Chapter Text
Most of these days in Hawkins Steve feels like he’s suffocating.
It has nothing to do with the warm and humid early May in Indiana. It has everything to do with this cursed town. He thought he’s used to people here moving on from horrible events with impressive agility. As it turns out - he’s not.
It’s not like Steve doesn’t understand the want to maintain some semblance of normality, but after a full-on witch hunt he sort of hoped things will be different. Good thing he’s used to disappointment.
Steve looks at their faces, faces of people that were ready to kill a bunch of kids, playing stupid board game, and finds it unbearably hard to live through a day talking to them, smiling at them, "Nice choice, your change, we’re here all week," fake niceness, fake politeness, kept solely on the fact that he needs those money and doesn’t want to look for a new job.
"Don’t forget to return it in time or you’ll get a fee," Steve says, as a Benny Andersson wannabe takes a copy of "Rocky" out of his hands. It’s an hour before closing, air is stale, AC’s not working, and unfortunately it’s his turn to talk to people when the only thing he wants is to lay down on any horizontal surface and not move long enough for this unbearable sense of dread to leave his body.
"I know," dude rolls his eyes. "It’s not the first time I rented a movie," and goes away, the bell on an entrance door ringing, no "thank you" and no "goodbye".
"Whatever," Steve hisses, mildly annoyed. "Forget about a damn tape, that means I won’t see you for longer".
"What’s gotten into you?" Robin cocks an eyebrow at him, but he’s used to all annoyed expressions and eyerolls she can throw at him.
"I mean, guy is a total dick," says Dustin, sprawled on a floor, multiple opened snacks from their vending machine all over him.
"Language , Henderson".
Dustin ignores him, of course he does. "But really, dude, you were already on edge when I got here, and it was like two hours ago".
Steve can feel blood, pulsing in his temples, hot and heavy, and his head fucking hurts for no apparent reason.
"It’s just…" He waves his hand, implying by unspecific gesture everything and nothing at once.
Steve thinks of Eddie Munson. Of Dustin, crying on his shoulder. Of warm, welcoming hugs of people his kids missed the most. How they got a moment of quiet happiness, how it ended with a whisper. They’ve lost a friend. He lost a friend too.
Maybe it’s weird, to consider somebody he said maybe twenty words to before the world started crumbling underneath them, a friend, but Steve’s life stopped being normal years ago.
Steve thinks of Eddie, sacrificing his life for the town that hated him, that moved on after he died and charges were dropped like nothing happened.
It just seems… Unfair. How everybody moved on, and they didn’t.
He’ll see a bunch of douchebags from basketball team hanging out at the mall like they didn’t lose a friend, their captain, and Lucas, sitting alone, chair empty in front of him; he’ll see some cops, useless ones, those who aren’t Hopper, enjoying their morning coffee like they have all the time in the world, and his kids on bikes, driving by, with absent expressions on both Dustin’s and Mike’s faces; he’ll see people in the trailer park, making barbeque and meaninglessly chatting, and Max’s skateboard, abandoned near Mayfield’s entrance door. And he’ll choke on air, anger and pain tangled in his throat, blocking it with a bunch of empty but heated curses, because how dare they? How dare they live their happy little lives while all of them are dying here.
And some were already dead.
"Don’t you think it’s weird?" Steve asks them both, head resting on always-greasy-no-matter how-hard-they-try counter of Family Video. "How fast Hawkins forgets fucking horror literally everytime it happens?"
"It’s not like it happens to them , you know," Robin sighs, eyes tired, corners of her mouth turned down, voice flat and quiet. Steve thinks she doesn’t get enough sleep (he can relate). She doesn’t smile much either (he can relate to that too). "Just near them, to people they don’t care about".
Steve knows it’s true. Even when the town became a battlefield - gray smoke in the air, red glow in the cracks on the ground - something changed, but not much . People were back as fast as they fled the day the "earthquake" happened, despite the fact Hawkins was branded as a place of "abnormal seismic activity". Which is a good cover when ground can suddenly crack and out of nowhere there’ll be a bunch of scientists and some people in black suits, who don’t say who they work for. But if anything is abnormal in Hawkins it is not something seismic.
