Purple Grapes And My Soul Is Yours

by Frappexo

Summary:

Ever since he learned that the mark on his inner forearm was the first words his soulmate would ever say to him, Eddie Munson has constantly wondered what fate has stored for him in that aspect. Not that he's desperate or anything, but how is he supposed to find his person if his mark is his last name? That’s like, a total jerk move. But it's okay. After all, he has his whole life ahead of him to find them, and if there’s something he knows for sure, it’s that you always find what you’re looking for where you least expect it.

Notes:

 

This is the first fic I write both for this fandom and in a long time. These two guys have me wrapped around their pinkies, and I'm still pretending Vol. 2 didn't happen, so, here we are.

This was inspired by this prompt, although I took some liberties and didn't really follow it word by word. Also, this isn't beta-ed and English isn't my first language—sorry in advance if you find any mistakes.

This is yours now. Hope you enjoy. :)

 

 

If Eddie’s calculations were correct—which he was sure they were—and his memory didn’t fail him—which, eh, it sometimes did—he was two and a half when he learned, you didn’t say ‘hello’ to new people. Never. Could use any word he wanted except ‘hello’ or any other variation of it.

He was three when he became aware of the mark he had on his left inner forearm, near his elbow. Five when he learned the letters at school and managed to read the mark by himself—he had been so proud, the little thing.

He was six when he wondered why he had it and his mother told him she would explain it when he grew older. Seven when he heard his classmates start to discuss what their soulmarks said—whatever that even meant—excited to imagine when, and where, and from whom they would hear them for the first time.

He was eight when his mom told him what a soulmate was and why he had on his forearm what he had. Word had it, the universe, for whatever ridiculous reason, had decided to cut each soul in halves and put them in two different people. The person who had the other half of your soul, then, would be your soulmate.

“How would I know who that person is?” little Eddie had wondered, because it couldn’t be simple at all. According to his mother, though, it was simple.

Everyone had, somewhere on their body, a mark like that on Eddie’s forearm. That mark was the first words your soulmate would ever say to you once you found each other, and wasn’t that nice? There was no way to miss it this way. Nobody ever used generic words to greet new people in case they happened to encounter The One. Thus, everyone came up with a phrase that was special so their soulmate would recognize them—and ah, yes, Eddie now understood. It was the reason why he couldn’t say ‘hello’ and used ‘purple grapes’ instead.

Made a lot of sense.

Except Eddie’s mark wasn’t special because ‘Munson’ was what it said.

A simple, plain, boring ‘Munson’.

What the hell.

He hadn’t grasped the implications of such a mark back then, nor had his mother delved into it so he wouldn’t worry at such a young age. But as time went by, and he realized there was no way for him to find his soulmate the normal way—how was he supposed to know whether someone calling him by his last name meant it only as Munson or his Munson, what a fucking hassle—the worry his mother had spared him became a constant in his life.

And see, it wasn’t like he was that into the concept of soulmates. Not really. It had been a wonder at first, when the information was quite tender and recent in his brain. Then he turned nine. He turned nine and saw his jerk of a father, his mother’s soulmate, leave their little home for him never to return—which, fuck you, you asshole! Took you long enough! Not long after, she began dating this other jerk who was definitely not his father, and obviously not her soulmate, and who didn’t quite find pleasant the presence of, “Your fucking son, Lucile! Make him stay still, for fuck’s sake!”

The concept pretty much lost some of its charm after that.

Fast forward two years later, he was living with Wayne, away from his mother and the jerk, and facing a new school year. With it came the arrival of this Bobby kid. With his funny humor, his cute dimple on his left cheek, his smart brain, and whose favorite color was purple, just like Eddie’s. And man, Eddie had only been eleven, but oh, how sure he had been of how much he wanted Bobby to be his soulmate, and—

It hit him like a truck.

Not that the excitement about soulmates came back. Or that he wanted his soulmate to be a boy. No, not that, but rather the fact that… Well, he had never heard of a boy having a boy soulmate. It had always been a boy with a girl. That was what he had seen so far, anyway. It had to be the only option, then, right? The natural way of things.

All this stuff obviously left his kid-self with many doubts at the time.

It didn’t help his case that, as expected, many of his classmates began to find their soulmates, whether at school, or at some summer camp, or wherever else. Every time it happened, kids got all excited, as though it had been them themselves the ones finding the other half of their souls. And listen, Eddie got the excitement of it. He did. He could understand why it was always such a celebrated event. But he couldn’t help the ugly feeling in his tummy every time it happened to someone who wasn’t him. Because even if he were to ignore the genre part, nobody he knew seemed to have ‘purple grapes’ as their mark. No one. Not the girls, even less the boys.

To add some fuel to the fire, kids at school… they didn’t like him. Eddie knew he was different, alright? Like, that was a fact. What with his eccentric behavior, to the music he loved to listen, and his obsession with Dungeons and Dragons and all things fantasy, and his whole person in general. He got it. He wasn’t like the rest of them. But was being someone different reason enough to treat him like garbage and push him away? Apparently, it was. He hadn’t understood at first, but when one too many kids told him he was weird and broke his heart just a little—he only wanted friends, goddamn, but kids were fucking tactless and cruel, and Eddie was sensitive and wore his stupid heart on his sleeve—it only increased the nagging dread in his gut that maybe there was something truly wrong with him.

Dark times, those had been.

He eventually got used to it all. Was he happy about it? Not really, but it was what it was and there was really nothing he could do but to accept it. So he did, and even ended up embracing it to an extent. Hadn’t been easy, but when he got there, he made the most of it. Again, he was different, but was that going to stop him from finding his damn boy soulmate? Of fucking course not.

So, he kicked off his hunt. He had it all planned in his head. He would get no shame in greeting boys with his phrase just to check. Sounded easy. Pretty simple. Didn’t require much effort of his part, really. Except, his old man caught him before he could even start—up to this day, he still wasn’t sure how he had done it, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Wayne had always known him better than anyone; perhaps more than Eddie had known himself for a long time there. So he had sat with him and had a long conversation about how it was okay to be and feel different than what he normally saw; to like different things than what the rest did. He just had to be a little bit more discreet and cautious about it because people sometimes didn’t react well to those who were different.

Eddie had been pretty much uninformed until that day, but he understood it was better to keep some things—his intentions, his dreams, his wishes—to himself. Kids had proven his uncle to be correct and he wasn’t going to help them be meaner. He had to conceal his main goal, then.

Like this, he began throwing his ‘purple grapes’ around. If the situation turned ugly, he would make use of his freak card and dismiss it as a joke. Nobody would ever bat an eye. He had nothing to lose.

When it started, he had been about twelve. He was twenty now. Twenty and soulmate-less. Which, okay, not cool. But whatever. It wasn’t like he was desperate for it. He still had a full life ahead of him. And it wasn’t, either, like he had already spoken to every dude living in this hell of a town. Hawkins was small, but he wasn’t Mr. Popularity, so. He knew he still had a few chances waiting for him out there.

Probably.

Hopefully.

But hold on—why was he even thinking about all this?

Ah, right. Jeff and his soulmate. Dude had gone on a little trip to Cinci to watch some football game with his cousin, only to come back having found his soulmate. He couldn’t shut up about it. It was fabulous. Wonderful. And, like, good for him. Eddie wasn’t jealous or anything.

Anyway.

“Alright, respectable gentlemen gathered around this magnificent table!” he exclaimed, voice raising over Jeff’s incessant babble. The group looked at him and he smirked. Time to go back on track. “We’re all excited about noble Jeff’s achievement, that’s for sure, but our heroes are waiting for us to continue their quest. Let’s not make them wait!”

 

 

Amazing afternoon, in Eddie’s opinion.

Great session, great environment, great party… great DM? There was some bias here, wasn’t it?

Hm. Well.

He was packing all their stuff, careful not to leave anything behind on top of the table, lest he wanted something to magically disappear. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Most of the kids had already left—ran, really. They had finished way past their usual time, many of them exclaiming they wouldn’t make it on time for their midweek curfews. He needed to get a grip on his timing. He didn’t like it when he made his little gang late to get home, more so when they had to go back alone.

The ones still hanging around were Sinclair, Henderson, and Wheeler, chatting about a particular twist in the story nobody had seen coming. Eddie tried to be humble most of the time, but even he couldn’t deny that what had happened had been epic. He was proud of how he had pulled that one.

“I’m telling you,” Wheeler said, shaking his finger in the air. “Next time we’ll be prepared.”

“It obviously won’t happen again,” Sinclair said. “There’s no way Eddie can do that twice without us noticing.”

“Is that a challenge?” Eddie meddled in, arranging the chairs back under the table.

“It’s an observation,” Sinclair said.

Dustin made a face. “He’s smart, Lucas. He can definitely do it again and somehow make it even more epic.”

“There’s just no way!”

“But I’m telling you it is! Eddie, tell him!”

“As if I would ever reveal my plotting to any of you.” Eddie snorted and shook his head. “Let’s get out of here, kiddies. It’s getting late.”

As they followed all the way out of the school to the parking lot, the three boys kept bantering, Eddie adding a comment here and there. The sky was cloudy, not quite dark yet. It didn’t seem like it would rain, though. It was more the kind of gray that reminded you that fall had just started. The wind was blowing hard enough to bring Eddie’s hair on his face and trap a few dry leaves among the strands.

He huffed. Shaking them away, he freed his eyes in time to catch the shiny, pretty, super expensive burgundy BMW parked on an empty space a few lots from his shitty van. Leaning on the driver’s door was none other than Steve Harrington. Arms crossed, hair flapping with the wind. Head tipped up at the sky, like a god basking on the mid-September afternoon weather.

The sight was no foreign to Eddie, having seen it far more times than he could count ever since classes had started. Didn’t mean it didn’t catch him off guard from time to time, though. For… whatever reason.

