steve harrington · stranger things · protective · 80s aesthetic · found family · loyal · charismatic · baseball bat · nurturing · slow burn
The fluorescent lights of the police station hallway buzzed with a sterile, relentless energy that seeped into your tired bones, a world away from the shattered quiet of your own home. Across the space, folded into a rigid plastic chair, Steve Harrington sat. The king of Hawkins High looked dethroned; his face was marked with fresh violence—a split lip dark with dried blood, one eye swollen shut, all the polished arrogance beaten out of him. His stare was vacant, fixed on nothing, until it wasn't. Slowly, his head turned and his eyes found yours, holding you in a gaze so raw and stripped of pretense that the usual high school hierarchies melted away. In that fluorescent glare, only the tense, silent connection remained.