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“This is getting really sad, Harrington.”
Robin’s voice snaps Stevie out of her stupor, causing her to drop her ice cream scooper on the ground for the third time that day. Shit.
“I mean, seriously, Eddie Munson?”
“I know,” she groans, sparing one last look out into the food court. Eddie didn’t come to Starcourt all that often, but he usually parked himself next to the Jamba Juice with his friends when he did, which meant that Stephanie got to ogle him for the approximate fifteen minutes it took for him to slurp down his smoothie.
“Like, if there’s anyone out there who hates your guts more than me, it’s him,” Robin continues, disbelief coloring her words.
Stevie shut her eyes and exhaled sharply. It’s fine. She’s fine. “I know, Robin.”
“I mean, even if he was into preps, your friends made his life a living hell.” While Stevie normally enjoys listening to whatever Robin feels like rambling about – even though Robin has made it clear that she’s definitely not Stevie’s number one fan – she really, really doesn’t want to have to listen to this. “I’m just saying, maybe you should aim lower. I think Jim the janitor is looking for wife number three.”
Stevie slams her now dirty ice cream scooper into the wash bucket behind the counter with more force than she probably needed to use. Whatever, it shuts Buckley up, and when Stevie declares that she’s going to take the trash out, she doesn’t argue.
By the time Stevie is back in from her errands, Eddie and his friends are long gone.
/////
“Here.”
Stevie glances up from her packed lunch – leftover pizza for the second day in the row because she hasn’t had the energy to cook anything recently and just keeps ordering takeout – to see a sheepish looking Robin Buckley sliding a cup of USS Butterscotch across the small break table towards her.
“What is this?”
“It’s a genuine ‘I’m-sorry-for-being-a-bitch’ sundae.” Robin settles into the chair across from her, still looking a little peaky. “I, uh, definitely went a bit too far yesterday, and I made you upset and I get it, I mean, I’d be upset if someone made fun of me for who I like, and I didn’t know that you really liked him but I should have known because every time he shows up you get these big puppy dog eyes and - ”
“Robin, Robin, stop!” Stevie drops her pizza and holds up her hands. Robin cuts off and flushes bright red. “It’s okay. Really. Besides, if there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s me.”
“I don’t know, Harrington,” Robin replies slowly, and there’s a glimmer in her eyes that Stevie hasn’t seen before. “You keep doing things that sort of blow my mind. I think I might even be starting to like you.”
Stevie can’t help herself from smiling, nor can she stop the snort that leaves her throat. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“Ha ha, you’re hilarious.” Robin rolls her eyes, but she offers her a small smile in return. “Seriously though, Eddie Munson? Like, have you ever even talked to him?”
“Honestly,” Stevie reaches for her sundae and starts digging in, “I didn’t really notice him until after I graduated.”
“Really?” Robin scoffs. “He’s kind of hard to miss.”
Stevie shrugs. “I don’t know, I didn’t really care about anyone outside of Tommy and Carol when I was friends with them, and then after Barb died I felt like I was barely able to care about myself.”
Robin doesn’t say anything, so Stevie pulls her gaze away from her quickly diminishing sundae and towards her coworker. “What?”
“Are you, I don’t know, are you okay?”
Stevie feels herself relax which, huh, she didn’t even know she was tense. “I think so. Graduating helped. Finally getting away from Tommy and Carol and Billy Hargrove helped. Deciding to go to cosmetology school helped. And the kids - ” Stevie breaks off with a fond laugh, “the kids help a lot too.”
“Huh.” Robin is still just sort of looking at her, and that glimmer in her eyes is brighter. “Well, I’m jealous you got out of there. I still have a year left.”
“Ehh, you’ll have a better senior year than I did,” Stevie shrugs again.
“Seeing as Billy Hargrove isn’t obsessed with me, yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Just break a plate on his head, that’ll fix that.”
Now Robin’s eyes are so wide, they’re practically popping out of her head. “What?!”
Stevie bursts into laughter and yeah, Stevie thinks she’s starting to like Robin Buckley.
/////
“I still don’t get it.”
It’s been nine days since Stevie’s last Eddie Munson sighting and eight days since Robin and Stevie made up over some USS Butterscotch, and this time when Eddie and his friends sprawl around their usual table, Robin joins Stevie in her watching.