He looked away and fumbled with his jacket to get his keys, as he followed in silence behind the boys.

Harrington looked down, then, turning to the not-so-silent conversation in the empty parking lot. “What’s taking you so long? Hurry the hell up!” he shouted at the boys.

Wheeler and Sinclair ignored him, only Henderson yelling back a response.

“We’ve told you many times we don’t need you to pick us up!”

“And I’ve told you many times your mothers have asked me to do it. I’m not happy about it either, man.”

“We can all pretend, then!” Henderson exclaimed again. “You leave us on our own and we’ll tell our moms you did it. It’s a win-win!”

“Yeah, not a chance,” Harrington said. “Now get in the car. I’ve got somewhere else to be.”

The kids made it to the car at last, but they didn’t get in. They stopped next to Harrington, surrounding him, and not giving him enough space to open the door.

“Somewhere where?” Dustin asked.

Eddie was still a few steps behind but was close enough to see Harrington roll his eyes. They landed on Eddie and— One, two, three… Harrington looked away and frowned down at Dustin. “None of your business. Get in the car.”

“Do you have another date?” Wheeler asked, his tone judgmental.

“Again, none of your business. Move—”

“He’s got another date!” Sinclair groaned with a shake of his head, the other two following with their own comments.

Eddie pursed his lips, an attempt to fight back a snort. Witnessing such an exchange in the middle of the lot wasn’t part of his plans, but he would take it. It was amusing.

“See you later, boys,” he said once he reached them, not exactly raising his voice above their ruckus. They did hear him, though, the three of them halting their pestering to say goodbye.

Once in his van, he couldn’t help but stare out the window. They were still arguing, while Harrington tried, without much success, to get them into the car.

Eddie snorted and shook his head, bringing his vehicle back to life.

Poor man.

 

 

When it came to things he couldn’t understand, Eddie always attributed it to life intervening for reasons yet unknown to him.

One of those was Steve Harrington—not that Harrington was a thing, but you caught his drill.

He still remembered the first time he saw him, back during the first weeks of his sophomore year. Steve Harrington. A silly little freshman student, with his silly little hair, and silly little smile, and silly little everything. For a moment there, a very tiny moment that couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds, he thought, Jeez, he’s cute. Then he caught sight of Tommy Hagan walking next to him, their noses up as if trying to make sure everyone knew who ruled the school at their majestic ages of fifteen, and Eddie’s thoughts went down to, What a fucking waste, he must also be a total dick.

And a total dick Steve Harrington had been. A downright asshole. Making fun of people only because he could. Staring down at every single person he considered inferior to him, treating them like a gum stuck under his very expensive shoes. So, naturally, Eddie despised him—even if he had never been an active target of the boy.

When it came to him, Harrington had never attempted to start anything. He was always around when his stupid group of friends decided to pick on Eddie, but he was nothing more than a silent witness. He never did more than standing on the sidelines. His eyes always lingered afterwards, though, lasting no more than three seconds—yeah, Eddie liked to count them, whatever—before looking away.

Eddie never got to decipher those looks; wasn’t sure if those eyes reflected pity, contempt, disgust… fear? Maybe Steve was afraid of him. Messing with the school’s freak didn’t sound appealing. Not when there was the possibility of you being the subject of his next voodoo ritual during the upcoming full moon or whatever other shit people loved to spread around. Maybe Steve believed such things, who knew.

What Eddie did know was that, while King Steve’s reign of terror had been long and suffering for people like him, it, eventually, came to an end. Very abruptly, too, if you asked him. He had no idea what had changed, but he was certain something big had happened.

Maybe it had been the influence of that Wheeler girl. Or maybe the constant fights Harrington must’ve got himself into, for he spent more time with a bruised eye and a split lip than without them. Or maybe something completely different. Whatever the reason, though, Harrington had changed. And still, Eddie couldn’t help being skeptical of the whole situation.

Not that he couldn’t see it, because he could. He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. He knew something was up but didn’t know what. Although he had long ago accepted the fact that he would never get his answers. As curious as he was, there were always more questions than answers when it came to King Steve. That was what he meant with the whole ‘life intervening and doing its business’. So, he also minded his own business, and left Hawkins’ royalty to deal with theirs.

Then Steve graduated and the boy completely slipped Eddie’s mind for a few months. They didn’t run in the same circles, nor did they live in the same neighborhoods. There were zero to none chances for them to cross paths again. But when the school year was back—and his third round with senior year started, what a shocker—he saw him standing next to that fucking car of his out of school, waiting for his Hellfire kids, no less. It was as though life was messing with him yet again—It’s okay, Munson. Don’t worry about it. It’s only me doing what I usually do. And, oh, by the way, I just decided to bring Harrington back as a recurrent character in your storyline. Hope you don’t mind.

And hell, did Eddie mind!

In the grand scheme of things, it was irrelevant. Like, Steve didn’t have any kind of importance to him, nor did he have any kind of impact in the way Eddie went about his day. But man, a little warning hadn’t hurt anyone before.

The first time it happened, he had stared so hard in disbelief he might as well have burned a hole in Harrington’s face. The guy hadn’t even noticed him, busy with trying to coax Henderson, Sinclair, and Wheeler to get their bikes in the boot of his car. And Eddie thought that, maybe, there had been a mistake. It must’ve been. Because why was Steve Harrington hoarding a bunch of high schoolers who, by any means—and not to say it in a mean way, but high school’s societal hierarchy sucked that way—were cool enough to be worthy of his attention.

Sure, he had seen him change to an extent, but had that extension gone as far as to… what? Babysit a bunch of nerdy kids?

There was no way.

But it kept happening. Over, and over, and over again, without fail, after every Hellfire session. It hadn’t taken him long to realize it hadn’t been a mistake, that first afternoon. That Steve, in fact, was some sort of friend-older-brother-role-model for the kids. He found it as confusing as it was sweet.

The first time such thoughts crossed his mind, he cringed. He was getting better at it now. Sort of. Sometimes he still found his brain short-circuiting, trying to reconcile the old image he still stored of Harrington somewhere deep in his memories, with what he saw now, back in the present. But there was no point in denying the undeniable when the evidence was in front of him.

This didn’t mean he felt the urge to walk toward him and befriend him, though. Sure, he loved himself a good character development—and honestly, good for Harrington, really—but they were just… no.

Eddie didn’t know if he was imagining it, or if Harrington also felt it, but it was like there were still some boundaries they had to maintain. There was… not reluctance, but… He could say they didn’t deem it necessary to interact with the other. They never truly acknowledged each other, let alone spoke. They never were in real proximity. Whenever they made eye contact, it didn’t last longer than their usual three seconds—on Steve’s side, at least (Eddie’s side was intrigued, sue him). They were two elements coexisting in the same space, for very short periods of time, who happened to have a trio of teen acquaintances in common.

Again, in the grand scheme of things, it was all irrelevant.

Eddie didn’t care.

As much as his subconscious let him, anyway.

Not that he would ever admit it to anyone—and God, hadn’t it taken him long to admit it to himself—but something always scratched inside his brain whenever he saw Steve. It was there, nagging at him, begging for his attention, ever since that first time he saw him at school all those years back.

Part of him wanted so hard to ignore it; to pretend it wasn’t there. Another, though—the part that had crafted in deep detail a plan on how to approach the soulmate thing, always screamed at him to get his ass moving. Because that had been the main point, hadn’t it? Speak to every guy living in Hawkins until you find your soulmate. If nobody turns out to be it for you, at least you’ll know you tried.

Eddie hadn’t set any type or rules. There was no specification on whether he would skip some people just because he felt like it. So, technically, he could if he wanted, but… But.

The what ifs were there.

What if he skipped Steve?

What if he skipped him and he turned out to—

Nah.

Could he…?

Nah…

Or…

No.

He had tried not to entertain the idea. The ridiculousness of it was enough to have him rolling on the floor. Like, just imagine. What kind of joke would the universe have decided to make of him by pairing him with Steve Harrington as a soulmate? A big unfunny one, that was the kind. And yet, Eddie still knew the possibility was there. For no reason other than the fact that he was yet to make any kind of real contact with Steve.

He couldn’t rule it out until, you know, he spoke to him. And the thing was, Eddie might’ve considered doing it, except Steve himself also behaved like he was putting his distance, his own reasons beyond Eddie. And Eddie might have no shame, but he liked to think a bit of dignity remained within this little body of his.

So no, he was not going to be the one to do it first.

Did that make him a coward? Most likely. But did it matter if nobody but him knew about it? In his opinion, no, it didn’t. For as long as he had life, he still had time to grow another pair. Let him be a coward for all he cared. It wasn’t like Steve would notice, anyway.

Eddie was more than okay with it.

 

 

In hindsight, he should’ve seen it coming. After Jeff, he should’ve expected it to happen. Waited for it, really, with a cold six-pack on his coffee table and a pack of cigarettes in his hand, until it knocked on his door.

October had barely begun when Gareth went to practice claiming he had found his soulmate. And Eddie, while happy for him, was beyond annoyed at him for being an insufferable little shit about it.

“Guess who also found his soulmate before our super super senior and leader, old Mr. Munson?” the boy said and shit, damn. It was a little funny joke, but their super super senior and leader, old Mr. Munson, didn’t find it funny at all. Delicate topic, these days.

Eddie stopped messing with the strap on his shoulder to give Gareth an unimpressed look. “I’ll have you know, young sir, I found mine a long time ago.” He stroked the neck of she, her, the love of his life, his one and only, his precious guitar. “Cheating with a real-person soulmate isn’t allowed in our relationship.”

Jeff snorted, Gareth and Jake high-fived, and Eddie pretended to busy himself with his amp.

After that, everything came tumbling down on him like a fucking chain reaction.

