Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Whu?” Argyle isn't quite sure what wakes him, blinks at the shape looming over him in the darkness.
“Sorry, didn't mean to wake you.”
“Jonny?” Argyle frowns.
“Yeah. Uh, hi?” Jonathan sits next to him on the bed, slips under the covers.
“Hey, my dude. Why are you in my bed?” Argyle asks, not that he minds, really, but it's not something that's happened before, and Jon's not the kind of guy to just slide in anyone's bed. He's classy like that.
“I... Nancy's in my room, and she. We... It's... Anyway, she can't go home right now, you know how the demobats get at night, so... Sorry.”
Argyle doesn't point out the fact that they've got two bedrooms the kids use when they sleep over sometimes, neither of which is currently occupied.
“No worries my dude. Wanna smoke about it?”
“Yeah.”

Argyle gets up to open the window, makes sure the chicken wire screen Hopper's built them is still firmly hammered to the frame, the bats for sure don't mess around, and getting woken up by one once was enough.
By the time he's back in bed Jon's done rolling. He looks exhausted and tense, but not like he's cried yet, which would probably do him good. He uses Argyle's bedside candle to light up the blunt, then blows it out.
They sit in silence, passing the joint back and forth until there's nothing left but the roach, which Argyle puts out in the little cup by his bed.
“We broke up,” Jon finally breaks the silence, voice weirdly loud in the night.
“'m sorry Jonny”, Argyle tells him, and means it, even though part of him relishes the idea of Jon without Nancy, without the tension of it all.
“It's been a long time coming,” Jon says, and he feels him shrug in the darkness.
“Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.”
“Yeah..” Jon's voice comes out a bit croaked, “we really tried, you know?”
“I know, Jonny, I was here.”

“She says she can't love me now,” Jon whispers, like maybe by not saying it too loud it'll hurt less.
“That's harsh,” Argyle says, because it is, even if from what he's seen it's true.
“Yeah. I get what she means, though. It's like. The world's ending, dude, we've got so much shit we need to deal with, relationship troubles seem pretty low on the list.”
“I don't know, my dude,” Argyle says, “you all keep saying the world's ended, but it hasn't yet. We're still here Jonny. It's like...” Argyle frowns, casts out for the right words. He knows he's not always at his most coherent when high, even though it's when his brain feels clearest. “Life is for now, Jonny. And right now, dude, the vibes are a bit wonky, and the earth's opened up onto a shadow realm, but it doesn't mean we've got to join the dark side you know?”
“Not sure I do, dude,” Jon says, and shrugs some more.

“What I mean, my dude, is, life's now. And now means we do what we can to make it cool. Some things are still cool, my dude. Like, your Mom's in love, Jonny, that's cool. And … and Eddie's not dead after all, and that makes Mr Munson really happy, and Dustin, and Stevie too. Also, Steve and Robin've got that good vibe going on, and that's awesome too, you know?”
“Yeah, they do vibe.”
Argyle can feel Jon's hair brush against his arm when he nods. It tickles, but in a good way.
“See? That's now. We don't gotta wait until the end of the world's over to get good things my dude. We gotta find the good things now.”
“Yeah. Like, what else?”
“Zucchinis are coming in,” Argyle says, deciding not to mention the hair thing, “so that's nice, I'm gonna take you all on a non-can, non-frozen culinary journey soon, it's gonna rock your world my man, maybe more so than the Palm Tree... Also, tomatoes are starting to ripen. Max's out of the hospital. I saw a cool bird this morning, which, you might get cynical, my dearest friend Jonathan, but have you noticed how all the pretty animals have ran away from the monsters? Well, not so this birdie I saw this morning, my man, and that is cool.”
“It is cool,” Jon agrees, nodding again.

They stay there, Argyle smiling at the ceiling in the reddish dark, listing good things as they come to him, Jon slumped against his side.
At some point day breaks, basking the room in some kind of eery orange light, and a while after that they hear the front door shut, the tiny clicks of Nancy's bike as she leaves.
“I think I'm gonna cry now, dude,” Jon whispers in the silence that follows.
“Alright dude.” Argyle turns to him, opens his arms in invitation, “come on in, then.” Jonathan does, hugs Argyle through silent sobs, until they dry out and they both fall asleep, holding each other in the yellowish-grey of morning.

