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Most people had a few marks here and there like spills of ink, but from the day Steve was born it was less like someone had lost their hold on a bottle for a few seconds, and more like they had taken swipes at him with paintbrushes until he had streaks of black littered all over him. There were thin lines along his left forearm like someone had whipped the brush from a distance, a splatter on the inside of his wrist like a snapped pen, drips along his collarbone and spilling down his chest, watercolor brushes winding up his thigh and hip, running down his shoulder blade like someone had thrown the ink at his back, smudges on his legs, and even little tendrils winding up his neck.
When he was little a few of his mother’s friends cooed that he was lucky to be so loved, and while his mother’s lips had turned up it hadn’t reached her eyes as she had said that if he dipped his hands in so many pots of paint then he was destined to get stained. It wasn’t until years later that Steve learned that she meant when she saw him, she saw someone who threw themselves at anyone they could, like a stray dog begging for scraps. Steve had fed a dog that had managed to burrow beneath their fence once, and when it tried to say hello to his mother, she had kicked it away with her heel, and turned her nose up at the mangy mutt. She only had one white mark that Steve knew of; a sprig of rosemary that had turned to a scar after her father passed when she was in high school, often covered with silver bracelets.
If Steve’s father had any marks, whether they were scarred white, only ink, or brought to color and life by the touch of love, Steve had never seen it. In fact, the first time he had seen a mark outside of movies and TVs that had actually been turned from ink to love had been when he befriended Tommy at the age of eight. Steve wore long sleeves and long pants all through elementary school on his parents instruction, leaving only the ink on his neck visible and a glimpse of the splatter on his wrist if he pushed up his sleeves. Tommy had only two. One was an inky smudge on his shoulder yet to be touched by someone who was destined to love him until they died, the other was a couple of golden stars above his brow mingling with his freckles and twinkling as they shifted ever so slightly.
“Who are those from?” Steve asked even though he knew it was exactly the kind of impolite conversation that would earn him a slap from his father, but they were only eight, and in the movies it was always star-crossed lovers who fell in love in ninety minutes and brought the inkspill to shape and color with a touch to the mark.
“My mom, duh.”
Steve blinked.
“Soul-marks are for people who love you until they die, who’s gonna love you more than your mom does?” Tommy reasoned.
It had opened his eyes, and suddenly Steve caught glimpses of unlocked soul-marks all around him; kids who had colorful marks for as long as they could remember because their parents had loved them as soon as they were placed in their arms for the first time, older siblings who after getting passed the ‘I don’t want a new baby’ hit the ‘don’t talk about my little sister like that’ phase had marks coming to life the next time they hugged their sibling, and even Mrs. Penn, who had a whopping four marks, three of them were active; one for her husband, two for her kids at home, and she said with a smile and a hand on her stomach that she already knew who the black ink smudge on her arm belonged to. She just had to meet them first.
In sixth grade they actually covered the basics of soul-marks in health class for those whose parents had never gotten around to explaining it in full. Before the soul-marks became active they were just black ink waiting on their skin for the right touch to bring them to life and then they would take shape. Ms. Archer explained that unlike some movies liked to show, it wasn’t instantaneous, it wasn’t when you first met a person, it was only when the other person loved you that they could activate it with a touch, and they were different than other types of love because it would last until the person who the mark belonged to died.
“I’m sure many of you have marks from your family,” Ms. Archer said. “Your mother, your father, maybe your brother, or sister, or a grandparent even.”
Most of the kids in his class had at least one mark symbolizing their family’s love. Steve wasn’t sure if he wore long sleeves, long pants, and sweaters because of all the untouched soul-marks or because of the absence of even one on behalf of his parents. His parents didn’t have one from him either. Sometimes he wondered if they had an inky spot on them somewhere, but considering the fact that they were never home it wasn’t like they were in close enough proximity for him to activate it because he loved them, he did, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had hugged his mother. As he got older the guilt that they might not have any ink from him faded, after all, could it really be his fault that he didn’t love them enough if they were never there to love?
Ms. Archer explained how soul-marks worked, but Mr. Truman at the old folks home Steve had done community service at after Chief Hopper busted up his fifteenth birthday party for drinking six years under age explained what soul-marks were. He was verging on ninety and was a vet from WWI with difficulty getting around due to a bum leg that ‘hadn’t been young in sixty years, son’. There was a match on the inside of his wrist, the flames moving slowly back and forth, and the smoke rising along the inside of his arm.
“You can ask,” Mr. Truman said as he shuffled the cards.
“My parents raised me with manners, sir,” Steve joked, pulling his eyes away from the mark. “But if you would like to talk about them, I’d like to hear.”
“Her name’s Eloise, she was the love of my life, and I haven’t seen her since I was twenty-two.”
Steve took his words like a punch. “I— but— it’s not scarred, she’s still out there.”
“Somewhere,” Mr. Truman said. “And I hope I’ve got the good fortune to go first.”
“What happened?”
"I met her when we were eighteen and I was instantly smitten, made a damn fool of myself too within three weeks I loved her, six for mine to spark." Mr. Truman admired his match. "We'd been saving up for a wedding, but I got drafted when the war came, and I went overseas. Got separated from my troop, spent weeks in enemy territory before I managed to get to France, but it was months before I could get word to anyone I was alive. Even longer before I could get home, and when I did... she was gone."
“Gone? She’s your soulmate, she didn’t wait? She had to know you were alive.”
“She did, but the government don’t take soul marks as confirmation for life, I was declared dead and she was off my army benefits… and her mother was sick. She couldn’t pay her treatment on what she made as a secretary, so she got married.”
Steve took his words like a punch to the chest.
“Or that’s what I heard at least. Or apartment was sold, even her mother had relocated, and I could never find her again.”
“That’s awful.”
Mr. Truman hummed. “I ended up marrying a wonderful woman, had two beautiful kids. I may not have their marks, but it was a happy life, a good one, ’n I can’t say I’ve got many regrets. Maybe I’ll find my Eloise next time around.”
“Next time?”
“You ain’t heard the story? God, what do they teach you kids these days.”
Steve just gave him a confused look.
“They way I heard it back in my day was that the marks were of the people who loved you in a previous life ’n if you were lucky enough to find ‘em this go around they would come to life.”
“You believe that?”
“You believe something like love could be be stopped by something so feeble as death?”
Steve opened and closed his mouth. “I thought you were Christian.”
“A long life with my Eloise next time around sounds like heaven to me, boy.”
Steve didn’t know what to say, so he just accepted the deck of cards and started to deal them out for another round.
On the night of his sixteenth birthday Steve did something different for a change as his father tore into him about anything he found lacking upon return from his business trip; he yelled back even though his cheek was already pink and stinging. The screaming match went from taking home silver in the swim meet, to poor grades, to never getting to college, to ending up homeless by the side of the road, to throwing himself at anyone who walked because he was destined to have a whore for a son who was desperate for hands out of love—
“Better than being incapable of love!” Steve shouted.
His father’s fist had cracked against his face, sending him to the floor, and punctuating it with a sharp kick to the stomach as he loomed over him. “Love is earned, and you haven’t worked for anything a day in your life.”
Steve stayed curled up on the carpet even as he father walked away, trying to take comfort in the way blood drooled onto the expensive wool from his split lip, but they were never around to notice the stain even if he bled out right there.
Tommy’s second mark turned three months into dating Carol, the ink on his shoulder turned into an ornate mirror with smears of colors flickering in and out like a blurred reflection. Carol had a black diamond glittering just below her collarbone to match. As King Steve’s reputation grew and whispers about his ink stains circulated around the school, Tommy liked to joke that the cheer squad had a bet going about which one of them would manage to turn a mark first. Sometimes Steve thought his mother was right about him begging for scraps of love because when he thought about sex it was just an excuse to touch someone, to be touched regardless of the marks on his skin.
It was different with Nancy. When they had sex he ran his hands over every inch of her, kissed soft skin even though it made her laugh and accuse him of stealing her mother’s romance novels, but he felt a little vindicated when sunflowers stood tall along the outside of her right thigh. Her hands only skimmed his ink in passing when they were being intimate and none of his ink ever turned, but he figured that was okay that he was still growing into the person he wanted to be, the person that Nancy would fall in love with.
Except he was bullshit.
Not even a day later and Nancy was hand in hand with Jonathan, the feather that liked to float around her wrist and settle on the palm of her hand lined up with the arrow running along his own. She wore long skirts, but the sunflowers would be bright and blooming until the day Steve died, doomed to love Nancy Wheeler who he had been convinced was The One. Soulmates weren’t inherently romantic, only about thirty percent of people even had a romantic soul-mate, they could be for family, friends, mentors, brothers in arms, even business partners, but Steve was a romantic at heart.
