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penny00dreadful · 10 months

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Crossroads

So I was hoping to get some more Return of the King or Somebody to Love out but these antibiotics are burning a hole through my stomach so I needed something incredibly self indulgent for my own comfort.

Some warnings up front: this is a reincarnation AU so there will be character death. But they do come back, I promise. Apparently my comfort involves a fuckton of angst and devastation so there's that too 🤷‍♀️ but I make it better, I promise. This is a heavy one guys, so take care of yourselves.

Now with beautiful cover art by @subbaculture

AO3 Link

Steve kept his voice low and soft.

Comforting.

Respectful.

He gently gestured the small group of mourners through to the viewing room, content to stand like a sentry in the back, there if they needed him but invisible otherwise in his plain black suit and glasses with his hands folded in front of him after double, triple checking his phone was on silent.

Death was an old friend to him now, though it had taken him a very, very long time to see it that way. Maybe that’s why he’d chosen the profession he had. Becoming a mortician wasn’t something many people actively worked towards since their teen years, unless they were already in the family but it just felt right to Steve.

He hadn’t been taken seriously at the start. He was young. Very young to be in this line of work. Currently in his early thirties and still fifteen years the junior of most funeral directors in the country.

But he was good at what he did. How could he not be? He’d seen more death than any other human alive.

He’d spent so long trying to fight death and losing every time that death no longer felt unsettling to him anymore. It was a fact of life.

Unavoidable.

So he made it his business to ease the crossing from one life to the other, for both the living and the dead and they tried to meet the needs of as many religions, as many traditions, as many practices as they could, both new and old.

They’d spearheaded more eco-friendly and green practices and with the recent rise of neo-paganism and wicca and worship of the Old Gods, they tried to be as accommodating as possible.

If the Steve from all that time ago, still on his first go around and organising the single most devastating funeral he’d ever experienced, could see him now, the Steve whose hands shook as he washed and anointed him with oils, the Steve who was so consumed by despair and fury as he placed the coin in his mouth with one last kiss…

He was pretty sure that Steve of old would have been enraged at his calm acceptance of death in any form.

But this Steve had grown. After all this time. Maybe it had taken him too long. Maybe he hadn’t grown in time, hadn’t grown quick enough to break it.

His Curse, he had taken to calling it.

But that had been when he was a broken and angry man. Now he saw that it had been less of a Curse and more of an Opportunity.

But it had taken him so long to pull himself from his spiral of devastation and anger and as a result he’d squandered that Opportunity.

It had been too late by the time he’d let any humility in.

So this was it now. This was his life and though he’d never be truly happy again, not without him… he was calm.

He was as centred as he could be.

He’d accepted his Fate.

Steve glanced up at the sound of a woman’s sob, ready to step forward if he needed to. The woman, Marion, he remembered, ended up being soothed softly by her sons, Jeremy and Killian. Their fathers death hadn’t been sudden, Walter had been sick for a while but that didn’t make it any less devastating for the three. They’d be okay. They were strong together, Steve thought, loving. Funerals were often make or break for families but these three at least, would pull through.

Steve loved what he did, strange as it was. He loved being able to bring comfort to the living during their hardest times. Helping them to say goodbye and hopefully get some closure.

Closure that he himself had rarely had.

Having that person one day then… they’re gone the next.

He wanted to bring that closure to people.

The room was exploding in flowers, both as a show of love from the deceased's family and a kindness from Crossroads Funeral Home, to try to cover up the smell of Robin's embalming work and to quietly bring some beauty to the room.

Robin.

Pretty much the only good thing that had come from that previous Life.

She'd followed him to this one after they had both died, side by side, dragging Vecna/Henry/One back into the Rainbow Room with the last of their energy and locking everyone else outside before the explosion could go off on the cold night of New Years 1987.

She didn't know it, of course, no one did. No one ever remembered except for Steve. But she knew there was something between them. Some strange string of Fate that connected them. He didn’t know how he’d survived so long without her.

