Chapter Text
Steve was sprawled over Robin’s bed, a flop of stringy, post-workout hair hanging in his face. Sneakers shoed off, socked feet propped up against the wall at the end of the mattress. He’d just finished up at basketball practise and hadn’t showered, headed straight to her dorm, pushed through the unlocked door and unceremoniously dropping his bag and collapsing into her patterned sheets with an ‘Ugh” of relief. Robin’s room was so relaxing. Candles on her nightstand, pretty posters, pink art and pride flags on her walls. Penguin books in piles. Chintzy bunting. Girly stuff. Like a grotto. Her roommate is super shy and never talks to him, just giggles really, and she never complains about him coming over all the time, which is a plus because Robin had been his platonic soulmate since they met at their shitty part-time job in the first week of school and he needed to hang out with her at least once a day to feel normal. They can’t exactly chill in his room either, he doesn’t like the vibes in his own dorm. It smells of socks, axe and his roommate Keith is super weird and gives him a really ‘off’ energy, like he hates him, which can’t be the case because Steve has been nothing but pleasant to the dude, always offering him beers at the parties that Steve had hosted in their room.
Next year he would move into the frat house, or something. He wasn’t entirely sure how that stuff even worked. He didn’t really want to, because the guys in the frat kind of sucked but his dad had insisted that he rushed because it was some kind of family tradition and the whole pledging thing had been so easy (he could do a keg stand in his sleep and didn’t give a shit if anyone saw him streaking on the quad) that he didn’t really mind doing it, but he wasn’t trying to get fully involved. He barely shows up to the meetings. They would probably kick him out if his dad wasn’t a donor and Steve wasn't like...a fully fledged legacy. Didn't really have time anyway, between the swim team (which his scholarship relied on and he would have never gotten into college without) playing basketball, which was just for fun, and trying to at least pass his classes. It was good for parties, though, because he kept getting invited to them and they didn’t complain too much that he always brought Robin and her friends, sometimes Jonathan or Argyle, sometimes Nancy, if she was visiting. He wondered, idly, whether they thought it was weird that Steve mostly hung out with a group of lesbians, stoners or his ex-girlfriend who went to some fancy college out East. They didn’t even know about the nerd teenagers he used to babysit who he drove home to see all the time. He snorted. Imagined Dustin interacting with the frat guys.
Robin entered her room from the bathroom, where she had been showering, towelling off her bleach dipped bob roughly and enthusiastically, like you would rub down a misbehaving dog. Steve looked up from his reverie, scowling.
“You’re gonna give yourself split ends if you treat it like that, Rob.”
“Maybe I don’t care about my hair as much as you do, beauty queen.”
She gave her hair a final, definitive rub, shaking it upside down. Steve flinched. He used a special microfibre towel for that purpose and would never in a million years rub at his hair like that (it was weak enough from the pool chlorine that managed to sneak in under his cap, meaning he had to do deep oil treatments every weekend) but bringing this up would open him to some serious ribbing and he didn’t need her to have even more ammo on him than she already had.
She tipped her head back up and narrowed her eyes at him, only now noticing his current state of moist languor.
“Ew, you’re sweating all over my sheets!”
“You love it.” He stretched purposefully.
“I quite distinctly do not. Oh, gross, boy germs. Stop rubbing your repulsive pheromones everywhere, Katie is enough of a problem as it is.”
Katie was Robin’s practically mute roommate.
“Whatever.” He sat up, pulling his rumpled t-shirt down. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
“Another frat party?” Robin quite liked frat parties, strangely. Steve thinks it was the novelty of invading them with half the campus LGBTQ alliance in tow and draining them of all their booze. “I’m not, sadly. Date. And that reminds me, Katie is going to her folks's place in Michigan tonight, and I do not, I repeat, do not want you to come within 10 foot of this dorm. A sock will be firmly on the door.”
“Ooh.” Steve waggled his eyebrows. “So things are getting serious with Vickie, huh?”
“No, this is Chrissy.”
“Oh, Rob, you absolute dog!” Robin had gone from a shy, dateless lesbian, struggling with love and complaining about it to Steve at the beginning of semester, to a bit of a dark-horse Casanova.
“Like you can talk!” She had learnt from the best. Like keg stands, getting a date was something Steve could do in his sleep. He had done it in his sleep, in fact, because once he had managed to sneak in a not-so-subtle power nap during an early economics lecture and had woken up with a number written on the hand that wasn’t propping up his chin, alongside ‘call me, sleeping beauty’ in biro pen.
That kind of thing happened to Steve a lot, to be honest. It used to drive Robin wild but she had game of her own now. He was great at getting dates and not to toot his own horn or anything, but he thought he was pretty good in bed, too. Someone had even written something to that effect on the wall of the third-floor girls’ bathroom back at his old high school, something that had made Robin jokingly call him a ‘slut’ when he told her. If only he was good at getting people to stick around, too. Since Nancy, it had been difficult to maintain anything serious. There wasn’t really anyone he wanted to be serious with, though, so he was content with being a slut for the time being. Sluttin’ was fun.
“Chrissy’s a fox.” He commented.
“I know!” Robin settled down next to him. “Where’s the party, anyway? Tommy’s?”
“Nah, not a party. Dustin’s coming up to see a show at the Bowl and he wants me to come with him. Actually, I think it’s less a want and more ‘his mom is forcing him to ask me to chaperone him’ thing. I’m picking him up at the bus station in an hour.”