An unlovable romantic.
Only a few days after the second round with the Upside Down, a pounding knock on his door revealed a thirteen year old, his bike ditched on Steve’s front lawn.
“Did you lose another people eating pet?” Steve asked incredulously.
“Is this from you?” Dustin pushed up the sleeve of his t-shirt to show him the sunflower blooming on the back of his arm where Steve had grabbed him to pull him behind him in the bus.
Steve blinked. “Um.”
Dustin produced a walkie-talkie from his backpack and handed it over. “Welcome to the party.”
He strolled right inside his house and began talking about the upcoming Sno-Ball. Steve found himself not only giving him hair tips, driving him there, and delivering a pep talk, but playing babysitter to the whole group. He drove them to the arcade, helped Max fix up her broken board, took Will to the art store one town over for special markers, played basketball with Lucas, took Mike shopping for a gift for El’s birthday, argued over movies with Dustin, even made dinner for El one night when Hopper had to work a long shift. He quickly discovered that Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin all had marks for each other and more ink to spare which was more soul-marks than he had ever seen on someone else before, and each of them had gotten one for and from El one at a time; Mike first.
Steve opened the door to find Max on his doorstep, skateboard under arm, and sporting a nasty scraped knee. Waving her inside, he didn’t chide her for cursing as he cleaned gravel out it, and slapped a band-aid on top.
“New trick?”
Max looked away, her jaw working. “I was… distracted.”
“By what?”
Max stared at him for a long second before shoving her hair back and he could see a bee bumbling along behind her ear. Lucas.
“Ah.”
“It just showed up!”
“And we’re not happy about that?”
“I don’t want to be stuck with someone forever because the universe says so! I want— I want free will! I want to go wherever I want!”
“The fact that Lucas loves you forever prevents that?”
“Yes!”
“You think Lucas is the type of person to hold the people he loves back?”
Max chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I just… I always thought of freedom as being able to go wherever I wanted, forget anybody else, just go. I never I thought I’d have to think about leaving people behind.”
“Or maybe you’ve just found some people you want to take with you.”
Max looked up at him.
“You want some dinner?”
“Mac and cheese?”
Steve let out a put-upon sigh. “Fine.”
When her knee healed up there were little sunflowers in place of the bandaid. Neither of them mentioned it, but when Mike pointed it out at a pool party, she simply upended his floaty, and that was that.
Robin earned sunflowers right along her hairline as they sat in the back of an ambulance as Star-Court burned down; he had his arms around her, holding her as she cried while the drugs wore off, his cheek resting on her head even though it made his bruises scream. He had already waved the paramedics off twice when they tried to convince him to go to the hospital. He may have been recovering from actual, real life torture, but he couldn’t leave until he knew all the kids had gotten taken home; all of them had his mark now.
It wasn’t until he got back to his own empty house that he discovered the compass sitting on the inside of his forearm, the needle swaying slightly back and forth over the N, and even before Steve touched it, he knew it was Dustin’s. You die, I die. Later Steve liked to joke that it was his moral compass because while Dustin could have a bit of an ego at times, he knew what was important in life, like friendship, and what wasn’t, like the remnants of his King Steve persona.
It was only three days after Star-Court burned down before Robin showed up at his house saying the nightmares wouldn’t let her sleep, and they traded nights staying in each other’s beds as the summer wore down. Steve had once called Tommy his best friend, but in comparison to Robin, Tommy might as well have been a passing acquaintance. Tommy had never made him laugh so hard soda came out his nose in Jo’s diner. Tommy had never spent hours at his house watching bad movies just to heckle them until the sun came up. Tommy had never taken him back to the doctor when the ringing in his ear didn’t fade after the bruises were gone.
Tommy had also never gotten into his shower.
“Woah, hey, Robin!” Steve protested, though he was more self conscious over the ink-stains covering his skin than his dick.
“One of these is mine and I’m gonna find it,” Robin declared.
“Rob, woah, hey!”
Robin’s clothes plastered to her skin as she got under the spray, her hands slipping against his skin as she followed the various marks, searching for one that would light up for her.
“Robin, it’s okay, you don’t have to—“
Her hand closed around his arm and Steve inhaled sharply at the warmth of her touch spreading up his arm as the ink turned a soft green, ivy winding around his forearm like it was holding an old building together at the seams. Steve was glad for the water running down his face to hide his tears, but Robin’s own eyes were shining as she smiled up at him.
“I love you, dingus.”
Steve let out a broken laugh. “Can we get out of the shower now?”
Robin laughed, turning off the water. Wrapping themselves up in towels, Robin borrowed a pair of clothes, sitting on the counter as he went through the steps of his haircare routine. Steve pushed her hair back out of her face to look at the sunflowers kissing her hairline, and she smiled at him, tapping the ivy on his arm.
“I’m glad we kept it in theme.”
“We’re in synch like that.”
After the fourth go around, the hospital was flooded due to the earthquakes, which left Steve relatively unbothered as he slumped against the wall, holding tight to his side as blood soaked through his shirt. He couldn’t tell what was his and what was Eddie’s, but the doctor had seemed confident that they would be able to keep Eddie’s heart beating before they wheeled him away. Now hours later the police wouldn’t let him into his room, but Steve refused to leave the hospital with the mob still out there. Max’s doctors had only said they didn’t know when she would wake up, but it sounded a lot more like if. Lucas was by her bedside with an ice pack against his face, Dustin with his sprained ankle propped up and holding Lucas' hand. Nancy had gotten Robin and Erica home which left Steve to stand guard… or sit as he slowly slid down the wall.
“—ington. Mr. Harrington!”
A doctor knelt down before him.
“I’m fine.”
She shoved up the hem of his shirt to find Nancy’s bloody rags.
“Get me a treatment room!” She shouted.
Two orderly hauled him up onto his feet, forcing him onto a bed, and striping away his shirts and the makeshift bandages. An IV was fixed into his elbow and he tried to ask what they were giving him, but he bit his tongue as they started disinfecting the wounds and even cutting away what he was pretty sure was infected tissue. He blacked out somewhere between disinfecting and stitching, but came back to as bandages were being wound around his torso and the abrasions on his neck and arms.
There was a little orange-red dragon curled up on his chest sleeping and a touch told him it was Max. If felt dim, and he laid his hand over the mark like he could protect it, protect her. It must have appeared after he caught her in the graveyard, but with the way they had been running around like headless chickens for the past few days, he hadn’t noticed. If he hadn’t collapsed, if things had gone slightly differently hours before, would he have only seen it after it scarred over? Even now he couldn't help wondering how long would he get to keep it before it did.
His injuries earned him a few days in the hospital considering he apparently had a fever, but he wasn’t lacking for company; the kids filtered in and out of Max’s room as they waited for her to wake up, and after a surprisingly not dead Hopper returned with a cover story, Eddie was allowed visitors.
“Stevie,” Eddie smiled, almost as pale as the bandages he was wearing. “Come to visit me on my death bed?”
“Too soon, boy,” Wayne said from where he was sitting at his bedside.
“I’ve gotta agree on that front, sir,” Steve said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “How are you?”
“Jokes aside, the bats didn’t get their nasty little teeth on anything vital, it was just sheer blood loss for me, so, ‘bout the same as you I’d expect, though I heard you’re fighting off an infection.”
“Dustin’s a nark,” Steve groused. “Minor. A minor infection and a mild fever.”
“Not sure I believe you, pretty boy, you seem like the type to be all stoic about that stuff.”
Steve’s face warmed at the pet name. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Absolutely. C’mon, don’t play the hero, commiserate with me!”
“It hurts like a bitch,” Steve admitted reluctantly.
“What? They not giving you the good stuff?” Eddie wiggled his little morphine drip button.
“I don’t like feeling sedated.”
Eddie hummed. “You know once we blow this joint we should have the real good stuff.”
Wayne gave him an unimpressed look.
“Like extra strength Tylenol," Eddie quickly amended.
Wayne just shook his head, rising from his seat. “I’ve gotta grab some shuteye not in a hospital chair. Keep an eye on him.”
Steve saluted. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“No escape attempts.” Wayne waved a finger at Eddie.
“I would never!” Eddie gasped.
Wayne kissed Eddie's forehead, messed up his greasy hair, and gave Steve a nod before ambling out of the hospital room. Eddie watched him go with a little smile before turning to Steve.
“Any chance you’ve smuggled me some smokes?”
“Are we in a prison movie?”
“I’m basically on death row, I deserve a cigarette, I know my rights!”
