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The first and only time Steve makes love to Nancy, he tangles their hands together in the sheets, pressing his palm to hers as if his life depends on it. It does, in a way.
They’ve held hands before, of course. Nancy doesn’t crave physical contact the way he does, so they’ve been light and fleeting touches, mostly. He has convinced himself that those didn’t count.
She is his soulmate, after all, he is sure of it. And the first time you touch hands with your soulmate, their name is supposed to appear in the palm of your hand, and yours in theirs.
Nothing happens, of course.
Nancy tries to console him, quoting statistics and the miniscule likelihood of ever meeting your soulmate in a world with billions of people. The fact that they don’t carry each other’s names in their palms doesn’t say the first thing about them as a couple or their future together, right?
Right.
Steve tries to believe her, tries to believe in them.
But when it all inevitably falls to shambles, he isn’t really surprised.
*
Robin’s name appears in his palm on the floor of a dingy mall bathroom. Both of them are bloody and beaten and high off their asses, and she has just confessed to him that she’ll never like him the same way he likes her. He tells her that it’s okay, slipping his hand into hers to give it a reassuring squeeze-
-and that’s when it happens.
A light, tingling sensation that starts in his palm, spreads into his fingers and all the way up his arm, settling in his chest as a warm glow. She gasps, mouth and eyes going wide, and that’s when he knows she feels it, too.
A few minutes later, they are sitting opposite each other on the cold tiles, gazing down at their open palms.
“I don't understand,” Steve mutters, tracing the shimmering golden letters of his own name on her skin. They're starting to fade already, but they'll be etched into their hearts for the rest of their lives. That's how the saying goes, at least. “How is that possible if we're not …”
She shrugs. “There's different kinds of love. I think it’s only logical that there should be different kinds of soulmates.”
Steve finds that he likes that thought. How could he not? He just found the other half of his own soul, and that is so much more than so many people ever manage to do in their lifetime.
He’s complete. He can’t imagine ever wanting anything more.
*
And then there’s Eddie.
Eddie who presses a broken bottle to his neck, face twitching with spiteful determination and poorly disguised fear. Who is fiercely protective of the kids, even though it’s his own head the entire town is after. Who hides the nerves and horror of it all under a thin layer of exaggerated bravado and crude jokes and obnoxious flirting.
Suddenly, they’re all back, those feelings he never thought he’d feel again. That pull, that inexplicable need to be near him, to keep him close.
He doesn’t say anything. Not to Eddie, not to Robin, not to anyone. They have more important things to worry about, as usual.
Robin still notices, of course, with the same telepathy-like surety she always has when it comes to him.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she says, shoulder bumping into Steve’s as she bends down to pick up another empty bottle. “Maybe it’s possible to have several?”
Her eyes stray over the sunlit meadow, to where Eddie is roughing around with Dustin, frizzy curls whipping around his smiling face.
Steve snorts. “Yeah, right. Most people don’t even have one.”
“Most people don't even meet one,” she shrugs. “I think it's more a thing of probability than-”
Steve scoffs. It comes out a bit too harshly, maybe, because the whole conversation is veering dangerously close to the one he had with Nancy all those years ago, and he doesn’t want to be reminded of that now.
“And you think I just have two soulmates running around in the immediate vicinity? Please!”
She raises her eyebrows.
He raises his back.
“Well, you won't know unless you ask him.”
Steve snorts. Eddie is cradling the back of Dustin’s head with both hands and talking to him softly. His chest is still heaving, but his shoulders are more relaxed than Steve has seen at any point during the past few days, and his face is alight with fondness. Something in Steve’s chest stirs.
“Ask him what? Hey, Eddie, wanna hold hands to see if we're soulmates? I think he has bigger worries right now.”
She gives him a wary look.
“Dingus-” she starts to say, but Steve waves her off.
“After,” he promises. “I'll tell him after.”
He doesn't know at this point how close they’ll get to never having an after.
*
When Eddie pulls him into his bed, months and months later, Steve catches both of his hands and presses them into the pillows, holding on to them like a lifeline.
He knows nothing will happen at this point. They’ve had their fair share of touches, both fleeting and accidental as well as lingering and intentional. Eddie first sitting up in that hospital bed. Eddie crawling his way into Steve’s car on the day they finally released him. Eddie learning to walk again. Steve was there for all of it, always ready to lend a helping hand when Eddie needed it, and Eddie was more than happy to accept. Steve never thought he’d meet a person who expresses affection in an even more physical way than himself, but here they are.
Still, in this moment, he feels like he has to hold on, or Eddie might just disappear. Just slip away like he almost did back on that day Steve carried him out of the Upside Down.
Maybe it doesn’t matter all that much, he thinks while Eddie moans into his mouth, wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist to pull him closer. Who cares if he has Eddie’s name in his palm, as long as he knows that he’s here with him, warm and safe and alive? Why should he give a damn about soul marks when they both carry plenty of marks on their skin, all of them telling the story of how close they came to losing each other?
It’s not that important. It’s not like his life depends on it.
When it’s over and they’re lying with the sheets tangled around their legs, both of them sweaty and exhausted and blissed out beyond measure, Steve shifts the grip of his hand from Eddie’s palm to his wrist, so that he can pull his hand closer and kiss the root of his thumb.
