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The first thing you notice when you walk into WSQK is the smell.
It’s always the same mix; dusty floors, warm plastic from the equipment racks, and coffee that’s been reheated far too many times to be any good.
It's also threaded with something else, something that Hawkins can’t seem to rinse out: that faint, metallic tang that rides in on your clothes whenever you step outside, like the air itself won’t let you forget where the earth split open.
Summer in a quarantined town is a weird little apocalyptic postcard.
You shove the door closed behind you and lock it out of reflex, even though half the streets are full of soldiers and the other half are empty enough to hear your own thoughts echo.
“Look who’s graced us with her presence,” Robin calls from the DJ booth, voice already on its usual frequency; half chaos, half genius, allergic to subtlety.
A pair of headphones sits crooked over her hair like they gave up midway through the job. She’s flipping through a stack of records like she’s dealing cards in a very nerdy casino.
You hold up the cardboard tray and paper bag in your hands.
“Coffee?” she asks, eyes lighting up.
“And a cinnamon roll that I heroically rescued from the ‘end-of-day sadness shelf.’”
Robin gasps like you’ve brought her the Holy Grail. “You’re a saint. But also a menace. A saintly menace.”
You grin and slide the coffee through the booth window. “Where’s your other, less competent half?”
You aim for casual. You always aim for casual. You’re an Olympic archer at aiming for casual these days.
“In his cave.” She jerks her chin toward the production booth. “Sulking over his buttons.”
“Sulking?” you repeat, as if the word doesn’t conjure a very specific image: Steve leaning over the console, forearms flexing as he adjusts levels, mouth pulled into that concentrating line that makes him look like he’s trying to solve a math problem he’s personally offended by.
Robin rolls her eyes. “He’s been like it since last night.”
You freeze so briefly it’s almost imperceptible. Almost.
Last night.
Your brain does the thing it’s been doing all day - rewinding, replaying, zooming in on the moment like it’s got its own editing suite.
Steve in the hallway outside the booth, the overhead lights flickering like they can’t decide whether to commit. His shoulder brushing yours, and instead of stepping away he shifts closer, boxing you in with nothing but proximity.
His voice drops too low, too near, when he says your name like it tastes different than usual. The warmth of his hand lands on your elbow as he guides you around a mess of cables, fingers lingering a beat too long - then sliding, almost absently, like he’s mapping the shape of you.
You laugh, too breathy, and his answering grin is too sharp, too hungry.
And then his gaze flicks to your mouth.
He leans in.
Not the usual, theatrical kind you both pretend is harmless - this was real. Close enough that you feel his breath. Close enough that your own goes shallow. His hand tightens just slightly at your elbow like he’s about to pull you the last inch, like he’s made up his mind.
And then-
The interruption. Robin, of course, bursting out with a stack of records and a complaint about REO Speedwagon like she’s been summoned by the universe to enforce a strict no-crossing-the-line policy.
Steve’s hand had dropped away like it burned him.
He cleared his throat, stepped back, and put on the smile he uses when he’s trying to pretend he isn’t feeling something.
You’d gone home with your skin buzzing and your thoughts spinning and a brand new, deeply annoying certainty: he’d almost done it.
He’d almost crossed the line.
The invisible one you've been flirting around for weeks - months - years, if you're honest.
And it felt like standing too close to a downed power line; terrifying, thrilling, impossible to ignore.
Sometime between the walk home and the ceiling you stared at until sleep finally gave in, you made a decision: the line is ridiculous.
The line is a lie you’ve both been hiding behind because it’s easier than risking what happens if you stop pretending.
But not tonight.
Tonight, you've decided, the line has to go.
And if Steve Harrington can't cross it on his own, then you’ll do what you do best.
You’ll dare him across it. Slow. Sweet. Relentless.
You set your bag down on the counter with more force than necessary. The sound snaps you back into the present.
Robin arches a brow. “You okay? You look like you’re plotting.”
