Modern Metalsandwich/Harringroveson
Idk even know what I'm doing with these anymore but here's another snippet of an idea. Also- this is super freaking long. Sorry not sorry I guess.
There's no Upside Down, right? And for reasons, the Hargroves/Mayfields stay in Cali and my boy Eddie is in, like, Kentucky. Or Georgia, maybe, but I vibe with the Munsons having Applachian roots. So save for those people (Max, Billy & Eddie), everybody who would be in Hawkins is.
For the most part, nothing is super different except everything is. Because it's the 21st century so that means, like, Tiktok and Insta and even Youtube. Means that social media exists and the kids that Steve babysits are of course gonne have accounts.
You know who doesn't bother with anything like that though? Steve Harrington. Because he's busy doing other stuff like sports and studying and trying to pretend like his home life is normal. Tries to act like the only reason he's hanging on at this point is because of the kids he ended up babysitting.
Steve can't even tell you how it starts, exactly. Well, he can and it's cause of Dustin who then introduced him to his friend Lucas which meant that Mike and Will and Jane followed. The rest is history, honestly. Long enough ago that he doesn't remember when Dustin and Mike and Lucas didn't have a camera in his face. Which is weird, he knows, but the kids are weird so it's whatever.
It's not until everything blow up in his face that he realizes that it actually started before Dustin.
Back when he was, well, just a kid himself. That he remembers how there was one day when he was pulled out of baseball practice because he had a piano recital and he was pissed. Pissed off enough that when he sees a man try to force a kid into a car, Steve doesn't hesitate to pull out his bat and tell him to back off.
And Steve doesn't recognize the man until it's just him and the, what, kindergartner? It's not until he comes face to face with stripes and a bowl cut that he's reminded of a boy a year younger then him and- Byers.
Hawkins is a small town and Steve realizes and accepts that he'd just told off Lonnie effing Byers pretty quick. Puts it out of mind even quicker; but he does somewhat recall sitting on the swing set with the even littler kid as he waits for his brother to get out of whatever is keeping him. He remembers Will asking him why his dad hated him and Steve said that it's just how dad's were.
But then Dustin moved in and, well, life.
Junior year was pretty rough and by the time his senior one starts up, Steve's just about exhausted. Hasn't seen his parents in god knows how long but dreads the weekly phone calls. He's tired to say the least. When Jon Byers, backed by all of his kids, ask him if he'd be willing to act in a film Jon's putting together for an NYU application, he wants to say no but can't because the kids won't let him.
The film goes completely over his head but it's fun to do with the kids. He gets to swing around a studded bat and pretty much play make belief with all the kids. Something about monsters and it's equally about Will and Jane -the Wonder Twins on their on media accounts- in the way of him getting kidnapped and she'd gone through some messed up experimentation. Again, over his head but it seems to do well.
Jon gets accepted into NYU but more than that, it ends up getting submitted to some Indi-movie festival or something by a teacher. Than some legal shit happens that causes problems. Steve doesn't know- he'd done his part but now he's distracted by spring sports and the fact that he ends up going to community over any ivy or even state and it's a lot so-
But here's the thing. Life, right?
While that's happening in Hawkins, you have Eddie Munson -head man for Corroded Coffin- having followed this StevieCHarrington Insta account since he first got a phone. Most of the photos are of this pretty-eyed boy with freckles and another kid with curly hair and a grin bigger than his face. So Eddie follows him before he's anybody at all and very casually understands that the majority of the songs he writes are about someone he has no hopes of ever meeting.
And out in LA, you have a young(er) teen Billy Hargrove who isn't able to really connect with his stepsister. In between auditions for modeling and acting, Max introduces him to horror movies while he tries to teach her how to skateboard. Billy comes to learn that he loves the genre but especially those of the b-c rank which- no. The Upside Down -only watchable via grainy Youtube quality until something happens- is top quality and nothing short of amazing in his mind. He especially loves the hot guy who swings a nail bat at the monsters that are only seen in flashes.
Time passes and it takes a while for anybody to really connect the fact that the guy credited in The Upside Down is the same one with thousands of followers on Insta and only ever tagged in Tiktok. All of his profiles have a bio that refers to an @ Dusty_ Buns and an @ Robinsnest. The guy never answers DM's and his posts have gone from cutesy and sweet to more aesthetically pleasing. Which kind of makes sense because a) Steve's accounts are all run by kids (mostly Dustin and closely followed by Mike) and b) he has no idea that his social accounts are, like, actually a thing.
Check mark certified and everything.
So it's great.
Until Corroded Coffin starts... falling apart. One member wants to go to college and another wants to settle down even if they're just young. They hit fame pretty quick, multiple Emmy's and even hosted a time or two at the AMA's. They'd gone on two world tours with a plan of a third and have done US tours several times. So it starts falling apart and Eddie is still so, so committed.
He goes back to his roots.
Watches a video of a younger StevieCHarrington who sits behind a piano and sings Dancing Queen. It's something of a guilty favorite of his so when he finds out that his band -his family- is disbanding, he needs to relax somehow so he hits record not really knowing what to do or think.
Across the country, Billy initially swipes past the video Eddie posts because he's sitting in his makeup trailer only to swipe back up multiple times until he finds it again because-
He doesn't even think as he'd comment 'howd you know about the babysitter???' on his official accounts until his phone just blows up with notifications.
Billy's not sure how to take the musician dming him until he realizes that oh, yeah. He'd just broken the unspoken agreement between people who connected the babysitter in The Upside Down to the same one with the guy who had as many followers as he did. And Billy was in the finalizing agreements for a movie sure to be big and just got back from modeling for Milan so his follower count isn't exactly small.
And then the kids -all of them, ones that Max started following and ones that she's loosely collaborated with across state lines- all post.
There's the Wonder Twins, Dusty _ Buns, Mike, Lucas, Erica, Robinsnest and even Jonathan Byers, the director of The Upside Down, asking people to chill out before-
But it's pretty big news, actually. This mysterious guy from the middle of nowhere somehow gets pulled between a world re-known musician and an actor who is said to quickly be on the road of the best of the century.
And Steve- shit.
Poor, poor Steve Harrington who wakes up one day to go to the school where he works only to come face to face with cameras and flashes.
In a way, everybody gets what it wants about some sort of answer surrounding StevieCHarrington aka (insert acting alias) aka Steve Harrington but it's not the one they would have expected. You have people from the music, acting, fashion and however many other worlds just wanting to know what exactly is going on between Eddie Munson, Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington.
(You see my vision??)









