𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆. The richness it brought with each drop was still there, but the pounding of thunder paired with the pounding of his head after crying was too much, leaving him to wait for sleep to overtake him until the aching that surrounded him was no more. Waking up hadn't been easy, the first few moments of the day like a breath of fresh air, not quite remembering the day before until it hit him so hard he would have doubled over if he hadn't already been lying down.

For five minutes he sat on the edge of his bed and thought hard, the wood creaking under his weight as if his thoughts were weighing him down, wondering what was in store for him as soon as he walked out his door. Part of him was glad it was still the weekend — it gave him an excuse to stay in his room as long as he liked, but like everything, it had a downside: staying in his room all day was the last thing he wanted to do. The four walls that held comfort and solidarity now felt as though they were closing in, like a soda can dropped down deep within the depths of the unforgiving sea.

He didn't want to think of what would happen if he did end up stepping out his door. Would his father be there like he'd promised last night, waiting for Scout to come out? Or would he make him wait, like some sort of mind game? Clark Murphy was nothing if not fleeting, but perhaps this time had been one too many — despite there never having been a time before to begin with.

A side glance to his alarm clock told him it's nearly eleven AM, probably the longest he had slept in a while. No matter how exhausted he was, his body never seemed to like waking up past seven in the morning, whether he had school or not; an involuntary reflex. It took a moment for his dark-circled eyes to comprehend the lack of noise coming from said alarm, but all he did in response was furrow a brow and watch closely as the seconds ticked by like a prisoner counting down until his execution. Rather than beeping at him in a loud, monotonous blare, it sat silently atop his nightstand until it could be of use. Funny, it felt like the last time it was used was a million years ago, and yet it's only been two days since.

He imagined the weekend's events would do that to a person.

No sooner has the thought crossed his mind does he doubt it. would it, though? Maybe in another town, another time, another lifetime, these things might be normal, but they sure weren't in Hawkins, Indiana of all places. Whatever business with money never went through public eye, and maybe that was where the problem lied: secretly. People doing things behind closed doors, where there wasn't truly any record of their interaction, or even them being there. No, something had happened with Dawn back in Night Vale, and it wasn't hard to see the people involved, who might have even had something to do with it. Mr. Macaulay was one of them, that was for sure, but the rest were harder. Did the people know their mayor was shady? Whose money had that even been?

So many questions...and yet, none of them had answers. Good ones, anyway. But he was sure of one thing: Dawn Pruitt hadn't drowned that night. No, her death was just like his mother's ring — brimming with questions in places he wasn't supposed to be, ones that could only be answered by the very people that wanted to keep curiosity and snitches away.

It was hard not to think of the whole Will Byers incident; too eerily similar to what had happened to Dawn. For a week, everyone in Hawkins thought the kid was dead, drowned in the quarry late one night after getting too close. Only Joyce seemed to hold out hope, no matter how many times people tried to comfort her or, alternatively, told her she was crazy for believing in it. Even with all the search parties and the woods not even being all that big to begin with...Well. Perhaps it was just best to be happy. Happy for him, and for Jonathan, and for Joyce. Their boy was safe and sound. How? It doesn't matter.

He wasn't quite sure, but Scout had a feeling that Mrs. Byers didn't like him. As far as he could think of, it wasn't something he'd done — at least, he didn't think it was — but their only connection now was the rope that linked Lonnie Byers and Clark Murphy from "the good old days" — times Scout had no knowledge of whatsoever, even after asking his father on good days. Despite his buddy moving to Indianapolis after what he's only described as a messy divorce (and even then, that was putting it politely, or so he heard), Clark didn't seem to have a problem keeping in contact, even though, by his own account, Lonnie was nothing more than a sleaze, uncouth. Perhaps that was exactly why he kept the guy around — a reminder that no matter how many mistakes he made, there was always someone like Lonnie who was a whole lot worse.

What with his friendship with her ex-husband, it wasn't a surprise that Joyce Byers wasn't a fan of Clark Murphy as well. And if that displeasure extended to his son, too...again, he couldn't be sure, but he had a feeling, one that built its theory on the way she always seemed to disappear whenever he thought of approaching her and asking her himself, on glances she threw in his direction whenever they happened to be in the same vicinity... But by the time he turned his head to confront the pair of eyes burning into his person, hers were always focused somewhere else, as if he had never existed.

The only thing that could truly tear his mind away from things now was a distraction, and it was unfortunate he had nothing of the sort. His homework was out of the question, there was no way he would be able to sit still and try to focus on studying; he was sure Letitia was either mad at him or busy, and he had no right to blame her; and with a deflating sigh of self-pity, Scout realized there was no one else. No friends at school — if he could even call the people he went to school with acquaintances at the very least, much less friends — or bandmates to jam with, playing ear splitting music in a musty basement until it felt as if their eardrums would explode, laughing and writing lyrics to anything and everything they could think of. Like friends do.

