Work Text:
Eddie loved having a soulmate.
His soulmate didn’t think about him that often, which he honestly didn’t mind. His head was already full of his own thoughts, thank you very much.
Every now and then a small observation about him would slip through. Nothing too interesting, and definitely nothing that could narrow down who his soulmate actually was. It always happened during situations when the whole school was looking at him, or he was in a very public area. Usually it was things like:
‘He’s standing on the table again. I wonder if he ever gets in trouble for that…’
‘Maybe I’ll get some weed from Munson for the party.’
‘Oh he’s yelling about societal norms again. Must be Wednesday.’
You know, the average impression every single living being gets about him after five seconds of meeting.
But sometimes, rarely, a compliment would slip through.
‘Oh, Munson’s got a new jacket. Cool.’
‘His hair looks good today. Would it be weird to ask to touch it? Yeah, definitely.’
‘His voice is actually pretty good. I should come to these things more often to hear it.’
These would cheer him up significantly for days at a time. He didn’t get that many compliments, sue him.
The last one he heard during the school play Principal Higgins forced him to sing in, after he was caught working on a song in the music room instead of attending Ms. O’Donnell’s math class.
That one fueled him to finish 5 different songs he kept putting off.
So overall, having a soulmate was not bad in Eddie’s opinion.
And the anonymity helped him not overthink every thought that crossed his mind.
Some people were of the opinion that you always had to control your thoughts, in case the person you thought about might actually be your soulmate.
Eddie was of the opinion that if his soulmate couldn’t handle his thoughts, then they weren’t a good match anyway.
He was an overthinker. His mind was constantly whirring with different ideas for songs, characters, story arcs, life goals, meal plans, or just commentary about everyone around him. Sometimes he wouldn’t even register his own thoughts just minutes after actually thinking them! It wasn’t his fault that his brain worked faster than itself!
Although the thought did cross his mind that having someone shout in your head “Fuck yeah, those jeans look gorgeous on that ass.” might be a little jarring, but then again. Those jeans did look gorgeous.
So that’s how his life went for as long as he could remember. His constant thought process, sometimes interrupted by foreign observations about him with a compliment sprinkled in every now and then.
Then suddenly something changed.
The stray voice in his head started popping in a lot more often. And the tone of the thoughts was honestly a little… depressing.
‘Fuck I have to talk to him. If this headache won’t leave I might need to buy out his whole stash for the month. Poor guy, having to deal with my dumbass with a concussion.’
‘Is that Munson down the hallway? God I can’t even see that far anymore? I hope it’s him, I really don’t want to run into her right now. They have weirdly similar hair…’
‘Hey, Munson has a dungeons and druids game club, doesn’t he? Maybe I can ask him some clarifying questions. Or maybe not. He probably doesn’t want to talk to me about that. Well he probably doesn’t want to talk to me, period.’
It was confusing and sad at the same time. Eddie did make an effort to look around for anyone who might be having these thoughts, but honestly the context clues didn’t really help.
He heard murmurings about Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove having a fight, but he didn’t see either of them at his picnic table in the coming months, and neither of them came over to talk to him about dnd. And if he was honest with himself, it was honestly a stretch. He’s had a crush on Steve since he was 12 years old, it was wistful thinking.
But then the thoughts kept coming, and they became… well…
‘Jesus, he looks good in that leather jacket.’
‘Holy shit, his eyes are beautiful.’
‘I kinda want to kiss him. Is that bad? Eh, who gives a shit, I mean, look at him!’
Which was definitely a change. A good change! But it did bring up a few problems.
First of all, now Eddie really wanted to find out who his soulmate was. Because they found him attractive! No one ever found Eddie attractive! He was always the weird kid, the freak who didn’t look and act like the others. He was a known homosexual for gods sake!
Which brought up the other problem.
If his soulmate is a boy, as Eddie desperately hopes he is, what could he have heard Eddie think about him? Because he thought a lot of shit in his lifetime, and most of those were really fucking unhinged.
And like, okay, he said he didn’t care what anyone heard him think, but this guy was thinking such innocent things! He was thinking about Eddie’s hair, his eyes, his fashion choices! He didn’t even go farther than a kiss even in his thoughts! How fucking adorable is that?
Okay, maybe that had to do with him still coming to terms with his sexuality, but still!
The compliments kept coming, their frequency increasing the closer they got to the end of the year.
Then one day…
‘Okay. I’m gonna ask him out. It’s now or never, don’t be a coward. Asking out Munson is not even remotely as scary as facing a demogorgon. I can do this!’