“Always the babysitter.”
“It never ends.” He sighed. He had started babysitting Nancy’s kid brother and his friends during high school to supplement his income because his dad was constantly cutting him off to ‘teach him a lesson’, which was rich because Steve never even got into serious trouble, just a few wild parties at his house whilst his parents were gone on yet another trip and a few detentions for skipping class. A joint or two. He wasn’t some kind of hellion, but his dad had always been a bit of an asshole and blew every minor indiscretion out of proportion. At the moment, Steve was in his parents’ good books because of the whole scholarship and fraternity thing, but who knows how long that would last. They always found something wrong with the way he lived his life, they would pinpoint something new eventually.
The babysitting, weirdly, had never really ended, although the kids were too old for it and Steve was now at college. It had transferred from something that resembled a weird, brotherly, or, as the kids joked, motherly, relationship. He really owed a lot to it. Babysitting had transformed him from something of an entitled douchebag to someone who genuinely cared about other people, going from the undisputed King of his high school to – he wasn’t sure, he didn’t really listen to gossip but suffice to say, people were confused. He had still somehow managed to clinch Prom King, but he was regarded as a bit of an oddity by the end of his high school career, all due to one very bad breakup (courtesy of Nancy), a bust up or two (that was on Jonathon) and the presence of the kids, pushing him towards early neuroticism through their antics. Of all the kids he babysat, Dustin was probably his favourite, although he would never tell him that. He was just so weirdly charming, a huge nerd, not the kind of person that Steve would have hung out with at that age but super smart, super funny, made Steve laugh like crazy, although they were primarily bickering like an old married couple. Lucas was more like Steve, better at basketball, probably, Mike was a huge, gangly smartass, still harboured a grudge because Steve had dated his sister, Will was a sweetheart, so was El, and Max was an evil little witch who loved to make his life miserable, but he couldn’t say no to. Ever. Which is how he had ended up with frosted tips for three months.
“Who’s playing?” Asked Robin, getting comfortable on her bed, dumping her feet into Steve’s lap, who, like a trained animal, started to automatically massage them. Nancy had told her when she first met Robin (just his luck that after some initial awkwardness they got on like a house on fire) that Steve gave great massages, and this meant that Robin seemed to think she was entitled to them at a moment’s notice.
“Uhhh. Some rock band Dustin likes.” He scrunched up his nose. “Rock? Metal?” He shook his head. “Something like that.”
“Oh, I think I saw posters! Corroded Coffin, right? Looks gnarly.” She made the sign of the devil and stuck her tongue out. “Totally your scene.”
She was being sarcastic, obviously. Steve was not a rock guy. He was a ‘whatever spotify puts together in a playlist’ kind of guy. He was a ‘tight polo shirt and well fitted 501’s’ kind of guy. He was a ‘drives a BMW that his parents brought him for good behaviour’ kind of guy. He had a niche and he seldom strayed from it.
“Ah shit, really? This is gonna blow then.” Not the first time he’d done something he didn’t want to do in the name of Dustin’s happiness. He’d sat through the entirety of that insanely long, super confusing Timothee Chalamet desert movie, for fucks sake. He’d driven him to Comic Con (and stayed in the car with the windows rolled up watching the car park with horror for five hours). “Can I shower here?”
“Did you bring your special towel and your ten-step skincare routine?” So she knew about it. So much for less ribbing. He gave her the finger and began unbuckling his belt.
Emerging after a fun-filled fifteen (Steve LOVED showering in Robin’s bathroom, it smelled so much better than the swim locker rooms) with his towel wrapped in a turban around his head, a face full of moisturiser and one of Robin’s towels wrapped around his waist, Steve bumped into Robin’s roommate, Katie, as she was grabbing her overnight bag.
“Oh, hey!” He said, waving with one hand whilst trying to keep his towel up with the other. She looked ten seconds away from an aneurism, squeaked in response and rushed out of the room, bidding a quick goodbye to Robin.
“Jesus.” Said Robin, eying him with annoyance. “I feel like you’re not doing it on purpose but damn, that poor girl.”
Steve didn’t know what she was talking about. It’s not as if he was flirting with her. If he were, they would have slept together months ago. He dropped his towel and shucked on clean Calvins from his bag. Robin had seen him naked about a million times but still made a perfunctory sound of revulsion and covered her eyes. Once the coast was clear and Steve’s underwear was firmly on his body, she surveyed him without curiosity.
“Working out?”
“Always.”
“You need to start taking me. I could do with a little bit of muscle tone.” Robin jokingly flexed a willowy arm.
“You’re doing okay without it.” Robin really was. Chrissy Cunningham was a total catch. If he didn’t know she was only into women, he would have taken a crack at her himself.
“What are you wearing tonight?” She asked. Steve retrieved his jeans from the floor and rifled through his bag for his clean shirt, a sky-blue polo shirt, holding it out to her for her judgement.
“Seriously? To a metal show? Do you want to borrow something?”
“Uh, do I have to?”
“Kind of, Steve. They’re going to think you’re a narc.”
“Shit.” The less people who bothered him for whatever reason, the better. He wanted to go incognito. If only he could sit in the carpark at a safe-distance from all the B.O., like with Comic Con, but Claudia would never forgive him. He was pretty sure that a metal concert wasn’t an underage nerd safe-zone and Dustin was fragile both physically and emotionally. Steve would have to go into the belly of the beast. Hopefully there would be less people dressed as weird furry animals, but that was yet to be confirmed. “What’ve you got?”
