Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
I– just have this little escene of Hero Steve that i wrote.
—
He must have seen it coming, honestly, with all the crazy things that had happened in his life, what's one more. At least he had been alone at the time.
Steve lets out a chuckle while remembering what he had done for the last six years, where he had been. The weight of the glass in his hand feels lighter than normal. A lot of things feel lighter– weaker– than normal. He drinks the last shot and lands the glass with a light thud on the counter.
The bartender has been eyeing Steve for a while, he knows why, there’s a photo with his face on full display with bold barely red letters spelling ‘MISSING’ just down the counter (all wrinkled paper and pale colours). He’s changed, all rough edges, muscle and a bunch of scars that even the best healing spell couldn't make them disappear. But. He still has those droopy eyes, square jaw and moles scattered all around his skin. He is still Steve Harrington.
clink, clink
The bell over the door sounds, someone comes in, not the person of his rag tag group he expected but the one he’s glad will be the first. He doesn’t even turn around, his lips curl up and god, it's been years since he has seen anyone from The Party, his original party. He missed them like burning fire in his veins, his will to live and determination to come back home.
Home. He is back home.
He hears Hopper come closer as he finally turns around with a bright but calm smile.
“Harrington?”
“The one and only.”
——
Hopper was having a boring day, it was not bad, boring means nothing new, boring means nothing dangerous, boring means safety. So when a call from the bartender of the ‘Hideaway’ comes, talking about being able to identify a person that just came in as the same as the one a very old missing flyer he had, he knew something was about to happen.
And something did happen. Because the face looking at him is the one of Steve Harrington, the same face that haunts him in his nightmares like another face of one of his children that he couldn't protect.
He wasn't expecting anything, maybe a false alarm, but when the man sitting in the bar stools turned around to face him, a cocky smile plastered on his lips and a prideful voice responding “The one and only” when Hopper blurted out his last name? Yeah, there’s no denying the fact that the teenager he lost six years ago has come back.
The confidence that once was borderline egocentric everytime he went to stop one of Harrington’s parties and has become less while being around the kids has now settled down in Steve's skin in a way that exude trust in himself, acknowledge of one's worth and– excuse the redundancy– confidence.
The person in front of Hopper is no longer a teenager but a man, a man who has more scars than the Upside Down left him before disappearing, with longer hair and muscles that his clothes can't hide, a firm posture like a soldier ready to attack even in his leisure time and with what looks like a sword hanging at the side of his waist.
“Harrington… Steve, where have you been, kid?” He asks instead of all the parts of his brain screaming alarm bells that this is probably a trap, that Vecna has come back and now he's the next victim. He pushes all those thoughts down because that's his son! Dammit.
No matter how much that teenager has changed, he knows his kid and that person is his. God dammit. He’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
The man– Steve– gives him a side looped smile and signals the bartender that he's done. “You’ll not believe me if I tell you”, he huffs.
“Really, kid?” Hopper arches an eyebrow.
“Really, the UD will sound like a joke compared with all the shit that happened."
Hopper notes how Steve doesn't call him out with the nickname, kid. Steve doesn't feel like the man he looks, at least to Hopper. He must be 24 by now, still too young compared to and old man like Jim.
Hopper doesn't comment on it either.
“But here is no place to talk about it, shall we go?” Steve stands up and stretches his back, the bartender gives him the bill with an odd look between the two men.
Steve looks back at Hopper with the most eat shitting grin he can do.
If Hopper didn't think he was Steve before, he definitely thinks that now.
With a huff and mild shake of his head, he puts down a few dollars, checking that they're enough before thanking the bartender and guiding Steve to his car.
“I might be rich back in Eloise but I don't think they would have accepted a bunch of golden coins as a good way to pay in here,” Steve enters the car happier than normal and with an expression of pure delight.
“What the hell is Eloise and why would you pay with golden coins?”
“A kingdom from another world," Steve says like it's common sense, the little shit, he really hasn't changed that much.
"I just came back from a six-year-long real life DnD campaign, Hop, give me some slack.” Never mind. That sounds like it would change a person.
“What the fuck, kid.”
“Language.”
Hopper looks back at Steve in total bewilderment while he just laughs. Jim is too old for this shit. He starts the car and drives away.
Hero Steve
I saw in a tiktok with those tumblr post on them talking about world building, specifically, the lenguage; and it got me thinking about how in this isekai au the other world speaks a lot of other lenguages, and even if Steve has the cheat of an ability that makes him able to understand any idiom, well, i like to think he picks up some things.
Like the use of differents suffix (i don't know any other way to call them) when counting things, like, if they're people they use one, if they're an animals or a plants they use other and if they're objects there’s a thirth one.
I think it would be good for the cliché of going undercover to some shady market where there are slaves and the people in them use the suffix for objects. Steve would be livid.
Just a thought.
Just here thinking about Steve getting isekai'ed. Like. One of my favorite things is reading generic isekai mangas/manhwas with overpowered protagonists and convenient situations at the point i don't even remeber wich ones i've read.
So imagine one Steve harrington getting summoned into an isekai, him being the basic hero who needs to defeat the demon King, going on a journey, making comrades, learning magic and using a sword, etc, etc.
But also, him having already lived the upside down. Steve being summon shortly after the events of the fourth season (just without eddie dying), with the experience of fighting monsters, the survival mode still in his system, with the fear that the monsters of this other world could came to his own through glowing magic circles just like he did.
Because of that, after the princess and the saint had promised him that he could go back to his own world, to his home, his friends (his family), at the shortest time possible after he got summon, didn't matter how much time he spend in this other world. He decides— like the self-sacrifice idiot with a hero complex that he is— that he would help.
Clue Steve living a whole isekai for almost a decade just to come back after a week had passed in his original world.
Of course The Party would have noticed Steve's missing, the Gates are still open, the whole town split apart, monsters hadn't started to appear but is only time until they do, so of course they are high alert and notice when one of them just go radio silent.
Nobody knows where he is, what happened to him, if he's still alive. And since the whole town is a mess they can't exactly do a search for a misssing person.
And just like he disappeared, he reappears one week later, Hopper founding him drinking beer in the only still open bar of town with more scars than before, carrying a sword in his waist and with all the powers and cofidence he gained in the magical world intact.
Now if Vecna decides to make his come back, he would stand no chance against the rage of a superpowered teenage girl, a rag tag group of teenagers, four tired adults and a returned hero with almost a decade of experience fighting beings more powerful than he.