“I think it's gonna rain,” Argyle tells Jonny when he wakes up. They've drifted apart in their sleep but his arm is still trapped under Jon's head and it felt wrong to wake him, he's gonna have a shit enough time of things as it is.
“Yea?” Jon raises himself up high enough for Argyle to snake his arm out, and part of him regrets doing it, the part that's not convinced he needs a right arm actually, not if Jonny needs it more. “How can you even tell?” he mumbles into his pillow, “it's not like the clouds ever clear.”
“No, I know,” Argyle replies, “but look,” he points through the wire grid of the window cover, “they're getting darker there, brownish rather than yellow, kinda lumpy too. That's rain.”
“Or ash.”
It seems Argyle's efforts to show him the bright side of life have only worked short term. Maybe he needs more Palm Tree.
“Yeah. I hope not though, clearing it out takes for ever and it makes Holly cry.” Argyle doesn't like to see children cry, which he's aware most people don't but he also assumes they can't hear the echoes of Alba's wails when he last saw her.
“She thinks it's snow when it starts falling,” Jon says, “and then when it isn't she's disappointed.”
“Can't blame her Jonny, it's fairly disappointing.”
“Yeah,” Jon sits up, “that, and she's like, seven.”
“True.”
“Anyway,” Jon says, standing, “show must go on, I've got perimeter duty.”
“Yeah?” Argyle asks, “who with?” He hopes it's Stevie, he'll be much better than him at the whole break up thing, and he's got first hand experience splitting with Nancy besides. Argyle figures that's a plus.

“Nancy.”
“Duuude. No. I'll swap with you if you want, I'm on distribution with the chief.”
“You hate guns, Argyle, I'm not making you do that. It'll be fine, I can't avoid Nance for ever anyway, there's precious few of us left as it is, we're gonna need to be friendly at least. It's not like anyone's done anything wrong either.”
“Alright.” Argyle does not argue. It's true he'd rather not handle a gun, and it's true they're gonna have to see Nancy, but mostly Jonny's face is set into that stubborn little pout that means he'd be more successful arguing with Dustin, and no one's won that one yet.
“See you tonight then?” Jon asks on his way out of the room, turns back with a little half-smile that only partially offsets the dark circles under his reddened eyes.
“Sure thing my dude, I'll cook something nice.”
“Alright. Thanks Argyle.”

There's a guy on the front porch Argyle's never seen before. He's tall and gangly and his hair's a mess but in a cool way Argyle could never hope to achieve with his, like he doesn't brush it but it's fine. He's wearing a pair of alarmingly ripped black jeans and one of Steve's letterman jackets, so Argyle assumes he's not dangerous.
He hates that it's come to this, that a stranger on his front porch has to be assessed as friend or foe, but there are more than one type of rifts in Hawkins now, and some of the townspeople have become fairly aggressive towards them, believe that they're somehow working against the army in the fight against the monsters. The army's been accusing them of keeping resources and intel away from the general public, and they're accusing the army of exactly the same.

At any rate, Argyle re-focusses, they guy's lounging against the railing like he was born to it, relaxed and cool-looking, and a little more than slightly attractive. Argyle's got eyes, and the guy's opted not to wear a t-shirt under his jacket for some reason, giving him a rather nice view of his happy trail. There are scars too, he realises with a frown. Scars that are clearly bat bites, red and angry still, enough that they should have left him dead.

“Hey man,” the guy says with a shrug.
“Hey dude.”
“You Argyle, then? Stevie said you'd have the good stuff. Scars itch like a bitch, can't even stand a shirt on top, not that you seem to mind.”
“Eddie?” Argyle asks to avoid answering that last part.
“In the flesh. Well,” Eddie shrugs some more, “what's left of it.”
“Scars are cool, my dude. I see what Stevie meant.”
“Yeah?” Eddie grins, “and what exactly did Stevie mean?”
“Nevermind Stevie,” Argyle backtracks, remembers Steve's high rants about Eddie's eyes and hair, and everything, decides it's not for him to say. “Come look at my set up, I've been dying to show it to someone in the know.”
“Growing set up?” Eddie asks, and his eyebrows seems to ask along with him, go high up into his hair.
“Yeah.”
“Can't grow for shit, man,” Eddie tells him with a shake of his head, “I only ever sold the stuff.”
“Oh.”

“I'll take a look though, maybe you can make me see the light?”
“Sure thing, my dude, come on down. I'll hit you up with some Palm Tree, should help with the itching.”
“And the nightmares.”
“And the nightmares,” Argyle agrees, it's his best-selling argument after all.

“Wow,” Eddie says when they hit the basement, taking in the planters and the growing lights, the maze of mirrors he and Dustin have rigged up and around the room to maximise light and heat. “I still don't know shit about it, man, but that is impressive. Where d'you get the gear?”
“The chief was kind enough to point me in the direction of Reefer Rick's.”
Argyle notices Eddie wince slightly at the name, remembers Curly's tense voice when he told him about Eddie's hiding. “Sorry. Bad vibes. I didn't mean to.”
“Nah.” Eddie shrugs some more.” You're good, man, don't worry. Rick's not at fault here, I just happened to use his digs as a hiding-hole, can't blame a guy for his squatters.”
“Alright. Let me show you around then,” Argyle gestures for Eddie to follow, which he does, looking genuinely curious about the whole thing.

