guess,” Robin says. “I think that means you have to get it.”

“Definitely,” Stevie agrees, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Those Bedford bitches won't even know what hit them.”

And they don't. Hawkins leaves them in the dust with a devastating defeat, largely thanks to Stevie and her jock ways. Robin thinks the dress helped, though, even if the other team wasn’t actually that distracted by it. It helped because it gave Stevie the confidence to play her best, and that’s her favorite part about being on her team: getting to watch her best friend become who she’s always wanted to be. To Robin, no sport can compare.

[stevieweek]

Ao3 Collection | Days 1 - 3 | Prompts

The first one of many, fic by @fuctacles T | + first dress + fantasy | Steddie

Stevie Wearing the Strawberry Dress, art by @alicetallula G | + first dress | -

Untitled, art by @stevieharringtonwifeguy G | + D&D/Fantasy | Steddie

Chiffon, fic by @machtaholic - | + first dress | -

Victoria's Got Nothing On Her, fic by @augustjustice E | + lingerie + Dom!Stevie | Steddie

I'm in chainmail, baby I'm impressed, fic by @formosusiniquis M | + lingerie + D&D/Fantasy | Steddie

Candles, fic by @steddie-island E | + lingerie | Steddie

Mommy's girl, fic by @katyawriteswhump M | + Scoops/uniform + lingerie | Steddie

my lady, fic by allthewaytothechapel T | + D&D/Fantasy | Steddie

Better in Yellow, fic by @stellarspecter G | + sports + first dress | Robin&Stevie

i thee wed, fic by @matchingbatbites T | - | Steddie

He's so cute when he howls, fic by @fuctacles G | - | Steddie

Untitled, fic by @stevieharringtonwifeguy M | + Dom!Stevie + monsterfucking | Steddie

Princess, fic by @machtaholic - | +D&D/Fantasy | -

Gonna Y/N on his Wattpad til we're Canon, fic by @formosusiniquis T | - | Steddie, Stevie&Robin

Girls Like Girls Like Boys Do (Nothing New), fic by @augustjustice M | + sapphic | Stancy

cut to the feeling, fic by allthewaytothechapel T | - | Steddie

the way you fuck, the way you taste, fic by @midsummer-semantics E | + monsterfucking | Steddie

The sound of a promise, fic by @fuctacles M | - | Steddie

Pride, fic by @machtaholic M | + Dom!Steve | Steddie

unfulfilled wishes, fic by allthewaytothechapel G | - | Steddie

Cuffing Season, fic by @steddie-island E | + sapphic | Steddie

I've Been Dead All Day, fic by @stevesjockstrap E | - | Steddie, Stommy

Sports, art by @arelliann G | + sports | -

A rush kinda like the old times (I still cross your mind), fic by @steddie-island M | - | Stommy

Give A Little Bit, fic by @stevesjockstrap T | - | Stevie/Argyle

Annus Mirabilis (Marvellous Year), fic by @medusapelagia E | + sapphic | Stevie/Carol

Taking the Edge Off, fic by @augustjustice E | + sapphic | Stancy

The day Eddie quit his job, fic by @fuctacles M | + sapphic | Stevie/Chrissy

Fireworks, fic by @machtaholic - | + sports | -