as i’ve mentioned eight hundred times, i got really into Stranger Things again over the last year, and i’ve read, conservatively, a metric shit-ton of fic about it. one of the things i’ve been really enjoying is the relative presence of long, plotty, canon-related fics. so this is a fic rec list for those! plenty of these are ship fics, and the shipping is heavily weighted towards steve/eddie, but not entirely, and my focus was more on ‘interesting plot’ than on romance. fic lengths range from 30k to over 200k. i cannot promise that the way i grouped these fics will make sense to you, but they make sense to me and hopefully they give you some idea of what kind of fics they all are!

alternate seasons

view from a bridge
palmviolet
173,740
Pre Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Robin Buckley/Kali Prasad

January 1986. In an icy small town way up north, the Byers struggle to make ends meet. The others, left in Hawkins, struggle to move on from the past. The Department of Energy has its eyes on all of them.
And the Upside Down isn't done with them yet.

In A Strange Land
MrsEvadneCake
180,411
Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair

Doom comes to Hawkins, Indiana. Population est. 30,000.
It’s cold, that’s all, and the breeze is kicking up. That’s why Steve feels the chill go up his spine like someone dropped an ice-cube down his back.
“Why wouldn’t I be real, El?”
“The Aboleth got you.”

the road goes ever on
MaryPSue
251,658
canonical pairings

The Battle of Starcourt has been won, but its aftershocks are still rippling. Separated from the rest of the Party, Will struggles with feelings of abandonment, while El is trying to find her place with the Byers and come to terms with the loss of her powers - and the closest thing she's ever had to a father. Back in Hawkins, life is slowly returning to normal, or at least as normal as life ever is. The Party are starting to adjust to having two of their members at a distance, though everyone's still missing El and Will, Mike most of all.
But life in Hawkins never stays normal for long. Someone - or something - is following Steve and Robin, and they may not be the only ones under surveillance. A spectre from El's past makes an unexpected - and unwanted - reappearance. And an old enemy may turn out to be much more than meets the eye.
And sometimes, the bad guys are smart, too.
Separated by miles and misunderstandings, with communications failing and their enemies somehow always one step ahead, Hawkins' strange little fellowship find themselves caught between holding on and moving forward. If they want to survive to see another November, they'll have to face the past - and each other.

the light (had too much to dream last night)
palmviolet
86,430
Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper

lights flicker whenever joyce gets angry. somehow, that’s not the worst of her problems.
// or, the joyce has powers au we never knew we needed. au post s2.

Salvage
chiiyo86
61,518
Will Byers/Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler

Halloween is approaching and the mood is gloomy in Hawkins. Everyone is still reeling from the summer's events, Will struggles with the anniversary effect, Eleven mourns Hopper and the loss of her powers, and Mike is coming to some very uncomfortable realizations about himself and his feelings. When Will and Eleven separately receive signs that Hopper might not be dead but trapped in the Upside Down, the party will have to rally together despite turmoils created by the romantic entanglement between Will, Eleven and Mike.

canon rewrites and canon divergence

better by you, better than me
palmviolet
347,983
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Eddie Munson & Everyone

November 1983. Between unpaid bills, the supposedly straight jock he’s seeing, and letters from his convict dad, seventeen year old Eddie Munson’s got enough to worry about. But when Will Byers goes missing, it sparks a chain of events that will show there are more depths to Hawkins — and to certain people in it, like infamous Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington — than he realizes.
/ or, the excessively long slow-burn in which Eddie is involved in the Upside Down from the very beginning.

paradise by the dashboard light.
oaseas
154,035
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Robin Buckley & Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington

Things were weird in Hawkins. The fields were rotting, there was something in the woods, and Steve Harrington's Beemer had a new problem every week.

Chrissy and Eddie’s Infinite Mixtape
LovelyThings
263,609
Chrissy Cunningham/Eddie Munson

Eddie was right when he told the Hellfire kids that there's no shame in running, which is why he takes a running leap to grab for the floating cheerleader in his living room.
OR:
Chrissy lives and fixes what the Duffers broke.
--------
Come for the canon-close Season 4 rewrite, stay for the explanatory chapter notes and the healing.

everything changes, what a shame
andiwriteordie
62,407
Will Byers/Mike Wheeler

“And us?” Will challenges. He looks Mike directly in the eye, nearly taking Mike’s breath away once again. Mike’s heart races inside his chest.
“We’re friends,” Mike says defensively. The implications of Will’s words aren’t lost on him, so for good measure, Mike emphasizes, “We’re friends, Will.”
“Yeah well, we used to be best friends, Mike!” Will shouts, and his voice cracks again.
Or:
In the aftermath of the Battle of Starcourt, Owens immediately sends the Byers and El away from Hawkins with specific instructions to not contact anyone until things have cooled down. Now, nearly two years later, Mike finds himself in California for what will either be the best—or the worst—spring break of his life.
(Aka my season 4, Mike-centric, Byler rewrite)

you’re not much, goodness knows
EskaWrites
53,436
Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler

“It’s about your mother.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Nancy asks sharply.
But she knows. As Powell sighs again, looking helplessly down at his feet for an explanation he doesn’t have, she knows. As Steve looks anxiously between them—as behind her, Max peeks around the corner and starts walking closer—she knows.
or, the Karen gets vecna'd fic

Nightswimming
eriquin
265,009
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Eddie Munson’s social circle had never intersected with Steve Harrington’s, even though they’d been in the same high school for the last four years, but you could say the same thing for everyone who gave the school freak a wide berth. He’d been tangentially aware of the rise and fall of King Steve as much as anyone else with ears, but he’d never given him much thought other than that. He’d been more focused on his own problems, like trying to figure out how to not fail his senior year a second time.
All of that changes one night in February of ‘85, when a nasty encounter with the new popular kids leaves Eddie cursing his bad luck. But this one bad turn leads to a rapid expansion of his circle of friends. Nancy Wheeler has brains and a frightening level of focus, Jonathan Byers is hiding hidden depths beneath his quiet loner personality, and Steve...
Steve is a literal life-saver.
Eddie wants to bite him and see if there are sparks.

nothing else matters
bigskyandthecoldgun
279,729
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

“You ask a lot of questions about me,” Steve tells him.
“Because you’re interesting,” Munson says, quiet and honest. “You’re a lot different than what I’ve heard.”
Steve hums, eyes closed. “Yeah,” he says, eyes fluttering open when Munson takes the joint from him again, “you are, too.
or:
steve ditches the prom to get high.

the Hawkins, Indiana psychic baby boom [series]
MaryPSue
229,047 [two complete parts, with a third to come]
mostly canonical relationships

They don’t talk about it.
But Joyce Byers knows – when her youngest son goes missing, she knows he’s still out there. And the moment she sees that first light flicker, she knows it’s Will.
Because it’s not the first time he’s made something like that happen.
-----
It’s been nearly a year since Will Byers spent a week trapped in another world. In that year, everything and nothing has changed for the handful of people in Hawkins, Indiana, who share an unbelievable secret. The Wheelers have learned the truth, the Byers have found a community, and El is starting to build a new life with her friends – a life she never imagined could be possible.
But not everything is peaceful in sleepy Hawkins…

Empty Space
Paryton
293,928
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Max Mayfield & Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & The Party

Eddie is walking around in a dead man’s shoes.
-
In the aftermath of the Starcourt mall fire, Hawkins mourns their dead (Steve Harrington among them), the town’s unsung heroes grapple with grief, and Eddie Munson gears up for his final (fingers-crossed) year of high school and stubbornly tries not to get attached to the party of sad freshmen trailing behind him, bleeding heart be damned.

season-4-related fix-its

I've seen your face before, my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am
HMSLusitania
26,952
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

At the end of it all, to fix everything, the Hawkins crew had to go back to 1983 and prevent the first gate from ever opening.
After that, they've got a chance to lead normal lives -- from November 1983 onward.
OR
Waking up to find out the government had busted a bunch of experimented-on kids out of Hawkins Lab over the weekend is somehow not the strangest thing that happens in Eddie Munson's junior year.
No, that's a toss up between being reverse-adopted by a party of middle schoolers and the fact Steve Harrington won't stop staring at him.

do not let this one end (before you emerge as the winner)
phonemicengineer
119,786
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Steve knows the complicated jumble of feelings that Eddie is dealing with well–it’s the way he felt while Dustin told him not to worry about Max driving the car, pressing an ice pack to his battered face, the way he felt when he realized that, despite everything, they hadn’t been willing to leave him behind.
To be loved, to be shown love, is a concept that Steve still struggles with, even when he craves it desperately.
Or: Going into the Upside Down unprotected has consequences and everyone comes back Weird

how a resurrection really feels
LiarsandThieves22
176,182
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

“We saved the world,” Robin said, softly. “And that had some side effects.”
--
On July 5th, 1987, Steve Harrington bleeds to death in the Upside Down helping his friends defeat Vecna.
Four days later he wakes up in his bed in Hawkins, in a world where the Upside Down never existed.

The Last in Line
xiaq
30,738
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

“Sorry,” Steve says. “I’m sorry, I know this doesn’t make any sense to you, but can I just–”
Eddie lets him approach, this time. Lets him reach out to touch, to curl his fingers in the hem of Eddie’s shirt.
“Sorry, I know I probably sound crazy, I just––” he pulls it up, stares at Eddie’s side, and then lets out a hysterical little noise that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a sob.
“You’re ok,” Steve says.
His fingers are hot on Eddie’s skin, pressed light and shockingly reverent to the space between his hip and rib cage.
“You’re ok,” he repeats. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Hey,” Eddie says. It comes out more breathless than he’d prefer but Steve fucking Harrington has him backed against a wall in a bathroom with his hands up Eddie’s shirt so he thinks a little lack of air is warranted. “Are you ok?”
The fingers on his abdomen flex. "No,” Steve says. His eyes are wide and fathomless and the look on his face is terrible. “No, I’m not even remotely ok.”

a special privilege for the resurrected
theopteryx
56,023
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Three weeks to the day after they all tried to kill Vecna the first time—three weeks to the day after Eddie died, after Vecna broke Hawkins open, broke Max open—they finally kill him for good. And the craziest part of it isn't even that they win, really—it's that Eddie's there to see it.

