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symbioticsimplicity · 2 years

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I don’t need to be up this early but this idea won’t leave me.

So, Steddie Battle of the Bands AU featuring punk!Steve.

Corroded Coffin join a battle of the bands competition run out of a little bar just outside Indianapolis, expecting fully to make it all the way. There’s not a lot of musicians in their area and out of all of them, CC have the most milage and the most unique sound. Sure, it’s metal, but in the bigger city that’s not the death sentence it would be back in Hawkins.

For the most part, they’re right. There’s a little pop trio that do okay, a Bob Dylan type with an acoustic and the flattest, most nasal tone Eddie has ever heard, a rock outfit with a drummer who’s clearly on speed and fixing to pull a Spinal Tap, and one very old dude who’s there more for the fun than to actually compete. They’re a shoe-in.

Except there’s a punk band that were running a little late, and manage to take stage literally just as they’re being called. The Demogorgons, they’re called.

Eddie is pissed the instant he sees them, firstly because he’s been on sight with punks since ‘84 when a flock of the little shits dissed Dio to his fucking face. Second because out of all the things they could have been called, they picked a DND creature??! In Eddie’s house??? Who the fuck did they think they were?!

The longer Eddie watches them play (he can’t leave until they announce who’s moving on from this round, he’s literally a captive audience), the more pissed off he gets because they’re good.

The lead guitarist is a girl with dark, short hair mostly hiding her face, but she’s absolutely slaying their cover of White Wedding, adding more than was originally in the song seemingly on the fly. It’s beautiful, as a guitarist himself he can at least begrudgingly respect her talent.

The bassist is also a girl with short hair who seems like she’s in her own world, totally lost in the music and jamming so hard Eddie can’t really look at her for too long without getting sucked in with her.

The drummer looks like an absolute madman, big buff blonde guy who looks like he’d bite if anyone got too close to him. He’s bare chested, showing off a few tattoos and a couple piercings that make him far more interesting than Eddie cares to admit.

But the singer/ rhythm guitarist, is what is really tripping Eddie up.

He’s prettier than he has any goddamn need to be, and he’s weirdly smiley for a punk. Like being on stage is his happy place, which Eddie can relate to, even if he hates admitting any commonalities between them at all. His voice too, is lovely. It’s not the typical scratchy punk sound, it’s high and airy and from a technical standpoint (only that, Eddie swears) it’s really good. And he seems like he’s not having any trouble playing and singing at the same time, which is shitty as hell because Eddie still does sometimes.

Before their set ends, Eddie has decided he hates them. He hates them, so much.

So much in fact, he goes over to heckle them once they finish.

It goes south almost immediately.

He was right, the drummer is definitely a maniac. It’s like he was waiting for an excuse to fight someone. And given how fast the singer snatches him up after he decks Eddie, this is a frequent thing. The singer and the drummer posture at each other and for a second Eddie thinks they’re about to fight.

But evidently the drummer thinks better of it and stalks off to start helping put their gear up.

The singer apologizes for his bandmate, even though Eddie started the fight, and introduces himself as Steve, the drummer being named Billy. He’s a good kid, Steve tells him, just angry and still learning where to put that anger. He offers to buy Eddie a drink for his trouble, and he’s so floored he ends up accepting.

To Eddie’s surprise, they end up talking, and they end up talking a lot. Steve is easy to talk to, and he listens like what Eddie has to say is important. When he talks, it’s with this sardonic edge to it that reminds Eddie of sour candy. Before he knows it, it’s been like three hours, and it’s time to announce who’s advancing to the next round.

To Eddie’s complete lack of surprise, Corroded Coffin make it through, but so do The Demogorgons. Steve congratulates him, sincerely, and Eddie stutters out the same.

They part ways for the night, but the pretty punk with the prettier smile won’t leave Eddie’s thoughts.

Cue CC telling Eddie to get his head in the game, trying to head off the crush they can spot forming. They know him well enough to know the signs, and they don’t need him pulling a Romeo and Juliet with some punk he met for one night.

Little do they know, The Demogorgons are having a similar chat with their own lead. They’ve worked too hard to have Steve get distracted, or worse, go soft, over some greasy metalhead he’s only talked to like, once. Steve of course promises that he won’t. After all, it’s not like he’s really going to see him much, and Steve isn’t easy, he has to get to know someone to fall for them.