“Maybe I am,” you say, and then immediately regret how honest that sounds.
Robin squints. “That’s… ominous. Like, in a fun way or a murder way?”
“In a-” You catch yourself. In a Steve way. In a I’m done pretending we’re just flirting for sport way. “In a me way.”
Robin takes a bite of cinnamon roll and points the rest at you like a microphone. “That’s not a proper answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
She leans back in her chair, chewing thoughtfully. Her eyes flick toward the production booth window, then back to you. Her grin goes crooked, knowing in that way that makes you want to lob a record at her.
“Mmm,” she hums, like she’s tasting the moment. “Okay.”
She reaches for her coffee with exaggerated calm, tapping the lid once with her finger. Then she nods at the extra cup - not a command, not even really a suggestion, just an obvious fact presented with weaponized innocence.
“Don’t let it get cold,” she says mildly, eyes bright.
You stare at her.
Robin’s expression stays perfectly, infuriatingly neutral - except for the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth.
You pick up the second cup anyway before you can overthink it. The lid is warm under your fingers. Your pulse does something embarrassingly enthusiastic.
Behind you, Robin’s laugh is quiet and satisfied, like she just watched a trap snap shut and is politely pretending she didn’t set it.
The production booth is dimmer than the DJ booth, lit mostly by the console’s little colored LEDs and the glow of the clock on the wall. The space always feels like its own pocket universe; sealed off, humming, slightly too hot, like the equipment breathes.
Steve is exactly where Robin said he’d be, leaned forward over the soundboard. His hair is doing that effortless thing it always does, like it has a personal vendetta against gravity. He’s got one headphone half-on, half-off, like he can’t decide whether he’s listening to Robin’s chatter or actively trying to escape it.
He looks up when you knock lightly on the open doorframe.
For half a second, his face goes soft.
Then it sharpens into that familiar smirk, like he’s putting his armor on one piece at a time.
“Well,” he says, voice pitched low enough that it feels like it belongs in this dim room. “If it isn’t trouble.”
Steve’s eyes drag over you - quick, automatic, familiar - like he’s cataloging you the way he always does before he lets himself relax.
Your lips quirk - he has no idea what kind of trouble you plan on being tonight.
“I brought you coffee,” you say.
“Trying to bribe me?” he asks, his eyes dropping to the cup like it's evidence.
“Maybe,” you say, and let your gaze linger on his hands - long fingers, a faint smear of ink on one knuckle from something he was doing earlier. “You look like you need it.”
Steve huffs a laugh, takes the coffee, and your fingers brush.
It’s barely a touch. A whisper of skin.
It’s enough to make your stomach dip.
His eyes flick up again, quick. Like he felt it too.
“Thanks,” he says, and for once the word doesn’t sound like a joke.
You could leave. You should leave. This is the part where you usually retreat back into your safe little dance of banter and almosts, and pretend you didn’t come in here with a plan and a stupid, stubborn resolve.
Your heartbeat stutters like it’s trying to talk you out of it.
You draw in a breath, gather the last of your courage like you’re winding thread around your fingers, and decide: no retreat.
Instead, you step closer.
Steve watches you do it. His jaw tightens a fraction.
“What’s the lineup?” you ask, leaning just enough that your shoulder touches his. You can see the schedule sheet, Robin’s handwriting looping and impatient. “Robin doing her ‘I’m totally normal about music’ hour?”
Steve snorts. “As normal as she ever is.”
“Mean,” you murmur, and tilt your head toward his ear as if you’re sharing a secret. “I like it.”
His breath catches. It’s subtle, so subtle you’d miss it if you weren’t paying the kind of attention that borders on criminal.
You straighten and smile like you didn’t just do it on purpose.
Steve stares at you for a beat, like he’s trying to decide whether you’re dangerous.
You hold his gaze without blinking.
He blinks first. Hard. His mouth parts like he’s about to say something he might regret.
