Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve Harrington dies on November 12, 1983. 

At first, he doesn’t really understand what’s happening; Nancy and Jonathan are bleeding, there are Christmas lights strung up everywhere, and a bear trap sits in the hallway, poised to snap. The lights are flickering like crazy, making Steve’s heart jump and stutter in his chest, and Nancy has a steely gleam to her eyes that Steve has never seen before. It’s like she’s a different person, gripping a loaded gun with a bloody bandage wrapped around her palm. 

Steve is yelling just to yell at this point. He’s confused and angry and scared, because Jonathan is holding a fucking nail bat tight in his hands and staring at Steve like he’s the crazy one in this situation. Steve isn’t equipped for this type of insanity. The insanity he’s used to are wild parties and late-night street racing, not flickering lights and bear traps soaked in gasoline. The insanity he’s used to can’t hold a candle to this. 

“Steve!” Nancy shouts, and Steve’s mouth snaps shut. He’s never heard her sound like this before– voice terrified and raw, trembling with the intensity of her emotions. It makes his heartbeat speed up even further, because Nancy Wheeler doesn’t get scared. Shy and nervous, sure, but scared? In all the time he’s known her, Steve doesn’t think that Nancy has ever openly shown when she’s frightened. Her being scared means that Steve should be scared, too; he feels that familiar jittery feeling starting to rise in his chest, the one that usually aches and claws its way up his windpipe until it’s spilling out in a mess of nervous laughter and near-incoherent rambling. He remembers what he was thinking the last time it happened, clear as day: Fuck “the Hair”. Steve “the Motormouth” Harrington would be more accurate. Shit. 

Jonathan’s eyes dart around the house nervously as the lights flicker faster and faster, and an overwhelming feeling of dread starts to pool in Steve’s gut. Jonathan breathes, “It’s coming. It’s– fuck. Fuck, Harrington, you need to get out–”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. A loud rip and crash meet Steve’s ears, and something tears through the ceiling, landing just a few feet away from where the three teens are standing. Steve’s breath catches in his throat, suddenly seized by vicious, blinding terror. The thing– the monster– is big, at least a foot or two taller than himself. It’s thin and spindly, bones jutting out to the point where it looks like they should pierce through skin, and Steve can see a hint of teeth peeking out from its closed maw. Slime drips from its frame and splatters on the hardwood floors, the flickering lights making the monster look almost like a walking shadow. 

It prowls towards them slowly, almost as if it doesn’t know exactly where they are– which makes sense, because where are its eyes? The only thing the monster has is a flower-like head which, to Steve’s building horror, starts to open up, revealing rows upon rows of sharp, grimy teeth. 

Jonathan grabs Steve by the shoulder to tug him back towards the hall, frantic. Steve realizes that Nancy is already on the other side of the bear trap, her gun raised and unwavering. Steve and Jonathan surge over the trap, stumbling down the hall and into Jonathan’s room, slamming the door shut after them. Breathing heavily, Steve backs away from the door, Nancy and Jonathan following after him after a second’s pause. They stare at the door in anticipation as the floorboards in the living room creak. 

There are no Christmas lights in Jonathan’s room. The lamp flickers as the monster grows closer, making sharp, throaty clicking sounds that raise in volume as it nears. Steve takes in a few gasping breaths, his hands shaking again even though he just managed to still them in the car a few minutes ago. Everything is moving too fast, and the lights just keep flickering, off on off on off on–

Suddenly, almost as quickly as it started, the flickering stops. The sounds of the monster in the hallway are gone, and the only thing Steve can hear is their harsh breathing. They seem a million times louder, echoing in the still air of the room and setting Steve’s teeth on edge. 

Jonathan glances back toward Steve and Nancy before slowly creeping forward, pressing his ear to the door to listen for the monster. After a few long seconds of this, he hesitantly reaches down to grab the doorknob, looking back at Nancy again. She nods. 

The door creaks open. Steve’s heart pounds in his chest, and he squeezes his hands into fists, willing them to stop trembling. Jonathan looks back and forth down the hallway, his posture tense. He looks like he’s ready to bolt– likely because he is. Steve is, too. 

It feels like hours before Jonathan sags just the slightest bit and whispers a small, “All clear.”

At that, Steve pushes past him into the hallway, jumping over the bear trap and heading straight for the phone. Nancy follows after him, her voice incredulous as she says, “Steve? What are you doing?”

