With things back to normal in Hawkins - or as normal as they ever get - the party must return to their lives. But Steve finds himself struggling with a different sort of crisis in the aftermath and he's not the only one. Eddie's still trying to wrap his head around monsters and other dimensions existing below Hawkins and having been accused of being a serial killer by the people he grew up with all while trying to pass his third attempt at senior year. At least they have each other to figure things out with.
Title from Def Leppard - Armageddon

It's another slow day at Family Video Store, which isn't surprising as there were not all that many people out looking to rent movies at 3 pm on a Monday. Which left Robin and Steve to their own devices to entertain themselves. Which wouldn't normally be an issue except apparently Robin wanted to poke at things that Steve had been purposefully ignoring as of late.

It's also his first shift back since he'd finished recovering at home after being released from the lab's hospital. While demobats may not have rabies they hadn't wanted to leave it up to chance that they were at risk of other infections or diseases from having been ripped apart by feral other-dimensional monsters. Because of course, it hadn't just been him that had taken a stint with the very scientists responsible for this mess in the first place but also Eddie and Max.

Max had gotten off relatively lightly with only a broken arm; that could have been much worse if Eddie hadn't thrown himself at the demobats to buy them more time in barbequing Vecna. Which is how he and Munson had ended up prodded by the same scientists that seemed more interested in the potential consequences of other dimensional attacks than treating them, scientific curiosity or whatever (as if that hadn't bitten them in the ass enough already). Steve still vaguely remembers hissing 'what happened to not doing anything cute?' while dosed up on too many pain meds when Eddie'd been wheeled in finally conscious for the first time since Steve had carried him out of the upside down with matching bite marks. Apparently, demobats had a particular preference for where they attacked if the matching position on either side of their waists was anything to go by.

It means it's also the first time in a month since everything's happened that Robin has had the chance to poke and prod at him without being overheard or worried about whether or not the doctors were wrong and he actually was going to die from rabies or if his infection was going to return. Because of course, he'd also gotten an infection because wrapping up animal bites without cleaning the bandages or the wounds first was a stupid idea regardless even if he hadn't then reopened said wounds several times in the heat of things.

Previously conversations while he was recovering had been filled with absent updates like 'the Byers have moved back to Hawkins' and 'Chief Hopper isn't actually dead' and 'El has her powers back' and 'Lucas joined the community center basketball team because he wants to keep playing but not with the assholes that were willing to hunt kids over murders that had nothing to do with them' and 'Max was released from the hospital with a full arm cast' and 'Dustin has a broken ankle but is doing fine with his crutches' and 'evidence has been falsified by the lab to lay the blame for the murders at the now dead Jason Carvers' feet'. So really Steve should have seen this coming but he's always been good at denial.

"So what's going on with you and Eddie?" Robin asks in apropos to nothing.

Steve spins around to face her with a confused frown marring his brow. "What do you mean? Nothing's going on with me and Eddie."

Robin raises an eyebrow at him in that patented fashion that she uses when she thinks he's being intentionally obtuse, which he isn't, he usually isn't when he gets leveled with that look. There really is nothing going on as far as he's aware. He sees Eddie occasionally in that way that has become the norm for the people that have survived the horror that exists below Hawkins do but that's not anything different for Robin to be giving him that look about.

"Really? Because I didn't miss the way you kept checking him out when we were supposed to be stopping Vecna. Or the way your brain practically went offline at being called 'big boy'."

Steve shakes his head deliberately ignoring that last bit, he didn't need the reminder of those words, "So what if I was checking him out? He's hot and we were fighting for our lives, sue me for taking the distraction, it doesn't mean whatever you're implying. Everyone finds guys attractive. You can be straight and still acknowledge that guys were hot, everyone does that, it doesn't mean anything Rob. And my brain didn't 'go offline', it was just the adrenaline of having my guts gnawed on."

But Robin just hits him with a deadpan look, "No, everyone most certainly does not Steve-O."

Steve throws his hands up at that in exasperation. Okay so it's not like he doesn't know that Robin's attraction lies firmly on the female side of things but surely even she can acknowledge when a guy was attractive? Even if she didn't feel anything about it. And anyone would freeze at being called 'big boy' or 'pretty boy'. Both of which have happened but 'pretty boy' definitely left him feeling more insulted and mildly patronized in a way that Eddie's term had not. He doesn't know what Robin is trying to get at on a Monday of all days.

"Oh come on! You might not be attracted to guys but surely you can tell when one is good-looking or not, right?"

