#stevieweek25

“I agree, Demi. Not having an adult to go to makes it scarier. But wasn’t it brave to keep going even though he was scared?”

Robin chirps and squeaks again. Flapping the puppet’s wings with the special pull cord, she maneuvers the bat around the stage to make it look like Demi is flying.

“Of course, Demi, I’ll always be someone safe for you to go to. I love you.”

Her eyes sting as she says it. God, she cries so much more easily these days. Fucking hormones.

The puppet shivers and shakes in a full-bodied chirp. I love you too.

A howl sounds from just outside the room. Signaling the end of this segment and the start of the next one. 

“Dart must hear someone at the door! Let’s see who’s come to visit.”

The pace is her favorite part of the show. Slow, easy. All done as much as possible in one smooth take. Stevie pushes herself up from the dark-patterned wingback chair, smoothing down her skirt, she walks from one room of the set to the other. The camera trails her, giving Robin a chance to move throughout the specially designed paths that keep her out of frame while she’s holding the Demi puppet.

Unlike Demi, Dart doesn’t that closely resemble his namesake. That was for the feds more than the children. Demi had some aesthetic changes to make her look more friendly, rounded body and visible eyes. Dart was changed fundamentally. Instead of the puckered fleshy face, Stevie can run a hand through sparse fur between two pointed ears. The animatronics Dustin helped their puppet master build let them move, giving the whole face more subtle movement than the other puppet is capable of. Good for the larger, German Shepherd-sized build. Even if the focus of the camera is usually on the face, the top jaw dog, wire-haired and angular, and beneath its pink nose, a split bottom jaw that opens in two wide, distinct joints. More cute than dangerous when a long forked tongue lolls out from it.

As Stevie’s thick rubber heels thunk against the floor of the set, Dart’s pit bull stump tail wags in its excitement at her approach. Back from college, Dustin is operating it today. He maneuvers the body so it faces her now that she’s come to get the door. The charmingly dumb look on its face gets her every time — a grin she has to school back to a more appropriately sized smirk. 

From off stage, someone cues Dart’s reminding bark.

“Has our guest arrived, Dart?”

Dart can nod when Dustin operates it. Always more sure than the rest of them about the intelligence that lurked beneath those demo creatures. Still, someone once again makes the appropriate answering cue.

Robin is standing outside the set, positioning Demi in a window. She chirps and flaps, Stevie’s cue to begin introducing who is behind the door.

“Today’s scary job will have us confronting our glossophobia, that’s our fear of public performance. If your palms get sweaty when you answer a question at school or you think about throwing up when you have a piano recital, we picked this job to give you a special scare.”

Never a theater kid, Robin teases her at how quickly she’s picked this up. Her cues, like this one to open the door, are always hit. She knows exactly what her face is doing, the way her dark lips hint at a smile, and the way the dark of her makeup makes something dangerous and anticipatory flash in her eyes. She’s yet to have a guest not spook just a little when the door swings open. The danger that she used to be humming under her skin was obvious to them when the sound and light cues hit, making the stage flash and sound with lightning and thunder.

It’s one of the joys of the job.

The outside of the “house” is dark, a dual-purpose choice to hide the sound lot that pairs with how nice it looks in post to have the first glimpse of their guest be in that horror movie strobe.

“Welcome home,” she says as always to the blackness outside her door. Thunder booms first, then lightning streaks, and she’s looking at someone who shouldn’t be here. “Eddie Munson, front man of the band Corroded Coffin.”

She steps numbly out of the way, letting Eddie through her door. 

Six years.

Dart rubs its head against her skirt, a move that would be accompanied by a whimper if it were able to make its own sound effects. As it is, she takes the comfort she can get from Dustin. Robin makes a trill; she's not a good enough actor to disguise the nerves in it.

It’s too much to deal with, so as with all things, she decides it’s better not to. There’s a procedure here, a routine. Stevie turns on her heel and starts walking to the set they’re supposed to be on. Eddie can fall into step behind her or, hell, maybe she’ll get lucky and he’ll run away. He’s always been good at that.

Stalking is what she’s doing; it might be what Eddie did too, to find his way over here. Hers means she’s moving too fast through the set for the pace they’re setting, the emotions she’s feeling moving her body like a rocket through the familiar frame of her pretend house. Eddie’s means he’s ruined her fragile peace.

It’s a real multifaceted word. Maybe they should use it for a show. Maybe they could get a zookeeper to bring a big cat on, too.

Eddie finds the guest’s seat at the table, sitting down across from her at the kitchen island, ruining the slight lift of her mood at the plans for a new episode with his continued presence.

He’s already got his hands in the spread on the table. Fingers smudged with the dyed red frosting, pinching a brownie carved into a coffin shape. It looks garish in the bright light of this set. The kitchen, the only set she refused to bow to the other aesthetics of the house. It unnerves instead in its rich, pastel, Stepford glory. Eddie looks just as out of place here -- even with the spiderweb detailing on the cabinets -- as he did in her kitchen in Hawkins.

“Good evening, Eddie,” she says what she’s supposed to say.

His mouth is full, his answer muffled in rich chocolate she baked herself before shooting.