Robin leapt up excitedly and began to flip through her hangers. She loved dressing him up. Apparently, it was some left-over childhood thing, when she had been much more into dressing the ken-dolls than the barbies.
“Here.” She thrust a black t-shirt at him. It was loose on her, but as he pulled it on he realised it would be pretty tight on him. Tight and about an inch too short, stretched across his biceps and shoulders, showing a sizeable sliver of midriff.
“Nice. You can keep the jeans but change out the belt.” His jeans were classics, to be fair, but he didn’t totally get why he had to lose the brown leather belt with its bronze buckle until she threw him a black leather one with a silver buckle instead. Steve understood the importance of details. She then looked under her bed and produced a pair of low black Doc Marten shoes, with the yellow stitching. The kind that Jonathan wore.
“Where did you get those?”
“Stella.” Stella was Robin’s ex-girlfriend. She was 6’2 and had a shaved head and was the only woman who had ever beat Steve arm-wrestling. They were still friends, apparently lesbians have a habit of staying cool with exes, which Steve can sympathise with and was convenient because Steve and Stella were the same shoe size. “Black socks too.” She tossed them to him with ease and Steve stretched them over his feet. “Black is kind of a thing with these crowds.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Can I do eyeliner on you?” She brandished a pencil at him, grinning.
“What? No, dude. Too far.”
“You’re no fun.” Robin picked up his bag and started poking around in it. “Do you have smokes?”
“No! You know I don’t smoke Rob, it’s a disgusting habit and I would get in trouble with the coach and – “
Robin pulled out the secret carton of Marlboro Lights with a raised eyebrow and shook them in his face.
“I would normally be mad at you, but these will work very well for your look.” She moved closer and folded up the cigarette pack into his t-shirt sleeve. “I saw a girl doing this at Kitty’s and I thought it was super hot, although I hate hate hate smoking.”
“I trust you.” Steve leapt up. It was a warm night, so he wouldn’t need a jacket. He surveyed himself in her mirror. Not his normal look, a bit darker, tighter, with more skin out than he was used too but fine, nonetheless. He shook out his hair from the towel, dabbing it, then applied his usual lotions and potions from his bag, finally blow drying and finishing with a generous puff of hairspray. It fell artfully over his forehead, a perfectly constructed wave, curling slightly at the long ends, messy but in a totally conspicuous and purposeful way. Formed but still soft and touchable.
“It’s such a fascinating ritual.” Robin stated, from her position on the bed. She then waved her phone at him, pointing at the time. “You’ve gotta get out of here in the next 15, Dustin’s bus will be coming in soon and I need at least an hour to prep my space. The atmosphere has to be perfect and that means no lingering macho Steve vibes.”
“Can I leave my bag here? I’ll pick it up in the morning.” He shoved his essentials, fake ID, phone, lighter and keys into his back pockets, making sure to arrange them in a way that doesn’t make his ass all lumpy-looking. It’s not like there will be any hot girls at this thing, but, as demonstrated by the care he took with his hair, it doesn’t hurt to make sure his best assets are as perfectly presented as ever. It’s his brand, by this point.
“Yeah, just text waaay in advance. Do not disturb, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah, lover-girl. Enjoy.” She reached up to tap the side of his cheek as he leant over her, giving her a quick hug goodbye.
“Have fun, dingus. Try not to strangle Dustin. Don’t complain too much about the music.” Then, an afterthought. “Don’t get in a fight!”
“I’ll do my best.” He slipped out of the dorm, humming to himself, and made his way to his car.
___________________________________________________________________________
“Nice outfit. You look like someone from ‘The Outsiders’”
“What’s that, some old movie?”
“Ugh, Steve, you are so uncultured.” Dustin, backpack in hand, opened the passenger door and clambered in with all the grace of a drunken porcupine. His outfit wasn’t fantastic either – Steve didn’t know who this ‘Weird Al’ was but his big-ass face beaming from a t-shirt wasn’t exactly a turn-on. Dustin was lucky he already had a girlfriend, because novelty t-shirts, oversized button ups and silly trucker caps were coming together to create a distinctly unsexy ensemble. “Thanks for picking me up. Mom says hi and thanks.” Steve smirked.
“Tell her that I say hi back and that I miss her soooo much. I’m dreaming of her chicken pot-pie.”
“Please don’t flirt with my mom through me.”
Steve made a show of reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone, scrolling through as if he was looking for Claudia’s number.
“You’re right, maybe I’ll text her.”
“Ew, don’t!” Steve grinned his most charming grin, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
“How’s the brood?” He asked.
“Cool. Lucas made JV.”
“I know, he called me. He’s awesome, man.”
“Uhh, what else. Will’s got a new crush, some guy in his art class, so you’ve been relegated, sorry buddy.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. El and Mike are fighting again.”
“She should break up with him. Been saying it for years.”
“I know, right. Ridiculous levels of drama. Susie and I would never. Max’s joined the soccer team.”
“That’s my girl.” Dustin cast Steve an ‘ew’ adjacent look at his proud mamma hen tone and continued on with his debrief.
“I’ve just been working on my next project, I’m trying to grow sentient mould.”
Steve decided not to comment on that because it sounded irritatingly complex and pretty gross.
