#Steve Harrington soulmate au

[xxbimbobunnyxx]

Spider Lily

(Steve Harrington x Goth!Fem!Reader)

Summary: You can’t stand Steve Harrington, you didn’t like him in highschool during his “King Steve” days and you don’t like him now. But even though you deny it, even to yourself, there’s always been something about him that made your heart beat speed up. When you’re stuck closing with him one night at Family Video… things finally boil over. Wk:4.3k

Warnings: Sliggght King Steve behavior, he’s not as much of an asshole but he is a bit of a player, enemies to (kinda?) lovers, unprotected sex, spanking, a lil bit of choking (ofc, it’s me), hair pulling, dirty talk (a lil bit of taunting), Soulmate AU, the end is kinda angsty but there will be a part 2. 18+MINDI!!

A/N: It’s been a minute since I had the drive to sit down a finish something so quickly, but I felt very inspired by this idea and hopefully it’s gonna help my writers block. I have 2 other bigger stories l’m working on but this came to me and I had to get it out. Shout out to my bbs @reidsbtch @babygorewhore & @bimbobaggins69 for hyping me up on this one. Divider used is by @firefly-graphics.🖤

You roll your eyes as you watch Steve push the cart filled with video tapes down one of the isles of Family Video. Today was one of the unfortunate days that Robin was off and you were stuck closing alone with him. Robin often served as a buffer between the two of you, but when left alone you butted heads constantly. Bickering over who had to do inventory, who was going to count the till, whose turn it was to answer the phone when it rings. It was never ending scoffs and glares, but you always put on a show for the customers, acting civil whenever the store wasn’t empty.

You didn’t hate Steve, but you just couldn’t stand him. He walked around with this aura of arrogance about him, always flirting with girls that came in, always asking them on dates. They almost always said yes, but on multiple occasions you’ve watched those same girls come back a week later, pissed or crying because he hadn’t called. Robin insisted that he “changed” since highschool. Which you couldn’t deny that in some ways he had, but just because he isn’t as big of an asshole now, doesn’t mean he wasn’t still a player. It seemed like he couldn’t let that part of being “King Steve” go.

Steve didn’t hate you, but the fact that you couldn’t stand him drove him crazy. He gets it, he wasn’t exactly the nicest to you in highschool. He tried to apologize. Multiple times. But you shut him down every time. You were constantly throwing passive aggressive comments his way, rolling your eyes, sometimes you gag when he’s asking girls out right in front of them. So he just started giving you the cold shoulder, glaring and scoffing back, immaturely sticking his tongue out at you. He even pulled your hair a few times. To you it felt like he was proving you right, that he really hadn’t changed. But for him, he kind of felt like a school boy with a crush on a girl that couldn’t stand him.

“I can feel you staring, you know.” Steve had stopped the cart in the middle of the horror aisle, he restocked the tapes as he spoke, not even turning to look at you.

“I’m not staring at you Harrington, keep fucking dreaming.” You scoff, throwing a glare his way before turning your back to him, shoving a tape into the VCR and hitting rewind.

“Yeeeaah suuure, your eyes were practically burning a hole in the side of my head.” He chuckled, turning his head to glance at you. Your back was turned to him, the green Family Video vest you both had to wear obstructing his view from the cropped band tee you were wearing underneath it.

He wasn’t exactly sure when his fascination with you started, but he knows it was much longer than he would probably even admit to himself. He was always drawn to you, in a way. Even if he always had the wrong way of showing it. He felt awful about the things he and his friends said to you growing up, calling you a “witch” and knocking your lunch tray out of your hands. One time he just stood by while Carol ripped the book he had seen you reading all week to streads right in front of you. Throwing the ripped pages in your face. Everybody laughed, but Steve didn’t. Not that time. Not when usually you laughed them off, or gave them shit right back, but he watched the tears well in your eyes and the way your lip trembled. When you ran off with those tears starting to pour down your cheeks, part of him wanted to follow you.

“I’m gonna turn the sign off and lock the door, you wanna count the till? I’ll finish up the go backs.”

He didn’t wait for you to answer, knowing it would be some kind of sassy remark. He unhooked his set of keys from his belt loop, pulling the string on the sign to click it off and locking the door. You look over your shoulder at him, you hate how your eyes linger on the way his shoulders look in that dumb polo and how his hands hold the keys. No matter how much you dislike him you can’t deny that he’s gorgeous. He’s not normally your type, but something about Steve has always been attractive to you. And you hate it. It makes him even more unbearable to you.

You start counting the till and you’re midway through the quarters when you hear a loud crash, causing you to jump and drop them all over the ground. Your head whips to the side, your eyes landing on Steve who is picking up the cart he knocked over in the middle of the aisle, most of the tapes were on the floor and it knocked into one of the shelves, causing some of the ones there to drop to the ground as well.

“Steve, what the fuck! That scared the shit out of me!” You snapped at him as you got down on the ground to pick up the fallen quarters.

“It scared the shit out of you? It scared the shit out of me! It almost fell on my god damn foot!” Steve scoffs as he starts to pick up the tapes. Were you seriously mad at him right now?

He hears the sound of your heavy black boots before he sees you, your shadow casting over him in his crouched position. He looks up at you and almost chokes. Your long black velvet skirt accentuates your curves perfectly, a slit up to your thigh showing off a sliver of skin, your cropped tee that you definitely cut yourself is loose enough that he can see up it slightly, getting a view of slight under boob… you weren’t wearing a bra. The bright fluorescent family video lights shine above you and from this angle it makes you look like an angel dressed in black. Your combat clad booted foot taps on the ground as you cross your arms, glaring down at him.

“What the hell happened? You seriously knocked the cart over?” Your voice was teasing, your lips turned up into a smirk.

“That rug had a folded corner and the wheel got caught, I don’t know why you’re acting like I threw it on the ground or something.” Steve rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day, standing up to put the tapes back on the shelf. He rests his hands on his hips, his lips set into a hard line as he glares at you. “What is your problem with me, truly?”

“Harrington, you’re joking right?” You laughed, straight up laughed in his face.

“Umm, no? Why the fuck would I be joking? I seriously have tried to be nice to you but no matter what I do you give me a fucking attitude.”

“Oh excuse me, King Steve!! How dare I respect royalty.” You throw your hands up in mock surrender, your eyes widen but that damn smirk doesn’t falter.

“Oh don’t fucking start with that again! You know that’s not who I am anymore, I’ve told you I’m sorry in every way I can possibly think of! I’m sorry I was a fucking dick! But I’m different now! You just - you bring out this side of me. You’re so fucking frustrating!” He runs his hands through his chestnut locks before dragging them down his face, letting out a deep sigh.

“If you’re soooo different why are there different girls coming in here every week whining because you didn’t call them back? Kind of sounds like a dick fucking move to me.”

“Why do you care? You’re constantly bringing that up. Like yeah Robin gives me shit about it but she’s just fucking with me, you’re actually mad. Are you… jealous?”

“Why the fuck would I be jealous Steve? I don’t even fucking like you as a person let alone am I romantically interested in you!!” You were pissed now, jealous? He has some fucking audacity to even think that, but to say it out loud?

“I don’t know, you seem kinda jealous to me. You’re always giving the girls I ask out dirty looks, with this pout on your lips. Also that gagging thing you do, I really would chalk it up to you actually thinking it’s gross but when Stacy came in demanding answers about why I didn’t call… you still glared, but you had this smirk on your lips, instead of a pout…” He takes a few steps closer, only leaving a foot between you. The air feels tense… but in a way it never has before.

“Oh my god, you are so fucking arrogant, Steve Harrington! You do realize not every single girl wants to fall at your feet, right? Grow up! We aren’t in highschool anymore!” You’re talking with your hands, your boot stomping against the ground as you yell at him.

“If we aren’t in highschool anymore than why can't you let this go!? You know I don’t really think that right? There was one girl I never thought wanted me… until right now.” He bites his lip, his eyes wandering your form. He takes a step closer to you so you’re chest to chest, his face is inches from yours and his hazel eyes are staring daggers into yours. But he notices you don’t back away, or push him off, you just glare right back.

“If you’re talking about me, you couldn’t be further off. I haven’t, won’t, and will never want you. You’re a fucking ass.” Your black manicured finger pokes at his chest and he grabs your smaller hand in his large one, holding it in place on his chest.

“Then why aren’t you moving?” You’ve never heard his voice this low and husky and it sent a shiver down your spine against your will.

“I-“ you try to come up with a reason, you really do, but you don’t know why you aren't moving, you just know you don’t want to. No matter how much your mind tries to protest, your body betrays you.

“You what? You don’t have an answer because you know it’s true… I can feel you shaking, baby.” The hand that isn’t holding yours comes up to cup your face, his thumb running over your lips. Baby? Fuck. You shouldn’t love that as much as you do. But right now you feel like you’d do anything to hear him say it again.

“Fuck it.”

You thread your fingers into his hair, pulling his lips against your own into a harsh kiss. You hate to admit that you’ve thought about kissing him before. But in your mind it was always this aggressive anger fueled thing and even though you pulled him into the kiss intending to do just that, the minute your lips touched it became tender. His lips were so soft, and he somehow tasted so sweet, every single nerve in your body felt like it was lit up. You suddenly understood all those cheesy romance movies that talked about “fireworks” when the characters finally kiss. It was the kind of kiss they describe when they teach you about soulmate bounds in school. But Steve couldn’t be your soulmate, could he? There’s no way. You push the thought from your mind for now, letting your body melt into his kiss.

His tongue swipes over your bottom lip and the kiss quickly becomes heated, his hands coming down to grab your hips harshly and yours pulling at his hair. You both moan into the kiss, your bodies pressed closely together, your thighs clenched and his cock starts to harden in his already tight jeans. Your body feels like it’s on fire everywhere he’s touching, those fireworks continuing to go off under your skin. His leg slides between your thighs and you subconsciously grind down on it. Your body searching for any sort of friction.

“Fuck. Stock room. Now.” Steve pulls back from the kiss, his eyes are filled with lust and his breathing is heavy. He uses his grip on your hips to spin you around, pulling your back against his chest and placing a kiss on your neck. “You want that pretty girl? Want me to fuck you?”

You don’t respond with words, you just pull away from him and start walking towards the back, not even sparing him a glance.

As soon as the stockroom door is shut, Steve is on you, harshly grabbing your hips to pull you against him, his mouth feverishly attacking yours. This kiss is different from the first, it’s desperate, hungry. Your arms loop around his shoulders, your hands traveling to the hairs at the nape of his neck and pulling. He moans into the kiss, his tongue exploring every inch of your mouth, almost like he’s trying to memorize it.

“Fuck, Steve. I need you.”

You break the kiss, looking up at him with lust filled eyes. He turns you, pushing your back up against one of the shorter shelves. He pushes your vest off, one of his hands traveling up your cropped shirt, finding you braless just like he thought he would. He gropes your tit, tweaking your sensitive nipple before moving onto the other one. His lips attack your neck and you’re sure there will be a mark or two you'd have to explain to Robin when you saw her. But right now you didn’t care. You need him everywhere.

“Yeah? You need me now? I thought you couldn’t stand me?”

Steve looked at you with a devilish smirk, his unoccupied hand finding the slit in your skirt, grazing over your upper thigh before traveling behind you to grab a handful of your ass. He ruts against you and you can feel his hard cock through his jeans. You palm him, causing him to groan into your throat, his breath sending tingles down your spine.

“I still can’t stand you Harrington, but right now, I need you to fuck me like you hate me.” You grab him through his jeans, moving your hand up and down his shaft to the best of your ability with the burrier in the way.

“Shit. Fuck. Take this the fuck off then.”

His fingers hook in the waistband of your skirt, the velvet feels soft on his skin and for a fleeting moment he imagines how it might feel against his cheek while he laid in your lap, your fingers in his hair in a more gentle way. He pushes the thought from his mind, giving you a questioning glance, you nod and he immediately pushes your skirt down your hips. It pools around your boots on the floor. He kneels down to pull it from your feet entirely, tossing it to the side.

He takes a moment to admire you. Your ass pressed up against the shelf, your shirt is askew, hanging off your shoulder where you cut the collar to make it more low cut, the bright red lacy thong you’re wearing sits perfectly on your curves, and those god damn platform boots that drive him crazy. Your hairs a bit disheveled and your black painted lips are kiss swollen, some of your shiny black lipgloss smeared around your mouth. You’re so frustratingly beautiful, he just wants to eat you alive. You lean down to take your boots off but Steve stops you, grabbing your wrist to pull you back into a standing position.

“Keep them on” he practically growls at you, sending heat rushing through your whole body. Who would’ve thought King Steve would want to fuck a girl in giant goth boots? His large hands grab you roughly flipping you over so your hips are pressed up against the waist high shelf. He pushes your back down so you're bent over it. Leaving a harsh smack on your ass. “Look at this pretty little ass, bet your pussy is just as pretty, huh?”

His fingers run up your clothed slit, looping in the strings of your panties before pushing them down to your ankles. You hear him taking his shirt off and you peer over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of his bare chest. You hadn’t seen him shirtless since highschool and he had definitely matured. His chest now covered in a patch of dark hair, his shoulders broader, his stomach is a little less toned since he doesn’t play sports anymore but it’s honestly sexier that way to you. A moan leaves your lips when his fingers return to your core, gathering up the wetness between your lips, he brings his slick fingers to your clit, circling it.

“Steeeveee, stop fucking teasing me and do som-“ you’re cut off by a harsh smack on your ass, causing you to jolt forward and moan.