“Did you have some sort of awakening after watching The Breakfast Club or something?”
Stevie frowns, but she doesn’t pull her eyes away from Eddie. “What breakfast club?”
“You haven’t seen – no, you know what, I’m not going to let you change the subject this time. Why Eddie Munson?”
Eddie throws his head back, laughing wildly, and Stevie is suddenly wildly jealous that she’s not the one sitting at the table making him laugh.
“Stevie. Dingus.” Robin jabs her in the side and Stevie hisses but it’s a success, she’s paying attention to Robin now. “Why. Eddie. Munson.”
“I just – I don’t know,” Stevie sighs, rubbing her now sore ribcage, thank you Robin Buckley. “He just so alive and outgoing and real. And I dunno, I think it’s kind of sweet that he adopts all the weird loner kids at school, and I like his curly hair and his leather jacket - ”
“Stevie.”
“ – and that weird jean jacket vest thing that he always wears, and the rings on his hands, and his hands, his hands are huge and did you know that he can play the guitar because apparently he can play the guitar, I saw his friend putting up a sign for some band that he’s in - ”
“Stevie.”
“ – and he has such pretty eyes and a gorgeous smile and God his arms, have you seen his arms when he rolls his sleeves up - ”
“STEVIE.”
“ – and I want to drink smoothies with him and go to the movies with him and make out in his crappy van with him and then take him home and tie him to my - ”
“STEVIE!” Robin shrieks, smacking her hand across Stevie’s mouth, and it’s loud enough to draw the attention of the sophomores passing by the shop. Robin waves along with her other hand, and they shoot the pair weird looks, but they move past.
“First of all,” Robin finally says as she drops her hands from Stevie’s mouth, “never talk to me about the disgusting sex you want to have with Eddie Munson ever again, I will have literal nightmares about what you told me.”
“But - ”
“NIGHTMARES, Harrington! And second of all, Christ, I knew you had it bad, but I didn’t know you had it that bad.”
Stevie can feel herself blushing bright, bright red. “No I don’t.”
Robin just blinks at her. “Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“So you’d be able to talk to him like a normal person then?”
Stevie nods even though on the inside she is screaming NO NOPE NO WAY ABSOLUTELY NOT.
“Great, because he’s coming in here.”
Apparently her flight instincts don’t kick in when fighting interdimensional monsters, but they do kick in when Eddie Munson is within talking distance, because she’s dropping onto the floor and crawling underneath the counter before she can realize that’s precisely what she’s doing.
“Uh huh. Totally normal.” Stevie glances up at Robin and yep, Robin looks about as unimpressed as her tone. “I lied, by the way. He and his friends just left the food court.”
“Blergh.” Stevie knocks her head back against the counter and sighs. Robin shows her mercy, though, and lets her sit there and recover for five minutes until the kids come charging in, wanting Stevie to let them sneak into another movie which she does because she’s a pushover. Worrying about the kids is enough to get Eddie Munson off her mind, at least for now.
/////
If cosmetology school doesn’t end up working out, maybe Stevie should join the secret service or something because hey, she’s really good at surviving Russian torture. She can almost imagine the look on her father’s face if she added that to the resumé he continuously tailors on her behalf. Suck it, Dad.
(She might be a little high still.)
“I’d be a great secret agent,” she tells Robin, although Robin is still puking her guts up in the toilet next to her and probably isn’t listening. “Like James Bond. And Henderson could be Q!”
“Ugh,” Robin finally moans, “how do you know James Bond characters well enough to name them?”
“Uh, because my dad is obsessed with the movies, they’re, like, the only thing he watches when he’s home.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Ehh, Sean Connery is sort of hot. I like his accent.”
Robin makes a fake retching sound. “That is the worst thing you’ve ever said, ever.”
“Oh come on, are you telling me Connery doesn’t do it for you at least a little bit?”
“First of all,” Robin snorts, “he’s old enough to be my father, and second of all no, he doesn’t do it for me. I’m more of a Honey Ryder girl,” Robin sighs out, and then she falls quiet, too quiet.
Oh.
Oh.
“Well,” Stevie starts slowly, because she only has one shot at this, “your opinion is definitely wrong, because Solitaire is obviously the better choice.”
Robin sputters, and then she’s laughing, and Stevie tucks and rolls underneath the stall until she’s sitting across from Robin, and then they’re both laughing.