As if one cue, his eyes were drawn to the neat line of Polaroid photos taped to the top of his dresser. Not quite old and weathered physically, but merely looking at them brings about a wave of nostalgia and sadness that might even rival the way he felt last night. There were only five, all laminated and carefully taped with precision only a professional photographer could possess, and as if in a trance, Scout ran a finger over the face of the first photo — the face of a friend he hadn't thought about in far too long.

His dark hair was mussed in a fringe, flopping over his face, much like his own, his skin glistening with sweat after their first performance in public, a venue for some sort of hipster club nearly out of town. His guitar, like always, was cradled in his hands, and he wore a bemused smile of someone who didn't quite want their picture taken but loved the person behind the camera all the same. Scout was not the photographer of their friendship, so it was not a surprise, just a disappointment, when the photo turned out to be out of focus and off-center, but spirits were lifted back up when he was told it didn't matter because that was how people are, really, moments in time where their features are blurred and insignificant and unimportant to everyone except the people they cared for the most.

Julian Kahue was one of those people. Scout had been the first friend the boy had made since moving to Hawkins from yet another small town somewhere in Ohio their freshman year, and it didn't take long for them to become fast friends, especially after hearing about one another's passion for music. Add Letitia in the mix and the three of them were inseparable, at least for two years. Julian's father seemed to have a talent for quitting jobs just as quickly as he found them, and it wasn't long before Hawkins, Indiana was just another name on a list of places the guitarist had lived and moved away. For a few days, the news burned on everyone's lips like the famous hot sauce served at Benny's Burgers. But slowly, the memory of Julian Kahue faded away, forgotten, except by his two best friends. As if he had never belonged somewhere for more than an entire year.

They were a band, once. Him and Letitia and Julian, they could have been a band that played at concerts and venues and big city contracts, but here, where the only thing that seemed to last longer than the annoying buzz of gossip amongst stay-at-home moms and inattentive dads were the rumors — gossip was nothing more than word of mouth passed between landline and landline, women lapping up every unsavoury detail while keeping their own business as private as they could, their picture-perfect hedges tall enough to block out the cracks between drapes on windows and affairs and teenage antics. Rumors, on the other hand, seemed to carry an unfortunate truth to them, and newcomers were no exception. In fact, they received the worst of it. Being strangers to town and all its inhabitants, the Kahue family could keep as many secrets as they wanted; no one knew them, really truly knew them, and that — that was a weapon no one in Hawkins had the advantage of wielding. And so, the rumors spiralled: Mr. Kahue was a no-good drunk who could never keep a job; his wife was a mistress he had picked up on his latest "work endeavor"; his son was a stereotypical lazy teen who played rock music so loud it shook the house. The only normal member of the household, they said, was their youngest daughter, a shy child of ten that generated a chorus of oohs and ahhs whenever she went out.

If Julian was ever bothered by the rumors, he never showed it. In fact, he always seemed to display a manner of ease Scout could never replicate in his life, his nonchalant enthusiasm ranging from helping his little sister fix her dollhouse to rocking out as their band's rhythm guitarist on weekends. Even after it seemed his family had settled into Hawkins after a full two years, the whispers and rumors and jokes and comments finally, finally subsiding after all this time, his father decided to pack his family up and move elsewhere — another town, another tragedy.

But this time, there was someone to feel the tragedy. Scout and Letitia had been devastated when they heard the news, surprised that Mr. Kahue would do such a thing after things were finally starting to look up, but Julian didn't share in their shock. It was bound to happen, he said, shrugging, acting as if tears weren't streaming down his cheeks as he hugged his best friends goodbye the day before he left to another small, insignificant town on the US map. They slept in Scout's basement that night, the day before he left, and it was like one of their band practices, except lasting all night. They talked, they cried, they wrote a song just for the occasion, and the blond would be lying if he said he didn't itch to play that song again since. Of course, it was written for a band of three people, not two, and he wasn't even sure if even mentioning was a sore subject for Tisha herself... off the table, just like everything these days.