"I don’t know," Dustin chimes in, ‘cause he’s physically incapable of letting Steve just mumble. "Underground parallel dimension seems sorta seismic to me".
Steve rolls his eyes, going for the most annoyed expression he can handle, but Dustin’s grin says that it’s still too fond. He’s a sap, sue him.
"Still weird. Coming back this fast part, not dumb cover from the goverment part".
They may have stopped it from spreading, but no one knows how to stop it for good . Even El doesn’t. Every single one of them knows they’ll face it again. Hell, maybe even more than once. What Hawkins has now is a bandaid on a stab wound - not even close to solution and everything about it hurts like shit.
"Nobody knows we faced the end of the world here, dingus," Robin taps on the work computer so violently Steve is concerned about the keyboard's well-being. "And you didn’t even try to leave".
"And you do actually know about the Upside Down," Dustin points out.
Steve considers sending him home instead of their planned movie night, but he actually can’t leave the kid alone. He doesn’t want to be alone either.
Also, it’s not like they’re wrong.
"Yeah, well, I want my part in ending this shit, thank you very much".
Robin snorts. "Steve Harrington, always wants to save the day".
"There is a possibility you’ll just die, though," there’s something dark and pained in Dustin’s eyes, ghosts dancing in reflections in his pupils.
Steve thinks of Eddie again. He knows they all do.
"And there are much worse ways to die".
📦
Steve doesn’t know why he agreed to that.
No, scratch that, he actually does know why he did, it simply doesn’t feel like a good idea anymore.
But he couldn’t say no to Henderson, eyes wet and pleading, voice sad and broken, like he was on the verge of crying. Steve knows that boy figured him out a long time ago and now plays him like Hendrix played a guitar, and yet this time Dustin was completely genuine and…
And Steve sort of wanted to come too, so maybe invisible hand, tightening on his heart every time he thinks about Munson will let him go.
Even though Steve honestly doesn’t know what he was thinking when he couldn’t say even a word to Wayne Munson at a funeral. Without press, without angered townies, without honors and without a body. The day was annoyingly sunny, weather picture perfect, and Steve wanted to throw himself from the nearest high-enough-to-die-immediately building. He felt condolences get stuck in his throat, hiding ugly tears just behind them, the second his eyes met Wayne’s. Steve acknowledged him with a nod, knowing damn well that if he opens his mouth the dam will break, and those of his kids who somehow managed to hold back tears will cry with him.
Just looking at Munson's trailer brings this feeling back. It awakes the memories, buried deep under cheap beer and intoxicating cigarette smoke, of an X-rated nightmare playing on repeat in his head every night: Upside Down, blood, dread, pain, loss.
Not that it even makes any sense - the trailer is new, no history of death and portals straight to hell. And yet…
Steve takes a deep breath. "Okay, Henderson, we can’t stand here all day".
Dustin looks at him like he’s an idiot. "I’m ready from the start, dude, I was just waiting ‘til you’ll stop silently freaking out".
Okay, rude .
"I can just leave".
"You wouldn’t," he says, lightly knocking on the trailer door.
Steve can see the movement in the windows with the corner of his eye. They’re both lucky Wayne’s home, because none of them knows his schedule or his new telephone number, so they showed up here unannounced full of hope that Mr. Munson will both be home and hospitable enough not to tell them to get lost.
Door opens without a creek, brand new, which absurdly doesn’t sit right with him, and Wayne stands in a doorway, slightly tense, one of his hands out of sight.
"Ah," he says, relieved. "It’s you two".
His second hand, the one that wasn’t holding the door open, leaves its position at the left of a frame, and Steve swears he can hear metal clink. He wonders how much shit towners are giving Wayne to feel the need to have a gun permanently placed at an entrance. Probably not much, knowing they hounded Eddie for the same reason nobody is really looking for Kreel now, when he’s the prime suspect in serial murders.
