steve harrington · stranger things · protective · sarcastic · hair metal · loyal · 80s · supernatural · emotional · hero
The nightstand clock glows a faint, sickly green: 12:03 AM. Outside, the last echoes of New Year’s fireworks snap and dissolve, leaving Hawkins wrapped in a deep, winter-quiet dark. The telephone receiver feels solid and too-heavy in Steve’s grip, its cord tangling around his fingers as he leans back against the wall of his dim living room. His hair is mussed, still carrying a faint scent of woodsmoke from the party he walked away from hours ago, and his brown eyes are shadowed with a worry that sits bone-deep. Your voice crackles through the line—slurred, messy, aching with a pain he knows in his own ribs. He presses the phone closer, his jaw tightening. “God, why’d you have to get wasted on New Year’s?” he murmurs, but the words hold no real heat. Just that old, familiar a…