“And I’m really into metal now, ‘cuz of the guys at D&D. Did I tell you that? Do you like metal? This band is awesome. Super cool. It’s like, really hardcore but also all about fantasy shit and they sing about like, demons and hellfire and the guitarist Eddie is like, amazingly skilled. He’s into D&D, Steve, he talks about it on Instagram! And he likes Lord Of The Rings! He’s been in the news recently because he’s like, kind of a crazy bad ass and people think he’s a satanist but he’s actually super nice and does loads of stuff for charity and he gave this interview that went viral on TikTok where he revealed that he was –“
“Okay, okay. I get it. No need to cream your pants over this guy.” A bit of a crude turn of phrase but Steve found Dustin’s gushing over some rockstar kind of annoying, and it wasn’t the first time he had heard about this ‘Eddie’ guy from him. It had taken up a few of their phone calls, to Steve’s irritation. He was used to being his only role-model and didn’t want to be overshadowed by some sort of super-nerd badass from a band. Dustin was one of the only people, barring Robin, who had a healthy and wholesome admiration for him that revolved more around his personality and not his length times or ability to pull women on a regular basis.
“C’mon Steve, don’t you want to at least know a little bit about the band we’re going to see in the next – “ He checked his chunky Casio. “45 minutes! Shit! We should get a move on! I want a good spot in the pit.”
“What’s the pit?”
“Oh Steve. My poor, innocent Steve.”
Steve hated when Dustin was condescending, but the venue could only be described as a pit. The Bowl was usually a place that Steve avoided, having no particular interest in live music, but he’d been to see Clairo with Robin and it hadn’t seemed quite as grungy then. Perhaps it was the difference in the crowd. Everyone was in black, as Robin predicted, and dressed up like extras from ‘The Lost Boys’, which Steve had seen because he did know about some old movies, thank you very much, and, besides, Robin had shown him. Surrounded by metalheads that stank of weed and cigarettes, Steve felt a little on edge, honestly. At swim, basketball and the frat, he was always surrounded by his ilk, and he knew how to stand out from them just enough to be noticeable. Like they were the bargain bin preps and jocks and he was the premium, limited edition version. Name brand. Shinier, brighter. More expensive. Better flavour. Here, even in Robin's borrowed clothes, he was sticking out in kind of the wrong way. He was too soft, too well groomed, with a kind of velveteen rabbit charm when everyone else was more motor oil and barbed wire. Like he was a pampered actor, dressed by wardrobe for the part and they were the real deal.
No matter, he was here for Dustin. He could handle mild discomfort and he could more than hold his own, if it came down to it. Despite his appearance, he was no wimp and he was no stranger to a good, dirty brawl. He’d survived three different bare-knuckle beatdowns in high school due to his latent asshole tendencies (thanks, Dad), one of them with a genuine psycho, and had learnt not only to roll with the punches (Dustin liked to comment that his head was harder than cement and that he had the tenacity of a bulldog) but to throw them too. He’d rather that he didn’t have to, but if anyone messed with Dustin, they would have to answer to him. Not that Dustin seemed to notice that anything was awry, happy as can be as he pushed them to the front of the crowd, obliviously jostling people like a brightly coloured bowling ball.
“Come on Steve, I want to be close to the stage. Soak up the atmosphere.” Which was kind of ew, to be honest, but Steve just smiled at him, not wishing to ruin the fun.
___________________________________________________________________________
The band was setting up. People were openly sneering at Dustin, then casting their eyes back to him like he didn’t belong there. The soundchecks up on stage sounded ass, totally not the kind of thing Steve would ever listen to. The beer was watery and lukewarm. Dustin was being even more obnoxious than usual, which was kind of a feat. A headache was forming.
Steve was very much not looking forward to this.
After what seemed like an eternity of checks (Steve eventually started tapping his feet and checking his watch, which didn’t endear him to anyone), the band finally emerged, to whoops and hollers from the crowd and a ‘fucking finally’ breathed under Steve’s breath. They were dressed not dissimilarly from their fans, just slightly more extreme in their dishevelment, more rips, more tattoos, more metal adorning their faces, their wrists, and their necks. The drummer was some short guy with curtain hair who looked like he could be one of the kids that Steve babysat or admonished for running at the pool that one summer he worked as a lifeguard at the local pool, aside from the fact he had a septum ring. Their bassist and singer was a tall black guy with great teeth. Their other guitarist was, no offence, not the best-looking guy in the world, but seemed super built and was kind of intimidating. Their lead guitarist was a different beast entirely. He was the obvious leader and oddly charismatic in the way he swaggered to the front of the stage. He was about as tall as Steve was, but a lot longer and leaner, which would make him an ideal build for long-distance swimming, Steve noted. He was wearing a baggy white t-shirt cropped a couple of inches shorter than it should have been, seemingly DIY, that sagged at the neckline and showed all his shitty looking stick-and-pokes, which were everywhere on his chest, stomach, and arms. His jeans were tight, black, and ripped to shit, with a black bandanna hanging out of the back left pocket and chains weighing them down so much so that his heavy studded belt was rendered useless and a pair of checked boxers were hanging out of the waistband. His boots were beaten up, practically falling apart. His hair was super long, curly and dark brown, wild like an animal and so were his huge eyes, like black whirlpools and his untamed, and frankly unhinged grin.
“That’s Eddie!” Shouted Dustin, straight into Steve’s ear. Of course it was.
Steve wasn’t sure this was the kind of guy that Dustin should be idolising. He looked like a maniac, and when the band started up, he realised that he played like a maniac too.