Gareth’s soulmate was the main topic at the next Hellfire session, for obvious reasons. At their age, it was a requisite to pretend not to care about it. It wasn’t cool to get all excited and bubbly about a soulmate, even for nerdy groups like theirs. But inside the walls of Hellfire’s sacred place, everyone allowed themselves to drop the façade. They were teenagers, after all. Eager to know, to see, to witness such an event in real life as much as they could, and not be told about it by the friend of a friend of a cousin of a friend.

It was normal, understandable, and Eddie wouldn’t have had a problem with it, hadn’t all the attention ended up on him for a moment.

It turned out, Gareth’s soulmate brought awareness to how they had never talked about their soulmates before as a group. So, talk about their soulmates as a group they did, much to Eddie’s dismay.

In a span of less than ten minutes, he learned that Mike had already found his—who was currently living in Cali. So had Lucas—little Mayfield, what a surprise! And so had Dustin—who, apparently, nobody had believed was real and existed at first. Next had been Jake, then Jeff, then Gareth. And then, like a loser, was Eddie, who had no way to add anything of value to the conversation because… Well. Because. And what was with kids nowadays finding their other halves at such a young age? They had barely started to bike with only two wheels. Why were they already so sure of who they would spend the rest of their lives with? Christ.

“Hey, Eddie, what about yours?” Wheeler asked and Eddie didn’t even have time to react.

“He hasn’t found her yet,” Gareth answered for him, his tone half smug, half mocking.

Eddie scowled—whether for the assumption or the comment in general, he wasn’t exactly sure. “I can still make your paladin die a slow, painful death if I want. Careful, there, Gareth, The Great.”

Gareth only rolled his eyes.

“It’s okay, Eddie. It happens sometimes,” Dustin, sweet, sweet Dustin said. “Our friend—Steve? He hasn’t found his soulmate, either. Maybe it’s a thing for the recent old generations.”

It had been an innocent comment, but man, hadn’t it made something churn in Eddie’s gut. Harrington and Munson, old and soulmate-less. Old and soulmate-less. Old and—

“It’s not the generation at all,” Mike said. “Nancy and Jonathan have each other and they’re as old. It must be something about Steve. Obviously.”

Obviously. The disgust in Wheeler’s voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“Hey! You make it sound like something’s wrong with Steve!” Dustin all but yelled, outraged at such a comment.

“Isn’t it?” Mike deadpanned.

Eddie didn’t remember much of how he had stopped their little fight. What he did remember was that, after that, a few things changed his sense of normalcy almost at the same time.

The first one wasn’t a change, but rather he began paying more attention to it happening on a constant basis. Not that he had wanted to pay attention to begin with, because what would the reason be, right? But his brain, the traitor, had taken into dropping whatever he was focusing on whenever someone brought Steve Harrington’s name to the table.

And boy, wasn’t that name brought to his fucking D&D table more often than not.

Dustin Henderson, bless him, was one of the nicest kids he had ever got the pleasure to meet. All eager smiles, passionate personality, and big smart brain. One of the best additions Hellfire had ever got in its few years of existence. The boy had taken no time to win Eddie over. The school year had barely started when he just knew Henderson would become the little brother he never had. And ask him now, about two months later, he was sure he would do anything for him. Hell, he would probably kill an endangered species if the kid asked him to.

But dammit if he didn’t know when to shut up talking about Harrington.

Because, apparently, Steve was one of Dustin’s best friends. And, apparently, Steve was amazing. And, apparently, Steve had so much confidence in himself, and had the best hair out of everyone in Hawkins, and the best fashion style, and the best luck with babes. And maybe Steve was a little way too oblivious and obtuse sometimes, but it didn’t matter because he was also so cool, and the funniest, and the bravest, and gave the best advice ever, but wait, wait, shut the fuck up! No one let him know Dustin had said that, please! And Steve this. And Steve that. And Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve.

Steve.

And Eddie—Jesus, Eddie wanted to tear his hair in pieces whenever he heard one of those rambles. They gave him migraines, he wasn’t exaggerating. Gave him, also, a phantom itch on his forearm where he knew the Munson was waiting.

Which was ridiculous.

So fucking ridiculous.

It made no sense!

He had no doubt it had everything to do with the constant exposure to Henderson’s worship of Harrington he had been subjected to. He obviously wasn’t interested, nor did it mean anything. It was more like, when a friend of yours was obsessed with a film and whenever you heard or saw anything related to it, you automatically felt a connection to it. Because of your friend. But you were not interested in the film at all. Made sense, right? Right. Like, yeah? Yeah. It made sense. Total normal behavior. He was only mixing things up in his head. It happened to the best of men. Otherwise, the only reason he had for this whole mess was that he was going nuts for good—which was kind of lowkey welcomed and not-so-lowkey expected. At least he hoped it would be fun once it fully happened…

Anyway, that was the first.

The second change had been teeny-weeny; easy to miss if one wasn’t familiar with it. But Eddie hadn’t missed it, because he had been familiar with it.

It came in the form of a pair of eyes narrowing every time they crossed with Eddie’s. At first Eddie had brushed it off. It wasn’t weird for Harrington to look at him from time to time with that air of I don’t get why my kids like you, but I’m going to tolerate you for their sake. But after it happened a few times in a row, he felt like those looks were more of the kind that try to find something; try to figure you out.

He didn’t have enough time to delve into that, however, because soon enough those evolved into long, lingering stares.

He was used to counting to three whenever their eyes met. It was their established quota. There had never been a reason for them not to keep it like that. So, of course, when one day he counted to four, then to five, and once even up to seven? Well, shit, he knew something was wrong.

It felt like being exposed. Like everything his soul had to offer was displayed in his eyes for Harrington to see, which, hello? Rude? Whatever his soul had to offer was meant to be seen only by his soulmate. Harrington had no business knowing about it.

Try as he might, though, sometimes he couldn’t help himself. It was like feeling a pull toward Steve. As if some magnet forced his eyes to drag all the way to him, completely against his will, and stay there until Harrington looked away. It was unacceptable. Some big deity up there, or down, or both, was taking way too many liberties with him and he didn’t like it. Thus, Eddie made it his life goal to avoid Harrington’s eyes at all costs. If for some reason he landed on them, he never let it last more than their three, very comfortable and usual, seconds. Although—and he would never, ever admit this out loud—if he sometimes was weak and let their stares last more than those three, that was his secret to keep.

After that came the nods.

Eddie had been experiencing these strange, not-so-direct interactions with Harrington for almost two months. He would’ve really liked to say he was used to them, but alas, it still took him off guard.

Winter break had just started when he ran into him at Bradley’s while buying milk. Fucking milk! He noticed him first and had about four seconds—that he could’ve used to escape but hadn’t because, not only was his brain a traitor, now so was his body—before Harrington took notice of his presence, as well. It was obvious none of them had expected the encounter, for they stood there, in the middle of the goddamn dairy aisle, staring at the other like a pair of idiots.

He had no idea how he had landed himself in such a situation, but it seemed there was no way for him to escape the nonsense. And nonsense happened when Harrington lost their staring contest, cleared his throat, and nodded once at Eddie. Like a father greeting another father at the kids’ baseball game, for goodness’ sake! It was testament of how absurd it had been, that Eddie found himself nodding back. Like the other father returning the greeting and, Hey, what an excellent game, isn’t it? My kid’s the one with the amazing swing, number 20, who’s yours?

Fucking absurd, he told you!

As absurd as it was, though, the greeting repeated itself every time they saw each other after that—that only happened once he went back to school, thank fuck.

It was almost like they were civil, which wasn’t that weird. They were adults—or pretended to be, at the very least—and shared a bond with those three kids. It made sense and it was fine. Ridiculous and with no coherent explanation, but fine. Eddie was still not sure of what to make of it but had already accepted that that was how things were now.

The only thing that didn’t change was their speaking terms. At this point, he had no doubt it was deliberate. It had to be. God knew Eddie himself was actively avoiding speaking to Harrington. Harrington couldn’t have been any different. If not, then why hadn’t they, not even once, talked? Granted, just because they were acting like the baseball pair of dads, it didn’t mean they had to talk—what would they talk about if that were to happen, anyway—but the change of dynamic, in any normal circumstances, would’ve led to, at least, saying hi. With its full two letters and all.

But it hadn’t happened.

So, they had both to be avoiding it.

Eddie didn’t know what to make of that, either.

From his side, he knew what his reasons were, even if he didn’t like to admit it. But from Harrington’s side? What was his motivation there? Eddie didn’t like to assume or make his own conclusions, but he could almost swear on his parents’ broken bond that their reasons weren’t the same. They couldn’t be. They simply couldn’t. Because if they, for whatever reason, were the same…

No, fuck that. That was a can of worms he didn’t want to open.

By the end of January, he wasn’t sure of anything but one thing—he had definitely, certainly, a hundred percent gone fully nuts, indeed. And it wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be.

 

 

One week into February and Eddie would dare to say it was going without much change, at last. He was so thankful for it. He did deserve the rest.

He was currently getting ready to head home after another successful session. He scanned the room one last time once he had rearranged everything, before turning off the lights and walking out. He closed the door behind him and went across the hallways, twirling his keys in a finger until he reached the parking lot.

The afternoon was giving way to night fast. The chilly wind cut through his warm skin, making his body do a full shiver. It wasn’t snowing, but there was no sign of little humans still lurking around. No little humans except for Henderson, who was standing at the entrance of the lot, tapping his foot on the ground, and staring off in the distance at the street.

Eddie looked around. The Beemer was nowhere in sight. He frowned and walked past his van, careful not to disturb the silence that much. There was no need to scare the kid.

“Good sir, nice to see you again this soon,” he said, once he was at a reasonable distance.

Dustin jumped a little, then turned around. “Oh, Eddie. Hey.”

