A surprising amount of people still want to rent movies, even in the midst of a psuedo-apocalypse that's leveled half the town.
Steve doesn't really mind. It's nice to still get to hang out with Robin all day, though the original appeal of the "babes" that come in is gone, his thoughts in that area now mostly enveloped within an Eddie-Munson-related haze. It's kind of embarrassing, the way Steve'll find himself staring off into space and wondering what Eddie's up to, worrying about if he's getting worse, about the way he's constantly looking over his shoulder like he can feel the trickle coming from the Upside Down despite how much it's slowed. The way he barely talks about it and sometimes pretends it isn't happening, that everything's fine, because he clearly has no other way to cope.
In other ways it's just like every other time he's felt lovestruck, zoning out behind the register every time he thinks of Eddie's jokes or his eyes or his mouth. He starts to squirrel movies away that he thinks he might like (stoner comedies and anything campy or gory, particularly if it's Cronenberg) and ones that he won't (Cheesy romance ones, mostly, which are Steve's personal favorite to watch with him for the running commentary alone). Robin will always snap him out of it when she notices, teasing him absolutely ruthlessly, but she honestly isn't much better, rambling about Vickie so much that Steve starts to add tallies to a sheet of paper behind the register every time she does.
It's still probably the best job he's ever had. There'd been an uncertain few weeks when the place was still being repaired where Steve and Robin had legitimately thought that they'd have to get jobs at Chuck E. Cheese---they had even filled out the applications and been given awful bright red and yellow polos to wear before they'd gotten the call about coming back here.
He guesses if there's one thing you can bet on, it's people's desire for some good old-fashioned escapism in the face of a particularly bleak reality.
Today he's thinking about Eddie even more because of his birthday, wondering how the trip the others had gone on to get him the small gifts they can afford is going. Eddie gets most of his skull-adorned jewelry and D&D books and records at a smoky one-stop-shop for guys like him almost an hour away, which is where they've all gone. Steve's gift for him is already safely in Jonathan's care, nestled into its leather black case. He knows Eddie will love it.
The hours seem to tick by particularly slow, especially with his hangover. He flinches at a particularly loud noise as Robin accidentally knocks over a display for Top Gun, the plastic cases falling everywhere. "I'm not cleaning that up." He says immediately, pretending to be busy on the computer.
Robin is already kneeling to stack them neatly. "For someone who drank through most of high school, you're pretty sissy about hangovers."
"I didn't drink through most of high school!" Steve defends, glancing down at her. "I drank through, like, maybe half of it."
"Oh, my apologies, King Harrington." Robin snickers. "Have a fun night with Eddie?"
"I did, actually, thank you very much." Steve says, typing nonsense on the keyboard then deleting it over and over. "We figured out this neat trick where if he drinks from me when I'm drunk, he gets drunk too."
Robin blows her bangs out of her face. "Wow. Groundbreaking scientific stuff going on over at old Betsy's."
"We did do it for science." Steve confirms. "It's a much more interesting experiment than El trying to find Vecna every day and Nancy taking samples of sky-ash like either of those have been working for us."
Robin sighs, about to respond, when the bell jingles and new customers walk in. Steve lets his head drop into his folded arms, looking over at the clock. Four more hours.