“Hold on. What's that?”
“That's a flower my dude.”
“Yeah thanks. I can see that. But like, you said those were potatoes.”
“Yeah.”
“Potatoes don't grow flowers,” Eddie tells him with a frown. “Do potatoes grow flowers? Fuck. Since when? How the fuck have I gone though senior year three times and never learned about potato flowers?!”
Argyle shrugs at that, school's never taught him much either, apart from woodworking and maths, and even that he's mostly learned on his own when he started dealing. “They never want us to know shit my dude, that way we can't question them too hard.”
“Argyle,” Eddie turns to him and stands intensely still, “I think we're gonna be great friends. Can I eat a potato flower?”
“They're poisonous.”
“Of course they are, probably part of the conspiracy.”

“So...” Eddie asks later, blowing smoke up into the clouds, “why are you here, man? Byers drag you all the way from California just for the weed?”
“Jonny's not like that,” Argyle defends through his haze, “he's a good friend. I was driving when the government guys started shooting, and I just didn't really stop.”
“'cause Byers's not like that?” Eddie asks with a soft look, and Argyle feels like he understands.
“Yeah.”
“I thought I had friends at first,” Eddie tells him, “people kept inviting me to parties, made sure I always had a drink and a decent slice of pizza, let me in even when I was way too young to get in, you know?”
Argyle nods. He knows.
“When I was about thirteen or something, maybe a year or so after I really started dealing, my supplier ran dry. That's when I understood no one actually liked me. No more party invites for the freak, no one actually wanted to talk to a middle schooler with a bad buzzcut and second hand clothes if he had nothing to sell. I didn't know.”
“Sorry, dude. That sucks.”
“Best thing that ever happened to me,” Eddie tells him.
“Really?”
“Yeah, that's when I stopped caring about fitting in, realised I would never anyway, that I was too poor and too weird for them to ever want me around,” he bites this off with enough venom that Argyle suspects he's still mad about it, but then his face lights up into a smile. “Grew myself into the absolute metal hero you're privileged to gaze upon today.”
“Still sucks, though.” Argyle remembers the look of shock on Marlene's face when he asked her out, the incredulous little laugh she'd let escape. You're just our dealer dude, don't start getting ideas.
“Yeah, still sucks,” Eddie agrees.
“Sorry about the witch-hunt, man. Curly told me about it, it's really not cool.”

When he watches Eddie leave later, Argyle can't help but think that maybe the end of the world is the best thing that happened to him. He's got a house now, and friends. Stevie and Curly and Eddie, Robin too, even Nancy's kind of friendly when she forgets to look down on him. He smiles vaguely as he goes through his planters, makes sure everything is getting enough light and water before he goes up to fix dinner. Jonny's on Creel gate watch with Steve today, and he'll be back soon.

The chief surveys the room like he always does, hands flat on the map of Hawkins taped to the table while everybody else either sprawls on a couch, lounges against a wall or smartly sits at the table. Mostly it's real adults doing the sitting, but anyone can talk if they have something to contribute, which is more of an inevitability than a real desire on the chief's part to listen to anyone.
He's called a full council which means Stevie's living room is packed full with the usual suspects, and the welcome addition of Eddie, and Eddie's salvaged acoustic which he's mindlessly strumming as everybody settles in.

“So,” Hopper starts, “we've got a new problem.”
“Of course we do,” Riso cuts in with a sarcastic little smile, “what is it this time Jim? Demogorgon? Ruskies? FBI? NSA? CIA?”
“Religious fanatics,” Mr Munson cuts in, and he's not smiling, not even when he wiggles his fingers at Argyle's welcoming wave.
“I'm sorry?” Riso seems taken aback by that one, and Argyle must admit he is too, he thought most God-fearing people would have left by now, what with the red skies and the billowing earth. Not to mention the monsters, of course.
“They're after my boy.”
“Hi.” Eddie bends down in a little bow.