“Why don’t you tell us about your band? I’m a big fan of your guitarist, Jeff Best.”

Jeff, the person who was supposed to be on the sound stage when she opened the door. The band member she had approved of, after being told by producers how enthusiastically the band had been supporting the show. How they wanted on, desperately.

She asks, “What’s the scariest part of your job?”

And asks, “Isn’t it frightening performing in front of thousands and thousands of people?”

And asks, “Are you ever afraid the stage will collapse?”

And asks, “Pyrotechnics are fires and fireworks that can be done inside, but aren’t you worried that something might go wrong?”

This segment has always been less of an interview and more of an exploration of worst-case scenarios. The things that frighten, the accidents that end up on the news, but rarely ever happen. A way to show the kids who tune in that the world can be scary, but it’s usually not. That fear of the coulds shouldn’t be the thing that keeps them from trying.

But she flings these worst cases at Eddie like knives, like saying they might manifest into coming true.

But each interview always ends the same way.

“What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever overcome?”

Eddie spins a chocolate eyeball around on the white china plate. It blurs with the movement until it’s just a white sphere moving around and around the border of fine, red blood splatter. Is he trying to figure out how to skirt his NDA? Is he inventing some stage diving accident or bar fight? Some story that will make him sound like the worldly rockstar the world knows him as?

Sure, he’s softened his aesthetic for this appearance. The only leather is his jacket. His wide-legged black pants, with the red and black brocade vest, straddle the line between professional and showman.

But he’s still Eddie, dungeon master drama queen to the last.

“The scariest thing I’ve ever done?” he repeats. Incorrectly to that point, done implies it’s scary because of his fuck up, overcome implies it’s the world. They’d workshopped the wording of that final question for days before her first interview.

Eddie continues, because if there’s one thing he’s going to do it’s continue whether she wants it or not. “The scariest thing I’ve ever done is go attempt to make amends with someone that I hurt very badly and hope that she’s good enough to forgive me.”

She’s supposed to ask a follow-up here, but she really doesn’t want to.

“Some of those were in the present tense, Mr. Munson.” She’s borrowing words from Robin now, stealing them from somewhere in her soulmate's brain because all Stevie knows is a blank rage that she hopes isn’t in her eyes.

That’s bad television.

“You’re right. The going has happened, the attempt is ongoing, and the fear is in both.”

A clock’s chime fills the room. Loud, sourceless, she’s taken to thinking of it like a school bell, and that’s better than remembering a grandfather clock and Max’s broken legs. Eddie flinches back, not that big a fan of the show apparently. Midnight ends every episode.

“Time sure flies, doesn’t it, Eddie?” A thump comes from behind them, a spot on the third wall out of the sight of the framing of their primary camera. Robin in position for her favorite job.

Stevie gives her her cue, “Gordon?” Robin, on her mark and her applebox, brings down the thick, fleshy, grey hand with the too-long fingers and the blackened nails onto Eddie’s shoulder. It’s weighted at the front, dislodges Eddie from his seat, and jostles him backward. “Introduce Eddie to the others? I know he’s just dying to stay for a while.”

Hand in place on Eddie’s shoulder, all Robin has to do is pull and he’s stumbling off stage like he’s on a vaudeville hook.

She blinks slowly, wills her blood pressure down. Her heart has been thumping in her ears since she laid eyes on Eddie, and even now that he’s technically off camera, she still can’t let go of her rage.

But there’s a show to finish, and she’s going to do her job. She can ignore Eddie’s big, brown eyes that somehow manage to haunt her even in the dark beyond the camera. She can turn down the camera, face it head-on.

She can. She does. “And don't forget: you're smarter than you think, braver than you feel, and you always have a friend right here. Until next time.”

She’s moving even before she can hear the director call, “Cut.”

“Whose fucking idea was this?”

“Not me,” Robin answers, gleeful at Stevie’s rage. She’s got Eddie still pinned in place with her long arm.

“Listen, Stevie, baby.”

“Nope,” Robin says, popping that P and giving Eddie a shake.

Not that anyone but Stevie would have heard that over the way she yells, “You don’t get to call me that.”

“Eddie, dude, not that it’s not good to see you, but I talked to Jeff,” Dustin comes out from the set with his hands already raised.

“And I saw that, Henderson, but don't fret, I wasn't offended. I figured you wouldn't mind if I remedied the situation myself.”

“Never let it be said you've ever learned a single lesson the easy way, Munson,” Robin says.

“Yes, and I'll be glad to catch up with you about that, Buckley. And with you, Henderson. But right now, I would love a moment with the talent. Stevie?”

It's on her tongue to say no again. To send him packing, the quest failed. Let him turn it into some ballad of spurned love and wretched harpies; she doesn't care.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t. She says, “Five minutes.” And stalks off toward her dressing room.

He doesn't jingle anymore. That strikes her somewhere in the chest. The sound of his trailing behind her, the same melody as hers, told in a round: thick rubber heels on a concrete floor.

