Night Vale ▷ Steve Harrington

xiii. the invitation

"We need to talk."

This is what makes his eyebrows shoot up. Not the words themselves, but rather the tone they're delivered in. The illusion of trying to be calm, but the frustration was still there, festering beneath the skin until the right comment or the wrong move shifts something deep inside until — BOOM! The volcano, boiling and unpredictable, is mesmerizing to watch until you realize the lava has enveloped you with nowhere to go. Unable to pry your eyes off until it's too late.

This is how Scout feels as he follows his father to the kitchen. Like the living room, it is cleaner than he's seen it in a while, save for the times he's cleaned it himself. The sink, while not piling with dirty dishes, contained several dishes with stains of food he really rather not guess what came on them. The counters, now relatively crumb free, displayed two plates of dinner, one partially eaten yet left alone, and the coffee machine bubbled in the corner, beside identical mugs, the only difference being one larger than the other.

"Sit," comes the sound of his dad's voice as Scout tentatively followed behind.

He sat.

Scout looked up when Clark followed suit, taking a seat across from him before placing a mug of something in front of him and a plate — with his own mug balancing precariously on top of the foil covering it — that is most certainly not the microwave dinner his father is so adept at making. Instead, he discovered a heap of meat covered in lumpy gravy and some passable attempt at peas surprisingly smelled pretty good. His stomach growled the longer he looked at it, until he realized Clark was waiting for him to take a bite.

"It's not poisoned," his father joked, but it came with a disbelieving heave of air that convinced Scout to pick up his fork. To his surprise, it wasn't half bad. In fact, it was pretty good. In a matter of minutes, he's cleared most of his plate, still awaiting the verdict.

Now must be when the day's events started to catch up on him. His backpack was no longer slung over his shoulder — instead discarded like an afterthought near the door — but the weight was there all the same. He had to face his father at some point, and delaying the inevitable is not something Scout wanted to hold on to forever. Comfort provided while waiting for the other shoe to drop... that was a whole other matter entirely, and it didn't nearly convince him of the security he so desperately wished.

Here it comes. "Where were you after school?"

"What?" Scout said more out of shock than curiosity. His voice stumbled at the end, caught on the lump in his throat.

Clark's eyes were focused on him with the intensity of a hawk. "Where were you after school?" he repeated, as though it were obvious. The rag in his hands disappeared under the table. "I came home, and you weren't here. I called your girlfriend's house, she hasn't seen you either. It's late, so: where were you?"

"I... went for a walk," Scout answered lamely, ignoring the burning itch he got whenever he lied, "I'm sorry. I lost track of time, it won't happen again."

His father surprised him when the blond looked up to see whether he would buy this lame lie of his, taken back by the unreadable expression of calm and defeated frustration on his face when he does. "No," — a sigh — "That's not true, and you and I both know that. Tell me the truth, Scout. Now."

At this, Scout squirmed in his seat and stared at a single point at the wall behind his father's head to mimic eye contact. A frigid cold has settled over the room, and it wasn't because of the temperature. If there's nothing else to be done, he realizes... then the least he could do was get it over with.

His father, impatient as ever, expects an answer. Clark Murphy was one of those young men who somehow managed to seem both solemn and mischievous at the same time, despite his admittedly younger years spent parading around in a high school persona — solemned, that is, by parenthood, regardless of the fact that he didn't do quite as much parenting that was expected to accompany such a life event. Instead, his striking physical appearance has done the opposite of mellowed — ebony hair, angular face, nose like an arrow pointing towards eyes so blue it made the rest of his features look out of place all contributed to his fading boyish charm. His lips were often pressed together in a jocular grin, as if the world were his to laugh at — although those at the receiving end of his jokes (and often, insults) would disagree.