Steve Harrington Who Doesn't Die. No Matter What, He'll Wake Up Afterwards. He Learned It Young When

Modern!Steddie (This is based on something I read a while back on Tumblr about Eddie becoming famous, Steve getting doxxed, and years later singing Hozier's Francesca to Eddie. I'll look for the fic, and if I find it, I'll put the link here.) EDIT: This is the fic here, guys. I recommend reading it. (https://archiveofourown.org/works/48091627/chapters/121266283)

Steve has always been one of the popular kids, but not the kind of childish villains you see in movies. No, he was popular because he was handsome, had rich parents, was charismatic, and was good at sports. He didn't bully other kids, but he wasn't interested in them either.

He never felt the need to seek out new connections at school, because he'd had Tommy and Carol for years, and anyone new who wanted to talk to him would come to him. He didn't have to work hard to make new friends.

His time was spent on sports and the friends he already had. The occasional girlfriend, too, because he'd always been a romantic at heart and a lonely kid. Being best friends with a couple would also make him feel like a third wheel a lot, so having a girlfriend and double dates seemed cool.

Then he got into a fight with Tommy and Carol after that graffiti episode in the movies and they drifted apart. Tommy wasn't mean about it, but he was resentful and hostile, because they were best friends and it always sucks to lose a friend to a boyfriend/girlfriend who you think cheated on them.

After a year, when he and Nancy broke up, he, Tommy and Carol didn't get back together, but they weren't hostile, you could tell they felt bad for him. Steve wanted to be friends with them again, he just didn't feel right crawling back with his tail between his legs and he also felt guilty that they never reconnected before. He didn't want it to seem like he only got back together because he was single.

He's still popular, but now his best friends aren't around anymore and he got cheated on by his girlfriend, but he feels like he deserved it (let's just say the story they made up about Barbara dying was real and the trauma grew into a monster and consumed their entire relationship). So he feels alone.

He has the kids. But Dustin thinks he's awesome and he doesn't want to be anything less, Lucas also sees him as a hero, willing to take a beating for him, Max looks up to him as a big brother. Will is Jonathan's brother and has traumas, so Steve would never dump his problems on the kid. Mike is Nancy's brother.

All of his real friends are kids.

So, Eddie. Steve isn't lonely around school, he still interacts with other students, he's friendly with the popular crowd, a lot of people like him. He just has these moments where he seems sad and then suddenly he seems super chill again.

Anyone who looks closely can tell he's got a problem and pretends not to, but it's not obvious. Eddie doesn't think much of it at first. He actually finds it amusing, because he has a lot of shallow and superficial ideas about popular kids who conform to the norm and who are well-off.

Eddie comes over when he sees Steve reading a DnD rulebook. He mocks it a bit, but explains a few things and Steve, who has always been a social butterfly and never cared much about sitting at the same table as some group in the cafeteria, sits down with Hellfire.

Not with the intention of being their friend, just because he wanted to ask them questions, take notes and move on with his life. A brief connection, a friendly interaction. No different from his relationship with most people who are part of his social circle.

But Eddie keeps pulling him closer, invites him to join the Hellfire Club. Steve declines, because he likes the stories and wanted to learn about DnD because of the kids, but he feels insecure about being a player, about roleplaying, he's afraid of making the wrong decisions and ruining something that seems to be so important to their friends (both the kids and Eddie).

Eventually, they fall in love.

Steve graduates without much distinction and Eddie barely makes it, but they are free from high school. While Eddie continues to play concerts at the Hideout with the CC boys, Steve works at Scoops Ahoy and makes friends with Robin.

So, when Eddie decides to leave, Steve asks them to wait a little, to save up more money, to get better organized. If they stayed for a whole year, Robin could even leave with them. When Eddie doesn't agree, he says they can continue their relationship long-distance. After all, it's 2010 and there's technology for that.

Eddie leaves anyway, believing that Steve will regret it and look for him, understand that leaving is the right choice and blah blah blah. Steve can't leave yet, because if he moves out, if he doesn't follow the path his parents have laid out, he'll give up any illusion of family he might have had. His car is in his father's name, he doesn't have much savings, he's still not open about being bisexual and he's terrified of leaving his entire life behind. It's hard in Hawkins, but facing the whole world, the uncertainty, not having a home to go back to… It scares him. Eddie doesn't understand, because if nothing else worked out for him, he could go back to Wayne and be welcomed with open arms.

One of Eddie's first hit songs is about a preppy, popular, charismatic kid who's the captain of the swim team and lives in Loch Nora who starts dating him in his senior year and gets stuck in a shitty job at the mall. It's easy to figure out who Steve is. People at school find out quickly.

I like to think Carol is the one who alerts him, goes to his job to tell him the rumors. Tommy goes with her. Although Carol is kinder and more open and Tommy keeps his distance, as if he might be infected, he also tells Steve to be careful, for old times' sake.

