Eddie was staring at Steve. Normally, he loved it, but Eddie was looking at him in concern. Steve sighed and paused the movie, turning to face Eddie.
"What's up, Eddie?" Steve asked. "Did you want to talk about something?"
"I don't know how to tell you this, but I've noticed it, and I'm not sure if you have or not, but I figured that you should know," Eddie said.
"Is this about you staring at me all the time?" Steve asked. "Because I like it."
"Look, I know Robin means a lot - wait, you noticed me staring at you?" Eddie asked. "Hold up, you LIKE it? No, wait, getting back to the topic at hand."
"So, what's this about Robin?" Steve asked.
"Well, I noticed she's been spending a lot of time with Nancy," Eddie said.
"They're friends," Steve said. "What are you getting at?"
"You're not worried that Robin is developing feelings for Nancy?" Eddie said.
"Why? Because she's a lesbian and that automatically means she must have feelings for the only girl her age who's seen the same shit she has?" Steve asked. "Just because she's hanging out with a girl doesn't mean that she has feelings for her. I mean, I'm a bisexual and I hang out with Argyle a lot but that doesn't mean I have to have feelings for him. I mean, he does have really great hair."
"You have made very good points," Eddie said awkwardly.
"And even if she did have feelings for Nancy, sure, it would be weird, but I'd get used to it. Besides, I'm over Nancy," Steve replied.
Just then, the front door opened, and Robin came pouncing into the living room. Speak of the devil.
"Hey, what are you two ladies talking about?" Robin asked.
"Oh, we're just talking about the fact that Eddie thinks you have feelings for Nancy," Steve said.
Robin stared at Eddie, who blushed. She burst into laughter, leaning against the doorway. She bent over, clutching her stomach, and pointed at Eddie. He threw up his arms and covered his face with his hands. Finally, she managed to stop laughing and wiped her tear stained face.
"Me and Steve are close, but we're not that close. I've never really had a friend that's a girl before, and it's been a long time for Nancy since she's had one. Besides, Steve means too much to me. In that situation, one of us would have to put our feelings aside in order to make the other happy. I believe in any relationship, there needs to be an equal give and take. Our friendship is also a relationship even though it's platonic, and if we can't take friendships seriously, how are we supposed to take romantic relationships seriously? You know? So, even if I did have feelings for Nance, I still wouldn't be able to do anything with it because it would make me uncomfortable that Steve had once very strong feelings for her and that would make me question just how much we're alike. Are we too alike? Do we spend too much time together? Are we, in fact, combining like I suggested we should? Am I slowly turning into Steve Harrington? It's a risk that I just can't take," Robin said. "There's too much weirdness. Besides, if Steve, a man, can handle putting his feelings aside, then I, a woman, can handle it too. We're all capable of loving more than one person and finding someone else."
Eddie and Steve at her. It was the longest rambles in the history of Robin rambles.
"Okay, that last part about turning into me. Should I be offended? Also, have you thought about this before?" Steve asked.
"A little after everything that happened, but then me and Nancy talked about it. We realized that it was the trauma bond. We're really good friends who can laugh about it now. It still urks me to think about it. Plus, as pretty as Nancy is, there's no beating redheads," Robin said dreamily. "Sorry, I didn't tell you about it, Steve."
"I totally get it, but you know you don't have to sacrifice anything for me, right?" Steve asked.
"I know I don't have to, and I'm not sacrificing anything. There's no feelings, remember? Besides, your parents never sacrificed anything for you. Someone in your life should, considering you almost sacrificed your life for me, for the kids. Me giving up the possibility of a relationship is nothing compared to you nearly getting beaten to death. There's nothing to give up, anyway. I have feelings for someone else, and Nance is focusing on college," Robin said. "I love you, dingus."
"I love you too," Steve said, sniffling.
"So, Eddie, tell me why you didn't just ask me?" Robin asked as she turned to Eddie, her arms crossed.
"I was worried that Steve might still have feelings for Nancy, and I was worried about his feelings getting hurt. I was totally ready to whip out the ice cream," Eddie mumbled. "Okay, from here on out, I promise not to talk about shit I know nothing about."
"Yeah, right," Steve and Robin said.
"Or, and here's a thought, you could just go straight to the source next time," Robin said and winked at him. "I totally get why you did it. You know what, I'm going to leave you to chew him out."
They watched Robin leave and waited for the sound of the front door to close. Steve stared at Eddie, who refused to look anywhere but him.
"Eddie," Steve said. "Eddie, look at me. Other than being a good friend, was there any other reason why you were worried about me?"