“Calling the police,” he grunts, pulling the phone up from its perch. Before he can even punch in the numbers, the phone is snatched from his hands; Jonathan rips the whole thing from the wall, throwing it aside. Steve turns to him, eye wide and disbelieving. “What the fuck? What are you doing?”

“You can’t call them,” Jonathan says, a determined set to his shoulders as he rounds on Steve. “And you need to leave.”

“I–” Steve glances between Nancy and Jonathan, more unsure and scared than he’s ever been in his life. “Are you crazy? I don’t–”

Steve flinches as the lights start to flicker again. He looks around wildly before settling his gaze on Nancy and Jonathan. The way they grip their weapons with grim purpose tells Steve that they’re prepared for this; Steve decidedly is not. Nancy steps up, her expression a mix between fiery and resigned. 

“Go.”

Steve goes. 

He makes it all the way to his car, scrambling for his keys and taking furtive glances back at the house as the lights start flickering faster. He finally manages to unlock the car, wrenching open the door. Steve can hear the lightbulbs straining with how much they’re being forced to work, and the windows reflect on the windshield of his car, on and off and on and off. Fuck. Fuck. 

Steve glances back at the house one last time, just to check for the monster or anything, really– and freezes. The lights are now flickering just as fast as when the monster had appeared before, which means it’s in there again. There, where Nancy is. Nancy with nothing but a gun and Jonathan Byers to protect her. Steve has never thought of Nancy as someone to be protected before– she’s made it pretty clear that she can protect herself, thank you very much– but against that thing? Steve isn’t sure if all the might of Nancy Wheeler could counteract that. Steve isn’t sure if he could. 

But Steve is stupid. Steve always makes the dumbest decisions in the heat of the moment, and this moment is piping hot. 

Before he knows it, Steve is racing back to the front door of the house, his car left open to the cold night air. He slams his way inside to the sight of the monster pinning Jonathan to the floor, its saliva slowly dripping down onto the teen’s face in a disgusting, shiny string. Jonathan is grabbing desperately for his bat, but it’s out of reach, just close enough to brush his fingertips against. 

Steve stoops down to pick the bat up and swings with all his might, catching the monster in the side and throwing it off of Jonathan with a yell. He twirls the bat in his hands, getting a feel for its weight before swinging again. 

The lights are disorienting, flashing incessantly; they’re not allowing his eyes to adjust at all. The monster seems to flit in and out of his vision, a real, tangible thing one moment and a mere silhouette the next. Steve can’t see, which is evening out the playing field even more– not that he had much of an advantage over the monster in the first place. Just surprise and sight, both of which are basically useless now. 

Steve’s next swing is a miss. The monster ducks down, and he only has enough time to get a sense that something is wrong here before the thing is plowing into him. Steve hits the floor hard, the nail bat slipping out of his grip and clattering to the side in a similar position to Jonathan’s earlier; the only difference is the location of the monster’s claws, which are digging into his chest and abdomen so deep he sees stars. 

“Steve!”

He isn’t sure who calls his name. All he can make out is the monster, looming over him with its maw open and dripping. He tries to gasp in a breath, but its claws are still pressing down, pinning him and sinking impossibly further with each second that passes. The pain is blinding, all-consuming, and it occurs to Steve that he might die here. Isn’t that just my luck?

Through his pain-addled mind, Steve can vaguely register the monster’s movements– and he feels like something is off. The way the monster moved earlier had been erratic and twitchy, frightening in its suddenness. Primal, like a rabid animal. 

Somehow, it seems more calculated now. It has more intent to its movements as it reaches up to his face and slashes; its claws drag over his forehead and through the bridge of his nose, cleaving through cartilage like a knife through butter. Pain lances through Steve’s entire body like fire, making his limbs jerk and thrash as the monster cuts across his cheekbone and down to his jaw. He whimpers, trying to turn his head away in vain. 

“Get off him!”

A gunshot sounds off right above Steve, and the monster jerks away, chittering and growling before another gunshot echoes through the house. Something dark drips into Steve’s eye, and he blinks it away, hot tears tracing down his cheeks at the motion. He feels like his entire face is an open wound– likely because it is. He can feel the blood gushing from each gash, making him lightheaded and dizzy. The lights certainly aren’t helping, still flickering and disorienting him even as he lays motionless on the floor. 