"Steve, I'm gonna need you to think back on our little Tammy Thompson conversation for a moment." Robin leans against the counter as she gives him a second to think back. "I couldn't understand what she found so fascinating about you considering you were always covered in bagel crumbs and so obnoxiously self-absorbed to be late every day. That was all I could see because I can't see the appeal in guys."

Robin is patient if a little droll as she recaps that fateful conversation. Steve can sort of understand where she's coming from. There have been times when he couldn't understand why his friends were crushing on a particular someone but it's never stopped him from acknowledging when either sex is attractive. That's normal though. He still liked girls so what did it matter if he could tell if a guy was also attractive?

"I like girls, Robin." Steve points out. "So I don't really understand what your point is here."

Robin rolls her eyes at him, "Yeah I think I got that dingus, I've heard you say you like boobies more times than I ever needed to hear. Your attraction to women isn't in question here, don't even worry about that." She hops onto the counter as she regards him for a moment from beneath curious furrowed brows. "You know you can like both, right? Liking girls doesn't mean you can't also like guys."

Steve stares blankly at her for a moment, his mind too loud at the moment to distinguish between one thought and the next. He's trying to process what he's just been told but there's only one thought on repeat in his mind that he can distinguish from the rest of the noise.

"That's a thing?"

It shouldn't be news to him, he's definitely heard the suggestion before when Robin's been on one of her tangents about gender and sexuality, but he's never considered the word in regards to himself before. Or thought about it applied in this context. And it's kinda scrambling his brain to have it suggested so bluntly.

Robin's face softens a little at the question, "Sure is dingus. It's called bisexuality, it means you like both, maybe not equally, you can still have a preference. But you're not the first person to be unable to distinguish between your attraction for women and men." Her words are a little teasing at the end, an intentional attempt at easing the serious tone of the conversation that they've settled into.

It doesn't really help as Steve is suddenly hit by every moment he's checked out a guy, removing the action from its original lens of envy and refitting it with this new perspective. His head hits the counter with a resounding thunk as he thinks about his time on the swim team and the lingering looks between teammates in their Speedos. Jesus Christ that wasn't very heterosexual of them. How many times had he looked at a guy thinking he was admiring the physique or form from an athletic point of view only for it to maybe be more? How many times had he admired a guy's hair or outfit with more than aesthetic appreciation? How had he not realized sooner? Oh right, because he'd been doing the exact same thing with girls and hadn't taken a second to consider that others weren't doing the same. Assumed it was normal to look at guys as much as he was looking at the girls he admired.

The bell above the door jingles as a customer enters. Steve immediately whips his head up from its slump on the counter, the usual customer greeting spiel already on his tongue before his brain can shift focus to acknowledge the customer.

"Welcome to the Family Video store, how may we help you today?" Steve regrets his automatic response when his brain finally catches up from its switch from his sexuality crisis to recognize that the customer before him is in fact, Eddie Munson. The very same Eddie Munson that had prompted the sexuality crisis revealing conversation in the first place and who is now watching Steve in amusement.

"When did you become a model employee, Harrington?" Eddie smirks as he comes to lean against the very counter Steve had been slumped against moments before.

Steve is frozen, unable to think of a response as his mind whirs with the newly acquired knowledge that he might not be entirely straight and it may have taken the man before him to get him to realize that. Yeah no, he can't do this today.

Fortunately and unfortunately for him, Robin decides to step in.

"Ignore him, he's having a bit of a crisis." Thanks a bunch for that one, Robin.

Steve rolls his eyes and moves away from behind the counter to actually go put the returned tapes away. The excuse of work seems as good as any to ignore the pair of them. He's good at pushing things down to be dealt with later, if ever, but he hadn't expected to be accosted by both a sexuality crisis and the cause of said crisis all within the same ten minutes. Only for Robin to then go and practically spell it out to said cause. He needs the few feet of space he's put between them to collect himself.

Eddie doesn't seem to think anything about Steve's tactical retreat as he explains his reason for being there. But maybe that's because he's not used to seeing Steve when he's not in crisis mode so doesn't have a frame of reference for what's normal.

"Normally I'd make a comment about how Steve is always having a personal crisis but that's not what I'm here for today. I'm supposed to be picking out a movie for the rugrats seeing as they've conned me into a movie night this weekend and I'm supposed to get their approval beforehand so they have time to veto it before then." Eddie's smile is tight as he finishes but it's clear he's not as irritated as he's pretending to be. He cares for the kids maybe almost as much as Steve. And Steve is all too familiar with the notion of complaining about them but doing what they want regardless.