Steve shushed him even though he was trying not to smile. “Dude, we’re in a hospital. You’re not supposed to yell. Or smoke.”
Eddie sighed dramatically and Steve shook his head.
“Hey, we match.”
Steve looked over to find Eddie pushing up the sleeve of his hospital gown to show him the compass on his deltoid, matching the one on the inside of Steve’s forearm.
“Guess we’ll have to learn to co-parent,” Steve said as though it were a hardship.
Eddie grinned. “I think I can live with that, pretty boy.”
Steve’s stomach squirmed, and he cleared his throat. “How long’s your sentence?”
“Only a couple more days, then I’m home free! Sort of. We’re living at motel right now, but that sound pretty good compared to this joint.” Eddie gestured at the white walls.
“You could stay with me,” Steve said on gut instinct alone. “I mean, I’ve got plenty of room. Your uncle too if he wanted.”
“You don’t think your parents would mind trailer trash traipsing around your castle?”
Steve looked away. “I, uh, I haven’t heard from them. I think they’re in New York? Maybe? They haven’t actually been back to Hawkins in a bit, so, no need to worry about them.”
Eddie’s expression turned serious. “Woah, wait, what do you mean you haven’t heard from them? Haven’t they seen the news? How do they know you’re okay?”
Steve’s throat felt tight, and he just gave a little shrug.
Eddie’s scoff was a sharp sound. “Assholes.”
Steve almost choked on a laugh. “Yeah, um, aptly put, man.”
Eddie reached over, snagging his wrist, his calloused hand warm against his skin. “Hey. I’m really glad you’re okay. Incase no one’s said that to you yet.”
Steve’s eyes stung, but he threw on a smile. “Getting sweet on me, Munson?”
“I just might be.”
They talked for hours until Steve felt a spark, looking down to find the little dragon lifting its head and rustling its wings, its color looked better as though it were made of flame itself and not embers. Steve sprinted to Max’s room to find the kids clamoring as Max managed to open her eyes, awake only long enough to say Lucas and El’s names before falling back asleep. Steve almost collapsed with relief. She woke up in intervals; first only for a minute, then five, then fifteen, thirty, an hour, until she could stay awake long enough for the doctors to feel confident enough to send her home. Or for Steve to convince them to let him check her out considering her mother couldn’t string together three days sober.
“You don’t have to do this,” Max said as he got the pullout bed set up in his living room; two broken legs meant no stairs.
Steve tugged down his collar to show her where the dragon was flapping its wings. Max didn’t protest as he fluffed her pillows for the sixth time. Even though Eddie declined his invitation to stay, he was more often than not at Steve’s house. Actually, more often than not Steve had a full house. The kids were in and out considering it was more difficult for Max to go to them until she got her casts off, the older kids covered Max-duty when Steve working, even Hopper and Joyce liked to come by, or invite them over for dinners, and then sleepovers when Max got some of her mobility back.
Steve spent her first sleepover with the Byers at Eddie’s new trailer rather than try to readjust to silence of his own home and Eddie did indeed treat him to ‘the good stuff’ while they laid on the roof looking up at the stars.
“You know it’s July, right?” Eddie tugged on the sleeve of his sweater.
“It’s night time.”
“It’s hot as hell, baby.”
Steve’s face warmed, but he had adjusted somewhat to Eddie’s blatant affection to everyone in their monster-fighting family, though he did tend to bear the brunt of it as Eddie turned his and Robin’s duo into a trio. Not that he minded.
"Is it because of your soul-marks?"
Steve tensed up at the blunt question.
Eddie pulled one of his leather bracelets free to show him a white scar of spindly spider. “It was my mom’s. I started covering it in elementary school just because kids would ask ‘cause they were too young to have lost anyone, and it just… hurt. Still does, to see it so still. I’m not trying to pry, I only got a little look at ‘em in the Upside Down, but looked like you’ve still got a lot of slots left open.”
Steve twisted at his sleeves. “Yeah, guess I haven’t earned ‘em yet.”
Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Earned them?”
“I haven’t become the person that they can love yet.”
“You think… you think you have to change to be loved?”
Steve looked up at the sky. “None of mine turned until I was eighteen.”
Eddie’s eyes softened.
“I spent years trying to be the perfect son, but they never turned. There are newborns in the hospital right now with turned marks, and even then… I wasn’t good enough.”
“Stevie, your parents didn’t turn any of your marks because they don’t deserve to turn one. Love isn’t something you work for, it’s something you’re given freely and without expectations, and your parents didn’t have enough of a heart to love someone as beautiful as you.”
Steve made a noise of disagreement, but Eddie cupped his face.
“Steve, how many marks have you turned?”
“I turned Nancy’s, and Dustin’s, and Max’s, and Robin’s, but mine always came after or not at all. I’m… I’m okay with it, really, even if they're not reciprocated it’s enough to know that I’ll dying loving them, but I don’t… I don’t understand why I have so many if I can’t turn them? If I can’t become someone they love, why are they even there at all? I guess… I guess I don’t know how to be lovable.”
“You are lovable, baby, you’re so damn lovable. I bet a lot of those marks would have turned if you didn’t cover up quite so much.”
Steve flinched like he had been hit. “You think… you think I missed my soulmates?”
“What? No, oh, no, sweetheart.” Eddie propped himself up on his elbow. “But to turn them, they’ve gotta touch ‘em, and you’re kinda hiding all the real estate.”
Steve looked down at his sweater.
“They can’t show you they love you, if you don’t give them the chance.”
“…you know Robin got into the shower with me?”
“She what?!”
Steve laughed as he described how his second mark turned to Eddie who filled the night air with his laughter.
“Here, this is Wayne’s.”
Eddie turned onto his stomach, tugging his shirt up to show him the anchor on the back of his shoulder blade, steady and still though the rope that wound down Eddie’s arm sometimes shifted, tugging at it without any change. His bat bites had turned into pink scars that matched his owns with a few more littered around his arms and chest whereas Steve’s were mainly on his sides. There was ink along his hip and side distorted by the bites, but still there.
“I came to live with Wayne when I was thirteen after my dad got sent to lockup and it showed up three weeks in.”
“Does he have yours?”
“Yeah, took me a bit longer, but he’s got a couple of bats on his wrist. Only thing he said was, ‘spent almost fifty years waiting on that one, you’ve been teaching me patience even before I met you, huh’.”
Steve laughed. “Sounds about right.”
Eddie smiled. “Yeah, he’s a good one.”
The conversation drifted to stories of when Eddie was first living with Wayne, to dumb high school adventures, to movies they loved, to music they hated (complete with hand waving and everything), until they were beginning to fall asleep and retired to Eddie’s bed without even changing out of their clothes.
Considering Steve hadn’t actually gone into his pool since Barb died, he never bothered to dress for the occasion when the kids demanded a pool party, but this time he ditched his jeans and long sleeves for a pair of shorts and a cut up t-shirt Robin had left at his house even though leaving all of the dark ink on display felt like admitting some massive failure. Steve tried to distract himself by fussing with the food and drinks he had set up while the others began to arrive, letting themselves in. The kids actually didn’t comment, but then Steve figured he shouldn’t have been so surprised because all of them had more marks than anyone else he had ever met, though almost all of theirs had been turned.
“Woah, dude, you look like you should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for soul-marks,” Argyle said.
Steve tensed up.
“Dude,” Jonathan said with great suffering.
Argyle gestured to Steve in counter argument. Nancy was unsurprised considering she had seen most of the ink when they were together, and, well, Robin had hopped in his shower, but Eddie was staring, his eyes raking over the skin on display. Steve’s throat tightened at the thought that Eddie might have changed his opinion on how ‘lovable’ he was now that he saw how many marks he had failed to turn so far.
“And that’s not even all of them!” Robin jokingly tugged at the back of his shirt, and he swatted her away.
Nancy frowned. “Wait, how would you know?”
Robin opened and closed her mouth.
“Oh, I can guess.” Eddie grinned, seeming to recover himself.
Robin punched Steve in the side. “You told him!”
“Hey! I didn’t ask you to jump in my shower!”
“You what?” Nancy asked, sounding vaguely scandalized.
Robin stammered as she tried to explain herself to the amusement of the rest of them, and Steve went back to manning the grill as the kids called demands for hot dogs and burgers from the pool. Eddie bumped up against his side, stealing the beer from his hand.
“I haven’t seen these shorts since your jock days. Tell me, Stevie, is it mandatory to show that much leg to throw a ball in a hoop?”
Steve elbowed him. “It’s for aerodynamics.”
“Sure, it is, absolutely nothing to do with the inherent homoeroticism of contact sports.”