She'd told him once that he looked old. He'd snorted and pushed her away, sitting on that dirty bathroom floor in their comical sailors costumes but she just shook her head.

I meant, like, you don't look old. It's your eyes Steve. They're… they're ancient. Like this isn't your first go around, you know?

He did know. God, did he know. He’d been in a cycle of life and death, life and death, on and on for over two and a half thousand years.

That first Life had been good. Fantastic, even. Two men living together and keeping the same bed wasn’t unheard of at the time. It wasn’t the done thing but it wasn’t something that brought them the hatred of their neighbours.

It was seen as more of an eccentricity than anything.

In later years, in later Lives, they’d have to learn the hard way to hide. But for now, they were happy. They were content.

Steve would accompany Eddie to visit Her temple at the entrance to Thessaly though he never much bothered with worship himself. He never much cared for Heracles or Zeus or Demeter or Atlas. He had everything he ever needed standing beside him.

Though Eddie would often jab him with some kind of teasing comment about how Eros had come for him specifically through Steve, waxing poetic about his moles or the line of his shoulders, often loudly and in public with that terrible cheeky grin of his that Steve was just forced to kiss off his face.

And if it wasn’t Eros then it was Helios inhabiting his eyes or his hair or his skin with the light of the sun.

Everything had been so good.

Steve didn’t think he’d ever been so happy just living.

But they hadn’t had enough time.

Barely seven years they’d had together before death came to tear them apart and vengeance buried itself deep in Steve’s blood.

When it all started, when Eddie lay feverish and dying in their shared bed from an infected bite, Steve had gone to Her.

It was the first time he’d ever given much of a shit about the gods and he didn’t know much about any of them to start with. But he knew Her. He’d listened to Eddie as he’d spoken about the strange feeling he had, the weird connection he felt to Her. He’d watched as Eddie had placed little food offerings of grapes and nuts at their little household altar for Her. He’d seen Eddie find a weird rock or shell or odd trinket and it was always a toss up as to whether it would be placed into Steve’s hand or on Her shrine.

He even wore Her strophalos around his neck.

Hecate.

She was a strange deity for Eddie to focus his dedication to. Her temple was mostly women but Eddie had always been a bit eccentric.

Sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, the moon, ghosts, gravesites, the night and crossroads. All the things She watched over. All things that were just so Eddie.

Of course he felt a kinship with Her.

Steve’s weird and wonderful freak.

When it happened… Steve had been incandescent with rage and desolation and wanted the world to bend to his will as a consequence of it. He’d been ready to tear everything apart.

His despair had crawled up on him in those last few days, sitting at Eddie’s bedside, watching his love slowly fade away.

Once the infection took hold, Eddie wasn’t really there anymore. He was in and out of consciousness, muttering nonsense and barely able to register anything around him.

Steve spoke to him constantly, holding his hand, stroking his hair but Eddie never responded, not coherently anyway.

They didn’t get to say goodbye. They didn't get any last ‘I love you’s’, they got nothing.

The only time Steve had left his side was to beg and plead and offer himself up at the small household altar. He told Her he’d give anything She asked, make anything She wanted to happen happen, She just had to save him. But like always, She stayed silent. No sign, no movement, no feeling, not even a gust of wind.

But when had the gods ever paid attention?

There was a reason he’d never worshipped. It never brought them anything.

When Eddie died, Steve had refused to let anyone else come in and perform the funeral rites. Eddie was his and his alone, no one else had the right to wash his body, to anoint him, to carefully place the wreath over his head.

Tradition could get fucked.

He had lost his whole world, so everyone else could deal with the consequences.

Steve had kissed him one last time after he had placed the coin in his mouth. He’d debated the coin heavily with himself.

If he didn’t pay the Ferryman, maybe Eddie could come back?

But in the end, common sense won out. He couldn’t keep Eddie trapped like that. He’d never forgive himself.

By then his rage had settled into something cold and constant in his gut.

He would get Eddie back.

If he had to climb to the top of Mt. Olympus himself to demand it, he would.