“Quit with the fucking attitude or I’m not giving you shit, I’ll walk out of here right now.” Two more smacks land on your opposite ass cheek before two large fingers are being shoved knuckle deep into your pussy. You’re so wet they slide right in. He immediately finds your sweet spot, rubbing the pads of his fingers against it before thrusting his fingers in and out of you roughly. “You’re awfully wet for someone who can’t stand me baby, maybe you don’t like me, but your pussy does.”

“Fuck - fuck Steve, your fi - fingers are so fucking good.” Your eyes roll back, your hips pushing against his hand on their own accord. No one had ever gotten you so close to the edge this fast, but Steve was making you crumble in mere minutes, on just his thick fingers alone. His thumb comes down to rub quick circles on your clit and you think that’s it, you feel yourself about to fall over the edge when suddenly he pulls his fingers out, leaving you feeling empty. “What the fuck! I was about to cum you asshole!!”

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you like I hate you? Only girls I like get to cum, unless they beg for it.” You hear his belt buckle clinking behind you, and god do you wish you could see his cock right now. It felt so big through his jeans and you know it has to be beautiful. Even though you can’t see it you feel him run his tip through your dripping folds. “I’m gonna fuck you so good, you’ll be begging before you know it. I know you’re gonna say some shit like ‘keep dreaming, Harrington’ but I don’t wanna hear it. I just wanna hear you beg for me.”

You’re prepared to give him a snide come back but it’s erased from your mind when you feel the head of his cock start to slide inside you. He pushes it in and out a few times and for a second you think he’s gonna go slow, you’re about to complain but you’re cut off by the moan that leaves your lips when he shoves his cock halfway inside you in one thrust. He’s big, but the stretch feels so fucking good and you’re so wet that he’s sliding so perfectly inside you. You want to feel all of him, you push your hips back so his cock slides fully inside you. He lets you bounce back against him a few times before he’s grabbing your hips, fucking into you at a brutal pace.

“Oh shit, Steve!” You moan loudly, your hands gripping onto the shelf for purchase as he thrusts into you over and over again. You’re sure your hips will be bruised, from not only the shelf digging into them but also the hard grasp he has on you. The thought of being marked up by him stirs something inside you that you try not to dwell on.

“This pussy feels so fucking good, you’re gripping me so good baby, so fucking tight. Like it was made for me.”

His hand comes up to grab onto your hair, pulling your head until your back is flushed against his chest. The new angle has him hitting deeper than before, his cock hitting your sweet spot over and over again. The hand not in your hair grabs onto your tits harshly, pulling and pinching your nipples as he continues his brutal pace. You’re a moaning mess, drool starting to drip down your chin, and you’re already so close to cumming it’s almost embarrassing.

“Fuuuuck oh my - oh my fucking godddd.” Your eyes roll back as Steve lets go of the grip on your hair, quickly grabbing you by the throat before you can fall forward. His other hand reaches down to your clit, rubbing fast circles on it.

“You’re close already, huh? I can feel it, I can feel your pussy squeezing my cock. You wanna cum? Beg. Beg me to cum, or I’ll stop fucking you.” He growls in your ear, never letting up on his thrusts.

“No - I - I’m - fuck! Just let me cum, don’t be a fucking dick Steve!!” His pace slows, he shoves his cock deep inside you and then stops moving entirely. One hand is still around your throat and the other is pressing down on your clit but no longer moving.

“I said beg. I’ll pull out and jerk off right here in front of you. Now be a good girl and beg me to cum.”

“God fucking damn it. Steve! Fucking please? Please let me cum? Keep fucking me please? Just wanna cum on your big cock! I can’t take it anymore! Please make me cum!” You didn’t want it to come out that whiny, but once you started begging it was like you couldn’t stop. You need him to keep fucking you.

“Good fucking girl, that wasn’t so hard was it?” He releases his grip on your throat pushing on your back so your top half is flat against the shelf again. He grips your hips harshly as he resumes fucking into you harder and faster than before. “This is all you needed to ditch that attitude, huh? Needed to be fucked so good? Put in your place?”

“Yes - yeah - fuuuckkkk feels so fucking good I -“

His fingers find your clit again and that’s it for you. Your orgasm crashes over you like a flood. It racks through your entire body, making you see stars. The feeling of your walls tightening around his cock and the sounds you’re making as your high washes over you sends Steve over the edge too. He cums hard, his cock nestled deep inside you as he fills you.

“Shit. Fuck.” Steve pants, pulling out of you and stepping back a few inches so he can watch his cum drip from your pussy. “Wish I could keep you like this, all fucked out and dripping with my cum. Too cock drunk to give me an attitude.”

You feel his fingers caress your overly sensitive lips, gathering the cum that dripped out, he shoves his fingers inside you before leaning down to pull your panties back up your legs.

“Now you have to go home stuffed full of me, when you take your panties off you won’t be able to help but think of me.” You can hear the smirk in his voice and it makes you roll your eyes. You turn around to face him, giving him a death glare. “Look at me like that all you want, I’m not going to forget you were begging me to cum less than five minutes ago.”

“Oh my god, you’re so annoying.” You roll your eyes again, but this time when you say it you laugh, and there’s a glimmer in your eyes that’s still teasing, but lighter. It gives Steve hope.

“Whaaateeever you say, baby.”

He smirks at you, sending you a wink before turning around to find his discarded shirt. You take a moment to admire his back. Broad and covered in moles that you want to connect with your fingers, maybe even your lips. His jeans fit so perfectly on his ass, and his shoulders… wait. You pause, your mouth dropping open as you catch sight of his shoulder. You almost think your mind is playing tricks on you, you wish it was. But there clear as day on his left upper shoulder are two simple red spider lilies. A mark that matches the one on your ribs exactly. Steve Harrington, King Steve, the bane of your existence… was your soulmate.

This could not be happening. No way. Absolutely not. You grab your skirt, pulling it on in a frenzy. Steve turns to look at you right as you are pulling up the zipper with a panicked look on your face.

“Hey, it’s okay, are you okay? I’m sorry for teasing you I-“

“I gotta go. I - uh - I just gotta go. I’m sorry.”

You can’t even think straight, you can’t be near him right now. You need to think and the smell of him and the way his hands feel on your forearms is clouding your thoughts and you just need to go. You spare him a sad glance before pulling your arms from his grasp. You grab your bag from under the counter and run out of the building towards your car. You slam the door closed once you’re inside, your breathing is labored and your mind feels like someone put it in a blender. You shove the keys in the ignition, regretting your decision to peak back at the building before pulling out. Steve was standing in the front window, a confused look on his face as he watched you pull away. He was beautiful, and frustrating, and he was your goddamn soulmate. Fuck.

[kennahjune]

Thinking of Steddie Soulmates where you feel every pain your soulmate feels.

Thinking of little Steve feeling every backhand and punch from Eddie’s dad.

Thinking of little Eddie feeling Steve break his arm and the pain being so much worse because his parents refuse to take him to the hospital until the school gets involved.

Thinking of Eddie finally moving in with Wayne and sure, the paternal beating are done, but now he’s just a small town Freak that’s constantly targeted.

Thinking of Eddie and Steve in their Sophomore/Freshman years respectively, not knowing who the other is outside of rumors and (unknowingly) their shared pain.

Thinking of Eddie finally escaping pain, the bullying turning to mainly verbal shit.

Only to be thrust right back into pain because his soulmates a walking hazard.

Thinking of Eddie having no idea what’s going on when he suddenly feels like one giant bruise after Steve’s beat up by Jonathan. Eddie watching Steve fall from grace in his Junior year and not connecting the dots.

Billy coming along and smashing a fucking plate over Steve’s head while Eddie’s peacefully sleeping. Eddie jolting awake with a shout because /holy fucking shit ow—/

Neither of them connecting the dots.

Then Steve graduates, and Eddie’s held back. And the pain subsides for a bit.

And then fuck all happens in Starcourt and Eddie literally feels like he’s dying and Jesus H. Christ is his soulmate /ok/??? Like they are getting seriously fucked up.

And then that recedes and it ok for a while— Eddie will still get killer pains that seem to circulate in his chest and head, but that’s to be expected with whatever tf his poor soulmate is going through year after year.

And then the fuckery of March 1986 happens and Chrissy Cunningham is dead in his trailer— his home— and he’s wanted for fucking murder and hiding in Rick’s dingy ass boat house—

And then he’s shoving none other than Steve Harrington up against a wall with a broken bottle helps to his throat. Eddie’s so piped on adrenaline he barely feels the sting in his back, but he does feel the zing of pressure on his throat and ok /ow—/

And he’s staring at Steve Harrington, who looks kinda terrified and so pretty and Eddie’s holding a bottle to his throat and is that Dustin?—

And—

And holy shit.

Eddie’s eyes widen at the same time as Steve’s and the realization hits them both at once.

[batsbratsandbarbedwire]

Steddie soulmate au where your soulmate's favorite song constantly plays in your head.

How long til Steve's like "why is there always screaming?"

Eddie stomping on tables doing his little non-conformist dance with, like, Springsteen's I'm on Fire on loop in his brain.

Steve's concussions, the headaches, the chaos. He's alone in the dark, trying to sound out what the screams are saying to distract himself from the pain.

Eddie's got The Beachboys and ABBA and Springsteen cassettes hidden under his mattress because once you're a little boy who wasn't loved, even reformed under the unconditional love of Wayne Munson, you don't take love for granted at all, and he'll be damned if he's not gunna know everything about anything his soulmate loved.

Steve keeping little pencil mark tallies on the corner of his desk at home for how many times a week the song in his head changes.

An Iron Maiden song Eddie loved for a day catches for some reason, and he hears it back in his own head for the next two weeks and he's fucking giddy with it.

Steve fixated, gets really good at deciphering the screams, knows the full lyrics of every song by the end of the first night he hears them. Keeps him company at home.

Once, Eddie's picking Dustin up from Steve's. Steve waits out on the driveway with Dustin, talking shit and fucking off, Eddie pulls up. When Dustin climbs in, he shuts the door, windows are down, Steve pokes his head in to acknowledge Eddie, hears the song. It's been on loop in his head for three days. He knows every word. They don't always catch for that long. He looks up at Eddie. Blinks.

Eddie's caught for a second, by the look on Steve's face. Dustin's shuffling through his bag, looking for a miniature he wants to show Eddie, but Steve's lips quirk up a little. And then he says, "doubt sunk itself in you, it's teeth and talons through, you're living catch two two, deluding."

Steve watches Eddie's eyes flick to his radio, then back to Steve.

"This ones lasted a few days?" Steve says quietly.

Eddie's eyes drop to Dustin, then back up to Steve. He grins. "Modern witchhunt, mass hysteria. Fits, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve smiles. "Little bit."

Dustin pulls out his figure, starts rambling to Eddie, pauses, nods and says "later, Steve," before he's on about his figure again, talking a mile a minute.

Eddie laughs. He leans over the console. Grins innocently at Steve. He taps his temple. "We'll talk about why this caught you later, big boy."

Steve's warm as he watches the van full off. The song in his head doesn't change for another two weeks.

[eddiethebrave]

steddie empath soulmate au

When Steve was younger, he had trouble separating what he was feeling from what he wasn’t. A lot of people do at that age. When you can tap into another person’s emotions, it’s hard to know the difference between theirs and your own. 

In school, they give a very quick, very unhelpful lesson on soulmates - only really saying what kids have heard on their own anyway. It’s unspoken that you’re supposed to learn about that kind of thing from your parents - and most of his peers did. 

In his house though, mentioning your soulmate was discouraged. Steve was expected to have a hold over his emotions and just know what it took other kids years and the help of their parents to learn. He was supposed to have a wall. He was supposed to be able to shut the door on his own. He was to know the difference between what he was feeling and what he wasn’t. And for all his parents knew, he did all of that from a young age. 

What Steve had done from a young age was learn how to hide what he was and wasn’t feeling. Like right now. Right now he’s giving his date a ride home from Lucas’ championship game while simultaneously feeling the most scared he both has and hasn’t ever felt. 

He thinks now he understands better what people mean when they say you can just tell when your feelings aren’t your own. For the first time in his life, Steve knows immediately that this emotion doesn’t belong to him. For one, there’s no reason he should be scared to death while driving Brenda home, and he hasn’t felt this scared since July. For two, there is absolutely no way there’s alternate dimension shit happening right now. That shit is supposed to be over with. Then again, that’s what they’ve thought since that first time with the Demogorgon, too. That time also happens to be the first time he felt fear like this. 

It’s such a crash from the high he’s been riding all evening. Everything was exciting and good for a few hours there. 

With shaky hands, he pulls up in front of Brenda’s parent’s house. He can tell that she’s trying to make conversation, maybe expecting more from the end of their night - but he can hardly focus enough to make himself seem at least a little bit like he’s not about to cry. He stumbles his way through a goodbye, not knowing what’s happening and before he knows it he’s alone. 

Usually, Steve would walk her to the door and probably make a move on her. At the very least he’d watch to make sure she got in safe, but right now he drives away the second the passenger door closes. 

He feels an overwhelming urgency to go go go. And he does. Steve drives faster than he ever has - barring the time he saw Billy’s Camaro speeding towards Nancy’s station wagon and t-boned the boy without a second thought. 

He gets home, and for the first time in months, he opens his trunk and takes out his nail-bat. He makes quick work of getting inside his house and locking the door, looking over his shoulder the entire time. He goes around the whole house making sure all the doors and windows are locked. When he’s checking the back door - the one that leads out to the pool, he hesitates, eyes lingering on the woods that line his yard. 

Before ‘83 - before Barb - Steve wasn’t afraid of much. He felt like he was on top of the world and like nothing could bring him down. Now, though, he only goes to the backyard to complete the yard maintenance expected from him by his parents. 

Steve knows that locking the place up won’t fend off a Demogorgan - that thing came right out of the Byers’ wall, no door necessary - but it makes him feel the tiniest bit better, more secure. 

