Archive of Our Own

Once upon a time, a king and a queen justly ruled over their kingdom. They were very proper folk, and they were well-liked by all their subjects. But as they grew older, they began to despair because they did not have a child.

When the queen became pregnant, the king held a banquet every Sunday to celebrate. He would invite the rich and the poor, because he wanted everyone to share in their joy. They invited regular people, witches, wizards, and fairies. They invited trolls and ogres as well, but they never showed up.

On the Saturday before the final banquet, which was to host all those who had not yet been invited, the queen gave birth. The king was so pleased that he forgot all about the banquet, and all who showed up on Sunday were turned away. Most people did not mind, for they were happy for the new parents and did not begrudge them their time with their new child. But one person did mind.

This person was not a person at all, but a fairy. And she declared that this was a sleight that could not go unpunished.

It was on this day that the family was cursed. The family begged the fairy to change her mind, on this day that should have been the happiest of their lives. They begged her to come back the next week, so that they may prepare a banquet just for her. But nothing they said would dissuade her, and so their family was cursed. The fairy’s curse proclaimed that each generation of their family would only have one child, and so these children would be lonely. It said that they would not know true happiness in their youth, and so these children would be melancholy.

It also said that one day, their line would end entirely because one child will prick their finger on a needle and immediately fall down dead.

Luckily, another fairy had also been invited to this final banquet, and she overheard all of this. And so she consoled the king and queen, telling them that while she could not undo this curse, she could change it.

This kind fairy made it so that the child who pricked their finger on a needle would not die. They would simply fall asleep.

The king and queen hid away all the needles in the kingdom, never permitting their child to come into contact with any of them. But it was all for naught, because it was not their child who was doomed in this way.

This is where our story begins. Not with the king and queen, but with a child born many generations later, who is to fulfill the curse’s fate.

Steve Harrington knows one thing with absolute certainty. His soulmate is an asshole.

This is an impressive thing to know with absolute certainty, because Steve has never met them. It is also an impressive thing to know because the world around them is an even bigger asshole than any one person could possibly be.

In fairness to Steve, he has capital-R Reasons for knowing this.

The first Reason is because his soulmate doesn’t seem to care much about the fact that any injury they suffer will also appear on Steve’s body.

Because they live in a world that looks like it was chewed up and spat out by an Eldritch god, many people believe that evolution is the reason for this change. How else have humans survived this long? Finding their soulmates and getting down to business (read: procreation) is keeping them as a species alive, and so of course they’ve evolved in a way that makes it easier for them to find the person they belong with.

Others believe that it is magical. There’s no scientific explanation for how this works (though Steve doubts that anyone has ever actually studied any of this), and since it doesn’t seem to be affected by proximity, genetics, or climate, obviously it must be magical. Obviously.

Others, still, believe that it is the one kindness living in this world has to offer them. This little quirk of their existence has made it easier to find their soulmates, and what more could they ask for than to know with absolute certainty that they have found the one person they are destined to be with?

Steve doesn’t buy into any of those explanations, because he just accepts it as fact. It’s as much of a fact as the fact that his soulmate is an asshole, because Steve is always getting bumps and scrapes and bruises that aren’t his fault. Most people are more careful as a result of this, wanting to take care of their soulmate by not inflicting unnecessary pain on them. But Steve’s soulmate is the exception to this.

The second Reason is because his soulmate has tattoos.

Tattoos aren’t outlawed, or anything. People still get them. It just takes a lot of effort to get them, because permanent body modification just isn’t a priority anymore when the world could open up and spit out new monsters to fight at any given second. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with getting a tattoo.

But, like with all other injuries, the tattoos appear on your soulmate’s body. The entire time you’re getting a tattoo, your soulmate feels it, too.

Most people wait to get tattoos until after they’ve met their soulmate, so their partner can consent to the pain. The ink doesn’t appear on the soulmate’s body, but they still feel each prick of the needle. They still get a rash in a blob-like outline of whatever design the ink makes. And so it’s only fair, really, to ask their permission first.

Steve’s soulmate has seventeen tattoos.

Steve knows this because he’s kept track.

The third Reason is because the fucker still hasn’t found him.

Which, okay, there could be a whole host of lower-case-r reasons for this. Maybe they live on the other side of the world, or maybe they’re too busy fighting for their own survival, or maybe they’re in quarantine. But Steve thinks that Reasons one and two probably mean that his soulmate doesn’t actually give a fuck about finding him.

Despite all of this, Steve still desperately wants to find them.

Every time Camp Hawkins (the remains of their town, renamed as such both because it is like living at a campsite and because it makes it more fun for the kids) takes in new refugees or gets a new truckload of soldiers to fight the monsters, Steve looks. He looks at the exposed skin of their arms and tries to match ink up to the pain he remembers feeling. But so far, nobody’s tattoos have matched.

Steve permits himself five minutes, maximum, each day of feeling sorry for himself. Any longer feels self-indulgent, and he can’t be self-indulgent when there are people depending on him for their survival. Finding his soulmate would be wonderful, but it feels like something so extra and unnecessary when what really matters is keeping himself and those around him alive.

On bad days, when everything else has gone wrong and Steve thinks that it would be easier to just give up, he wonders if his soulmate has died.

If there’s one small mercy to the way this soulmate connection works, it’s that you don’t feel any serious injury. He wouldn’t feel anything life-threatening, so if his soulmate did come to a violent end he wouldn’t feel it. So it is entirely possible that his soulmate has died, and Steve wouldn’t be any the wiser about it.

Then his knee will sting, as if he just bumped it on a door frame. His finger will pinch, as if it was caught under something. His skin will burn, and he’ll suck in a hissing breath, because his soulmate just suffered some kind of cut. And Steve will know that they’re alive.

Alive and an asshole.

But they’re his asshole, even if neither of them knows it.

So Steve keeps hoping, and he keeps looking.

This morning is a particularly bad morning. Steve hadn’t slept well the night before, his dreams plagued with visions of those closest to him dying. These dreams aren’t new, but that doesn’t make them any easier to deal with. In the wee hours of the morning, Steve had kicked sweaty sheets off and had instead just laid there in the crisp, dark air, waiting for the sunrise.

The sunrise had come with a splitting headache, and because painkillers are rationed Steve doesn’t have a way to relieve the ache.

When Robin comes to get him, it’s to find him hunched over in bed, clutching his head.

“Headache?” she guesses.

“Headache,” Steve grunts in affirmation.

“Bad enough to not be on patrol?”

“Nope.”

He stands up, because he’s already dressed and ready to go. It’s easy to be dressed and ready when you’re never not dressed and ready.

“Steve–” Robin starts, but he cuts her off.

“I’m fine, Robbie.”

He’s not fine, and she knows this. But she doesn’t protest.

They go on patrol together, just like they do every morning, making note of any changes to the gaping, red crevices in the earth. The cool morning air feels like a kindness, chilling Steve’s hands so that he can press them to his forehead whenever his headache will throb. It doesn’t hurt as badly when they return and make their report.

Nothing has broken through to their camp, not this time. But one of the holes has grown by two feet overnight. The change is marked on a map with little red pushpins as if they’re building a conspiracy board and not a survival plan.

“You two up for a long trip today?” Hopper, who’s in charge of the entire town-now-camp, asks, his voice a low growl that tells them both it doesn’t matter what they say. He’s already decided to send them.

“Where to, Chief?” Robin asks, raising her right hand to her forehead in a salute.

Hopper grumbles under his breath before answering, because he has to at least pretend to not enjoy Robin’s antics. But they all know he appreciates it. They all do. These moments of lightheartedness are what get them through each day, as something to cling to and hope for.

“There’s another camp that’s cropped up, just on the outskirts of town,” Hopper points on the map to show them where it is. “They’re calling themselves Hellfire, but they’re close enough that we’ll be competing for resources and reinforcements, if they manage to last.”

“So it’s diplomacy, not strength,” Steve summarizes, already knowing where this is going.

