I know I'm a few years late to the NPMD party so maybe this is already established in fandom with a common name/tag but
AU where Stephanie thinks she's found a clever loophole by killing Pete at the old Waylon place, where nothing stays dead. It's still horrible to have to do it, but maybe this way, there's an after. And they tell themselves they don't know if Pete will be a ghost or zombie or what, but he won't be a monster. Max was already a monster when he was alive. Pete will just be himself (right?). They can work through it. They can find a way.
Still having to shoot him. Still having to bury the body. Dodging police because hey, the old place was still very recently an active crime scene. Waiting for weeks to see if Pete comes back. Worried with every day that it didn't work. Ted starting to get nosy because he wasn't involved enough to tie Peter to the other disappearances, but he can't avoid noticing when his own brother vanishes. Stephanie trying to avoid his suspicion while feeling wary herself because why did the freaky goat monster already know the name Spankoffski?
Now, you can't come back from the dead unchanged. Max was a bully alive, he became a sadistic killer. Jane may have pushed Tom's buttons as his wife. That's still a huge jump to being willing to kill to steal a body and insert herself back into her family. People's personalities are still there at the core, like a seed, but they become warped. More extreme.
A dead!Pete that comes back Jealous. He was just starting to have a life. He was starting to realize he had strengths, friends, that he could make something of himself after high school. He could admit to being in love only on the verge of death. And the moment he started having a life, a future, it was taken away from him.
A dead!Pete that haunts his friends, obsessive about pushing them to live. About all the experiences they get that he didn't. Pressuring them with the increasingly voyeuristic, demanding, desperate energy of a life lived by proxy. Especially for Stephanie, since she was the one holding the gun. Is that all you're going to do with your life? Is this what you killed me for? Is that all my sacrifice was worth to you?
Stephanie, who wanted more time with Pete, know stuck with him, literally haunted every step of her future, unable to let go or move past her fist high school relationship.
prguitarman
gamechangershow
titsay
germansingergirl