Steve did not like metal. This was now obvious to him. He did not like the way that it sounded at all. When they first started playing, he had to fight an enormous urge to stuff his fingers in his ears.
He did however, find himself strangely enthralled by the show right alongside Dustin, who seemed transfixed, the lights of the stage reflecting back off his enormous and awed eyes. It was extreme, intense but also passionate and almost hypnotic. The guitar playing was kind of sexy. Maybe Steve could learn to play if he could get over his total inability to multitask and his lack of any musical talent. The frontman could definitely multitask, managing to play, sing back-up and cause havoc on stage all at the same time. They were all thrashing around, grinning, shouting at each other, shouting at the audience. Making stupid jokes in between cacophonic, noisy songs titled things like ‘Trailer Trash’ and ‘The Trial Of The Quarry Killer’, songs that seemed to rumble in Steve’s gut like an internal earthquake. Steve had never seen or heard anything quite like it. He didn’t like the music, but he had to admit, the performance and showmanship of it all was pretty cool and out of all of them, Eddie was the coolest. The lights were picking him out above the rest, highlighting the sweat that covered his skin, the pale contours of his collarbones. Steve could understand why Dustin had singled him out. There was something about him, something that made Steve feel an odd combination of fascination and jealous annoyance. He was trying to figure what exactly it was, eying the frontman with discernment, when he began to notice that a pair of dark eyes were looking straight back at him. Which was, shit, weirdly embarrassing, like he’d been caught, despite being an audience member, whose entire role was to watch. He supposed that he and Dustin were close enough to the stage for their features to be at least somewhat distinguishable, but he had figured that with the lights, there was no way that expressions could be acknowledged, nor stares. Which is why he had been so bold with his bored eyerolls during soundchecks and so blatant in his curious staring. He didn’t know what to do, now their eyes were meeting. It was like a sort of stand-off; he couldn’t look away. He knew why he was staring but he had no clue why his opponent was. Did Steve seem so massively out of place that even the band could identify it? Did he see the rude way Steve winced at the loud guitar when they had started playing?
He stared. Eddie stared. Kept playing his guitar. Kept singing. The vocal part ended and he looked back down on at his fretboard. Played a more complex bit, fiddly, taking a lot of technical skill. Flicked his eyes back up at Steve whilst doing it, showing off. Stuck his tongue out. Smiled. Winked.
Steve felt all strange and hot and prickly.
Winked?
He then did something even weirder. He lifted his pick away from the guitar and held it up towards Steve, pointing at him.
‘Hey’, he mouthed.
Steve frowned with utter confusion. They were having a conversation now?
‘Hi’, Steve mouthed back, alongside a rather pathetic finger waggle. He felt stupid but what else was he supposed to do?
Eddie grinned at him. He had a really fantastic smile, unhinged as it was. This was so baffling. Steve almost mouthed ‘Huh? What?’ to try and understand what exactly was going on, but he could feel Dustin desperately tugging at his shoulder.
“Oh my god!” Dustin screamed in his ear again, which, well if his eardrums weren’t already shattered, they were now. “He just said ‘Hi’ to me!”
Steve tore his eyes away, giving Dustin a sideways glance. This kid was mad arrogant, but he didn’t want to burst his bubble.
“Uh…” It wasn’t worth trying to explain, not that he could. “Sure he did, Buddy.”
When he could bring himself to look back up at the stage, the frontman’s eyes were facing back past him, into the crowd, although there was a hint of a smile on his face.
As the music began to die down and they were down to their final song, Steve nudged Dustin violently, gesturing at his phone screen. It was almost 9pm and Dustin was supposed to be on the 9:15pm bus.
“We gotta go, dude.”
Dustin tore his gaze away from the stage, looking distraught.
“What? Steve, they’re down to their last song!”
“I’ve had 3 missed calls from your Mom, Henderson. We gotta split.” Dustin sulked. “You’ve taken so many videos, man. Maybe next time, okay? When I have a place for real you could stay over at.”
After some back and forth, Dustin reluctantly relented and allowed Steve to guide him out of the crowd, using his sharp elbows to clear a path through the fans, who were luckily too enraptured with the performance on stage to find this irritating.
Before they pushed out the exit, Steve took one last look at the stage himself. Eddie had his eyes closed, face tipped up to the lights like some kind of renaissance statue from one of Steve’s art history classes that he struggled to stay awake in.
It was an interesting show, Steve supposed. He’d add a couple of songs to his playlist.
___________________________________________________________________________
Steve and Robin were both lying on Robin’s head, tops to tails. Robin had just finished explaining how the date with Chrissy had gone, although she refused to fully divulge all of the gory details. She didn’t kiss and tell.
“Nice” Steve had said, holding up his hand for a hi-five whilst he leafed through his economics textbook, trying to get some of the information into his brain through a process of osmosis. Robin slapped it dutifully.
“So we’re meeting next Friday too and she’s taking me to hers – the sorority house Steve! I’ve only ever been there once and never into any of the rooms.”
“They’re okay.” Steve said, having visited several.
“Almost forgot you were such a ‘ho” Robin nudged at his shoulder. Steve shrugged good-naturedly and went back to his reading and Robin went back to scrolling on her phone.
Robin scrolled Instagram first, liking one of Nancy’s pictures because she knew it would annoy Steve, sending hearts on one of Heather’s stories because, hey, she’s hot. She then Liked Dustin’s many, many videos of the show from the other night, not really bothering to watch them, just encouraging his enthusiasm, really, although in one of them you could see the corner of Steve’s vaguely unimpressed face, slightly wincing at the screaming guitar, which made her laugh.