Eddie froze up at his locker, just blankly staring at the contents, trying to process what he’s just heard.
Is his soulmate planning to make a move? Today?? He frantically looked himself over, straightening his lopsided jacket, attempting to smooth down his wild curls. He looked like a mess! He didn’t even shower yesterday, since the water was out in the trailer! Jesus H. Christ this is a nightmare. It had to be.
He briefly contemplated ditching school altogether, but the amount of skipping on his record was getting dangerously close to making him fail senior year if his grades didn’t do him in first.
Waiting for the inevitable it was.
He was anxious the whole day, constantly testing everyone who came up to talk to him with wilder and wilder thoughts sent in their direction.
He didn’t get a reaction from anyone.
He was starting to give up hope by the end of the day, when a strong thought interrupted his pity party inside his head.
‘Okay he’s alone! It’s now or never.’
Eddie froze in place, but when he whipped around to see who was approaching him, the only person he could see was Gareth coming towards him with a friendly smile.
‘Gareth I swear to god if you are my soulmate and didn’t say anything before, I’m going to skin you alive and use your bones as guitar picks.’ Eddie tried to think as loud as he could in his direction, but the smile didn’t fade from Gareth’s face as he finally got to his locker.
“Why are you looking at me like I touched your guitar without permission? Did you fail a chemistry test again?” He tried leaning against the lockers, but he was stopped before his shoulders could even touch the metal.
Eddie grabbed Gareth’s shoulders and shoved him to the side so he could look around the hallway for any more people coming in his direction, but no luck. A voice sounded in his head just as he turned back to Gareth.
‘Or I guess not. He looked pissed at that guy, maybe today’s just not my day.’
Eddie felt immense disappointment and frustration. He was so close!
“Gareth?”
His friend looked at him with apprehension, clearly sensing he somehow fucked up. “Yeah?”
“Next session, your character is dead. I guarantee you that.” Eddie glared at him, and smacked his locker shut before stomping away.
“What did I do?! Eddie? Eddie!”
—
Steve didn’t like having a soulmate at first.
He already had to control everything he was showing on the outside to keep his place on the top of the Hawkings High hierarchy, controlling his thoughts in addition to that was a nightmare and a half.
His parents always told him to only think good things about people he wanted to have an advantageous relationship with. They weren’t soulmates, that was one of the reasons his father agreed to marry his mom.
It would be hard to cheat on someone who could read your thoughts about them.
So all in all his thoughts on soulmates weren’t the most positive.
That opinion only got worse when he first started to actually hear his soulmate.
‘Fucking Christ he’s such an asshole. Why the hell is everybody here in love with him?!’
‘Oh look, Harrington and his lackeys are laughing at another sheepie. Fuck that guy, honestly.’
‘He’s walking around like he owns the place, King of Hawkings High, my ass.’
At first he just tried to ignore the voice in his head, but it was pretty hard when it became obvious that his soulmate was obsessed with him.
At first it was only the mean comments. But slowly they started transforming, and soon he didn’t manage to go an hour without a weird sentence popping into his head.
‘Look at him surrounded by those idiots. Well he’s also an idiot so that tracks. Shame that nothing's up there under that gorgeous hair. At least he's nice to look at…’
‘Jesus H. Christ, can he make out any more obnoxiously? That girl is halfway down his throat. Fuuuck I want to be her so bad.’
‘Fuck me, that ass looks delicious. Is it legal for them to play in such short shorts?! I should come to these games more often…’
And then came the inevitable crisis.
‘Oh my fucking God, I have a crush on goddamn Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington! How much more pathetic could I get?! No, you know what, this is not my fault. He shouldn’t be so sexy if he doesn’t want poor unsuspecting gay guys to fall for him!’
Which was a fun little breakdown to listen to until the last sentence. His soulmate was a boy? Wait, did that mean he was also gay? But he dated girls, he liked girls!
But then again, the boys on the swimming team did catch his eyes a lot during practice…
So Steve had to come to terms with the possibility that his soulmate is a boy, and that he might be at least a little bit gay himself.
It was… a long process.
At the same time though, he was dating Nancy. He liked Nancy! He might even say he loved her. He didn’t have to even meet his soulmate if he didn’t want to. And he didn’t! He swears he didn’t…
Although, after surviving his second apocalypse, and getting broken up with, his worldview and his opinion about soulmates was quickly being reevaluated.
And it seemed even his soulmate noticed the change.