She sits down at her vanity and starts stripping off the thick paint of her on-camera makeup. As she slathers on cold cream, she can see Eddie find a seat on the coffee table. It throws her back to that last summer together, getting caught in her mother’s bathroom by a boy she liked in ways she didn’t know how to say yet.

The more things change.

“Listen, Stevie.” It’s funny how she can still tell when he’s started a sentence, not knowing how he plans to end it.

“You came all this way and you didn’t think about how you wanted to actually apologize? Did you get so lost in the drama of crashing my set that you didn’t think of what would happen when it was over?” She keeps her eyes on him in the mirror as she says it, moving through her routine like usual. With each condemnation, she takes her hand towel and wipes a little bit more of Stevie, Princess of the Dark, away until she’s bare-faced, annoyed, and just Stevie Henderson again.

“No,” he lies. “I mean, maybe. Look, Steph, for what it’s worth.”

She grabs her normal makeup, the lightweight stuff that doesn’t have to look good to the limited eye of the camera or sell a character that she’s only sometimes.

“It’s not worth a lot, Eddie. Let me try to save you some time. We finally gave in and gave the band the time of day, you leapt in ass first without a plan, because I’m Princess of the Dark, Princess Stevie, Lady Stevie of the Night, whatever the fucking branding has decided this week so I’ve got the image now. I’m not some baby freak borrowing wardrobe pieces from her socialite mom and her dyke best friend, I’m the right kind of metal that perpetual bachelor, frontman Eddie Munson can be seen with now. Does that about cover it?”

“No, no, Stevie, I swear.”

She can’t even slam down what’s in her hands. The stupid spongy applicator from her eyeshadow would get lost, and if she breaks another one of the eyeshadow colors, she’ll lose her mind. Setting it down gently does nothing to temper the absolute, white out emotion she’s feeling.

“You swear? You swear. The way you swore nothing would change. The way you swore you’d leave on tour and come back with nothing but stories and homesickness. That was the tour that you called me from Wichita to tell me you weren’t coming home, and you didn’t think it would work out if we tried to stay together. In case you forgot.”

“It’s not-”

“This was after you told me you didn’t want me to come when I offered. That it would be stupid of me to leave my -- easily abandoned -- job at the record store. But why would you want the idiot you’re about to leave playing merch girl as you wandered through the Midwest.”

“Are you finished?”

She’s got brown eyeshadow on one eye, her cheeks are pinked, and it’s not from blush. She’s pretty far from done. “That foot-in-mouth condition ended up being terminal, I guess.”

“Stevie.”

She can’t storm out if her eyes aren’t done. A half-done face is one thing, but it’s at least got to be even.

“Stevie, you’re getting mentioned in the same sentences as Elvira, R.L. Stine. You’re Sesame Street if the face was the Count and not Elmo. That’s you, that’s all you. It’s something you created from the ground up with nothing but your charm and vision, and yeah, stunning good looks and a little bit of black mailing the United States government.

“If you had come with us back then, you know what you’d be? My muse, sure. You’d be the merch girl that people whisper about, and wonder how many of the band members she’s sleeping with to get to play groupie. They’d find out things about you, and if you were lucky, they’d just make your life miserable.”

She can’t believe this. “Are you really trying to pull some ‘I left you to keep you safe,’ that is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Her face is done, she could leave. She’s given him more than the five minutes she promised. 

But then Eddie’s standing. No, he’s collapsing, off the table to her feet. Hands clutched in her skirt, looking up at her from the floor. “You’re right, it wasn’t about you. It was about me being the same coward I‘ve always been. You know what I’m most afraid of, Steph? That one day you would wake up in our rank ass tour bus and you would resent me for trapping you and all of your potential.”

The vanity counter bites into the meat of her hands. “It took you six years to come here and say that.” 

“Yeah, yeah, it did. And it was too long and it wasn't long enough. I would wait forever, Steph. It’s about who you are, not what you’ve become.”

“You’re contradicting yourself, Teddy.” He’s trapped her here, kneeling on her skirt the way he is. “Either you left so I could fill my full potential, which is pretty fucking bold to assume that everyone had that itch to leave Hawkins the way you did and that I wouldn’t have been just fine waiting tables or rewinding video tapes for the rest of my life. But it’s that or you love me no matter what, and it wouldn’t matter if I hung up the witch's broom.”

She’s feeling generous, and she likes how big and wide his cow eyes get when he’s desperate. It reminds her of different times. Eddie’s hand pulls hers off the vanity, and she lets him keep it. Let him pull it close to his chest. He’s probably imagining he’s some knight pledging some oath, and fuck even imaginging what he’s thinking endears her just a little bit more to him.

Letting him in was always going to be a mistake.

She’s never held a grudge as well as Robin.

“There isn’t anything you could do that would make me want you less.”

Still, in the last six years, she’s learned that even though she loves too hard and too long, sometimes it’s more important that she protect her heart. Like her head, it can’t take too many more beatings.

“You want a burger. You want a new record. You want a quick fuck with someone who knows what they’re doing. Wants are quick and fleeting, and sometimes they aren’t even that good. I can’t be a want, Eddie.”

He clutches her hand tighter. He drops his hold on her skirt so his other hand can grab her at the elbow instead. “Stevie, I need you. And if you send me packing, I’m still gonna need you. You’re it. You’re just- you’re it.”