"I'll show you a contact sport." Steve punched his arm.
Eddie grinned. "I wish you would, baby."
Steve flushed and he hoped it could be blamed on the heat.
The kids climbed out of the pool at the call of food and he had his hands full getting them all of the fixings ending up to be the last to settle down which meant all the chairs were full.
“Move over, Sinclair.” Steve knocked his knee against Lucas’ only for both their eyes to widen as the ink along his thigh began to warm and wind its way around his thigh until it built yellow honey combs with a little worker bee bumbling about.
“Woah,” Lucas said before looking up at him with a grin. “Cool, man.”
Steve’s voice came out a little amazed. “Yeah, cool indeed.”
He could feel something warm with Lucas’ knee still against the edge of the mark; it felt like admiration. Steve’s own sunflowers had been on Lucas’ bicep for over a year now, but he still held them up for Steve to see in almost in a ‘look, we match’ type of way.
El gave him a long look before marching right up to him and closing her hand around his wrist. Little colorful sparks appeared on his wrist when she lifted her hand away, and a small satisfied smile appeared on her face.
“I did not know you still had space left,” El said.
Steve held his wrist close like it was something precious. “Yeah, kid, I-I’ve got plenty of space left.”
Will stepped tentatively up to him, holding his hand out halfway between them, Steve’s throat was too tight to say anything, but he gave a slight nod. He tried the one on his throat first, the glimpse of one on his shoulder, his ankle, then the one on his other leg by his knee and the ink turned to soft pastel colors winding and interweaving with one another in abstract symbols. Will’s smile was so bright that Steve could almost pretend that the tears blurring his vision were from the blinding light of it. Mike coughed slightly, looking away as he kicked his foot against Steve’s own where a little ship formed by his ankle.
“Looks like you’re always going to be the babysitter,” Lucas joked.
Steve tried to get his arms around all of his kids and they all hugged back even though Mike complained loudly just to spite him, and he released them as he laughed, scrubbing at his face.
“Alright, alright, enough, go eat your food before it gets cold.”
“Yes, mom,” Will joked.
Steve pretended to swat at him and he jumped away with a little laugh. The kids chatted away as they dug into their food, but Steve’s own sat forgotten as he looked over the tattoos along his skin, it wasn’t exactly that he could feel the kids through the marks, but he felt connected to them, like he had a little piece of them to carry around. It gave him some comfort to know that through the last round of the Upside Down they had all been carrying a piece of him with them too, even if sunflowers made poor armor.
“And you’ve still got some left over,” Argyle marveled.
Jonathan looked apologetic on his behalf, but Steve felt lighter than he had in years, he didn’t mind waiting for whoever they were for because now it didn’t feel like he had years of work to do to prove himself, it felt like he had to be patient.
“I mean, with those odds, one of ‘em’s got to be romantic, right?” Argyle continued.
Steve’s chest felt tight, tighter still as Nancy pointedly looked away from him, though the ache felt different this time. Before it felt like he was destined to be in love with her until he died, resigned to watching her and Jonathan’s obvious romantic bond, but now it felt more like a longing for what they had. To be loved. His love for her hadn’t diminished in the slightest, but it had shifted from sparks against his skin to the warmth of the embers of a camp fire.
“I don’t know, he does kind of have a tendency to adopted kids,” Robin teased, bumping their shoulders together. “Who knows how many more he’s gonna collect?”
Steve shot her a smile.
Eddie laughed, draping his arm around his shoulders so he knocked knock his forehead against Steve’s temple. “Trying to build an army, Stevie?”
“Scared, Munson?”
“Quaking in my boots, baby.”
Steve knocked his shoulder against his chest, but it was gentle to keep from dislodging him.
“What about all of you?” Robin asked. “I mean, if we’re being nosy.”
Argyle patted a small blue bull on his ankle. “Got one from my grandmother and a little ink on my back.”
“I’ve got my mom’s, Will’s, Nancy’s.” Jonathan linked their hands, getting a small smile. “And some ink on my shoulder.”
“I’m all full up.” Robin pushed her hair out of her face. “Steve’s, of course, my dad, and one for my cousin.”
“I’ve got our very own Dusty-buns and Wayne so far,” Eddie said.
“How many do you have left?” Steve asked, unable to help himself.
“Just the one.” Eddie lifted the hem of his cut up t-shirt for him to see the tendrils of ink winding up his side and back, distorted by the bites, but still there.
Steve’s heart flipped over itself because that meant Eddie only had three in total, and Steve didn’t like those odds for leaving his own mark on his skin. He distracted himself with a sip of beer, and Eddie turned his attention back to the conversation.
“What about you, Wheeler?”
“My mom, Jonathan, and, uh, Steve’s.”
Considering she also never swam at his pool parties, the sunflower was hidden away under her long skirt. He hadn’t seen it since she had gotten together with Jonathan. The silence stretched uncomfortably around them.
Eddie collapsed into Steve’s lap. “If only we could all be so lucky. C’mon, Stevie, what do I gotta do to get in on this, huh?”
“I dunno, are sunflowers metal?”
“Absolutely,” Eddie said with absolute certainly. “They symbolize loyalty, fidelity, devotion, strength, pride, and haughtiness.”
The last one earned a few laughs and Steve flicked his nose, but Eddie just smiled up at him. The conversation moved on easily from there onto plans for college, summer to do lists, and shops that were finally beginning to open up again in town, though Steve couldn’t help getting distracted here and there by the new soul-marks. Watching the bee move from cell to cell of its honeycomb, the pirate ship sailing over the bone of his ankle like it was an ambitious wave, the colorful lines weaving like friendship bracelet string, and the sparks shimmering on the inside of his wrist. In a way, it made Dustin’s and Max’s marks feel more complete now that they had company; a full set.
A week later he was still getting distracted as Eddie tore into the movie they had just finished while he got refills from the trailer’s fridge.
“Am I boring you?”
Steve tore his eyes away from the sparkles on his wrist, setting his beer on Eddie’s counter where it couldn’t distract him as he took a sip.
“What? No, sorry, I… it just takes some adjusting I guess. I mean, I was mostly ink until a few days ago. I just… I can’t believe it.”
Eddie’s brows furrowed, tilting his head to the side. “Believe what?”
“That they love me?” Steve tried to make it sound light hearted.
“What’s not to love?”
“I… I don’t really feel like I’m worthy of them.”
“You are, hey,” Eddie’s hands cupped his face, his own beer forgotten. “You are."
Steve opened his mouth to protest only to gasp as Eddie’s fingers brushed the ink along his neck, feeling it warm and shift as it took a new shape along his throat. Steve’s eyes were wide, but Eddie’s smile was blinding as he ran his fingers reverently along the bats displayed on his skin. Steve felt like the air was knocked out of him at the warmth that flooded his veins, it wasn’t the same as the kids' gentle admiration, or Robin’s soothing comfort, it was carbonated; little bubbles popping as it fizzed in his veins, making him feel like he was soaring over the clouds. Eddie’s palm laid over the column of his throat, the gentle touch an absolute contrast to how he had pressed broken glass to his skin almost two months ago.
“I was hoping that one was mine. I mean, c’mon, now, that’s prime real estate right there, and we all know I like the spotlight.”
Steve clutched at his arm not quite ready to lose the sensation of what he was pretty sure ecstasy felt like, but Eddie showed no sign of pulling away.
“Breathe, love,” Eddie teased gently.
Steve took a shaky breath. Another.
“That’s it, attaboy.”
The warmth simmered into something softer, but it still felt entirely overwhelming, like sinking into a hot bath after spending hours trudging through the snow. He couldn’t quite grasp the way it enveloped him completely. Eddie’s eyes were crinkled at the corners, looking at him with such affection Steve couldn’t hold his gaze, instead running his eyes over him. The only remaining ink was on his waist, visible through the armholes of his cut up t-shirt. Steve tentatively reached for it, but Eddie caught his hand, settling it on his hip instead.
“We’ve got time, Stevie.” Eddie’s smile was lopsided. “It’s kinda the whole deal.”
Steve’s heart lurched like it wanted to jump out of his chest and into his calloused hands. Eddie pulled away slowly, and Steve listed after him, feeling like they had smoked their weight in Argyle’s Purple Palm Tree Delight rather than drink a beer and a half.
“C’mon, we’ve got three more movies to get through tonight.” Eddie led him back to the couch with a grin.