Then the monitor speaker crackles to life, Robin’s voice suddenly bright and all-business.
“Okay, losers, ten seconds! Steve, I need your magic fingers on standby; stinger into the opener, then hit me with the station ID. And if either of you gives me dead air or feedback, I will end you.”
Steve’s head snaps toward the board like he’s been yanked by a string.
“Yeah - yeah, got it,” he mutters, already reaching for the right slider.
You step back, slow, letting your smile linger like a secret you’re both pretending you don’t have.
Steve doesn’t look at you again, he can’t, but you catch the way his jaw tightens as he cues the ID, like he’s still recovering from whatever he almost said.
-
The evening settles into its rhythm.
Robin’s voice fills the building through the monitor speakers; loud, fast, impossible to ignore.
She’s in rare form tonight, spinning commentary between songs like she’s hosting a show for an audience of thousands instead of, realistically, a handful of bored, trapped Hawkins residents, and maybe one government guy pretending he isn’t listening.
You move between booths like it’s your job - because it is, technically, but tonight you're doing it with a new kind of intention.
You bring Robin her record requests, then drift back to Steve with a stack of cue sheets. You “accidentally” lean over his shoulder to point at a setting, your hair brushing his cheek. You pass behind his chair a little too close, your hand sliding along the backrest like you need the stability.
Each time, Steve does the same thing: he reacts, just a little, and then he locks it down.
He’s trying. You’ll give him that.
He’s trying like a man holding a door shut against a storm.
And you, apparently, have taken on the role of the storm.
“You’re being very helpful tonight,” Robin says during a commercial break, voice filtered through the booth mic with a hint of suspicion. You’re perched on the edge of the counter between rooms, legs swinging, sipping your own coffee.
“I’m always helpful,” you say.
Robin points at you. “No, see, that’s how I know you’re lying. You’re being… extra.”
You tilt your head. “Extra what?”
“Extra… you.” She squints harder. “And Steve is being extra… tense.”
From inside the production booth, Steve’s voice cuts through, loud enough for you both to hear. “I can hear you, you know.”
Robin’s grin flashes. “Good.”
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling too wide.
Later, when Robin is deep into a song set, the building quiets again in that strange way it does when the music is loud but the world outside is even quieter.
You’re in the production booth with Steve, sorting through papers on the small side table: playlists, notes, a couple of cue cards with Robin’s scribbles. Steve is hunched over the console, tapping a pen against his lip while he listens for something in the audio.
You step closer to set a stack down, leaning over the desk to square the pages.
It’s nothing. It should be nothing.
But the movement shifts your skirt up a fraction at your thighs, and you feel more than see Steve’s attention snag.
The pen stills against his mouth. A faint frown pulling at his brow.
“Are you…” he begins, and the words come out slow, like he’s genuinely not sure if he should finish them.
“Am I what?” you ask, like innocence is a language you still speak.
Steve’s gaze flicks toward you, sharp. His brown eyes are darker in this light. Tired, a little haunted in the way everyone in Hawkins is haunted now, but still very much Steve - all attitude and heart hiding behind the same two or three practiced expressions.
He opens his mouth, and you wonder if he’s finally going to call you on it.
You turn to face him, quick and a little too eager, and your hand catches the edge of the folder.
The stack of papers goes with it.
For a stupid, weightless second, everything hangs. Then the sheets slide, tip, and spill off the table in a soft avalanche.
They flutter to the floor like startled birds.
You stare at the mess, blinking once.
“Damn it,” you mutter, heat rushing to your face as the papers scatter.
Steve’s chair scrapes back as he stands. “Hey-” he starts, already moving, like helping you is muscle memory at this point.
“I’ve got it,” you blurt, because you’re mortified and because your hands are faster than your pride. You drop to your knees and start grabbing sheets in a clumsy hurry, stacking them wrong, corners bent, the opposite of graceful.