Steve didn’t try to kill Eddie and yet he hardly can look Wayne in the eyes.
"Come on in," Wayne waves them inside and Steve forces himself to unfreeze and behave like a sane person for at least an hour, before he can get home and scream into a pillow until his throat hurts.
"Sorry we didn’t warn you we're going to come," Steve hastily apologizes, following Dustin inside. "We don’t have your phone number".
"Don’t worry about it, you’re all welcome here anytime".
Wayne has a kind face. It’s a weird thought, but Steve can’t help it. He has the same big eyes Eddie did, and, despite the piercing look that makes Steve feel like Mr. Munson knows every single thing about him, even things he doesn’t know himself, they’re soft. But mostly it’s the laugh lines. Wayne must’ve smiled a lot when he was younger. Probably his nephew made him smile too.
Indifferently, Steve thinks of his father’s face, all smooth hard lines, and can’t imagine him laughing. It’s a bitter thought, he should be able to remember his father’s laugh. He can’t. Steve also can’t imagine him saying something like "you’re welcome here anytime" and actually mean it.
"Be careful, Mr. Munson, he’ll take your words literally and you’ll see him everyday," he smiles, hoping that it looks genuine and not as jittery and unsure as Steve feels.
Wayne chuckles. "I don’t mind, really," Steve can see him moving in the kitchen, taking beers and orange soda out of the refrigerator. "It’s not like I have a lot to do anyway".
And it’s there again, this sting in his ribcage, disturbing sense of wrongness overtaking Steve’s mind. He takes a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves.
"And please, call me Wayne. When any of you calls me "mister" I just feel wrong," Mr. Munson says, unaware of Steve’s downfall into a state of panic. He hands him a beer, which Steve gratefully takes, happy to occupy his hands with something. "Are you guys hungry? I’m pretty sure I have some…"
"No-no," he lets out a startled laugh. "Thank you, but I think we’re good. Right, Henderson? Dustin?"
There’s a pile of boxes in a corner of the room. None of them are marked, but Steve can see a leather jacket put on top of the biggest one. An electric guitar, the same Eddie used in the Upside Down, is leaning against the nearest wall.
"That’s all that survived after… Well, you know".
Steve suddenly understands why Dustin waited until he calmed down. He’s dancing on a verge of hysteria: one, two, three - and he’s okay; one, two, three - and he’s on edge again.
"You can take a look".
"Really?," Dustin asks, his voice uncharacteristically small.
"Go on," Wayne encourages.
Dustin hesitates for a second, before taking the top one on the floor with him. Steve’s sure it’s the gentlest he’d ever seen him. Boxes aren’t sealed, just closed, and when Dustin opens his it’s full of tapes, so Steve assumes they’re stacked from lightest to hardest.
Mr. Munson nudges him with an elbow and nods in the direction where Dustin moves on to the next box of a choice.
"I don’t think that I-"
Wayne gives him this "don’t bullshit me" look again, and Steve wants both to argue with him and to ask him what the hell he knows because Steve is totally lost there. He does neither. Doesn’t argue - because he’s not even sure how he planned to finish this sentence, doesn’t ask - well, because he’s a coward.
So he just steps forward, uncertain of what to do, and his hand automatically closes around the sleeve of the jacket. Leather is surprisingly soft, nice to the touch. There are some creases that show the jacket is worn, but it’s obvious how much care was put into it - it doesn’t look worn out.
"You both should choose something to keep".
"Are you sure that’s okay?" Steve’s running his fingers over caringly laid out tapes.
"I want you to have something to remind you of him," Wayne says, which actually means "I want somebody else to remember him".
Steve examines band names on the tapes: some of them seem familiar, like he heard them once or twice, some he doesn’t recognize at all. He shuffles through tapes, puzzled, not knowing what he’s looking for, until his gaze falls on the one that looks different from others. Steve picks it up to realize it’s piled on top of others, similar to it. Instead of a band or album name it has a sharp-edged handwriting: "Eddie’s Awesome Mix, Vol.1". There’s also a painting of a dancing skeleton, surprisingly detailed for something so tiny.