After the burial, he stood in the street outside Her temple, watching with a half drunk bottle of wine in hand. He wanted Her to know he was coming. He wanted Her to know he was a damn force to be reckoned with.

How dare She ignore him.

How dare She allow him to be taken.

How dare She not give him back.

Eddie was his.

And he was Eddie’s.

How dare She.

He didn’t know how long he stood there before he walked inside.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

It was forbidden. He shouldn’t have even thought about it. He’d been touched by death, it had entered his house and he would be unwelcome anywhere holy for at least a year, lest his miasma spread to the precious gods.

Funny how they claimed to be all powerful but shrunk away from the air of death that hung around the mortals left behind by loved ones.

Fucking cowards.

People tried to stop him from coming inside, of course they did. Everyone knew of his loss, his rage, his determination. He’d screamed so loud when Eddie had died, the sound had practically stretched through the entire town. They were all so loyal to the gods who couldn’t give a flying fuck about any of them.

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the worshipers cowered away from him. The Priestesses fled, as though the taboo of the touch of death in this sacred space could somehow infect them.

He had managed to fling Her offerings to the floor and tear a small statue from its pedestal before he was dragged back outside.

The people on the streets gave him a wide berth in the weeks after that. He’d disrespected a goddess and no one wanted to get caught in the crossfire.

But fuck Her.

Let Her be pissed off.

She’d taken everything from him.

Steve felt like he was adrift. He spent hours every day at Eddie’s grave, barely able to exist away from him for long. And whenever he wasn’t there he was at home, in the dark, lying on Eddie’s side of the bed slowly dancing in between unbearable waves of sadness and crawling, festering anger.

The anger he felt was… it was poisonous. Sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe for how furious he was.

Physicians were sent to him and were all extremely alarmed at how out of balance his humours were. His Yellow Bile was in extreme excess and they desperately advised him of what he needed to do to become balanced again, but Steve didn’t want anything less.

He needed to stay angry.

His legs were carrying him to Her crossroads before he even knew where he was going.

It was the dead of night and the only thing lighting the intersection up was a single torch burning bright, hanging off a pole in the ground, illuminating up the three faces of Her statue.

She stood like a sentry watching and waiting carefully to make sure travellers made it across safely. A small gathering of offerings stood at the bottom of the statue and Steve had a sudden urge to burn them.

He wrenched the torch down from where it hung and thrust it at Her feet, catching the wreaths and flowers and fruit and small hand carved figurines worshipers and travellers had left behind in deference.

It did nothing to quell the rage within him so he swung back around, prepared to bury the charred and desecrated remains right in the centre, to send a goddamn sign straight to Her heart if he had to.

But as he straightened up he was forced to recoil in shock as the head of the statue had turned. She seemed to stand taller now. She had been of a height with him when he started. Now She loomed over him, glaring down at him with such ferocity he could feel it down to his very core.

But he refused to back down now, he couldn’t.

She was finally paying attention.

“Give him back.” He growled at Her. Her face didn’t move, She stayed as still as stone. Maybe She was still stone, he hadn’t actually seen Her move after all.

And angry wind blew through the crossroads, nearly snuffing out the torch Steve still held in his hand.

She didn’t speak to him but Her words were clear.

He is not mine to give back.

“You’re fucking right. He’s not yours. He’s mine. You had no right to take him.”

Something hissed behind him and Steve whipped around with the torch that almost seemed to phase, one into two into one again.

At the centre of the crossroads, slowly writhing and coiling about itself sat a giant serpent, its crystalline amber eyes burning through him. It was much bigger than it should have been, as thick as one of his arms and so long Steve couldn’t see its tail extending back into the darkness beyond.

I did not take him. She hissed, extending a forked tongue.

Steve swallowed, trying to stop the oil from the double-single torch dripping onto his hand and burning him but also keeping an eye on the giant creature in front of him, taking a shaky step back, heart beating furiously through his chest both from fear and all encompassing rage.