He watches from the corner of his eye as Jonathan beats the monster to the bear trap with the bat back in his grip, shouting incoherently. Nancy is lighting a match with shaking hands, her gun wedged under her arm tightly and pointing down at her hip. In his delirium, Steve thinks, That’s not safe. Does Nancy know firearm safety?

The monster finally backs up into the trap, its movements jerky and erratic once again. Its howls seem to shake the house as the trap closes in, and Nancy throws her lit match onto the gasoline seeping from under it as quickly as she can. 

Steve can only watch in morbid fascination as the monster goes up in flames, screeching and clawing at itself as the fire licks up its sides. Jonathan and Nancy back up to stand in front of Steve’s prone form protectively, their stances solid. Steve marvels at how they haven’t collapsed yet. The wonders of adrenaline, he thinks. 

Just as the monster’s screams reach a crescendo, so loud that Steve is sure the entire town can hear, everything suddenly stops. The lights stop flickering, the monster stops screaming, and the fire stops raging. It’s gone. Vanished into thin air. 

The two teens above him frantically look around, eyes wide. Jonathan hesitantly pants, “Is… is it over?”

Steve hums brokenly, feeling something well up in the back of his throat. He doesn’t really have the energy to try and cough it out. He mutters, “Looks like it.”

Nancy whips around at the sound of his voice, a panicked expression taking over her face as she crashes down to her knees next to him. Her hands hover over Steve’s torso, and he finally looks down to assess the damage. Gruesome tears cross over his chest, spilling blood endlessly onto the dusty hardwood floors. Every breath rattles harshly, and he feels like he can’t get enough air. He slowly becomes aware of the deep, aching pain originating from each wound, although it’s already fading. Maybe he really will survive this. No pain is probably a good sign. 

Steve’s mind is drifting. He’s never felt like this before– almost like he’s on the verge of sleep. He can’t fall asleep just yet, though. Somehow, this feels more permanent. Like if he falls asleep now, he’ll be missing out on something important. Something life-changing. 

As Steve blinks back to himself a little, he sees that Nancy is leaning over him. Her eyes are still wide and terrified, even though the monster is already gone. Steve doesn’t know why she looks like that, but he doesn’t like it. He’d do anything to keep that look off her face. 

“Steve?”

Nancy’s voice is trembling. She sounds so scared again, and Steve lifts his hand to cup her cheek, furrowing his brows. His fingers leave streaks of dark red blood on her skin. Her eyes are shining with tears, and Steve feels his own start to well up because Nancy doesn’t cry. Why is Nancy crying?

“Hey, it’s okay,” he rasps, pulling her closer with a weak tug. He coughs a little, feeling something start to slowly trickle from his mouth. “I-it’s okay, Nance. Don’t cry.”

“No,” Nancy whimpers, bowing her head down over Steve’s torso. Her hands flutter over his wounds, unsure and trembling. “No, no– Steve, this isn’t okay, this– this–”

“Shh,” Steve hushes, nudging her chin and prompting her to look up at his face again. “It’s okay. They don’t h… hurt anymore. That’s g– good, right?”

Jonathan kneels down next to him, and wow, he has tears in his eyes, too. Steve isn’t sure why they both look so sad. It’s not like he’s dying. 

…is he dying?

“Am I dying?”

“No,” Jonathan says through gritted teeth. He curls himself over Steve protectively, almost as if it isn’t too late– as if he can still somehow save him. With a wavering voice, he says, “No, you’re not dying. Don’t you dare fucking die, Harrington.”

“Mm,” Steve’s eyelids flicker as darkness pushes in from the corners of his vision, the Christmas lights bright and piercing into his eyes unpleasantly. “That… that’s right. I ha– haven’t… apologized yet. S-sorry for… for…”

“Hey, stop,” Jonathan pleads, shaking his head. Nancy slumps down, burying her face into the crook of Steve’s neck and shaking with her sobs. His hand slides up from her cheek to the side of her head, and he pats it softly in a poor attempt at comfort. It just makes her cry harder. Steve’s blood is everywhere now, in Nancy’s hair and Jonathan’s clothes and Steve’s lips and– and–

“Sorry,” Steve says again. He can tell he’s fading already; a strange calm washes over him, and his limbs relax, his hand starting to fall from where it’s resting over Nancy’s hair. She brings her own up to press it back to her cheek, her tears mixing with blood. He murmurs, “Sorry. Didn’t m… mean to… sorry you have to s– see this, Nance.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nancy chokes out, clutching Steve’s shirt in her hand and twisting it in her grip. “Please don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do, though,” Steve says. His voice is faint now, down to a quiet rasp that he can barely hear himself. “I do. It’s okay. It’s…”

He blinks. His eyes drift towards Jonathan, who he barely knows and barely cared for just a few days ago. Jonathan tried to save him, though, and he defended Nancy– so Steve knows he can trust him with this. He owes him that much, at least. 