For a few seconds it’s just you and the floor and the stupid, stupid paper.
Then you realize where you are.
How close his legs are.
How you’re kneeling right in front of him, in a room no one can see into unless they try.
Steve has stopped moving, like he clocked it at the exact same time you did.
Your fingers pause on a page.
You let the silence stretch.
Then you gather one more sheet slowly - unhurried, almost lazy - and then you look up at him.
You do it through your lashes, mouth curving into a wicked little smile that says you know exactly what this looks like.
You hold his gaze like a dare.
Steve goes very, very still.
His hand tightens on the edge of the console. The tendons in his wrist jump like he’s holding himself in place.
For a second you see it - his composure cracking, the line fraying. Your smile widens.
His throat bobs when he swallows. “Jesus,” he mutters, so quiet it barely counts as a word.
You tilt your head, still on your knees, and keep your voice soft. “What?”
Steve’s eyes flick down to your hands. To your knees. To your face. Away. Like he’s caught between hauling you up into him and bolting for the door.
“Nothing,” he says, voice strained. “Just - get up.”
You blink, wide-eyed on purpose. “Why?”
His gaze snaps back to yours.
There’s heat there now. Not just the playful kind - something sharper, tighter, like it hurts.
“Because,” he says, each syllable measured like he’s trying to keep control of it, “you’re making it hard to think.”
You let that hang in the air for a heartbeat, sweet and dangerous.
Then you stand, slowly, papers in hand, and brush imaginary dust from your skirt.
Steve’s eyes track the movement like he hates himself for it.
You set the papers back on the table and lean in close, like you’re going to share a secret.
“You’re doing great, Steve. Really.” You whisper.
Your breath grazes his ear.
His eyes close for half a second. His jaw flexes.
And in that tiny pause, it clicks - fully, finally. You feel it in the way his shoulders go still.
He’s not confused anymore. Not second-guessing. Not giving you the benefit of the doubt.
He knows exactly what you’re doing.
Steve opens his eyes and shifts just enough to look at you properly. Up close, you can watch it move through him: the realization, the restraint… and then-
Fine.
Okay.
If this is the game you’re playing, he can play too.
His signature smirk returns, but different now. Not defensive. Not strained.
Sharp. Slow. Dangerous in a way that feels like a promise.
“Are you done?” he asks, quiet.
“No,” you say, smiling. “Not even close.”
Steve’s eyes drop to your mouth once, deliberate, then lift back to your eyes and stay there.
“Careful,” he murmurs, and the slow smile that follows isn’t a warning so much as an invitation.
A challenge.
The rest of the shift becomes a delicious kind of torture.
For him. For you. For whatever poor, unsuspecting piece of equipment is currently bearing the brunt of Steve’s grip.
Robin, either oblivious or choosing to pretend she’s oblivious, keeps the show rolling. She cracks jokes, cues songs, fiddles with the mic like she’s conducting an orchestra only she can hear.
You keep moving. Keep hovering. Keep touching - just enough to make Steve’s attention snag, then slipping away before he can do anything about it.
Except now he’s stopped pretending he doesn’t notice.
He still keeps one hand on the board, still does his job, but the fight in him has shifted. Less resisting and more… tracking.
Like he’s caught the thread you’ve been pulling and decided to pull back. He starts meeting your eyes instead of dodging them. Letting your fingers brush his and not immediately pulling away. Holding the contact a second longer than necessary, just to see what it does to you.
By the time the clock crawls toward the end of the night, the air between you feels charged. Like storm weather - waiting for the first strike.
Robin finishes her last set with a flourish and kills the mic. The sudden quiet is almost startling.
She stretches, cracking her neck, before grabbing her bag and pausing at the booth window to look between you and Steve.
“Well,” She says, bright with exaggerated casualness, “Vickie’s here. Which means I’m officially clocking out as your… adult supervision.”