“It could be strength,” Hopper shrugs. “Honestly, I’m not picky about how you convince them. But get in, talk some sense into them, and bring them back with you. Or knock some heads.”

“Who’s coming with us as backup?” Steve asks.

“I can spare the Tigers.”

Both Steve and Robin groan in unison, because they hate the Tigers.

“You leave in an hour,” Hopper tells them, ignoring the groaning. “And you two are in charge, so no whining. Tell the cats what to do, and if they don’t listen you leave them behind.” He levels each of them with a solemn, grave look. “Dismissed.”

They leave, feeling much like they’ve just left a meeting with the principal.

“The Tigers?” Robin breathes, as soon as they’re far enough away. “The fucking Tigers?”

“I know,” Steve groans.

The Tigers aren’t bad. Not really. They’re an example of what happens when the apocalypse splits a fissure through the center of a town and splits it into halves. One half had built up Camp Hawkins, banding together and sharing resources and taking care of each other. The other half had fallen to survival of the fittest, and that’s where the Tigers originated.

The Tigers are a gang. They’re a gang of teenage boys and young men who’d had to prove themselves in the worst ways, and are only still standing because they’d cared about their own skins more than anything else. When the fissure between town had been taken care of and sealed up, the two sides had come together. Camp Hawkins had been the side with organization, and so the Tigers had come to heel.

Steve doubts that the Tigers will ever, truly, listen to Hopper. Or to them. But if Hopper tells them to go somewhere, they’ll go. They’re not stupid, and so they know better than to attempt a coup, not when Hopper is so well respected and well connected with the other communities and outposts that have been cropping up, just like theirs. But Steve isn’t stupid, either, and so he knows that the moment Hopper shows any weakness at all will be the moment one of the Tigers makes a play for power.

Because gasoline is also rationed, they all travel in the same vehicle. Steve drives and Robin rides shotgun, and all of the Tigers are packed together in the back. Steve thinks that maybe they should have split themselves up so one of them could make sure nobody in the back is planning on doing something stupid, but it’s a little late for that. And he knows better than to ask Robin to ride in the back with that many young men.

“So, what’s our play?” Robin asks, when they’re about halfway there.

“We’re talking,” Steve says, like it’s obvious.

Robin fixes him with a withering look.

“We’re talking, Robin!” Steve insists. “This Hellfire group probably doesn’t know any better, and I don’t blame them. I mean,” he jerks a thumb towards the back of the truck, “we’ve seen what happens when there’s nobody level-headed in charge.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Robin hisses.

“But you know what I mean,” Steve waves a hand. “Camps pop up all the time. People are just trying to survive, do their best with the shitty hand they’ve been dealt.”

“But they don’t have Hopper,” Robin finishes for him.

“They don’t have Hopper,” Steve repeats. “So, we offer them Hopper.”

“Or death,” Robin pulls back her jacket, showing off the gun and the knife holstered on her belt.

Steve rolls his eyes.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“But it probably will.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah,” he agrees, remembering the last time. “It probably will.”

When they pull up to the makeshift camp, Steve instructs the Tigers to stay in the truck, which none of them are pleased about.

“We’re here to talk,” he reminds them. “We talk first, always.”

“So let us talk,” Robin put her hands on her hips, drawing back her jacket so the Tigers each get a good look at the weapons she’s carrying. “We’re good at what we do.”

“And we’re good at what we do,” the leader of the Tigers, Jason Carver, butts in.

“We know that,” Steve assures him, because he doesn’t have time for this. “Just let us do our jobs, and we’ll call you in to do yours if we need you.”

“It’ll be your head if you don’t,” Jason frowns.

“I’m not an idiot, Carver,” Steve sighs. “C’mon, Robin, let’s go.”

When they’re far enough away from the truck, Robin leans close and asks, “Was he threatening you or reminding you?”

“Fuck if I know,” Steve sighs again and knocks on the door of the hastily-constructed wall. The two of them could have easily scaled it, or maybe even kicked it down, but they have manners.

Before long, a curly-haired teenager cracks the door, peering out at them with narrowed eyes.

“Who goes there?” he asks.

“We’re from Camp Hawkins,” Robin tells him. “And we want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to our leader,” the teenager says, pushing the door open fully. He’s the kind of skinny that tells both of them that he’s gone without food suddenly, as he moves like he’s larger than he is. But, somehow, the kid still seems to still have a sense of humor, which is proven when he asks, “You gonna tell me your names, or are you gonna pull a Jedi mind trick on me and tell me I don’t need identification?”

“Steve,” he points to himself, “and Robin.”

“Dustin, at your service, m’lord.” And he actually bows.

Steve is halfway through a chuckle at the kid’s antics when the back of his leg explodes in pain. Because there was no warning, he doubles over, crying out both at the shock of it and the feeling. His hands immediately wrap around his leg where it hurts, his fingernails digging into the skin.

His fucking soulmate is getting another tattoo.

Fuck.

Gritting his teeth, Steve forces himself to straighten up, letting go of his leg. It’s still exploding with pain, because that’s how this works. Until the fucker’s tattoo is done, Steve’s skin will be treated to the same burning sensation as the needle does its work.

“You okay?” Robin asks.

“Cramp,” Steve lies, but he widens his eyes in the way he knows Robin will recognize. And she does, because she answers by rolling her eyes so hard she tips her head back, too.

Steve limps after Dustin, waving away Robin’s extended hand as she offers to help him along. This is an important meeting, and they can’t come in showing any weakness.

Or at least, that’s what he thinks until Dustin ushers them inside the tent that must have the so-called “leader” of Hellfire inside it and sees who is inside.

Steve catches one fleeting glimpse of the people. There are four of them, all men (he hears Robin’s groan of disappointment). Two of them are hunched over a makeshift table, both of them writing on the same piece of paper. Another one is sitting further back, bent over in concentration.

The last one is lying on his stomach, the back of one leg positioned in front of the third man so he can give him a stick-and-poke tattoo.

“What the fuck?”

Steve blurts the sentence out, because there’s no fucking way.

But as all four of the men look up, the tattoo artist pausing his work, the pain in Steve’s leg subsides.

“Oh, fuck me,” Steve buries his face in his hands.

The tattoo artist starts up his work again, because the pain returns. The return of the burning sensation makes Steve look back up.

“Stop that!” he snaps.

The pain stops again as the man listens.

“And who the fuck are you?” the man who’d been getting the tattoo asks, swinging his legs around so he can stand up.

Steve debates saying, ‘your soulmate,’ for all of two seconds. He takes in the man’s frown, the way he’s carrying himself in such a careless way, the way he’s obviously already decided how he feels about Steve and Robin without hearing them out. And so the two seconds end, and Steve decides he is never going to breathe a word of the truth to this man.

Which fucking hurts, but there are more important things at stake, here.

So instead, he says, “You know it’s incredibly dangerous to get a tattoo, given, y’know.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the sky. “Everything.”

The man crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his hands in tight.

“And who’s gonna stop me?”

“Well, nobody,” Steve shrugs, trying to look like he doesn’t care and like his leg wasn’t just throbbing with the same pain. “But if you get an infection that’s basically a death sentence.”

“Basically a death sentence is different than an actual death sentence,” the man snarks right back. “And excuse me for honoring our fallen.” He turns so Steve and Robin can see the back of his leg.

Were the circumstances different, Steve might have felt like an asshole. The man’s leg is covered with names, which must be the names of those they’ve lost. But Steve doesn’t feel like an asshole, because it’s still dangerous to get a tattoo (see: his previous reasoning) and people really shouldn’t go around getting tattoos without their soulmate’s consent (see: his own inflamed leg) and there are so many other matters that are so much more important.

“That’s one way to do it,” Steve shrugs. “Or you could join Camp Hawkins and actually live to tell their stories.”

The man half-scoffs half-laughs.

“Was that your sales pitch?”