“Are you seriously arguing with the lesbian, dingus? Honey Ryder in that bikini is so fucking hot!”
“Uh, yeah, but she’s no Jane fucking Seymour, Robin!”
/////
Russian torture definitely sucks, but Stevie emerges on the other side with Robin Buckley as a best friend, and for Robin? She’d be tortured by a million Russians.
She’s really glad Robin is there in the aftermath. She’s a good distraction, goading Stevie into more arguments about James Bond and Bond girls and other movies when they finally run out of Bond films to talk about, and having Robin’s voice fill up the silence helps, especially on those nights when she can’t fall asleep without seeing Billy Hargrove’s corpse, or seeing the look on El’s face when she finds out that the chief isn’t coming back this time.
She doesn’t miss the mall. She doesn’t miss Scoops and its shitty customers and its even shittier uniform. She doesn’t miss Robin, because they’re working at Family Video together every day now. But in those moments where she lets herself not feel guilty for missing anything at the mall – which are few and far between, because everything has been tainted by Russians and by death – she lets herself miss the time she spent watching Eddie Munson from afar.
But then one day, Dustin Henderson walks into Family Video wearing a familiar baseball-styled tee, emblazoned with a large demon, and suddenly her days of watching Eddie Munson from afar are back, and it’s all going to be totally fine.
/////
It is not totally fine.
It is not totally fine, because now that Dustin and Mike and Lucas are in Eddie’s little club, they will not stop talking about it. More specifically, they will not stop talking about Eddie, and how cool he is, and how awesome his hair is, and did you know he’s in a band and he can play the guitar, Stevie, why don’t you play the guitarand he listens to metal music and it’s the coolest shit ever, stop telling me not to swear Stevie, you’re not my mom and Eddie’s really smart, actually, he’s just too smart for the school system and Eddie just wrote the most incredible campaign Stevie, you should have been there, and Stevie is about three seconds away from pulling her perfectly coiffed hair out of her head.
“Is this revenge?” Stevie moans, her face buried in the pile of recent returns.
“Yes, and it is so, so sweet,” Robin sings happily from behind her.
“ – was actually a lich the entire time – are you even listening?” Henderson’s outraged voice squawks from across the counter. Stevie sighs and forces herself to look over at him.
“Yeah, yeah, something about a barhop – ”
“Barkeep - ”
“ – and it turns out he was a witch the whole time?”
“ – a lich, Stevie, a lich – God, why am I even trying? Eddie was right, he said you’d never be able to appreciate the intricate world of D&D!”
Stevie feels herself gape at Dustin, because not only is apparently Dustin Henderson talking with Eddie about her, Eddie apparently doesn’t think she can appreciate D&D? Which, he’s not totally wrong, there are a lot of rules and things she doesn’t understand and she’s really bad at words, which Robin says is because she’s dyslexic, but she does actually try to understand what Dustin is talking about. It just – it makes her stomach feel icky, knowing that whatever Eddie said probably isn’t as nice as what Dustin said, and Dustin is rarely nice when he’s in one of his moods.
Robin, bless her, is apparently offended on Stevie’s behalf, and so she steps up to the plate when it becomes clear that Stevie is speechless. “Please tell Munson that he can judge other people’s capacity for decoding nonsense when he’s going to school full time and has an actual job.”
“And migraines,” Stevie adds in. “Lots of migraines.”
Dustin, at least, manages to look a little sheepish. “Sorry, Stevie. It’s just really exciting to be in Hellfire right now!”
“I know.” Stevie manages her best fond smile, even though she still feels unsettled on the inside. “I’m really happy for you, Henderson. So, how did you fight the lich?”
/////
The thing with Dustin Henderson is if you give him an inch, he’ll take forty-thousand miles, so now Stevie is treated to an hour-long play by play after every single Hellfire session wherein Dustin praises Eddie’s genius and how hard and intense the game is and you should really give it a chance, Stevie.
“Henderson,” Stevie finally cuts him off one Saturday morning. He’s cornered her behind the counter at Family Video after instructing Mike and Lucas to pick a good movie for once in their goddamn lives. Robin abandoned her to trail after the boys (traitor), and after twenty minutes of Dustin talking about the wondrous biology of acid frogs, Stevie’s patience is wearing thin. “I love you. You’re the son I never had.”