You glance toward the front windows just as headlights sweep across the parking lot, throwing long bars of light over the room. A car idles out there, Vickie’s silhouette waiting in the driver’s seat.
Robin swings her bag onto her shoulder, then pauses - eyes flicking between you again with quiet, vicious satisfaction.
“Try not to make any catastrophic choices,” she adds lightly.
“Robin,” Steve warns, but there’s no bite to it.
Robin just grins, already backing toward the door. “Night, dinguses.”
She’s gone in a whirl of keys and the slam of the front door.
The second Robin is gone, the air changes.
The building falls into a deeper quiet - no music, no chatter, just the hum of electricity and the distant, low-throated groan of Hawkins settling in its broken bones.
You and Steve move automatically into closing tasks, like muscle memory can keep things simple; logs filed, equipment checked, lights off in the right order.
And suddenly you’re not sure what happens next - when you’ve been daring him closer to the edge all evening, but now there’s no audience, no interruptions, no ON AIR light to save either of you.
When the line is right there and it’s just the two of you staring at it.
Maybe he’ll lose his nerve again.
Maybe you will.
Maybe this will dissolve into nothing, just like last night - another almost that follows you home and keeps you awake.
You stack the papers you’d knocked over earlier, tapping them into alignment on the desk. Your hands are steady on purpose. You refuse to let them shake.
Steve is behind you somewhere. You can hear him moving; soft footfalls, the jingle of keys, the click of a switch.
And then the sounds stop.
You feel him before you hear him close in.
The heat of his body at your back. The faint scent of his soap and whatever he puts in his hair, and something unmistakably Steve - like clean laundry and trouble.
“So… You’ve been having fun,” he says, voice low.
Your fingers pause on the stack.
You don’t turn around. Not yet.
“What are you talking about?” you ask, because you’re committed to the bit, apparently.
Steve laughs - quiet, humorless, like you’ve said something ridiculous.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He’s close enough that when he speaks again, his breath skims the edge of your ear.
“The leaning,” he murmurs. “The touching. The… paper thing.”
Your skin prickles. Your throat goes dry.
“You mean doing my job?” you say, forcing lightness into your voice even as your pulse starts doing acrobatics.
Steve’s hand comes to the desk, planting on the wood beside your hip. You trap a breath.
His other hand follows on the opposite side, bracketing you in.
You are very aware, suddenly, that there’s nowhere to go. Not that you want to.
“Is that what it was?” he asks softly. “Your job?”
You tilt your head, pretending you’re thinking, but your heart is sprinting. “Maybe I was just… being helpful.”
Steve’s mouth hovers closer. You can’t see him, but you can feel him - feel the way he’s smiling, the way he’s trying to take back the space you stole all night.
“Really?” he says. “Because it kinda felt like you were-” He pauses, and the silence is thick. “-trying to mess with me.”
Your breath stutters. You finally turn, slow, and find him watching you like you’re the only thing in the room.
His eyes flick down to your lips. Back up.
You lift your chin. “And if I was?”
Steve’s smile flickers - dangerous, almost impressed. “You’re not even subtle.”
“Wasn’t trying to be,” you breathe.
His laugh cracks a little, like he’s right on the edge of losing it. He reaches out, fingers brushing your wrist softly.
“Then don’t act innocent,” he says, voice low. “You don’t get to do that all night and then look surprised when I notice.”
You swallow, throat tight. “I’m not surprised.”
That earns you a look - sharp, then suddenly softer, like something in him shifts.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I know.”
He moves before you can overthink it.
One moment you’re standing in front of the desk, the next he’s got his hands on your waist and he’s lifting you up like you weigh nothing, like he’s done it a hundred times in his head and he’s sick of waiting.
You gasp, fingers catching at his shoulders.
He sets you on the edge of the desk, close enough that your knees brush his hips. His hands stay at your waist for a second longer than necessary.
Then he steps back, just a little.
Just enough to make you feel the absence.