“And if I didn’t follow you on tour, like some love-sick groupie? If I stayed here with the show, you couldn’t see me for weeks and months. You’d still need me?”

“Like air. I’ll call, I’ll write, I’ll come in and compose. I can be your first recurring guest or handle a puppet. Anything at your order.”

She can feel herself caving. Like a sink hole in her chest, the ground giving way to nothing but a yawning starvation. It’s been years, and she’s sunk all of her love and her care and the desperate need she has always had to be seen into this show. It was good, but there has always been so much of her to give.

So she spits back the worst thing he ever said to her.

“And I’m not just some stand-in for Chrissy Cunningham.”

She expects him to drop her arm. To scurry away like some frightened mouse now that the claws of the cat have dropped in front of it. To remember that before the tits and the smirky face she patterned off of Elvira, she was still always a mean girl.

The quiet collapse of Eddie’s face is less satisfying than the rage, the sadness in his eyes more like a kicked dog than an international rockstar.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” He says.

She could echo it, but hers needed to be said.

“If I thought you hated me, it was easier to leave. I could make you just one more thing I fucked up. I don’t see her when I look at you.”

She scoffs, and he pulls her closer.

“I don’t, Steph, I don’t. You’re not some damsel I couldn’t save. You’re the knight who rescued me. Let me make my oath, let me prove myself.”

“I want a new theme song. Something catchy, not metal. And you’re going to come on and do a special segment on the show about dealing with scary things, in terrible corpse makeup. Stop smiling, it’s not going to be fun.”

“I’m sure you’ll make it wretched.”

“I’m going to make you confront all the stupid shit you’re scared of and if you don’t act scared enough I’m going to bring in the rest of the band and tell them you’re the reason this is happening to them.”

“Gareth hates spiders, and Freak is scared of clowns.”

“And I want Jeff on the show. I had to cut out half of our interview questions about the things he’s had to face being black in the scene because you think you’re charming.”

He has the nerve to stand up, stepping on her skirt before he’s shoving his way into her space on the bench seat of her vanity. His hands are warm, fingers long and familiar as they curl around the curves she’s developed since they last saw each other.

“Whatever you want forever, Steph.” He whispers it into the side of her neck like he thinks he’s Gomez Addams, and she’s too weak to not be delighted.

“In that case, you can also explain all of this to Robin.”

“And when she kills me for wronging you?”

She isn’t even sure why they built a mall in this three stoplight town but she appreciates it all the same. A mall means she has some place to go when her breathing speeds up. Somewhere she can park the pickup she and Robin share before she runs it into some ditch.

She’s stripped down to the bottom layer of her boy disguise. A polo that stretches across her chest even with the restrictive bra she has underneath it. Everything about it feels revealing in a bad way, the stripes distorted at the top, the hem curling at her waist where she has stomach and hips that the body that used to wear these didn’t have.

Stevie stumbles into a J.C. Penny’s of all places. The scent of mixed perfume samples and radio pop over the speakers slowing her heart until she can’t feel its frantic beat in her fingers. She doesn’t even know why she’s upset, doesn’t know what emotion was roiling between her ears until she cut her wheel into the first parking lot she could find.

Barefaced, she’s sure she looks like a mess. She gets splotchy now when she’s upset, a trait, ironically, her mother shared with her.

She wanders through the aisles, runs her fingers along the racks of last seasons looks that have trickled down from the stores her mother used to shop in. Until she realizes she’s made it through to the makeup counter. Women in nondescript black outfits and white name tags look over and past her, aerosol sprays visible in the fluorescent lights as they float through the air misting their passing targets and then some. The smell of powders manages to linger at the back of it all, just enough to remind her of the times she spent on the floor of her mother’s bathroom watching her get ready in the vanity while she played with her matchbox cars.

Her eyes flit up and land on a salesgirl just long enough to call it eye contact. Strawberry blonde hair pulled into a high pony, she’s young enough that they would have gone to high school together, Stevie thinks, if she had stayed around long enough to make it to that point. The girl’s eyes don’t skitter away when she realizes that she’s locked eyes with the freak. They brighten and a cheerful voice carries over the din of sales and shopping. “Would you like to sample anything, Miss?”

A coworker glares. Stevie sees it, a blind man would see it, but the girl keeps smiling. Unaware or uncaring that she broke the rules by calling attention to herself and giving the outlier a reason to linger.

And Stevie wants to linger. Wants to feel right, like herself again. Not this old Halloween costume she pulled out of a box and put on. She approaches the blonde, lets her fingers touch the glass counter. Smudges them just to prove that she can, and she’s here.

“Do you have anything you’d recommend for an event?” She hears herself asking.

Up close she can see the blonde is also wearing a pristine white name tag, Chrissy. She was probably a cheerleader. There’s something cheerleader-y about the way she nods. The swing of her ponytail, the way her smile is blended across her entire face.

“That would depend on the event.”

“My mother just died,” the reveal rolls off the tongue easier than she thought it would. Though she’ll have to admit to Robin later she’s guilty of the crime of dropping her problems on a retail worker. “So a party.”