It was easy to fall back into their usual rhythm, but when they hugged goodbye Eddie had cupped the back of his neck to brush his fingers against the edge of the mark sending little sparks along his skin. It was the beginning of a pattern. Steve had grown accustom to Eddie’s careless casual physical contact in the months they had been friends, but now it came with little pops and sparks when he skimmed by the bats on his neck. It was enough to kick his heart up a few beats and trip over a word, but not the same overwhelming, all encompassing feeling that had came with direct contact. What was the real threat to his cardiovascular health was the pet names; Stevie, baby, darling, sweetheart, and love.
It was like a sliding scale of playful flirtation to unabashed affection, but no matter what Eddie called him, they never talked about it. They didn’t talk about when one of them slept over Eddie curled an arm around his waist and pulled him close to his chest. They didn’t talk about how Steve hummed metal songs in the shower. They didn’t talk about the fact that Eddie was definitely missing three different t-shirts that Steve had no plans of returning. And they definitely didn’t talk about the fact that when Eddie showed up to drop the boys off to hangout with Max he swept Steve away to a drive in movie and called it ‘date night’ when the kids complained about their lack of invite.
Steve didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to talk about how he loved Eddie just as much as the rest of his friends, but when his fingers skimmed his side as Eddie slept beside him the ink hadn’t stirred. Didn’t want to talk about what kind of love Eddie had marked on his skin, not while he could feel himself teetering on the edge of something dangerous. The others had no such reservations.
Steve handed Eddie a plate of pizza as he retook his seat on the couch beside him, the kids spread out around the living room, and a movie cued up on the screen.
“Thanks, love.”
“Why do you call him that?” Dustin asked.
Steve tensed, but Eddie’s hand curled around the back of his neck, his thumb stroking over the bats on his skin and he relaxed into the touch. Steve had spent hours admiring them in the mirror and while they were technically black there were glimmers of blue, and purple, and red like holding a crow’s feather up to the sun. They weren’t in perfect detail, more like oil that had been manipulated with a thin brush, and they flew along his throat, brushing his jaw, creeping up behind his ear, or even dipping low to skim his collarbones.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Eddie tapped his fingers against the bats. “You do see these, don’t you?”
“I mean, yeah, but.” Dustin frowned, looking back and forth between them. “Steve’s got, like, a dozen soul-mates.”
“The curse of being so easy to love,” Eddie teased, sliding his arm around his waist and tugging him close.
Steve’s throat tightened.
“And loving so many people,” Robin joked.
“What can I say? I’m an all in kind of guy,” Steve joked, even though it wasn’t a joke at all, and he knew if he tipped over that cliff, it wouldn’t matter if sunflowers bloomed on Eddie’s skin because he wasn’t sure he would be able to recover from the fall.
Steve tried not to think about it as he watched the movie, tucked up against Eddie’s side, and with his living room full of the people he loved, and the people who, according to the marks on his skin, loved him. Until death.
He couldn’t quite categorize days as good days and bad days, because while he loved their weekly movie nights, and breakfast with Max every morning, and working at the diner with Robin, and the occasional dinners with the Byers it was all interspersed with moments where he had to sit on the kitchen floor just to catch his breath after the lights flickered, or when the ringing in his bad ear was so loud he couldn’t make out what the others were saying, or waking up in cold sweat from nightmares, or on sleepless nights when he just sat on the stairs and stared at the phone waiting for a call that wouldn’t come.
As soon as his stitches were out, he started running. First he ran in the evenings in an attempt to tire himself out, or in the middle of the night to chase away a nightmare, but it eventually migrated to a reasonable time in the am whether he slept or not. Steve spent most mornings running through the woods between his house and Jonathan’s, who first waved through the kitchen window if he saw him and eventually it shifted to waving from the back porch drinking coffee and then to handing him glasses of water. Steve paused by their back porch, gulping down water as Jonathan filled him in on the morning drama in the house with a sort of dull amusement.
“I thought we learned about not letting El cook unsupervised after the waffle incident?”
“She’s very persuasive,” Jonathan said dryly.
“Steve, is that you, honey?” Joyce leaned out the kitchen window.
“Hey, Mrs. Byers, just getting the morning report.”
“I thought I told you to call me, Joyce. You want some pancakes?”
Steve glanced at Jonathan who gave a subtle shake of his head in warning.
“I’m okay, thanks, gotta whip something up for Max anyhow.”
Joyce hummed. “How’s her mother doing?”
“She’s called from rehab a few times, but…” Steve shrugged slightly, unwilling to elaborate about the stilted phone calls he overheard, or the fact that Max sniffled through dinner the other night.
Joyce made a sympathetic noise. “Any idea when your parents might come back?”
Steve mustered up a smile. “They called about the house about a week after the earthquakes, but they’re going to wait to put it on the market, no reason to return and get their affairs in order until they think they’ll get a better bid.”
“Assholes,” Jonathan said under his breath.
“You and Max are always welcome here, you know that,” Joyce said.
Steve’s smile softened into something genuine. “We appreciate it. I should probably get back there before she starts eating my dining room table.”
Jonathan held out his hand and Steve handed back the empty glass, slapping his shoulder for good measure. Jonathan went eerily still.
“You’re joking.”
“What?” Steve asked, but he saw the yellow blooming even as Jonathan pushed his sleeve the rest of the way up to find the expanse of sunflowers.
“I— seriously?” Jonathan asked.
Steve’s face warmed. “We fought a demogorgan together!”
“We were barely friends until this summer.”
“I would have died for you last year too.”
Jonathan opened and closed his mouth.
Steve jogged away, waving over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow!”
Jonathan showed up at his house with a six pack of beers two days later.
“Uh, hi?”
“One of those is mine.” Jonathan gestured to just about all of him. “So let’s find it.”
“Dude, I’ve got, like, a dozen of ‘em, I wasn’t banking on all of them being requited, it’s okay.”
“I’ve decided.”
Steve spluttered. “You can’t just decide!”
“Watch me.”
Steve stared at him as he sat down on the couch, and Jonathan held up a can.
“Want a beer?”
“…yeah.”
Steve accepted the can and sat down. Once they got past their usual updates of their shared kids and adults, conversation was slightly stilted as they tried to find a topic in common that wasn’t the people they loved.
“You know Robin calls you baby daddy number two behind your back.”
Jonathan choked on beer. “Excuse me?”
Steve’s face warmed. “Since the kids like to call me mom and two of ‘em are yours.”
Jonathan wiped his face on the back of his hand. “Who’s baby daddy number one? Nancy?”
“Eddie,” Steve said. “Since he’s got the boys in Hellfire. I swear, Mike looks like him more and more every day.”
Jonathan looked mildly offended. “Why am I number two? We knew each other first.”
Steve barely caught himself before he said something dumb like ‘Eddie’s different’ because it wasn’t as much of a joke when Robin said it about him and Steve could picture packing up their whole monster-fighting family into an RV with Eddie commandeering the music as he sat beside him and their kids arguing in the back.
“Quantity?” Steve shrugged.
Jonathan made a sort of ‘that’s fair’ type of gesture. “I think El and Will are more than enough for me.”
“You got off easy, you got one of the good ones,” Steve joked.
All of his kids were good kids, but only Will and Lucas said their please and thank you’s when he chauffeured them around, therefore, they were the good kids.
“Yeah, but I also got one whose arguments include our house acting like we’ve got a poltergeist.”
Steve snapped his fingers. “I’ve seen that movie.”
“You like horror?”
“Depends on the movie, but Eddie loves all of ‘em, so, uh, I’ve seen basically any of the ones he could get his hands on.”
“You know if you told me in high school that Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson were best friends, I never would have believed it.”
“Rob’s my best friend,” Steve corrected.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “And Eddie is…?”
Steve cleared his throat. “How’s the apartment hunting going?”
Jonathan looked distinctly unimpressed with his change of topic, but answered regardless. “It’s difficult to find something I can afford, but is also close enough to NYU that I don’t pay my rent in transportation.”
Steve gave a sympathetic hum.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you going to do now that it’s over?”
Steve mustered up a smile. “I’ll answer that when it actually feels like it is.”
Jonathan held up his beer. “To new beginnings and, uh, new friends.”
Steve rolled his eyes, but knocked their beers together.
It turned out the key to friendship with Jonathan was to let the conversations ebb and flow without trying to fill the silences until a new thought washed ashore. Laying on the floor of Jonathan’s room they listened to the Clash, where Eddie’s music seemed to bring him to life (tapping his fingers, head-banging, jumping, or singing along), Jonathan closed his eyes and simply listened. Walking through the woods in silence as Jonathan snapped photos of their surroundings, Steve felt more settled in his skin than he often did as his fingers ran over tree bark and sun dappled against the leaves overhead; he could hear each click of Jonathan’s camera, every twig under foot, and the rustle of dried leaves. Sitting on the kitchen floor they talked about bad fathers over a tub of ice cream Steve had managed to hide from the kids, and said nothing where others would have tried for apologies and other weightless words. Smoking with Argyle in a field of dandelions, Steve showed them both how to make flower crowns and dubbed them Jonathan The Humble and Argyle The Tranquil.