Steve can’t stop himself from smiling.
"Can I take this one?"
"Sure," Mr. Munson looks at him, bewildered. "Never would’ve guessed you’re a metalhead".
"Well, uh," he awkwardly laughs. "I’m not".
Wayne’s expression shifts from surprised to understanding and Steve can feel the back of his neck and tips of his ears heating up.
Dustin saves him. "Is this what I think it is?".
It’s a wooden box with a four digit combination lock. Steve doesn’t get why it caught his attention, other than it’s locked and that’s intriguing, until Wayne answers both asked and unasked questions. "Yes, Eddie kept everything for his campaigns in there. His boys gave it to me, they hoped I’d open it, but I have no idea what his combination is".
"It’s a four digit, there must be thousands of combinations, right?" Which is a shot in the dark, Steve never was particularly good at math.
"Ten thousands," Dustin corrects him, little nerd.
"Keep it. If somebody’s able to open it, it’s Eddie’s favorite boy". Wayne’s smile is warm and melancholic, all at once.
"We’ll take care of it," Steve assures. "Henderson?"
"Promise!" Dustin nods so eagerly Steve fears his head can fall off.
Mr. Munson looks from one to another. Steve wonders what he sees.
"I have no doubt about that".
💡
Steve doesn’t have the best relationship with hospitals. Every hushed word in corridors, every blank stare in a cafeteria, every undertone of acid medical smell - all reminds him of his fathers angry voice and mothers disapproving glances on little Steve’s injury of the month.
And hospitals always have a decadent mood, spirit of decay, if you will. A calamity waiting at every door frame, hanging in the air.
It’s also not helping that the lighting, blinking because of a bad wiring, nearly sents Steve into a spiral at least once per visit.
Lucas is curled up on a chair with some book in hands when Steve comes in. The only sound in the room is the low hum of medical devices. Max’s hospital room is always quiet whichever amount of his little shits are currently there.
"Studying for finals?"
Sinclair lets out an annoyed sigh and closes the book with the most adorable expression of complete betrayal he’s ever seen.
"It’s so stupid," Lucas states, looking like he wants to fight an american school system, which is fair, but is not entirely possible.
Steve isn’t sure if he refers to the educational process or the fact he has to study a month after deformed monster from another dimension put the girl he loves into a coma, but nevertheless.
"Agreed". He removes a withered bouquet of wildflowers from an occupied vase to put fresh sunflowers there, deciding that changing the water can wait a little. "Any news?"
Lucas’ face darkens. "There’s never any news".
Steve knows that physically Max is fine. Well, her brain is fine, he got that even though doctors talking about cerebral activity and reflex responses is a foreign language to him. But none of them is sure if she’ll ever be able to walk again. They also said that in her current condition Max can wake up at any given moment. It’s been a month. She didn’t.
So Steve’s… Skeptical might be the right word.
However he can’t get rid of another fear, the one he tried to bury deep under, but it still reaches the surface once in a while. That she’s right there, trapped in her own mind, and they don’t know about it.
"A coma can last more than a month, you know?" Steve smiles reassuringly, wrapping his arm about Lucas’ shoulder.
"I know," he groans, moving slightly to the side to make more room for Steve, settled on an armrest. "It’s just…"
Max is lying there, motionless and pale, halo of red hair shining on a pillow. White sheets make her look even paler than she already is from lack of sun, movement, normal food, life. It’s distressing to see her like that, when she consists of contagious energy, constant motion and snarky remarks.
When Steve thinks of Max she’s an incarnated sunflower - turning her face towards the sun, vibrant and bright, alive in the ways most people are not.
She’s not supposed to be cold like this.
"I just want her back," Lucas says quietly.
"Yeah," Steve holds him tighter. "I know".
🎧
Steve has to dust off his walkman before putting Eddie’s mix on.