"I don't know, would you hate me if I said yes?" Eddie asked.
"No, because I would be a hypocrite since I feelings for you," Steve said.
"You do?" Eddie asked, and Steve grinned, nodding.
Eddie crawled over the armchair, over the end table, causing him to knock over the lamp and crawled into Steve’s lap. He kissed Steve deeply, and Steve laughed against his lips. Eddie pushed him down onto the couch and straddled his waist, slipping his tongue into Steve’s mouth. Steve gripped his waist, sighing into his mouth and broke the kiss.
"So, we're not finishing the movie?" Steve asked.
"Nope."
"You're paying for that lamp."
"Does it have to be with money?"
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Truly those calling it “bad writing” that Robin and Vickie share similarities doesn’t make sense. She’s not been given enough time to be more than just a love interest, but we do have some info about her:
1. Molly Ringwald inspo, giving us shorthand about being kind of a quirky gal. Hat! Visually, she’s similar to Robin, but that’s not a bad thing because literally similar interests draw people together. She is also skirts vs Robin’s trousers. Femme/Soft Butch! You’re telling me Vickie would wear a tie? Lies.
2. Likes goofy jokes, namely Steve’s joke about Muppet Tammy. Which, Robin doesn’t laugh at Steve’s jokes that much- she dismisses them, but it means Vickie has a bit of a jocular sense of humour.
3. Vickie also likes Steve’s brand of movies, not Robin’s- which is pretty fucking funny. Again, this is not making Vickie similar to Robin, but to things shared with Robin’s Platonic Soulmate. Like, bro movies? Stupid lil jokes? I predict Steve and Vickie having a dad joke competition next season & torturing Robin with how corny they are. People like to talk about the similarities to Robin, but not the similarities to Steve! That’s kind of clever drawing Vickie closer to one of Robin’s favourite people, at least superficially.
4. Talks a lot when one on one, but Vickie wasn’t nervous/flustered in the band scene, so we can infer in more crowded spaces she acts differently/subdued - as like she was in the War Zone. This is unlike Robin who does actually ramble in group scenes, like freaking out over the thing in El’s leg, the rabies bit, or generally a lot of Season 4 where she looses her “cool girl” archetype from Season 3 in favour of chaos. Vickie seems more like she would quietly panic, as opposed to Eddie, Argyle, and Steve who all loudly go WHAT THE FUCK. Which is going to be interesting to see as the whole town is now thrown into an open gate downtown Hawkins probably releasing demogorgons every other hour like it’s Pacific Rim up in this bitch.
5. Meaningful look with Robin in the War Zone- not “oh hi band friend!” A scared/caught/dismayed look that she was there. So there is a connection, and she broke up with her boyfriend after that connection. Anything more is speculation, but the way she wasn’t looking at Robin when she gave the “he doesn’t like Fast Times” reason lets the audience draw points and maybe she felt trapped? Like it was just an excuse to pursue a different interest? Obviously because music is playing indicating a romantic relationship. We don’t have much to compare Robin with on this one, but around Keith she still had more confidence and bullshittery trying to convince him to hire Steve when Keith assumed they were a thing.
6. Vickie also doesn’t seem jealous. Robin is jealous. She was livid at Steve for being the object of Tammy’s affections, but Vickie hasn’t seemed to even look twice at Steve- even as Robin looked over at him while she and Vickie had her last scene.
For such a short amount of time in the season, I think that we have a good foundation for similarities and differences to Robin. Also, once again, it’s not a crime to avoid “opposites attract” tropes. Having similarities is good! Like, the amount of couples I know that are essentially the same archetype of queer person is not even close to zero. Especially when it comes to older queer couples who got together in the 80s/90s, they kind of morph into being one granola bar of a human being. Kind of similar with straight people when they genuinely like one another.
I hope they flesh Vickie out, but like, we’ve gotten a similar amount of screen time for Mr Clarke but no one is mad he is “one dimensional” when he is just, some exposition science guy. He’s a stock and standard teacher, has a girlfriend, and kind of goes along with explaining shit without questioning why a lot. But folks love Mr Clarke. Is it because Mr Clarke isn’t getting in the way of your ship?
I never thought I would see the day there were some true blue f/f ship wars, but bruh, Robin’s love life isn’t an A Plot so give the writers some slack. They’re human, not the devil. None of you were gleeks and it shows so fucking much. None of you lived through “angry lesbians on the internet don’t want me dating you”.
Personally I’m looking forward to Robin and Vickie getting together and maybe hopefully kicking monster butt together- or at least, Robin getting a nice little badass moment defending her gal.
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