Fireworks || HARRINGROVE ||

A Quiet Slip From The Darkness

January 19, 1984

Steve groaned as he popped his neck and then his back, instantly feeling less pressure in his back. He sighed and reclined the drivers seat in his Beemer, and settled back, listening to the radio while the heat blasted through the car. He was tucked away in the parking lot of Starcourt Mall, trees shadowing the bleak moonlight from inching into the car, the nearest light too far from his car to light it dimly. It was dark and Steve felt some sort of melancholy. He closed his eyes, feeling somewhat reassured of his safety with his car doors locked.

Steve had an unnecessarily large house to return to, but felt better being away from his home. Well, it'd be more accurate to say the house in which he resided. It was not Steve's home, per say, but he was fortunate to have a place to return to, unlike all too many people. Even so, the house are currently bare of any other life except for maybe a random house spider or two. It was heated but still had a cold that bit with razor sharp sharks teeth.

Steve's right hand fumbled around in the backseat before grabbing onto the small pack of Parliament cigarettes and his cheap Bic lighter. He gingerly pulled a cigarette from the pack, careful not to crush the filter, and closed the pack, tossing it back in the general area he had picked it up. He flicker the lighter, enchanted with the small flame in the dark of night. He lit the end of the cigarette that wasn't in his mouth, inhaling a bit to get it started. Once it was sufficiently lit, he let out a small inhale of smoke and cracked the drivers side window down about an inch, just enough to let out the permeating smoke, but not too much as to let in the brittle Indiana cold.

"Five days," Steve muttered to himself.

It had been five days since he had seen or heard from Hargrove. Steve knew he should not expect anything — hell, he still didn't — but it was peculiar that he had not heard about the blond from one of his children.

Perhaps he has been a good boy recently, Steve thought to himself with mirth. He flicked some ash off the cigarette and into the glass ashtray sitting on the center console. It would be fucking ridiculous if he was a good boy, Steve though and imagined Billy in a pressed suit and his hair cut short. The world would have to stop spinning before that happened.

A sum of long inhales and exhales of smoke later, the cigarette was nearing its end and, not wanting his fingers to get burnt, Steve snuffed it out in the ashtray, nearly knocking it over with his elbow. He was not as smooth as the girls in high school thought he was. In fact, if he were compared to Billy Hargrove, it would be extremely apparent that he was not smooth.

He lit another cigarette and continued to ride the dangerously addictive  nicotine buzz.

But no one was smoother than Billy Hargrove. At least that's what Steve Harrington thought. Perhaps Steve only thought that because he was twirled and whipped by Billy, but he chose to exercise a different point of view, the view being that Billy Hargrove was smoother than sand on an idle island that no person or animal had ever touched on.

Billy Hargrove was so smooth he had managed to lightly rap on Steve's passenger side window with the second knuckle on his index finger without Steve noticing that he had sauntered over to his Beamer.

And boy, did Steve scream.

Steve flailed about in shock, still unknowing of who the mystery person on the outside of the car was. Not too surprisingly, Steve had dropped his cigarette and it was still burning on the dashboard, the only little spec of light through the car. Steve's mind was flashing through the worst case scenarios possible while his heart hammered louder than before, and if Steve was not so spooked, he would have thought he was having a heart attack.