“Okay, ouch,” Eddie mumbles. His face is half-squished into the pillow, nose adorably scrunchy. “I don’t have much experience in the whole sex department, but I'm a bit surprised I’m that bad.”
“What?” Steve says dumbly, and Eddie gives a lazy, one-shouldered shrug.
“You look like you’re about to burst into tears, sweetheart.”
Shit.
“No!” Steve blurts. “That’s not- … It was amazing. You were amazing! You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this, it’s just … God, it’s so stupid.”
Eddie, uncharacteristically, doesn’t press him, just keeps watching him with those dark, round eyes of his like a curious baby deer, and Steve groans.
“You see, for a while, before the Upside Down and the bats and shit, I thought that we might be soulmates. Robin has this whole theory about how you can have several, and …. She said I should just tell you, but I thought it wasn’t the right time, so I didn’t, and- … and yeah, maybe it also was because I was so sure Nancy was my soulmate, except she wasn’t, and I didn’t wanna live through that disappointment again. I told myself it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, but- … Now I’m still disappointed, and I’m aware that makes me a horrible person, and I understand if you’d rather go find your actual soulmate than put up with- Why are you laughing, you asshole?”
Eddie isn’t just laughing, he’s wheezing - big, helpless gulps of it that tug on the scar on his jaw.
“Oh, Stevie,” he sighs when he’s finally able to pause for longer than two seconds, pressing a wet, sloppy kiss to the corner of Steve’s pouting mouth. “Oh, sweetheart. You really don’t remember, do you?”
“Remem-” Steve parrots. “I have no idea what- … What are you even talking about?”
Eddie huffs softly and rolls on top of him, naked legs tangling with Steve’s as he straddles his lap.
“It happened when I first woke up in the hospital,” he says, then pauses and thinks. “Well, the first time I remember, anyhow. I suppose I was half awake a few times before that, but everything after I got out of the trailer and grabbed that bike is sort of blurry.”
Steve wishes it was that way for him, but he thinks the image of Eddie’s lifeless body and the feeling of Eddie’s blood on his hands will be ingrained in his memory for the rest of his life. He doesn’t say any of that, though, just links his fingers at the back of Eddie’s neck and pulls him in for another hungry kiss.
“It must’ve been right after the surgery,” Eddie mutters against his lips. His hand reaches up to catch one of Steve’s and link their fingers, pressing their palms together, “because I remember thinking I looked like a goddamn mummy, bandages all over the place.”
He winces a little at the memory, then wrinkles his brow like he’s trying to recall what he was going to say.
“Anyhow. At first I thought they had given me too many drugs, because there was no way you were really there, asleep in one of those horrible plastic chairs right next to my bed and snoring into my mattress.”
“I was dead on my feet, okay?” Steve grumbles, carding his fingers through the stubborn curls. “With everything that happened between us setting that interdimensional fucker on fire, the goddamn town cracking in half and hauling your half-dead ass out of there, I think it was the first time I slept in days.”
Eddie grins.
“Oh, I figured,” he says, like he’s enjoying some sort of private joke. “You seemed a little bit loopy, to say the least. Why else would you have kissed me?”
Steve stares at him.
“Fuck off, I did not,” he blurts. “I’d remember if-”
Eddie cackles.
“Oh, but you did,” he insists, and happily taps his right temple with one slender finger. “Gave me a big, fat smooch right here. Told me how glad you were that I made it, and that I’d be outta there in no time. And then you took my hand.”
He pauses, eyes big and round, smile dimpled and delighted.
“Okay?” Steve says. “I don't know what you're-”
And then the penny drops.
“No way,” he wheezes. “What the- … I mean, that can't be- … Are you fucking kidding me?”
Eddie laughs, and the sound makes something glow in Steve's chest. Warm and soft and golden, right where Eddie’s name is imprinted on his heart.
“I don't joke about that kind of thing, honey,” Eddie mutters into their next kiss. Steve hums, impatient and confused. “I think I said something? Can’t have been much, you know what my voice was like for the first few months. Probably just a surprised noise or something. You know what you did? You kissed my knuckles and said ‘Oh, yeah, I figured.’ And then you fell back asleep. You got drool on my hand.”
Steve stares up at him. Eddie smiles back, the dimmed bedroom lights above him turn his hair into a frizzy halo of reds and golds.
“You asshole,” Steve rasps at length. “You … Are you telling me you knew all this time and never said a thing?”
Eddie huffs. “I didn’t think you’d have completely forgotten about it. And besides, I don’t believe you can blame me. You’ve been the perfect model of a loving and caring soulmate this entire time.”
Steve feels himself blush.
“Well, duh. That’s because I’m head over heels in love with you. Just in case you haven’t noticed, you stupid doofus.”
Eddie leans in for another kiss, this one slower and more languid than the last ones. His weight shifts as he does, and Steve realizes that he’s half hard again.
“Hm, I think you haven't made it quite clear enough. How about you prove it some more?”
Later, drifting in and out of sleep with Eddie’s warm, naked body curled into his, Steve thinks about fate and probabilities and comes to the conclusion that Nancy was on to something all those years ago. It doesn't matter, ultimately, who you are destined for.
But knowing that Eddie and him were meant to be all along? Damn if that doesn't make him the luckiest fucking bastard in the world.