When she had asked him how the show was, he had said ‘fine, music was shit’. He had then made a considering face and further explained ‘kind of a weird moment where the guitarist guy said hi to him from the stage’ and proceeded to describe the guitarist in kind of admiring terms. She chalked Steve’s interpretation of events up to a) Steve being paranoid or b) Steve not understanding typical musician showmanship. Either that or the guitarist was actually flirting with him from stage which would be just typical because people were always flirting with Steve, something she didn’t really get because yeah, obviously he’s good looking but he’s like, such a guy. A dorky lil’ guy, who bopped his head to the latest hits and shot gunned beers at parties, yelling victoriously afterwards in a way that is so gross and so boyish it made Robin so glad she only liked women. So maybe it was an elaborate flirtatious move, not that Steve would have gotten that anyway, for someone who continuously pulled, he could be somewhat oblivious to anything subtle, although she supposed this very obliviousness could be part of his mysterious charm. Also, although she was absolutely certain that Steve was bisexual (he’d told her he had both dated and kissed boys in high school in very nonchalant, laissez-faire terms), he never seemed to get when guys were flirting with him, although, as life is unfair and those who don’t even bother to try seem to excel beyond those who try very hard, they always were. Constantly. Their regular barista at the coffee shop was borderline obsessed with him but he never picked up what he was putting down.
Exhausting Instagram, Robin switched to Tiktok, scrolling mindlessly until she came across a video that caused her to crow with delight.
“Steve, you’ve been papped again!”
As the algorithm is always watching, always listening, Robin was getting videos from the aforementioned heavy metal concert at the Bowl on her FYP. One of these videos just so happened to be captioned ‘fine men I saw at the corroded coffin show’ and Steve, in his unintentional baby butch outfit, was prominently featured, frowning in the crowd in a way that made him seem moody and mysterious but Robin knew was just due to simple confusion and slight bitchy irritation.
This was not the first time that Steve had appeared on her FYP, despite him not having nor ‘getting’ TikTok. He had also been captured in the wild by a ‘hotties on campus’ TikTok that showcased him running late to a lecture with a bagel stuffed in his mouth, somehow managing to look sexy whilst doing so in a pair of minuscule gym shorts. Although Steve thought the invasion of privacy was ‘weird’ he mostly didn’t care as long as his hair looked good.
Steve groaned.
“Again? So weird that people do that.”
“You want to see it?” Robin asked.
“Does my hair look good?”
“Yeah”
“Then nah. Makes me cringe.” Fair enough, if Steve didn’t want to enjoy his local notoriety then Robin would. For someone who took such pride in his appearance (and SO much time on his hair), Steve wasn’t particularly interested in showing off on social media. He was such a guy, only posting on his almost bare Instagram once in a blue moon with some stupid shitty meme that he thought was funny or liking something that the kids did on there. He got tagged in frat party pictures and stories but never reposted or shared, probably because he didn’t open the app all that much and missed them. He didn’t even post selfies, although Robin knew that he did take them, nudes too because sometimes he asked her opinion for purely aesthetic reasons, but it seemed that this was restricted to texting (or sexting?) purposes and not for public consumption.
Robin opened the comments and scrolled them, hoping for a good laugh.
‘such a great show!’
‘eddie is the finest man at any corroded coffin concert :P’
‘I <3 metalheads <3’
‘Omg the third guy…yes.’
Steve was the third guy. Chuckling, Robin expanded the replies.
‘bark bark woof woof’
‘what’s his @?’ with one response ‘can’t find one ):’
‘Stevie! My guy!’
‘anyone know if he’s gay? Asking for a friend…’ Robin, practically gleeful at this point, expanded the replies to this particular comment.
‘Seconding. He’s hot.’
‘Thirding! <3’
‘I too would like to know this…’ This particular response came from a blue-check account. Robin clicked through. Eddie Munson, the lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin. Well wasn’t that something.
How embarrassing for him, simping on TikTok. Over Steve, no less! She began to laugh so much that she choked.
“What???” Asked Steve, hefting up from his position to pat her solidly on the back. She recovered and settled back down.
Robin clicked through and scrolled through his Tiktok, glancing over Eddie’s videos. Hot, for a guy. Sort of androgynous with long hair and pretty eyes. Cool. Talented. Famous-ish. Confident. Sort of nerdy, in the same way that Dustin was and she knew that Steve secretly liked in a person. Gay, apparently. Steve could do a lot worse. Robin weighed up telling him right at that moment or not. There was some fun to be had here. She decided against it.
“Just funny. TikTok thinks you’re hot.”
“Cool.” Steve responded, focusing back onto his economics textbook, which he was failing to read properly. Robin wasn’t sure why he bothered.
She typed up a response in the comments ‘check ya dm’s’. She then sent a direct message to the guitarists account.
‘Hey, his insta is @stevharri69. – it’s private but I’ll tell him to accept you. Just warning u, he’s bi but like very much a lil baby bi & he’s super dumb.’
Surprisingly, she received a response within 15 minutes.
‘I like dumb. Thanks!’ He closed his message with a little emoji of a bat, which was cute. Robin closed the app, pleased with herself.
“Steeeeeeve.” She said in a conspiratorial fashion, causing his ears to prick up. He knew that tone. “Why don’t you check your Instagram?”