The next photo was one he remembered well, and it brought a smile to his face just thinking about it. He and Letitia had promised old man Jenkins that they would deliver a huge potted plant to a customer across town when they found out his regular delivery boy called in sick, in exchange for a few dollars to pay for a broken string on the girl's guitar. The man happily agreed, although warning them that it would be impossible to transport the thing on anything other than a car due to its size and the fact that he would skin them alive if anything happened to it along the way. Unfortunately, it was just their luck when Letitia called her mom and found out she needed for work, and that the only option was the bike Scout had driven to the nursery. The blond laughed at his friend's determined expression and chalked it up to annoyance before leaving to see if he could borrow his dad's truck. He never got to do it, though — the next thing he knew, he saw Letitia shove the plant between her knees and begin to pedal down the street, peering between the plant's green foliage while steering with one hand, the other balancing the black plastic pot, the image so bizarre and hilarious that he had to snap a picture.

The photo in the middle wasn't as recent as the others. Maybe four or five years old, torn and crinkled from that day's rain, it was Scout's twelfth birthday, notable because it was the day he'd gotten the Polaroid camera in the first place, and because it was one of the birthday's his father had actually remembered.

He didn't know how expensive it might have been at the time — at that age, he was somewhat oblivious to how money worked entirely, only the basics and that his dad went places to earn it — but the grin on Clark's face was enough to convince Scout that it was the best birthday ever, taking the camera out for a spin the moment he unwrapped it, following his father outside and taking dozens of photos of everything and nothing, most blurry and useless. This one was one of the few that wasn't, and the corner of the blond's mouth lifted every so slightly as he took in his own big smile as he sat on the front steps, his father grinning from ear to ear nearly out of sight as he tinkered with his truck in the driveway. A happy memory, and one he hoped to hold on to, no matter how strained things got to be.

Just as he was about to move on and focus on the next photo, something about this one caught his eye. One of the things he most remembered about this picture in particular was that there was nothing blurry or out of focus like the rest; a print of two definite figures, front and center. But was it?

Scout frowned and leaned in to inspect the photo until it was mere inches from his nose, his brows furrowing when he realized that there was a familiar car caught in a moment of time zooming behind them, the front seats occupied by two bleary figures no microscope could focus. But he didn't need to see whoever was in the vehicle, nor even need the license plate. The car itself was enough.

It was Steve Harrington's car.

And just like that, the Harrington boy invaded the blond's thoughts once again. Scout hadn't thought of him since last night at the police station, and he couldn't help but wonder if the older boy received the same treatment from his father as he did. It was no surprise to Scout to learn that Mr. Harrington — or whatever the hell his first name was — didn't take kindly to his son's rebellious antics, and it stood that last night hadn't been the best to him either. If he had been braver, or stupider, the blond would have had half a mind to ask him himself.

Ring! Brr-ring!

As if on cue, the phone on his desk began to shake as it rang. Feeling strange, Scout casted one last glance at the middle photo before looking away and reaching to answer the phone before the sound it makes starts to piss him off. Much to his surprise — was that disappointment? — it was Letitia.

"What's up?" she asked casually, as if there was nothing between them. The sound of plastic rustling followed by a truly irritable crunch on her side of the line confirms that she's eating something as she speaks; an indicator that maybe she really wasn't mad after all.

Aftering inhaling a deep breath, Scout did his best to replicate her nonchalant tone, replying, "How's it going?" His ear may have been pressed against the telephone, but his mind was elsewhere, still thinking about that photo.

Tisha hummed, and he could practically hear the gears turning in her head alongside the crunching of potato chips — sour cream and onion, no doubt; her favorite. She sighed, and all went silent on both ends before she spoke. "How did it go last night?"

Of course. Last night. Where the brown-skinned girl had been safe and sound at home, Scout had been cozying up at the police station for who knows how long (that was a joke, obviously. He'd been nervous out of his mind). Despite very much wanting to let his friend know he was alright, the blond was torn between keeping last night's events to himself and not worrying her and letting everything spill out to his one and only confidante. He hadn't decided on an answer when her voice came through the phone line again, slightly distorted by a brief hiss of static.

"Listen, I know something happened last night, and it's totally okay if you don't wanna talk about it yet, it's just..." she paused, as if thinking of the best way to put her words delicately. "I'm here whenever you're ready to talk about it, okay? But I just want you to tell me if Clark did anything yesterday after he found out, like, did he — "

His eyes widened, suddenly understanding where she was going with this. "I — What? No, Tisha, my dad's never laid a hand on me, and definitely not last night. Too many eyes on us, I guess."

"Too many eyes on us? What's that supposed to mean?"

Shit. He didn't mean to put it so dramatic. "Nothing, you know, I just mean about everything with the mayor of Night Vale and the police and everything. Besides, my dad would never hit me. I... I think he knows what would happen if he did. He still loves me, you know?"