“Jon,” Steve murmurs, “Can I… can I call you Jon?” He coughs again, weaker this time. He can barely feel it. Jonathan leans forward, eyebrows furrowed, and Steve croaks, “Make… make sure… Nance is okay, after this. Can… can you do that? For me?”

Jonathan’s face crumples, and he slumps down as well, wrapping a hand around Steve’s bicep and squeezing it with a kind of sorrowful resignation. He nods, and a few tears finally fall, dripping slowly down onto the bloody hardwood floors. 

“I can do that,” he whispers. “I’ll do that, Steve.”

“Okay,” Steve breathes, and the corners of his lips tick up into a small smile. His eyes slip shut, slow and languid. “Good. Good. I’m… I’m just gonna… take a nap, ‘kay? Just… just tired…”

Things feel far away now. Even Nancy’s desperate cries, her voice right next to his ear, sound muffled. Steve Harrington takes a final breath in and a final breath out. 

And Steve Harrington dies. 

Chapter Text

In the mornings, Steve tends to wake up slowly. He likes it when he gets to lie in bed for a bit, relishing in the soft light streaming into the room from his window before he’s forced to get up. He can sink from his dreams into the real world at his own pace– ensure that he starts the day on an okay note instead of a bad one. 

This time, the way Steve wakes up is sudden and jarring. It’s like he’s asleep one moment, and wide awake the next. He blinks, off-kilter already even though it’s only– wait. 

Steve is standing up, not laying down in bed. In fact, Steve feels kind of horrible. He usually does feel pretty horrible when he first wakes up, but this is a whole new level. His body and face are throbbing, and his skin feels uncomfortably sticky. He blinks again, bringing his hands up to rub his eyes and halting halfway. He stares. 

…Blood. There’s blood all over my hands. 

The thought is a bit distant, a bit disbelieving. Steve continues to stare at his hands, not quite registering why they’re coated in a sick dark red until he hears something shift behind him. 

He whips around. There, lying on the floor of the living room, the Byers living room, is him. Steve is being cradled in Nancy’s arms, her body shaking slightly with barely-audible sobs. Jonathan has a comforting arm over her shoulders, staring at Steve– no, Steve’s body– with wide, teary eyes. 

Steve takes himself in, numb shock settling into his bones. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his torso is torn apart– it’s a gruesome sight, the flesh ragged and shiny with slick blood. His face somehow looks even worse, jagged claw marks curving from the very top of his forehead to his jawline and still trickling blood. The bridge of his nose is cut clean through, and Steve distinctly recalls the moment it happened with a shiver. 

He takes a cautious step forward, and the old floorboards under his feet don’t creak. In fact, he doesn’t make a sound– he can’t hear his clothes rustling, or his footsteps padding, or even his own breathing. He inhales just to make sure he still can, and it sends a startling twinge of pain through his chest. Huh. I thought ghosts couldn’t feel pain. 

At that, Steve pauses, halfway down to kneeling next to Nancy and his own body. Is he a ghost? It certainly checks out. Jonathan and Nancy can’t seem to see him, which he confirms by waving a hand directly in their faces, and his dead body is right in front of him. Steve doesn’t really know what else he could be. 

Isn’t that a kicker? Steve thinks, his mind still feeling a bit distant as he stares down numbly at his body. Can’t even leave this plane of existence. Guess I failed at entering the afterlife, too. 

“Nancy,” Jonathan eventually murmurs, pulling away slightly. Steve startles a little; Jonathan’s voice seems so loud in the quiet of the house, disturbing the heavy atmosphere. “Nancy, we have to call someone.”

Nancy shakes her head, gripping Steve’s shirt tighter in her fist. His heart aches. “No. I’m not leaving him here.”

Jonathan’s mouth twists painfully as he glances back at the phone, which is crumpled and broken in the corner of the room. Someone must have crushed it in the commotion. He lets out a shaky sigh. 