“Why are you still here and where are your other two triplets? It’s getting colder, man.”

“Huh? They already left. Didn’t want to wait for fucking Steve.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Do you kiss your mother with such a foul mouth? Watch it. Aren’t you, like, twelve?”

The kid stared at him as if he had run over his cat. “Eddie!”

“Kidding!”

What a hypocrite. Eddie started swearing at the tender age of ten. This kid was, what, fifteen? Not the most… appropriate language, sure, but Henderson was well of age to swear if he wanted, he guessed. It was just— He didn’t want to seem interested in knowing why Harrington wasn’t there yet. Not that Dustin would notice anything, but Eddie preferred to keep some of his interests to himself, thank you very much. Although he guessed he still had to ask. Henderson was standing here alone, after all, probably freezing as he was very obviously waiting for his driver to arrive.

“Why is he late, anyway?” he asked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “He’s always here on time.”

“He said he had stuff to do and would be a little bit late today. Said it wasn’t a date, but I don’t believe him.” Henderson scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Ah, yes… The on-going quest to find a Queen for our King.” Eddie ignored whatever acrobatics his stomach had decided to perform right now. “Nice.”

“I don’t know why he tries so hard,” Henderson said, not even trying to hide his disapproval. “What’s the point if none of those girls are his soulmate, anyway!”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “You sound so sure.”

“I am so sure.”

“And that’s because…?”

Dustin rolled his eyes again—what was with this little dude’s attitude, damn. “I’ve seen his mark. There’s no way any of those girls can get any of that out of their mouths. And this isn’t me stereotyping them or anything. I could be very mistaken, of course, but I know I’m not, because I know our kind. And they”—he waved his hand around, as if the girls were standing in front of them—”definitely don’t belong to it.”

Our kind. What did that even mean? Eddie didn’t have a chance to ask, though, for the Beemer finally appeared, rolling to a stop a few meters from them. The blinkers flashing, Harrington staying in the car.

“He’s waiting for you,” Eddie said, as if that hadn’t been obvious.

Henderson scoffed. “Yeah, and I’m not going there. If he wants me to go, he must step into the cold and fetch me right from this spot.”

Christ, what a pain in the ass this kid was. Eddie treasured him like a chest of gold, but he was so grateful he wasn’t in Harrington’s position right now. Or ever.

“Anyway,” Dustin said, completely ignoring the car ahead of them. “I know you don’t break the rules with this, but could you please, please, tell me how we can get that map out of the bottom of the sinkhole? We’ve been stuck at it for two whole sessions without any success. It’s getting silly at this point!”

For a moment Eddie stared at him, caught off guard with the change of topic. Then, “I’m not telling you anything.”

“Please! We’re running out of ideas!” Henderson threw his hands up, his eyes wide. “We were just talking about how we’re seriously going to have to send one of us to enter the sinkhole! And like, we would do that in the knowledge that whoever enters might not even make it out alive! We’re that desperate.”

Eddie forced himself to keep his face as serious as he could. He had heard them planning out their strategies and racking their brains to come up with solutions, each idea more unhinged than the last. He knew the kid wasn’t lying when he said they were desperate. It was funny if he was honest.

“Isn’t that a little extreme?” he asked, only to mess with him.

Dustin gave him a look. “It obviously is. But, as I said, we’re running out of ideas, and we need to get our hands on that map.”

Eddie shook his head. He had planted the idea of the map only to alter their plans a little. But, although useful, they could continue their journey without it. There was no need to sacrifice anyone. He still didn’t know why none of them had realized it yet.

“Are you all willing to lose one of your comrades for it? Seriously?”

“I mean, if it’s necessary? Yeah, absolutely!” Henderson nodded, a little crease appearing in the middle of his eyebrows. “Although just today, actually, Mike brought up the idea of casting Raise Dead. Do you think it could—”

The honk of Harrington’s car went off, making them both jump. Eddie had totally forgotten about him. Oops. He couldn’t see a thing inside the car, but he was sure Steve had to be frowning. The guy had to wait, though. They had to finish this first.

“Raise Dead?” he asked, turning back to Dustin.

Dustin held a hand toward Steve, then said to Eddie, “Yeah, Raise Dead. We think it could work. The penalties to whoever gets resurrected aren’t ideal, and we would have to pray for the body to be intact by the time we try to cast, but I think it’s worth a shot. Don’t you?”

“I mean, it sounds like a solid plan. It could be a solid plan, but how’re you going to do that? None of you are clerics. Plus—and this isn’t me trying to talk you out of it, but it might not even work. You said it yourself, there’s a big chance for the body to be, like, useless. It would be a total waste of a spell. Wouldn’t it be easier if you, like, forgo the map altogether?”

Henderson scoffed, looking at him as though he were talking nonsense. “Come on, Eddie! After all the time we’ve spent trying to get it? Forgoing it now is like, the stupidest idea I’ve heard yet! And we’ve come up with really stupid ideas to solve this.”

An indignant sound escaped Eddie’s lips right from the back of his throat. “Stupidest? No, hey. Wait a second there, you—”

“Henderson!”

They both turned in time to see Harrington getting out of the car. He slammed the door and headed toward them, his level of annoyance probably at a five out of five, totally reflected on that face of his.

“Come on, man, let’s go! What the hell are you doing?”

But, no, nope. Eddie wasn’t having it. There was no way he wouldn’t finish this, so—

“Hold your horses, pretty boy! You were late, so now you have to wait. This little butthead’s been pestering me for information he claims he needs, but once he gets it, decides it’s the stupidest—like, that’s insulting, by the way—because it doesn’t work for the party’s ego. If they only spent half the amount of time they spend complaining in thinking objectively, they would’ve already realized they don’t even need the map to keep going! Coming up with ideas such as casting the Raise Dead spell? When they don’t even have a cleric to cast it among their files? Come on! They’re losing sleep over nothing and I’m so sorry, you probably don’t even care. Dear Lord.”

Eddie cringed and shut his mouth. Steve’s face had gone from that level five of annoyance to level, like, twenty, in a span of three seconds. And he knew, dammit, he knew he had to stop once Steve’s face started to contort. But once he got himself going, there was no way for him to stop and—

“Oh, my god,” Dustin mumbled next to him and Eddie would’ve looked at him, weren’t he so focused on Harrington’s flaring eyes.

Shit, was he going to punch him? He was going to, wasn’t he? In front of Dustin, hell. He didn’t— Wait. Why was— What was he doing?

Not taking his eyes away from Eddie’s, Steve opened his jacket and stuck out his left arm. He shoved it in front of Eddie, pulling the sleeve of his sweater—he was going to mess with the size and Eddie almost reached out to stop him—until it was showing a whole bunch of words curling around his bicep. Like a snake made of words, starting from the middle of it, ending at the elbow.

Eddie caught a glimpse of them, ‘Hold your horses, pretty boy!’ being the ones at the start of the mark, and the ones that made his chest constrict. What—

“Munson.”

Eddie felt his eyes go wide and his lips fall open, and okay, maybe he was having a little trouble with his breathing. And oh, maybe he was having a heart attack, too. And a seizure. He was sure. Oh, holy—

“Shit,” Dustin muttered.

“Watch that mouth,” both Steve and Eddie said at the same time and Eddie shivered. Christ, what the actual fuck.

“Oh, holy shit!” Dustin said again, this time louder.

None of them dared to correct him again, because yeah, oh, holy shit.

They stared at each other for one, two, three, then Steve cleared his throat and teared his eyes away, staring down at Dustin. “We really should get going. You should’ve been home by now. Your mom’s gonna kill us.”

We could use Raise Dead, Eddie’s brain usefully supplied. He ignored the way he caught Harrington trying not to react to a particularly aggressive blow of the wind.

Dustin made a confused noise. “What? No, you—”

“No. Come on.” Steve turned around, not before sparing Eddie one last glance.

Eddie stood there, watching them go. Henderson looking back at him with wide eyes; Harrington putting his jacket back on. He stayed on his spot even after they were gone, staring further down the road, his brain desperate to get a hold on the whole situation.

The wind still blew around him, the last traces of winter making themselves present, although they did nothing to extinguish the electric feeling going all along his body. As if on mere instinct, he took one hand and wrapped it around his left forearm. Many times, he had imagined himself in this situation, but never, not even once, the full scenario had been close to this. His imagination would’ve never been able to conjure anything close to this. Out of all the possible outcomes he had come up with, this wasn’t one of them. And sure, he had known for a long time now that Steve was an option, but one thing was to wonder, another was for Steve to turn out to be his fucking soulmate for real.

Eddie had been eleven when he realized he wanted a boy soulmate; twenty when he finally got what he wanted. And oh, boy, had a boy he got.

If his eleven-year-old self could see him now…

Well.

Fuck.

 

 

What had that been about him saying February was going without much change, again? He had spoken way too soon. Fuck him. He had dug his own grave there. Eddie was never going to claim anything again for the rest of his life.

The end of the month was nearing, and he was yet to calm the circus in his chest and stomach down for good. His mind was more at peace, though. Small victories, he guessed.

He had had enough time to wrap his head around the fact that, yes, he had finally found the other half of his soul—God, it sounded so cheesy—and that, yes, said half was Steve Harrington. He had also had enough time to go back in time through his memories and yes, he could remember a handful of times when he had caught a glimpse of that mark. It was hard not to when it was always there every time Harrington wore short sleeves. He could also remember thinking, once, how those were a lot of words, but he had never tried to read them for several reasons. One, it was plain rude. Two, he had never been close enough to Steve’s arm to tell them apart. And three, he didn’t want to get caught staring at that fucking bicep.

Now, if someone would’ve told him that one day Steve would, on his own accord, show him his mark, he would’ve laughed straight up in their face. And maybe he would’ve spit at them, too. Except, maybe, had he known what those words said… Nah. He had to be real here. He would’ve never allowed himself to think those would ever come out of his own mouth, even if they sounded like something he would totally say.

