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Steve is at Eddie’s funeral.
The funeral is small. Smaller than Eddie deserves. Just their little group, Wayne, and the older Hellfire guys huddled beneath a grey sky. No townspeople. No classmates. No one who ever whispered about Eddie in the hallways.
Dustin stands stiff beside him, his eyes swollen from crying, silent in that terrifying way he’s been for the past week. Steve hasn’t spoken much either. Hasn’t really been much since the earthquake tore through Hawkins. He’s been living in the quiet, letting it swallow him whole instead.
Wayne’s voice carries over the cemetery, low and cracked, but Steve can’t make out the words. They blur, muffled, like he’s underwater. His ears ring instead—memories forcing their way in. Eddie stomping and yelling across the cafeteria, poking fun at whatever sports he felt like shitting on. Eddie in the boathouse, pinning Steve against the wall as he held a broken bottle to his throat, eyes wide with fear. Eddie in the Upside Down, his voice steady and light as he tells Steve he’s no hero. Bullshit.
Steve’s hand twitches. He remembers the weight of Eddie’s battlevest folded in his closet, untouched and stained red with Steve’s blood. He hasn’t been able to look at it since. It feels wrong that he still has it. Wrong that Eddie doesn’t. He should be here, wearing it.
Instead, something hollow opens in his chest, a cold emptiness he can’t name, that has no business being there. It’s not grief—grief feels sharp, undeserving for someone like Steve. He barely knew the guy, his friends used to make fun of him as Steve watched on and let it happen. Someone like Steve doesn’t deserve to mourn someone like Eddie. Rather, he feels like someone scooped out everything inside him and left nothing behind.
The coffin lowers slowly, ropes creaking. It’s empty. Everyone knows it. Steve knows it. It was him who left Eddie there. In that place. Everyone pretends not to look at Wayne’s face as he watches his nephew be buried without a body—the way his jaw locks tight enough to tremble, the way his eyes don’t shine with tears but with something worse, something dry and hollow. His expression is carved out of grief that’s gone past crying, past breaking. It’s the look of a man who’s already lost Eddie once when he ran away from the townspeople, and now he’s being forced to lose him again, permanently.
Steve’s stomach twists. He should’ve gotten there sooner. Should’ve dragged Eddie’s body out. Something. Instead, he stands here while everyone silently acknowledges what he couldn’t do, the truth laid bare in the empty coffin sinking into the earth.
The guilt is a physical thing, manifesting as tears that stream down his face, hot and humiliating. He turns his face away even though Dustin is openly sobbing beside him. Everyone is crying.
One by one, people step forward, dropping roses onto the lid. Then they drift away, quiet, their heads bowed. Steve doesn’t move. Can’t move. His feet feel rooted to the earth below, like if he leaves, Eddie will really be gone.
The cemetery empties. Wind rustles the grass. Steve finally moves, the rose falling from his hand onto the coffin below. His voice is soft as he speaks, barely a breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to the coffin.
More tears spill from Steve’s eyes, blurring his vision.
“I told you not to be a hero,” it comes out harsh, his voice cracking and desperate as his hands clench into fists by his side. “Why didn’t you run, Eddie…?”
The coffin doesn’t answer. The silence doesn’t soften. Nothing gets better.
Steve stays standing long after everyone else is gone.