“We’ve had a rough day,” Robin interjects, stepping between Steve and the man. “I don’t know how much you know about Camp Hawkins, but we do patrols every day. And today we discovered that one of the crevices has expanded…”

Steve doesn’t listen as Robin explains. He knows what she’s going to say, knows all the points she’s going to touch on. Robin is good at this, at explaining to outsiders how careful their camp is and how dedicated they are to each other’s safety. She still rambles just as much as she does when she’s talking normally and not about these life or death matters, but somehow that puts people at ease. Steve thinks it’s because they can tell she can’t lie.

Instead of listening, Steve looks.

He clocks the man’s body language, the subtle shifts in his posture as Robin tells him about their camp. He notices the way he plays with his fingers, as if he’s used to fiddling with rings that aren’t there anymore. He notices how he starts to tug at his hair and then stops, which must mean that it’s a nervous tic someone’s called him on.

But what Steve really notices is how scared this man is.

Underneath all the bravado and the show he’s putting on, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. And he has to know that joining up with them is the best option they have. It’s the only option that will get them government-supplied rations, a radio that actually works, and real beds to sleep in.

Steve watches the realization sink in, watches how at first the man’s posture stiffens in frustration. And then, when he relaxes, it isn’t in defeat.

It’s relief.

“There are nine of us,” the man says. “Us four,” he points to himself and the three others still in the tent, “and Dustin, who you met, and then we’ve got four more.”

“Nine is fine,” Robin assures him. “We have room for nine, if you’re willing to pull your weight.”

“I’m not a dictator,” the man raises his hands. “They all make their own decisions, and if any of them want to stay, they can.”

“You might want to tell them to come,” Steve says grimly. “There’s safety in numbers.”

“That’s what we thought,” the man breaks eye contact and tugs on his hair again. “Then we lost,” he clears his throat, “uh, we lost a lot of good people.”

“Then let us help you,” Steve implores. “Robin told you about Hopper. He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll teach you what you need to know. None of us knew a damn thing when this started. But we’re here because we had him, and because he taught us how to survive.”

“And what do you want in exchange?” the man asks. “Because, uh, we tried that. We tried teaming up with assholes who seemed like they had their shit together. And they wanted more than any of us were willing to give.”

Steve shakes his head. “We want you to help us survive. That’s it.”

“You’ll do patrols,” Robin adds. “You’ll report changes, and if things get bad, you’ll fight. We all fight.”

“And that’s all?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that’s all. Asking people to fight monsters can be a lot.”

“That’s nothing we haven’t had to do already,” the man assures him. “Just… I have to be sure. I have to be sure you’re not gonna leave people behind.”

“We aren’t those kind of people,” Steve says, at the same time Robin says, “My grandma is back at Camp. If that means anything.”

The man’s eyes darken, and then cloud. He sucks in a deep, slow breath.

“It does.”

“I’m Steve,” Steve introduces himself, finally, extending a hand to the man.

“Eddie,” the man shakes his.

A tiny part of Steve had expected, or maybe just hoped for, some kind of reaction when they touch. He should know better than to think that the world will stop spinning or thunder will crack or their hearts will still and then beat again in unison. That’s never been part of the whole soulmate schtick.

It’s just a handshake.

But Steve can’t help it. He’s disappointed.

Eddie’s hand is cold and a little clammy. Steve thinks that this is proof that his instinct was right, and that Eddie was nervous. He holds Eddie’s hand firmly, despite this, gripping his fingers a little too tight before loosening his grasp without letting go.

When Eddie slides his hand away, Steve feels like a part of himself leaves, too.

And then he mentally slaps himself for thinking this way, for being so stupid and sappy about everything.

“We have a truck,” Robin tells Eddie, already starting to walk towards it. “It’s a little full right now, but we can probably fit you guys in the back with the others. And if we can’t, we’ll come back.”

“Too far to walk?” Eddie asks.

“Too far to walk,” Steve nods. “I mean, you could, but it would take you longer than the daylight we have left.”

Eddie understands the implication.

When they leave the tent, Eddie calls out to the rest of his people. Steve is surprised by how young they all are, and how haggard and tired they all look. One of the girls is clutching onto two boys for support as she walks in, a bandage wrapped over her eyes.

Eddie gives them a similar speech to Robin’s, telling them about the option before them. And Robin helps, introducing herself properly to everyone and filling in the gaps and answers questions Eddie can’t.

They all agree, which Steve takes as a huge win. Now that he’s seen them, he really doesn’t like the idea of leaving any of these kids behind. Eddie barks at all of them to pack their shit up, and disappears back into the tent to most likely do the same.

Alone for the first time in this camp, Steve leans close into Robin and whispers into her ear, “It’s Eddie.”

“What?” she hisses back.

“Eddie’s my, uh, my soulmate.”

“What?” It’s not a hiss this time, but an exclamation.

Steve reaches out and claps a hand over her mouth, shushing her frantically.

“Rob, no, don’t say anything!”

“I’m not gonna!” she insists, shoving him off. “But oh my god? Steve!”

“No, shut up! Don’t say words!”

“But–”

“We are not going to talk or say words here.”

“You started it!”

“Yeah, and this doesn’t change anything. We still need them to come with us,” Steve reminds her. “And I don’t want any soulmate bullshit getting in the way of anything.”

“Oh, come on,” Robin groans. “Not this ‘my soulmate will take one look at me and run for the hills’ bullshit again.”

“You’re missing the point!” Steve’s face flushes, anyway. “He’s an asshole, Robbie.”

“Your asshole,” she sniggers.

“We need a win today. I need a win. Soulmate or not, he deserves a safe place to come back to. They all do. And more than that, I want to give all of them a place to call home.”

Robin’s face does that thing it does when Steve says something she thinks is adorable, but she also wants to punch him.

“I am going to tease you so hard when we get back,” is what she says, and then she throws her arms around him and squeezes him. “You found him!” This is whispered into his ear, excitedly, because despite everything Robin knows how badly Steve has wanted this day to come.

Then she dashes off, presumably to tell the Tigers that they’ll soon have company.

Steve waits where he is. Eddie’s people slowly start trickling back out of their tents, small backpacks and duffle bags slung over their shoulders. One of the boys who’d been with the girl with bandaged eyes earlier is carrying two bags, the other one carrying the girl in a piggyback.

When Eddie returns, Steve notices that his leg is bandaged. The sight – and the fact that he hasn’t felt the sting of the tattoo continuing – gives him a small amount of comfort.

“Lead the way, Steve,” Eddie gestures.

They all leave the small camp together. Nobody seems overly emotional about abandoning it, but Steve is a little surprised they didn’t break down their tents. If he’s being generous, he’d think that maybe they’re leaving them there for someone else to find and use. But more than likely, they’ve resigned themselves to whatever waits for them back at Camp Hawkins, be it a respite, or a prison, or death.

The Tigers left the truck while waiting for them to return, Some of them are lounging on the ground, others hanging off parts of the truck. Jason is perched atop it, aiming sharpened darts at a nearby tree. Another one of the Tigers retrieves them for him any time he misses his mark.

Steve is about to call out and tell them all to stop fucking around when he feels Eddie still beside him. He hears the other breathe a quiet, “shit,” but before he has time to ask what’s going on, Jason looks around and lets out a primal roar.

Everyone jumps or flinches in response. Steve yells, “What the fuck, Carver?” But nobody hears him, because suddenly the rest of the Tigers yelling, too, bearing down on them with absolute murderous looks in their eyes.

“He killed Chrissy!” Jason yells, pointing at Eddie.

And Steve has so many questions. But he doesn’t get to ask any of them.

Jason pulls an arm back, aims a dart, and throws it.

Steve sees it coming and launches himself in front of Eddie. He reaches a hand out in front of himself, thinking that even if the dart flies true, this way it’ll only graze his hand or sink into his palm. Or maybe he’ll catch it out of the air, and wouldn’t that be impressive?

He feels the dart make contact with one of his fingers.

And he’s about to say, “Okay, that’s enough,” and pull the thing out of his hand, to show Carver that his silly darts aren’t enough to scare anyone.

But instead his eyes roll back into his head.