"So that's what I'm driving Henderson to?" Steve pipes up from across the store as Eddie's words register. "Those lil shitheads never tell me anything." He continues in a murmur to himself.

Eddie turns to regard him with amusement, "And yet you agreed anyway."

Steve shrugs not even bothering with a retort to the now familiar teasing of him being a sucker for the kids. He'd gotten enough of that from Robin over the summer when they'd still worked at Scoops and he let them have free access to the cinema despite how many times he told them it was the last time. And now he knows he's not alone in that mindset, hence Eddie's presence here today.

"Better to drive them around rather than them accidentally cycling through another gate." He responds honestly and a little absent-mindedly as he returns to restocking returns not considering the effect his words might have on the newest addition to their 'we survived the upside down' club. He's too used to being surrounded by people who have dealt with the upside down repeatedly to think. He'd made the same mistake with Robin a couple of times in the beginning before he'd gotten better at keeping those comments to himself while she processed the trauma.

Eddie looks worried as he speaks, "That can't happen, right?"

Steve takes a moment to consider the best course of action before he realizes that he and Robin are stumbling over each other to both reassure him that it's unlikely as it usually takes a year or so for the upside down to recover before it tries again.

Eddie's quick to pick up on their word usage though, "Usually? That's not very reassuring."

The duo wince.

"It'll be fine. We've never actually gone into the upside down to weaken it before. Just dealt with what's bled through and hoped that did enough damage to the hive mind." Steve is quick to try and fix the mess they made in their first attempt at reassurance, but he doesn't want to lie to Eddie either. "Besides, El and Will would know if something was up."

Robin nods, "Like our own personal early warning system for the upside down."

"Right," Eddie says slowly, not looking entirely convinced, not that Steve can blame him. "El's the superhero girl, right? The one that was in California?"

"Yeah, but they're back now so we don't have to worry about not catching it in the beginning next time." It's not entirely true, Steve knows even as he says it. Will has brushed off upside down feelings before because he had thought he was being paranoid or been told they were merely a symptom of his trauma. But Steve's nothing if not optimistic that they'll learn from their mistakes so he doesn't mention this tidbit out loud.

Eddie seems to shake off his worry as he straightens, his expression smoothing out. "I'll take your word for it, Harrington. You are the upside down veteran here after all."

Steve grumbles to himself about the title but doesn't deny it as he refocuses on restocking tapes again. No need to accidentally worry Eddie again because he can't help but say something stupid in his presence.

He manages to stay busy as Eddie and Robin discuss movie options, all the while keeping out from under their feet at the same time as they go hunting for potential movies. It's not the best distraction but it's just monotonous enough to shut out his thoughts, from upside down shit to the newer unfamiliar territory of a sexuality crisis. But he doesn't say anything else stupid or otherwise while Eddie's in the store except for a feebly returned goodbye as he exits so he counts that as half a win.

He eventually returns to behind the counter with Robin and is seriously considering giving himself another head thumping with said counter when the day catches up to him only for him to realize they've still got several hours still left on the clock. God he almost missed being stuck on bed rest.

-x-

Steve spends a lot of time thinking about his potential bisexuality over the course of the coming week without the distracting presence of Eddie Munson clouding his thoughts. On the one hand, it makes an awful lot of sense. On the other hand, he worries that he's maybe a little bit of a fraud. Steve's ashamed of a lot of things, his sprawling love life isn't one of them. Okay, maybe it is a little bit. But the point is, Steve can acknowledge that he gets around. Robin certainly hasn't been afraid to point out he's a bit of a whore in the past. So now he's worried that he might have been overcompensating. Subconsciously of course. Maybe the reason he'd always left dates feeling unsatisfied like something was missing or lacking was because he was looking in the wrong places.

But then his thoughts would shift track again. Because he's definitely not overcompensating, he really does like girls and he was in love with Nancy. So can he really be attracted to guys? Finding guys attractive and getting flustered around them doesn't necessarily mean anything. He just wasn't used to being on the receiving end of that flirtation that was all. It's not like he thought about kissing guys or anything. Sure he hadn't hated it when he'd been playing some dumb drinking game and it had landed on another guy. But that was just because he enjoyed kissing.

It's not even that he was doubting the existence of bisexuality, but rather that he doesn't think he could be bisexual.