He makes his way upstairs and stumbles through getting ready for bed - as if he’ll be getting any sleep tonight. 

He knows, okay? He knows that these probably aren’t his feelings and that there’s no need to be this revved up, but he can feel it. His heart is pounding and he knows deep in his bones that he isn’t safe. 

It’s not until he lies in bed that an immense sense of grief and guilt flows over him. Steve curls up, pulling his knees to his chest, and tries not to cry.

[hairmetal666]

TW for internalized homophobia and related bad decisions

Steve is 12 and he thinks about finding his soulmate all the time.

You're supposed to find them through touch; your life together will flash in front of your eyes. They're rare, though, soulmates. So rare that most people never find theirs. So rare that some people say they're made up.

Steve wants to be one of the lucky few. He wants it to be a true, unbreakable bond, a love he gets to have forever.

He wonders if he'll find his soulmate at school. He's popular, he thinks. Tommy would say they were popular. But Tommy's definition of popular mostly has to do with the number of kids he can get away with being mean to, and that's not really Steve's deal. Tommy is like a prey animal, the way he can find weaknesses.

There's a new boy at school. Steve doesn't know his name, but they have English together. He's too thin, with huge brown eyes, and all his clothes are too big. His head's been inexpertly shaved and he never looks anybody in the eye. It's only a matter of time before he catches Tommy's interest, and Steve wishes he could stop it somehow, but he's never been good at going against Tommy.

The day comes, of course. They're standing in the hall, the new boy walking towards them, head down, as always. Tommy nudges Steve says, "What a loser."

And Steve shrugs, starts to ask Tommy about football, if the Colts can make the Super Bowl, but the boy is nearing and Tommy is cackling.

"Watch this." Tommy sticks his foot out.

The boy doesn't react fast enough. He falls forward with a bitten off yelp, and Steve moves without really thinking, only knows he can't stand to see him fall. He catches the new kid beneath his armpits, Steve's thumbs brushing the soft skin his arms.

The world around him falls away at the touch.

---

He's sitting on the floor in the band room, Eddie--the boy's name is Eddie--next to him. Eddie's hair is a little longer and Steve's in a green polo he doesn't recognize, and he's never been in the band room in his life. They're leaning into each other and laughing and Eddie's so beautiful.

---

They're in the woods--Skull Rock, Steve thinks. Eddie's hair is curled and frizzed around his chin, and he's laughing, his cheeks pink, his dimples prominent. He tries to pull his hair in front of his face, but it's not long enough yet to reach. Steve is overwhelmed, wants to kiss him so bad. He's never had to wait to kiss someone, or been unsure, or--

He wants to kiss Eddie.

So, he does.

It's hard, desperate, not the first kiss Steve expected, but then they've been waiting for so long.

---

Steve stands in the hallway of Hawkins High. He's wearing a striped, beige short-sleeved polo, and flirting with Nancy Wheeler.

He likes Nancy, she's pretty and smart and fun. And it's easy. He can hold her hand. Can introduce her to his parents. Can take her on dates and kiss her in public.

She bats her big blue eyes at him, and he can't help but kiss her.

He pulls away gently, brushing his thumb against her cheek, and when he looks down the hall, Eddie is there, frozen. His mouth is wide, his eyes glassy.

Steve thinks the way his heart stutters must be what dying feels like.

---

He's sitting on his diving board, facing away from the pool. He smokes a cigarette and there's a bat studded with nails at his feet, what the fuck. Music thuds, shrieks and laughter seep into the cool night air.

He should be playing the gracious host. He should be having a good time. Instead, his eyes search the woods and he taps another smoke out of the pack.

"Harrington?" The voice makes him jump, hand flexing around the bat handle. "It's freezing out. What are you doing?"

He recognizes the voice now, doesn't turn, doesn't respond, can't stand to see another person he let down; another person who could call him bullshit and be 100% correct.

"Do you not have a jacket? C'mon, man."

Something warm settles over his shoulders, and he inadvertently breathes in weed and leather and cedar. He squeezes his eyes shut, like that will make the comforting, familiar scent go away. He'll have to move to shrug off the jacket, though, which would mean acknowledging Eddie's presence.

"Can you at least say something, Harrington? You're freaking me out."

"I'm fine, Ed--Eddie." The nickname falls from his lips too easily. He doesn't miss how Eddie flinches.

His hair is long now, down to his shoulders, brittle looking in the cold. He's wearing a t-shirt and worn flannel, arms wrapped around his chest for warmth now that his jacket is draped over Steve's shoulders.

Steve is an idiot. He's such an idiot. Chasing after Nancy when Eddie is--

"I'm sorry," he says. He turns to face his soulmate, then. "I'm sorry about Nancy, I--"

Eddie jerks back like he's been hit. "Fuck you, Harrington," he snarls.

---

He sits in the back of an ambulance, eyes swollen shut, face throbbing. He's wearing a sailor suit for inexplicable reasons, which is almost more upsetting than the ambulance. He smells like puke and something toxically sweet.

A girl is with him, one he doesn't recognize, but he feels deeply, instinctively protective of her. He holds her shaking shoulders tight, tries to whisper comfort to her through his busted and bleeding mouth.

He's pretty sure he has a concussion.

"Steve!" Someone screams over the sounds of the EMTs and firefighters, of the building burning and collapsing behind them.

Eddie bursts through the gathered onlookers and past the ring of police cars enclosing them. He's falling into the ambulance before Steve has a chance to react.

"Sweetheart," Eddie sobs. He tries to cup Steve's face, but his fingers flutter around the damage. "Sweetheart, oh my god. I came as soon as I heard. Are you--what can I--"

Steve stares at him--his hair falling from its messy bun, his cutoff Metallica tee, concern and love leaking from those brown, brown eyes--and bursts into tears.

---

They sit on the roof of his house, sharing a joint back and forth. It's chilly, bordering on cold, winter just on the horizon. They're laughing, leaning into each other, and Steve is--he's happy. Elated. Could float away with it.

Robin--Robin-- is in the bathroom, or maybe in the kitchen for snacks, and it's just them for now. They're looking at each other, smiles wide, eyes bright.

They're taking it slow. Steve knows it's important, after what he did. They talked about it, his abandoning of Eddie for Nancy, chasing what his dad told him was normal and expected.

He doesn't want to cross any boundaries, wants to do this right. How Eddie deserves. But they're leaning into each other and they're smiling, and he's so in love. Intoxicated with it, lost.

In the end, he doesn't know who makes the first move, just that they're kissing and it's like coming home.

---

He's in a building, a shed or something. It's musty and dirty, smells like oil and gasoline and a building left closed up too long. Eddie's in his arms and he's talking through hiccuping sobs.

"I didn't save her, Steve. I didn't help. I just left her there! She was broken in pieces and I--I--"

Steve holds him close, tight, squeezes his eyes closed to stop his own tears from falling. He never wanted this for Eddie, never wanted him involved. Thought he could protect him from all of Hawkins's terrible things.

They aren't alone. Robin is there, coming up to hold Eddie too, plus a redheaded girl and curly haired boy he doesn't recognize.

"We'll figure this out, Eddie." The boy promises.

"We won't let anyone hurt you. We know you didn't murder Chrissy," the girl says.

---

Steve is in a world he doesn't understand, and Eddie is his arms. Eddie is in his arms, and there's blood everywhere. He's not awake, he's not--his heart beat is soft and slow, too slow, and his breathing stutters, and Steve can't--

"Baby, stay with me." He begs as he runs across the dead and rotting landscape. "Eddie, please. Wake up, okay? Wake up for me. I need to--I need to know that you're alright."

Eddie stays limp in his arms.

"Please," he begs. "You can't leave me. We promised, remember? We promised we'd be together forever. The rest of our lives. Me and You. Our six little nuggets. You promised."

The portal back to Hawkins is less than a dozen feet away, he's so close. Eddie gasps to consciousness, but his eyes are still hazy.

"Hi, sweetheart," he mumbles.

"Hey, hi, you're doing so good. We're almost out, okay? We're almost out and we'll get you to the hospital."

Eddie reaches out a weak hand, touches the edge of Steve's jaw. "Love you, Stevie," he whispers. "Glad you were mine."

He goes still in Steve's hold.

---

The images come faster now--

A hospital room at Hawkins General, Eddie hooked to machines. Steve holds hands with an older man. They wait in terrified silence

Eddie propped in a bed, a bunch of kids around him, Steve and Robin at his side. His eyes keep sliding to Steve, like he's making sure Steve's real, that he's still there

Their bodies tangled together in a bedroom Steve doesn't recognize

Steve down on one knee in a marble room lit only by black and red candles, Eddie standing in front of him

Hand-in-hand on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The Chief of Police, Jim Hopper, stands in front of them with tears in his eyes and a beaming smile on his face

In a big, green yard behind a cozy little house. A little boy with Eddie's eyes and curls riding on his shoulders. Eddie sprinting around with a tiny girl giggling after him, perfect imitation of the King Steve hair-do on her tiny head

In a park, surrounded by family and friends. Steve has a little bit of a paunch and wears glasses. Eddie's hair streams around his shoulders, going grey at the temples. There's a banner strung between trees proclaiming 'Happy 20th Steve and Eddie!' They're surrounded by everyone they love and it's perfect

---

The images flash too fast for Steve to catalog after that, seconds-long glimpses of a shared future, and then he's back in his body in the hallway of Hawkins Middle, still holding too tight onto Eddie's arms.

Eddie rears back, face pale and terrified, and Steve is too shocked to do anything but let him go.

Tommy's yelling, but Steve only has eyes for his soulmate, who scrambles to his feet and throws himself down the hall away from them.

"What the hell, Harrington? Why'd you catch him? That was about to be funny as hell! I bet he'd have broken his nose--you ruined it!"

Steve isn't listening. He's trying to hold on to the memories of their life together, the ones that are already fading.

The last thing he remembers is that, sometime in the not-too-distant future, he'll find his way to the band room, Eddie Munson, and the rest of their lives.

[little-bumblebeeee]

*Eddie receiving nudes from Steve*

Eddie: these are high quality tf?? Ain't no way your phone took these pictures did you get a photoshoot done??

Steve: Robin helped

Eddie: fuck you mean "Robin helped"??????

[meltedredweasels]

I kinda want a soulmate AU where on your eighteenth birthday your soulmates last name appears somewhere on your body

But in this universe Steve gets adopted by Hopper and changes his last name after high school

On his eighteenth birthday Eddie finds Hopper written on his neck and is so confused because the only Hoppers he knows are, the chief of police (who’s almost busted him for drug dealing multiple times not to mention several years older) and his daughter (who is much younger and definitely not his type (guys))

Steve has Munson written on his hip and he knows it’s probably Eddie but he doesn’t bring it up because Eddie probably hates him for who he was in high school

Then one night post Vecna they’re in the back of Eddie’s van out by the quarry and they get on the subject of soulmarks and Eddie asks about Steve’s

(Because he’s been slowly falling in love the last few months and even though it won’t be his name on Steve he still needs to know who the lucky person who has Steve as a soulmate is)

And Steve goes quiet

Eddie’s just about to start apologizing and backtracking when Steve pulls up the hem of his shirt

Munson

Right on his hip in deep red letters

Eddie just stares trying not to let his feelings show

“What’s the matter”

Unable to come up with words Eddie moves his own hair and twists his neck to show Steve his soulmark

“Oookay, why is this a problem?”

Finally Eddie can’t take it anymore

“Because it’s Hopper and not Harrington! Because the only Hoppers I know are the chief and El, and it’s definitely not either of them! Because I wanted it to be you! Because I love you!”

By now Eddie’s full on crying and Steve’s comfort instincts take over and he pulls him onto his lap rocking him back and forth until his sobs dissolve into hiccups

“Would this be a good time to tell you that Hop adopted me and my last name is no longer Harrington?”

[unfinishedslurs]

gay bar (steddie)

“Well, well, well,” says a voice from behind. “Steeeeeeve Harrington. I must be dreaming.”

Steve turns around to see a guy, dressed in black and chains. Rings decorating his fingers, studs in his ears, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. He’s hot, yeah, but something about him has Steve squinting, trying to figure out why he looks so familiar. 

“I know you from somewhere,” he says, pointing out the obvious. The guy knows his name.

The not-a-stranger snorts. “Of course you don’t remember me. Why would the likes of King Steve stoop to—“

As soon as the nickname leaves his mouth, Steve’s brain lights up. “Munson!” He exclaims, snapping his fingers. “You used to climb on the lunch tables to give speeches.”

It was so obnoxious, too. The kind of thing that had him and Robin reminiscing late at night, celebrating some of the weirder shit about Hawkins that didn’t come from monsters, or Russians, or government conspiracy. Remember that one asshole? Yeah, he stepped on my lunch one time!

Condolences to Robin’s pb&j. She never sat at that table again.

Munson’s whole face turns pink. “Seriously? That’s what you remember?”

“It was pretty fucking memorable, dude. Like, gross, doesn’t this guy know not to put his feet where people eat? Dustin thought you were so cool for it too. I had to nip that in the bud before he started imitating you or some shit.”

“Oh,” he says, voice gone flat. “Because God forbid some poor kid try to immolate the freak.”

Steve gives him his bitchiest, most deadpan stare. “Feet,” he says slowly. “Nasty, fifteen year old boy feet. On my kitchen table. He almost slipped and cracked his skull, and I would have sent you the hospital bill.”

He had to get creative to make him stop, too. Stood there, hands on his hips, and made Dustin tell him exactly how many germs he thought were on his shoes. Then when he tried to do it barefoot, decided the only course of action was to stuff Dustin’s abandoned sock in his mouth and ask if he wanted that shit with every meal. Erica still has the photos. 