“You’ll need something better than Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington then,” Jonathan said.
Steve fixed his own clumsily made crown. “It’s my signature.”
“Yeah, but it makes you sound shallow.”
“As puddle.”
“I’m serious, man.” Jonathan smacked his arm. “How’s Steve the Devoted?”
“Makes me sound like a romantic.”
Argyle laughed. “Dude, you are a romantic. We’ve all seen you with, Munson.”
Steve’s face warmed. “That’s not, it isn’t—“
Jonathan cocked an eyebrow. “It isn’t…?”
“Asshole,” Steve said, even though he was trying not to smile.
Stretching his arms over his head, he paused as he found a feather on the inside of his bicep.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Jonathan followed his eyes, propping himself up on one elbow. “Oh.”
“Purple Palm Tree Delight, does wonders, man,” Argyle said serenely and Steve burst out laughing as soon as Jonathan’s eyes met his.
Working at the diner paid enough for groceries, gas, and other essentials, but Steve could feel a clock ticking over his head at his parents undetermined sell by date. In between customers, he flipped through a newspaper, but he didn’t know if he should have been circling jobs or apartment listings.
“I think it’s probably bad form to job hunt at your current one,” Hopper said as he settled at the counter.
“Hey, Hop.” Steve poured him a mug of coffee black, and cut a slice of pie to go with it.
Hopper stopped in now and again after he got off his shifts at the station. First just for coffee. Then for coffee and a refill. Now it was two cups of coffee and a slice of pie. Steve wondered if they would ever graduate to a burger, though the thought made him guilty to be hogging his time when he could be going home to Joyce, and El, and Will, and Jonathan.
“Long shift?”
“Mostly dumbasses trespassing and getting tetanus. It ain’t a playground, it’s taped off because it’s condemned, ’n there’s certainly nothing good left to steal now, they should’ve been quicker on the draw.”
Steve snorted, leaning back against the counter behind him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I don’t suggest a life a crime, but a career change might do you some good.”
“You don’t think I pull off the apron?” Steve asked innocently.
Hopper looked unimpressed.
Steve fidgeted under the weight of his gaze, distracting himself by fussing with the sugar packets. “I don’t need a lecture Hopper, my old man’s last one’s still knocking around in my head.”
“I’m not gonna lecture you, kid, I’m gonna ask you a question; what do you want to do?”
Steve’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t know. Nancy wants to be a journalist, and Jonathan a photographer, and Rob’s thinking about going into translation, and Eddie’s got his music, hell, even the kids have their futures picked out, but I never… I just wanted a family.”
“Well you can cross that off the list.”
Steve’s chest warmed, unconsciously glancing down at the marks peeking out from under the sleeves of his shirt.
“Which means you need to think up something new.”
Steve made an inconclusive noise.
“Kid, you didn’t drag yourself through hell just to waste away here, so do something; take classes, trade school, run off to Indianapolis with Robin, New York with the boys, hell, even Boston with Nancy.”
“I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
The words got stuck in Steve’s throat. What if it wasn’t over? What if the kid needed him? What about Max? What if her mom never got sober? What if Dustin needed help lugging around one of his new inventions? What if Lucas needed someone to practice basketball with? What if Will and El got bullied in sophomore year? What if Mike didn’t know how to apologize after a fight with the others? What about Eddie? What if people kept spray painting his trailer?
Hopper’s eyes flicked down and Steve realized he was rubbing at the compass on his arm.
“Son.” Hopper put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s time to do something for yourself. They’re not going anywhere.”
One of his fingers must have brushed some of the ink creeping up the back of his neck because Steve could feel it shifting along his shoulder blade, and all he could manage was a nod. Hopper squeezed his shoulder before letting go, and changing the topic to the NBA draft. There was a sunflower on his knuckle as he sipped his coffee; Steve wasn’t sure how long it had been there. Hopper didn’t mention it. At home, twisting around to look in the mirror, Steve found a mountain standing tall along his shoulder blade, wisps of clouds drifting by the peaks.
Steve often brought Max leftover fries when he came home either as an appetizer before he made her dinner, or dessert if it was a late shift. Sometimes she felt like talking, sometimes she picked at them in silence, and sometimes she even ignored the bag entirely but she would eat them cold for breakfast the next morning after her irritation had fizzled out. An argument here and there was inevitable when you lived with someone, and if anyone had a right to be a little crotchety it was the girl who had broken both arms and legs and was still in intensive physical therapy now that the casts were off. Some arguments were small like leaving her socks on the floor by the couch. Some arguments less so.
“I think I’m a bad mom,” Steve blurted out when Joyce opened the door.
Joyce let him inside. It came spilling out as she made them both mugs of coffee, and guided him to sit out on the steps of the back porch.
“—and she still hasn’t done her summer reading and when I pushed she said that she almost died can’t I cut her slack and I mean how am I supposed to argue with that? How am I supposed to tell her that yes, you went through something awful and you still have to do your summer reading?”
Joyce looked thoughtful. “Is it because she thinks the book is boring and she doesn’t want to do it or is there something else bothering her?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Sometimes when Jonathan was nervous about a test he just wouldn’t study at all because he couldn’t even think about the test without feeling anxious.”
Steve chewed on the inside of his cheek. “She could be nervous about school starting up? Could that be why she won’t do it?”
Joyce bumped their shoulders together. “You’ll have to ask her.”
Steve put his face in his hands. “I’m not cut out for this mom stuff.”
“That’s because you’re not her mom,” Joyce said gently.
Steve flinched.
“You’re only nineteen, that’s just a four year gap between the two of you. It’d be pretty hard for her to think of you like a parent, but you’re just perfect for an older brother, don’t you think?”
“She deserves a mom,” Steve said.
“So do you, so when you guys need one, come on over, okay?”
Steve’s eyes stung.
“Now, c’mon, let’s make some lunch.”
They ate cold cut sandwiches and talked about nothing particularly important until Steve had to leave to pick up Max from her physical therapy. Later, sitting on the floor of Eddie’s bedroom all of the little comments from the others began to replay in his mind, louder than the sound of Eddie’s playing from where he sat up by the headboard with his guitar.
“I think I’m stuck.”
Eddie laid his hand over the strings of his guitar to stop the cord, leaning over the edge of the bed to look down at him.
“Metaphorically,” Steve clarified.
“I’m gonna need a little more than that, baby.”
Steve sighed, leaning back against the edge of the bed. “I don’t want to work minimum wage or climb the corporate ladder or whatever, I want… I want something that makes me feel the way you do when you’re on stage. I want to feel like it means something that I’m still kicking.”
“What do you want to do?”
“You’re gonna laugh.”
“You planning on becoming a comedian?”
“Eds.”
“Stevie.”
Steve picked at an imaginary thread on the knee of his jeans. “I was thinking about looking into social work.”
Eddie blinked. “That’s… pretty damn perfect for you.”
Steve shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, you need a degree for it anyways, and I didn’t get in anywhere, so.”
“You could take classes at the community college.”
“They don’t have a program.”
Eddie’s eyes widened. “Oh, so you’ve been like really thinking about this, huh?”
Steve looked away.
“Hey.” Eddie set his guitar aside so he could reach down and squeeze his shoulder. “You’ve fought monsters from another dimension, we can figure this out if it’s something you want.”
Steve’s lips quirked up slightly. “You think?”
“Yeah, you could take some classes at the community college and then transfer somewhere else that does have the program.”
“I barely scraped together a high school degree, I don’t know if I’d be cut out for it.”
“You won’t know if you don’t try. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll find something else that makes you feel like Ozzy Osbourne, yeah?”
“Transferring would mean leaving the kids.”
Eddie caught his face with one hand, turning him so their eyes met as he leaned over the edge of the bed.
“That’s way down the line, start smaller, take a couple classes, see how you feel next summer. We have time, baby, we’ve got time to figure it out. The world’s not ending anymore.”
Steve could see his own face reflected back at him in those big brown eyes, but it was a gentler, kinder reflection than any mirror could have shown him.
Steve leaned into his hand. “Yeah, we’ve got time.”
Eddie’s calloused thumb stroked his cheek, fingers skimming down along his throat just to send little sparks skittering along his skin before picking up his guitar again.
“You wanna hear what I’ve been working on?”