Steve’s last delirious thought is that Jason has somehow poisoned his damn darts and he’s just killed himself in a meaningless, but hopefully still heroic, death.

Then the world goes dark.

Eddie Munson knows one thing with absolute certainty. Steve Harrington is his soulmate.

Except he doesn’t know Steve’s last name. Or his favorite color. Or where he lived before the world split open. Or what he liked to do for fun, before he started fighting monsters. He doesn’t know anything about him, because he’s known him for less than an hour.

But he knows that Steve is his soulmate, because Steve just had a dart sink into his fingertip and Eddie felt it as if it had sunk into his own, instead. He also feels the impact when Steve’s entire body goes limp and falls to the ground.

And if this isn’t the shittiest timing in the world, then Eddie doesn’t know what is.

Because a lot of things happen at once, next.

Thankfully, none of them are violent. Or, at least, they’re not deadly violent. Because Robin is screaming at Jason, screaming threats that Eddie thinks she would absolutely have followed through on if he wasn’t on top of a truck and she wasn’t being held back by two men twice her size.

At the same time, most of Hellfire shrinks back, because they know the Tigers. The Tigers are the reason they’re in this mess at all, back when they’d been stranded on the same side of town as them. Hellfire are the remains of those who hadn’t banded with the Tigers, who’d tried to care for the weak rather than leave them to die. They’ve been on their own since then, having learned the hard way that it is safer to be in a small, weak group than to be among a so-called strong group like them.

Some of the Tigers are yelling, too, asking Jason what the fuck just happened.

Eddie thinks it’s all pretty obvious.

But he doesn’t muse over their stupidity, because he’s too busy reacting to the fact that he has found and lost his soulmate in the span of a single second.

A whimper leaves him, a noise that he will absolutely deny making until his own dying breath. He sinks to his knees, scraping one of them on the ground. And he reaches out to Steve, hauling him up so he can hold him, clutching him tightly as if he’s just lost someone so much more than the guy who just offered him and his friends a safer place to live.

Because he has.

And because he’s clutching Steve so tightly, Eddie feels his slow but steady heartbeat. He feels the shallow breaths as Steve exhales, a tiny puff of air against his face.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie lowers Steve just enough so he can look at him properly. He seeks out Steve’s pulse point and keeps his fingers pressed there.

“He’s not dead!” Eddie yells, his voice hoarse and cracking.

Nobody is listening to him, though. The Tigers are standing between Robin and where Jason is still perched on the truck, and she’s still shouting herself hoarse at him. He’s yelling back, too.

“Dammit, he’s not dead!” Eddie bellows, as loud as he can.

Robin turns away from her argument so quickly Eddie thinks Jason will get whiplash from it. She pulls herself free of the two trying to restrain her and launches herself onto the ground, pulling Eddie’s hand away from Steve’s pulse and putting two of her own fingers there, instead.

“Oh my god!” Robin looks up at Eddie, her breath heaving. “Oh my god!” Her face is covered with tears, and they continue to fall, dotting Steve’s face. “He’s okay. He’s okay.” She starts repeating it like a mantra, keeping her fingers on his pulse.

In this small moment of confusion and quiet, Eddie is able to call out to Jason and ask, “So what was on that dart?”

And Jason has the decency to answer, but he does so with a snarl as he says, “Nothing, murderer.”

“Oh my fucking god.” Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose. On any other day, confronted with this asshole, he would defend himself. He would deny everything. Or he would turn tail and flee, because he knows what Jason is capable of. But he needs Jason to be honest with him, so Eddie doesn’t.

“Look, man, I get it. You hate me. I hate you. But Steve doesn’t have anything to do with any of that shit, and your dart just knocked him unconscious. This isn’t about being right, man, I’m just trying to help him.”

“I’m not lying!” Jason snaps.

“Come on, man, he’s one of yours!”

“Eddie,” Robin breaks the argument Eddie wasn’t even trying to start. “Eddie, he’s not lying.”

“Well then why–”

“We don’t have anything like that. We don’t have poison-tipped darts, or knock-out gas, or anything like that. And if we did, Hopper would give it to me and Steve, not them.”

“So why–”

“Eddie,” Robin reaches out and squeezes his arm. “I’ll explain when we get back to Camp.”

He starts to argue, but she cuts him off.

“I promise. Eddie, he’s my brother. I… you’ve gotta trust me on this.”

“Fine,” Eddie agrees. “Fine, if you know… if you know what’s going on, then… okay.”

“Get your people,” she instructs. “Get them in the truck. And we’ll all go back together.”

It’s a harder sell, now that the Tigers are part of it. In the time it’s taken Eddie to rejoin his group, almost all of them have changed their minds. They’d rather stay here, in their little makeshift camp with its poorly-constructed walls and its lack of weapons, than go anywhere with the Tigers.

“But we’ve heard of Camp Hawkins,” Eddie reminds them. “We only avoided it because we didn’t know who was there.”

“Yeah, and now we do,” Gareth argues. “It’s those assholes. They still think you murdered Chrissy.”

“Yeah, they think I did.” Eddie looks at each of them in turn. “Just me. You guys had nothing to do with any of it. So you have nothing to worry about. Go to the camp. Separate yourselves from me when we get there. Lie and tell them you just found me in the woods and felt bad for me, or some shit! I don’t care. I just want you all safe.”

“We can’t be safe with Jason around,” Max says solemnly.

Her words are enough to give Eddie pause. Nobody knows the consequences of getting in Jason’s way like she does.

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. He spreads his arms, putting them around the nearest two’s shoulders, drawing everyone in. “Okay. So we don’t go to stay. We go to loot. Sabotage. We fuck the Tigers over and we get out.”

Max smirks.

“That’s more like it, Munson.”

If Eddie wasn’t so fucking terrified of this entire situation, he’d be proud. But right now all he cares about is getting them to safety. And maybe they will loot the Camp, or maybe the Tigers will get kicked out, or maybe this is all one big trap and Eddie’s about to get tried and killed himself for what Jason thinks he did to Chrissy.

But even if something bad does happen, Eddie will make sure that it only happens to him. He’s lost too many people already, and he would gladly trade himself if it keeps the rest of Hellfire safe. Getting them to this camp is the most important thing right now, and so he ignores the looks the Tigers are shooting him as he helps his friends load their bags and themselves into the back of the truck. He lets them grumble under their breath about him without protesting or arguing. And when Jason hisses, “Murderer,” at him before Eddie himself climbs into the truck, he just swallows heavily and ignores it.

The ride to Camp is the most uncomfortable of Eddie’s life, and not just because they’re all squashed in the back of a truck with the Tigers. It’s completely silent, other than the running of the engine. Robin is driving, with Jason in the passenger seat because, as she’d said, “I don’t fucking trust you enough to let you out of my fucking sight, you asshole.”

Steve’s unconscious body is laid across three of the Tiger’s laps. Eddie can tell by the way they’re holding him that they aren’t close, that none of them care that much about him. He wants to tell them to hand him over, so he can hold him properly and make sure his head is supported. But he doesn’t. It feels like breaking this silence will remind them who he is, and then they’ll do something stupid and violent against him and his friends.

When they pull into Camp and those who live there realize what’s happened to Steve, there’s chaos.

Eddie realizes then that, while the Tigers might not care about Steve, everyone else obviously does. A group of men he recognizes as police officers from before the town split apart carry Steve into the nearest building. Some younger teenagers who had been waiting right inside the camp run after them. Other young adults who look to be Steve’s age trail inside, too, as if they’re all determined not to leave him alone.

“Come with me,” Robin takes Eddie by the arm, leading him in a different direction.

“But–”

“We have to talk to Hopper. Tell him what happened.”

Robin does most of the talking, when they get there. Eddie fills in details when prompted, but Robin barely stops to breathe, let alone give anyone else the chance to say anything. It’s clear that she’s furious, that this has been bottled up inside her since Steve’s body crumpled in front of her. Now that she can talk about it openly, nothing will get in the way of her telling Hopper exactly how she’s feeling.

