Chapter Text
Despite popular belief, Steve has a soulmark. It had just been years since he’d thought about it.
But it was still there.
In the arch on the bottom of his left foot, as if the universe itself was ashamed of it, in small careful letters, was the name “Billy.”
Steve had never told anyone, not even his parents. It wasn’t because of shame or anything. They just were never the nurturing kind, or the type of parents to emotionally invest in their child. His parents probably wouldn’t even pay attention or care, just like they didn't really care about anything else in Steve’s life.
He remembered being fourteen and sitting cross-legged in his bed, tracing the name that was supposed to mean so much to him. All he felt was confusion.
Tommy said when his soulmark appeared on his shoulder it felt warm, and when he and Carol touched it felt like static electricity. But Steve’s mark didn’t feel anything like that. Maybe something was wrong. Maybe his soulmate died, or didn’t exist in the first place. Maybe it was all a mistake.
So Steve let everyone believe he didn’t have a soulmark, because it was easier. Easier than feeling the whole school look at him with pity or disgust. Easier than waiting for some guy that might not even exist in the first place. Easier for people to see him as some kind of harborless flirt instead of a freakshow.
Besides, even if this “Billy” existed, it wasn’t a guarantee that Steve would be his soulmate. Life was a bitch like that sometimes. And even if Billy was real, Steve wasn’t quite sure how he’d handle it. Facing his problems was never one of his strengths.
Steve tried to ignore the irony that he was running away from something literally inked onto the bottom of his foot, and instead thanked whatever god was listening that it was in a place that was easy to forget.
By the time Nancy Wheeler showed up Steve had bought into his own lie. He hadn’t even thought about his soulmark in years.
Nancy was everything. Carol always complained she was too much of a Good-Girl to be any fun, but there was something about her that Steve liked. She reminded him of campfire embers, just waiting for someone to kick them up into a wildfire.
Loving Nancy was easy. She was smart, kind, earnest, and kissed like she had something to prove. What that thing was, Steve had no idea, but he figured it had something to do with why Nancy never talked about soulmarks.
Maybe she didn’t have one either and saw him as a kindred spirit. Maybe she didn’t like the name printed somewhere on her skin. Maybe it had something to do with the look of longing in Barbara’s eyes that Nancy so tactfully avoided all the time. Steve wasn’t one to judge.
And deep down he really didn’t care. Nancy made him feel warm, loved, and not all alone in the world. Maybe neither of them had soulmarks, but that didn’t matter. Steve knew he could and would fall in love with Nancy if given half the chance.
But she was shy and cautious. Steve thought it was because she hadn’t been with anyone else before.
No one would have guessed it had something to do with the oldest Byers kid that was always wandering around school.