“Yeah.” Steve tipped his head back to rest against the mattress, the smell of Eddie’s laundry detergent on the sheets. “Let’s hear it, rockstar.”
Eddie laughed softly before starting on the opening chords to the song he had been workshopping.
Max was channel surfing when he got home, not even looking up from the screen as she said, “How’s your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Yet.”
Steve took the remote from her hand, and clicked off the TV. “We’re doing your summer reading.”
Max opened her mouth, clearly ready for another fight.
“If you’re not gonna read it yourself, then I’m gonna read it to you, honestly, it’ll probably be good practice for me anyways. I’m pretty sure I haven’t opened a book since I graduated, so.”
Max’s jaw worked, but she didn’t say anything as Steve grabbed the book from where it had been tormenting them both sitting on the coffee table the past week, and sat down beside her. Steve wasn’t a great reader, which meant he tripped over bigger words, and sometimes got them out of order in a sentence and had to go back and repeat a line, but it got a little easier as he muddled through a dozen pages or so a night. If Eddie was sleeping over, he usually read Max at least a chapter from wherever Steve had left off, complete with one armed hand waving, and different voices for the characters that made Steve laugh and Max try not to smile. Robin had tried as well, only to devolve into a rant when the dialogue reminded her of another book she read, and got them wildly off topic.
Even a streak of more good than bad days didn’t stop the nightmares. It wasn’t even as bloody as some of the ones he had before, it was just him sitting on the diving board of the pool despite it being the middle of the night, except his skin was completely devoid of ink, no soul-marks, no unturned ink, just miles of skin adorned only with a freckle here and there. Barbara’s face had appeared beside his own pale reflection, and asked, 'Did you really think you deserved them?'. Steve couldn’t say why he ended up at the Byers instead of Robin’s or Eddie’s, but Joyce let him in all the same despite the early hour, giving him his usual glass of water even though he drove there.
“How are you doing, Steve?”
Steve’s voice broke a little. “I could use a mom.”
Joyce hauled him in for a hug, rubbing his back as he made himself smaller so he could hide his face in her shoulder as he cried. She murmured reassurances into his hair, and he couldn’t help the way he clutched at her because he was pretty sure it was the first time anyone had ever said to him, ‘everything’s going to be okay’. She didn’t seem to mind that they were standing in the middle of the kitchen, and it was only just creeping up on eight am, only loosening her hold once he tried to pull back. She refilled his water, and he drank it all in one big gulp.
Steve wiped at his face. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Oh, no, hon, you’re taking a sick day.”
“But I’m not sick?”
“That’ll be our secret.”
Steve gave her a bewildered look but let himself be herded over to the couch with a blanket draped over his shoulders before Joyce went back to the kitchen to call him out of work and mess with the kettle. She returned with a steaming mug of tea which Steve accepted, savoring the warmth against his palms.
Steve caught her wrist as she let go of the mug. “Thank you.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” Joyce said, smiling when he let go. “Oh, would you look at that.”
There were little sunflowers circling her wrist like a charm bracelet. Steve’s face warmed, but she only looked pleased as she told him to drink his tea. Joyce listed off their choice of movies before popping one in, dimming the lights, and joining him on the couch. Hopper was the first to rise, and after a short conversation with Joyce in the kitchen, he wrangled the rest of the kids up and out of the house with the promise of waffles. They watched movies for most of the morning, and though Joyce scolded him for trying to help while she made lunch, he was allowed to sit on the counter and keep her company as she made them grilled cheese and tomato soup.
“You don’t like Snake Plissken?” Joyce said with great offense.
“He’s kind of a dick to the women in the movie. Uh, jerk, I mean jerk.”
“He’s a jerk to everyone.”
“Yeah, but like he just ran after that women got pulled down by the cannibals!”
“He tried to help.”
“For like three seconds!”
“He was outnumbered!”
“Then he should have died chivalrously beside her.”
Joyce laughed. “For a woman he just met?”
“Yes.”
Joyce shook her head, but she was smiling. “That’s a very Steve answer.”
Steve stuck his tongue out at her in a Max-like move and she swatted him with her buttery spatula. The grilled cheese was burnt on one side, but the tomato soup disguised most of the taste; either way it was the best thing he had eaten in years as she sat on the couch beside him as a movie played. He couldn’t exactly say where the others were, but he had her undivided attention until they return after having dinner with Hopper at Jo’s diner.
“I should get back,” Steve said.
“You can sleep here,” Joyce offered.
“No, I’m… I’m okay,” Steve said, and he meant it. “I want to get home to Max.”
Joyce hugged him again. “We’ll go see Escape from LA soon, yeah?”
“The theater’s not up and running yet.”
“We’ll go a town over, make a trip of it,” Joyce said.
Steve’s heart squeezed. “Yeah?”
“Mm-hm, Hop’ll take the kids to do something, and we’ll play hooky.”
“Sounds great.”
Joyce stood in the door way, watching him until his car pulled away and it made Steve think of how every time he dropped the kids off he waited until they were inside if only backwards. It wasn't until later he noticed the simplistic bear walking along the back of his hip; her fingers must have brushed skin when she hugged him goodbye. Thinking of how fiercely she fought for Will in the first go around with the Upside Down made him smile as he twisted to watch it wander across the small of his back.
Steve called Nancy who made quick work of sorting out which documents he needed to fill out to take classes in the fall, thankfully the community college took admissions right up until the week before classes needed to be registered. She even sat passenger seat in his car as he went to drop the papers off.
“I’m proud of you.”
“It’s community college, Nance, I’m pretty sure my parents are experiencing nausea even from miles away from me sullying the Harrington name.”
Nancy took his hand between two of her own. “For trying.”
Steve blinked.
“You never tried for yourself in high school, first everything was for your parents, and then… and then it was for me, and then the kids, and Robin, and Eddie.”
“Is that so wrong? I mean…” Steve’s eyes flicked to the sunflower peeking out from the hem of her shorts.
“You can’t live for other people, Steve.”
Steve’s hand still felt warm as she let it go and he found an arrow running along his pointer finger, both of their eyes were wide as they met one another.
“It’s not—“
Romantic.
“I know,” Steve said, and the words were easy.
Nancy’s smile was soft. “As much as it contradicts my last statement, the people who love you want to see you happy, so for us, why don’t you try living for yourself for a change?”
“Wise words from Nancy Wheeler. I should jot those down so that when people who want to write your memoir ask me about you, I’ve got some of your best stuff ready.”
Nancy shoved him. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”
Steve grinned. “We can’t all be big shot reporters.”
Nancy just shook her head, climbing out of his car. “I’ll see Saturday.”
“See you.”
Saturday was the joint goodbye party for all of the rising college kids, Nancy was the first to go, leaving in only a few days, Jonathan a week later, and Robin a little after him.
“Is it crazy that I miss you already?” Steve asked, squished up on a pool chair with Robin.
Her plate was sitting on his chest and she was laying propped up on one arm so as to eat her cake. He could feel the plastic tines poking at him through the paper sometimes.
“Absolutely.” Robin jabbed her cake (and him) with her fork. “I miss you too.”
“You’re only an hour and a half away.”
“You’re gonna visit me all the time.”
“I’ll drive you home for breaks.”
“Phones exist.”
“You’ll be calling me all the time.”
“This sucks,” Robin said.
“Yeah, it does.” Steve nodded, tangling their fingers and squeezing her hand. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Yeah.” Robin smiled. “Me too.”
Jonathan got an abundance of photos of them, promising to mail them around once they got developed so everyone could have copies. The backyard barbecue and pool party turned into s’mores as Eddie told scary stories that were nothing in comparison to what the kids had lived through so they only laughed at his theatrics, and it eventually turned into movie night with six kids sleeping on the floor of his living room, Argyle on the couch, Nancy and Jonathan in the guest bed, and Robin in his own.
Eddie was on the roof, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey, love, you want one?”
Steve settled down beside him, their shoulders pressed together, and he took a drag right from Eddie’s fingers rather than answer either way, looking out at the sleeping town.
“Tell me something,” Steve requested.
Eddie hummed, blowing out a mouthful of smoke. “I’ve got this dream, you see, my band we made it big, or maybe we didn’t and we just don’t give a fuck, and we load up into an RV, like the one we stole together.”
Steve smiled.
“And we just drive, playing dive bars in every city that’ll take us, never staying longer than a night or two. I like the thought of dancing and talking with people you know you’ll likely never see again, it’s like… it’s like opening a book halfway through and only getting to read three pages.”
“Don’t you want to know the whole story?”
“Of course I do, but since those are the only three pages you get, well, those are the best three pages in the whole book, you see? It feels like you got a sneak peak into another universe, one you weren’t meant to see.”
