Night Vale ▷ Steve Harrington

x. the iron curtain

𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐀 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐃. Just as he was locking up his bike, head bowed down and thoughts swimming, the sound of a tired exhaust pipe fuming uncomfortably close by made him look up, a curse on the tip of his tongue for whatever high school asshole this time thought it would be funny to nearly run him over, Part of him was surprise and part of him wasn't to find out who it was — after coughing and waving away a small cloud of gas she had left in her wake.

Watching her jump out of the car — a grey, beat-up replica of the 1957 Volkswagen that had taken her all of ten seconds to name — Scout couldn't help but let his eyes wander as she neared. Her appearance was pretty much the same as it always was, but being friends with her for years came with the added ability to tell the difference between a normal school day and what she looked like after the events of last night. Her hair, normally primed and proper, was now tangled and poofy, as if she'd slept in it and merely decided to fix it by throwing on an old headband and calling it a day. She had foregone her usual red lipstick and instead left her lips chapped and cracked; her wide neckline shirt so loose it easily could have been mistaken for pajamas.

Figuring it was better to wait for her to pass, the blond forced himself to focus his attention on his bike lock, rough and silver and paint peeling as opposed to catching his best friend's (former best friend?) eye, soon becoming hyper-aware of a familiar pair of dusty canvas sneakers on the cracked sidewalk cement, his own foot tapping anxiously as he raised his head and peered at Letitia when she'd walked past, her head held high as if nothing had happened.

But behind her cool facade, Letitia Thompson was freaking out.

Not that he could tell, of course. Sure, he could see the difference between a hard day's night and the shit show that went down yesterday, but Letitia would let no one, not even Scout, tell how she felt, how disturbed discovering those photos had been. None of them had been inappropriate, maybe, but the fact that they existed at all, that someone had been following her around while she went about her business, unaware was more than enough to make her skin crawl and her throat itch. No, she would let no one know how unsettled she felt, because no one, least of all Scout, deserved it.

Too bad it was virtually impossible to go about the school day without running into him. Throughout the day, she realized just how many classes she sat next to him for, and how difficult it was to avoid looking at someone and give them the stink eye at the same time.

He didn't know what would happen now. He assumed he and Letitia would figure things out together, like they always did, but that, of course, was out of the question. Nothing he could say or do can possibly change her mind now, and he doesn't blame her in the least. Not to mention that he still had the photos, still buried in the bottom of his backpack from where he'd stuffed them inside the night before, not bearing to bring them out and hide them somewhere else -- that would mean having to look at them.

The hours he spent in class were useless. Like almost everyone else, Scout didn't bother to pay attention, only slouching in his seat and speaking when spoken to. Lunch was a whole other matter, however; standing there with his lunch tray and surveying the packed cafeteria to decide where he should sit was more than he could handle, deciding to dump his food and simply heading to the library to await the next half an hour before he had to return to class.

And that's exactly where he was. His teacher, an older woman with hair painfully resembling unkempt straw, had the look of a middle-aged housewife gone to seed. She peered at the chalkboard through unmade-up eyes that resembled crow's feet, her eyebrows so thin it was nearly impossible to discern them from her pallid skin that aged her beyond her years, and her eyelashes short and stubby. She had the misfortune of being a blonde, and while that might have been attractive back in her youth — during the stone age, no doubt — but now she only looked washed out. She kept her cardigan tight around her middle, probably due to the cold, perhaps new when it was loose, but in the light of the afternoon it looked worn and shabby. Her eyes so washed out it was difficult to tell their hue, it was no wonder no one cared to look at her long enough to find out. Either uncaring or oblivious to her indifferent students, she continued to teach as if everyone was listening, dodging the occasional projectile and carrying on talking.