I'm terrified excited to announce that I'm taking part in this year's @steddiebbang! Fortunately I have in my corner my artist @cherrysolitary - who has already created this amazing cover - and my beta @dame-zoom-a-latte - I'm looking forward to writing something worthy of you both!
Title: What's That Secret You're Keeping?
Rating: Mature
Genre: Mystery, Romance
Summary:
It’s the summer of 1956 and newly graduated Steve Harrington has the world at his feet. But it’s a world strictly controlled by his construction magnate father. Executive track at the family firm. Suitable wife. Obedient kids. Picket fence. A never-ending social calendar, starting with a weekend party at the old Creel house, hosted by reclusive scientist Dr Brenner.
And then Brenner shows up dead at the foot of his own grandfather clock.
Steve’s bosom buddy Robin (who repeatedly refuses to marry him no matter how often he points out it would keep her secret safe) has plenty of suspects to fuel her Miss Marple fantasies.
Could it be Jane, Brenner’s odd, quiet ward? Joyce Byers, who accused Brenner of causing her son’s recent illness? Mayor Klein, who the whole town knows would do anything to hide a scandal in election year?
One thing’s for sure, it wasn’t Steve. Or Eddie Munson, nephew of Brenner’s gardener. They were in Eddie’s room, where Steve tried to borrow some matches and Eddie made him a very different offer indeed. An offer that, if Steve’s honest, is much more on his mind than the murder…
Project Announcement for the 2026 @steddiebbang | Team #021
Artist: @lyphyshard | Beta: @jordyn-undead
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When Andy and his friends beat up Dustin and practically sacrificed Jake the Snake over Eddie’s grave, the consequences are deadly. Eddie returns to Hawkins, and Steve, as a Zombie. In love and hungry for brains.
But not Steve’s…
One by one, Eddie stalks, and kills, each boy that decided to screw with his friends. Eats their brains and is slowly regenerated, including the milky dead eyes that gave away what kind of creature Eddie had turned into. Steve finds out later that Eddie didn’t just come back because of the sacrifice. He came back for Steve. Steve eventually runs away with him and buys a trailer to keep Eddie safe.
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Steve jumped back when he spotted the dark shape in the middle of his pool, floating and almost hair-like before the flood lights went off again, making Steve curse. He just turned them on from the switch near the door and swallowed his nerves. Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving, so Steve chanced it.
He slowly and cautiously opened the sliding door, stepped out onto the concrete of the back patio, and inched towards the pool with his bat held high. Gripped tightly in both hands. When he reached the edge, he gasped before dropping the bat. There was someone at the bottom and his lifeguard training suddenly jumped into gear as he plunged into his pool to grab whoever it was, hoping he wasn’t too late.
He circled their body with his arms before pushing off the bottom of the pool so Steve could surface them both. He swam them over to the ladder, using every bit of strength he had left to haul the person out with one arm. He struggled for a second on the last metal rung before he finally yanked them out and onto their back.
When Steve could get a good look at whoever it was, he yelped high and loud to echo through the trees. The long shaggy hair that was drenched and laying on the pavement like some wet creature of its own. The metal band shirt that Uncle Wayne swore up and down was the only thing his nephew should wear for his final rest. The hands still adorned with those silver chunky rings that Steve would never be able to forget as they clutched his jacket and a broken bottle.
“Eddie?! EDDIE?!” Steve yelled out before he was panicking. He backed up before falling on his ass, staring at his friend who was supposed to be dead, and looking at Steve through milky white eyes.
Eddie grinned his signature smirk but Steve didn’t return the gesture. The brunette was horrified and shocked, almost frozen in place and holding his breath out of fear. How could Eddie be here if he was supposed to be dead?
“Breathe, big boy,” Eddie said in a soft but strained voice, knowing how this must look. “Don’t be scared.”
exciting times in my house in 2026 - I am taking on the challenge of my first ever big bang, @steddiebbang, with the most incredible team; the amazing, awesome, fantastic @cosmic-v0rtex as my beta, and the unbelievably talented and brilliant @sheepsicles as my artist.
the important stuff: 55k, post-canon, Eddie is alive but has no memories, slow burn, getting together, besties endlessly side-eying each other's karaoke choices, Wayne and Steve father-son-isms
summary:
It’s a day like any other, for Steve. A day like any other, where Robin and the kids are off at college, a day like any other where Steve isn’t sure who he is without monsters to hit and kids to babysit. A day that is entirely absent of strange things, and strange happenings.