Steve’s gaze drops to your legs. He swallows again. His expression tightens like he’s forcing himself to breathe through something.
Then, slowly - deliberately - he drops down onto one knee in front of you.
The motion is so controlled it feels like a choice he’s making with his whole body.
Your breath catches. Your hands tighten on the edge of the desk.
Steve looks up at you from that position, eyes dark, mouth tilted into a cocky half-smile that doesn’t quite hide how affected he is.
Your throat works. “Steve…”
He tilts his head, feigning innocence like he hasn’t spent all night watching you poke at his self-control with a stick. “What?” His smile sharpens. “You think you’re the only one who knows how to play?”
You shake your head once, not trusting words.
For a moment, he just watches you. The teasing in his expression softens into something else - something careful. Like he’s checking you, reading you the way he always does when things get real.
“You okay?” he asks, quietly.
You nod, breath trembling. “Yes.”
“Yeah?” His thumb brushes the inside of your ankle, barely there. “You want me to stop?”
Your answer is immediate. “No.”
Steve exhales, like he’d been holding air in his lungs for weeks.
“Okay,” he murmurs, and the word sounds like a promise.
He leans forward; slow, intentional. His lips press against the inside of your knee, warm through your skin like a brand.
It's intimate. It’s devastating.
Your eyes flutter shut before you can stop them. Your head tips back a fraction. A sound slips out of you - soft, involuntary.
You freeze, mortified.
Steve’s mouth curves against your skin.
He looks up again, smug in the way only Steve can be, like he’s both proud of himself and deeply, dangerously pleased.
“There it is,” he says, like he's won.
You open your eyes, cheeks burning. “Don’t - don’t tease me.”
Steve’s brows lift. “Don’t tease you?”
You glare at him, but it’s a weak thing when your body feels like it’s humming.
He chuckles, and the sound vibrates through you in a way that should be illegal.
“Funny,” he says, voice soft. “I thought teasing was your thing.”
You reach down, fingers tangling in his hair before you can think better of it. It’s warm and ridiculously soft, and Steve’s eyes close for half a second at the touch, like it hits him somewhere tender.
“Steve,” you say again, quieter now.
He straightens a little, hands resting lightly on your thighs - not gripping, just there, grounding you.
His gaze lifts to your face, and the cockiness slips for a heartbeat.
“Yeah,” he says, barely audible. “I know.”
He stands, and the space between you vanishes.
Steve’s hand cups the side of your neck. His thumb brushes your jaw like he’s memorizing it. His eyes hold yours, asking one more time without words.
You lean in.
That’s all it takes.
His mouth finds yours, and the kiss is everything you’ve been circling for years - warm and sure and finally, finally honest. It’s not frantic. It’s not a mistake. It’s Steve, all in, like he’s made up his mind and he’s sick of pretending he hasn’t.
Your fingers curl into his shirt. He makes a low sound against your lips like he’s been holding it back since last night, since forever.
When he pulls away, it’s only by a fraction, forehead resting against yours.
His breath is uneven. Yours is worse.
For a second neither of you moves - like if you do, the spell breaks, or the building remembers it’s sitting on a crack in the world.
Steve’s mouth brushes yours again, not quite a kiss, more like a confession he doesn’t know how to say out loud. Then he gives a soft, disbelieving laugh.
“So,” he murmurs, voice rough, “did you get what you wanted?”
Heat crawls up your throat. You should make a joke. You should pretend your heart isn’t trying to climb out of your ribcage.
Instead you meet his eyes. “Did I?”
Steve’s smile is small, shaky at the edges. “Yeah,” he admits. “I think you did.”
You swallow. “You were going to last night.”
His jaw tightens, the memory flashing across his face; flickering lights, the wall at your back, the almost.
“I was,” he says quietly. “I almost did.”
“But you didn’t,” you whisper.
Steve exhales like it hurts. “And I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
A beat.