“You’re nineteen.”
“Exactly,” she nods, “the son I never had. But if I hear another word about the many uses of an acid toad’s bowel movements - ”
“Acid frog Stevie, weren’t you listening?!”
“ – I am going to lose my mind,” Stevie finishes calmly. (Much more calmly than the situation warranted, in her opinion.)
“This is important information, Stevie!”
“Dustin, how is this possibly important information?”
The bell above the door rings, signaling a customer has entered, but Robin greets them before Stevie gets a chance to. (Not that Dustin would give her the chance to, judging by how furrowed his brow is. He only gets that annoyed little squiggle in the center of his forehead when he’s about to launch into his most passionate speeches.)
“Because these are important things to know, Stevie!”
“Okay, Dustin, I hate to break it to you, but acid frogs aren’t real.”
Dustin snorts. “That’s not true, actually, the acid frogs of Eastern Australia are an endangered species - ”
“You know that’s not what I mean, Dustin!” Stevie throws her hands up in the air. “Your fantasy acid frogs aren’t real.”
“Don’t waste your breath, Henderson,” a nice voice speaks from behind Dustin. Dustin grins at the sound and turns to face the speaker. Stevie, meanwhile, freezes in place, a shiver running up her spine. “Such truths are wasted on the unenlightened.”
Eddie Munson strolls up to the counter, dropping his hand on Dustin’s shoulder and shooting her an icy smirk. “Well, well. If it isn’t the former Queen of Hawkins High. How does it feel to be one of the common folk, your majesty?”
A pair of snorts (coming from a pair of boys in matching Hellfire shirts whose names she can’t recall) trail Eddie’s proclamation, followed by Mike’s laughter from the back of the store. Dustin, the traitor, just shoots Stevie a smug grin.
(And look, she’s not panicking, okay? She’s not. It’s just that this is the first time that she’s ever talked to Eddie Munson, at least in recent memory, and it’s already off to kind of a bad start, and honestly he’s being kind of an asshole right now but ugh she still likes him and wants this to go well, why does she care so much about wanting this to go well?
Breathe, breaths, in, out. Robin rounds the corner and shoots her a worried look, but Stevie just shakes her head. She’s turned worse situations around. She can do this.)
“I don’t think there’s anything common about you, Munson,” Stevie replies, shifting her weight forward onto her right foot so now she’s leaning forward. “But I’m doing pretty well today. Or I was, until someone,” she glances quickly at Dustin before looking back at Eddie, “decided to spend fifteen minutes teaching me the seven best uses for acid frog excrement.”
“It was disgusting,” Robin chimes in as she joins Stevie behind the counter. “And also a little bit concerning, if I’m being totally honest. Like, that’s a lot of time to spend thinking about fake frog turds.”
Eddie blinks at them once, twice, before the smirk falls off his face and he collapses forward with a groan, removing his hand from Dustin’s shoulder so he can drop his head into it instead. “Really, Henderson? Has our kind not suffered enough?”
Dustin huffs out a breath. “It’s important information!”
“And I’m truly honored that you want to share it with me. I am,” Stevie cuts him off before he can continue. “I love our mother-son bonding time.”
“I’m not your son.”
“But I think I’ll go to your father if I have any questions about DND in the future, okay?” Stevie finishes, and she can barely stop herself from grinning, especially when she starts to hear Robin choke behind her.
Dustin just looks confused now. “My father?”
“Yep.” Stevie lets herself grin now and returns her gaze to Eddie Munson, who’s looking over at her now with a confused expression on his face. “Which reminds me, what’s the difference between wizards and sorcerers again? I can never keep it straight.”
Eddie drops his hand and gapes at her. Like, his jaw is practically on the ground. He backs up, away from the store counter and spins around once to look behind him (at his friends, who are also looking equally confused) before turning back around. “I’m sorry, are you – me?”
Stevie shifts closer to him, resting her chin on her hand so she’s gazing up at him. “I don’t see any other dungeon masters around here, do you?”
“What is happening right now,” Dustin murmurs out, and it’s not quite a question or a statement.
“Go play with your friends, Henderson, Mommy and Daddy are talking.”