Cut to a week later when one Steve Harrington is dropping Dustin off at his DND thingy, only to see none other than Eddie Munson perched at the head of the table. He’s explaining what their quest is for the night, or something, and he’s so animated, so into it, he doesn’t notice Steve frozen in the doorway.

Steve makes it out before Eddie sees him, but from that moment on it’s like he’s every where Steve goes. They bump into each other constantly, Hawkins is a small town, it’s easy to do. It gets to be such a regular thing that Eddie makes a joke about following Steve, and Steve sings that Rockwell song about being followed and they find themselves laughing together again.

It’s easy, really. Too easy. And before they know it, whenever they bump into each other, they end up talking for a while. It’s just a few minutes, they both reason to themselves, a few minutes is fine.

But a few minutes turns into an hour, turns into a couple hours, turns into a smoke sesh at Eddie’s, turns into a jam sesh at Steve’s, and before they know it, they’re missing each other when the other isn’t around.

Of course it isn’t long before Gareth notices his best friend’s preoccupation, and Robin could clock Steve’s daydreamy look three miles away. They each come clean to their respective long-suffering bestie.

Neither are happy, but they both care more about their friend than some stupid band competition. They know the rest of their bands won’t be happy, and that could be a pain, so rather than being even slightly reasonable, they hatch a plan.

Eddie and Steve are determined to be the punk-metal version of Romeo and Juliet, but that doesn’t mean their story has to be a tragedy. This is a musical, afterall. What better to do than bridge the gap with the power of music.

So the next time Eddie and Steve hang out, they both spend probably fifteen minutes uncomfortably dancing around trying to ask the other to write a song with them.

Steve cracks first, because seeing Eddie uncomfortable is so fucking bizarre it trumps his own nerves and he has to ask what’s going on. Eddie decides to be brave and takes the leap, asks Steve what he’s got to ask, and to his surprise Steve tells him he was going to ask the same thing.

They haven’t really talked about it, the tension between them, but it boils over when Steve tries to explain why he wants to write a song with Eddie. Eddie can’t watch him flounder for a second more, when he knows he could just be kissing him instead.

He takes Steve by the jaw and kisses the soul out of him. If they weren’t sold they were doing the right thing before, the kiss seals the deal.

They spend the night trading kisses and lyrics in equal measure, alternating between strumming strings and heartstrings until they’re both so caught up in creation, in each other, they’re harmonic.

After that, they hit crunch time. The battle of the bands is next week, and learning a whole new song is a pain in the ass for both bands. It’ll be worth it, but Jeff doesn’t know that and Billy doesn’t care.

The boys make time to see each other, but of course, they get caught.

Band practice gets postponed on both sides of the fence. They know they shouldn’t, it’s stupid, but Eddie spent the day getting harassed by a flock of “Concerned Christian Mothers” who were not shy about telling him exactly what they thought about him, and would not get the hell out of his face about it. Steve is a caretaker down to his bones, and doesn’t think twice about going to care for his metalhead.

Nancy however isn’t stupid, and Grant knows damn well Eddie would only postpone practice if something was genuinely wrong. So Nancy follows Steve to see what the hell could be so important to him that he’d call off practice, and Grant goes to bring Eddie a care package.

Nancy isn’t happy about finding the two spooning on Eddie’s couch, but she doesn’t make as much of a fuss about it as Grant does. Grant goes off about sleeping with the enemy and treachery and the metalhead code of honor (which he made up right there on the spot), but the real bucket of cold water is Nancy telling Steve how disappointed she is that he pulled them all into this, made them care about it, only to waste his time chasing after someone instead of putting his heart into the music the way they all had been. She asks him to get serious, then leaves.

Steve excuses himself, ignoring Eddie’s pleas to wait a second, come back, please, let’s talk about this.

They don’t see each other again until the night of the show.

The competition threw them a curveball, however. None of them know until they get there, see the layout of the big warehouse like space, but instead of playing one after the other, the competition is amp versus amp. CC are freaking out a little bit because they’ve never played that way before, and Eddie is picking up an acoustic, why the hell did he even bring an acoustic, what’s going on?? The Demogorgons are equally nervous, this being a first for them too, and Steve is quiet, so quiet, he’s never like this before shows, what’s going on??

Despite everyone’s nerves and fears, the two bands take their places on the two stages, on opposite ends of the room from one another.