“I don’t believe that. He loved you and you did nothing to stop his crossing!” He spat back at the viper.

The dark was so close around him now, closer than it had been, though the single-double torch still burned as bright as ever.

The crossroads felt completely separated from everything else on earth at that moment, like he was on an island afloat in the darkness.

A low rumbling growl reverberated through the air behind him, sending another spike of fear up through Steve’s spine and forcing him to turn, trying to keep one eye on the giant snake and another on the behemoth of a creature that was slowly stalking towards him on the opposite side.

The dog was huge. It’s snout just about level with Steve’s shoulder, with teeth bared, head low and an angry look in its eye.

That is not my domain. She snapped at him with a gnashing of Her teeth.

“Then make it your domain!” He snapped back, baring his own teeth in kind.

He took another step back, away from the two creatures but was frozen to a stop as a great gust of air was exhaled onto the back of his neck and through his hair.

Turning again, he was backed into the centre of the crossroads as a great and powerful horse approached, towering over him. It did not glare or snap but simply observed.

Steve was now surrounded by Her on three sides, the writhing serpent, the gnashing dog and the stoic horse all slowly closing in on him.

The horse tilted its head, almost curiously.

If you have not earned your penance by the time I am worshipped again, you will bring your end to the both of you.

“Wh-what?” Steve was still trying to strike with anger but the roiling terror was starting to take hold, especially as Her three avatars slowly closed in. “What does that mean?!”

She didn’t answer and Steve knew in his soul the conversation was over. He’d signed his warrant by searching Her out in the first place and whatever happened now, he just hoped it brought him back to Eddie, somehow.

He felt the snake coil itself around his neck, he felt the teeth of the dog in his stomach and the crack of a hoof against the side of his head before everything went dark.

Steve was fifteen in his second Life before things really started to make sense. Because ever since he’d hit puberty he had all these memories that didn’t belong to him.

Or he thought they didn’t belong to him.

His parents thought he was some kind of Seer. He thought so too until one day four years later. He’d been hired as a private and exclusive Seer to a local wealthy politician who Steve suspected just preferred to look at him, rather than have him divine anything.

But they’d been travelling for days to a neighbouring city to marry his daughter off to some young aristocrat or other when their party came upon a familiar crossroad.

The place had changed in the twenty years since he’d last stepped foot here in his previous Life, where he’d sealed his Fate. He could feel it in his bones.

Her statues had been replaced with finer, more intricate and detailed reliefs. The offerings towered high, stretching out into the road itself, like the people here knew this place had been touched by Her.

Everything came back to him tenfold. All the anger, all the devastation, all the bargaining and rage and loss hit him like it had happened only yesterday.

What the fuck was he doing here? Following around some fat, over-indulgent, lecherous old man, spitting nonsense at him like that would help his political decisions?

That’s not what he was here for. He was here to find his Eddie.

Steve didn’t even know if he could find him. Is that how Hecate had punished him for disrespecting Her so much? To relive his life again but without him this time?

Didn’t matter.

If Eddie was here, he’d find him.

And he did find him.

Betrothed to his Master's daughter.

Of course.

But their wedding would never happen. He stole Eddie away with him into the night. As soon as they had laid eyes on each other the decision had been made. They had to have each other, no matter the consequences.

And the consequences did come for them. Thirteen years later they were finally caught and Steve had been forced to watch Eddie die again. They’d been sentenced to death by banishment.

The downsides of pissing off a politician with a grudge.

They’d been starved out, stripped of everything but the clothes on their backs and dumped out into the wilderness.

Eddie had died first of exposure to the cold and the only mercy Steve found in that was that he followed soon after.

He learned pretty soon in his following Lives to be a bit more careful when seeking Eddie out, trying to keep him as safe as possible.

Because Steve remembered everything.

Eddie remembered nothing.

Each new Life was a fresh start for him.

But it didn’t really matter how careful Steve had tried to be. Tragedy and devastation always came for them. And it always came for Eddie first.