Munson has the decency to look embarrassed, face flooding an even brighter red that wouldn’t be out of place in a tomato patch. “What are you even doing here, Harrington?”

What does he think Steve’s doing here? It’s a fucking gay bar, it’s pretty self explanatory. “My friend is here somewhere,” he says, waving out at the crowd of people. “She’s going through a dry spell, so…”

“Right,” Munson says. Steve squints at him. Does he look disappointed?

Eh. Doesn’t matter. 

“You gave my kids the best freshman year of their nerdy little lives,” he tells him, because he knows Dustin would want him to. Plus, the guy was Mike’s gay awakening. He should probably get some credit. “So thanks for that.”

He lights up. “Yeah! How was Hellfire in my absence?”

“I had to hear them bitch and moan for months about how it ‘wasn’t the same,’ but it’s doing pretty all right. Erica Sinclair is running it now.”

“Erica Sinclair…” Munson mutters, snapping his fingers. “Lucas Sinclair’s little sister? Lady Applejack?” He beams when Steve nods. “She kicked ass. Best finish to a campaign my entire high school career. How’s Lucas, anyway? And the rest of the runts.”

“He’s doing great,” Steve says. “College basketball at Yale. Pretty sure he’s dying under the workload, but that’s what you get for majoring in physics. Dustin’s at MIT, and Mike’s taking a gap year.”

He whistles lowly. “Yeesh, I don’t blame him. How about Byers?”

“Which one?”

“Zombie boy.” Steve’s hackles raise, but Munson just grins. “God, that nickname was badass.”

“How do you even know about that?”

Munson taps the side of his nose. “A magician never reveals his secrets. Besides, all it took for you to remember me was calling you by your high school nickname.”

“That wasn’t my nickname.” Steve rolls his eyes. “Literally three people ever actually called me that, and you were one of them.”

He has a feeling it was Tommy who started it, bitter and vicious. Told himself Steve was self possessed, high and mighty, above it all. That’s why he left his old friends behind. Not because he was in love, or because he wanted to be better. No, King Steve just sits alone in his castle, looking down on the peasants with contempt. 

Billy must have taken his angry ramblings and run with them. After all, what better way to get a start in a new town than declaring yourself royalty? Never mind that Steve hadn’t cared about anything like that for almost a year by then. 

Munson had just been a drama-loving asshole. 

“That can’t be right.”

“I stopped being popular in junior year. Why the hell would anyone call a sophomore King?” Steve points out. 

“You were Prom King.”

“Again, in junior year. Pickings were slim. Who else would it have been? Tommy?” He has to laugh. 

Luckily, Munson takes the hint and swerves the conversation into new territory. “You know, I always figured you’d be homophobic.”

Steve snorts. “What, and get kicked out for nothing?”

Munson stares at him, and Steve furrows his brow, looking into his glass like it will have the answer to why the hell he said that to this guy he barely knows. He just decided he wasn’t going to spill all his daddy issues to a near-stranger in a dingy bar, dammit. Is he already on his fifth drink?

Actually, this might be his sixth. That tracks. 

“What?”

“My dad caught me kissing a boy,” he says. If he’s going to give Munson his life story, he might as well commit. “Can you believe that boy ruined my life in three different ways? Two of them didn’t even have anything to do with the gay thing.” 

Maybe four ways, if you accounted for the way he broke his goddamn heart, but everyone and their mother saw that coming a mile away. Even Steve. Especially Steve. 

No offense to Jonathan. None of those things were really his fault. Or actually life ruining, but it sure fucking felt like it at the time. 

He should give him a call soon, actually, see how he and Argyle are doing. He misses the guy. Maybe he and Robin should save up for a visit to Cali. Get Nancy on it. They could see San Francisco while they were there, that’d be cool. Apparently it was the queer capital of the country. 

He’s thinking about asking the bartender for a napkin and a pen to write down the plans he’s forming when Munson speaks up again. Steve honestly forgot he was here. 

“I thought you said you were here for a friend.”

What?” Steve blinks, confused, and then catches on. “Yeah, to get her laid. I’m not in the mood right now.”

Munson cocks an eyebrow. “Wearing that? Could’ve fooled me.”

Steve looks down at his Springsteen T-Shirt that Robin cropped, and picks at the frayed hem of his shorts. Okay, yeah, they’re on the skimpy side, but in his defense it’s summer and even if he’s not cruising Steve likes being looked at. “Yeah, yeah. What about you? Here for anything in particular?”

“Just to talk to some pretty boys,” Munson says, leaning on the bar to flag down the bartender. Steve smirks, reaching out a hand to tug at the hanky in his back pocket. Pinned, damn. 

Munson whirls around, a flush starting to crawl onto his ears. 

“Wearing that?” Steve echos snarkily. “Could’ve fooled me.”

He swears that for a minute Munson’s eyes darken. 

He’s almost tempted to follow through, high school reputation be damned, when someone crashes into his side and nearly sends him careening. 

“Steeeeeve,” Robin yells happily into his ear. “This is Bernie, she’s gonna take me home, see you la—oh, hi!” She says, noticing Munson. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Eddie Munson,” Munson greets. “Steve and I went to high school together.”

“Munson! That’s it, you climbed on tables and had shit music. I’m Robin. Okay, I’ll call the apartment and leave a message when we get there. Bernie’s waiting on me, it’s-nice-to-meet-you-bye!” Just like that, she’s gone. 

Munson’s mouth has dropped open. “You told her I had shit music?” He demands. “Wait, you talked about me?”

“She went to school with us, dumbass,” he says, as if he can talk. He still barely remembers her as more than a vague, glowering figure in his peripheral. “It’s not my fault you blasted your screamy music for everyone in the parking lot. Such a fucking headache, God.”

Munson turns his nose up. “Sorry for having offended your jock sensibilities.”

“Oh, I don’t play anymore,” he says, and knocks on his head. “Concussions, yanno. Apparently brain damage will fuck you up. Who knew?”

“What, like the fight you had with Byers? He did you that bad?”

“He did me just fine,” Steve blurts out, before he can stop himself. Munson chokes. “Shit, sorry, I’m kind of a horny drunk.” Weird thing to say, Steve. “Also, I cannot stress enough how much I needed to be punched in the face. It was a monumental moment for me, you know. Started me on the path for changing my entire worldview. Plus, he was my first guy crush.” He swirls his empty glass, lost in thought, before brightening up. “I should call him!”

Munson is staring at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish. 

“What?”

“You’re drunk.”

“Well, yeah. Duh.”

“I should probably stop you from booty-calling the guy who punched you in the face.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “It wouldn’t be a booty-call,” he says. “He and Argyle are happy together, man. I’m not gonna ruin that.”

“Oh, so you’d call him because…”

“I call him all the time,” Steve says, confused as to why this is such a big deal. “We’re friends.”

“Jonathan!” He yells happily into the pay phone. Munson is standing to the side, looking on in annoyance. Whatever, it’s not like Steve asked him to do this. “Jonathan, man, how are you?”

“…Steve?”

“Yeah!”

“It’s like…” he hears something clatter in the background, like Jonathan is looking for something, “two in the morning there. You okay?”

“I’m doing great!” He exclaims. “How about you? It’s been ages, man, I miss you.”

“This is so fucking weird,” Munson whispers behind him. Steve ignores him. 

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” he says. “Well, maybe a little. Do you not miss me too?” He pouts, and Jonathan sighs loud enough he hears it over the phone. 

“I just talked to you yesterday.”

Steve frowns. “Yesterday? That can’t be right, it’s been, like, forever. Oh, hey, have you heard from Nance lately? How’s your mom? I love your mom, she’s so fucking cool. Does she know I think she’s cool? How’s Will? It’s been so long, is he taller than me yet? How’s Argyle doing with his degree? I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, Steve.”

“Awww, Byers, getting soppy on me? Gross, man.”

“You literally just—yeah, okay. Are you alone?”

“Nah, I’ve got this guy with me, he’s walking me home. Oh! Dude, do you remember Munson?”

“Munson?”

“Yeah, Eddie Munson! From high school! The one who used to climb on tables and shit, remember him?”

“Jesus Christ,” Munson groans. “Please let that die.”

“No one is dying,” Steve informs him seriously, and turns back to the phone. Munson sighs. 

“Wasn’t he a drug dealer?”

“Yes! Yeah, drug dealer Munson! Did you ever buy from him?” He turns to where Munson is looking around furtively. “Did Jonathan ever buy from you?”

“How about we not talk about this here,” Munson says through gritted teeth. Steve sighs and turns back to the phone. 

“Never mind, he says he doesn’t want to talk about that. Not like we can judge him, but whatever. Maybe the guy’s turned into a prude—“

“Okay, give me that.” Munson wrestles the phone out of his hand, and Steve whines at him. “Hey, Byers,” Munson says. “Yeah, it’s Eddie. Or Munson. Whatever. Listen, I’m getting kind of sick of standing here watching Harrington slobber all over the receiver, can he call you tomorrow? What? No, I don’t sell anymore—yeah, total bummer, whatever. Listen, I’ll get him home safe—no, I’m not going to serial murder him. He’s gonna be fine, he’ll call you tomorrow—Nancy Wheeler? Like that girl he dated? Didn’t you—shoot me? Jesus, okay! I’m not gonna kill the guy, Christ. He’s gonna be fine, oh my God. He’ll call you tomorrow. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Bye.” He slams the phone into its holder with more than a little contempt. 

“Hey!” Steve protests. “You didn’t let me say bye.”

“You can call him tomorrow and apologize,” Munson says. “Now c’mon, Harrington. I’ve been tasked with getting you home safe, and if I fail, apparently Nancy fucking Wheeler is going to shoot me in the balls.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s really hot when she does that,” Steve says fondly, and Munson splutters. 

“What, does Wheeler just go around shooting people? Does she even have a gun?”

“Of course Nancy has a gun.” Steve frowns. It was one of the sure things in the universe at this point. The sky is blue, Hawkins is fucked up, and Nancy Wheeler has a gun. “And she doesn’t shoot people, stupid. Well, she shot at Billy, but he deserved it.”

“Billy?” Munson mutters, starting to usher Steve in the direction of home. “Who the fuck is Billy?”

“He was trying to kill her first!” Steve defends. “I hit him with a car before he could, so she was okay.”

“Okay, yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t you hit some guy with a car? 

“It wasn’t some guy,” Steve says. “It was Billy. He was, like, possessed or some shit. Oh, and he beat me up. Total psycho.  And that was before the melted flesh monster.”

Munson stops and stares at him. “You know what, sure. Demonic possession. Yeah, okay. Some guy named Billy kicked your ass—wait, are you talking about Billy Hargrove?”

Steve lights up. “Yeah! You remember that? That’s one of the concussions I was talking about. I gotta wear glasses 'cuza that shit. Man, fuck that guy.”

“Didn’t he die?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve frowns down at the ground. “Shit, I’m, like, speaking ill of the dead, aren’t I? Max wouldn't like that. Unfuck him, or whatever.”

“You wanna come up?” He asks. “For old times sake?”

Munson stares at him like it’s the craziest thing he’s said all evening. “‘Old times’ was your asshole friends calling me a satan worshiper and pushing me around in hallways, Harrington.”

“I know.” He grins. If he was sober he’d definitely feel worse about that, but as it is he’s pretty single minded. “Don't you kind of want to make me cry about it?”

Deer in headlights isn’t usually a good look, but Munson’s got the eyes to make it work. Or Steve is drunk. Either way, it’s kinda cute. 

“You’re drunk,” he finally says, stumbling over the words a little. If Steve pays close attention and ignores most of reality, it almost sounds like he’s trying to convince both of them. “You’re so incredibly drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk.” He totally is. 

“I just had to supervise you calling Jonathan Byers so you didn’t say something you’d regret in the morning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asks, offended. “I love Jonathan! I tell him all the time. Just because I said he ruined my life—“

“That was him?”

“Did I not say that? Huh. Whatever. Point is, I’m not that drunk.”

“You’re definitely drunk,” Munson says. “I’m not—yeah, no. I’m not coming up.”

“Damn.” Steve shrugs, not too put out about it. It’s a bummer, sure, but he handles rejection like a champ. Just ask Robin. “Worth a shot. See you ‘round, Munson.”

“Don’t kill me,” Steve says. 

“Oh, god, did you punch him?”

“No, I, uh.” Steve rubs the bridge of his nose. “I think I tried to fuck him.”

He has to hold the phone away from his face so Dustin’s screeching doesn’t break his eardrums. 

“Your exes are weirdly protective of you,” Munson says blandly. “Also, didn’t they date?”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, not exactly eager to start spilling his life story again now that he’s sober. Munson doesn’t need to know more about his dating history than he already does. “We’re all a little weird about each other, sorry.”

“Weird about your exes,” he hums. “No wonder you’re single.”

“Oh, fuck you. It’s not like that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “No?”

“Are you always this nosy?” Steve asks, a little waspish. 

“Absolutely,” Munson replies without hesitation. “I’d say sorry, but I’m not. When did you even date him?”

“Dude.”

Munson just cocks an expectant eyebrow, hip resting against the bar. He can’t imagine why someone would be so interested in the romantic lives of their old high school classmates. It’s not like Steve is about to ask what was going on between him and Chrissy Cunningham. 

“Well, Harrington?”

“First grade,” Steve answers, deadpan. He grins when Munson chokes. “Nah, it was actually after he and Nancy broke up. Fall of ‘86.”