“I know how you love breaking conventions.”
Eddie tipped his head back as he laughed, smoke curling from his lips, and Steve felt like he could stare at him for days on end and still be just as fixated on the way his curls were slightly different lengths despite the best of his haircutting ability, they way his long fingers held his cigarette, and the way one dimple appeared before the other when he smiled.
“You know me so well, darling.”
“I try to.”
Eddie’s smile was softer, reaching out to drag a knuckle along the sleeping bats along his throat. “I know.”
“I think we should do it,” Steve decided.
“Hm?”
“Next summer, we’ll rent an RV, and I’ll watch you play at dive bars, and we’ll get three pages of the lives of strangers, and dance next to people who will never know us.”
Eddie held up his pinky finger, cigarette still burning between his pointer and middle. “Promise?”
Steve hooked their fingers together, holding his gaze as he said, “Promise.”
Eddie’s free hand caught his jaw, two fingers pressing against the bats as he pulled him in for a kiss, dropping the cigarette off the edge of the roof to tangle their fingers instead. Steve held his face with one hand, his heart thumping in his chest like it was warming up for a marathon, and those sparks along his skin going crazy like a shaken can of coke fizzing through the seal of the cap. Eddie pressed him down onto his back on the roof, and Steve knotted his fingers in his curls, both as an anchor to keep Eddie close, and also to keep his hair from falling in his face.
Steve let go of Eddie’s hand to fist in the back of his shirt and pull him closer, so that he could feel his weight and warmth on top of him in contrast to the night air. Eddie’s own hands slid along his body like they belonged on his skin, leaving trails like a sparkler’s wake behind them, his rings cold where they touched his skin, his hands warm, and his palms calloused and rough. He kissed him like he wanted to consume him, drinking down every little noise Steve made rather than let them spill into the night, and biting down on his bottom lip to earn an actual moan. Steve’s hands slid up under his shirt, sliding over scar tissue and warm skin, and Eddie broke the kiss with a gasp.
“What—“
Eddie sat up on his hips, pulling his shirt up over his head to Steve could see the way sunflowers grew tall and proud against his skin, bending to accommodate the scars, but standing along his hip and side and even reaching up his back.
“I told you they were metal,” Eddie joked, running an admiring finger along one.
Steve laid a gentle hand over his waist and Eddie hummed, holding his palm flat against his skin, and basking in the warmth of Steve’s love.
“I love you.”
Eddie grinned down at him. “I know.”
“No, Eds, I’m in love with you.”
Eddie laughed softly, stroking the bats along his neck. “I know, baby, I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.”
“Because we have time,” Steve said breathlessly.
“All the time in the world,” Eddie promised, sealing it with a kiss, softer, gentler now.
Steve ran his fingers along the flowers weaving through his scars, and Eddie seemed content to let Steve admire him, though he wore a little amused smile as he looked down at him. The soul-marks appeared in strong contrast to his pale skin, lit only by the stars overhead, and the glow of the window they climbed out of to get to the roof. His curls were a mess from Steve’s hands, fluffy and falling over his shoulders. His calloused fingers venturing from teasing the edges of the bats to tracing over Steve’s own collection of marks, admiring scars and freckles alongside his soul-marks.
“Someone once told me that he heard stories that the marks are from the people who loved you in your past life, to help you know when you find them again this time around, and I think… I think I like that, that there are people that I could choose to love now, in this life, and leave a mark so I could find them again next time.”
“I believe it,” Eddie said. “You have so much love inside of you, I can imagine you collecting us through your lives, and it would be so easy for us to love you once you found us. I hope every life I’ve been through and every life I will, there’s been a Steve Harrington looking for me.”
“I had already decided that if this wasn’t mine.” Steve tapped his side. “That I would leave one for the next time around, so I would be able to find you again.”
“Looks like one of your past selfs beat you to the punch, baby.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Steve teased.
Eddie laughed loud and unrestrained. “How can you go from being a romantic that could rival Elisabeth Barrett Browning to a complete asshole in seconds flat?”
“It’s a gift.”
Eddie bit back a laugh, but it was still dancing in his eyes as he looked down at him. “I’m gonna find you again next time. I’m gonna find you again every next time there is, darling.”
“Not if I find you first.” Steve pushed himself up on one arm to kiss him again.
And they stayed there until the morning sun washed over them, flooding the sky with grey, and sweeping the stars out to sea. Steve stifled yawns as he made breakfast for the kids, quietly, because they were still asleep, but Eddie handed him a mug of coffee made just how he liked it, arm wrapping around his waist, and pressing a kiss to his mark, and Steve thought it was better than any sleep he could have had.
Three days after Nancy left for Emerson, Steve paid first and last months rent on a two bedroom apartment in Hawkins. It was small, but it came with a stove, refrigerator, and functional shower, so he was relatively satisfied even though he would have to haul his laundry down to the laundromat down the street when it needed to be done and the wallpaper desperately needed redoing. It was a six month lease.
Most of what Max wanted to take was already at his parent’s house which made it easy enough to transfer to the apartment, some of it was still at her mother’s who Steve made stilted conversation with while Max packed a few more items. She was doing outpatient rehab, she looked… better. Not steady, more like a sapling than an oak tree, but maybe she would get there with time.
Hopper and Joyce helped with building their bed frames, setting up the living room, and organizing the kitchen. The kids, Robin, Jonathan, and Eddie helped him pack up his belongings, sorting aside what was a relic of the house and what was actually worth keeping. Steve wanted to throw out the basketball trophies and silver swim medals, but Lucas packed them away. Steve said not to bother with any of the photos, but Robin took all of his baby photos out of the frames; she left the ones of his parents hanging on the walls next to the empty frames. Dustin boxed up several pairs of perfectly good clothes and labeled them donate, when Steve protested, he said, “Dude, when’s the last time you even wore those, like two years? They’re just not you anymore.”
Eddie slowed down the entire process by cooing over pieces he found; a ratty stuffed rabbit Steve had hidden in the depths of his closet, a pinecone turkey he made in elementary school, a copy of Pride and Prejudice which was the only book Steve had ever read more than once, and plenty of other mundane piece of life that Eddie treated like a buried treasure.
“What’s his name?” Eddie asked, holding up the rabbit.
Steve’s face went hot. “I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do, baby, c’mon, I won’t laugh, promise!”
“…Sir Hoppington the third.”
Eddie howled with laughter and Steve beat him with one of his pillows. In the end, it wasn’t a lot of boxes which only went to show how small Steve had made himself despite the house being so big. It had been so filled with emptiness, there just hadn’t been room for him to grow. Eddie joked about stealing the lightbulbs, and Steve rolled his eyes as he followed the others outside, like a train of worker ants carrying breadcrumbs of his life before now.
Steve set the box down as the car pulled up in the driveway, his friends pausing where they were loading up Eddie’s van as Steve's parents climbed out. Dressed in shorts and a cropped top, nearly all of his marks were on display and he watched his father’s lips turn down as he raked his eyes over them; his mother looked like she had found herself proven right.
“Steven,” Richard said, less of a greeting and more of a warning. “What are you doing?”
“I’m moving.”
“About time. You’re lucky I tolerated a year of freeloading.”
“I’m surprised you even noticed.”
Richard drew himself up to his full height, his voice deadly quiet. “What was that?”
Steve lifted his chin. “I said, I’m surprised you noticed because you’re never here. You never have been. Even now you’re just here because you want to turn a good price on the house because that’s all you care about; possessions. There’s a reason I don’t have your marks, because you’re incapable of loving anything you can’t control.”
Richard’s hand cracked against his face and Steve heard his friends startle, but he held up his own hand to bid them to keep back. It had never been about the pain of being hit from his father; it had been about the fear, the fear that had taken root back when a stinging slap from his father was the worst pain he had ever known, but looking at him now he was nothing but a man. A stranger.
“Goodbye, dad.” Steve stepped back towards his friends, holding out his arms to display his marks. “I don’t have any space left for you.”
Richard fumed as he watched them put the last boxes in the van, and his mother only said, ‘don’t take anything you didn’t pay for’ as she watched them load up.
“There’s nothing in there that’s worth taking,” Steve said easily.
Helena looked away rather than meet his eyes.
Climbing into the passenger seat of Eddie’s van, he didn’t look back as they drove away, even a month ago he would have just to see if there was anything to be salvaged in their faces. If there was even a chance they might have missed him. Instead he intertwined his fingers with Eddie’s, and the warmth of his skin against his own as he squeezed his hand was just as good as if he was pressing his fingers against his mark; it felt like love.