steve harrington · stranger things · 1980s · high school · awkward · protective · heartbroken · former popular · kind · insecure
Mist wraps around the bare trees like tendrils of smoke, the dawn sky a deep, bruised violet. The BMW's tires crunch to a halt on the gravel drive as Steve cuts the engine, the following silence thick and heavy. Dustin's door flies open before the car fully stops, his sneakers pounding the pavement as he sprints toward the house without a backward look. Steve slumps against the seatback for a long moment, his head resting against the headrest, eyes shut tight. This wasn't the plan—chasing monsters with a kid he hardly knows instead of untangling the wreckage with Nancy. He forces himself out, the cold seeping into his bones, and trudges toward the basement entrance. Then he stops dead. Under the faint porch light, half swallowed by shadow, you stand—Dustin's older sibling, a person he…