Maybe he was trying too hard to have things in common with Robin and that's why he was even entertaining the thought. He's not unaware of his own abandonment issues, particularly after being confronted with the reason behind his issue with Dustin and Eddie's friendship. He'd been jealous there was no use denying that now, not to himself at any rate. Dustin was getting older and one day he would realize - like everyone inevitably did - that he didn't need nor want Steve around anymore. Especially not when he had Eddie who had so much more in common with him and understood him in a way Steve never could.

And perhaps that realization had him projecting his fears onto his friendship with Robin in a bid to fix things before they were even broken.

This whole thing was too damn complex for Steve to wrap his head around which was probably why his thoughts had just been going around in the same circles since Monday when Robin had first brought the damn thing up. Steve also didn't have time for a personal crisis on top of work and dealing with the aftermath of Vecna. So he tried to push it aside, as he did with most of his problems, but he wasn't entirely successful.

Of course, the only person he can really confide in about this is Robin which brings him back to his earlier problem. If this is just some desperate attempt to be closer to Robin then it's not fair to drag her into his current spiraling, even if she's the one that prompted said spiral. But she is also the only person he knows that has experience with sexuality crises so he's a little bit at a standstill as he tries - mainly unsuccessfully - to unpack everything by himself only to be no closer to knowing either way. It's wholly frustrating and even if he comes out the other side with the knowledge that he's straight, then he'll at least have a new appreciation for Robin, who always insists that he needs more of that.

Sexuality crisis withstanding, life is otherwise pretty normal in that eerie way it always is after dealing with the upside down. But he goes through the motions regardless. He eats, he works, he cleans, he sleeps as much as his nightmares will permit, he drives the kids around and he tends to his healing demobat scars, the skin sensitive now that it bothers him if he forgets to care for them. He and Robin even return to their bi-weekly Friday movie nights. And if she sleeps over after more frequently than before because of nightmares he doesn't comment.

It's something that has become fairly normal to Steve after Starcourt. He went through the aftermath alone the first two times, he and Nance still on the outs a month after everything went down at the Byers, then the second time she was with Jonathan, and the only other people he could confide in were actual children. But after the Russians, Robin had appeared on his patio tears staining her cheeks one night, unable to sleep she'd asked if she could stay. Steve, who couldn't sleep unless he was exhausted, there was sufficient light and his nail bat was within reach and still woke from nightmares, was all too familiar with her plight and hadn't even considered turning her away.

It became a habit after that for them to share a bed when plagued by nightmares. Sometimes they'd sleep at one of their houses after a string of bad nights, other times Robin would let herself in with her spare key or Steve would climb through her window. They didn't acknowledge it, it was just what they did to get through the aftermath. It helped, just having someone nearby, it wasn't always enough to stave off the nightmares but waking up beside the other helped differentiate between dream and reality. Robin had spent a lot of nights in the hospital with him because of it but it meant her parents weren't quite as accommodating about her staying over after he was released.

She didn't push him about their conversation when she came over, that wasn't what those nights were about. They had an unspoken rule about not speaking about serious or heavy topics before sleeping, trying to keep themselves distracted in the hopes of staving off the nightmares before they began. They didn't always talk about their nightmares and that was fine too, they'd gotten pretty good at knowing when the other wanted to talk or knowing when it was a comfort or distraction night. Steve would rather they hadn't had to go through another upside down crisis so that they had to have the ritual at all, but he was glad he could be there to help Robin in whatever capacity he could.

So life in Hawkins went on as it always did and Steve tried to not let that bother him.

A/N: Told myself I wasn't gonna write st ff but then steddie wormed its way into my brain and now I have several plot bunnies in the works Thought I'd at least try and post them in the order i first thought of them so of course here's a fixit, details of how things differ will become clearer but is intended to be happier version so no coma for max, no dead eddie, jasons dead etc. Now I love fics that speedrun Steve's sexuality crisis and have him kiss Eddie as soon as he knows it an option but my queer ass cannot let him skip over the doubts, I've been out for years and still occasionally have 'what if i'm lying to myself?' moments so maybe I dont want Steve to have it easy

Part of my keyboard isn't working so apologies for any errors because of that or any British terminology i let slip, I'm trying to catch it all but I'm also not checking medical stuff really because im incredibly squeamish so no idea if a month recovery is ridiculous or not

Anyway let me know your thoughts in the comments, Steve POV chapters will be head over heel lyrics so until next time :)