“I had one of those mothers too.” Chrissy reveals with a wink.

She reaches beneath the counter and selects a sleek silver tube. Taking off the lid she rolls it up until the tip of a bright pink lipstick is exposed. “Want to try it on?”

Stevie knows she shouldn’t. But she shouldn’t have come back to Hawkins. So what’s one more thing she shouldn’t do.

She nods, not trusting her voice to come out right. She can’t have it ruin this.

Chrissy smiles even brighter. A practiced hand grabs a brush from beside her. The color builds up on it, pinker somehow now that it’s removed from its home. Small hands reach across the counter, bold movements. There’s no hesitation as she grabs Stevie’s chin between cold fingers, holding it still in a firm grip.

The waxy feeling of lipstick is unmistakable as it’s swiped across her lips.

Chrissy’s smile grows until Stevie thinks she could count her teeth. “Beautiful.”

A mirror is turned. Her hair is a mess, she still hates this shirt, but that flash of pink thrills her in a way she hasn’t been since she could smell strawberry lipgloss over the baking waffle cones.

“Thank you.”

“Feel free to say no if you already have plans,” Chrissy says, “but that’s the kind of lip that deserves to be worn out.”

“I’m sure you say that to all the girls,” Stevie risks. Her voice the right kind of high as it escapes her in a whisper.

“You wouldn’t know this, but I really don’t…”

“Stevie.”

“Stevie. I know this band, they’re going to be performing tonight. The music might not be your thing, but I promise they know how to throw an afterparty.”

“Oh, I don’t-”

It’s not really concern that’s stopping her, but she really hadn’t planned on staying. She hadn’t planned any of this, not with Robin, not with herself. Just jumped in the car and drove back to a town she never thought she’d go back to just to end up in the mall with the first pretty girl she’s let herself look at in years.

And that pretty girl is waving her off. “Don’t think about it too hard, you’ll let your mother convince you it’s a bad idea. Trust me.”

And she does. She believes with all her heart that Chrissy probably did have a mother just like hers. Small town perfect, at the salon once a week for her nails and once a month for her highlights. Who taught her daughter how to be the right kind of good, though Stevie had to learn through observation and self-study. She still let herself be molded into the kind of girl her mother might have been proud of, if she’d let her know that girl even existed.

Like she can tell that Stevie has started to think about agreeing. Chrissy snags a bit of paper from farther down the counter, steals a pen from beside the register. “This is my number, this is the address. It’s just past the Shell on the way out of town, you really can’t miss it. I’m off at seven, feel free to call.”

She jots it all down, signs her name like she’s practiced giving autographs before this, then finishes it with an X. “And take this.” Her fingers are still cold as they press a silver tube into Stevie’s hand. Chrissy must think better of it, her hand darting down beneath the counter to grab a bag that she tucks it into instead. “You might want to reapply before the night starts.”

For the first time since she’s been born, Stevie thinks she might be grateful for her mother.

She’s grateful at least that the woman never got rid of a single item of clothing away in her entire life. The house Stevie is now the rightful owner of has a closet full of clothes to choose from.

The cord of the phone stretches from the bedroom into the closet. “I don’t know Rob, maybe I should just come home.”

“You went to your podunk, shitass town and had a hot girl call you beautiful and invite you out and you’re thinking about coming back? If I had your luck with women I’d… I don’t even know what I’d do it’s so good.”

She slides blouses down the hanging bar of the closet, trying to see if she can even remember her mother wearing them. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You don’t make any sense! Are we going to play this game where you blame yourself for surviving for the rest of your life? You ran away, you were one of the queers that got lucky, it’s kind of fucked up actually that you’re using that luck to mold yourself into a model Republican.”

Stevie stops, shoulder pad in hand. “I am not!”

“Then call that hot girl, ask her what car you should look out for when you meet her at this shady bar, wear something where you might flash her your panties, and enjoy the fact that your shitty parents gave you a not-so shitty inheritance.”

“I hate when you say panties.”

“I hate that you can get laid no matter where you go, so consider us even. Enjoy having a place with a bed that you don’t have to pay for tonight. We can turn the place into a youth hostel or something when you come back.”

“Promise?”

“Oh my god, yes, I promise. After I see it, I need to actually see the mausoleum that warped your pre-pubescent brain. Now stop pretending like you don’t like flirting and having fun, and bring me back some stories to sustain me through my dissertation research.”

The cord pulls taught as she reaches the back of the closet, her fingers can only just reach a rack of dresses. Something short and yellow has caught her eye. “You aren’t going to help me pick out what to wear?”

“No.” Robin snorts, the line distorting it enough that it’s her knowledge of her friend that cues her in to what the sound is really supposed to be. “Go call the hot girl and suffer through the indignity of being a woman with nothing to wear.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too, call me when you’re on your way back home.”

Robin hangs up then, which is just as well, going back to the bedroom to slam the phone back into the cradle would have been a bit much.

After it’s too late to change anything, she wonders if she should have ignored Robin and gone home.