It didn’t matter, anyway.

Whatever the possibilities were, whatever he thought it could’ve been, there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t change anything. And his facts right now were two—he was soulmates with Harrington, and he was avoiding him like the fucking plague.

See, one thing was to come to terms with his discovery, other was to have the pants to face it. And Eddie had some pants, alright, only not for this. Never for this. His plan had never gone further than greeting people ‘purple grapes’. He hadn’t planned what to do after that, after having found him. So, he was avoiding him. He had managed to do so since that fateful day in the parking lot without much trouble. Every time they had a Hellfire session, he stayed in his chair long after everyone was gone to assure no chances of running into anyone.

Henderson had tried to make him leave with him so he could talk to Steve, but Eddie had refused the first two times. The third he had straight up told him not to stick his little nose—”This is Harrington’s and my business. I know you care, and I appreciate it, but we’re going to talk about it when we talk about it.”

Good dude had got the message and hadn’t mentioned it again after that. He had also kept it to himself, which was something Eddie was thankful for. He was almost certain it wasn’t much for his sake than for Steve’s, who had probably asked him to keep it a secret, but Eddie was glad for it, either way.

He wasn’t glad, though, with how his little rant had led him to slip how they didn’t need the map for the campaign. The next session started with Henderson jumping right into, “Let’s forgo the map altogether!” For any of their sacrifices wouldn’t be worth it, given none of them were clerics, yadda yadda, the little shit. Eddie had been annoyed at first, but then let it slide. He was mostly happy they could keep going on that aspect, at least.

Anyway, he was avoiding Harrington. Had been able to for a couple of weeks, until he hadn’t been anymore. He should’ve considered that this bond wasn’t only his. That, eventually, the other half would come back, claiming what was his right ever since he had been born. So, if Steve walking into the damn Drama room had taken him by surprise, it was Eddie’s fault for thinking he had got rid of this so soon.

He almost dropped the little chest with his dice when Harrington stood a few paces in front of him, frowning at him with all he got.

So this was happening, then.

Shit, okay. Fine.

“Why, King Steve! Welcome to our humble abode. To what do I owe the honor?” Eddie couldn’t have sounded faker, but nobody had given him a heads-up to prepare himself. Leave him alone. “The kids aren’t here, if they’re whom you’re looking for.”

Harrington narrowed his eyes. “I’m not. They’re waiting in the car. You’re avoiding me.”

It was a statement. And a correct one, at that. Smart boy.

“Come on, now, why would I do that?” Eddie smiled, though he was sure it had to look more like a grimace. “Commoners like me thrive on the bare minimum of attention a royal like you could honor us with.”

“You are avoiding me,” Harrington repeated. He was having none of Eddie’s shit. Wow, okay. “So I came here looking for you, because we obviously need to talk. You avoiding me isn’t exactly helping with that.”

“…Right. Right. But—” Eddie looked around, his small D&D palace seeming unfitting for such an activity, for such presence. “I mean, do you wanna do it here?”

“Do you wanna do it somewhere else?”

Eddie did, in fact, want to do it somewhere else. He also wanted to give himself more time. It wasn’t that hard to decide.

“Don’t take me wrong, it would be lovely to have this conversation here, but couldn’t we have it somewhere more… like, neutral? It’s just, I feel like I’m standing on your turf, even if, technically, we could say it’s my turf now. Given you have long graduated and I’m the one still here, and all that, so”—Dear God, he was rambling again—”if we’re going to do… this, I would very much rather it be in a neutral zone. No man’s land. You know the drill.”

Harrington, at some point, had crossed his arms, his jacket stretching around his biceps. Those were a nice pair of biceps, but Eddie wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole. He focused, instead, on the way Harrington was looking at him. Eyes still narrowed, although now only seeming curious. And annoyed. There was some of that, too.

After what felt like three eternities, Harrington took a deep breath and nodded. He turned around and headed toward the door. “Tonight, eight p.m. Skull Rock.”

Eddie did a double take. Had— Had he heard that right? Skull Rock, had he said? Skull Rock? Was this man for real? He would beg to differ that that place was far from neutral. If anything, it was an extension of Steve’s turf—and what an extension. But he was going to concede. He wasn’t in the mood to get into an argument with him right before they were about to address their souls’ status. So he mumbled an agreement and watched Steve throw over his shoulder as he left, “Don’t be late.”

Then he was alone again.

His wristwatch marked a little past 6. He had less than a couple of hours to psych himself up before the inevitable, then. That was not enough time, but he was in no position to complain. He had managed to postpone the conversation that, had Harrington been more stubborn, would’ve been happening at this very exact moment. So.

Small victories, Munson. Small victories.

 

 

Eddie was late.

In his defense, he had lost track of time. It’s not every day you prepare yourself to go sit with your soulmate, in fucking Skull Rock, no less, to talk about how you’ve been avoiding him, and how this was probably far from what you had both imagined and, Hey, I’ll understand if you wanna pretend this didn’t happen. It’s no biggie. Don’t worry about it.

Nobody could blame him.

It was a lot to handle at once.

But he was on his way now. With his stomach in his throat, his freezing fingers drumming on the wheel, his flee-or-flight instinct about to kick off any second, but on his way.

As he pushed way past the speed limit, he wondered if they would have to kick some teen couple out of the place. He hoped not. This entire situation was weird as it was, there was no need to make it weirder. Although, no, fuck it. Who cared about horny couples. What he really hoped was that it wouldn’t snow on them. His leather jacket could only do so much, and his sweater under it wouldn’t really make any difference.

Jesus.

What had Harrington been thinking? Setting their meeting place in the middle of the forest while the probability of it snowing was still high? Ridiculous behavior. Not that Eddie had spoken up about it. But still. They should’ve had this conversation in the Drama room, after all. At least they would’ve been protected from the damn winter. Then again, that could’ve been the whole point of choosing Skull Rock. To make him so nervous about being at the most infamous make-out spot in Hawkins, with the man who had made it infamous himself, that he would forget there was a big chance for them to freeze to death out there. Maybe the plan was to freeze Eddie to death so they wouldn’t have to talk about it.

Nice of Harrington if that was the case.

As he finally made it to the area, he spotted the Beemer parked on the side of the road, the blinkers on. Eddie cut the engine a few meters behind it. Taking one deep breath, he stepped out of his van, pretending the only reason he was shaking was the cold-ass wind. He hadn’t taken more than three steps when the passenger door opened. He frowned but didn’t question it, taking it as an invitation to get in.

The first thing he noticed was how nice the creamy leather interior was, warm-looking under the car’s interior lights. The second was the heated seats—and of course it had heated seats. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest. Pretty monsters like this Beemer would never amount to nothing but the best, just like pretty, and rich boys like this Beemer’s owner would never amount to nothing but the best, and wasn’t that fitting?

Go figures, Eddie thought.

He wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans as subtly as he could, then cleared his throat. No point dragging this out.

“King Steve.”

Harrington was staring at the road in front of them, his right hand on the wheel, his thumb tapping on it. He frowned as soon as the words left Eddie’s lips.

“Don’t call me that.” Then, as an afterthought, “Please.”

“Okay.”

At this, Harrington finally turned to him. There was a hint of surprise in his eyes, as though he had expected Eddie to retaliate, to deny his request. But Eddie wasn’t going to do that. Not when he knew better than anyone what it was like to be called something you didn’t like. Guessing by his reaction, Harrington wasn’t fond of King Steve anymore. Eddie was going to respect that.

“Is Steve alright or are we not on a first-name basis yet?”

“I—” Harrington blinked, frowning a little. He regarded him for a moment before saying, his tone careful, “Yeah, Steve is fine.”

“Alright, so. Steve,” Eddie said, sounding more confident than he was. “Are we heading to your rock or…?”

Steve frowned again. “To my…? It’s not my rock.”

“Wasn’t it you who made it popular?”

At this, a faint blush appeared on Steve’s cheeks. Eddie hated how endearing he found it. Just a little bit.

“That doesn’t make it mine, though,” Steve muttered. “But that’s… whatever, man. I obviously wasn’t thinking and just said the first place that came to my mind, but it’s cold as fuck out there. I would’ve called to change the place, but I don’t have your number. And in Henderson’s mother’s yellow pages I only found a Wayne Munson? I didn’t know if… you know. It’s the same Munson as you.”

“He is,” Eddie said. “Uncle Wayne. I live with him, so that’s the one for next time you wanna call.”

As soon as he registered what he had said, Eddie felt his cheeks going warm. Had he… Had he just implied Steve Harrington would want to call him again? For real? He didn’t give himself enough time to panic about it, for his brain went back to a specific set of words and, hold on.

“Wait, Henderson knows about this?” he asked, already hating every single minute he would have to spend with that kid if that was the case.

“What? No, I didn’t tell him what I wanted the book for. Think I would never hear the end of it if he knew.”

“No shit. Dude’s a menace.”

Steve huffed, a smile threatening the corner of his lips. “Did he also talk your ears off about us needing to talk?”

“Only three times, then I asked him to mind his own business.”

“Did he actually listen?”

“Not that he was happy about it.”

“That little shit,” Steve mumbled and shook his head. “Good to know who his favorite is.”

Eddie smiled, relaxing on his seat—would it be too hypocritical of him to save enough to get heated seats for his van, too? These were wonderful, what the hell. “What can I say?” He shrugged. “It’s hard not to be the favorite when I’m this awesome. Can’t blame him, now, can we?”

Steve snorted and rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth, though it didn’t seem he knew what to say. After a couple of seconds, he closed it again and silence settled around them.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, though Eddie didn’t want to be the one to break it. Not that he couldn’t, but rather needed a little of Steve’s help here. No matter how used he was to the idea of their soulmate status now, he had stayed away from Steve for a reason. Sure, he hadn’t felt brave enough to face the guy—not that he was feeling brave now—but that hadn’t been the main issue.

