Night Vale ▷ Steve Harrington

vi. borrowing trouble

𝐔𝐏𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐁𝐘, 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌. He'd awoken somewhere between Lovers' Lake and the police station, his cheek pressed against the cool glass of the backseat window, complimented with a thin stream of drool coming from the edge of his mouth, grunting as he'd tried to sit up only to realize his hands were cuffed painfully behind his back. Ironically, someone had fastened his seatbelt while he was unconscious — as if their biggest concern was driving safety.

After one of the deputies — not Chief Hopper, he'd noticed — had left him in the office, Scout presumed he was to make himself at home; despite the lack of clocks or watches anywhere in the room, he guessed he'd been sitting there for at least an hour, judging by the painful seizing of his ankle, which he'd hooked around the chair leg the minute he'd sat down. Bit of a habit, but then again, wasn't everything?

Part of him wondered if they were doing the same thing to Steve — plopping them alone in an empty room, leaving them to wait in silence for God knew how long — but it was with a bitter scoff, more to himself than anything, that Scout reminded himself that the brunette hadn't thought of him when he made the stupid decision to try and run away when the police had opened the duffel bag; why should he now?

The door, the blond noticed, wasn't locked, nor was the window. It would have made for an easy escape, but there was the question of where would he go? He certainly couldn't go to Letitia — she'd even told them to do the right thing and contact the authorities, but it was too late; the authorities had contacted them — and it wasn't like he could have gone home. Chief Hopper knew his father — but to what extent, he didn't know — and to ask Clark for help in such a situation... No. That would only be borrowing trouble, and Scout was neck-deep enough as it was.

After a while, an old woman with spectacles bigger than her brooch had come in, and without uttering a word, placed a tall glass of water on the desk before leaving as quickly as she'd come. Scout wondered what the point of that was, it wasn't like he could grasp the glass anyway, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless; his head still throbbed from hitting the hood of the car and who knew how hard he'd hit the ground when he passed out, too. If he was a cartoon character, no doubt there would be a freakish lump rising from the top of his head by now.

With jarring dismay, Scout realized his fanny pack was no longer slung by his side, leaving his already anxious and distressed self worse off than before. The rational portion of his mind said it was highly unlikely a bee would find him in the Chief's office, window sealed and all, but worse than that was that it stored his inhaler as well. It'd been awhile since he'd had a severely debilitating attack, but you never knew — maybe the time came when you were alone, arrested and doomed to wait for an eternity inside a police station for a crime you didn't commit.

Come to think of it, what exactly had they been arrested for? Either the deputies had read him his rights when he was unconscious or he was a lot more unobservant than he thought. He could see the headline now: Teenage Boys Caught With $100,000. If he hadn't been so scared he would have thought it fun to come up with theories as to what the authorities thought they'd been doing.

Then again, if they really did steal that money — assuming that's what the police thought — why would they flaunt it by going to a Burger King of all places in the middle of the day? Surely rich people could afford to go to better places, even if there wasn't anything remotely styled for rich people in the area anyway — rich in Hawkins meant your house was bought, not rented, and that your wife didn't work and stayed home with the kids. People like Scout would have killed for money like that, and look where it'd gotten them.