Except… Steve walks into a record store in Indianapolis on this day like any other, and the strangest thing to happen to him in a good long while happens, because suddenly he’s face to face with Eddie Munson – a somehow very alive Eddie, who bears the scars but has no memories of Hawkins, or the Upside Down, or any of the people he knew back home.
There is still an inexplicable pull between them, a quiet curiosity Steve had first felt in ‘86 that’s still there, but armed with the smoking gun of knowing things about Eddie that Eddie doesn’t know about himself, Steve has to decide what he should and shouldn’t tell him – because Eddie doesn’t remember anything… right?
excerpt:
There’s a bell on the door of Radical Records that chimes merrily as Steve steps through, but a first cursory glance doesn’t reveal any staff, or even any other customers. He supposes it’s that weird, liminal time of early Saturday afternoons – close enough to lunch that people are still recovering from the meal, and far enough away from evening that they’ve not yet started to emerge for a night out. He pockets his tape and rubs his hands together, trying to get some warmth back into them – it’s already freezing outside and it’s only mid-October, but inside the shop the air is warm and smells faintly of coconut.
Steve can’t see the person who is presumably the clerk on duty, but he can hear him, somewhere in the stacks singing along to Bad Company’s Bad Company, which is currently playing overhead, like he doesn’t know anyone is in the store and listening. It wouldn’t matter anyway – the guy has a great voice, and Steve starts perusing, rather enjoying the performance.
He drifts to the display at the top of the aisle, front and centre near the register, and picks up Mötley Crüe’s new album, Dr. Feelgood – he’s heard good things about it – and turns it over to look at the track listing. Faintly, off to his side, he registers movement and footsteps, and a vaguely familiar man’s voice says; “That’s a good record – you want me to grab you a plastic-wrapped one from the back?” and Steve glances up to locate the speaker.
And then it happens.
The strangest thing to happen in a good long while.
Eddie.
It hits Steve like a gut punch – and as a man who has taken more than his fair share of punches, this feels exactly like that. It’s unmistakably Eddie; dark brown waves of hair to his shoulders, the lush mouth, the big sloe-brown eyes that traverse Steve’s face curiously, and rings that gleam as he points to the record in Steve’s hand and asks another question that doesn’t even permeate the crisis Steve is having. There’s a whorl of scarring that climbs the left side of Eddie’s neck, one silvery line just creeping over the edge of his jaw. That seems like proof alone that it’s really Eddie – because Steve has matching scars; on his torso, and the thin line around his neck from the bat that had tried to garrotte him.
The air has been knocked clean out of him, and he feels his own throat working up and down silently, and Eddie’s eyebrow arches when Steve sucks in a harsh breath through his teeth, when he tries to force the air back into his lungs, because he thought–
Well, he had thought nothing could surprise him anymore.
“Huh?” he manages to force out, because he’s pretty sure that Eddie has repeated something about three times now and is starting to look at him with concern, and a wariness like he might be about to have some kind of medical episode, or is just a bit crazy. Maybe he is about to have a medical episode, because he fucking feels like he’s about to have a heart attack. Steve presses down on a mildly hysterical bubble of laughter, shoving it down deep, because he definitely already seems crazy and he’s got to keep it together because Eddie is looking nowhere near as shell-shocked to see Steve, as Steve is him.
“I said, that’s a good record dude – you want me to grab you a brand new wrapped one from the back?” Eddie’s brow is still high, like he’s wholly unsure about Steve and his potentially fragile mental state. He runs his gaze over the planes and angles of Steve’s face again, a little furrow of confusion appearing, and Steve feels every part of that stare like a physical weight on his skin.
Eddie is alive.
“Eddie,” he chokes out, not hearing the question. “Eds.”
He takes a step forward, but Eddie’s hands rise, palms outwards, and his look of confusion deepens.
“You must have me mistaken for someone else, man,” Eddie says, with a nervous kind of chuckle and half a step backwards. He taps the badge at his chest, over his heart, the one that reads James.
Steve does laugh at that, because of course Eddie would somehow survive being left for dead in a fucking hellscape and use it as fodder to fuck with Steve, just a little. He definitely deserves it, and hot, acrid guilt crawls up his throat, but he shoves it down to deal with later. “Come on dude, don’t mess around with me, yeah?”