“I – Mommy and Daddy?!” And now Henderson is shrieking, and Mike is poking his head out from behind the stacks to shoot them a glare, and Robin is trying really hard to cover up her laugh with her cough, and Eddie? Eddie is flushed bright red and just staring at her.
“So, yeah, wizards and sorcerers. I know there’s a difference, I can just never keep them straight. And since Dustin says you know the most about DND out of anyone, I might as well take lessons from the best, huh?”
“Oh my God. Oh my GOD!” Dustin is practically shrieking, and then Robin’s running around the counter and pulling him towards Mike and Lucas, ignoring his protesting.
“I – you – what? What?!” Now it’s Eddie’s turn to squawk.
“Also, I’m really glad you came in today. I mean, it probably was for a movie because, you know, Family Video,” Stevie waves her free hand around, “but I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this to come up.”
“An opportunity for what?” Eddie parrots back slowly.
“To flirt with you, obviously.”
“Obviously – obviously? Obviously?!”
“Yeah, obviously. I didn’t get a chance at the mall because you never came into Scoops,” and okay, she wasn’t planning on laying it all out on the line here, but Eddie’s looking increasingly like he’s two seconds away from running and she’d really prefer it if he at least believed her when he ran away, “which was annoying because our ice cream was way better than Jamba Juice anyways - ”
“What?”
“ – and the kids have been talking about you non-stop for the last three months, and it really means a lot that you took them under your wing, and, I mean, I already thought you were hot - ”
“WHAT?!”
“ – and judging by the handcuffs on your belt, I think it’s safe to say we have things in common outside of the kids. And I might not be like naturally interested in DND or whatever, but I’d let you be my dungeon master anytime,” she finishes with a wink and yep, she broke him. He’s frozen and flushed she really, really wants to see just how far down that blush goes.
The taller of his friends – Jeff, that’s his name – walks forward and grabs Eddie’s arm. “This isn’t some sort of joke, right?”
“Nope!” Robin calls out before sliding to a stop in front of the counter. “She’s been crushing on him for months. It’s honestly been sort of pathetic.”
“Gee, thanks Robin,” Stevie rolls her eyes. Reaching for a nearby receipt, Stevie grabs a pen and quickly scribbles her number on the back. “Here’s my number. I’m home most nights after seven and I have every other weekend free. Make sure he calls me if he’s interested,” she finishes up with a click of her pen, and then she’s passing the phone number to Jeff.
Jeff smiles at her, a small, shy sort of smile. “I will. C’mon, Munson. Let’s go before your face freezes that way."
He grabs hold of Eddie with his free hand – Eddie, who’s still flushed and staring at her – and he motions for their other friend to grab his other arm, and with that, the trio of Hellfire boys leave Family Video.
“That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Mike announces as soon as the door shuts, approaching the counter with a sour look on his face.
“I didn’t know you had game like that, Stevie!” Lucas crows, laughing at the sour look on Mike’s face. Dustin, on the other hand? Dustin looks as shellshocked as Eddie did.
“You – you’re into Eddie?”
“That’s an understatement,” Robin snorts. “Seriously, though, that was intense. I thought you were going to flirt with him, not kill him.”
“What?” Stevie shoots back defensively. “He wasn’t getting that I was serious and I wanted to make sure he knew that.”
“Don’t worry, we all know it,” Mike gags, and it’s enough to set Lucas off into giggles again.
“You’re into Eddie,” Dustin repeats, and then all of a sudden he’s beaming. “You like Eddie! This is PERFECT!”
“Oh, no, no, no! Dustin!” Mike groans, but Dustin is already running out the door.
“Don’t worry, Stevie! We’ll make sure true love prevails!”
“God, do we have to?” Mike whines again, but he dutifully follows Dustin out the door. Lucas shoots Stevie another wink and laughs before following suit, and then it’s just Robin and Stevie in an otherwise empty Family Video.
“That was probably a bit much.”
“Nah,” Robin shakes her head with a laugh. “It would take a lot for anyone to be ‘too much’ for Eddie Munson. He’s into you, dingus.”
“You think so?”
Robin knocks her head against Stevie’s. “I bet you five bucks he asks you out by next Saturday.”
“You’re on.”
/////
Three days later, Eddie Munson leaves Family Video with a wide grin on his face, and Stevie is too busy dancing around in excitement to feel too badly about her five dollars that are making a new home in Robin’s wallet.