Then, softer - honest in a way that makes your chest ache - he adds, “This… took too long.”
You nod, because it’s true. Because you’ve both been walking the edge of it for years, calling the line “safety” when it was really just fear.
Steve’s thumb strokes your jaw, gentle. “No more pretending,” he murmurs.
Your breath shakes. “No more.”
You smile, and it feels like the universe finally tilting into place.
Steve’s eyes flick over your face like he’s double-checking for fear, for regret. When he doesn’t find it, his expression shifts into something gentler.
“Come on,” he says, voice returning to normal by sheer force of will. He steps back, clears his throat like that’ll fix his entire life. “We should - uh. We should lock up.”
You blink at him, still sitting on the desk, still feeling like your bones are made of hummingbird wings. “You’re just going to… act normal?”
Steve points at you. “You know I don't know how to do that around you.”
You laugh, soft and delighted, and slide off the desk. Your legs wobble a little. Steve’s hand darts out to steady you automatically, fingers warm around your elbow.
His gaze catches yours.
For a second, the air shifts again - quiet, loaded.
Steve’s mouth quirks. “I’ll drive you home.”
Your heart leaps.
You force yourself to sound calm. “Okay.”
Steve grabs the keys, kills the remaining lights, and leads you toward the front. The hallway is darker now, the building quieter, like it’s holding its breath.
He locks the front door behind you, the deadbolt sliding home with a solid click that echoes in the empty lot.
For a second, it’s just the two of you on the front step, the night pressing close, Hawkins quiet in that uncanny way it’s been since everything cracked open.
And then he starts down toward the parking lot.
You follow.
Halfway to his car, Steve slows.
Not enough that you’d notice if you weren’t tuned to him the way you are. Not enough to make it obvious to anyone else. But you do notice, because you always do.
He stops beside his car, hand hovering over the handle, then… doesn’t open it.
Instead he just stands there, looking out at the dark street like he’s arguing with himself.
You wait, heart thudding.
Steve drags in a breath and finally turns to you. The cockiness isn’t quite back - there’s too much sincerity under his skin now - but the shape of it is, like he’s borrowing courage from an old version of himself.
“Hey,” he says, quieter.
“Yeah?” you answer, equally quiet.
His gaze drops to your mouth, then back up. He swallows once, throat working like the words are heavier than they should be.
“I was gonna take you home,” he admits.
Then he pauses, just long enough to feel like stepping onto a wire.
His grip tightens on the keys.
“But I-” he starts, stops, and lets out a soft, almost-laugh like he can’t believe he’s about to say it. “I don’t really want to do that.”
Your pulse kicks.
Steve’s eyes hold yours, steady now that he’s decided.
“Come back to mine,” he says, simple and unmistakable. “If you want.”
A beat - warm, charged, full of all the years you’ve both spent pretending the line was something you couldn’t cross.
His mouth quirks, gentler than teasing, like he’s letting you in on the truth of it. “Feels like we’ve done enough almosts for one lifetime.”
Something in you eases, like the tightest knot finally loosening.
You step closer, fingers brushing his wrist, grounding both of you. “Okay.”
Steve exhales, relief and something brighter tangled together. He opens the passenger door for you like he always would, careful, automatic, except now his hand lingers at your back for a second as you slide in, like he’s making sure you’re real. Like he’s reminding himself this isn’t another near miss.
He shuts the door, rounds the hood, and gets in.
The engine turns over. The radio crackles softly, then goes quiet when he taps it off.
Steve’s hand finds yours over the center console, thumb stroking once, like a promise he doesn’t have to say out loud.
As he pulls out of the lot, Hawkins slips past in the dark - barricades, empty streets, distant red warning lights - but inside the car the air feels different. Lighter. Charged in a way that isn’t fear.
You glance at him.
Steve keeps his eyes on the road, but his smile is there - small, real, a little stunned.
No more toeing the line.
Tonight, you crossed it.
And you're not going back.