‘Goddamn, Harrington’s face looks fucked up. What the hell happened to that guy? Is it bad that I still want to fuck him?’
‘Wait, he’s sitting alone again? I wonder if he would be up to sitting with us. Nah, some of his pride must still be intact.’
‘He’s actually acting nice… Noooo, my crush was bad enough when he was an asshole, I cannot handle him being nice AND hot! That’s simply not a real combination. Hot guys are always assholes, and Harrington is the hottest guy ever, ergo, he must be the biggest asshole. Even if he’s acting really nice right now…’
And okay, he might’ve wanted to meet his soulmate, but it seemed his soulmate was dead set on him being a bad person. He didn’t feel like having to prove himself.
He decided he’d only try to meet his soulmate if he got over his deadset opinion about him.
But until then, he kinda wanted to explore these new possibilities that the other gender provided.
That’s how he found himself developing a bit of a crush on Hawkings’ resident drug dealer and outcast extraordinaire, Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson.
What can he say, long brown hair and big beautiful eyes were his type. Combined with the take-no-shit attitude and the humour, Munson was looking like Steve’s dream man.
So he started looking for him in crowds, and gearing up the courage to ask him out.
He almost did it once, but Eddie seemed to be in a foul mood, and was already talking to someone else when he tried to approach him.
He was sitting in the cafeteria, at his usual empty table, deep in thought about how to convince Dustin to go to the arcade with him, when he spotted Eddie preaching to his table as usual.
This time he was standing on his chair, only addressing the people at his table. He was ranting about a campaign maybe? Steve couldn’t really understand half of what he said if he was honest.
‘I wonder if he’s this vocal in bed too.’
And just as that thought crossed his mind, Eddie seemed to freeze as his face took on the colour of a ripe tomato. He stopped in an awkward position, so he quickly lost his balance, and with a loud clatter, fell off his chair.
Just as Steve made the move to stand up and help, Eddie’s frazzled curls popped up from under the table, as he frantically started looking around the cafeteria.
‘Wait. Don’t tell me he heard that.’ The colour was quickly filling up Steve’s cheeks too, as Eddie once again froze, before waving off his friends' concerned questions, and sitting back on his chair. But his eyes didn’t stop searching for a second.
Steve quickly averted his eyes, and pretended to be really interested in his food.
‘Please tell me he didn’t hear it. Please tell me he didn’t hear it!’
Unfortunately for him, Eddie ‘zero-shame-whatsoever’ Munson put his hands around his mouth, and in the loudest voice he could muster yelled out: “I HEARD THAT!!”
‘Well, fuck.’
It appeared that Eddie Munson, his new crush, was his soulmate.
Which actually made too much sense.
—
Eddie was fuming.
His soulmate knew who he was and still hadn't approached him?
What is up with this guy??
He already wanted to ask him out once, what was the big deal?
Did knowing they were soulmates change something? It shouldn’t have in Eddie’s opinion. But then again, his thought process rarely aligned with the average persons.
He was at home, trying to learn a Megadeath song on his guitar, when a rapidfire thought process hit him in the head like a goddamn truck.
‘Jesus Christ, okay. So! I have a crush on Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson. This in itself is not even that bad. But it turns out, he can hear what I’m thinking about him, since we are soulmates?? Apparently??? Which means he can probably hear this. Fuck! If you can hear this, sorry! I really didn’t mean to think that about you in the cafeteria! But then again, you usually think waaay worse things about me, so. No, wait, let’s not blame the guy, he might not even, no he definitely doesn’t know who I am. Which I’m also sorry about! Anyways, umm, what I wanted to say- Or think? What I wanted think was I’m sorry about today, and I kinda want to go on a date with you, but I’m also freaking out, because I haven’t been on a date with a man before, no less a man who can hear my fucking thoughts so excuse me if I’m panicking a bit.’
Eddie’s mind was, for once in his life, completely silent.
‘Are you there? Would this work if he was asleep? Probably not. Can thoughts wake up a person? What if I dream about him? Oh God, what if I dream about him, and he can see it! I would die of embarrassment. If you’re not sleeping, and you can hear this, could you think something back? I’m kinda freaking out here.’
Eddie’s mind was slowly rebooting from this wall of information he just received. But the moment he could string together a sentence, he was sitting up on his bed, cross legged and concentrating with every single brain cell he had.
‘Yeah, I’m here. Can you hear me?’
Silence.
‘Hello? Anyone there?’
No answer.
‘Fuck, he must be sleeping.’ The voice in his head suddenly sounded again.
‘What? No, I’m here!’