Arms squeeze him from behind, and Robin slides into view, leaving one hand wrapped pointedly around Steve’s waist. She gets clingy when she thinks someone is bothering him, or when she’s just on the side of drunk that she gets possessive. She told him, embarrassed and hungover, that it’s because she registers someone he’s getting along with as infringing on “her Steve time.” Steve thinks it’s hilarious and kind of sweet, an obvious lesbian trying to pretend he’s her date. Especially because he gets the same way when he’s tipsy and feels like he doesn’t have enough of her attention, so she can't yell at him for being a cockblock. Cuntblock. Whatever the lesbians call it.

He wonders what category she thinks Eddie is. Of guy, that is. Not block-anything.

He'd actually be pretty damn happy if the guy miraculously changed his mind and decided to sit on his cock instead.

“What’s going on here?” She asks, almost cattily. He loves when Robin gets bitchy. It brings him back to their Scoops days, except he gets to see it turned on someone else. 

“I’m telling Eddie my life story,” Steve says blithely.

“Ugh. Who would want that?”

Eddie grins. “I’m curious about the adventures of a former king.” He dips his head in a bow, waving his hand in a flourish. “I don’t know if you remember me from last time, I’m Eddie—“

“Munson, I know. You stepped on my lunch in junior year.”

Eddie turns beet red in record time. 

“Aww, Robbie,” Steve almost coos. “Leave him alone. I wanted to be the one who made him blush like that.”

“It’s not my fault your boy’s easy.”

“Not my boy, clearly,” he mutters under his breath. “And if he were easy, I’d have gotten fucked by now.”

Eddie’s mouth drops open with a choked little sound. Whoops. Steve forgot volume control again. 

Robin takes one look at Eddie’s face and bursts into cackles. 

“He was asking about,” he waved a hand in the air, “the whole Nancy-Jonathan thing.”

Her eyebrows jut up. “You told him about the threesome?”

“The what?”

Steve sighs. “No, Robin. I did not tell him about the threesome.”

“…oops.”

“When?” Eddie demands. 

Robin gives him the evil eye. “Why are you being weird about this? It’s not gonna make him fuck you.”

Steve wisely keeps his mouth shut. 

Eddie does not. “Your boy here already asked,” he smirks, leaning closer. “I said no.”

Then, as an added punch to his ego, he twirls a strand of Steve’s hair around his finger and tugs slightly. Steve’s too stunned to protest. 

Robin watches the exchange. “Oh, no thank you,” she says. “Nope. I’m out. I don’t want to see whatever this is. Ugh, stop making me hear about your sex life.”

Hypocrite. “We have thin walls, Buckley,” Steve reminds her. He turns to Eddie and stage whispers, “She likes her girls loud.”

“Steve!”

“You do!”

“Oh, because you’re so quiet,” she snaps, smacking him. “How many times have I had to bang on the wall because you couldn’t keep it down? You wanna talk about loud? I know more about you than I ever wanted to.”

His mouth drops open in mortification. “You know it’s rude to be mean to the man who told you how to eat out,” he hisses. 

“I’m not dying without fucking Eddie Munson,” he declares. “I mean, his high school nickname was literally ‘The Freak.’ He’s got to be good in bed, right?”

“I think that was mostly because everyone thought he was communing with the Devil or something.”

“Maybe the Devil gave him sex magic.”

“Of course he thinks I’m cute.”

“I do?”

“Do you not?” Steve turns to him, widening his eyes in the same pout that always has Robin throwing something at his face, or the kids reluctantly agreeing to do what he wants. He’s found it’s useful for guys too, especially if he ducks his head to seem smaller and looks through his eyelashes. Makes them imagine him looking like that on his knees. 

Munson is no exception. He melts faster than Steve can say gotcha. “You’re very cute, Harrington,” he purrs, and Robin snorts into her drink. 

“You’re a weak, weak man, Eddie Munson,” she tells a blushing Eddie. Then she kicks Steve. “Stop bringing out the ‘fuck me’ eyes when I’m around, I’ll gag.”

“You could leave.”

She gasps, affronted, and kicks him harder.

“So you would fuck me if I wasn’t drunk?”

“Uh…” he looks everywhere but Steve’s face, which is just rude. He has a very nice face. He’s been called dreamy before. 

Which made Robin laugh so hard she fell off the couch when he told her, but he’ll take the lesbian’s opinion with a grain of salt. 

He makes his way onto the dance floor. He’s not a particularly good dancer, but he shakes his ass like he means it. Gets up close with a guy, stares at Eddie the whole time. Keeping eye contact as the guy puts his hands on his hips. 

Look, he means to say. This could be you. You could lose your chance if you’re not careful. 

From the burning in Eddie’s eyes, he gets the message. 

The message is a bunch of bullshit. It’s been over four months, he’s in too deep to go fuck off with someone else now. Still, he enjoys the way Eddie’s hands flex on his thighs, like he had to stop himself from reaching out. 

The thing is, Steve’s not an asshole. He can take a hint. No means no, and all that jazz. If Eddie really didn’t want him, he’d fuck right off and find someone who did. He even started to.

Except Eddie pouted up a storm when he flirted with someone else. Got even clingier when Steve tried to back off. At this point, he’s accepted that Eddie does want to fuck him, and maybe even be more (no one flirts with someone as long as they’ve been doing without wanting something like a relationship out of it. At least, he hopes there’s something more on the horizon), but has some weird hang up about Steve being even a little bit buzzed when it happens. Even though they only ever see each other at this fucking bar.

The problem is Steve has no idea when Eddie will be at the bar. He’ll stay sober one night, hoping to see him, and then go home alone only for next time to be when he sees telltale curls and a wide smile. It’s driving him up the wall. 

Robin has been similarly affected.

“It’s been six months,” she growls as Steve looks eagerly around. “Six fucking months of you two dancing around in the worlds most annoying mating ritual. I’m going to kill both of you.”

“We’re not that bad,” he says absently. 

“You don’t even have his phone number. It’s pathetic. I swear to God, if you see him again and don’t get laid I’m reviving the scoops board. I will go out and buy a whiteboard to keep track of all the times you strike out with a man who used to walk on tables. He stepped on my lunch, Steve. Do I need to keep bringing up the fact he stepped on my delicious, nutritious PB&J? I can’t believe that’s the guy you decide to be obsessed with, that’s so fucking embarrassing for you.”

“Embarrassing? You mean like your crush on my ex girlfriend?”

She screeches wordlessly, pulling her keychain off her belt loop and attacking him with it. 

Naturally, that’s how Eddie finds them. 

“I swear you guys get weirder every time I see you.”

Steve grins guilelessly at him, holding a flailing Robin in a headlock. 

“Eddie! Hey! It’s been a minute.” He hasn’t been able to come in a month, and it’s been longer since he’s seen him. It’s honestly one of the deciding factors on whether it’s a passing fancy or a full blown crush. He still went to sleep every night thinking about Eddie. It didn’t even have to be about sex. 

Although maybe not sleeping with anyone else for half a year should have tipped him off sooner. 

“Sure has, big boy. I was starting to think you were getting sick of me.” It’s a joke, but Steve catches an undercurrent of insecurity. 

“That’d make my life easier,” Robin snorts. She finally wiggles her way out of his hold. “I saw Arty somewhere around here, I’m gonna see if I can crash at her place tonight.” She levels Eddie with a look. “He hasn’t had anything to drink. If you don’t put him out of his misery, I will. And it won’t be the good kind. It will be the bad kind. With bad screams. Lots of screaming, and someone will call the pigs, and I’ll be arrested and jailed for life. Do you want me to go to jail, Munson?”

Eddie shakes his head dumbly. 

“Good! Then do something about it.” She slaps Steve’s back, a mocking echo of his jock days. “Go get ‘em, slugger!” 

With that, she’s gone, disappearing into the crowd. 

“She is,” Steve remarks with amusement, “the worst wingman on planet Earth. Mars too, probably.”

“I dunno, I think it might be working.”

“I’m not doing anything without a condom,” he says, eyes narrowed like he’s waiting for an argument. 

“Me neither,” Steve agrees. “Robin has, like, this big fear of diseases. Totally got me with it. She pulled out the library books, those pictures were fucking disgusting. Shit showed up in my dreams, man. Neither of us do anything without protection.”

“I’m going to be totally honest with you, because I haven’t been and it’s starting to eat at me,” Eddie says, hovering above Steve. 

Steve wrinkles his nose. “What is it? Are you a spy or something? Are you Russian? Do you have superpowers? Is your name not actually Eddie?” He pauses. “Oh, God, you’re not even Eddie Munson, are you? I’m just some asshole who’s been calling you by my old classmates name and you were too embarrassed to correct me. Shit, we made so much fun of you for walking on tables too—“

“What?” Eddie covers his mouth, expression hovering between amused and baffled. “What the fuck, why would I go along with that? No, Jesus, I’m Eddie Munson. Moved to Hawkins when I was eleven, took senior year three times, walked on the fucking tables, could you let that go?” He moves the hand covering Steve’s mouth to play with his hair, looking annoyed for a minute before it smoothes to trepidation. “No, I, uh, I just felt like I needed to tell you that I used to have a hate-boner for you in high school. Like, I used to jack it to the thought of kicking your ass and making a mess outta you. In more ways than one.”

Steve stares. 

“Also, that’s kind of why I approached you in the bar in the first place,” Eddie blabbers on. “And then you said you were just there for a friend, and I was disappointed but it’s whatever, yanno? And then then you told me about your dad, and threw my expectations to the fucking wolves, and then you asked me to come up to your apartment except you were drunk and you probably didn’t mean it. But then the next time I saw you, you kept flirting with me, which you were not supposed to do, and I kept pretending that wasn’t the reason I even talked to you in the first place, and, uh, yeah.” He smiles nervously. “Surprise?”

“I mean, not really.”

“You’re such an asshole, fuck off. At least pretend to be shocked.”

“It’s not my fault you stare at my legs all the time,” Steve says, affronted. “I know I didn’t do too good in school, but I’m not dumb enough to miss that. Like, hello, my eyes are up here.”

Eddie lets his arms give out, flopping on top of Steve heavily. Steve wheezes. “Am I really that obvious?” He whines into his shoulder. 

“You got sad and pouty when I even looked at another guy.”

“You could’ve fucked him,” he mumbles. “The guy you were dancing with. It wasn’t any of my business. I’m a big boy, I can deal.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to fuck him,” Steve says. “I wanted to fuck you. Can we go back to that please?”

“Thought I was fucking you.”

“Someone’s getting fucked or Robin will kill both of us. I’d like to live tomorrow morning. And not have to deal with any more of her teasing for having no game.”

“You have unfortunate amounts of game,” Eddie sighs, tracing the side of Steve’s neck. It tickles. “It’s kind of embarrassing for me.”

“Yeah, yeah, are we using those condoms or not, Moodkiller?”

“Oh, I’m the mood killer?”

“Yes,” Steve says matter of factly, and pulls him in for a kiss before he can protest.

[brbsoulnomming]

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies Part 1

By the time Eddie is twelve, going to live with his uncle in a trailer in Hawkins, he only has a dozen or so words from his soulmate.

It used to make him guilty, that his soulmate was the kind of person who rarely lied, getting stuck with Eddie who spit lies out like they were the shells of sunflower seeds. Then it made him angry, that he only had a handful of shit like he did it! and I already washed my hands. A small spattering of normal kid shit, while Eddie had to say things like no, officer, I don't know where my father is and Mom's just not feeling well today, Mrs. Anderson.

Then, a year or so before his dad got caught for good, he got It's nothing, I just tripped and Yeah, Mom, I understand, I know he won't do it again and he thought - maybe his soulmate is the kind of kid who knows sometimes it's just better not to say anything.

Eddie can understand that.

Living with Uncle Wayne is - hard. It's hard because it isn't hard, not the way it should be. It makes Eddie say more things that he knows his soulmate will see on his skin, things like I never wanted to be here anyway, and I want to be alone, just leave me alone.

His uncle is endlessly patient, and it grates on his nerves because he wants it. He wants it so bad to be real, but he just - keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to be too much.

For Eddie to be too much for him.

It comes to a head one night when Eddie's mad at him over something or other, asks why he's doing all this.

"You're my kid, and that means I'm not going anywhere," his uncle says, all gruff and raw honesty, and Eddie can't bear it.

"You don't think your soulmate's going to get tired of all these lies that keep showing up?" he snaps, even though he regrets it the moment it's out of his mouth.

He regrets it even more when there's a heavy, aching silence, and he finally looks up at his uncle, eyes wide and terrified as he thinks this is it, he's finally gone too far -

"It's not a lie," Uncle Wayne says finally, holding Eddie's gaze. "You hear me? It's not a lie. I'm not going anywhere."

Eddie nods, and his uncle relaxes a little, then grimaces, like he isn't sure he wants to say anything else.

"I don't have anyone for lies to show up on, anyway."

He says it like it doesn't matter, but Eddie bursts into tears anyway.

Not everyone has a soulmate. The majority of people do, but it's not uncommon for people to never have words written on their skin. In school, they teach that it doesn't mean you can't be happy, it doesn't mean you can't find love. They teach about soulmate bonds that didn't work out - there's whole plays and novels and movies written about that kind of tragedy and misery, after all.

But sometimes there's still an undercurrent of pity, of bitterness. Outside of school - or inside it, when it isn't the teachers talking - some people say there's something wrong with people who don't have soulmates, some people say that they were meant for bigger and greater things.

Some people say that soulmates are supposed to be between a man and a woman, and every time someone who's queer gets a soulmate, it's because they stole them from someone else.

And Eddie doesn't believe that, not really, but he can't help but wonder if maybe his uncle does, and he can't stop crying.

Now his uncle is the one who looks terrified.

"Son, come here, it's all right, it really is." Uncle Wayne gathers him up in his arms, holds him close the way no one's ever done for him before, and just lets him cry and cry and cry.