Either way, he becomes a target. The students tell their parents that they believe the hit song is about Steve. This story even gets around the church that his parents donate to and "attend" when they're around. His parents' friends find out. His business partners find out. His parents, too.

His parents suddenly move back home. It was a huge fight, with his mother accusing him of being possessed, suggesting a treatment to "cure" him. Mr. Harrington said it was due to a lack of beatings. Either way, it ended with him bleeding alone in the street.

A few days later, he and Robin managed to return to "steal" some of his belongings back, including documents. Other than that, he lost everything.

Mr. Wheeler didn't even want him to get close to Mike anymore.

For a while, he spends his days between the Hendersons' couch and Robin's bedroom floor, feeling like shit and listening to the music Eddie wrote over and over again.

After that, he sells his cell phone, his laptop, whatever he managed to keep. Robin also sells some of her things and the kids help with this small fundraising, selling cakes and sweets. Even Tommy and Carol seek them out, providing almost 50% of the money. That way, Steve is able to leave with a few months' rent saved.

Wayne also helped, because he knew that Eddie's music was responsible for this. Steve told him never to talk about everything that happened with Eddie, so Wayne kept it a secret.

I think Tommy, Carol and Steve could get back to being friends. Not the same as before, but they have lunch together every few months and they were the ones who helped Steve get a job in a new city.

A few months later, Corroded Coffin is well established, about to release its first album. Robin goes to college and Steve and she move in together.

That's when other people start to find out who Steve is too. It starts with a post on Reddit, people speculating about him, which is the central theme of several songs, although none are as explicit about his identity as the first. His parents receive some hate mail, they make a point of sending it to the Buckleys and Steve finds out. What hurts the most is knowing that his parents never gave him any of his belongings, but they found a way to let him know that people he didn't even know hated him.

He gets some hate messages too, because, although he deleted his old accounts, the new ones are easy to find through the profiles of people who knew him before all this. So, they're probably students from school, people know what Robin's social networks are, finding him.

There isn't much hate coming his way because he's careful to keep to the shadows, and thankfully the speculation about Steve Harrington being responsible for breaking Eddie Munson's heart doesn't go that far, after all, there's nothing to keep fueling those theories.

One of the things that connected Eddie to Steve was music. I like to think of Steve as a musician, like Joe Keery is. If Eddie can pour out his anger through music, he can also pour his heart into it. He writes Unknown/Nth and posts it to an anonymous YouTube account. He sings with an acoustic guitar, without showing his face.

For a while, this feels like closure.

Steve still gets hate mail sometimes, even though he deletes the old accounts and creates new ones. Everyone in Hawkins seems to know about him and Eddie. The kids, who hated Eddie for a while, have reluctantly started to admire him again. Steve reassured them about this, but they all remained bitter about everything that happened.

Steve, for his part, has vacillated between hating Eddie and hating himself. Most of the time, he still feels like he maybe loves Eddie a little bit, as if he’s stuck on that last day they saw each other. Sometimes he blames himself for making the wrong decision. Other times he thinks that if he hadn't stayed in Hawkins, Eddie might never have made it big.

His feelings for Eddie are complicated.

So, about 5 years after the breakup, there's a documentary about the beginning of Corroded Coffin. Something not produced by them. Maybe by a fan? Who goes to Hawkins, talks to people, tells them about Steve, exposes Steve and it goes viral on social media.

His life goes to shit very quickly. Eddie doesn't even notice at first, because CC is on a world tour and they never have free time. Meanwhile, Steve becomes well-known on social media and gets some hate mail.

Things change a bit when someone, seeing old photos of Steve, posts on Reddit that they have a crazy theory: there's a song they've been listening to for years, that's a lost gem in the depths of YouTube and they swear that's Steve Harrington, because the moles match and you can see a Hawkins High jacket in the background. It's a pretty crazy theory, so it doesn't get much attention, but the song gains momentum.

Eddie finds out because, once he learned everything that happened, he started researching everything about Steve, trying to measure how much he ruined his life.

Assuming people find out that the song is really about Eddie, I think he could become the target of hate, almost as much as Steve did, because Unknown/Nth is a powerful song.

That's what I've thought, for now. They get back together in the end because Eddie's actions had terrible consequences, but he never meant to hurt Steve like that and the biggest culprits for everything that happened are his parents. The hate from the fans wasn't that intense until the documentary, so it was hard to notice.

Anyway, they have a long way to go. A talk to clear up their last fight, a lengthy apology from Eddie, reconnecting with the kids, getting back to being friends.

It would be terribly sad and difficult. It definitely wouldn't be a fairy tale, but they could learn to trust each other. Eddie could earn Steve's trust, affection, and friendship, and one day they could be a couple again.

comic

Hellooooooooooo SOLDIER.