Hopper, for his part, looks stoic. But Eddie sees his mouth tense behind the mustache when Robin first tells him that Steve is unconscious.

“So what actually happened with Chrissy?” Hopper asks, when Robin stops long enough for him to get a full sentence in.

“Fuck,” Eddie’s eyes widen. “Uh, well, I didn’t kill her.”

“Great,” Hopper deadpans. “I can’t do anything with that. Say something helpful.”

“It’ll just be my word against Jason’s,” Eddie admits. “And I’m not gonna defend myself when you’ve already made up your mind about it.”

“And who said I made up my mind, huh?” Hopper raises his eyebrows. “Talk. Now.”

Eddie has never called anyone but his uncle ‘Sir,’ in his life, but a quiet, “Yes, Sir,” escapes him at Hopper’s instruction. He clears his throat, fiddling with his fingers and wishing (not for the first time) that he still had his rings.

“Things, uh, kinda fell to shit on the other side of town. Like, Lord of the Flies shit. At first it wasn’t bad, because it was every man for himself and we could respect that, y’know? But then it turned into the strong men against everyone else. And, uh, that’s when we started having problems.”

He pauses, remembering Max before the incident.

“One of the kids, uh, stood up to them. They came into her house to take things, because that’s what they were doing. They said it was to make sure nobody was stealing from them, but it was because they were building a stockpile. So they could, uh, leverage it for favors. And so Max told them where they could stick the cans they were trying to take.”

Eddie doesn’t know which is shaking harder, his voice or his hands.

“She lived across from me, so I heard it. And she’s just a kid, y’know? So I thought they’d leave her alone. But, uh,” he swallows thickly, “they didn’t. And Chrissy was there, she saw it, too. They’d bring her along as some kind of face when people didn’t want to listen. And that was when she said enough was enough. She took Max, and I was already headed over to help so I met them outside, and we left together.”

“What, do you want a medal?” Hopper grumbles. “Get to the point.”

But Eddie doesn’t get to the point, not right away. He hasn’t let himself think about any of this since the moment it happened. Max had been all alone, and he’d foolishly thought nothing bad would happen. Eddie’s spent so many nights since then having nightmare after nightmare about it, nightmares that spiral into every possible other tragedy that could have befallen her, if Chrissy hadn’t been there to escort her out.

And then there’s Chrissy herself, and the nightmares about her have been even worse. Eddie’s eyes sting, and he covers them with his hands, pressing his palms firmly into the crevices of his skull. When he wipes them down his face, they come away wet.

“It was one of the monsters with no face. We were trying to get the others together. And, uh, fuck.” Eddie clears his throat. “Uh, the ground opened up and one of those things came out. Took us all by surprise. And it got her.”

“And what proof is there?”

“I don’t have any!” Eddie’s patience breaks. He doesn’t like thinking about this and likes talking about it even less. His hands clench into fists, and he stands up from where he was previously sitting opposite Hopper. “What, was I supposed to bring her body with me so you could examine it?”

“Sit down,” Hopper barks, and Eddie does as instructed. “I don’t want a body. I want an explanation. So keep talking.”

Eddie gives himself a beat to just breathe, to force his lungs to fill with air until his chest hurts. And then he exhales in a huff that makes his whole body sag. Then, he continues.

“Jason found us right as we managed to fight the thing off. And he saw her. Saw Chrissy. Her body. But he didn’t see the monster, just me, so he thought… I mean, I get it, I’d have thought the same.”

“And your friends, they’ll back you up?”

“Max, Gareth, and Dustin,” Eddie nods. “Jason didn’t see them, either, but they were there.”

“Buckley, send them in next,” Hopper barks. “Dismissed.”

Robin grabs onto Eddie and forcibly hauls him up, dragging him out of the room with her. He doesn’t tell her he’s grateful for this, because he doesn’t think he could have stood back up, not after recounting all of that, without help. His eyes are still streaming, and his entire body feels numb.

She doesn’t even give him time to recuperate. As soon as they’re outside again, she just says, “So, Steve’s family is cursed,” as if that makes sense and isn’t the most batshit insane thing she’s said today.

“You want to try that one again?” he asks weakly. “With words that, uh, actually make fucking sense?”

“Monsters climb out of holes,” she snaps. “And you have a problem with curses?”

“It’s been a day, dude, just give me a minute.”

“Don’t call me ‘dude’.”

Eddie doesn’t even mean to argue when he shoots back, “Okay, ma’am.” But apparently, this is an argument now. A stupid, stupid argument that doesn’t matter.

Robin grimaces. “No, that’s worse. Go back to ‘dude’.”

“Curse!” Eddie yells, his paper-thin patience tearing again. “Curse is more important! God, please, explain.”

“Hang on,” Robin actually holds up a finger. She looks around, and when she spots Eddie’s friends standing together in the middle of the street, she calls them all over. “Dustin,” she points to him, “and whoever Gareth is. Hopper wants to talk to you.”

“And Max,” Eddie adds, now that he knows what she’s doing. “Lucas, go with her.”

“The rest of you, go in there,” Robin points towards another building. “They’ll find you places to stay. Eddie’s coming with me.”

Before he can offer his friends any words of encouragement at all, Robin’s already hauling him off towards the building Steve had been taken into.

“So, his ancient grandparents pissed off a fairy,” Robin says as she pulls him along. “Don’t ask me how long ago this was, or how it all works, or anything like that. Because when he told me all this, I thought he was just messing with me. And, honestly, I think he thought so, too. I mean, he told me when we were drunk off our asses like it was a joke.”

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie feels so completely lost. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“And the fairy cursed his family and said that one of their children will die, because that’s how curses always work. But the nice fairy changed it so that the kid won’t actually die, they’ll just magically fall asleep.”

“And Carver’s dart?”

“Oh, yeah, the whole reason it’ll happen – that one of the kids will die, I mean – is they’ll prick their finger on a needle. So I guess the curse wasn’t super specific on the details, because that was a dart, not a needle, but I guess it’s sharp enough to be a needle and it’s basically just a needle with wings on the end, so–”

“And how do we fix him?” Eddie interrupts.

“How do you think, dweeb?”

“I have no fucking clue, which is why I’m asking you.”

Robin groans and rolls her eyes. “True love’s kiss, dummy!”

“Oh my god.” Eddie buries his face in his hands.

“So pucker up, buttercup.” Robin elbows him in the side.

“How do you–”

“Steve told me!”

“When?” Eddie practically screeches in his incredulity. He had barely figured it out, that Steve is his soulmate, and somehow Steve knows, too? How the fuck had he had the time to both figure it out and tell Robin before falling unconscious thanks to some bullshit curse?

“He could feel you getting that tattoo,” Robin gestures to his leg. “Which, by the way, you really shouldn’t be doing. It’s super unfair to Steve, because he can feel them and they’re super painful and he never agreed to being in that kind of voluntary pain.”

And, okay, Eddie’s thought about that before. He’s not stupid enough to think that tattoos don’t show up like other soulmate marks. But his soulmate has always been this mysterious shadow of a person, more of an idea than a person at all. Eddie’s never been one to let an idea tell him what he can and can’t do, so he doesn’t let the soulmate thing stop him from doing anything. Even something that would cause them pain.

Now that he knows who his soulmate is, and because Steve is a very real person with feelings, it’s different.

“Can we talk about this after he’s awake?”

“Yes,” Robin slams the heel of her palm into the door and shoves it open. “Please. He’s been dying to yell at you for years and I can’t wait to witness this.”

Steve is lying on a cot, surrounded by people. Two kids are each holding one of his hands, and a young woman with curly brown hair is sitting next to him looking morose. The police officers who’d carried him in are gone, but they’ve been replaced by a gaggle of middle-aged women.

“We need the room,” Robin announces.

Everyone looks at her with wet eyes. A lump forms in Eddie’s throat. If this doesn’t work, he won’t just be letting Steve down. He’ll be letting down all these people, too.