He had given it a long, deep thought. He had danced around it for days, but always came up short with answers. Because Steve… Well, Eddie still had zero idea of anything, really, but Steve had always dated girls. So, it was something he would’ve never considered in the realm of possibilities, Steve having a boy soulmate. There was a chance all this was more like, platonic or whatever—he almost panicked when he realized this because, shit, were they platonic soulmates, instead? Was that a thing? Fuck if he knew! Also, fuck if he knew how to feel about that. He hadn’t thought about it too much. He wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with what that could or would mean for him.

So, yeah, he didn’t know where exactly they were standing, and he didn’t want to blurt whatever nonsense his brain might come up with out of sheer desperation. He had been proven time and time again how that never took him somewhere good. Take this very moment, for instance. Hadn’t known when to shut up, landed himself finding his soulmate. Not that that hadn’t been good, but. He just— He didn’t need that kind of stress. He only needed for Steve to lead him in the right direction and—

“I had a feeling it was you.”

Alright, that hadn’t been the direction he was thinking about.

What?

“What?” Eddie choked out.

Steve was staring straight ahead again, his elbow propped up on the window. He had a beautiful profile. A beautiful jawline, too. The little light above them cast shadows on the right places and he was— He was handsome, the fucker. And he had had a feeling Eddie was his soulmate. What the actual fuck.

Steve took a silent breath. He shrugged with one shoulder. “I always knew my mark was…”

Eddie braced himself for the impact. Was what? he wanted to ask. Super long? Super stupid? Super absurd? Lame? Obnoxious? Offensive? What was it?

“Different,” Steve said. “Just… different.”

Different wasn’t that bad, Eddie guessed.

“And I knew whoever had the guts to spill all that in one go had to be different, too. For a while there—you might take a guess at this. Or not. But for a while there, I thought it might’ve been Nancy. Wheeler. Nancy Wheeler. We used to date.”

“Kind of a big scandal back in the day,” Eddie said. And it had been. Nobody had seen it coming, as much nobody had seen the way it all ended coming, either. Really messy, that one. Gave everyone a whiplash from start to the end.

“Yeah…” Steve trailed, his mind going back to Wheeler, probably. Nice. Cool. Whatever.

“And then?” Eddie pressed, perhaps a little desperate. He winced. Steve didn’t notice.

“The first time I approached her, I was standing in front of her, and she hadn’t even talked to me yet and I just knew it wasn’t her.”

Eddie knew what he meant. He didn’t know exactly where it came from. That gut instinct that told you something wouldn’t click, even before the words had left your mouth. He still always went with it, if only to confirm that, yeah, nope, you’re not the one. A weird thing, the soulmate bond.

“We still dated, though,” Steve continued. “And it was… Even if we knew we weren’t soulmates, it was good. So good. But then a lot of shit happened, you have no idea, man. And we tried to make it work, but somehow it wasn’t enough. Because she wasn’t mine, and I wasn’t hers, and things got so out of our hands that soulmates didn’t even matter anymore. Not when bigger things were happening and—”

The more Steve talked, the more the urgency in his voice increased. And Eddie didn’t have any idea of what the hell he was talking about, indeed, but he did know there was something inside of him screaming at him to comfort him. So, he did what felt the right thing to do and reached for Steve’s arm. He wasn’t surprised to find the muscles all tensed up. He gave a little squeeze, knowing it wasn’t enough, but hoping it would still help.

It took a few seconds, but Steve relaxed his arm. Eddie let go.

“Sorry,” Steve said, giving him a troubled look. “I don’t know why I’m talking about my ex. That’s kinda misplaced given the circumstances, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay.” Eddie shrugged, offered a little smile, because what else could he do?

Steve took a deep breath. “We can leave all the details for another day,” he said. “But what started with dating Nance somehow snowballed into me being the unofficial babysitter to her brother and his friends.”

Alright, now that made a lot of sense.

Eddie wondered if it was too soon to start with his teasing, if it wasn’t allowed yet. But he had always been brash, and tonight wasn’t the night to change that.

“So that’s how you went from being Mr. Popular-all-the-ladies-and-your-mom-want-me, to designated playdate person in charge!” he exclaimed, turning on his seat so he could face Steve. “Wasn’t it a big hit to your ego? A downgrade of sorts?”

To his surprise, Steve barked a laugh at this. “Oh, fuck you, Munson! You’re as much their babysitter as me. You just do it at school, while I do it everywhere else.”

“See, but there’s a difference. I do it willingly, while you make it seem like it was forced on you.”

“Yeah, well.” Steve shrugged. “I care about those kids more than I would’ve ever imagined, so it wasn’t that big of a deal in the end.”

Eddie hummed in appraisal. “Look at you… I kinda want to go back in time and tell sophomore Steve how big of a softie he’ll become.”

“You go do that, yes.” Steve nodded, faking a serious expression. “Scare the shit out of that man. You, and I, and every single god that exists know that dick’s long overdue a wake-up call.”

“You’re lucky I brought my time-travel machine. Let’s go get it. It’s in the back of the van.”

Steve snorted and shook his head. “You’re so ridiculous.”

Eddie smiled, big. “That I am.”

The corners of Steve’s mouth were still up, though his eyebrows went down with a little frown. “I apologize for it, by the way.”

Eddie’s own eyebrows went up. “For my being ridiculous?”

“What? No.” Steve huffed a laugh, though his face was still pinched. “For… For being a dick.”

Eddie blinked. That was… unexpected.

“Not that I ever…” Steve stared at his lap, his hand going back to the wheel. “I know I never really did or said something. To you, at least. But still. Only being there made me just as guilty. So. I’m sorry.”

Eddie had always thought that, if a miracle were to happen and he, somehow, ended in this situation—receiving an apology for everything they had all put him through—he would tell them to shove it down their asses and fuck off. Now that he was here, though… He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do that anymore; wasn’t even sure if he still resented them or just… sort of pitied them.

Wayne always said there was no worse punishment for a person than the one they inflicted on themself. Eddie guessed he was right. Steve had been a silent witness, at most—like almost the entire student body, if he were to be real here. It was in no way better than being an active aggressor, obviously, but it was evident how hard Steve was on himself for it. And he had reformed himself, as far as Eddie had seen. Learning to accept your mistakes wasn’t easy. The fact that Steve was getting there—had probably already got there—spoke volumes about how far he had come from being that bit of a dick. Eddie wasn’t going to give him more shit for it. There was no need to be the dick now.

“Thank you,” he said. “All’s long forgotten, really, but thank you.”

Steve looked up. His eyes searched into Eddie’s; for what, Eddie didn’t know. What he found had to be alright, for his shoulders sagged, as if relieved. It made Eddie want to reach out and envelop him in a hug. He didn’t, though. They weren’t there yet. Would they get there? Who knew. Baby steps.

Steve cleared his throat. “This isn’t where I was supposed to go, sorry.” He cleared his throat again. Brought one hand to mess with his hair, the other still on the wheel. “Where were we?”

“Your downgrade from ladykiller to babysitter.”

Steve snorted. “Right. Well. Meeting those kids gave me a wider perspective of what my mark meant. I grew up not understanding half the things it says—still don’t, if I’m being honest. But those kids were always babbling about their dragons locked in dungeons—”

“Dragons locked in dungeons?!”

“—and when they read my mark? Jesus, dude. You should’ve seen it. Their reactions. ‘Steve’s soulmate is a nerd like us!’”

Eddie was laughing. Wheezing, almost. His torso leaning to the front, his hand punching his thigh. He couldn’t help it. Henderson’s words clicked in his head, then—”I know our kind,” he had said. And yeah, it made a whole total sense. Those kids had been right in losing their shit. The irony of it, really. Pretty karma-ish, too, in a way.

Steve wasn’t laughing, but his smile was there, and dear Lord, who had allowed him to have a smile like that one? It wasn’t even a full one, and yet. Unfair.

“Didn’t it rock your world, though?” Eddie asked once he calmed down. “I mean, I don’t know what kind of expectations you had, but sure a nerd was definitely not it.”

“It wasn’t, but also, I knew my mark was different, you already know this. Whatever expectations I could’ve created flew out of my mind the moment the kids told me.”

Eddie hummed, toying with the ring on his middle finger. “Did they?”

Steve nodded. “In hindsight, that should’ve been the first sign. My D&D nerdy mark. Or the second, more like it.”

“Second, why?”

“The first time I saw you,” Steve said, his eyes staring far in the distance, his mind lost in a memory, “we were in the library. November ‘81. I remember because it was one of the, like, two attempts I had at studying by myself for a midterm—only did that at the beginning, when I was a freshman. The librarian, I don’t remember her name—”

Mrs. Carlson, Eddie’s mind supplied.

“—scolded you for putting your feet on top of the table. You had a book in your hands, which had way less rings than now. Your hair was way shorter than it is now, too, and you were wearing a black shirt with something about a priest? And it had like, an angel on the floor, too, I think?”

Oh.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Oh, no…

Steve fucking Harrington.

“It was…” Steve finally turned on his seat, mirroring Eddie’s position. “It was so mundane? Like something you see happening once and never give it a second thought. At least I think it should’ve been like that. But it made something shift in, I don’t know, the cosmos or whatever, because it was like, suddenly you were everywhere, man. Loud, and dramatic, and so ridiculous, with that club of yours and those damn baby cow eyes, and—”

Baby… cow… eyes… What the hell.

“—there was something there. Now I know what it was, but back then, I could never pinpoint exactly what there was about you that… I don’t know. Made something weird go inside”—Steve gestured around his torso, in his tummy—”here.”

“Wasn’t it an indigestion?” Eddie blurted out; his brain completely useless for a couple of minutes now.

