if you asked steve what his biggest fear was, you might get a number of different answers.
to his father, he’d say failure. not living up to the person he wants him to be, not fitting into the shoes he was born to wear. not deserving of the last name etched onto his gravestone.
to tommy, or carol, or all the people who didn’t bother to see past the persona he painted on like a portrait, he’d say falling. losing his crown— or worse, getting it knocked off his head. he’d pretend like these things mattered to him, and they’d pretend they believed him.
to nancy, before empty pools and empty bottles and empty promises, he’d say being alone. he’d whisper it into the crook of her neck, and the feeling of warm air would make her giggle. later, they’d remember that night differently. steve, as the last time he was ever honest. nancy, as the first time she wasn’t.
to robin, he’d say loss. not just losing her, or dustin, or anyone that steve has ever known, but losing himself. the real him, the person he worked so hard to find, buried under the bones of the boy whose skin he wore when he was scared.
to eddie, he’d say death. he wouldn’t need to explain it, and eddie wouldn’t ask him to. they’d trace each other’s scars in the moonlight, fingers catching on the dips and peaks in relentless reciprocation, and their tears would taste salty on the other’s lips.
at the end of the day, though, steve admits the truth only to himself.
his biggest fear, the one so great he refuses to say it out loud, is loving.
and not in the way you love a parent (or the way you wish they’d love you back), nor in the way you love a partner.
no. steve fears loving in the way he’s never allowed himself to love somebody, because of what he knows lurks under the surface. what he, above all else, fears down to the bone.
steve fears loving in the way that unleashes the beast that lives within him.
he fears unlocking the cage of his heart and freeing the birds inside. opening himself up, all of him, flayed like a patient on an operating table or like the broken body of the boy he grew out of.
he fears that once he starts, he won’t be able to stop.
more than anything, he fears that if he lets someone get too close, they’ll smell the rot on his breath. fears that once they do, he won’t be able to help but make them another victim of his insatiable, carnivorous love.
he fears that he will have as little control over it as they do.
so, steve does what he does best: he holds himself back.
lies, just a little bit, to every person he has ever met. keeps the fluttering wings of his heart clipped and confined in his chest.
and it works. it works, because he is surrounded by people he refuses to let himself love, and because they don’t know any better.
it works, because they’re alive. it works, because sometimes he is loved back.
it’s not enough. of course it isn’t.
but he knows better than to be tricked into a false sense of security. knows that no matter how much they reassure him, they don’t understand the severity of his desires. his wants, his wishes.
they don’t know the depth of his love, haven’t seen the way his cavernous love spans like a mountain range. they don’t know that the only people who have tried to scale it have died in the process.
the first people he ever let himself love, fully, truly, showed him how dangerous it is.
how dangerous it is to be loved by him.
but he didn’t know any better. he was just a child. born to love the first person he laid eyes on, unknowingly killing her in the process.
he didn’t learn until later on, of course. doesn’t remember the day the light left his mother’s eyes, doesn’t remember ever seeing it in his father’s. but he does know, as sure as the sun meets his skin like his heat is a welcome home to it: he was the cause of it.
so he hides it. keeps it locked up. bites his tongue and swallows the blood, waters the rot that lives within. feeds the beast.
because he’s not lying when he says he fears failure, falling, being alone. he knows loss. he knows death. he knows himself, above all.
and he knows what he needs to do to prevent it all from happening again.
so he smiles. hides the snarl. breathes through his mouth when the smell of rot is too strong.
he holds himself at bay. he protects the people he wishes he could love.
he lets the monster roar within and promises himself that one day, when his bones return to their gentle home in the ground, when they fit within the body of the boy who is unafraid to love, he will know peace.
(original thread)
