Chapter Text
It was a busy evening at Family video, meaning Steve and Robin had no time to sit in the back and watch bad movies with the door of the break room open, one eye on the store entrance in case their services were needed, Keith didn’t mind them lounging around so much any more. Ever since the new movie theatre had opened up in town less and less people were coming in anyway.Not today however. It was a rainy Saturday, and if things were different Steve too, like most of the customers he’d had today would be preparing for a night indoors with a girl, picking out a movie they probably wouldn’t even get halfway through. But things aren’t different and it’s been almost a month since he last spent an evening with anyone his age who had even the slightest potential of being interested in him in that way.
“I don’t get it, I used to be a babe magnet and now I’m lucky if I get a girl to let me give her my number. What the hell happened?” Steve places the cash into the register as the door shuts behind Laura Evans, a girl he used to go to school with, who just rejected him, saying she had plans for the next couple of weeks.
“Oh don’t be so hard on yourself lover boy, I’m sure it has nothing to do with your looks and more with the fact that most of the other people our age are in their second year of college, probably getting invited to a bunch of parties while also working towards a bright future outside of this dump of a town. If you want these girls to pay you any attention you need to bring something to the table. Your high school popularity doesn’t count for anything any more”. Robin gives him a pat on the back before she starts stacking the tapes on the counter.
“Yeah well it’s hard to gain popularity amongst people your age when you only hang out with little kids in your free time, if you even get any time off at all. Besides, I’ve pretty much saved the world three times now, how’s that for bringing something to the table?” He raises his eyebrow at her as a group of girls of about the age of Dustin and his friends enter the store.
“Welcome to Family Video, are you dropping off or picking up?” Robin gives them a smile as they walk up to the counter.
“Um… picking up. Have you got anything with Rock Stars?” The girls in the back smile at each other. “Cute Rock Stars” one of them adds.
“Girls movie night huh? Well step right over here, I’ll give you the full tour”
As the girls leave, giggling and chatting Robin returns to the counter.
“All hope is not lost Harrington, those girls thought you were cute” she winks at him teasingly.
“Oh yippy skippy did you ask them if we could arrange a play date? Oh wait! It would have to be tomorrow though, I can’t miss my bedtime” He gives her a sarcastic smile.
Robin turns to the computer where she marks the movie the girls just chose as borrowed.
Steve startles as she spins around snaps her finger and points at him.
“You should get guitar lessons!”
“What?” he looks up at her from the Sofa in the back of the room where he just sat down.
“Well girls dig a guy with talent, I mean remember how impressed everyone was when Eddie played that killer song to distract Vecna this year? Trust me, being able to play an instrument makes a person at least two times more attractive. I mean I was in band and you fell for me”
She sits down beside him.
“Hey, we said we wouldn’t talk about that again, besides that was different, we had shared trauma and shit”. Steve lets out a long sigh and throws his head back onto the sofa.
“Okay yeah well you know who else you have shared trauma with? Eddie Munson. You guys could bond over that while he gives you guitar lessons”. Robin pokes him in the side and he swats her hand away, sill staring at the ceiling.
Steve had thought bout their time in the Upside-down a lot, they’d talked about it a lot too. It was a decision they collectively made after everything went down. They all agreed that had they talked, opened up and been there a little bit more for one another a lot of the shit that happened wouldn’t have. And besides it wasn’t as if they could all see a shrink to work through their junk load of trauma, so in a way they’d become each others shrinks.
Robin had a point, Steve knew that of course. He had seen Eddie up on that roof playing for his life.Although the distraction was meant for Vecna, that...vampire...demon or whatever he was, wasn’t the only one Eddies little private concert had an effect on. He hated to admit it but in that moment he was again a little jealous of Dustin’s other “older male friend”, as the kid called him. The way his fingers moved so quickly and with such ease from one chord to the next and how he was standing up there banging his head to the music as if it wasn’t a life or death situation at all. He had been fully in his element and it was mesmerizing to watch. It was then when Steve first though to himself that Eddie Munson, the weird kid from Sophomore biology, who used to get himself into detention every week because of some dumb shit he’d do in class, might actually be cool.
And it made him feel horrible.
It was fighting evil Russians with Robin all over again. Hadn’t he misjudged her just the same, called her weird and made it very clear each time, to anyone who asked that they were just collegues? And all because of some dumb status in high school? Only to find out she was one of the coolest people he’d ever met and way more fun to hang around than the actually “cool” friends he’d had before. Now she was his best friend, all though he’d never tell Dustin that, and hey, even he was a nerd and a child at that. Steve had thought he had left the “King Steve” ways of thinking behind him but clearly that wasn’t the case, because again realising that he thought of someone like Eddie Munson as “cool” surprised him.
Maybe Robin was right, maybe Steve could learn a thing or two from Eddie and either way it would be nice to have a male friend his age.
“Hello? Earth to dingus” Robin snaps her fingers in Steve’s face.
“Huh? Yeah, yeah I’ll think about it”.
“Think about what?” The two both look up at the smiling face that has just appeared at the counter.
“Seriously dude? You blew me off because it’s the busiest day of the week yet I come in here to find you two lounging around like you’re waiting for something to happen. What were you guys talking about?” Dustin who has now walked to the other side of the counter takes a seat on the uncomfortable high chair behind it.
“I was just telling our boy here that-”
“that we really could be getting more customers any minute. Off the chair!”
Steve gets up, takes a stack of returned movies out of the labelled box and starts sorting them back into their respective shelves.
“Come on man I just need you to drive me to school tonight, the campaign is gonna be awesome and I really don’t wanna bike there in the rain, I already got soaked just walking over here from the arcade” Dustin complains as he hops off the chair.
“You have a Hellfire club meeting tonight? That’s perfect Steve, you can ask Eddie there” Robin throws in from the couch, where she’s now pulling out loose strings from its worn out seams.
“Ask Eddie what?”
“Ask Eddie nothing because I haven’t even decided if I want to yet. Why do you want me to talk to him so bad anyway, what’s in this for you?” Steve glares at Robin as he walks by her while Dustin follows him around the store.
“Talk to him for what?”
“Come on Steve I only have like four real friends but you and Eddie are my best friends, is it too much to ask for you guys to get along? And aside from that I’m getting tired of hearing you whine about your lady problems all day. Especially now that I’m happy with Vicky I just really want you to be happy with someone too and I think sick guitar skills like Eddie’s would really help getting that someone, whoever they may be, to notice you”. She walks over to the two who are now standing by the counter.
“You wanna ask Eddie to give you guitar lessons?” Dustin gives Steve a look that tells him the kid is already getting a little too excited about this.
“No, I said I’d think about it. Now shut up you two. Robin, I’ll take the morning shift tomorrow. Henderson, get in the car before I change my mind”.