“Now!” she barks, and all of them jump and scatter. The two kids are the last to leave, looking at her with wide, expressive eyes. The girl then levels Eddie with a soul-searching stare. When she looks away, Eddie thinks that she somehow knows exactly why he’s here and what they’re doing, because she offers the tiniest of smiles before exiting the room.

“Like I said,” Robin gestures at Steve, “pucker up, buttercup.”

“Oh my god.” Eddie drags his fingers through his hair. “This is–”

“Ridiculous. But do it anyway.”

“Don’t rush me!”

Eddie sits down in the seat the woman with curly hair had just left. He watches the rise and fall of Steve’s chest, a sign that he’s still breathing. And he looks at this man he’s just met and barely knows, this man who showed up out of nowhere to offer him and his friends shelter from the storm.

Steve has dark circles under his eyes, no doubt from endless nights of bad or no sleep. His brown hair is thick and long. Eddie reaches out to card his fingers through it. His fingers brush against the shell of Steve’s ear as he does, and it feels somehow too intimate all of a sudden. Gently, Eddie reaches out with both hands to angle Steve’s face so it’s like he’s looking at him, too. He has freckles, Eddie notices.

He’s been pointedly avoiding looking at his mouth. It just feels so wrong to be doing this at all, to be kissing someone who’s unconscious and can’t tell him if it’s all right or not.

So he asks Robin, because Steve is her brother and she’s awake.

“Robin, what if he doesn’t want me to?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She sounds impatient.

“I can’t ask him! I… what if he doesn’t want me to kiss him?”

“Eddie, we’re talking about you saving his life,” Robin holds out one hand, palm up, “or him being doomed to sleep forever.” She holds out another hand. She wobbles her hands back and forth, then raises the first one, the saving Steve’s life hand, up higher. “I think it’s okay.”

“But, there are different forms of true love, right?” Eddie asks, feeling desperate. “Romantic love, familial love, platonic love! You said Steve’s your brother. Why can’t your love bring him back?”

Robin considers this. She purses her lips and pokes them with a finger.

“I mean, I guess the curse didn’t say it had to be romantic love. Just… true.”

“So you get over here!” Eddie stands up, gesturing for her to take his place. “I… I don’t want our first kiss to be when one of us is unconscious. It just… it feels wrong.”

“So you do want to kiss him,” Robin smirks.

“Kiss your damn brother already!” Eddie screeches, trying to ignore how his face starts burning.

“Now who’s rushing who?”

But Robin does indeed take Eddie’s place beside Steve. She pushes her own hair out of her face and holds it back so she can bed down and kiss him on the cheek.

At first, nothing happens, and Robin turns back to look at Eddie. They lock eyes for one desperate moment.

And then Steve opens his eyes.

“Hey, Robbie.”

At the sound of his voice, Robin lets out a strangled noise of relief. She turns back to him, her voice thick when she replies, “Hey, Dingus.”

“So, the curse was real, huh?”

Robin punches him in the arm. Eddie feels it, too.

“Ow!”

Steve sits up, rubbing his arm. He spots Eddie, standing further away, and then looks between him and Robin, his brows knitting together.

“Eddie got all noble at the last second,” Robin explains. “He insisted that you be conscious for your first kiss. So, uh, I brought you back instead.”

Steve’s mouth drops open. He stares at Robin for a beat, and then he collapses into her and just starts sobbing.

And Eddie feels like he’s intruding. Robin had invited him in while they were both under the impression that only he could help Steve. But they’d both been wrong, and it had been the ferocity of the love she has for him that had done it, instead. She hadn’t invited him in here to watch them hold each other in their relief, afterwards.

So he leaves the room, and then the building, going back outside and looking around for his friends. Robin had pointed them into a different building, but Eddie can’t remember which one it is. And he can’t just wander into random buildings, because knowing the day he’s having he’ll walk straight into all the Tigers, who will probably stomp the life out of him as soon as look at him.

Instead, Eddie just sits down on the sidewalk. He looks around at the remains of the town, at the camp that it’s turned into. And he thinks about how truly fucked up everything is.

It’s fucked up that this is how he met his soulmate. It’s fucked up that he can’t take him home to meet his uncle, to get his approval. It’s fucked up that he’s in this camp with the people who are responsible for Max’s injury. And it’s fucked up that he’s a murder suspect, when all he’s done since this all began is try to keep other people alive and moving.

Eddie’s never considered himself to be a wistful person. He doesn’t long for things he can’t have, or look at his own past, before the town had split apart, through rose-tinted glasses. Looking back takes focus away from the present and the future, and in this world he can’t look back. If he lets himself think about how truly unfair it all is, he’ll lose the motivation to keep going.

Just this once, though, he indulges.

He buries his face in his hands and wonders what his life would have been like if none of this had ever happened. Chrissy would still be alive. Max would still be able to see. Steve wouldn’t have died in front of him, or whatever the fuck that was.

And Wayne would be here.

Eddie longs for this alternate reality, the one where his friends are whole and healthy and alive. Where their largest concern is finding a movie everyone can agree on, or building a road trip playlist that everyone can at least tolerate. Where they’re thrust together by fun and not necessity and survival.

Someone plops themself down beside him, and Eddie’s too lost in his thoughts to respond. They lean against him, wrapping an arm around him.

They don’t say anything, though. And Eddie doesn’t, either, and they just sit there in companionable silence until Eddie finally removes his wet face from his hands.

It’s Steve, because of course it is.

“You look like you’re the one who’s cursed,” Steve tells him, reaching out with his free hand to wipe away Eddie’s tears.

“Do you ever wonder why the fuck this is all happening?” Eddie asks desperately.

“All the time,” Steve admits.

“Do you ever want to just give up?”

“I used to,” Steve’s arm tightens around him. “I used to think there was no point to any of it. How is what we’re doing helping anything, when the world’s still a dumpster on fire?”

Eddie snorts a laugh, despite himself.

“But,” Steve says, leaning in even closer, “I have Robin. And Hopper. He won’t admit it, but I know he likes us. And I have people counting on me, and if I can make a difference for them, then it’s worth it.”

“Some difference I’m making,” Eddie hangs his head. “Chrissy’s dead. Max can’t see.”

“I don’t think that’s your fault.”

“You weren’t there, Steve.”

“No, but Robin told me what happened. She caught me up on everything, after the, uh–”

“After you died.”

“I prefer ‘went into a magically-induced coma,’ but sure.”

“Which was my fault, too.”

“No!” Steve’s word comes out louder than he intends it to, because he flinches and covers his mouth with his free hand in shock. Then he lowers it. “I mean, no,” he repeats, quieter. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Eddie pulls away. “I didn’t do anything, and people got hurt.” He stands up, backing a few paces away. “And people are going to keep getting hurt. I should just leave. Go where I can’t hurt people.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve orders, as he stands up, too.

“But–”

“No, I said shut up,” Steve reaches out and pokes him in the shoulder, hard enough that it pushes Eddie backwards a step. “You’re not talking, because I’m talking, and I have things to say.” He breathes in deeply through his nose.

“I have been waiting my entire fucking life to meet you. So don’t you dare leave. You’re staying here. With me. And Robin. And Dustin. And all your other Hellfire people, and all my people. But mostly with me. We can keep each other safe, and you can fucking ask me before you get another fucking tattoo, because holy shit, man, those hurt. And you can tell me everything that’s happened to you, and I’ll tell you everything that’s happened to me. And we’ll fight monsters.”

Steve ends this speech with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily through his nose like a bull about to charge. He widens his eyes, waiting for Eddie to argue.

When Eddie speaks, it’s not an argument. It’s a request.

“I need a week.”

Steve inhales sharply, ready to offer a rebuttal, but Eddie holds up his hands.

“Not to leave! Just… to get my shit in order. To make sure my people are okay, that they’re safe. That nobody’s planning on stabbing us in our sleep, or some shit. So, let’s just be people for a few days. And then we can be soulmates.”