He’s as clueless as he was when he picked it out of Munson’s stuff. He doesn’t listen to… Hard? Heavy? Whichever word is used to describe this music. It’s not that he hates it either. Metal is just so out of his sphere of interest that he can pair it with D&D and call it a day, but-
Killing interdimensional creatures with a baseball bat and babysitting a bunch of quite unusual kids wasn’t his thing not that long ago too. And where’s he now?
So he presses play and relaxes into pillows in the dim light of his bedroom. Steve doesn’t hope music will put him to sleep, obviously, he wishes the opposite. He’s both exhausted and restless, buzzing with anxiety and this fright that makes him look back in the dark.
Steve wants to sleep, but he dreads the dreams that’ll come.
Music thunders in his ears, loud and energetic, it vibrates through him, sending tingles down his spine to the tips of his fingers. Steve caughts himself subconsciously humming to the tune of the song he doesn’t know, guitar riffs strumming on his nerves. For something so intense this is surprisingly relaxing. He feels his muscles loosen up, like he was tense all week, but the song makes him strain just enough to finally unwind.
Steve can feel himself drifting on the edge of consciousness, floating, claws of the nightmare visible on the back of his eyelids. He tenses up again, but the sleep is still there, not shaken by his unrest. As song echoes in his ears, Steve wonders how Eddie organized his mixtapes, in what order did he create them? Does "Vol.1" contain his most favorite songs? Does it contain the ones Eddie heard first? And what’s the name of this band, because he kind of likes it…
🎵 Loser's dreams
Crashing to the ground
Don't think about nothing
Don't think about nothing 🎵
"Mötley Crüe".
"Huh?" Steve’s head perks up, and he can’t remember when he closed his eyes, dozed off, ass on the rug in Munson’s trailer.
Eddie looks at him like he’s being stupid, which Steve is not. He moves on his bed, sitting up, hair a little disheveled, like he was napping too, collar of his Def Leppard t-shirt slightly off. Steve stares at him.
"Mötley Crüe. The band’s name, Stevie," Eddie repeats, a wide grin on his face, like Steve asking about this brings him immense joy. That’s what happened - he asked a question.
"Ah," he doesn’t know how stop his stupid face from blushing. "Name of the band. I thought you were just mumbling".
"Brat," Munson warmly chuckles, getting up from bed to join him on the floor. Steve has no other choice but to grin in response. "So, am I corrupting you?"
"There’s… Certain appeal to it".
Eddie smiles even more widely, he didn’t think that it’s even possible. "Oh yeah? I expected a little more resistance from somebody who’s seen "Grease" so many times".
"You have no fucking idea how many times I’ve seen "Grease"," he objects.
"Do you?"
He does not.
"Fuck you".
When Eddie laughs he laughs with his whole body, giddy and loud, eyes closing, nose scrunching. It’s a nice sound, almost cute. They lay a little, wordlessly, listening to one song flowing into another. This one Steve likes less.
"Hey, you make your own mixtapes, right?" Munson hums in agreement. "How do you organize them?"
Eddie’s face makes a faintly amused expression, like Steve asked something brilliant, but he can’t show it because doesn’t want to flatter his ego.
"Metal is the music of mood, my liege. It sets the mood, it controls the mood, it is the mood. So I organize them accordingly".
"You’re just… Going with the same vibe?" He clarifies, confused.
Eddie snorts. "Well, yes but actually no". He shifts, so they’re facing each other. "You see, you can choose something to match your mood, to enhance it," his hands are flying, like he’s showing what he means, not explaining it with words. His fingers are long, black nail polish chapped, silver rings glistening in the setting sun. Steve finds himself transfixed. "But you can also choose something to change your mood. For example, there are two types of sad mixes: one lifts you up, another beats you down".
"Why would you want something that makes you feel even worse?"
"You never had a feeling you needed something to break you so you’ll finally let it go?"
