All I talk about is Steddie

Okay, how about... a no Upside Down AU where Steve graduates and leaves Hawkins. He and Nancy didn't last but it didn't blow up with her getting drunk and assigning him co-blame for the death of her best friend that she feels guilty about (Barb lives) or calling him and his love bullshit. He goes to college but is bored out of his mind majoring in business like his dad wanted, so he switches and studies to become a sports physical therapist instead. He still swims competitively but basketball is just for fun. He kisses at least one guy in college. He graduates. He meets a nice woman, they date and get engaged.

The night before his wedding Steve goes to sleep wondering if this is the life he wants. If he would be happier if he'd done things differently.

He wakes up and it's 1983 again. He's seventeen and remembers what happened in 1983's yesterday like it really was yesterday, but he also still clearly remembers being in his thirties and the perspective that came with all that life experience. It's... weird, he's kind of an adult in a teenager's body but not quite. He's got a note that yesterday's 1983 Steve wanted to slip into Nancy's locker today for their third meet-n-makeout in the bathroom.

Instead he goes to school and just sort of watches all of his peers, people who he simultaneously sees every day and hasn't spoken to or thought of in decades. He can see both with the clarity of hindsight and, you know, actual awareness that Tommy Hagan is a jerk and Carol Perkins is not nice and it's because they're so insecure they've turned climbing over other people to feel good about themselves into core aspects of their personalities. And he can see that Eddie the Freak Munson is the only one in school who really calls out and pushes back against that kind of thing, and that he (mostly) all bark and no bite, and collects lost, picked-on nerds to take under his wing, and is creative and opinionated and complex and... really cute, actually.

Steve doesn't know if this state of being old and young at the same time is a temporary thing or if he's really going to have to relive the entire second half of high school and the ensuing decades, but figures he has to assume the latter. He tries to talk things out with Tommy and Carol—probably shouldn't be surprised when they roll their eyes and start blowing him off. He tries to curb some of the bullying on the part of his fellow jocks, and is actually moderately successful. He spots a flyer for Corroded Coffin playing at the Hideout, goes on an impulse, and finds that he recognizes a surprising number of the covers they play from his "adult" memories. Eddie spots him in the sparse crowd and does a double so hard he promptly falls off the stage.

Because, unbeknownst to Steve and even to most of Eddie's friends, Eddie has the biggest crush on Steve. Mostly it's just been a physical attraction, but in recent weeks it seems like the King has turned over a new leaf and started being a reasonable human being. And now Steve is here, at a metal show? Looking surprisingly appropriately dressed for the occasion and also like he's actually having fun?

Steve rushes to help Eddie up and uses his future background in physical therapy to help him stretch out the leg or elbow or whatever Eddie banged up in his fall. And suddenly they're... kind of friends. Which is so weird. Eddie's bandmates are weirded out. Steve's friends at school are so baffled they just kind of ignore that it's happening. But Steve keeps showing up at Eddie's picnic table in the woods, sometimes to buy but mostly just to hang out and talk and... sit kinda close while making earnest eye contact... Sometimes their hands brush, and sometimes they share a joint between the two of them and that's, like, practically like their mouths are touching.

Basically, Steve has a perfectly fine life but then he also gets a chance to start over but with the knowledge that he can kiss guys and how to not be kind of a douchebag in high school, and he and Eddie Munson are going to end up kissing about it.

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He likely did and still does smoke pot, tbh. This may or may not be a problem for Steve personally, but obviously Eddie knows he can't just smoke around the kids—he literally works around kids for a living and would absolutely get in trouble for ever showing up to work stoned. So clearly he's capable of not lighting up around people he shouldn't, from young humans to people who simply do not wish to inhale. When he smokes, it's because he's in his own space or hanging out with friends who want to smoke.

Now I'm going to be honest, while he doesn't smoke all the time I don't think he would give it up entirely. Wouldn't want to and wouldn't see the need to. He doesn't get a worrying intensity of high or at a worrying frequency, he's not engaging in unsafe behaviors, he's not vaping, smoking weed isn't as bad for you as tobacco, he's not pressuring anyone to smoke with him or giving people who don't smoke any less of his time or attention because of that choice... It's not that big a deal? Now, if Eddie does move in he's not bringing his bongs and pipes and shit, but he can still smoke with his friends or get the occasional small pack of pre-rolls or something. Pot smoke doesn't seep into things to the same extent of cigarette smoke does

So whether or not this works kind of depends on Steve. What his history with weed is, if it has any associations with drinking for him, and just if it brings up any... stuff. It's entirely possible it might not. It might be fine, some couples are lucky like that.

But if it is, they can figure it out. Idk exactly how, which is why that's not a fic I'm writing. But Steve is in a good place, he's got a support system, he has a sponsor (Hopper, omg can it be Hopper) and maybe even a therapist, and he's got two kids who are definitely not above calling him out on acting squirrelly. And Eddie is a reasonable adult nerd-man who, even if he gets in a snit about something, is capable of recognizing that Steve is the love of his life and he doesn't want to lose him and the life they've built together over getting high on the weekends.

It's the same principle as giving up drinking. The difference is just that Eddie has more history with this one; it's far more of an ingrained habit. Maybe he got a little dependent on it for relaxation. Maybe it gives him a tiny bit of new insight on some of Steve's struggles, and he respects Steve even more than he already did for it. Does that make it less annoying that he has to give up something that he's pretty sure isn't a big deal and wasn't directly hurting anybody? Not really. But he'll do it, because he knows that he's the happiest he's ever been as part of Steve's family and that's worth holding on to. It's definitely as hard as taking senior year three times and still clawing his way to a high school diploma, and in the end he doesn't need to be even a quarter as dramatic about it.

Oh, and Robin 1000% hauls him to Al-Anon exactly once. Beyond that it's his choice, but she demands he at least see what it's like: support around living with an alcoholic, even one in recovery.

He ends up deciding to keep going, at least every now and then, but goes to a different group than Robin because like. He's not going to talk about her platonic soulmate in a potentially non-complimentary light and risk her eviscerating him, are you kidding? She is scary when she wants to be. One time she threatened to throw a Molotov cocktail at his van if he ever breaks Steve's heart. She looked him dead in the eye and says she has experience. Eddie is not taking any chances.