She can see the silver Ford Chrissy told her she’d be driving, already in the parking lot of the Hideout. A dingy bar that makes her regret the choice of dress even more than she had. Her mother’s voice is in her ear, a short skirt and a bright lip makes even a young woman look desperate and tacky. It’s not very attractive.

And who the hell tells their twelve year old that?

She throws the door of the truck open hard enough it creaks with the force of a brand new indignation. She was a good son, and they wouldn’t get to know how much better a daughter she would have been.

Tonight she’s going to have a good time.

She smooths down the fabric of the yellow dress that had caught her eye while she was talking to Robin. It’s Star Trek short, accidentally show off her panties short, probably from the 60s since that would have been the last time her mother would have thought it appropriate for a woman her age to wear that kind of hemline. But she’ll take being out of date as an even exchange.

More than even with the way Chrissy gasps. “Stevie, you’re gorgeous. I was so right about that shade, you look bright and poreless and perfect.” She squeals, and Stevie knows she was right about the cheerleader thing.

Her hands are warm now, when the clutch onto Stevie’s arm, “Let me introduce you to everyone before the show starts.”

There’s not anything to do but get dragged along, Chrissy an obvious force of nature when she’s started. Stevie's shoes, also borrowed, stick to the floor of the dimly lit bar. A photo perfect example of a dive if there ever was one. Tall, circular tables dot the floor away from the bar, stools scattered almost incidentally at them though the only one that’s occupied doesn’t have any. Four figures in a mix of denim and leather are locked in the kind of impassioned discussion that risks the mugs of beer by their elbows. The tallest and the shortest of the four waving their arms around in time with their mouths.

Clearly it's where they're headed, where else could they be going, but the argument happening doesn't slow Chrissy at all. She skips forward like the prospect of a bar fight excites her. Stevie is doing her best to stammer out her hesitations, but her um’s and Chrissy’s aren’t audible over the music being pumped in through the speakers.

“Eddie!” Chrissy drops her hold on Stevie to leap toward the tallest of the four around the table. Stevie can just make out wide eyes and a pretty, angular face before Chrissy is launching herself up at the person, arms wrapped tight around their shoulders. Stevie stands to the side of the group, crossing one arm across her stomach and grabbing the elbow of the other. She shifts her weight to one side trying to make herself feel less like she’s towering over the others at the table.

The Eddie that’s holding Chrissy can’t or won’t support the hold longer than a few seconds, dropping the girl back to the ground with a bounce. Chrissy’s pale face is flushed pink, she looks delighted.

“Eddie, this is Stevie, the girl I was telling you about,” Chrissy says waving a hand in her direction. “Stevie, this is Eddie their band is the one we’re here to see.”

“And the rest of us are just here to fill the stage.” The short one beside Stevie gripes.

“Chill out Gareth,” Eddie says, a smirk tugs at a full mouth. They stick out a hand for Stevie to shake, the other curling instinctively around Chrissy. “It’s good to meet you Stevie, you’re just as gorgeous as she said.”

Their eyes are the kind of brown that feel heavy, iris and pupil blending into something that touches as it looks her over.

She feels like she’s agreeing to something when she reaches back, a spark between when their fingers touch. “Hi.”

Chrissy bounces on the tips of her toes, blonde hair dancing back and forth against Eddie’s shoulder. “And this is Gareth, Jeff, and Freak.”

She gestures to them each fast enough that Stevie isn’t sure which of the three is which, but she waves anyway.

“You go on soon, right?” Chrissy asks Eddie.

Chrissy and Eddie did have something very… magnetic about them. Opposites attracting, like they couldn’t help but be drawn toward one another.

Maybe that should feel like a bucket of cold water. A wake up call that once again Stevie Buckley has read too much into a friendly interaction and a date is really just a night out with friends. But as much as they have eyes for one another they've also had eyes on her.

“Stevie and I are going to find a good spot to watch the show. Make sure it’s a good one.”

Eddie bows as they drop their hold around Chrissy’s waist. “Always, m’lady.”

Chrissy’s hands find her again, it’s hard to know how she could guess that Stevie loves being touched. “The nerd talk grows on you, I promise.”

“I attract them too,” she says.

Chrissy’s eyes sparkle when she looks over at Stevie, “You really are perfect.”

They’re going to kiss before the night is up, and she isn’t sure yet if that’s going to ruin everything. She’s feeling just wild enough that she’s not sure she cares.

“Come on,” Chrissy’s hands haven’t moved beyond the friendly yet, but she isn’t shy as she tugs Stevie along by the arm. “There’s a spot on the left of the stage where you can see but it doesn’t feel like your fillings are going to rattle out of your head.”

“Not to insult your, um, your Eddie-”

“Boyfriend is fine.”

“Right, so are they actually any good?”

It turns out going on soon meant seconds after Chrissy and Stevie left their sides. A power chord rattles through the room, followed immediately by Eddie's rich voice. “Hawkins, re you ready to fucking go?”

Chrissy's front-row-at-Bon-Jovi scream is contagious and Stevie finds herself letting out a little whoop too. 