"I…" Steve thinks of himself, laying in his bed, trembling, but unable to cry, feeling too much and not feeling any. "I think I get it". A pause. "Can you show me some of your mood mixtapes?"
Eddie grabs his shoulders, the touch so light Steve wishes it was more.
"What about this, I’ll show you, but won’t tell what it is so you’ll have to guess?" He glares, his big brown eyes even wider than usual. Steve looks into them, shining with mischief and a promise of something fun, and he trusts them. Because Eddie Munson has sweet and warm, melted chocolate eyes. Bambi eyes.
"Sure," Steve gulps, his throat dry. "Sounds fun".
Corner of Eddie’s mouth lifts up, the line of his mouth sharp.
Bambi eyes and wolfish grin.
The flash of his teeth sends shivers down Steve’s spine, which is not an unusual feeling for him to have near Munson, even if he can’t figure out what the hell it means. He’s not scared of Eddie, he’s not dangerous. Well, not in the conventional sense of the word. Being around Eddie is risky in the same way jumping off the cliff is - you make a step and hope that you’ll get your breath taken away and ears laid from hitting the water, not a head injury from smashing your skull on the rocks.
"I am dying to know what exactly you’ll like," Munson says, finally letting go of him after mere seconds that felt like ages. "I’ll make a metalhead out of you even if it’s the last thing I ever do. Mark my words, Harrington."
"I’m trembling," he scoffs.
"Yeah," Eddie nods, his smile teasing. "I’ve noticed".
Steve wakes up when the alarm clock goes off, sky bright and air too warm already; it’s the first night for so long he can’t even say how much that wasn’t interrupted by nightmares wresting him out of sleep.
He dreamed of Munson before. Of his death, to be precise. Their death. Of demobats, chewing on their insides, Eddie’s pale face, his breath stopping just the moment before Steve is able to snap out of it, sit on his bed, whole body wet from sweat, hands trembling. It’s not the worst he had, but definitely one of them.
Sometimes he can remember those, sometimes not, but this one is something he never had before. It’s not even a nightmare. That feels real, tangible, like it actually did happen, not like some trick of a tired, beaten up brain.
Like a dream you have when something is real and the mind tries to jinx it into existence so hard you can’t tell the difference between this and reality.
Steve has ho fucking idea what to do with that.
📼
Steve almost jumps when the doorbell rings over his head as he enters the record shop. Girl behind the counter looks at him like he interrupted her in the middle of an important business meeting. Store is empty.
"Where’s Gary?" He asks not to leave the silence hanging.
"The guy who worked here? Well, not there," she shrugs. "I don’t know. Probably fled the town. Why?"
For no reason, Steve doesn’t like the dude, they’ve exchanged maybe twenty words in his lifetime, Gary always smelled like garlic and loudly sighed, annoyed by every question.
"I’ve never seen you here before". She doesn’t seem familiar, which is weird in towns like Hawkins, where it’s unavoidable that you encounter or interact with every resident in one way or another.
"I’ve just moved there".
Steve stares at her, dumbstruck. Girl looks more annoyed with every second.
"Like, right now?". To a place that had almost gone under the ground a month ago and still was full of cracks (tiny portals into another dimension) studied by weird reticent people?
"Yeah, I’m clinically insane. You wanted something?"
"Oh, right". He moves forward, walking up to the counter, leaning on his elbows. "Uhm…"
She quirks a dark, even eyebrow, waiting for him to start talking. Girl doesn’t look older than him, at least not much, dark loose curls surround rounded face, falling down her shoulders. Steve can see an ink of tattoos under the hem of her dark top with some words he cannot decipher, and a strain in her thin fingers, clutching an edge of a stall. She glares at him, dark; there’s a tattoo of a snake, biting its own tail, wrapped around her forearm.
He thinks it would be easier with her, than it would’ve been with a guy that listens exclusively to war songs.
"A friend gave me a mixtape," Which is not completely a lie, he just doesn’t want to dunk all this recent loss on her, forcing her to express her condolences about somebody she never knew. "But I don’t have a tracklist, so I was hoping that somebody here would listen to it and maybe recognize some of the songs."