He thought sometimes that maybe things would have been different if he’d tried to get Eddie back through Hades, or Thanatos or Atropos. But then again, they probably would have taken his desecration of their shrines much more seriously. Maybe Eddie’s connection to Hecate had been a kindness.

Throughout his various Lives, Steve had died almost every way it was possible to die. He’d been executed, fatally injured, succumbed to sickness, fallen victim to accidents and even died of old age a few times.

Eddie usually died too soon. Way too soon. But Steve wasn’t sure if that was just his own perception of things. No amount of time with him would ever be enough, so any time death came for him seemed too soon.

So maybe he wasn’t dying unusually early just because Steve was there.

But it certainly felt like it.

Once Eddie died, Steve usually followed not long after.

And then he'd be born again. Sometimes nine months later, sometimes years and years later, often in another country, another part of the world.

He’d seen hundreds of years of history pass him by.

He knew where Cleopatra was buried (with extreme disrespect), he knew what happened at the Library of Alexandria (it wasn't burned to the ground), he'd been to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (estimated location was about 200 miles off where people thought), he knew what had happened to The Princes in The Tower (they hadn't survived five minutes once the door closed), he spoken and forgotten ancient languages and text, he'd been in moments of history again and again.

Each of Eddie’s deaths felt like dying to Steve. Each and every one.

Some were gentle.

Some were not.

In some Lives Steve never even knew what happened to him.

In some, by the time Steve found him, Eddie would already have a family around him. Some strange amalgamation of outcasts and ‘undesirables’. Sometimes he’d have a wife or a husband at his side and some children of his own.

Steve could never bring himself to get in between those relationships. Yes, Eddie was his. But only when he chose to be.

Regardless of Eddie’s choice, Steve would always belong to him.

And if that had to be as a friend, then so be it.

He just wanted Eddie to be happy.

Because he knew intimately all the ways it could end for him.

Steve had seen him sentenced to transportation for life to Australia, just reaching the dock as the vessel was on the horizon, disappearing soon after and Steve would never see him in that Life again.

He’d seen him starving and pale boarding a coffin ship during The Hunger, just slipping out of his grip before he could get to him. Eddie had never made it to Quebec.

Steve had seen Eddie hanged and stabbed and shot. He’d died beside him in battle.

He’d seen him fade from sickness and his own grief at the loss of all of his children during the Black Death.

Eddie had died in almost as many ways as Steve had and Steve had to bear witness to most of them.

The worst of all of them had been in 1602 in a tiny village on the edge of the Holy Roman Empire.

It was early in the morning. They’d been asleep in bed, curled around each other when their door was kicked in. Steve had been as prepared as he could be. He was always prepared now. It had been two thousand years at this stage and he was always ready for anything.

Well, almost anything.

He’d snatched up his sword without a second thought and swung. He was the most skilled combatant in the world, hundreds of years of training and discipline in some of the best armies, under some of the best commanders history had to offer. It allowed him to cut down three of the men before Eddie could even untangle himself from their blankets.

But no amount of skill could help him when he was overpowered and outnumbered.

Something had cracked him hard over the back of the head and everything had gone dark before he could raise his sword again.

He didn’t know how long it was before he came to, but when he did he almost wished he could go back to blissful darkness.

Almost.

Because Eddie was struggling, tied to a wooden beam on a small platform in the centre of the town with kindling being tossed at his feet and a long list of heresy charges and accusations of witchcraft being called out to the gathered townspeople.

Everything was still foggy, like his brain was being filtered through a slow fed sieve. His movements were sluggish and broken and he couldn’t break free. He was being held on his knees, on his own platform with a guard on either side.

Things were still fading in and out for him as he tried to shove the guards away and fought to loosen the bonds around his wrists, tying his hands behind his back.

Steve’s head was wrenched upwards by his hair as the first torch set the kindling under Eddie ablaze.

His gaze locked with Eddie’s, his wide, brown, beautiful eyes were tear streaked and terrified as he screamed out for him through the rapidly thickening haze, coughing and spluttering as he tried desperately not to breathe in the suffocating grey-black smoke.