“I’m sorry, Nance, but I’m not leaving you here either, and we– we have to get my mom, or Chief Hopper, or– or someone.”

Steve wants to comfort Nancy. He wants her to see him, to know that he’s still right here. On instinct, he reaches out to place a hand on her back, but falters before he can make contact. Steve just leaves his hand hovering above her spine, uncertain. 

He doesn’t know if he can touch anybody as a ghost. Maybe he’ll phase through her, like in movies. Maybe nothing will happen at all. 

He draws back, looking away from Nancy with something like sadness blooming in his chest. Steve won’t be able to help her, not like this. He doesn’t want to try and touch her– to cement the fact that he’s truly gone. Steve’s specialty has always been living in denial, so that might as well carry over in death. 

Jonathan eventually manages to pull Nancy away, gently coaxing her to stand and stumble out of the house with him. Steve follows, glancing back at his dead body one last time before stepping outside. 

Steve knows it’s cold out tonight, but he can’t really feel it– not like he usually would. It doesn’t bite at his skin or seep through to his bones like it had earlier. Nancy and Jonathan start to shiver, pressing their shoulders together. Their breaths cloud in the air, warm puffs of white spilling from their mouths and fading into the cloudless sky. Steve’s don’t. 

They all stop at the sight of Steve’s car, still parked in the driveway. The driver’s side door is wide open, the keys dropped onto the gravel next to the front tire. Nancy smears her hand over her mouth, a devastated expression twisting her features as she realizes just how close Steve was to leaving. How close he was to avoiding death. 

Steve steps around them to peer inside, frowning. He isn’t sure if he can touch the car either, and the thought of testing it out makes him slightly queasy. Behind him, Nancy starts speaking again, and he moves out of the way as she makes her way forward. 

“He almost left,” she whispers, crouching down to pick up Steve’s keys. “If he had…”

“He made his choice,” Jonathan says. His voice is weak, like he’s trying to convince Nancy as well as himself. “He saved our lives. My life. I don’t know what would’ve happened if he left.”

Nancy stares down at the keys, the blood on her palms rubbing off onto the cool metal. Steve aches with the need to reassure her, and as if he read his mind, Jonathan steps forward. He puts a hand on Nancy’s back, staring down at Steve’s keys with her. 

“He made his choice,” Jonathan repeats quietly. Nancy just tightens her grip on the keys, sagging into Jonathan’s hold with a defeated slump to her shoulders. 

Steve isn’t sure how long they stay there, sitting in the gravel and clutching his car keys, but it’s long enough for a police cruiser to pull up in the driveway. A small woman bursts out from the passenger side and rushes to Jonathan in a flurry, already talking rapid-fire in a shaky, worried voice. 

“Jonathan, honey– are you okay? What happened, what–”

“Mom,” Jonathan chokes out, reaching for her. “Mom, how– where did you–”

“I heard you from the other place,” Jonathan’s mom breathes. Joyce Byers, Steve thinks. He met her once, years ago. She’s still the same as he remembers– she just looks more tired, more worn out. Joyce stares down at the blood on Jonathan’s clothes worriedly. “I came as fast as I could. Jonathan, whose car is this? What happened, honey?”

Joyce takes his face in her hands, tilting it left and right to check for injuries. Jonathan starts tearing up again, pulling Nancy even closer. 

“Mom, inside, he–” Jonathan takes in a stuttering breath, shaking his head. “Steve, he’s– he–”

“Steve? Steve Harrington?” Joyce asks, her eyebrows scrunching up. She glances back to the car, a spark of recognition lighting in her gaze. “What is he doing here?”

Jonathan opens and closes his mouth, unable to find words. Nancy is the one who answers, her voice quiet. 

“He saved our lives.”

This is when Chief Hopper chooses to step out of the cruiser, slamming the door shut behind him and jogging over. He looks exhausted. “What’s happening now?”

Steve watches as Joyce sends Hopper a significant look, tilting her head at the house. Hopper frowns, glancing over at the two shivering teens before walking past them to head up the porch. Steve stares after him, waiting. 

“Oh, shit,” the Chief exclaims after halting in the doorway. “Fuck.”

Joyce shoots up at his tone, eyes wide with worry. She wipes the tears off of Jonathan’s face one last time and pulls him into a tight hug before getting up to follow Hopper. She nudges him aside and freezes. 

