#s2 winter comfort era we meet again

[loveinhawkins]

Hawkins High is currently in a weird sort of limbo. Snow’s starting to fall thick and fast, but the Snow Day hasn’t officially been declared yet, so the handful of those who’ve already made it in, teachers and students alike, are just waiting for it expectantly. Most haven’t even bothered to take their coats off.

Steve is killing time by walking aimlessly outside of his homeroom, now that no-one cares about the formality of giving out hall passes. The quiet is nice, like the snow is blanketing the sounds from inside the school, too. Peaceful.

The hushed effect makes it feel even earlier than it actually is; when Eddie Munson appears in the doorway of an open classroom, stomping his feet to keep warm—the radiator must be broken in there—it almost seems like it’s dawn.

“Hey, Harrington, have you heard anything?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, man. Just that they’re still waiting for Higgins to make an announcement.”

As Eddie sighs dramatically, he notes with amusement that it’s almost like they’re not at school at all—more comrades-in-arms or spies relaying crucial information in enemy territory.

“This is what I get for being responsible,” Eddie’s saying under his breath. When Steve gives a slight laugh in response, he gets louder, like he’d momentarily forgotten his audience. “The one time I make it in!”

This isn’t strictly true; Eddie’s known for being late, sure, but there are others more frequently known for ditching entirely. Still, Steve allows him the illusion, and whatever either of them was going to say next is interrupted by Higgins’s voice over the intercom, dully announcing the obvious.

“Jesus, took him long enough,” Eddie says.

The hallway starts to get busier again: more doors opening, the renewed excitement of people eager to leave the building.

And yet, somehow, the quiet the snow had brought doesn’t disappear completely. Steve and Eddie head outside in tandem, and the surrounding chatter, no matter how loud it gets in reality, never really seems to reach them; and Steve thinks it’s sort of like that thought he had in the hallway when it was just the two of them, except it’s not really a joke this time: that they’re no longer just kids from the same school, that they’re existing someplace outside it, and…

The only way Steve can articulate it is that he wishes the walk was longer.

Eddie’s step falters for just a moment. Maybe he’s thinking something similar, maybe he isn’t.

Steve thinks that everything since ‘83 has left him permanently floating away from normal people, and the insanity of last month just made it worse. There’s only those who know and those who don’t, and sometimes even the space in between those who know seems insurmountable.

Snow lands on Eddie’s hair, his eyelashes. He blinks to clear the worst of it and says lightly, “Freedom is ours, Harrington. Better go home before it gets worse.”

“Yeah,” Steve says and swallows words back reflexively. He doesn’t know, honestly, what he would’ve said. Better safe than sorry. “See you around, Munson.”