Later, Eddie thinks about just letting it go, but - he has to know, he just does.

"Do you think someone stole your soulmate from you?" he asks as he's washing dishes, not looking at his uncle and hoping it doesn't sound anything like do you think someone like me stole your soulmate from you?

Uncle Wayne scowls. "That's a load of horseshit, is what I think. No one can control whether they have one soulmate or two or none, and it doesn't make someone greedy or a thief."

Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it again. He's known about people with two soulmates before, of course, the same way he knows about people with none - and he's heard the comments about them being greedy same as he's heard comments about them being lucky, or a dozen other things people've theorized to explain it. It's just that it doesn't really tell him what he'd wanted to know, and he can't figure out how to ask without being more specific.

Uncle Wanye is looking at him real close, though, and there's something like a quiet acceptance that flashes over his features.

"No one can control who their soulmate is," he says softly. "Whoever yours is - they were meant for you in a way they aren't meant for anyone else. Love like that can't be stolen, kid, it can only be given."

He thinks about that for a long moment, then nods. "Okay."

"Good," his uncle says gruffly. "Now finish those up and get off to bed."

------

First part of a Steddie and platonic Stobin soulmates AU I'm working on, where any lie you tell gets written on your soulmate! No idea how long this is going to be - it was supposed to be a oneshot but it just keeps growing, so I wanted to share at least the first bit of it.

Now with Part 2

[metalhoops]

‘Of course, I remember you.’ 

As far as first words go, Eddie’s were a hell of a head-scratcher. 

To catch up the uninitiated, everyone in the world has a soulmate. It’s been debated and speculated if a person can have more than one, but the mechanics behind soulmates was a pseudo-science at best and downright magic at worst. The first words a person’s soulmate spoke to them were inscribed somewhere on that person’s body, typically in their soulmate’s handwriting. 

Doesn’t handwriting change over time? The uninitiated might ask, to which Eddie would repeat, it’s pseudo-science or magic. Either that or something like quantum mechanics, where people are pretty sure, one day we’ll understand how it works, but right now there are a lot of theories and only a little bit of evidence, most of which contradicts itself.

Most of the time, the words are boring and wholly unhelpful. He could count on two hands the number of people that simply had some variation of ‘hello’, tattooed somewhere on their body. From Eddie’s point of view, he got lucky. 

He had a sentence of scratchy scrawl written on his inner arm stating, ‘of course, I remember you’. And really, what the hell was Eddie meant to make of that? 

Typically, your tattoo lets you know you’d found your soulmate upon first meeting, but his words implied he’d meet his soulmate before they first speak and that it would be memorable. Wasn’t that goddamn frustrating? 

His soulmate’s first words were right up there with ‘hello’ in Eddie’s list of ‘top five worse soulmate marks,’ because how the hell were those poor bastards meant to know if they’d just met the love of their life or if it was just their weird neighbour Tom? With his number one spot reserved for Gareth’s truly horrific, ‘I’d thought you’d be taller’. His soulmate was original. He’d give him that. 

There was no surefire way to know your soulmate’s gender, same as there was no surefire way for a mother to ‘just know’ a baby’s gender before it was born. Yet if Eddie was being sacrilegious, as he so often was, he’d say he ‘just knew’ his soulmate was a guy. 

There was nothing in the handwriting that gave it away. Nothing particularly ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ about the lettering. But ever since Eddie was a kid whenever he thought about his soulmate, he’d always think of them as ‘him’. 

He would like this or that. He wouldn’t be an asshole, like the meathead jocks at Hawkins. He would be different. He’d be kind, caring, and of course, a total badass. Eddie just had to wait to meet him. 

Steve’s soulmate mark drove him crazy. 

‘You might not remember me’. 

What the hell was Steve meant to do with that? Soulmate tattoos were meant to let you know when you’d met your soulmate, not that you’d already met them. In the days before Steve received the shake-up of his life in the form of Nancy Wheeler and the Upside Down, he had a reputation for sleeping around. He knew back then he’d been a little hopeless, but surely he’d said more than a couple of words to a girl before he slept with them. 

It horrified Steve that he could meet his soulmate, in some respect, know them, and yet had never talked to them. Could he really be that much of a jerk?

He’d never thought Nancy was his soulmate. He knew their words didn’t match up. That didn’t mean he loved her any less. Statistically, the odds of meeting your soulmate were somewhere between getting crushed by a vending machine and winning the lottery. Steve’s parents weren’t soulmates and boy did that show, but a guy could dream. Call him a hopeless romantic, but Steve was holding out hope for them. 

He’d almost thought his soulmate was Robin. It fit, right? They went to the same school, but they’d never really talked. He’d been so busy with his first day at a real job, he’d missed Robin’s first words to him. It wasn’t until later he’d started to expect it might be her. That was, until the pair were huddled beside each other on the floor of a bathroom stall. Robin was a lesbian and her first words, although interesting, definitely proved they weren’t soulmates. 

When Steve was a kid, he’d spend hours daydreaming about what his soulmate would be like. She’d be outspoken. She’d be bold. She’d be able to make him laugh. When he’d gotten older, something changed. He didn’t know how to put it into words, at least not ones he was ready to say out loud. ‘She’ didn’t fit his soulmate quite right. So after high school, he started wondering what ‘they’ would be like. ‘They’ felt not quite right, but closer. 

Their handwriting was distinct. It was all sharp-edges and odd-angles. It looked like it was trying to replicate something Steve couldn’t quite place until he walked into the record store at Starcourt and caught a glimpse of an Iron Maiden album cover. That gave Steve his first real clue as to what his soulmate might be like. 

It would be another year before the same handwriting would stop him in his tracks. Dustin had marched into the Family Video store as they were shutting up shop, brandishing a notepad and talking about needing a ride to go play his fantasy game. Steve was always going to drive Dustin, but he’d been dragging his feet, to show the kid he wouldn’t always drop everything to take him places. A familiar sharp edged, odd angled handwriting stopped Steve cold. 

“What are those?” Steve asked, trying to fain disinterest as his heart pounded in his ears. 

“They’re notes from the last session. You know, so we can keep track of what’s happened so far in the campaign. Who’s doing what quests, how many hit points everyone’s got. Mike is currently—.” Steve couldn’t give a crap about Mike. 

“Who’s writing is it?” Steve tried not to sound as desperate as he felt. 

Robin must have known something was up because she moved to Steve’s side. With one glance at the notepad, she understood why Steve was acting so strangely. She’d seen his tattoo, she knew it was his soulmate’s handwriting. 

“Our D.M.’s” Dustin replied. He might as well have been speaking in freaking code. 

“Alright, I’ll drive you,” Steve gave in, hoping he could catch a glance of his soulmate. Maybe his tattoo was wrong, maybe he’d know his soulmate when he saw them. 

They pulled up outside of the high school. He saw a group of people loitering outside the auditorium. Dustin had brought a lot of loose sheets of paper, so it only made sense Steve helped him carry his notebooks in. Most of the people there were familiar faces, the kids he’d babysat with a few exceptions. 

“Well, if it isn’t our favourite bard. I’m glad you decided to grace us with your presence,” an oh-too-familiar voice crooned. A boy broke away from the crowd to meet Dustin. 

He was Steve’s age. They’d gone to school together. The dude used to do all these weird soap-box sessions on their lunch table. They had gym together, and history. Steve didn’t think the two had ever actually spoken.  

“I would’ve been here quicker if I hadn’t had to play twenty questions with Steve. Steve, you know Eddie, our D.M.? Weren’t you two in the same year?” 

Eddie was practically shooting daggers at Dustin’s side profile, shaking his head discreetly as though hoping Steve didn’t remember who he was. He supposed Eddie always had a reputation. 

“You might not remember me,” Eddie spoke before Steve could answer. 

Holy shit.

“Of course, I remember you,” Steve argued and watched as Eddie’s eyes swelled to the size of dinner plates. 

Both boys stood, slack-jawed and stiff-shouldered, peering at one another. Steve’s brain short-circuited, because holy shit, Eddie Munson was his soulmate. Holy shit he’d found them, him. 

Steve dropped Dustin’s notes and swarmed forward without thinking, throwing his arms around Eddie. Much to his surprise, instead of freaking out, like any normal person, Eddie was waiting to catch him, leaving both of them to tumble ass backwards onto the parking lot asphalt.

They held each other in a bone-crushing hug. Steve buried his face in Eddie’s neck, surprised at how naturally the action came. He’d never hugged a man like this, hell he’d hugged no one like this. He was clinging so desperately to the man that he’d never thought he’d really find. Eddie pulled back slightly, trying to get a better look at Steve’s face. The guy’s eyes were alight with wonder and mischief. 

“That was quite an entrance, Harrington. All for little old me?” 

“I’ve been looking for you forever,” Steve admitted. 

“Well, clearly you’ve been doing a shit job of it,” Eddie argued which earned a snort from Steve. His soulmate would be able to make him laugh. 

“You’re not disappointed, you know? That your soulmate is the town Freak?” 

Steve had given up on caring about labels, on caring about what other people thought. Since high school, he had changed. He was different.  He didn’t want to be just another, shallow, meathead jock. He wanted to be different. 

“No. Absolutely not. Why would I care?” 

Dustin shattered the moment, clearing his throat and proclaiming,

“Alright, anyone care to tell me what the hell just happened?” 

[theshippirate22]

eddie’s favorite story to tell about steve? the time he heard the first two notes of apple bottom jeans at a club and whipped around so fast to try and find robin that he pulled a muscle in his neck

[estrellami-1]

(Healing From the) Pain

Steve spent most of his life feeling pain. At this point, he characterizes his life by it.

The pain of a backhand, courtesy of his father, at six years old. His lip doesn’t split, but it’s a near thing.

The pain in his wrist when he falls wrong at nine years old. His parent won’t take him to the doctor initially, so he goes to school the next day. When the teacher notices, she sends him to the nurse, who calls his parents. They’re upset at him. He doesn’t know why, but he promises them it won’t happen again.

The pain all over at fourteen when he gets into wrestling. He’s good, manages to pin his opponent four times out of five.

The pain at sixteen, getting his face bashed in by Jonathan Byers. Then the demogorgon, and really, Steve is just a walking bruise at that point.

Then there’s the Russians. The less said about that, the better. The only silver lining is Robin.

Now he’s trailing behind Dustin, breaking into Reefer Rick’s boathouse, and Steve is sure this is going to end painfully.

He’s shoved against the wall, something sharp against his neck, and he thinks he was right as he groans.

The something sharp against his neck digs in as he looks Eddie Munson in the eye, and a few things happen simultaneously.

Eddie drops the shard of glass, steps back with a gasp, and brings his hand up to his own neck.

Steve blinks at him, thinks there’s no fuckin’ way, and stoops to scoop up the piece of glass and test it.

He presses the point into his left palm. Eddie reaches out to stop him, then flinches away.

“Well,” Steve says, because finding his soulmate in a boathouse was not on his Bingo card for this year, but here he is, with the burning brand of a soulmark on his neck to prove it.

Eddie skitters back, breathing growing heavy, looking around with wild eyes. He doesn’t seem to see Dustin, and something snaps in Steve’s chest.

He drops the glass and steps forward. “Dustin, out,” he says, and something in his voice must be different, because Dustin doesn’t hesitate before closing the door behind him. “Eddie,” Steve says softly. “You’re okay. It’s alright. I know you didn’t kill Chrissy.”

Eddie glances at Steve’s neck, then his hand, before looking away. Something else breaks open in Steve’s chest. “I’m not mad,” he admits quietly. “Eddie, please. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He steps forward again, hope unfurling in his chest when Eddie doesn’t move. He takes another cautious step, then another, until finally he’s in front of Eddie.

Still being cautious, he raises a hand, well within Eddie’s line of sight, and lets it rest gently on Eddie’s forearm.

Eddie flinches violently, but doesn’t move away. Steve takes it as permission and places his other hand on Eddie’s other forearm. He gently rubs them up Eddie’s arms until they’re resting on his shoulders. “You’re shaking,” he whispers, swiping a thumb up and down the side of Eddie’s neck. The something in his chest heals a little.

“Y-you’re-”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, still whispering. “I am.”

“How-”

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really care. I’m just- is it weird if I say I’m glad I found you?”

Eddie manages a hysterical bray of a laugh. “A girl died on my ceiling, man, this is not the weirdest part of my day.”

Steve nods. “Let’s go back to my place,” he suggests. “It’ll be a lot easier to hide there, no one will think to look for you, and we can explain everything.”

Eddie takes a breath. Another. Lets his fingers trail along Steve’s arm. Nods. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Okay,” Steve whispers back, smiling a little, and Eddie copies him. His chest heals a little bit more, and suddenly Steve knows everything’s going to work out just fine.

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[sp0o0kylights]

Eddie doesn’t say a thing, still hidden under the blanket.

Steve, the brilliant thinker he is, pokes it, because that went so well for him the first time.

“You didn’t die, did you dude? Cause I really can’t handle someone biting it in my car. She’s my baby.”

“Shut up Harrington.” Eddie says, but it's wobbly.

The same tone Max tends to get when she’s furiously trying not to let on that she’s crying.

This leaves Steve two choices.

The first is to pull the blankets off Eddie, which will reveal him to the world at large, possibly exposing him to any passerbyers (not that anyone is likely to jog by but Steve takes no chances anymore) and very likely piss him off if not make the panic attack he’s denying having much worse-

Or, he can do what he does with the kids.

Debates for a second if this is a Henderson or Wheeler Jr situation, before landing on Wheeler. He and Eddie both have that same tendency to screech and wave their arms instead of whining and sulking.

Steve grabs the blanket, lifting it up so it covers both the floor and the seat, and then crawls under the blankets with him.