Weakened Like Achilles, with You Always at My Heels
HMSLusitania
53,969
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

The graduating classes of 1985 and 1986 invite YOU back to West Hawkins! Welcome reception Friday, May 24th at 7:30pm. School and town tour to follow on Saturday morning. Memorial service Sunday.
* If you are a graduate of the class of 1985 and need driving directions to West Hawkins, please RSVP
* Due to current government restrictions, we are not currently able to offer a site visit to the Hawkins Exclusion Zone
--
Steve Harrington goes home for his ten (well, eleven) year reunion with a nagging secret that's slowly ruining his life.
In the ten years between, he finds the family he always wanted and, unfortunately, the person he wanted to share it with.

"Do we feel fine, though?"
TheWrongKindOfPC
34,432
canonical relationships

It’s the end of the world — of course Steve has nightmares. It’d be weirder not to. Notes on the end of the world, Hawkins, Indiana, 1986-87.

the lathe
palmviolet
82,547
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

"This time, do it right. This time Eddie won’t bleed out in his arms, in anyone’s arms. This time, Steve will do it right."
— or, steve relives the day they try to kill vecna over and over, and eddie just can't seem to stop dying. steve finds this totally unacceptable.

Star of the Masquerade
glorious_spoon
64,804
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Steve jerks awake, sitting up so quickly that Robin almost topples over and staring wildly around the room. When his gaze lands on Eddie, he blanches visibly.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters. “Come on, no. Come on. Not again.”
“Harrington?” Eddie asks slowly. He does not love the way that Steve is staring at him right now. He really doesn’t. Steve looks like he’s staring at a ghost, a bloodied monster, like Eddie is something that should not exist in the light of day. “You good, dude?”

you are young and life is long (and there is time to kill today) [series]
heartofwinterfell
70,163
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Eddie Munson’s no hero. Too bad the universe—or whatever’s gonna be left of it—didn’t get the memo.
[or, eddie is going to save himself and his friends or die trying. many, many times.]
-----
The days Steve Harrington has to help save the world are always the longest. If you ask Eddie Munson, this time around he doesn’t know the half of it.
[or, steve is experiencing the same day over and over again. it’d be nice if someone told him.]

he’ll see i’m not so tough
alivingfire
149,506
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

When Steve gets trapped in the Upside Down, Vecna offers him a deal: become lieutenant of the monster armies and gain some of Vecna’s power, in exchange for being the bait to lure his friends back to rescue him. Steve takes the deal, believing wholeheartedly in the Party’s ability to save him and finally kill Vecna, but discovers quickly that his power to infiltrate the memories and dreams of people in the real world is very limited; in fact, he can only visit one person in his new monster form.
Thus begins Steve’s haunting of Eddie Munson, who, coincidentally, has been in love with Steve since they started secretly hooking up after a Halloween party in 1984.
Or: Steve is Kas, and also Eddie's secret boyfriend.

eddie munson’s vampire mixtape [series]
Springandastorm
191,248
Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

"You're dead!" Steve blinks, rubs at his eyes, blinks again. That's it, he's officially lost it. He's seeing things. Maybe Vecna's back, or something, making him hallucinate, because why else would he be seeing a very much alive Eddie Munson right now? A very much alive Eddie Munson who's staring at him from where he's hunched under his desk, his hair everywhere and his eyes strangely liquid, yelling at him for breaking his records, of all things.
"Evidently not." Eddie says, gesturing a lazy hand over himself and trying a sharp-toothed smile but mostly just looking exhausted and scared.
-----
Eddie visibly caves. "...Honestly I may as well just admit it." He gestures over himself with a silver-ringed, black-nailed hand, at his layered necklaces and heavy boots and smudgy eyeliner. "It's pretty obvious. I've gone full bat."
-----
“Do—do you have to have her on your shoulder all of the time like she’s a parrot?”
“Oh,” Eddie laughs, turning to look at her. “I kinda forget she’s there sometimes.”
“...Yeah, who wouldn’t?” Steve asks, certain that if he had a twenty-pound creature with a writhing tentacle tail and boney wings and unfathomably sharp teeth and maybe-venomous spit and a tendency for ear-splitting shrieking on his shoulder that he would not forget that she’s there sometimes.
-----
“I told them I’d make them a mix, okay?” Eddie looks like he doesn't understand why Steve would find that strange, blinking at him with bright, intense eyes, his fingers still drumming on his legs in an erratic, rapid-fire pattern.
Steve just tilts his head, reaching out to cover Eddie's fingers with his own and get them to still. “...You told the Mind Flayer you'd make them a mix?"