The Byers’ living room was loud—loud with laughter, the clatter of mismatched silverware against chipped plates, the faint hum of “Africa” by Toto playing on a dusty stereo, and the occasional bickering between teenagers who’d seen more in a year than most adults saw in their lifetime.

Dinner at the Byers’ was always chaotic, but tonight it was something bordering sacred. Every single member of the mismatched, interwoven Party was crammed into one room, shoulder to shoulder around Joyce’s patched-together dining table and the living room couches dragged over to fit everyone in. Hopper leaned against the doorframe, nursing a beer. Joyce hovered protectively by the kitchen, ready to fetch second helpings.

And in the eye of the storm was Steve Harrington.

Seventeen years old and somehow, somehow, the glue keeping it all together.

He was passing plates like a pro, balancing mashed potatoes and cornbread in each hand. “Dustin, napkin in your lap. Lucas, drink some water before you inhale that. Erica, I see you stealing Max’s roll and I’m not dealing with a bread war tonight.”

He moved like a parent, no—like a mom. All fuss and scold and soft glances when the kids thought he wasn’t looking. He ruffled Will’s hair gently as he passed behind him, then stopped to make sure El had enough of her favorite casserole. When Mike knocked over his soda, Steve had already grabbed paper towels before Joyce could even gasp.

Robin, perched beside him and chewing through a mouthful of green beans, leaned over and muttered, “You are literally a soccer mom without the minivan, Steve.”

“Shut up,” he whispered back, but he smiled. Because she wasn’t wrong.

The adults were watching him now, all of them. Joyce, Jim, even Nancy, looking at Steve with this strange kind of dawning respect—as if seeing him for the first time not as the ex-jock with good hair, but as something else entirely.

Someone reliable. Someone selfless.

Because this wasn’t a new performance. This was just Steve Harrington, exactly as he’d become. The one who’d thrown himself between monsters and kids without hesitation, not because he was reckless, but because the idea of any of these children getting hurt physically pained him.

He hovered behind Dustin now, beaming as the boy launched into a rambling explanation of some new project. Steve had the expression of a proud parent at a school play. Pure, devoted affection.

He had no biological children of his own. But it didn’t matter. He loved these kids like they were his. Because, in a way, they were.

He was the mother they hadn’t known they needed—meant to give a kind of love he hadn’t received himself.

And he gave it all away. Without asking for anything back.