After one song, then two, she decides they’re passionate and that makes up for a lot. She can’t remember the last time she was in a shitty bar just having fun, bouncing next to Chrissy in the empty floor space next to the half-assed stage, and that makes them the best band she’s ever heard.

Eddie shines on stage. Literally, the lights above the stage glimmers across the sweat on their skin. Figuratively, as they tap into something amplified and electric. Their hair arcing back and forth as they headbang during an electric solo.

It would be hard to keep her eyes off of them if it weren’t for Chrissy inviting just as much attention.

She doesn’t just bounce, she sways. A movement that draws the eyes to her hips as much as her chest. Stevie watches with a desire to imitate as great as the one to touch.

“We’re going to slow it down for this next one,” Eddie promises. The melody coming from their guitar is sultry and warm.

It’s the kind of song that’s crooned and Eddie’s voice matches their guitar. The words wrap around Stevie and the bar, tie her up in a knot she couldn’t hope to untangle.

“Dance with me?” Chrissy asks. Her hot hands already on Stevie’s hips.

She really didn’t need to ask.

Her own hands settle down on Chrissy’s hips, her lower back, and she lets Chrissy guide them into something flirty and fluid. Stevie has just figured out how her hips are supposed to move, stiff and hesitant and nothing like Chrissy’s, when the blonde in front of her flips.

Gone is the inch of decent space between them, the line of her back is pressed as close to Stevie as she can get. Her hips still sway, each move rubbing against Stevie's front in a dangerous guiding tempo. Her arms twirl up in the air, waving back and forth until they reach high enough that they wrap around the back of Stevie's neck, anchoring them together.

“You know what would really help you feel better about your mom?” Chrissy asks.

“What?” It’s a question as much an exclamation of surprise. She didn’t think Chrissy would remember her offhand comment from this afternoon.

“A kiss. I always feel better after that.”

She decides to play dumb, better to be safe than sorry. “The only other people here are on stage or 65,” she jerks her head back to the row of men sitting at the bar even though Chrissy can’t see it.

“Guess you’ll have to kiss me.”

“That won’t make Eddie upset?”

Chrissy tilts her head back enough that she must feel the thump of Stevie’s heart. There’s mischief in her bright eyes. “We can make it up to them later, but I don’t think they’ll mind.”

Stevie doesn’t think they will either, her eyes flick to the stage and Eddie’s are locked on them. The song doesn't stop, Eddie curls around the mic as much as the guitar in their hands will let them. Their eyes are big as billboards and the only thing stevie can see printed on them is ‘go ahead’ and ‘my turn next.’

She lets her hands drift down to Chrissy's waist. Settles them there and doesn't worry for once how big they are. It's nice that she can wrap her hands around Chrissy. That she can curl her body around Chrissy, she can be the one with the hot hands promising something.

Still, she hopes she can hide them from view, as she curls her spine into a comfortable C. She cranes her neck down to just enough to meet the tilt of Chrissy's. 

The awkwardness of a first kiss disappears quickly beneath the heat of something long anticipated. It can't last long, even if everyone else has their backs to them; but Stevie revels in the plush give of Chrissy's lips, the waxy slide of their lipsticks. What shade will they end up sharing now?

Eddie is watching it all. Stevie knows. She's kept her eyes open and on the stage. As she lets her lips slide against Chrissy's, she gets to see Eddie lick theirs. 

It sends a hot thrill through her.

The song begins to wind its way closed, Eddie repeating the same smokey refrain again, and the two of them draw apart.

Chrissy settles her hands on Stevie’s, still wrapped around her waist. “Oh,” she taps at the watch on Stevie’s wrist, the delicate one that Robin’s Dad had given her for her twenty-first, “it’s after midnight.”

Her mother, after finishing a bottle of wine on her own and taking a pill from the many orange bottles in the medicine cabinet, used to say that nothing good happens this late at night. She was usually referring to the fact that Richard Harrington had yet to make it back from the office or that he hadn’t called from wherever his business trip had taken him that her mother couldn’t also go. But everything that has happened so far has been amazing for Stevie.

“We’ve got one last song for you tonight, Hideout,” Eddie promises before launching into something fast and sexy. The drummer behind them beats out a hard rhythm that Eddie matches with their hips. Thrusting into the back of their guitar as the dance their fingers down the neck of it.

That too is a promise.

The tempo is too fast to justify being pressed this close to one another anymore, Chrissy breaks from her reluctantly but doesn’t go far. Their hands brush against each other as they thrash along with the beat. Chrissy’s hair swings around and around her head, Stevie’s is definitely a wreck.

When they finish playing, Eddie jumps from the stage. They land right beside them with a thump, their white high top sneakers have them stumbling for a second in their dismount.

“You need to tie your shoes if you’re going to do that,” Chrissy says like it’s a reminder she’s given several times.

“You can’t cheer captain me into conforming to things like making sure my laces are tied, Chris.”

They have an energy, the two of them, and it sucks her in easily.

“Bleeding all over the floor after a gig is pretty metal,” Stevie says.

“See,” Eddie tosses an arm around her shoulders, musky and sweat damp, “Stevie gets it.”

“Stevie didn’t have to watch you fall off of a cafeteria table senior year, she doesn’t know your baby deer legs are a hazard to everyone around you.”