"Alright," she relented, only after a familiar huff of annoyance that always followed such a statement, "But I, uh, actually wanted to ask you about something. Remember the Battle of the Bands thing that's happening today? Did you end up making up your mind if you wanna go...?"

Her voice trailed off, and for a dumbfounded moment, Scout was sure she'd been kicked off the line or something; but no, it was merely the silence of her blaring unasked question hanging between them. Battle of the Bands? Since when was that a thing? He hadn't heard of a B&B competition happening in ages.

Or maybe it was just him that hadn't been paying attention.

"Oh. No... No, I completely forgot, actually," the blond said apologetically, lying between his teeth. He hoped she would pick up on his mannerism and call him out like she usually did, but it seemed for once, Letitia Thompson was nervous.

"You don't have to make a decision now," she assured him quickly, "But there's the flyer in your backpack if you want to take a look at it again, and I just..." she audibly deflated, confessing, "I was thinking about Julian today. And I know I would love to hear it from someone else, so... I want you to know that even though he's not here to play with us, that doesn't mean we can't be a band. Together, just the two of us. You know?"

Huh. He didn't think he was the only one who missed being a band, a public band in their little friendship. Their trio of band mates may have had to cut down to two, but hearing Tisha voice the words he'd wanted to say to her for so long now...it gave him a boost of confidence he didn't know he needed.

"Scout? You still there?"

"Oh I... God, I'm sorry," he chided himself with a shake of his head that he realized she couldn't see, " I-I haven't been a very good friend lately — you totally told us to turn the money in and we didn't listen, and — "

"Scout," Letitia silenced him with a mere word; his name coming from here made it seem safe, or comforting. She had a way with her with things like that, a calming sea of stable presence that soothed a rocking ship in the midst of a storm. "If anyone hasn't been a good friend, it's me. I literally left you guys after we left Night Vale and just like, went home all by myself! If I was really a good friend, I should've stayed and gotten myself arrested alongside you dumbasses in the first place." She chuckled. "My parents would have killed me, but... at least you wouldn't have been alone. And with Steve Harrington, no less. How'd he fair?"

Now that was a good question. Scout had no idea how harsh the brunette's punishment had been, but with another shake of his head, he dismissed the mention of Steve entirely and rerouted the conversation back to something that really mattered. "To be honest? I have no idea. Don't really care, either, to tell you the truth. It's just — okay. Well, it doesn't matter. You said something about Battle of the Bands?"

If Letitia noticed how desperate he was for a subject change, she didn't say anything, only audibly brightening up at the mention of the competition. "Yeah! Yeah, actually, I put the flyer in your backpack like, last week, hoping you'd pull it out and notice and say something about it, since I didn't wanna be the one to bring it up, but..."

...But he'd been too preoccupied with himself too notice. Funny, it wasn't like Letitia to not speak her mind, but he honestly couldn't blame her for not saying anything sooner; he'd been thinking the exact same thing.

"I'm sorry," the blond said again, really hoping his apologies are getting his point across, "Okay, so we're definitely doing this? Playing in public? With like, people watching us and without Julian's super cool aura protecting us from inevitable boos from the crowd?"

At that, Scout could definitely feel a pinch over the phone, as if the girl was manifesting a nip through the astral plane, and couldn't help but wince on cue, laughing in response to her own snickering. "That's exactly what we're going to do, Boy Scout. Listen, I'm gonna pick you up and then we're gonna practice at my house, and then we're gonna haul our asses and win the Battle of the Bands!"

"Wait!" he laughed, holding up a hand in the air in front of him despite the noticeable lack of person in his bedroom other than himself, "What song are we even gonna play? Where's it at?"

He paused, waiting for an answer, but was only greeted by the sound of a chair's legs scraping against the hardwood floor of the brown-skinned girl's bedroom on the other side of the line, followed by a shuffling of papers further away before she finally returned to the phone, slightly out of breath before saying, "It's at the No Doze Cafe tonight, six o'clock. We were supposed to sign up yesterday, but I doubt there's a ton of people lining up to perform, they should be good with us showing up. I can call ahead to make sure, though."

"Okay, cool," the blond said, stretching his legs from where he still stood beside his desk, the cord extending upward to his full height — a whopping five feet ten inches, as if that was something impressive — to the point where the landline was starting to lift a bit, cautiously teetering on the edge of the desk. "Um, but what song are we going to play?"

She was awfully quiet for a moment, devoid of paper shuffling and chip eating and any and all movement, which made Scout think that either she didn't know or she expected him to know what song it was, as if it was obvious. "Dude, I thought you knew. It's our first time playing as a band, in public since Julian, remember? You remember the song we wrote, right?"

And just like that, it came back to him. It really was obvious, now that he thought of it. "Oh, of course. Late Last Night. Right?"