The cry that Steve let out was one filled with millennia of fury and anguish as he snapped the ropes around his wrists clean away and reached over, unsheathing one of the guards swords and beheading the two of them before they could even blink.

He cut his way through the crowd, completely uncaring if it was civilian, soldier, guard or religious figure who stood in his way. If they didn’t move, they were removed.

Steve threw himself up on top of the pyre, ignoring any pain that came from the stifling heat and burning wood below him as he cut Eddie's limp body down and threw them both off the side.

But it was too late and Eddie was gone again.

Steve turned his cold eyes back on the crowd who were now standing back, regarding him with apprehension and fear as he slowly got to his feet and twirled the sword in his hand.

That town wouldn’t be found on any modern map. He’d obliterated it.

He’d let the streets run red and razed it to the ground.

It would never be remembered.

History never knew it existed.

He’d made sure of it.

Something in that Life had broken Steve irrevocably. Something had cracked. Doubt began to seep in. He started to worry that this cycle would never end.

This was the worst kind of punishment.

It was a punishment he’d not only doomed himself to, but he’d doomed Eddie too.

With each Life his soul felt heavier and heavier.

Until it all came to a head in Hawkins.

Being Steve Harrington, babysitter extraordinaire and ex-King of Hawkins High had been… easy at first. He’d been born into wealth this time which was always a relief. He didn’t have to scrape and slog just to eat or put a roof over his head but wealth had its own shackles, its own chains.

Expectation and duty and honour. That always travelled in wealth, no matter the century.

Add that onto the crushing weight of his Curse, the deal at the crossroads he’d made with Her… it wasn’t the worst Life he’d ever lived but it wasn’t the smoothest either.

Because the Life in Hawkins was the first Life he had ever lived where he made the choice not to find Eddie.

It should have been simple.

It should have been the simplest thing he’d ever done. Born, live, die in the same small town.

And Eddie would stay safe.

Live a long and happy life, wherever he’d been born into.

Steve had scoured the town out of the corner of his eye as soon as his memories came back to him but was able to breathe a sigh of relief when he couldn’t find hide nor hair of him.

Because if he wasn’t here, if he wasn’t around Steve, maybe he wouldn’t die tragically this time.

But it was almost as if the universe heard his sigh of relief.

Almost like She had.

Because a year later when Steve was thirteen, a miserable boy with a buzzed head and giant, defiant brown eyes turned up at school.

He’d be living in the town now.

Steve couldn’t escape him.

He could run away, get as far away as a bus would carry him and hope he wouldn’t be brought back, but he knew he’d never be able to. He’d seen Eddie now, so trying to physically separate himself would be like trying to rip his own arm off.

So no, he couldn’t escape him.

But he could ignore him.

If he couldn’t put physical distance between them, he’d keep the emotional distance as much as it killed him to do it.

He was growing crazy with it by the time he was sixteen and he thought…

Maybe he could try something else?

Nancy was as much of an Eddie look alike as it was possible to get. He hadn’t even realised that that was why he’d picked her. It hadn’t been a conscious decision.

But if he was going to let Eddie go, he could allow himself to have the next best thing.

Up until Tommy and Carol and Barb and the pool.

He couldn’t… he couldn’t do it.

It made him feel disgusting.

It felt so disloyal to do anything with anyone else. He never had. He’d never wanted to. He still didn’t want to, he realised.

Eddie wasn’t his in this Life.

Eddie had never been his to dictate decisions over anyway.

But Steve was Eddie’s.

In every Life, in every iteration, Steve belonged to Eddie.

Whether Eddie knew it or not.

So no, he couldn’t go through with it, with Nancy. She was a lovely girl but she wasn’t him.

Steve had only ever belonged to one person and he would only ever belong to that person.

And he was okay with that, he realised.

Nancy was a bit surprised that he’d stopped but understood well enough in the end.