"Somebody here being me, since there’s literally nobody else in there?"
"Yeah?" Steve nods, eyes pleading and full of hope.
She rolls her eyes. "Fine, give it here".
He beams. "I’m Steve, by the way," he introduces himself, grabbing the mixtape from his backpack.
"Dawn," she says, placing her own solid black walkman in front of him. Steve puts a tape inside and closes the lid, as Dawn puts on headphones, one of headpieces above her ear, so she’ll be able to hear him. She presses play and her face sparks up in astonishment, long dark nail poking equipment like it’s malfunctioning.
"Is she hot?" Dawn asks curiously.
"Who?" He blinks in confusion.
"The one who gave you this mixtape. Is she hot?" She repeats.
"What, is some hot girl the only possible reason for a guy to be interested in something?" Steve’s hurt, even if she’s a little bit right in general about teen boys, but hey - prejudice. His reason to do all this is a bizarre, too realistic dream about a dead friend and recent discovery that hard music somehow calms him down. Steve doesn’t know which part is weirder.
"Not the only one, but for a guy who looks like you to be interested in music like this it’s the most believable one".
He swallows down his pride and asks. "And how do I look?"
"Like you listen to Wham! in the car your father bought you and play Abba tapes at pool parties at your place," Dawn states, tapping to the rhythm of the next song after fast forwarding.
Steve can’t even get offended. "Shit," he laughs. "I do listen to Wham! in the car bought by my parents, and I do have a pool. Not so keen on Abba, though".
"Eh, three out of four," She shrugs. "So, is she hot?"
"He," Steve corrects her. "Well, he’s… Ugh". He doesn’t know what he's supposed to say in this situation, because Eddie was handsome, objectively speaking, but it’s not related to the topic and also not what she asked.
"Huh," Dawn tilts her head to the side, like she re-evaluates him, and then just asks "Do you want me to listen to all of this or?"
"No," Steve shakes his head. "Three is enough for now".
"Okay," She stops the tape and gives it back to him. "So, the first one is clearly Van Halen's "Jump". The second one sounds like Blue Öyster Cult, but I’m not entirely sure, not a fan. The third one is…"
"Mötley Crüe".
Dawn eyes him up and down. "You’re an intriguing character, lover boy". Steve has no idea how to answer that. There’s a lingering, slightly awkward pause. "So, are you going to buy something, or did I just listen to men with hair longer than mine for free?"
"Uh, it was a friendly gesture?" Steve shrugs.
That makes Dawn laugh. "We’re not friends. I befriend only sentient beings." Face takes on an offended expression against his will.
"Nothing personal, you humans are just too dumb for other species to properly communicate. Like, in general."
Steve can feel his whole body freeze in confusion, as her dark eyes stare directly into his. "Us humans?"
She looks at him for a long, crucifying five seconds, and then bursts out laughing. "God, you’re so gullible."
Steve’s not gullible, Steve’s traumatized from years of living in the town that has a dark version of itself beneath it. Honestly, aliens or vampires or talking animals aren’t a stretch at this point. "Ha-ha," he gulps. "Very funny. But really, thank you. I’ll get something when I’ll figure out what I really like."
"Ah, whatever, it’s not like I get any profits from selling something. Assuming you’ll need somebody to identify other bands, I guess you’ll annoy me with your presence later?"
"Such great customer service," he mocks, grinning.
"You’re welcome. It would’ve been easier to ask your friend, he made this, after all," Dawn notes, rolling her eyes at him.
"Yeah," Steve agrees quietly, putting a mixtape on again. "It would’ve been". He presses play, and music vibrates in the headphones around his neck. "Have a nice day".
She doesn’t answer, but when he comes out of the shop he can hear her muttering "I wonder where it’ll take you".
"Yes," Steve thinks, putting the headphones on. "Me too".
🎵 And I know, baby, just how you feel
You got to roll with the punches and get to what's real 🎵