Eddie introduces Corroded Coffin with the same flare he usually does, but tells the audience that tonight’s performance is going to be a little different than their usual. He finishes with “This one’s for you, Juliet.”

He starts strumming the acoustic, the song he and Steve had written together filling the space, warm and full and a wild departure from their usual sound. He’d gone over it with the guys, added some polish to it, made it more metal, but he’d asked them to hold off on that until he cued them.

“And hey darling, I hope you’re good tonight. And I know you don’t feel right when I’m leaving-”

The rest of Corroded Coffin have never heard Eddie sing like this, didn’t even know he could. Usually he was all growls and grit and demon noises he’d figured out how to imitate. They had no idea he was even capable of making a song sound so beautiful.

Eddie continues singing his heart out, strumming his guitar, praying that Steve picks up on what he’s doing, joins him at the drop, doesn’t leave him again. He’s nearly convinced himself he’s going to end up singing the whole thing alone, and God how stupid would that be, that when he reaches the switching point, he nearly drops his guitar when Steve’s voice rises up to meet him. A spotlight flicks on, illuminating him as he sings into the microphone, playing his own part of the accompanyment.

“And hey, sweetie, well I need you here to night. And I know you don’t wanna be leaving me here tonight-”

Steve’s voice is the perfect counterbalance to Eddie’s. It’s light where his is heavy, soft where his is gritty. It showcases their duality, while highlighting how good they are together and Eddie would cry if he weren’t on stage.

He takes the next verse as planned, but Steve’s voice stays with him, harmonizing along side him so perfectly it’s as if they’ve been singing together for years rather than about a week.

“You know you can’t give me what I need, and even though you mean so much to me, I can’t wait through everything.”

That’s different, not the line they wrote together. It lands like a gut punch when Eddie looks up and sees Steve’s expression. He’s not smiling. He always smiles on stage.

“Is this really happening?” Eddie sings back without missing a beat, knowing the next verse is his, meaning it might be his only chance. He prays to every muse he’s ever had to lend him the improv skills to land this.

To his suprise, he hears Jeff’s heavy guitar start to build, Grant’s bass swooping in beside it to flank him. When he turns his head to check, they both give him the nod, the one that’s always meant they’re beside him, for better or worse. It gives him to courage to put his soul into the words he’s about to spit.

“I swear I’ll never be happy again, and don’t you dare say we can just be friends, I’m not some boy that you can sway.”

There’s a half a second pause in the music, just long enough to wreck Eddie’s heartrate. He can see Steve’s face from here, not clearly enough to make out every emotion that flashes across it, but enough to see when it lands on determination.

“We knew it’d happen eventually.” He and Steve sing, or in his case shout, in tandem.

Corroded Coffin fall back in with them, and to Eddie’s utter surprise, The Demogorgons join them. The sound of two bands playing the climax of the song he and Steve had written together hits Eddie so hard he can barely sing past the balloon of emotion swelling in his chest.

The crowd reminds him they’re there, joining in on the chorus of ‘La la las’ going around the room, their voices loud enough to shake the walls. It’s everything Eddie has ever wanted from a crowd, and it’s way too much along with everything else going on right now. Eddie can’t focus on it, not when Steve is staring him down from across the room.

“If you can wait ‘till I get home, then I swear we can make this last.” Eddie belts, Steve’s higher register wrapping around the notes the same way his hands wrap around his mic.

Both bands let the song taper out, leaving just the crowd echoing back the words to them, just Steve and Eddie singing to each other.

Eddie reaches out his hand, as if he could take Steve’s in his despite the distance. Steve once again meets him halfway, extending his own hand as if to bridge the distance.

The lights go down and the crowd is still chanting. It takes longer to settle them down than it does to make the decision to shrug off his guitar and run to his boy. Eddie hesitates only to look over at his bandmates.

They look exhasperated, but fond. Grant rolls his eyes and tells him to go kiss his stupid punk or whatever.

Eddie is off in an instant.

He finds Steve tearing his way over to him, runs straight into him almost the same way he’d run into him the first time they met outside of a venue.

There aren’t words, they don’t need them, already sung them. There’s just Steve and Eddie and how badly they’ve missed each other. The apologies and affirmations can come later, when their mouths aren’t so busy kissing the life from one another.

In the back of his mind, Eddie registers some of the crowd around them wolf whistling, but for once he doesn’t give much of a shit what the crowd thinks of him.

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