“She wants to keep you all to herself,” Eddie says into the side of Stevie’s neck, “so she’s trying to make me sound bad.”

“I’m sure you’re capable of doing that all by yourself.” Stevie teases.

“You wound me fair ladies. I must recoup my mana posthaste.”

“I think they invent new fantasy words just to see if I listen to them,” Chrissy says as Eddie wanders over to the bar.

“I think I’ve heard my little brother say a couple of those.”

“So either their in on the same joke or some of them are real.”

“If recouping manners means having a beer maybe they’ve got the right idea.”

One turns into two turns into saying goodnight to the rest of the bad and Stevie getting absorbed deeper into the magnetic aura Chrissy and Eddie have. Before she knows it, the bartender is shouting a pointed last call at the only three left in the bar.

“I’m not saying we couldn’t take her,” Stevie insists as Eddie tries to highlight their plan for total bar takeover, “I’m saying that a bar fight with the bartender is a sign we move the party somewhere else.”

Eddie and Chrissy both turn to look at her, she would swear their eyes flash in the light like cats. “You know a place?”

“It’s got a pool.”

She hopes her mother is rolling in her grave.

Well, no actually she doesn’t. But if ghosts are real her mother will find a way to become one when she realizes Stevie has jumped into the pool still wearing the dress she’d taken.

Eddie and Chrissy are already in the water. Their arms beckoning as they keep themselves afloat in the deep end waiting for her to join them. They’d both stripped down to next to nothing. Bare skin glowing in the moonlight. Chrissy in a pink bra and panties, they match down to the tiny bows on the front. Eddie in something black and clingy up top that compliments the dark lines of tattoo ink on their shoulders and arms and heart pattern boxers that compliment their personality.

It feels too early for her to strip down to match. The night is so perfect, she’s not ready to guess at how they’ll feel about her body. So she ruins the dress. Leaping into the water to join them.

“Not to kill the mood, but this is a pretty sweet place,” Eddie says later. They’d lingered with her as Chrissy had started to swim lazy laps. If she were guessing, she’d say that Chris is giving her time to bond with Eddie now.

“It’s a lot better with people in it,” Stevie agrees. That had always been the case.

“You planning on being one of the people in it? I mean, neither one of us would blame you if you weren’t, Chris and I aren’t strangers to fucked up parent shit; but it was nice having one more beautiful fan beside the stage tonight.”

The water feels good, the right kind of cold in the humid summer air, it laps against her wrists and elbows and neck. It’s a mimicry of caress as she glides closer to Eddie, until she can touch their skin. “Can I be honest?”

“Always.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do in the future, but I know what I want right now.”

She swims until she has Eddie backed against the pool wall. They’re close enough to the same height, both their toes are brushing the bottom and keeping them above water. It means she can take their hands and put them on her sides, they’re feverish hot on the pool chill of her dress.  “Chris,” she calls out, “I’m gonna kiss your boyfriend, you mind?”

“I mind that I can’t see.” She cuts through the water like a knife until she’s plastered against Stevie’s back.  “Proceed.”

Eddie’s hand on her waist, Chrissy holding herself above water with a tight grip on Stevie’s shoulders. She’s surrounded in the best way as she pushes forward, lets her own hands cup Eddie’s cheeks and bring their lips together.

There’s a hesitance to Eddie that Chrissy didn’t have. They’re still for a second when Stevie’s lips press against theirs, and then they give. Eddie grips tight to Stevie’s waist, a desperate hold like she’s supporting them and Chrissy, but their mouth is soft and pliant. They let her do what she wants. She tilts their head to the side, makes it deeper, the taste of pool chlorine and the last of her lingering lipstick is in her mouth and she wants to replace it with the taste of Eddie’s.

“It’s a shame I can’t taste you,” Chrissy says against her ear. Her tongue licks up the shell of it to prove a point and Stevie moans into Eddie’s mouth. “The pool is fun but it does have some down sides. I’ll just try harder.”

As Stevie’s lips slide against Eddie’s, her knee digging into the rough concrete of the pool wall just so she can press them closer, Chrissy starts to kiss at the skin behind her ear. She licks and sucks at the place where Stevie’s jaw joins her skull. She’s hard where Eddie is soft and giving, letting Stevie take while she is taken.

It’s the best night of her life.

Surrounded like this she almost likes Hawkins. The sky above them is a hazy grey, the night stretched so long that she’s delirious with it. Eddie soft and gaspy in front of her and Chrissy murmuring filth between kisses. “Let’s towel off and see if Eddie is still wet where it matters. You’re gorgeous, Evie, let’s heal some inner trauma and fuck in your parent’s bed.”

“God, please,” Eddie pants. 

It gives Stevie a chance to test a theory, her lips pressing against the spot Chrissy has been attending to on her neck to see if Eddie’s is sensitive. They moan again and she thinks Chrissy is right, it’s about time to see what kind of sounds they can all drag out of one another. The fun of figuring out how Chrissy and Eddie like to be touched, learning from their experience with one another and letting them learn her. It sounds just like the kind of fun she likes.