All of that was swiftly forgotten about though, when they heard Barb scream from outside and had to pull her from the jaws of some otherworldly demon.

Steve had thought he’d seen everything the world had to offer but he’d never seen anything like this.

War was no stranger to Steve, he knew it well.

He and Eddie had fought side by side many times whenever Fate had pushed them in that direction, most memorably in The Sacred Band on Steve’s second or third Life. They’d actually survived long enough to retire from that troop and had another ten years together before death came for Eddie again.

Throughout time Steve had fought using an aspis, a gladius Hispaniensis, a Hallstatt sword, then maces, glaives and longbows. He fought as a knight in plate and then with canons and bayonets before getting his hands on an SMLE and then an M1 Garand.

But this war was different to every one he’d fought in the past. There was no phalanx, no column, no cavalry. Just vicious mindless monsters, a handful of kids and teenagers and one super powered child.

Steve fought that war like he’d fought every other one in his long life, with reckless abandon, trying to keep his charges safe and most importantly, trying to keep Eddie safe.

Eddie was a musician in this Life, like he so often was and he was going to go far. He was talented. He was beautiful. He had so much life in him.

Steve was going to make sure Eddie got there if it killed him.

Again.

He’d let him get as far away as possible and maybe, just maybe Eddie would live the life he deserved.

But that hadn’t happened.

Like the universe, like She had heard Steve’s silent pleas again, the two of them had been shoved together under the most apocalyptic of circumstances. Like it was all one last test of Steve’s resolve. To see if he could stay away. To see if he could let Eddie go. Allow him to look at him with those big, beautiful eyes and smile his devastatingly pretty smile and light up like a live wire in Steve’s space with so much energy and passion Steve felt like he was caving in on himself.

If he could let Eddie be, if he could avoid reaching out, if he could stop himself from ruining Eddie once again then maybe Eddie would be allowed to live. The Curse would be broken.

And he thought he had succeeded.

He felt something snap in him, something break, something release.

So he thought he’d done it.

But then he’d made it back to the trailer to find blood. Blood and torn flesh and bubbling breath and one last whispered “Stevie?” before Eddie’s endless brown eyes went dull.

And Steve was done.

He couldn’t do it anymore.

He’d walked to the crossroads just outside his house and screamed that he was done. It was over. She’d won.

He didn’t get an answer.

He didn’t expect one.

So he went into that Rainbow Room with Robin convinced this was his last Life. Ready for it to be over. For good.

Almost wishing for it.

But he’d been born again in 1992 and now?

Well now he had learned to just exist.

To just be.

And to find whatever contentment he could.

He had his business. He had Robin. So he was… okay.

And that was okay.

Robin stuck her hands in her pockets as she stood in the cold of the morgue, watching Steve close everything up for the evening.

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to go, Birdie. You need to break up with her.”

Robin sighed, long and heavy. “God, I know. Can’t you do it for me?”

“For the last time, no. Break up with her over text if you have to. She deserves shitty treatment. Fuck her.”

“I can’t. She’ll refuse to accept it. She’ll keep showing up and insisting it never happened and then she’ll throw the mother of all fits when I try to tell her it did happen!”

“So that’s why you’re taking her out to dinner? So she has to listen?”

“And we’ll be in public. So she can’t cause a scene.”

Steve scoffed. “That’s never stopped her before,” he muttered to himself but raised his voice again at Robin's scowl. “That’s all very red flag behaviour, Birdie.”

“Yes I know Steven, thank you. Why do you think I’m breaking up with her?”

“Okay.” He gave the door to the morgue one last tug, making sure it was locked up tight. “No dead bodies are escaping from me tonight. Call me after?” He jabbed his finger up to the ceiling and behind, in the direction of his house, tucked away at the back of the business, separated and hidden from sight by a line of trees.

“I can’t believe you still own a landline. Who even has a landline anymore?”

Steve shrugged but grinned at her still. “I’m old fashioned.”

“Whatever. Okay. I’m gone. Wish me luck!” Robin called back as she bounced her way up the stairs.