“Ugh, has Dustin tagged me in a load of shit from last night.” Robin loved to force Steve into looking at embarrassing photos that he had been tagged in, especially if he had been drunk beyond belief when they were taken. Whatever possessed him to join the fraternity’s annual wet t-shirt competition and actually pose for photos that they actually posted whilst many tequilas deep was a truly evil urge. The story may have vanished, but Robin refused to delete the screenshots, much to Steve’s constant despair.
“Well yeah, but there’s something else…” She sing-song-ed. Steve huffed and opened the app.
“What’s my password?” Honestly. Robin grabbed his phone, typed it in for him, and handed it back.
“Dustin’s so annoying.” He said, eyes scanning over his phone’s screen and his many, many notifications from Dustin tagging him in stories. “Hey, stop liking Nancy’s photos.”
Robin was getting impatient.
“Check your requests, dingus.”
“I just see a load of girls from class…hey, wait.” Steve frowned, looked closer at his screen. “What the fuck?”
Robin started to laugh uproariously.
“What the fuck, Robin? Is this the guitarist from last night? How did-? Did you? Was this you?” Steve was going bright red, spluttering at the little friend request and the tiny, winking icon of Eddie Munson. He clicked through to his account. Yep, this was the guy.
“Robin!” He whined.
“Well, are you going to accept?” Steve harumphed indignantly. Robin was constantly manipulating scenarios. He was almost impressed by her ability to create mischief.
“I guess? It’s only polite. Man, Dustin’s going to freak….” He clicked ‘allow to follow’ and went to follow Eddie back on his profile, pausing to check it out briefly. Loads of videos of his guitar, press pictures and a couple of selfies. Pretty cool. He opened up one the selfies. Eddie really did have a nice smile. Nice eyes, cool style, not his taste but it worked on the dude. Plus, Steve although Steve had kind of hated the music, he had an unexpectedly good time at the show and he had added a couple of their songs to his running playlist, for those last few miles when he needed serious adrenalin. It could be cool having a famous insta-friend. Dustin would think it was awesome, at least.
Plus he wouldn’t mind having the guy on his feed, every now and again.
Steve received a DM almost immediately.
‘hi!’ It read. ‘you were at the show last night, right? I was going to try and talk to you after but you and your little friend left and security couldn’t find you ):’
It was a surprisingly cute message from someone who read as slightly manic.
Steve showed Robin, who grinned.
“So he did say hi to me!” Steve confirmed, slightly breathless for some weird reason. “I knew I wasn’t just like, going blind. I wonder why, though. Do you think he wants to talk to Dustin?”
“No, he was flirting with you.” Responded Robin.
“What?”
“Dude, he was flirting with you onstage and then tried to find you after the show. And he was mooning over you on TikTok, which is how I gave him your insta handle. This is like…One-Direction Fanfic on Wattpad level shit.”
“I don’t know what those words mean.” Steve was utterly perplexed. Robin sighed with annoyance.
“He’s gay, Steven. He thinks you’re cute.”
“Huh?”
“Oh my god. Whatever. You think he’s hot, right? You told me the guitar playing was ‘sexy’ and asked me whether you should get a tattoo.”
“Yeah, I did, but -”
“What’s the hang-up then? He’s gay, you’re bi. Respond to him!”
“Robin, I don’t know how many times I need to tell you this, but I am not bisexual.”
This was a conversation that they had been forced to have several times. Robin plunged her face into her hands and dragged them across her expression. Steve was a frustrating enigma wrapped inside a very simple dude.
“Steve, you literally told me that you went on a date with a guy in your senior year of high school.”
“Yeah, and it went terribly! He was a fan of the patriots, Robin. Ew.”
“Oh my god. You know one bad date with a guy does not mean that you don’t like men in general, right?”
Steve shrugged at her like ‘whatever’. As far as he was concerned, sexuality only counted if you’d like…banged. If you had a boyfriend or something. Serious stuff. Robin knew this. Just because he thought some men were attractive, just thinking about it didn’t seem to count for much if he’d never been in a relationship with a man, never gone beyond casual stuff. Never had a date with a man that ended with sex. Men never seemed to flirt with him anyway, so it wasn’t like he got much of a chance to explore that option. The one guy that he had dated had been one of Tommy’s friends and Tommy was all sort of put-out about it, so he’d never attempted to take it further after that one bad attempt.
“Plus, you told me that you and Billy had that super weird thing going on?”
Steve had figured that for Billy, Max’s older brother and a certified asshole, it was more of like a pure hatred turned into attraction thing and less of a gay thing. He didn’t even flirt with him, he was just kind of mean, but Steve was weirdly into it. It must have been hormonal, or something. An aggression after basketball, fighting over the title of king-thing. Like wrestling, or something. A way to relieve tension. These things happened, although he could admit that they didn’t usually suck face during. That whole scene had ended really badly, anyway.
“Yeah, we kissed a couple of times but the dude is messed up, Robin! He beat me up suuuper badly like a month after. For like, no reason! Almost broke my nose.”
He gingerly touched his beautiful nose, thankful that it had avoided any permanent damage. Robin privately thought that the ‘no reasons’ probably rhymed with shminternalised shomaphobia and shtoxic shmasculinity but that wasn’t the conversation that they were having right now.
“Okay…did you like it?”
“No! Who likes getting the shit kicked out of them?”
“You’d be surprised. But no, the kissing with men thing!”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve told you this before! He was a total psycho but he was hot.”