As an afterthought, he adds, “And, yeah, we’ll fight monsters.”

Steve nods once.

“Okay.”

“Good.”

They stand there, looking at each other, for long enough that it starts to feel awkward.

“So, uh, do you know where I’m supposed to go now? And do?”

Steve lets out a hysterical bark of laughter.

“Yeah, c’mon.”

In the end, it doesn’t take a full week.

The first night, Eddie and the rest of Hellfire are shown to a building that’s been repurposed into a dormitory. They’re each given a bunk, ration cards, and water tokens. The entire system is explained to them, how they can turn their cards in for what they need at the start of each week, and how they can spend their tokens for showers. Eventually, they’ll be given permanent homes. But this is where everyone starts.

During their first day, they’re all assessed and assigned jobs based on their reported strengths. They each get a patrol time and route in addition to a job. Hopper fills in an index card for each of them that tells them where to be and when for a whole week. And it doesn’t change, they’re told. Unless they become unfit to fulfill any of these duties, they’ll have the same schedule every single week.

Hopper doesn’t say, “until this is over,” which Eddie respects. No sense giving them false hope, after all.

Eddie gets a firsthand glimpse of how tight a ship Hopper runs on the second day. A meeting is called, and all the adults gather in what used to be the town square. Hopper tells them all about Eddie and Chrissy, and what Jason has accused them of. He declares that, based on witnesses, he sees no evidence to support Jason’s claims. And beyond that, Jason’s willingness to cast friendly fire has made him unfit for any jobs that require him to carry a weapon.

Jason has to publicly turn over his weapons, which Hopper checks off a list. He then calls others up, one by one, to hand the weapons out to their new owners.

He ends the meeting by telling everyone in no uncertain terms that this is the nice way of handling this. If there are any further issues, he won’t be nice.

And Eddie thinks that maybe, this is enough. Maybe it’ll all be okay. Maybe they can have a life here, doing the same things every week and fulfilling a purpose, each of them a different cog in the same machine.

On the third day, he has to fight monsters.

A siren blares in the gray early morning, waking everyone. Eddie and his friends are told that this noise means one of the perimeters has been breached, and they all have to go deal with it. Children, the elderly, and the injured are left with a small number of able-bodied guards, and the rest of them go off to fight monsters.

Which is fucking ridiculous.

What’s even more ridiculous is the actual bow and quiver of arrows that’s shoved into Eddie’s hands on the way there.

“We don’t have any more guns,” the person who hands it to him says, by way of explanation. “Give it back when we’re done.”

Feeling much like a medieval knight going off to certain death, Eddie jogs along with the rest, anyway. He looks around for people he recognizes, half-hoping he doesn’t see any familiar faces. Most of his friends, since they’re still new and some of them are still kids, have been left behind, which gives him a small sense of comfort. Some of the Tigers are here, but while they’re familiar they aren’t friendly, and so Eddie doesn’t feel any particular way about them.

When they get to the area that’s been breached, it doesn’t matter if there are friendly or familiar faces anymore. Because, more importantly, there are monsters.

Feral rage bubbles up inside him the second he sees them, because these are the same kind of monsters that killed Chrissy. And one of them might be that very monster, because they hadn’t killed it. They’d just fended it off until it retreated back through the opening in the earth it had clawed its way though. So Eddie sees red, and he lets loose a primal scream as he pulls out the bow and begins notching an arrow.

Nobody pays him any mind, because everyone else is screaming and shouting, too. Which is probably a good thing, because shooting arrows is hard. Eddie can barely pull the bowstring back at all, and he struggles to hold the arrow in place as he pulls it back. His first few attempts at shots barely get airborne at all. He’s considering just running in close and using the arrows like knives, which is ridiculous, when he hears his name.

“Eddie!” It’s Steve. “Trade me!” Steve tosses a baseball bat covered with nails to him. Eddie doesn’t catch it, because he’s still holding the bow. But as Steve comes running closer, they fumble through a trade off. Steve drops the bow as soon as it’s handed to him, and when Eddie gives him the quiver he slings it over his shoulder and pulls two arrows out of it, gripping them tightly in clenched fists.

So Eddie’s idea isn’t that ridiculous, after all.

They charge in closer to the monsters together. Steve is faster, and Eddie follows him as he starts to cut a wide curve around the thick of the fight.

“Gotta get behind them,” Steve gasps out as they run. “Cut ‘em off from behind. Leave shots open for the others.”

When they finish making this curve to cut the monsters off from the back, Eddie notices that some others who prefer melee weapons have done the same. Steve dives in without hesitation, stabbing with the arrows as if he’s done this before. Eddie grips the bat with sweaty hands, thinks of Chrissy, and starts swinging.

Last time he’d fought a monster, there’d only been one. And Eddie hadn’t even killed it. But now there’s an entire horde of them. He thinks it’s a good thing they don’t look like people, or it would be only too easy to swing at the wrong target.

The monsters swipe out with their claws, their faceless heads turning towards each new opponent that presents themself. It smells rancid, and it feels hot, and Eddie can’t hear anything but his own heart beating. As he fights, he feels little nicks and stings as the monsters make contact. Sometimes he’ll feel one when the monster he’s fighting isn’t even close enough, and he’ll know that it’s Steve’s wound instead, and he’ll find comfort in the knowledge that the other is still alive.

Wildly, Eddie keeps thinking in Dungeons & Dragons terms the whole time he’s fighting. He supposes that this is some weird defense mechanism his brain has come up with, to protect him from the truth of what’s happening. He mentally rolls for bludgeoning and piercing damage each time he lands a hit with the bat (bludgeoning) that has nails sticking out of it (piercing). When he slams the weapon into one of the monster’s heads and feels it crunch, a celebratory, ‘Critical hit!’ sounds in his head.

He understands now why one round of combat only lasts six seconds.

A roar goes up through all of their people when they sense the tide turning. Eddie understands how Bardic Inspiration works now, too, because he is bolstered by the roar and finds himself hitting even harder, even as his breathing is starting to come short and sharp.

When the monster closest to Eddie falls and a new one doesn’t immediately present itself, he’s able to look around the battlefield properly for the first time. And that’s exactly what this is. It’s a battlefield, and it’s littered with unmoving bodies and people still in life-or-death tussles with the remaining monsters.

Steve is only a few steps away, and Eddie finds him just in time to watch him stab both of the arrows he’s holding into both sides of the monster he’s still fighting. He loses his grip on one of the arrows, but pulls the other back out swiftly. And then he stabs again, as the monster’s claws rake through his arm.

Eddie feels the claws at the same time as Steve. Without thinking, he charges into this fight as well, and the nail bat finds purchase at the same time Steve stabs the second arrow back in.

The monster falls at both of their feet. Eddie lifts the bat and slams it down, for good measure. Then he and Steve turn to each other, panting from exertion.

“We lived,” Eddie chokes on the words, and he feels like he’s going to throw up.

“I want to kiss you so fucking bad,” is what Steve says, instead of something rational or sensible or proper.

“There is a dead monster right there,” Eddie points to it.

“I don’t care.”

“There are probably dead people–”

Steve steps in closer, taking Eddie’s sweaty and grimy and probably bloodstained face in his hands.

“I don’t fucking care.”

But he doesn’t lean in and steal the kiss he’s so obviously, desperately wanting. Eddie thinks that maybe it’s because he hadn’t stolen one a few days ago, that despite Steve not even being conscious for his moral dilemma and the fact that they haven’t even talked about it, Steve still feels the same way.

They both have to want the first kiss. Because it’s the only first kiss they’ll ever get.

“I…” Eddie reaches out, his hands cupping Steve’s elbows. “Not here. Not now.”

Steve actually whines in response to this. But he bites down on both of his lips, drawing them into his mouth between his teeth, and nods.

They lost people in this fight, but not Robin. And not Nancy and Jonathan, who are people Steve knows that Eddie hasn’t even met yet. Gareth and Jeff hadn’t even been part of this fight, and so Eddie hadn’t had anyone to lose. Not yet. Hopper oversees the burning of the bodies, because they don’t have the resources, the time, or the energy to bury them.