But Eddie just frowns and takes another small step back, and Steve searches his face, searches for something, because there’s– there’s no recognition in Eddie’s expression. He’s looking at Steve like he’s a slightly mental stranger, like they didn’t steal an RV together, like Eddie didn’t dive into a lake and through a goddamn snack-sized mouth of hell to fight bats with him, like they didn’t have a fucking heart-to-heart in the rotting underside of Hawkins, like Steve didn’t lose him. Eddie rubs at the left side of his jawbone absently, where his scar just creeps over the curve, and he’s still looking at Steve with confusion tugging at his mouth, and he doesn’t remember.
Steve exhales and deflates, like air escaping a balloon. His throat feels inexplicably tight.
Eddie Munson's Guide to Demons, Hellhounds, and Other Minions of Satan
@steddiebbang project #013
Time to reveal my project for the 2026 Steddie Big Bang! Excited to work with tombfiends and @drwhoisginnyholmes this year, it's gonna be a blast.
Rating: M
Estimated Word Count: 10-15k
Relationships: Steve/Eddie, Steve & his parents, Eddie & Steve's parents, Eddie & the CC Boys, Steve & Dustin
Characters: Dan [Mr.] Harrington, Olivia [Mrs.] Harrington, the CC Boys, Dustin Henderson, Robin Buckley
Tags: Humor, Misunderstandings, Steve Harrington Has Good Parents, Catholic Wayne, D'art Lives, 'Demon' Steve Harrington, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Eddie Munson is Oblivious and Bisexual, Bisexual Steve, Steve is Eddie's Bisexual Awakening, Aftermath of Starcourt, S5 Doesn't Happen Don't Worry About It, Minor Canon Divergence from S2 Onwards
Summary:
After El closes the inter-dimensional gate to the Upside Down in November 1984, D'art doesn't perish thanks to the protective powers of sugar. He goes on to form a bond with his new 'pack' of humans and continues to evolve in unexpected ways. The demodog eventually comes under the primary ownership of Steve Harrington. Steve, recovering from his severe concussion and without sports to keep him occupied, is still in search of a friend who isn't thirteen years old.
Enter Eddie Munson. Eddie's second senior year is supposed to be devoted to important things like figuring out how to break the spirits of the newest members of Hellfire with a diabolical 50-foot tall goose-dragon, or passing Kaminsky's next test for once. But that's before he comes across the fallen king of Hawkins High and his pet hellhound. And what is Eddie supposed to do with the information that Steve Harrington is apparently a demon in disguise besides figure out what the guy's diabolical intentions in the middle of nowhere Indiana are? He clearly has no choice but to undergo an undercover mission and befriend Steve, all while resisting his hellish charms as the two of them grow closer.
or:
Four times Eddie Munson is convinced Steve Harrington has to be a demon, and one time he finds out the much weirder truth
Enjoy a snippet below the cut!
February 1985
Two albums (filled with music that Eddie would never admit to finding catchy) later, Steve finally got up to use the bathroom.
Eddie sprung up and put his totally not all that ill-conceived plan into action, pulling out his canteen filled with the finest and holiest of waters Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy had to offer. Or more accurately, the finest water Eddie could pilfer while Wayne was busy talking to the priest outside, but that was fine. This was in service to ensuring the devil couldn't walk among them at full power!
Steve had left his glass of water sitting there completely defenseless and half-full on his desk, so Eddie gulped it down as fast as he could and replaced it with his contraband H₂O. Surely this would prove his theories correct at last. Worst case Steve's human shell would melt off and he'd head back to hell for a little unexpected leave time.
When he returned, Steve took a sip and…nothing happened. He smacked his lips a couple times, scratched his stomach, then went right back to his spot at the top of the bed without a care in the world.
Goddammit!
You know, now that Eddie thought about it, maybe the anti-evil properties of holy water were lost when one committed a sin to obtain it. Perhaps it had to be freely distributed to the masses during Mass. Plus, Wayne had been thrilled he'd wanted to go on Sunday for once. The power of a disappointed father figure could really mess with the aura given off by the…water. And Jesus. Or something.
Regardless of any higher authority's opinion on the subject, Eddie was back to square one once again.
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