@steddiebbang 2026 project announcement | team #038
artist: @psychotic-nonsense | beta: @midwestharpy
SUPER excited (and terrified) to announce my first ever steddie big bang project! can't believe how lucky i am to have such a BRILLIANT artist and beta reader to work with on this!!! thank you for loving s2 aus with me <3
details:
rating: M
wc: 25k~
cw: graphic violence; detailed explorations of trauma; substance abuse
tags: S2 AU; canon divergence; eddie joins the party in S2; not-quite-enemies to lovers; angst/comfort; past trauma; past child neglect and abuse; canon typical violence; discussions of foster care; miscommunication; awkward flirting; happy ending
summary:
The funny thing about wearing a mask for so long is that eventually you almost forget you’re wearing it.
Steve Harrington has spent his entire life trying to be someone that people love. That people want to be around. That people want to stay for. He’s spent so long carefully crafting this persona that he’s not even sure who he is without it anymore.
Eddie Munson has spent his entire life just trying to survive. The best way he’s learned to do that is by not letting anyone get too close. By giving everyone some overly dramatized version of himself. Because everyone who’s ever gotten close to who he really is has either left or been ripped away.
One blurry night together bleeds into the jagged edges of the Upside Down returning. As the two of them fight off yet another wave of otherworldly forces while protecting some rather death-wish hungry barely-teenagers, their own demons suddenly demand to be confronted, leaving Steve and Eddie unable to keep hiding – from themselves and each other.
lil preview below the cut!
excerpt:
And for some reason Steve does not fucking understand.
For some reason he will continue to question for long after this.
For some reason he still won’t have an answer to years from now when they’re well and truly past this.
For some reason, Steve puts himself between Eddie and everyone else, says a quick “You might want to run” over his shoulder as he pushes Eddie toward the door with one hand, the other –
Well, in the span of approximately 1.7 seconds, Steve smiles, flips Tommy the bird, and kicks the leg out from the makeshift bar table.
The folding table holding a smattering of drinks.
The folding table holding the absolutely massive punch bowl.
Just in time for Tommy to collide with it.
And crash to the floor.
“Holy fucking shit.” Eddie laughs, hot on Steve’s ear.
Steve laughs too, actually, kind of shocking himself as he watches the punch bowl shatter – watches the greenish-red liquid spray everywhere. The fake eyes and dismembered candy fingers scattering across the floor. The partygoers shrieking as they’re coated in punch.
Tommy falls across the table as it collapses, getting completely drenched in punch and glass, the punch bowl half-beneath him as it crumbles.
Jason is hot on his heels, stumbling and falling on top of Tommy, the pair of them groaning in tandem.
“Oh–” Steve is laughing hard now.
Laughing as he watches Jason and Tommy writhe on the floor, helplessly trying to wipe the punch and glass from their…well, their everywhere, really.
Turns out glass likes to stick in things.
“Holy fucking shit.” Eddie whisper-laughs behind him again, a sentiment Steve wholly agrees with, except –
“Run, man, seriously.” Steve’s eyes are wide as he pushes Eddie a half-step towards the door, even as the laughter is still coursing through him, making him feel more alive than he has in who fucking knows how long.
“You’re fuckin’ dead.”
Which comes from a voice Steve has grown to loathe in a few short months.
Billy goddamn Hargrove.
Steve turns, watches Billy stop on the other side of the table catastrophe. People are still screaming and laughing and running around – mostly, they’re running away from whatever the fuck is happening. Forming a perimeter around the spectacle, circling them like they’re in a fucking ring about to face off.
“Running. Running now.” Eddie says, which, yeah – Steve told him to, so why the fuck is he still here?
“Dude, go.” Steve half-whispers over his shoulder, still trying to push Eddie toward the door. But, Eddie is more of a solid pillar than he would’ve imagined.
“Uh, yeah.” Eddie says with all the sarcastic merit of a 5th grader. “Let’s.”
“Wh–”
“Jesus.” Eddie’s hand wraps hard around Steve’s bicep, full-bodily yanking him back toward the patio door.
Billy is honest-to-god actually growling at them, mouth open, like, teeth bared and shit, fists clenched at his sides as he stalks across broken glass and spilled punch, when Steve…
Well.
Steve holds up a finger, somehow actually making Billy stop a foot away, surprise etched on his face. Then, Steve grabs a half-empty cup left forgotten on a shelf by the door.
“Sorry, did you want some?” Steve asks before taking a sip. “How rude of me. Here.”
Then, in some feat of King Steve of days past, he takes a big mouthful, pulls down his sunglasses just enough and winks at Billy, before spitting the drink all over Billy. “Enjoy.” Steve croons as he throws the rest of the cup at Billy and blows him a fucking kiss.
Steve laughs hard as he turns and tumbles through the patio doors and out into a run across the yard with Eddie motherfucking Munson still holding onto him.