They burn all the monsters, too. Eddie spits on the bonfire the burning creates, watching the glob of saliva sizzle and disappear in midair before it can even land on anything. He raises his middle finger to the fire and growls, “For Chrissy.”

He and Steve walk hand-in-hand back to camp. Robin finds them halfway there and holds Steve’s other hand, too.

Steve requests a room reassignment as soon as they get back. He asks for Eddie to be moved with him. They still haven’t let go of each other’s hands.

Hopper gives them a knowing look, and agrees.

They don’t get moved that day, and so they cling to each other in the small bunk that Steve has in his own room. It’s too small to fit both of them properly, and so Steve wraps his arms around Eddie’s middle and holds him flush against him. So he doesn’t fall.

Or at least, that’s what they’re telling each other.

But they don’t do anything, not yet. They just hold each other, listening to the other breathing and feeling their heartbeats finally, finally, slow to a normal rate.

Eddie doesn’t think there’s anything normal about any of this.

On the fourth day, Jason is forcibly removed from Camp.

Eddie didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath because of that this whole time. But when he watches it happen, Steve’s hand clutched tightly in his own, and he takes the first properly deep breath he’s taken since they arrived here… it feels almost like starting over. Properly starting over.

(He lets go of Steve to go find Max, and tell her what’s happened, and to assure her that nobody will ever hurt her ever again. And she pretends not to care, but he can see her smile. And the girl who’d given Eddie that soul-searching stare when he’d first gotten here is there for all of this, and she tells him matter-of-factly that Max’s sight will return.

So, Max will see. Because a mysterious girl told him. And Eddie trusts her, for some reason.)

On the fifth night, Steve takes him on a walk around the camp. He gives Eddie a proper tour, telling him who lives where and what function each building has. It’s almost like Steve knows what Jason leaving means, too, and that he’s realized that this might actually become a true home for both of them, now.

“I used to live up there,” Steve points towards the remains of a neighborhood. It’s beyond the perimeter of the camp, but they can see over the reinforced wall from the higher ground they’re standing on. Eddie can tell that the houses in that neighborhood have crumpled and fallen in, that there are fissures in the ground that shine with eerie red light.

“With your family?” Eddie asks.

Steve shakes his head.

“I mean, my parents owned the house. But they were both away on a business trip when this all started. So it was really just me and Robin, up there.”

“Good memories, though?” It’s more Eddie wondering aloud than an actual question.

“Once Robin moved in, yeah,” Steve nods. “But my parents were away a lot. And I didn’t have any actual siblings. Robin’s my sister, but I had to find her as a friend, first. Y’know?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, because he does know. “My mom died when I was a kid. And then my dad was taken away to one of those fight camps, the ones we have instead of prisons.” He grimaces, because even though his father is an asshole, Eddie still thinks that nobody deserves to be sent to those. “So I lived with my uncle. And it was rough at first, but he didn’t give up on me. And eventually, it was like I found a dad, again. I guess that’s how it is for you and Robin.”

“We make our own family,” Steve agrees.

Neither of them ask about what happened to their lost family members. Eddie can fill in the gaps of Steve’s absent parents without needing confirmation, and he thinks that Steve probably understands about his uncle in the same way.

They walk back to the camp, back to their new room assignment. It’s a quiet walk, the kind of quiet where they’re each contemplating something separately and they don’t need to share it, not yet. Eddie’s beginning to learn how to be quiet together with Steve.

Eventually, Steve breaks the quiet by asking, “Do you think we could make a family here?”

Eddie considers this for a moment, considers how to answer. And at first, it’s with a joke.

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, Stevie.” He slaps his hands on his own hip bones. “No baby incubator in here.”

Predictably, Steve snorts with laughter.

“But uh,” Eddie continues, before Steve can call him to solemn order, “yeah. Yeah, I think we could.”

He watches Steve’s face soften, watches the pointed, angular lines become curves.

“And you’ll stay with me,” Steve says. It’s not a question.

“And Robin,” Eddie adds, remembering their earlier conversation.

“And Dustin.”

“And my Hellfire people.”

“And my people, too.”

“But mostly with you,” Eddie finishes, unable to stop the dopey smile from splitting across his face.

Steve takes his face into his hands, gently cradling it like something precious. Like he’s a bird that will fly away if startled, like he has to prove to Eddie that he’s something worth being treasured.

“I really want to kiss you.”

Eddie’s dopey smile widens, and his cheeks flush pink.

“So do it, then.”

Steve’s grip on his face tightens as he leads Eddie closer. Eddie goes cross eyed trying to watch it all happen, not wanting to miss a single moment of this. But when Steve’s lips ghost across his own, gentle and hesitant, Eddie’s eyes shut automatically. His own hands reach out to grip Steve’s shirt, hauling him closer and pressing their lips together firmly.

And they stay like that, for a moment, each one of them waiting for the other to do something, to turn this into something more.

It’s the smallest of movements that starts it, in the end. Eddie pulls back long enough for their mouths to part, and then he leans back in. He kisses Steve’s top lip, then the bottom one, and that tiniest of movements, of exploration, is what does it.

Steve’s fingers dig into Eddie’s cheeks, and he kisses him with a hunger that’s only matched by Eddie’s fervor and enthusiasm. Eddie doesn’t know who opens his mouth first, but he can feel Steve breathing into his mouth and then there’s a tongue and their teeth clack together and it’s too close and not close enough all at the same time.

Hands move, and clothes are shed. It’s more than just a first kiss. It’s a first everything.

After, they trade lazy kisses in bed.

And even later still, Eddie realizes that this is the first time he’s felt properly happy since this all started. He tells Steve as much, tells him in a hushed whisper spoken directly into his skin. And Steve shudders at the feeling, and clutches him closer, and whispers, “Good.”

They promise to each other in this moment that they’ll keep seeking out happiness, that they will be each other’s happiness, for as long as they live in this world. In this world so bent on bringing them nothing but grief, they will show it how wrong it is, and that they will persevere.

Because Steve Harrington knows one thing with absolute certainty. His soulmate is an asshole, and with being an asshole comes a stubbornness and a determination to live and survive and thrive that will keep them going even in the face of ultimate evil.

And Eddie Munson knows one thing with absolute certainty. Steve Harrington is his soulmate, and with his soulmate by his side he can fight any monster that wants to challenge him.

Once upon a time, there was a boy whose family was cursed. Thankfully, this curse was something that could easily be fixed by having a love that was true. And so the boy’s sister was able to beat the curse simply by existing and willing the curse to end.

There was also a banished prince, someone who thought he would never find a home after his was so cruelly destroyed by the evil world around him.

The cursed boy and the banished prince found each other, and decided to make an alliance.

At first, it was an alliance of convenience. The cursed boy had the resources and the safety that the banished prince lacked. And so the banished prince led his subjects to the protection of the cursed boy’s embrace. The refuge they so desperately needed was found, and the cursed boy’s and the banished prince’s subjects lived together in harmony.

Then, it became an alliance of necessity. Their subjects intermingled and became one, to the point where they could not be separated from each other. Neither could pick their original followers apart, and so they deemed it appropriate to continue this alliance so as not to separate anyone.

The cursed boy and the banished prince fought monsters and devils and fiends together. They faced every evil that challenged them and emerged victorious, until one day there was no more evil to face.

And so the cursed boy and the banished prince looked to each other for guidance, and realized that there was none to be found. Their lives were their own to determine from this point on, and their alliance forged in times of strife was no longer needed.

So they formed another alliance. They swore to love each other for as long as they both drew breath, and for as long as they both existed in the plane beyond this one. They swore that in this life and in any beyond, they would find each other and love each other.

The home they built was not a castle, for the boy was tired of castles and the prince had no use for them. Instead, they built a town. They built a community in which all of their friends and family could live as one, in which they could be safe and cared for and, most importantly, loved.

And they lived, it is said, happily ever after.