“Oh, Steve,” she gasps, jolting forward into the house. Steve hesitantly trails after her, peering around Hopper’s bulky frame to see what Joyce is doing. 

She stoops down over his body, pressing her fingers against the pulse point of his neck almost desperately. When she can’t find his heartbeat, her eyes well up; Steve has to look away as she pulls his body close, cradling his head in her hands not unlike how she held Jonathan moments before. 

Steve had first met Joyce when he was still a little kid. At six years old, Steve was left alone at the grocery store, his mom in too much of a rush to remember she had even brought him in. Steve was wandering around the store when Joyce had stumbled upon him, little Jonathan clutching her hand tightly. 

“Where’s your mom, sweetheart?” she had asked, a worried crease between her brows. Steve had looked up at her and smiled with all his teeth, like his mom taught him to when speaking to strangers. 

“She’s gone,” he said, pointing to the entrance of the store. “Don’t worry, she always comes back.”

Joyce had stared down at him in shock, a furious expression flickering across her face so briefly that Steve was sure he imagined it. It was completely gone almost as soon as it had appeared, instead replaced by something like sadness. 

Steve had tilted his head then, unsure if he was still allowed to speak. Hesitantly, he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Joyce Byers,” she said, crouching down in front of him. Jonathan was quiet, his dark eyes boring into the side of Steve’s face. “What’s yours?”

Steve beamed. “Steve Harrington.”

After that, Joyce had taken him by the hand, pulling him towards the front of the store. Steve didn’t really know what was happening, but Joyce was a nice lady, so he let himself be led. She then took up the payphone and dialed a number, not letting go of his hand the entire time. 

He had gotten in trouble for drawing attention to himself that day and making that filthy poor Byers trash feel sorry for you. But even as his father yelled and hit the table, making him flinch and cower, Steve had remembered the comforting warmth of Joyce’s hand encasing his own. 

Now, Joyce takes hold of the same hand, pressing it against her chest as the tears in her eyes start to spill over in earnest. Hopper turns away from the scene, his expression twisting into one of bitter resignation. 

“He was so young,” Joyce rasps, tucking some of Steve’s bloody hair behind his ear. Steve wonders if she’s remembering the first time they met, too. 

Hopper steps back, and Steve flinches out of the way before the man can touch him, his heart giving a panicked jump in his chest. Steve feels like a bird, all twitchy and hypersensitive. He doesn’t like it. 

“Chief?” Jonathan says, turning his head to follow Hopper as he walks back and starts to rummage in the cruiser. Hopper grunts, pulling out his radio. 

“I’m gonna call some people,” he says, shaking his head. His expression is somber. “Just sit tight, okay, kid? Sit tight.”

Steve furrows his brows, the movement pulling at his wounds and making him wince. He doesn’t think he’s in as much pain as he really should be, but the amount is certainly not small enough to ignore. He finally chances a glance down at himself– his ghost self, really. 

Steve’s ghost body looks pretty much the exact same as his physical body. The deep gouges in his chest are still steadily leaking blood, which is slightly alarming. He can feel more droplets sliding down his face, and he wipes some off of his chin before they fall. Steve stares at the gleaming red fluid streaked across his shaking hand, frowning. 

It looks fresh, is the thing. He’s leaking fresh blood. Steve thinks that’s a little weird. He’s already dead– so why is he still bleeding? Still in pain? Although the pain is definitely toned down a significant amount, it’s still there. Steve is almost tempted to press his hand against one of his wounds to test it, but he feels like he’s already met his quota of suffering for today. 

The sound of tires rolling across gravel snaps him back to his surroundings, and he looks up, watching as an ambulance pulls up in front of the house. Another police cruiser slows to a stop behind it, and two officers step out, slamming their doors shut behind them and jogging over to Hopper. 

“Took you long enough,” Hopper grunts, glancing over at the house as people jump out of the ambulance. “There’s a body in there. Steve Harrington.”

The officer with glasses blanches, swivelling his head to look at the house. “Harrington? Oh, god.”

“Yeah,” Hopper says, grim. “Just a heads-up: it ain’t pretty.”

Hopper leads everyone back to the house, and Steve steps even more out of the way as they file in. He looks on as the officers shudder at the scene, peering into the house with open trepidation. They’ve clearly gotten more action this week than they’ve ever had before, and Steve’s dead body is just the cherry on top. 