"Yeah," Letitia confirmed, breathing out so quietly it nearly masked the sound of the ever-present sound of static over the line, "I'm, uh... I'm glad you remembered."

The blond breathed a chuckle of disbelief. "Would you be disappointed if I hadn't?"

"I'd be so disappointed that you-you wouldn't even hear from me, I'd, like, cut off all contact from you and tear our friendship contract if you hadn't remembered that song, obviously. That night was so...so everything, really. Everything and nothing, I guess. I miss that guy so much."

Too caught up in the moment to tease her about her reply, Scout merely sighed, thinking back to his friend's easy smile. He could sure use that ease now — or any time, really. "Yeah. I miss him too, Tisha."

"Glad that makes two of us." Her voice was strangely more grim than he expected, as if Julian were dead and not relocated three states away. He was just about to ask her when another loud, familiar shrill sound abruptly cut off whatever she said after that, the doorbell ringing out twice in rapid succession as if whoever was at the door couldn't wait, making him jump.

His fright must have been audible, because the next thing he heard was a concerned, "What is it?" from Letitia's end of the line, and he realized that the hand holding the phone had loosened enough to drop from his ear more to his shoulder. He tightened his grip on the handle and brought it back to his ear. "Someone's at the door, that's all."

"Oh, okay," the girl said in a voice that shouldn't have been as relieved as it was, "Okay, well, I've gotta do something before I pick you up, but I'll be there in like, an hour, okay? Be ready! This — this is gonna be great, Scout. I know it."

"It's gonna be great," he repeated, almost in a rush, "Okay. I'll see you later, Tisha, bye!"

With that, the blond placed the phone back onto the cradle and started for the front door, fully preparing to tell off whoever it was that no, his father was not home, and that they didn't need another case of beer in case Clark had somehow run out, thanks — but now he realized there's a distinct lack of knocking and doorbell ringing that had just been painfully echoing through the entire house just a moment ago. In fact, as he approached, not a sound pierced through the door — not a voice, not anything -- except maybe what almost sounded like the muffled sound of footsteps hurrying away as he came closer and closer. Scout pulled at the doorknob and yanked the door open, very surprised to find no one there but a delivery man climbing back into his truck on the side of the street, pulling his cap down over his eyes and giving a wave in the boy's direction. The blond reflexively waved back, still feeling very confused, until he looked down and saw a small package on the doormat.

Picking it up and bringing it inside, Scout was too preoccupied with burning questions to notice the faintest click! of a camera not too far away, the white light no different than the painful glow of the bright November sun, even in fall. The house empty as usual, there was no one to ask about why his father ordered a package and had it delivered to their doorstep; their mailbox was perfectly fine and literally right there, picketed deep in the grass like everyone else's. He couldn't stand looking at the parcel any longer and picked up the nearest sharp object he could find — which, much to his luck, just happened to be a knife, albright covered in jam — and stabbed the cardboard as neatly as he could, hopefully without breaking whatever was inside.

When he finally did open it, there was nothing impressive in it. Just a large, yellow mailing envelope that easily could have been mailed on its own without the box, but hadn't, for some reason. No return address or anything on the top, no clue as to who sent them this. Scout didn't hesitate to tear open the large envelope just as easily, sliding what looked like photos onto the table beside the now empty cardboard box.

"What the — ?"

With a strangled gasp, Scout jumped back, horrified by what he saw. They were photos, dozens of them, of Letitia. Letitia at school, Letitia in her bedroom, Letitia walking down the street, at the grocery store, by his side. She was never looking at the camera, always focused on something or someone else. His own figure was often next to hers, his blond hair and pale skin a stark contrast to her brown skin and dark hair, and yet it wasn't difficult to see the ease at which the camera seemed to catch them at — leaning against one another on a bench at the parking lot, laughing while holding slushies in their hands, and on and on and on.

The fright he felt before nothing compared to what he felt now. With trembling hands, he peered inside the envelope to see if there was anything else inside, not knowing if finding something else besides the disturbing photos was a good thing or a bad thing. Then, the bile gurgling from his stomach threatened to rise to his throat as he discovered something else, its material thicker than a photograph yet thinner than a piece of paper, pulling it out and nearly screaming when he caught sight of the illustration of an eyeball on a blood red background.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

God we've finally gotten to this chapter and it's literally February, I am actually the biggest clown there is

Anyway! Yes! As you can see a little more happened even if it was just towards the end but since I've prewritten several chapters at the moment I can safely hint that the tension is only gonna get worse (better?) from here — not to mention the Gay Tension™ as well hehe

I hope you enjoyed!