“What the fuck-” Eddie sputters, wrestling for a moment and making things difficult, until Steve manages to get into a somewhat okay position.

Chest hugging the backseat, the blanket lifted up enough that he can see Munson’s face, water bottle next to him and within reach.

Knows he looks absolutely fucking ridiculous to any passerbyer with his feet hanging out the open door.

“Hi.” Steve tells him, and wow is it crammed back here. “Thought I’d join the blanket fort."

He does not get a response.

The blanket was big enough to cover both his seat and a good chunk of the floor (purchased on purpose so as many of the gremlins could fit under it as necessary)

Red rimmed eyes stare back at him, Eddie looking all too like a cornered, feral cat.

Feeling an awful lot like he’s repeating the Tew’s Stuck in the Cabinets situation, Steve prepares himself for the long haul, rummages around in his pocket where he know he keeps a coin for this exact joke, and says;

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Eddie lets out a noise that might have been a laugh, if someone also choked and sneezed at the same time. “That was fucking terrible Harrington.”

[withacapitalp]

All this was inspired by listening to She’s So Overrated by Madilyn Bailey so fair warning LMAO. Also this got SO MUCH LONGER THAN I MEANT IT TO IM SORRY IT WAS JUST ME WRITING DOWN AN IDEA......

Okay so I’m having thoughts about modern AU lead singer Eddie Munson who’s been in the industry for years with the boys. Corroded Coffin is a staple of the metal industry, but for a few years he’s been feeling really stalled in his career and just stuck in place. He’s still making music, still performing, but he feels like he’s getting farther and farther from that kid who used to scream and sing in his closet bedroom in the shoebox apartment he used to share with Wayne. 

So when he and the boys are in an interview and the interviewee brings up how “King” Steve Harrington from The Four is trying to reinvent himself with the help of former bandmate Robin Buckley, Eddie goes off. He works himself up into a little tizzy, ranting Munson Doctrine style about how a former teen pop star trying to become some second rate folk singer isn’t anything special, and that he wouldn’t be caught dead cashing in like that. 

That Steve’s music is bad (even though he’s honestly never listened to it) and “King” Steve is overrated. How even Beiber is better than him. He’s just bullshit. 

Of course the interview goes viral, and finds its way to Steve and Robin. Robin listens to it first and she doesn’t want Steve to watch it. She knows how close things like this cut him (especially that word), and how he’s been dealing with a lot of hate from everyone even from former fans who are confused by the sharp contrast of his new music- aka the music he’s finally being allowed to write now that he’s broken away from his momager- but Steve makes her show him. 

She’s sure that she’s going to have to spend the next week rebuilding his confidence. 

And instead, Steve’s lip curls into a smile, and he grabs his songbook, telling her to find her guitar. 

Eddie wakes up five days after the interview to a huge flood of social media notifications, a dozen missed calls from the boys and his manager and his uncle. He ignores them all and goes to see what he fucked up this time. 

Eddie opens Youtube and it’s at the top of his recommendations. The thumbnail is Steve and Robin sitting together with a guitar in her lap. The title of the video is just one word. 

Bullshit. 

This can’t be good. 

Eddie listens to it even though he doesn’t want to. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not a coward. Not anymore. He listens to it because he has to know how much he’s fucked up. 

And then he listens to it again. And again. And again. 

It gets stuck in his head. All of it. Not just the song (which admittedly is pretty killer) but also hearing the flippantly mean words he had casually thrown at Steve being shoved back in his face. He had seen Steve as an abstract thing, just a symbol of everything wrong with the industry, not a real person. And now this actual human being that he’s hearing has turned all of that garbage into a song that feels more genuine then most of the music on the last two albums he wrote himself. A song that has heart, joy, and a strong current of pain underneath, especially in the bridge where Steve just sings the word bullshit over and over. 

There’s even more than that. He also sees the way Robin and Steve interact while they’re working the smiles, the jabs, the silly little way Steve bobs his head along as he listens to her play, the way they both collapse into giggles at the end as Steve directly quotes the part of the interview where Eddie said that Steve “is just another laundry basket devil trying to act like a big shot now that he’s too old for teen girls to moon over.” 

He can’t remember the last time he and the boys had that much fun making a song. 

Hell, Eddie even sees their apartment. It’s a pretty nondescript room, but he can see the wear and tear on the furniture, the cobwebs in the corners of the room, the slightly drooping houseplant with the name “Dart” lovingly painted on its pot. It feels like a home, and as Eddie looks around at the bedroom in his far too big mansion, he feels even more like a fraud. 

Eddie listens to the song on repeat for most of the morning. In the afternoon he finally answers everyone, and starts to put his plan into motion. 

By that evening he’s on the phone with Steve asking him and Robin to help Corroded Coffin write their next song. 

[little-annie]

It's in the kitchen of their shitty little 1.5 bedroom apartment that Eddie Munson continues to bemoan his roommates request for him to watch the 2024 Olympic Games with her this evening.

“Christine Henrietta Cunningham,” he starts with a sigh, wiping the reminentes of yet another YooHoo from his upper lip, leaning a narrow hip against the countertop's edge, “there is no way in hell you are getting me to watch the Olympics.”

Already wearing her team USA sweater, Chrissy tries to protest. Just as she did last night and the night before. For some reason thinking it's such a dire thing that Eddie watches the Olympics this year.

“First of all, not my middle name. Second-”

“You would literally have to glue my eyeballs open.”

“Second-” she tries again, voice stern, pointing a yellowed spoon in Eddie's direction as she dishes up a bowl of Kraft Dinner for them both.

“There is not now, nor will there ever be, any reason for me to watch juiced up jocks prance around and play any form of sportsball.”

There's so many reasons. Christ. Fuck. So many. But he's not telling Chrissy that. He'll watch the reruns when she's not home. He couldn't possibly be caught dead after last time.

“What about the swim-”

“Not even Gandalf himself,” Eddie interrupts, “-could convince me to waste my precious campaign planning time on such a thing.”

Following Chrissy to the living room, bowl of macaroni in hand, Eddie refuses to sit down next to her on the couch. He's not going to watch. Nope. Maybe sneak a peak in passing? Sure. But not watch. Are you kidding me?

“What a about To-”

The metal spoon that was once in Eddie's hand chatters to the floor as he mock gasps. Neon yellow noodles on the tile that the cat comes running over to clean up, Eddie stands in abject horror. She wouldn't dare.

“Don't you dare say what I think you're about to say, Christine. My 2020 not obsession with Tom Daley shan't be spoken of. It was merely a blip in the system. A glitch in the matrix.”

He still thinks Tom Daley can get it. But that's neither here nor there. And what is there, is simply between Eddie and the well used bottle of lotion next to his bed.

Chrissy rolls her eyes, now sitting with her legs crossed on their ugly ass thrifted couch, patting the cushion next to her as if Eddie's a dog. “Eddie you literally watched every one of his ra-”

Races?

“I did not.”

Okay maybe we wanted to. Who wouldn't? But it's not like he obsessively watched every one of the man's races.

“... I missed two.” He admits Inna whisper.

And what a sheer travesty that'd had been

“Oh yeah. You missed two. Oh Edward, how could I forget?” After patting the cushion mindlessly next to her again and eating a spoonful of macaroni she faux whines, “‘Oh Chrissy, would you record the race for me? I don't want to miss it.’”

He doesn't sound like that.

“I do not sound lik-”

All pathetic and whiney? Eddie Munson doesn't sound like that.

“As if I would believe you actually gave two shits about the races you giant homo.” Chrissy rolls her eyes so hard Eddie's surprised she doesn't hurt her neck, “You just liked seeing those boys in spandex.”

Well…. She's not wrong. Sports are dumb. People playing sports for money is dumb. What the Olympics does to those cities in the aftermath of the event is dumb.

But she's not wrong.

Spandex

“…. I hate you”

“No you don't.” She smiles, blowing Eddie a kiss.

“Um. Yes I do.”

As if he could ever hate Chrissy.

Avoiding making eye contact with her as she continues to pat the cushion next to her and turning heel towards the hall, Eddie decides maybe it's just best to eat his supper in his room. Away from jockey spandex and its temptations, “Anyways. As I was saying. Fuck you and your jocky hobbies Chrissy.” Eddie yells from the hall, “My time is far too valuable to be wasted mindlessly drooling over arrogant jocks and their-”

In a sing-songy voice Eddie hears Chrissy call from behind him, “You're gonna want to watch this!”

He groans, turning back around from the journey he'd just started in the direction of his room, “I would rather di-” only to be caught short when a familiar mole dotted, spandex covered ass makes its way across his TV screen.

He'd recognize that ass anywhere.

Went to every goddamn swim meet at the stupid community pool to see that beautiful ass in motion for years.

He fawned over it in the halls of Hawkins High.

Drooled over it on the odd days he actually attended gym class. Tried to solely avoid eye contact with it when he found it bare and within reach in the change rooms only an hour later.

Fuck.

Eddie's knees feel weak and before he knows it he's climbing over the back of the couch, bowl of macaroni in his lap and mirroring Chrissy's position. Legs crossed. Eyes glued to the TV. Mindlessly eating chemicals that some big corporation somehow manages to pass off as macaroni and cheese.

“Is that Steve Harrington?”

Oh look at those moles.

Beautiful.

Those pecs?

Fucking hell.

“Christine!?” Eddie screeches from his position on the couch when Chrissy doesn't answer, just simply shrugs and smirks at him. The little devil. “Did I just see Harrington?”

“Told you, you'd want to see this.”

[hitlikehammers]

Steddie Missed Connection AU

feat. Craigslist-trawling-wingwoman!Robin + earnest-LA-transplant!Steve + rockstar!Eddie ✨ inspired by this actual Craigslist love story

It’s always about a 50/50 shot when Robin starts making her little back-of-the-throat squealing noises. Up to a certain pitch, Steve could pretend he had his AirPods on noise cancellation mode.

Once she reached fire-alarm-screeching levels, it overrode the settings and boom: he lost his fall guy.

Thanks, Apple.

But that’s where they are, and the squealing plus the screen in her hands, plus the way her leg’s bouncing against the table they’re both sitting at—which would have overrrode Steve’s AirPod excuse in about a minute because she’s gonna start splashing his glass of orange juice in a hot second—but all of it lumped together?

He’s lucky he’s retained his athletic reflexes post-high school—maybe only because of being joined-at-the-hip with this particular platonic soulmate, really—because by the time she’s swinging her iPad from its case to plop right down in front of him?

At least he’s quick enough to save his overnight oats from becoming aluminum-flavored when she drops the goddamn thing down without warning—caseless, the heathen—and makes indecipherable noises Steve thinks he’s maybe only heard at the zoo as she taps her nail with an migraine-inducing click on the screen.

Steve…supposes this means he’s obligated to look.

He sighs, fully expecting a dumb meme or a ‘cute TikTok’ because he knows who he fucking lives with; he reaches across the table and unfolds his glasses—really, assaulting him with this before he can even get his contacts in…

And it’s a…webpage. Like: just a webpage. A boring webpage, even. Definitely not matching up with the…squealing and table-sized earthquake of bouncing knees. He squints, tries to make it make sense.

Oh. Wow. He didn’t…

Steve did not actually know Craigslist still existed, let alone that people still used it. He was pretty sure the things for sale were always just kidnapping plots with extra steps, and then also that finding a person you walked past that one time was an FYP problem to solve. But.

Here, in front of him, in black and white and honestly like no other color:

Steve squints; it was posted this morning, but only just. Like 4am. So the last afternoon for there to be a one o’clock hour was—

Yesterday.

His yesterday was uneventful. Went shopping with Robs. Filled up the freezer and overbought shit again so they had a kind of massive and wholly mismatched dinner with the leftovers nearly popping open the fridge door. Can’t take the Midwesterner out of the man or woman, apparently.

Definitely nothing like the day this poor soul on a maybe-less-dead-than-presumed website had had. But Steve won’t pretend his heart doesn’t clench a little when he finishes reading because…it’s cheesy.

But Steve’s always been into that romantic…stuff.

“That’s very sweet,” he lands on commenting before passing the tablet back to Robin, who’s staring at him with frankly terrifying eyes. Like: lost-your-fucking-mind eyes.

“Steven.”

“What?”

“Steven.”

“Robin.”

He won’t even pretend he doesn’t jump with the metal slams on the wood where Robin narrowly misses flipping his bowl of sadly-abandoned oats with her iPad again when she slaps it down in from of him and points frantically yet again.

“Look at the location.”

Steve tilts his head.

Oh. He’d just looked at the time. And it’s not like the location in the title was…unique on its own.

“Huh,” he huffs with a shrug when he sees their part of the city listed in the main link up top. “Coinkydink.”

Robin’s growl starts deep, like a diaphragmatic thrum and Steve would be terrified of her if she were anyone else.

As it is: he’s only mildly unsettled. Specifically because the growl rumbles so…long.

Like at least a minute before she screams bloody fucking murder:

“My hair was in the buns!”

And the way she screeches it, and the maniacal twitch of those eyes…she’s saying more than those words, with those words.

Which means Steve has to put in effort to follow her coded message style of communicating, fucking hell. He hasn’t even eaten his breakfast.

He tries to think it through, at least manages to down his glass of OJ so it can’t be a sacrifice to flying iPads when he thinks he…

“Wait.”

Steve frowns. Robin just blinks.

“You don’t,” he shakes his head, or starts to, it’s a slow motion thing; “you don’t like honestly think,” but even as he’s saying it, the look in her eyes starts to make sense, and answers for him:

“This is not about me.”

Because: seriously.

“We were laughing!” Robin is immediate with her rebuttal, still in her screeching era. “No one else was there!”

