#stwg

"Found one," Steve says, voice raising over the sound of the TV they've got going in the background — old Dallas reruns or something, nothing anyone wants to pay attention to. But the white noise of it all is nice, calming even. Eddie has no clue what Dallas is even about, never paid attention to a single episode — but Steve confessed he used to watch it with his Mom sometimes, so Dallas it was.

Steve's wearing a green knit sweater and Hawkins High sweatpants, hair messy and finger-combed out off his forehead — and he's never looked more beautiful. Picking up said corner piece — this one also blue — and adding it to Wayne's pile.

Eddie catches Steve's gaze — soft and relaxed, the tension he holds slowly easing — and sticks his tongue out at his boyfriend. Heart jumping in his chest as Steve laughs in return, eyes catching the light, shoulders dropping into a relaxed slump.

"Now, now, boys," Wayne starts, voice gruff and face impassive, although Eddie can still hear the amusement in his tone. See the subtle quirk of his lips, smile starting to curl under his beard. He hopes Steve can hear it too, know how to read Wayne, know that he's always welcome in his home. "This ain't a competition."

"It's always a competition uncle Wayne," Eddie retorts immediately, grinning to his uncle across the table as he picks out another blue-green edge piece and adds it to his own growing pile. Of course Wayne couldn't pick a small puzzle.

"More fun that way," Steve adds smugly, finding another corner piece — green this time — and holding it up as if he's got the catch of the day. Catching Eddie's gaze, eyes practically sparking in the yellow-warm overhead light of the trailer.

Fitting, seeing as the puzzle — chosen by Wayne, of course — was of a man sat in a lawn chair at the end of a dock, fishing into a lake. It was very Wayne, the very picture of his perfect day off — it just also had a truly horrific amount of blue. No wonder Eddie can't find any of the fucking corner pieces.

There's one left to find, and Eddie bet's it's blue.

"I'm a changed man, Wayne," he adds, speaking without thinking, eyes skimming over the pile of loose pieces as he looks for the final corner. He has to find at least one, c'mon. It's a matter of pride, now, Eddie enjoying shamelessly playing into his boyfriend's competitive spirit. "I'm a competitive puzzler now."

"Then why am I winning," Steve laughs, easy and carefree as he gestures to his prize pool of two corner pieces. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, deepening as Eddie looks over at him with an exaggerated pout.

"Don't kill my dream." He laughs, smiling back at his boyfriend, as he scoops up a pile of pieces to better thumb through them. "But fine. I'm an amateur competitive puzzler. Happy now?"

"Yes." Steve retorts, tilting his head up as if to look down his nose at Eddie — although he can see him biting back a smile. Eddie just snorts, stretching a leg out to kick at Steve's feet, socked foot pressed to socked foot. It's only little, barely a point of contact, but it makes him happy all the same. He gets to do this, gets to play footsie with his boyfriend — boyfriend! — while relaxing and spending time with his uncle.

Wayne huffs out a laugh, an amused exhale of air, as he picks out the final corner piece. Plucking it out of a sea of near identical blue pieces, held between calloused fingers.

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The wind tried to push them away, urging them to run, to move faster, to push themselves out of the series of events barrelling towards them but the boys just laughed, brushing hair from each other’s face before leaning in again.

The Quarry echoed up towards them, hoping to spook them into jumping into their own cars and peeling out of there at high speed, but the boys didn’t notice, too wrapped up in each other.

The evening sky watched on in silence, unable to do anything about the incoming storm and the small group gathering on the other side of town, ignorant and fearful and wanting to hurt in return.

Death had visited Eddie Munson before, just once. Not to take him, but to help him hold on. It wasn’t his time to die, no matter what others in the town thought. 

The boy was loud and brash and passionate, bursting at the seams with life and energy and light and Death didn’t want to see that pass unnecessarily. They refused to take him before they were due to.

They had leaned down, brushing a light kiss against his lips and had stepped back as his friends and one boy in particular threw themselves down next to him.

Steve Harrington had received multiple visits from Death over the years. 

Their first meeting had come on the tail end of a vicious beating and a plate over the head. The ground below him had shuddered with the impact and while the children around him screamed and he lay unconscious on the floor, Death had flapped their wings and flared that dying spark of life back up into a flame.

Barely a year later they had gone underground and brushed their fingers through his hair, while a girl spat in another man’s face. They could feel the earth around them try to reach out to support, but being held back by metal walls and a sickening aura from another world.

Then again only a day later while the sky and the sunlight and the pollen could only watch through the windows, Death took his hand, pulling life back into him from his slumped position on the couch he’d been sleeping on, still in his uniform.

The next time was more difficult. Trapped in another world that Death couldn’t reach, if Steve died there, then he’d be there forever. But the boy had just managed to make it back to the other side, cradling Eddie’s body close.