Stranger Things textposts -> Eddie’s Version

platonic!stobin and what if: steve died in s3 and became a ghost to haunt robbie (and eddie can sometimes see n hear him too)

I think is pretty obvious who is my fav character; Steve Harrington is in my mind 24/7, but I love him not just because of him but because of the concept of him.

It's easy to put anything you want in him. Like. All the interpretations people have about his parents? YES, good, make total sence. Why? Because we don't know anything about them, except for one or two things and that's just for what Steve had said.

Him knowing characters that barely interacted with him? It's not like we have seen a lot of him out side of the upside down problems.

More trauma than the series show? I mean, they already ignore the trauma he has endure through out all the seasons, what's some more.

Steve being a pretty decent guy even before canon contrary of what they want us to belive? It's not like they showed us a lot of bully qualities of him.

Like- yes, i know you can mold all the characters You like into what you want but how much until is a completely different character? Steve is very versatil, you can change A LOT about him, put as many headcanons as you want and still have a resemblence of what makes Steve Steve.

It's no surprise people love him, he can be a lot of things, anything you want and still make sense that is him.

Punk! Steve? YES.

Teacher! Steve? Give it to me.

Hairdresser! Steve? There is not enough of him.

Baker! Steve? I need more of him.

Athlete! Steve? Of course.

Rock Star! Steve? Yeah, why not.

Actor! Steve? He's been acting half his like, why don't make a profession out of it.

Single parent! Steve? There is a lot of ways to make it happened!

Gay! Steve? Comphet is a bitch.

Bisexual! Steve? Have you seen all his homoerotic scenes?

Trans! Steve? Either way you want him, that guy's gender is funky.

HoH! Steve / Deaf! Steve? That boy has more than enough head trauma to last a life.

007! Steve? Maybe he just doesn't remember his childhood, like El; maybe he was a failed experiment.

Just- do you catch what i'm trying to say?

I had the funny thought of a soulmate au in which you can hear your soulmate’s thoughts specifically when they think about you, so you what their thoughts regarding you and whatnot, very cute could be very funny.

But I imagine Steddie still in high school. Steve not really thinking about Eddie in particular besides the occasional passing “what is he doing on that table”, “I wonder if he is selling after school today” and once a “that’s a cool jacket” which leaves Eddie on a high for the rest of the week.

Steve in the other hand keeps hearing the most raunchiest, horny, things imaginable sitting in class like “this girl wants to do what to my ass???”

Steve Harrington: Sexiest Man Alive People Magazine, 1998

Happy turkey day to those that celebrate, I’m thinking about Steve who has absent, borderline neglectful parents but THAT’S ACTUALLY OKAY it’s actually perfect on holidays because Steve’s pretty extroverted and probably has a large group of friends extending from close to “we’re on the same basketball team and Steve will high five your face if you don’t get your hand up fast enough”

so really all he’s gotta do it bat those puppy eyes at some unsuspecting mom and BAM invited to holiday dinner. He probably does rounds, and thankfully he has teenage boy metabolism because he probably manages to fit 7 different moms’ dinner in in one day

And sure, after he graduates he’s not sure if it’s good manners to show up at old teammates’ doorsteps. BUT THEN Mrs. Henderson looks at him mid-November and totally claims him for the day where she’s hosting her brother’s family too. Except Dustin brags to Lucas and Lucas gets jealous so Steve then also has to show up at the Sinclair’s in the evening. Max is already there so Steve drives her home that night with leftovers. (Mike is very secretly butthurt about all of this and is really nasty to Nancy the weeks of thanksgiving and Christmas.)

(Robin’s family doesn’t DO thanksgiving but instead goes camping for the week. Robin hates this, and they wouldn’t let Steve join them even though he had his own tent so she hates it MORE. She tries to mutiny but her mom gives her these sad teary eyes and cries about Robin growing up too fast and robin’s fate is sealed. She and Steve instead have their own tradition of movies and junk food the weekend after, so Robin gets reintroduced real food again. So while Buckley’s aren’t on the thanksgiving rotation, Robin gets special Christmas privileges and Steve stays over on Christmas Eve.)

So by the time Eddie is in the picture, Steve already has standing expectations for his presence that’s not just a drive-by plate cleaning, and he’s kinda sad, he and Wayne don’t usually do much and Wayne has to work usually. But actually how dare he be sad, because Steve’s like “🤨 you’re coming too, stupid” and he Eddie and max go to each house like trick or treaters but for turkey.

Then Steve gets close with Eddie’s friends and they have to start splitting holidays like children of divorce.

One time Steve gets it in his head to hold friends giving the week before. He never does it again.

name a more fix-it-fic shippable character than steve harrington i’ll wait