“And you’re not bi?”
Steve threw his hands up in the air, phone clenched in his fist, face bright with indignation by this point. Robin might have a point. He had kissed a guy, he supposed, in the flush of anger, which had led him to believe it wasn’t really a thing to consider. However, it was true that he had fairly enjoyed it and it had been consensual in a weird, heat of the moment way. Kissing was romantic, almost as romantic as banging. Kissing in anger was kind of…passionate. Maybe it was significant enough to count? He had also consented to the date with Tommy’s friend, had gotten dressed up for it. Was excited.
Shit.
This was like being thirteen all over again, when kissing people and going on dates where you don’t even do anything was a big deal and meant something.
“Maybe! I guess!” Robin made a sound of disbelief. “Fine!” He paused, thinking this all through. “Should I put it in my insta bio, or something?”
“Only if you want but as you barely use insta, I’m not sure you should bother, dude. You’re taking this very well, by the way.”
“I take everything well.” He responded, pouting at her incredulity at his fast acceptance of his newfound status. What was there to be surprised about? He wasn’t at all homophobic, he just took a while to get to conclusions sometimes. If Robin had thought he was bisexual already, everyone else probably did and didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with it so he may as well just own it. His mother asking about ‘nice girls OR guys’ coming back with him for Christmas break and his dad’s irritated but resigned grumble was starting to make more sense now.
Robin sniggered.
“You should put THAT in your bio. Or better yet, use it when you respond to the metal man!”
“Shut up!” He hit her half-heartedly.
“So are you going to write him back?”
“Fine! Yes! I will write him back.” Then, quieter. “I’m feeling the pressure now I’m apparently bi, what do I say?”
“Let it flow from the heart!”
“Ew.”
Steve looked down at the message and typed up a reply.
‘hey man. yeah, it was a good show. sorry, had to drive my buddy back. I don’t use insta, here’s my number – XXXXXXXXXX.’
This read like a message he would send someone from the frat, or Tommy or something. Jesus. He was bad at this. What did guys even like? Compliments? He edited and read through the message again.
‘hey :) yeah, enjoyed the show, ur really good at guitar. sorry we had to leave, would have been cool to chat. Jsyk, I don’t use insta much so here’s my number if you want – XXXXXXX. feel free to text or whatever. ‘
Better, more like the kind of messages he sends to girls during their initial getting to know you phase. Casual, cool, detached but with a hint of interest. He showed Robin.
“Still too bro-ey, but it will do. ‘You’re really good at guitar’? You know he’s a professional musician right?”
“Shut up.”
“Knowing your luck, he’ll find it charming. Go on, press send.” Steve breathed in and pressed send, exhaling as his thumb brushed the screen. He looked at Eddie’s insta profile again. If he was bisexual, this meant that he didn’t just think he had a nice smile, it meant that he thought his nice smile was hot.
He did think it was hot.
Steve glanced at his own profile. Very minimal, he hadn’t posted in ages. People may think he’s dead, or something. Feeling a little self-conscious, and with a strange urge to show off, he decided to post a story, the first story that he had posted in weeks, a rare picture of himself that Max had taken, hanging out at the lake back home, where his hair looks good and the light is nice. Recent enough that it didn’t seem weird. He hoped Eddie might check his profile and see this new story. Not that it was intentional or anything, or specifically for him. Who knows, maybe other gay guys follow him. Girls too, obviously, couldn’t hurt to remind them of his existence. Suddenly embarrassed, he immediately logged out of Instagram, not bothering to gauge a reaction to his sudden show of vanity.
Well, if he wanted to text, he would text. He had his number. Steve wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. Another day, another dollar. If he didn’t get a text back in the next couple of days, he could just find another date. Now he was bisexual, Steve supposed his pool had widened exponentially. Speaking of pool, he had swim in half an hour. Time to get a move on.
Steve took a quick screenshot of the ‘follows you’ next to Eddie Munson’s name in his search bar and sent it to Dustin, alongside ‘I don’t think he was saying hi to you, bro’. A little shitty, but it wasn’t often that he could manage to one-up his younger friend in his own arena and he certainly wasn’t going to like, start playing D&D or something. He expected an uproar as soon as Dustin could gets his hands on his phone. Steve snorted in anticipation. Silencing his ringer, he put his phone and textbook away and returned began to pack up his stuff to make his way to the pool, excited to see how jealous/excited/intrigued Dustin may be at the turn of events. It was always fun coming out of practise to a phone full of texts.
After he had left, Robin was still feeling curious, so she decided to check twitter, something else that Steve didn’t have and didn’t ‘get’. She typed in ‘Eddie Munson’, finding his profile with ease. It seemed like his ‘coming out’, which had taken place in an angry interview, had gone viral a while back. Good for him. She checked his latest tweets. The dude seemed to use twitter like a madman, writing tweets like ‘FOX NEWS EATS ASS’, ‘‘im so high right now…where the bitches who have watched all the Hotel Transylvania films at? They good?’. No filter whatsoever. Kind of funny, but also kind of intense. She also saw that there were a couple of tweets from the night of the show.
Most pertinently:
‘holy shit, do u guys believe in love at first sight????!!!’
Out of context, it just seemed like another random, off the wall tweet but when you considered that this was sent about 5 minutes after the concert had taken place…. Wowee. Robin let out a low whistle. She hoped Steve was ready for what she may have inadvertently started.