It wasn’t until he stepped back outside the hospital, all of his responsibilities temporarily being watched over by nurses and doctors and he had screamed, harsh and loud and bloody into the night. He collapsed, the dirt below trying to cushion him from hurting himself more than he already had been.

Death had stayed with him until someone found him, keeping him warm in their arms, but never closing their wings, not all the way. 

It wasn’t his time.

They watched as both boys came together, feeling young again, even though they had to hide. But they found happiness in each other, even if others could only look on in confusion or anger, threatened by what they refused to understand.

The group across town began to move, intent on driving him out of town for good this time, believing him to be a stain on their pristine lawns.

It was ridiculous and Death could do nothing to stop it.

They watched as Steve buzzed around his empty home, getting dinner prepared for himself, full of light and love.

When the group arrived, they didn’t announce their presence with a polite knock on the door but with a rock through the window, followed quickly by glass and gasoline and fire.

With the window broken, wind could now enter but it stayed away, not wanting to fan the flames as Steve gripped his bat, slowly and carefully walking back towards his patio door.

There were only six of them, but six against one were still terrible odds, no matter the creatures Steve had fought in the past.

His walkie was out of reach, sitting innocently in the kitchen along with the landline and his dinner burning on the stove, too far out of reach.

There was a scramble of movement as they broke through the windows, through the front door. 

Jason’s parents, Andy Johnson, that dog walker, Steve’s own neighbours and Chrissy Cunningham's younger brother were amongst the crowd and wasn't that the most devastating thing? 

Whipped up into a frenzy of hate and fear at barely twelve years old, by those supposed to look out for him, believing they were teaching him to take care of his town, handing the future to him.

Because of course they chose Steve to hunt.

He was one of them. He should be one of them. He was the one their daughters should be bringing home, the one they should be shaking hands with in church or sharing beers with.

Eddie was already an outsider. He wasn't a reflection of them. He didn't hold a mirror up, showing how much they could change, how far they could fall, how empty all of them were inside.

But these were the people Steve used to associate with. They saw him as more of a blight on the town than any of the other outsiders because he used to be them and if he could fall, then they must be able to too, right?

So they had to tear and scratch and burn to convince themselves that no, he was, is in fact wrong. He had always been that way. He was never right, not like them. No, they could never fall the way he did.

He was a disease and so they had to cut the disease out, had to eradicate any trace in case the infection spread.

As much as everyone pretended the religious fervour had died down, the town had only just gotten a taste.

It had whet their appetite for mob mentality and they were thirsty for more, feeling they were morally full to the brim but were in fact starved of compassion, blind to anything outside of their own comfort.

They claimed to be loving, to be healing, to be all welcoming with plastic smiles and greedy eyes but they would run anyone over who stepped a foot out of line. 

And unfortunately, Steve stepped out of line. He broke the mould and they believed they had to punish him for it.

The patio door crashed open and Steve was running out towards the woods before they could find him, his old home billowing thick black smoke at his back.

Death knew his parents wouldn't care. The insurance pay out from the fire would be more than enough to soften the blow, cosy in their new home in New York City. 

They would never publicly acknowledge what happened here but privately they would thank their neighbours for their crusade.

The grass could feel the thud, thud, thud of fearful running footsteps. Broken twigs and slippery leaves caught him unawares and were apologetic but powerless to do anything about it as shouts full of hate and the frenetic energy of bloodlust followed him into the woods.

The trees that surround them, that had shielded Steve and the chasing group alike whenever they needed it, could feel when he was disarmed and the bat was thrown to the side, the bloodsoaked nails digging into the earth as it fell.

None of them were brave enough to use such a deadly weapon against him, fearing too much the consequences of being the one to pick it up and undoubtedly have the responsibility of killing him, and Steve was not enough of a coward to use the bat against the group.

Strikes landed against the trees, from fists that missed him and from impacts travelling through Steve’s body and into the wood, cracking their bark and flaking it off. The earth soaked up the blood that was spilled heavy and hot but too metallic for nutrition. 

Adrenaline came fast and hard but left just as quickly and when the group looked at what they had done, the haze of anger and righteous indignation no longer thick enough to colour their perception of their actions, they took a step back, each of them sickened somewhere deep inside by what they had done but none of them were bold enough to admit it to the other.

Steve was still full of the need to keep living so he took an opportunity where he saw it, forcing his broken body to run again in a slightly delirious way, making it back to his car. 

The group didn’t follow immediately but it wouldn’t take long for them to realise that Steve knew each and every one of them and that maybe allowing him to get away alive might no longer have been an option.

Death could see Steve peel out of his driveway, his car always at the front of the house and ready to go after years of dealing with the end of the world. 