“God,” the glasses officer says again. He looks like he’s barely restraining himself from clinging onto his partner next to him, who looks just a little less shaken. “What the hell happened to him?”

“Some animal,” Hopper says, stepping aside to let the ambulance people in. Steve isn’t sure what they’re here for– he’s already dead, after all– but maybe they need to retrieve his body. Hospitals do that too, right? “The kids say it was a bear. We’ll get the full story later.”

Glasses guy shakes his head, his mouth twisted in a sick expression. His partner places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “This is so fucked, Chief. When did this town get so goddamn wild?”

“Calm down, Cal,” his partner soothes. “I’m sure this stuff is just a one-time thing. Get your head on straight.”

Cal grimaces and nods, taking a few deep breaths. Hopper looks on impatiently, tapping his foot, but he waits for the officers to calm down more before speaking again. 

“I need you two to do some damage control. The other shit was bad enough, but Harrington will attract reporters like flies. Be prepared.”

Cal furrows his eyebrows, and with a frown, his partner says, “What about you? What’re you going to do?”

Hopper sighs. “Don’t worry about it, Powell. Just do your damn job.”

Steve is kind of lost. Everything is moving really fast now, and even as hard as he tries, he can’t watch every single conversation at once. 

Hopper had left with Joyce and Jonathan to go to the hospital– apparently, the little Byers kid isn’t dead, which is confusing enough that Steve doesn’t feel like looking for more information on it. The officers, Cal and Powell (Steve finds out that Cal’s full name is actually Callahan, but now the nickname is stuck in Steve’s mind and permanently attached to the man’s face) do get swamped with reporters just like Hopper had predicted, and they try their best to answer questions with things that will temporarily satisfy the masses. Hawkins is a small town, and everyone knows the Harringtons– the high school’s golden boy dying so suddenly is no doubt a shock. Steve wonders if his parents will finally come home this time. 

Steve decides to stick with Nancy for now, who’s currently getting checked by a paramedic. Now that Jonathan left, she seems untethered– spaced out and not really there. The paramedic tells Nancy that she’s in shock, even though she can’t really seem to hear it, and he drapes a heavy blanket over her shoulders before guiding her down to sit on the dry grass of the lawn. 

The ambulance people had wheeled his body away already. Steve is sure his blood still stains the hardwood floors of the Byers’ living room, and he doesn’t want to confirm it by looking. Instead, he lowers himself down to sit next to Nancy, stretching his legs out in front of him. There’s a long scratch drawn from his right knee to his ankle that he hadn’t noticed before, staining his jeans with more dark blood. Steve is getting sick of blood. 

Nancy picks at the new bandage wrapped around her palm, her eyes still pensive and spacey. She watches with a distant expression as the ambulance with Steve’s body pulls out of the driveway, starting to drive down the road in the direction of the hospital. Cal and Powell are still off to the side fending off reporters, some of whose clunky cameras are clicking and snapping away with abandon. Cal has a slightly queasy look on his face as he blocks a journalist from walking over to Nancy, shaking his head while saying something sharply. The journalist backs off with a displeased scowl. 

It’s here, sitting next to Nancy in the grass, that it all finally hits him. Steve is dead. He’s gone, and he’s never coming back. He was alive just a few hours ago, having a panic attack in his car after running away from Tommy’s ire, and now he’s invisible to everyone he’s ever known, blood still leaking impossibly from his wounds. Wounds, because they’re grave enough that he can’t call them boo-boos. Fatal enough to send him spinning out of the living world’s orbit, a planet whose gravitational pull was abruptly cut off from the sun. 

Steve doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been dead before– and isn’t that a laugh and a half? He doesn’t even get to rest. Steve has always thought that there was nothing after people died; they were just gone. Poof. No more thinking, no more feeling, no more living. But emotions are still warring for dominance up in Steve’s mind– anger, fear, and sadness all run and twist together in his chest like a fucked-up river through his ribcage, roaring with an overwhelming ferocity. 

A deep ache in his throat makes itself known, pressing up and begging to be released. Steve brings his legs up to squeeze them against his torso, injuries be damned. It sends white-hot bolts of pain through his body, and Steve can’t help but think that he shouldn’t be feeling anything. 

A tear slips from his eye. Then another, and another, and soon enough Steve is full-on sobbing, heaving and shaking soundlessly. The ache in his throat grows sharper as he cries and cries and cries like he never has before. 

And for once in his life, Steve wishes someone could see him fall apart.