‘Okay, but if he can’t hear me, that means I can think through this calmly without panicking after every thought. Small mercies.’
Eddie didn’t understand what was wrong. He was thinking back! He was thinking about his soulmate, and-
He was thinking about his soulmate. Not about who his soulmate was. Shit!
He really had to sit here, in silence, while this guy debated himself about the pros and cons of asking him out?
God must really fucking hate him because what the actual hell.
But to Eddie’s biggest surprise, the guy didn’t list any cons.
At least not any cons relating to Eddie himself.
It was actually kind of adorable how the guy went over everything he liked about Eddie. All the things he would enjoy if they were to be together, while also berating himself and listing all the reasons why Eddie might not want to spend time with him.
And as the moments ticked by, and the reasons piled up, Eddie was starting to get a hunch.
It might be a stretch, but… There was only one way to test it, and getting it wrong won’t have any consequences, so. Might as well try.
‘Harrington? Is that you?’
The constant listing of reasons suddenly stopped, and Eddie’s head was once again blissfully silent.
‘Holy shit, it is you, isn’t it?’
Eddie jumped up from his bed, and frantically started pacing in his tiny room.
‘Eddie?’
‘Duh. I thought you already established that.’
‘How much did you hear?’ The voice in his head was apprehensive, clearly anxious about his answer.
‘The whole thing.’ Eddie grinned to himself as Harrington’s voice cursed. ‘Don’t be shy, it was actually pretty sweet.’
‘Did you ignore me on purpose? Because if yes, that’s a really fucked up thing to do.’
‘God no, you can calm down, pretty boy.’ An echo of pretty boy sounded in his head, like it was being repeated several times. Looks like that was a hit. ‘I didn’t ignore you. Since I did not know who to think of when I talked to my unknown soulmate, my thoughts couldn’t go through. But your pity party gave it away so, ta-da! Telepathic conversation!’
‘It wasn’t a pity party!’ came the voice, and Eddie could almost see Steve’s indignant face in front of his mind's eye.
‘Sure as hell sounded like one. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you berating yourself instead of me, but I gotta say all your reasons were total bullshit.’
‘What do you mean bullshit?! Those were all legitimate concerns!’
‘Really? All of them? Cause ‘no longer popular’ doesn’t seem like that much of a concern for me.’
‘Okay, some of them might have been a bit off topic, but most of them were actual problems!’
‘Steve. None of what you listed is a problem for me. Hell, I still can’t believe Steve goddamn Harrington has a crush on me! I’ve been crushing on you since your best friend was Tommy H. for god’s sake! You can’t really go lower than that.’
‘But I have issues. A lot of issues.’
‘Sweetheart, I’m called ‘the Freak’ for a reason. You’d have to genuinely make an effort for me to not want to go out with you.’
Eddie’s head was once again silent for a second, before a small timid voice spoke up. ‘So you want to? Go out with me I mean.’
‘Stevie, there’s nothing I’d love to do more.’
‘FUCK YEAH!’ Eddie flinched from the sudden noise, and some curse must’ve gone through because Steve immediately apologised. ‘Sorry! Didn’t mean to yell that loud. It just… happens.’
‘You can’t control your thoughts, and you shouldn’t have to. And anyways, I kinda like when you let loose, big boy.’
Eddie’s head was suddenly filled with a very vivid picture of himself and Steve in a very compromising situation, which had him trip over his own leg, and crash down on the ground with a yelp.
Eddie sat up, and caught his breath for a second. ‘I’m coming over.’ He thought with the confidence of someone who didn’t just fall over.
‘What? Why?’
‘Darling you just beamed a fucking porno in my head, and you thought I wouldn’t do anything about that?’
‘Jesus christ this thing can share pictures?’
‘Apparently, and thank God for it, cus that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.’
Eddie was already out the door, and closing his car door when Steve’s next words sounded in his head.
‘Could we, maybe, take it a bit slow first? I’m not saying we can’t do anything, God knows I want to, but maybe let’s not go all the way?’
‘We'll go as far as you want us to Steve. Can I come over? Sorry, I kinda rushed in without asking you.’
‘I mean, yeah. My parents aren’t home, and I’d rather have someone here than be alone again.’
‘God, that sounds sad as hell. Don’t worry my noble king, your knight in shining armour will be there in ten minutes tops.’
A very loud and very amused ‘Dork.’ sounded in his head as he finally stepped on the gas and left the trailer park for the gorgeous modern houses of Loch Nora.
He had a royal visit to carry out.