Steve laughed again, and Eddie, maybe, probably, certainly was having an indigestion himself.

“It was not, dude. Shut up.” Steve’s hand went back to his hair, and it was messy already, but dammit if he still didn’t rock that look. “You made me feel weird and that’s why I could only, like, stare at you every time. I only wanted to decipher you so I could move on. That’s what should’ve been the first sign, but I was too busy being a jerk to even notice.

“Move forward into ‘84. I had those gremlins telling me I had D&D references in my mark—there you go, second sign gone unnoticed—and my brain went like, Hey, isn’t that what Munson’s club is about? There’s our third sign. After that, whenever my soulmate was on my mind, I could only think about whether I knew girls who played that game—I didn’t. Obviously. And I knew there must’ve been girls playing, only not in Hawkins. At least not back then, I’m pretty sure. That should’ve been sign number four. Because, unless a Hawkins girl was hiding her liking of the game, then it meant my soulmate either lived in another city or was already living here, just was…”

“Not a girl,” Eddie finished for him.

“Not a girl.”

There was a pause in Steve’s monologue. One that Eddie wasn’t sure whether he should break or let it last for as long as Steve wanted. He went with the latter. He didn’t know how he was supposed not to let the silence stretch, anyway. His brain was foggy, working a mile per hour, trying to process all the information Steve was dumping on him. Who knew this guy could talk so much? Eddie certainly didn’t. And Eddie, who sometimes didn’t know when to shut up himself, had been more silent in this car than he had ever been in his entire time living on this damn Mother Earth. How was this his life right now?

“Then I saw you with the kids after their first day going to your club,” Steve continued. He leaned his head in the back of his seat. “I hadn’t seen you since my last week at school before graduating. You walked out that day and the weird whatever came back full force. That was sign number five, and that one, I did notice. It was hard not to. I might be oblivious at times, but I’m not stupid. I guess deep down I always knew; or at least had my suspicions. Just never gave me the chance to think about it.

“After that day, though, I had to keep myself from ignoring the huge possibility that maybe it was you. How could you not be when everything had always pointed toward you? Everything, somehow, always led me back to you.” Steve chuckled, with a little shake of his head. “And it wasn’t conscious, really, but every time I went to get the kids and saw you there, I found myself expecting you to word-vomit all this.” He shook his left arm, his mark hidden under his jacket, but still as present as if it were on display. “Imagine my disappointment when you always pretended I wasn’t there.”

Eddie reeled back, dumbfounded. “Okay, now you’re just messing with me.”

“Wha— No, I’m not!” Steve exclaimed, his nose scrunching up. “Whenever I was around, you always, always fell silent and looked like you were gonna get sick. And I thought, Okay, maybe he still doesn’t like you. Maybe he thinks you’re still an asshole and isn’t comfortable in your presence. So, I tried to, like, be friendly.”

“Friendly?”

“Friendly.”

“Friendly when?!”

“Friendly always!”

“Harrington.”

“Did you never notice?!”

Steve looked so confused, Eddie wanted to laugh at him and with him. For the rest of his life. Shit. He was getting so ahead of himself. This was bad. This was so, so bad. His heart was doing somersaults in his chest. That couldn’t be healthy.

“I mean,” he said, scrambling to pull himself together. Coming to think of it, maybe Steve had been friendly. Or more like tried to be. The narrowed eyes. The lingering stares. The fathers-in-baseball-games nods of head. Those things had been his very poor attempts at being friendly. Right? Jesus, he was hopeless—Steve. Steve was hopeless. Not Eddie. Never Eddie. Alright, maybe Eddie, too. Fucking hell. “Your subtle ways weren’t exactly telling, man.”

“Ah, sorry!” Steve raised his hands. “What would’ve you preferred, then? You know, so I have the information ready in my brain for our next lifetime or whatever.”

Eddie’s stomach gave a violent flip. He was so unexpectedly pleased, he wondered if this was what the universe had in mind when it went, Yeah, pair these two together.

“I wouldn’t really know, given my history with friends—or lack thereof—but I’m sure friendliness is shown in more active ways. Like, who knows, speaking to people, perhaps,” he said. “Why didn’t you ever speak to me?”

“Why didn’t you?” Steve fired back.

Eddie groaned and let his head fall back against the window. For fuck’s sake. “Because I didn’t want to,” he said, staring at the roof. “No, I mean, I wanted to. Kinda. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“Why?”

“I…” Eddie’s foot bounced under his thigh, his ring going in circles around his finger. “I also, like, had a feeling. About you. You were always… there. Always there. And I felt a certain way about you whenever you looked at me, but I never knew how to read you.”

He dared to drag his eyes away from the roof and found Steve staring at him. That pool of honey so focused on him, he couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to.

“That feeling never went away,” he continued. “And as much as it was there, I pushed it away. Because… uhm… I preferred running from it rather than facing it.”

“Why?” Steve asked again, his tone gentle despite the intensity in his eyes.

The familiar need of shutting himself down made itself present. Eddie could feel it under his skin, running through his veins, begging to protect himself. He wanted to do anything but speak. Not to let Steve be in the know, too. Thing was, though, Steve had done it—he had let Eddie in. Not a single trace of doubt or reluctance in everything he had shared. He had, quite literally, bared his soul in front of him. He didn’t have to, but he had. The most honest and fair thing Eddie could do was to show Steve he was willing to lower all his defenses for him, too. There was a part of him in Steve as much as there was a part of Steve in him. Eddie would never dare to disrespect their bond by not being the most real version of himself. He owed Steve that, at least.

“Because…” He gulped, willing the sudden dryness in his mouth away. He did all his best to keep his eyes locked with Steve’s. One, two, three. Away. C’mon, Munson, try again—one, two, three… four, five… six… Okay. He could do this. “Because I was scared.”

“Why?” Steve asked for the fourth time, his voice barely above a whisper.

A shaky breath left Eddie’s nose and how had the atmosphere changed so fast? They had been laughing not two minutes ago.

“Because I never knew if the way you looked at me meant you were disgusted. Or if you pitied me. Or if you were scared of me,” Eddie mumbled, just as quietly. “Even after your whole makeover, you never seemed to want me to approach you. Why would you? So, like, I never did. I preferred to stay in the dark than… than lose whatever little ounce of pride I still had. Just in case King Steve made a sudden comeback the moment I tried to speak to you and stared at me like I was worth nothing.”

Eddie felt something leave his chest the moment the words were out. Shit if it hadn’t felt good to finally admit that aloud.

This, however, didn’t have the same effect on Steve. He looked offended. His frown was back, his lips parted, ready to defend himself. Eddie didn’t let him.

“I think maybe you wouldn’t do it,” he said. “No, actually—Steve. I’m sure you wouldn’t. But I didn’t know that not even two weeks ago. Every deity almighty knows that, if I hadn’t been distracted that day with Henderson, I would’ve never spoken to you. The initiative to do it wouldn’t have ever come from me. Because I’m a coward and that’s why I never tried.”

The warm light made Steve’s eyes shine, honey burning and turning into a fiery caramel flame. He didn’t look mad, Eddie didn’t think. It was more like he was trying to understand. Eddie could only hope he could understand. He wasn’t sure where to go from here if that wasn’t the case.

“I don’t think you’re a coward,” Steve said at last. His voice still gentle, but firm. “It’s okay to run away when you feel you’re not safe. And to be fair with you, I didn’t want to be the first to speak to you, either.”

It was Eddie’s time to ask why.

“Because my phrase has never been related to my mark!” Steve, surprisingly, said with a laugh. Eddie could’ve had a whiplash with how fast the mood had changed. Again. “I was kinda scared of what I could possibly say for you to say all that.”

The startled laugh that ripped from Eddie’s throat caught them both off guard, though Steve looked more pleased than surprised. They stared at each other, one, two, three, then Steve went back to look through the windshield. Eddie followed suit.

It was dark out there, save for the few streetlamps that followed down the road. It wasn’t snowing yet, which was a record. How long they had been there, Eddie wasn’t sure, but he hadn’t seen any cars pass by, either. That was another record.

“Listen, man.”

Eddie teared his eyes away from the streetlamps. Steve’s tone made him feel like he had swallowed a bunch of rocks. These fucking changes in the mood were starting to get scary, if a little bit annoying, too.

Steve was back to being careful, tentative, like he had been when Eddie got in the car. It hit him, then, that he had put the main reason why they were here out of his head. They had come to discuss, not their suspicions or their teen confused feelings, but what they were going to do with this. With their current situation. The shoe had been waiting to drop all this time, he just had forgotten it was there.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Steve said. “I have no idea what— I’m still trying to… to process all this. But this is what’s meant to happen. For whatever reason. So, we should— I mean, we’re stuck together forever, so, like—”

Well, there you go.

Stuck together.

Eddie thought of his father leaving his mother. He thought of his mother getting together with that other asshole. Of her preferring him over her son, just so she wouldn’t be alone for the rest of her life. He thought about all those who didn’t stay with their soulmates because they couldn’t, and all those others who didn’t because they didn’t want to. He thought about how not living with a soulmate hadn’t killed anybody yet, as far as he knew. He thought about how that, at least, was reassuring for now.

He wasn’t disappointed. It was whatever. Whatever. Who cared, anyway.

“We’re not,” he interrupted, not waiting a second longer.

Steve blinked back at him. “What?”

“I said we’re not. Stuck together, I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a must. We don’t—” Eddie’s voice was not trembling. This wasn’t happening, hell. He cleared his throat and forced his lips to turn into the less fake smile he could muster. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. “You can walk out if you don’t want this.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked again, and please, he couldn’t be this dense.

“I mean that it’s not mandatory that you stay with your soulmate for the rest of your life, Steve. We don’t have to do that.”