“Because we specifically time our shopping for when people are at lunch on a weekday,” Steve counters quick, tries to cut her off at the pass; “a statistically slow window of opportunity for us to debate the list!”

“We write the list to avoid debating,” Robin answers in a more sedate, be reasonable now, dingus tone before she shakes her head and scowls and:

“Stop distracting me!”

Yep, back to the screeching.

“Why were you even on that fucking site?” Steve sighs as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

“Steven,” Robin says again in that fucking tone that always means he’s missing the biggest, far-more-important point but does jack shit to help him find it.

“Robina.”

“Not my name, eww.”

“Well, now you know how I feel when you make up a middle name for me,” Steve sticks his tongue out very maturely to her scrunched up face: “they’re never even nice ones,” he adds, because they’re really not; “and I do know that was your next move so,” he smacks his hands opposite the screen on the table in front of him in victory as he crows:

“Denied.”

“This isn’t basketball,” Robin’s working her tongue around her lips inside her mouth, which is always deadly foreshadowing; “you didn’t block my shot or whatever—“

“Didn’t I?” Steve pushes because, well, one, he did, and two, the original conversation was absurd even for them.

“Maybe it was so empty because his security was there.”

Steve frowns. The tone’s too…even. No. No: too haughty.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I said he looked like a rockstar,” she leans to grab back her tablet and poke near the top, obviously switching browser tabs: “so I did some digging.”

“Robin, what city do we live in?” Steve asks as she works, because yes, Steve remembers seeing a very hot fucking dude staring less in their direction than looking dumbstruck-lost as hell, and he’d considered walking over to ask if he needed help—Midwestern transplant to the bone—which was accompanied by the stray I’d fuck that gorgeous toothpick silly, but in the paper product aisle, like on the 48-count pack of Charmin, he looks soft under all that leather—then both thoughts were swiftly abandoned when the toothpick’s eyes met Steve’s and Steve maybe had to force himself to finish laughing at a joke he can’t remember now, that Robin told, because his skin felt like it was burning a little except the sun had poked behind a cloud, and his throat, it had like, it had just, it—

It just felt…weird.

He does remember that.

“But we don’t see rockstars every day,” which is fair, their neighborhood in particular is less music biz than others.

“Plus, look at this!”

Then she’s shoving the iPad back in front of Steve: it’s a TMZ shot or some other pap photo that’s more than half blur. It is indeed the parking lot at their Costco. And it does…feature a toothpick-esque figure looking similar to the one Steve remembers, but it’s more from the back than the side. And like, anyone can wear that much black in the summer. It’s a free country.

“And look at him!”

She split-screens to a Wikipedia article about a band even Steve’s heard of, if not for listening to them himself. It…he glances at the paparazzi shot.

Lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin Sighted Getting Groceries Just Like Normal People in Mar—

And then he looks back to the wiki: okay. Same band name. The guy with the guitar in the photo looks…

He has the same hair.

“Don’t tell me it’s just coincidence.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“It is just coincidence.”

“Steve.”

Steve feels his face sour.

“I know that tone,” because he does. It never leads to things he enjoys.

“You’ve thought about him.”

“He was gorgeous,” Steve thinks he surprises her with his honesty but like, what does he have to gain by lying? Plus:

“LA’s is like the plastic surgery capital of the fucking world, it’d be kinda sad if a lot of people generally weren’t pretty.”

“He wasn’t that kind of pretty.”

And fuck if they don’t share a brain cell; fuck if she doesn’t see right through him.

“And that’s not why you’ve been thinking about him.”

And fuck if she doesn’t know Steve, far too well.

“I never once said I’d been thinking about,” he hears the words and knows they’re weak, goddamnit.

“You never had to,” Robin smiles a little and taps an annoying finger at the screen again, that’a somehow flipped right back to the Craigslist ad thingy.

And she’s actually not entirely right, because he hadn’t thought much about the gorgeous toothpick man with curls Steve wanted to be smothered by, suffocate in like a pillow. But when he did?

He’d thought most about how he looked soft, on the inside. Thought wild and idiotic things like maybe his soft could match Steve’s soft when no one else’s ever had and he was always left bruised for it, more than once near-unhealable, and maybe they could, like, if their softnesses matched, then like—

Something.

But Steve always comes on too strong, wants too much, hopes to hard and way too fast, though this shit might take the cake, there: so it was idiotic and he’d left that train of thought to derail on its own and—

Did that come on too strong?

His gaze snags on the words, those exact words up on the screen and he’s very tempted to start growling deep in the pit of his stomach, take a cue from Robin’s absurdity.

“Don’t you have a class to get to?” Steve asks, looking pointedly at the clock on the microwave: he knows she does. Pottery making. For self-edification.

She scowls but looks—swears colorfully because it’s later than she thought as she jumps up and goes to presumably…do whatever she does in the bathroom to get ready to leave and look her lesbian-luring best before she gets smattered in wet clay.

Steve remains unclear on whether that look’s more or less attractive to the specific ladies she’s trying to bait.

Either way: it prompts Robin to drop her one-woman campaign insisting Steve’s soulmate of the romantic flavor is calling our desperately into the void of the internet. But it also, however, has the…side-effect of making the time itself an obvious thing. 11:09.

Rob’s gonna take the car, she’s got…supplies and stuff.

Why that’s important is…lost on him.

He could debase himself and brave the bus, if he got off at Washington and—

What the fuck.

What. The. Fuck.

Steve very forcefully shoves Robin’s iPad back across the table and doesn’t think about anything, especially not the numbers, like the number 214, like two hours and fourteen minutes until—

Steve nearly chokes himself on his fucking spoon with how violently he shoves it, full of oats, between his lips. As if he can shut his brain up as easy as he can his mouth.

It…actually kinda works. He might have chipped a tooth.

——————

In the end, Steve is proud of himself for being reasonable and having standards. He doesn’t take a fucking bus to meet a stranger in a Costco parking lot, Jesus Christ. Come on.

He books an Uber.

(And yes, he and Robin agreed no solo Ubers for a month to save up to have the air conditioner looked at before it copped out on them because their landlord only gave a shit if it was dead-dead and yes, maybe she’d gone so far as to put their account on a hold you had to call and remove to avoid temptation—though of the two of them, she definitely had the bigger problem—but little did she think on the fact that while you had to link a phone number, you could just use Google Voice and make a new account and no, Steve’s not insane, or a hopeless romantic, or almost-asking-for-heartbreak-on-the-regular, thank you very much.

He is resourceful. And it’s only like $15 with tip. It’s a quick ride.)

He asks to be dropped near the back of the lot, and takes the walk up slow. Almost goes the long way, straight into the store. Almost turns back entirely.

But then he sees those curls.

And his throat does the…the weird tight thing for no fucking reason, and his feet don’t ask permission to walk in the direction of the man standing…less dumbstruck, now. Even from the back it’s clear.

Now: he’s waiting.

Steve can barely breathe, can’t fucking swallow for the state of his throat, but his feet still aren’t waiting for permission, so it’s only fucking seconds before he’s close enough to catch a whiff of cologne and then—

“Sorry,” Steve ducks around the man from behind and reaches out automatically to steady him when he startles. “Hey, sorry, you just looked like maybe you were looking for something?” Steve smiles as open, as reassuring as he knows. “Just wanted to check if you needed any help.”

Keep it casual, Steve, keep it fucking friendly and extra polite and—

“Oh my god.”

The guy barely breathes it out, his eyes so wide, and Steve doesn’t know why he hasn’t moved his hand from the guy’s arm but Steve can feel the electric current that runs through him, like the finest grade of trembling. And electricity, right, it travels. Conducts.

In case you felt your heart skip just one beat, didn’t even have to full-on stop—

And even that proximity to this man is nothing compared to hearing his voice, low and a little syrupy even as he stares in shock, in disbelief—and oh. Oh, but what was it the guy had written in his post? About feeling the earth move a little, or like, rewiring your cells just for meeting eyes?

Steve, he’s…

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

“You’re here.”

Steve blinks, rocked back to the moment to deal with the new tilt of the globe and the spontaneous realignment of his insides later. This guy’s looking at Steve like he’s unbelievable, like he’s miraculous, like he’s…

Sunshine.

“I’m here?” Steve asks, a little breathy, a little curious.

“I,” the guy swallows, lips shiny as he bites at them, fucking adorable; “I saw you, umm, yesterday and I maybe, well, possibly I wrote some,” he fumbles and sounds like he’s building up to eventual hysterics, so Steve acts wholly on instinct and reaches further now to catch at both his hands.

“Relax,” Steve breathes out with a smile, and doesn’t overthink smoothing his thumbs over the guy’s knuckles, just in case it soothes him.

“My friend,” Steve lets go with one hand and grabs his phone to show the page he’d loaded on the ride here; “she was convinced it was you, about me. I wasn’t, so,” he shakes his head quick when something falls in the guy’s face, something dims: oh, umm, no.

He cannot have that.

“Not trying to catch you out or something,” Steve exhales it warm, as reassuring as he can, with his whole chest as he grabs the guy’s hands in both his own again—since he seemed to not mind; “just,” and Steve shrugs even as he smiles a little, less self-deprecating with it than he’d probably have landed on if the guy hadn’t reacted to Steve’s hands on his by clinging back so tight:

“Just a little hard to believe, is all.”

The man barely lets the words settle before his jaw drops almost comically and he demands, high-pitched and somehow still rumbling, something commanding in it nonetheless:

“How?”

Like it’s unimaginable. Like Steve reading that post and walking into this lot and striding up to a perfect stranger—who may or may not be very famous but that’s actually not even a little bit of the point—but a stranger who would want to see him—

But then Steve’s meeting the guy’s eyes again; hadn’t wholly realized he’d been staring at their hands more than anything. Those eyes are like the night sky, swirling and endless and sparking in the right slant of light, and Steve feels them like a welcome, like a cushion of the stars, like a safe landing in a chaotic universe.

He doesn’t even know this man.

But he thinks…yesterday. Yesterday, his heart didn’t stop, not like this guy had written, but Steve understands now what it did do instead, the thing he did remember, the tightness in his throat: his heart didn’t stop.

It just surged upward and took up residence to pound at his trachea where it tripped instead. Which is kinda where he’s back to right now.

“Could I,” the guy’s voice is rough, shaky, and so is he, Steve feels it where he’s still got his hand gripped firm; “would it be too much to ask if I could hug you?”

And he huffs a breath, and it sounds too….too small, like he’s afraid or ashamed and it pings something hateful, but so much more protective in Steve’s blood just to hear it as he confesses on a end of an exhale:

“I just want to know if you’re real.”

And Steve didn’t grow up a hugger, but he sure as shit’s grown into one; he’d be one of those people standing in the city with a ‘Free Hugs’ sign without much convincing. But this guy.

This man in front of him who may or may not be famous, is definitely a stranger either way save that he poured out some lines on the internet that maybe exceeded the term ‘heartfelt’ by a mile, who may or may not be standing in here, inside this moment, for something like fate because…Steve did feel it.

Maybe he didn’t think twice about the immensity it could have, not in the moment, because he’d been shopping, and Robin���s story was funny and maybe he was just struck by his luck in living a life with his platonic soulmate and knowing joy; surely your heart can trip for that and just because it never had before, just because it did this one first time when he crossed eyes with a genuinely beautiful man who left Steve with half-a-second’s certainty that looking any longer would flay wide this unknown person’s soul for Steve to sift through: but Steve felt things like that easy, always had. Romanticized nothings like it was a profession.

But it never hit like this had, has—is—before, if indeed this is actually anything—

And Steve’s heart is still tripping but it’s back in his chest, and he knows it because where he’s pressed against this guy’s kinda-gasping chest, now, close and tight? Maybe Steve’s never paid attention before, or maybe Steve’s just never…touched like this before, even if all they’re doing is hugging in a fucking parking lot.

But.

He’s pressed there and his heart’s tripping in his chest and he knows it wholly and fully because he can feel this man’s heartbeat next to his own—and where it should be a battle, because it’s pounding, both of them are, one side literally against the other?

It feels like a caress. It feels like, like…

Steve closes his eyes tight because they start to sting with the single word it feels like: impossible, absurd, but…

Here he is. He’s never felt someone’s heartbeat pressed up against his own before. Definitely never felt—never dreamt—that it could feel like it fits.

He leans back when he thinks he’s got a hold on the hopelessness of his tender-hearted absurdity, but the guy is staring at him already when he does and suddenly Steve’s got a handle on absolutely nothing except his pulse jackrabbiting some more but then also feeling…like it lost something. Like it’s not complete.

And the man, he’s staring with those eyes so wide again but now it’s like he’s…it’s kinda like he knows. He knows his eyes are going to let Steve flay him wide open.

It’s like he’s begging Steve to…look. To look and less to take, and more to…have.

Maybe, maybe to keep?

And…how?

“Do you feel it?” the guy whispers, those deep dark eyes so big: just these vulnerable, bleeding hearts on main. “Even just—“ he tries to walk back, to open it all up wider, desperate and hopeful and Steve hears all of it because it’s all written in the same key as all that Steve knows, all that Steve is. Somehow.

Somehow.

So Steve blinks, too many times before he grabs the man harder and drags him in again to hold, hold, hold until the heartbeat on either side of Steve’s ribs is reaching for the other, touching. Until they’re holding on, too, and once they do, then he can whisper, warm and maybe wet in the crook of this man’s neck, this stranger who’s holding onto his heart now, unfathomable, as he speaks words he doesn’t have to think about first to know they’re going to shift the world again, this time so they both can know it in the souls of them together, all at once:

“I feel it.”

For @hbyrde36, who requested 'Missed Connection AU' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @lawrencebshoggoth

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