“Good luck!” He shouted after her. “Let me know if you need my assassination skills!”

“You’ve never killed anything bigger than a spider, babe!” The sound of the front door closing was the only thing she left behind to punctuate her statement.

Steve frowned. “Never killed anything bigger than a spider,” he mimicked as he trudged back upstairs, grumbling, “I’ve taken on the damn Mongols, never killed anything bigger than a spider, pshh.”

He continued to mutter to himself as he walked through, switching off the lights before making his way outside to lock up the front door.

He had just given the door one last tug when he heard a voice behind him, speaking in a language he hadn’t heard in over two millennia.

“I’ve been looking for you, my sunshine.”

Steve swiped around, scarcely daring to believe what he was hearing but there he was.

Eddie stood in front of him, ripped up black jeans, black cons, long curly dark hair and a yellow sweater that looked like something Steve had worn in the 80’s.

All Steve could do was breathe out his name. “Eddie.”

Eddie smiled at him, a warm, gentle, pretty thing that filled Steve’s heart and made it ache all at once.

“What… what do you-?”

“I remember everything, sweetheart.” Eddie stepped forward, only stopping when they were toe to toe.

“Everything?” Steve could scarcely believe it. Wouldn’t dare believe it if it wasn’t for the strophalos symbol hanging around his neck.

“Everything.” He nodded, placing a hand at either side of Steve’s face. “You came for me. Every single Life. You were there. I figure it’s about time I return the favour.”

A laugh burst out of Steve without his permission but it was really more of a sob than anything as he raised his own hands to encircle Eddie’s wrists.

“What does this mean?” He whispered, terrified that too loud a noise, too sudden a movement would shatter everything. “What does this mean for us?”

“It means it’s broken, baby.” Eddie touched their foreheads together and said, with scarcely a breath between their lips, “It means you have me. And I have you. Forever.”

And Steve was so scared. So scared that it wouldn’t stick, that it would all change the second he closed his eyes but he couldn’t deny he could feel it. Deep down in his soul he could feel that he was free.

Steve nudged himself forward, just barely a hair but it was enough to bring them together, it was enough to kiss and it was only at that moment he realised he hadn’t kissed Eddie in decades.

Since before Hawkins.

It was like electricity had shot through him, his whole body, his mind, his soul had been aching, craving, needing Eddie's touch and it was like he could breathe again with it.

When their kiss broke neither of them pulled away, they continued to hold each other, to hug, pressed flush with arms tight around each other and Steve didn’t think he’d ever be able to let go.

Yeah. Forever sounded pretty good.

I am not a particularly religious or spiritual person but when I tell you I felt seen as I was writing this know that I am not exaggerating 😅 it was less that I felt watched, more that I felt observed.

I shit you not when this idea popped into my head, Hecate started appearing everywhere. On my podcasts, in my YouTube videos, my tiktoks, on the radio, in conversation at work... Everywhere.

Being Irish living in Ireland I'm surrounded by mythology and legends and stories and paganism all the time so that did fuel some of my interest. I follow a good number of pagans and wiccans on social media and I know a few in real life too so I tried my best to be as respectful to their beliefs as I could in my depictions.

This has been my most researched fic to date. The amount I read for this was intense. Funeral rites in Ancient Greece, as much as I could read on Hecate, how funerals work in America because apparently the Irish do things very differently to the rest of you?? The greatest mysteries in history, millennia of military tactics, the intricacies of the Greek Gods... just so much stuff! And it was fun!

ALSO The Sacred Band! Holy shit! The Sacred Band was a specific troop of soldiers in Ancient Greece composed completely of male lovers under the understanding that if you're fighting next to your love you'll fight harder. And people say this whole queer business is a recent thing 🙄

Anyway I hope you liked it! 🖤

Hecate

Strophalos

The Princes in The Tower

Coffin Ships

The Hunger

The Black Death

Holy Roman Empire

Heresy witch burnings

The Sacred Band

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