Across town, Eddie was practising a new piece on his guitar, full of joyful energy and barely able to contain his excitement when he got it right, almost jumping for joy and eager to tell Steve the next time he saw him.

Robin was in her room, pouring over books on cryptography, a fascination for her that began in the back room of an ice-cream parlour and hasn’t left her since. She had come to terms with the fact that this might be what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, but she would have to travel far to be able to study it, unsure of how to bring it up to her soulmate because she wanted him to come with her and to bring along his new love as well.

But still it would be a big change.

A big conversation.

The kids sat in the basement of the Wheeler home, giving Will back his DM seat, just between them. It was an apology for all that they had discounted his passions before, just like Steve had advised them to do and the bond between all of them glowed ever brighter.

The blinking stars watched as the car veered, swaying dangerously at speed from one side of the road to the other.

The crunch of metal and the impact splintered some of the thinner trees, leaves and branches falling onto the scene below, one sputtering headlight pointing out into the forest, a lighthouse in the night.

Somewhere in town a walkie crackled to life.

The skies opened up and the rain did what it could to help, washing the blood away and Death descended.

Steve blinked his eyes open.

“Hello.”

Death was unable to respond for a moment, but eventually replied, “Hello.”

“I’ve seen you before.”

“Too many times.”

Death crouched low, one wing extended over them, to keep the rain off his face.

“Am I coming with you? There’s so much left I need to do.”

Death heard it all before. People begged for more time, offering a card game for their soul, but Death doesn’t trade in souls. That was not their business. 

They would always promise Death other lives, other deaths in place of their own, money, power, glory, kingdoms, countries if they would just let them live a little while longer.

It never worked and Death never bargains.

Their time was their time and nothing on earth would ever be able to change that.

Death was nothing if not fair.

But even so, Steve didn’t beg. He didn’t try to bargain or trick. He was just asking. He wanted to know what to expect.

“No.” They answered. “Not yet.”

Death got down to their knees, hovering over him, close enough to throw him into shadow.

“But eventually?”

They nodded. “Everyone comes with me eventually.”

They lowered themselves down, pressing their lips softly against Steve’s as his eyes slipped closed again. 

“But not you. Not today.”

On the road just behind them, a deer jumped out, bounding across the black expanse, spooked by a branch a nearby tree dropped, sacrificed just in time.

Tires screeched to a halt. 

The wind had been at their back the entire time. 

Birds are sent flapping frantically into the sky as the screams of Steve’s friends and love rip through the air.

Death watched from above as they did everything in their power to get him out, get him to safety.

When he was eventually taken to a larger hospital in the city Steve was watched over at every available second by a slowly revolving door of people who would not leave him, even if Death themselves asked them to.

Steve never stepped foot back in Hawkins again after he crashed just beyond the ‘Now Leaving Hawkins’ sign, but he was not without his people.

The family that Steve had built up around him were merciless in their judgement of the town. Those who were able to, leave immediately. Eddie and Wayne only enter Hawkins again to gather up their most prized of prized possessions, happy to never ever look back on it, no matter what might crawl out of the ground.

Robin and her parents, who had come to see Steve as a second son, followed not long after.

Some of the kids' parents were more ready to leave than others, but eventually they all did, all of them disturbed and terrified and angry.

Every single one of Steve’s family was happy to leave the town to rot without them, there was nothing left for them there anymore.

They all follow him. 

Every single one. 

And he is once again surrounded.

Everyone he had ever helped, ever loved, ever stood in front of them and Death for.

They all surround him and they are all there, many, many years later when Death comes for him for the last time. His family was waiting on either side of the veil for him, old and grey and wrinkled.

But they were all there for him. 

AO3

Based off of Take Me To Church

All my love to @hbyrde36, my friend and beta for screaming with me over this.

Written for the @strangerthingswritersguild Hozier Project

Raising a fist, Wayne hammers on the door - then startles back as it shifts open, unlocked, with a screech of its hinges. Wayne waits with baited breath as the noise echoes into nothing, but there is no sound of footsteps or a raised voice, no attendant to demand he announce himself. Wayne wonders if this place is truly derelict - abandoned to the trees and the whimsy of the Gods.

He pushes at the door, driving it open another few inches; the hinges screech their protest and ultimately he can open it no further; the door has jammed against the stone floor it crosses and it is clear that it has sagged and rusted with time; it is not used. Wayne squeezes himself through the gap but does not close it in case he can't get it open again once the storm in the woods has lifted.

He is in a grand entranceway, the kind that should be lined with uniformed house-staff and lit with candles, making welcome to visitors of finery and stature.

He looks out into the black of the castle, where the moonlight that is coming through windows into the atrium does not reach, and calls out, "Hello?"

It echoes away to nothing.