Eddie had to look away. He refused to let Steve see he was— No. No. He was okay. Had been for a little more than nine years; wasn’t going to start not being okay now. Not for this. Not for something he had barely had the chance to have.

The silence felt heavy, so heavy it was almost suffocating. He wondered if he was now allowed to step out into the cold and go back to his van without it being considered running away. At least he knew Steve wouldn’t see him as a coward.

“Eddie,” Steve said, with an edge in his voice Eddie couldn’t decipher. “I— Don’t you… You don’t want this?”

Eddie forced himself to look back at him. Steve was frowning.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what—”

“I don’t think you understand what all this means.” Eddie shook his head. It was fuzzy. Everything was fuzzy. He had to make his point clear before whatever they had developed in the last half hour, as delicate and fragile as it was, ended up broken like the finest China on the floor. “I have no idea of what you’re expecting from all this, but I can almost assure you it’s not the same as me.”

“What’s it with the expectations, again? I already told you I don’t—”

“I want a partner, Steve!” Eddie let out, his voice loud enough he might as well have yelled inside the quiet car. He sounded borderline hysterical and yeah, this one was yet another thing to pile into the mountain of things that would eventually lead to his imminent mental demise. Cool. “A partner. Okay? I want a partner. Someone who will like to team up with me, for the rest of our lives if possible. And I don’t like to assume, but I’m pretty sure the idea of you being my— my partner, isn’t, like— I don’t think that’s what you want. Because you, you— You don’t— You’re not—”

“Into guys?” Steve asked, his eyes wide, the crease between his eyebrows having gone nowhere. “Is that what you’re trying to say? That I’m not into guys, so I can’t be your partner?”

Eddie opened and closed his mouth like a fish, not knowing what to reply even though, yeah, that was what he was trying to say. Steve didn’t need him to say anything else, though. His silence was enough for him to understand.

“For someone who doesn’t like to assume,” Steve said, voice calm and gaze unwavering; his frown going from confused to determined in a matter of seconds, “you’re putting words in my mouth, and thoughts in my head, I’ve never said or thought.”

Something curled in Eddie’s stomach. Something close to a mixture of shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, and, maybe, also a little bit of hope—and wasn’t that dangerous? He grimaced and his head went back to lean on the window, his eyes falling shut.

“I don’t want you stuck with me when this isn’t what you want,” he finally said, leveling his tone with Steve’s. Absently, he found his skull-shaped ring and poked the empty space where the eye would be.

“What do you know about what I want,” Steve said, not unkindly.

Fair enough. Except—

“You said it yourself. ‘Stuck together forever’—doesn’t exactly sound promising, you know?”

There was a beat of silence, then, “Eddie.”

Jesus, what the hell had the universe been thinking? Seriously. He took all his words back. He wasn’t pleased anymore.

“Eddie. ”

He opened his eyes, though he didn’t raise his head, resulting in him looking at Steve down his nose. His eyebrows went up. He was listening, Harrington. Out with it.

“That’s not how I meant it.” Steve’s eyes softened and his frown disappeared. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

Eddie remained silent. Steve didn’t seem to care.

“The almighty Harrington residence was always way too huge for a boy living mostly with only his nanny. Too much space, too much silence. Not a real family in sight.” Steve’s face turned sour. “It’s not a surprise I grew up thinking the moment I found my soulmate things would change. I would finally have someone who would, maybe, like to have a family with me. A real family with me.

“Five or six children, a Winnebago, constant trips to see the country. But”—he shrugged, his palms facing up—”sometimes plans change. Things didn’t turn out exactly the way I thought they would when I was ten, sure, but I can assure you I’m not opposed to making some readjustments.”

Eddie straightened up.

The corners of Steve’s mouth twitched. “A year ago, I would’ve probably given you a definite no. But I’ve had enough months to come to terms with the possibility of you, Eddie Munson, local D&D enthusiast and metalhead, a boy, being my soulmate. Years, really, if we consider the mess we had going in high school.” Steve’s smile finally made its appearance. Small, tentative, but there, nonetheless. “The only expectations here, the ones that matter, are—you want a partner, a teammate for life. I want someone who would like to be part of my family and would like me to be part of theirs. They’re not that different, are they? Not in the long run, I don’t think.

“And I know this will be… terrifying, at times. And difficult. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never done this before. With a guy, I mean. But”—Steve readjusted his position, leaning toward Eddie—”if there’s a slight possibility, as tiny as it might be, for us to get there eventually, sometime in the future, then I do want this. I would like us to try.”

Eddie could’ve gone weak on the knees hadn’t he been sitting. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. Out of habit, his hand tangled in his hair, his fingers playing with the ends and bringing them to his face. Was this happening for real?

“The universe might’ve put us together,” Steve said, all sincerity and earnestness, “but I don’t want this if you’re not on board with me here, too, Munson.”

Oh, fucking hell! Steve was one of those, wasn’t he? One of those corny romantics. Eddie hated how the mere idea made his stomach go wild with a stupid flock of butterflies. He was royally flocked— no, what? Not flocked, what the hell. Fucked. Fucked was the word. Jesus, goddamn.

“What about your dates?” he couldn’t help blurting out, always the one to self-sabotage, which, not nice, dude.

Steve looked at him funny. “What about them? I haven’t gone on one in months.”

That… that couldn’t possibly be true.

“Hold on a sec.” Eddie let go of his hair. “You haven’t?”

“No?”

“But the kids—”

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes. “They don’t know shit, man! No matter what I say, they won’t ever believe me, so I never tell them whenever they ask. I haven’t gone on a single date probably for as long as I realized I kinda wanted you to say, ‘Hold your hor—”

Steve’s face immediately turned cherry red, and Eddie couldn’t help the cackle he let out. The knot on his stomach disappeared. This was teasing territory again. Teasing was his area of expertise. He hoped they could keep this mood for good.

“You’ve been expecting me to call you that, Stevie?” The ‘pretty boy’ part didn’t need to be said at lout.

“No, dude,” Steve muttered and rolled his eyes again, though his cheeks were still very, very red. He leveled him with a pointed look. “Don’t change the subject. What do you say, then?”

Eddie tilted his head, the fingers playing with his rings coming to a stop. His cheeks had started to hurt. He didn’t recall having smiled this big in a while.

What did he say, then?

“Purple grapes.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed, but the hint of a smile was back. “What?”

“Purple grapes.”

“I don’t…”

“I didn’t get the chance to tell you. So.” Eddie shrugged. “Purple grapes.”

Steve stared at him. Eddie could almost see the clogs working inside his skull. It didn’t take long for Steve’s smile to fully form.

“Is there any particular reason for them to be purple?”

“It’s my favorite color.”

“The green ones are better, though.”

Eddie made a face. “Those are grapes for babies.”

Steve snorted and shook his head, then turned to stare off into the road. He opened his mouth but didn’t utter a word for a few seconds. When he did, what came out was, “Everybody shout. Come on, now, sing out. It’s time for the goolies get-together.”

Eddie blinked, letting those words sink in and, holy shit, who even was this man?

“The Groovie Goolies song?!”

Steve grimaced. “In my defense, I chose it when I was, like, four, I think.”

For the love of God, Steve Harrington was going to be the death of him, wasn’t he? Eddie could already see it written on his tombstone—’Here lies Edward Munson, The Second and The Best of the Two. Beloved nephew, talented DM, born to be a rockstar. Gone too soon in the gorgeous hands of his soulmate. May He Rest in Pain.’

He had been doomed from the start. He hadn’t stood a fucking chance.

“You don’t need a defense, man! I loved that show!” he said amid a laugh. “I mean, our TV was, like, tiny and broken more often than not. But once my father wasn’t around anymore, mom sometimes let me use it. That show was always on when she did.”

Steve’s smile didn’t falter, but he gave him a curious look. He had probably connected the dots—uh-huh, family issues were a thing they had in common, who would’ve thought…

“I work at Family Video,” Steve said, and Eddie forced himself to keep up faster with all these changes in topic. “The other day I saw a tape of the show on one of the shelves.” Oh… Oh. “We could, like, arrange something and, like, watch it. Together. If you want.”

Steve cleared his throat, his eyes landing everywhere but on Eddie. Eddie felt like laughing and crying at the same time. There was zero smoothness in Steve, not even a trace of what he had been witness to in high school. And this thought, it shocked him to his core—and the fact he was shocked in the first place shocked him even more. Because he had seen, from his front-row seat, how whatever Steve had been once in high school had been completely whipped away.

Where he once saw a sneer, now he saw an easy smile directed at Dustin. Where he once saw a shove to make space for the king, now he saw a light push of an elbow towards an upset Lucas. Where he once saw a glare full of disdain, now he saw fondness hidden behind a roll of eyes at whatever Mike had said.

Steve Harrington was many things; one of those was Eddie’s soulmate. And Eddie… Eddie wanted to keep seeing. To keep discovering. To keep learning.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be—how it was supposed to start. He thought he could work with that. They would figure the rest out later.

“I’ll check my busy agenda and let you know, pretty boy,” he said.

Steve looked at him—one, two, three—then the corners of his lips went up.

Yeah… Eddie could definitely work with that.

 

 

 

Notes:

Just in case you're wondering, they first held hands two weeks after this, while watching the Groovie Goolies for the third time. A week later, Steve pulled the moves on Eddie and kissed him after dropping him home, and Eddie officially considered himself flocked and fucked for the rest of his life. And yes, the Vecna shenanigans did happen, just way later in the year; I wanted them to live the honeymoon phase for far longer (and no, nobody died). :)

The shirt Steve mentions Eddie was wearing that day in the library had the cover of the Judas Priest's album, "Sad Wings of Destiny", that came out in '76.

And here, if you wanna listen to the Groovie Goolies theme song, too haha

Thank you so much for reading. Have a nice day/night! ♡

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