“Joyce,” Riso turns to Jonny's mom, “please explain, I cannot deal with anymore teenagers today.”
“I'm twenty.”
“And proving my point.”
“Stevie?” Eddie stage whispers and Steve rolls his eyes, but still leans in closer, “who's the guy? And what's his deal?”
“The name is Murray, kid. Journalist, whistleblower, kung fu master, and the only one here with enough institutional knowledge to keep us running abreast of the army.”
“Pleasure, Master,” Eddie bows again. “I'm Eddie. Dungeon Master for the Satanic scare, Hawkins' most wanted scape goat, played a pretty metal diversion for this lot,” he says, pointing vaguely towards Dustin and Robin on the other side of Steve, “and heroically lost to a swarm of bats. Stevie here saved my life and dragged my body back, but the mobs still want my skin. I'm just that attractive,” he concludes with a little side wink towards Steve, who most definitely blushes, but recovers quickly.
“They attacked him yesterday behind the relief centre,” he supplies, “good thing I was nearby and they're afraid of the nail bat.”
“Carver's little speech really did a number on people,” Powell grumbles “and the rift openings have not exactly worked to disprove his divine wrath theory.”

“The point is,” Mr Munson says, “Eddie's not safe going around alone, and anyone seen with him might become a target by association.”
“That means you too, you know?” Eddie says, and it sounds like it's not the first time he's pointed it out.
“Nothing I'm not used to, boy. I can stand my own.”
“'m sorry uncle Wayne.”
“You're not responsible for people being small minded backwards assholes Eddie.”
“Still,” Eddie insists, “wouldn't you rather have ended up with a well-behaved polo-clad jock like the King here?” He points his thumb towards Steve who looks halfway between amused and offended.
“Not for the world,” Wayne tells Eddie. “No offence Harrington, you know you're a good kid.”
“None taken Sir, I wouldn't want me either.”
This raises concerned noises from both Robin and Dustin, and a frankly scandalised look from Eddie, but before anyone can really get going the chief cuts in.

“If you're all quite done with the pity-party?”
“Hopper!” Joyce chides.
“What? We don't have time for this right now, and I'm pretty sure Harrington's not too keen on it happening with that big of an audience anyway.”
“What are we gonna do about Eddie still being hunted?” Steve asks on cue, and everybody moves on.
“Well...” Dustin starts, “I'm not sure it's actually that big of an issue, really.”
“Thanks, Henderson, really feeling the love there.”
“You're such a jackass,” Curly shoots back at Eddie who grins, “what I mean is, the army already hates us, and the rest of the town folk aren't too fond of us either, it's just a question of degree. Eddie's gonna have to be extra careful, and Steve should probably teach him to fight or something, but apart from that it's business as usual, no one walks alone after dark or outside of the perimeter, not without weapons and at least a walkie and a day's worth of food. We've got this by now.”
“That's... not reassuring, if I'm honest,” Eddie says with a frown, and Argyle has to remember he's only been out of the hospital for a couple of days, and awake for a fortnight, of course he's not on point protocol-wise. “But I'm down for wrestling lessons with the King,” he adds with yet another bow, a little more flourished than the previous ones.

“Never mind that,” Hopper says, “Dustin's not wrong, Wayne, there's not much more we can do short of locking him up for his own good, and I know for a fact he won't agree to it.”
“I'm hurt, Chief, really I am, I've always been a model prisoner.”
“You taught Homeless Cindy the entire lyrics to Highway to Hell. She's been yelling them at passers-by ever since.”
“I was bored?” Eddie offers with a shrug and Mr Munson drags a hand down his face to hide his smile.

“Moving on,” Riso says, “we've got other troubles, I'm afraid. The kids and I have finalised our little radio project.”
“Yeah!” Lucas cuts in enthusiastically, he's been a lot less subdued since Max woke up, even though she's still blind and can just about stand on her own. “We can tune into army frequencies now, so we've got most of their watch roster figured out, and we can keep track of when and where supplies come in.”
“Well thank fu.. Goodness for good news,” Hopper says with an alarmed look at Mrs Wheelers, and the kids beam, Lucas most of all but Dustin and Mike too, and Argyle adds it silently to his list of good things.
“Unfortunately, Jim, there's a pretty big but.”
Someone snickers, but Argyle's not sure whether it's Eddie or Mike and Robin's biting her cheek on the other couch, so he's not ruling her out either.
The chief of course ignores it. “Go on.”
“I kept listening after the kids left,” Riso says, “and there will be no more supply trucks. Or choppers.”

The room tenses at the news. Mrs Wheelers brings her hand to her mouth and sends a look towards Joyce who tries and fails to smile. Mrs Sinclair looks just as shaken and Powell sits down heavily. The kids don't seem to really register the news as anything worse than a routine monster attack, for all that they're ridiculously smart for their ages Argyle knows for a fact they're still hazy on the finer points of cooking and supplies.
“How come?” Mr Munson asks in the silence that follows.
“Last chopper got swarmed by bats,” Riso explains, “crash-landed just on the edge of the fog. They won't send anyone else in, it's become too dangerous.”
“Right,” Hopper slaps his hands and the room startles back from its shock. “We knew this might come, we've been collecting staples and cans for a reason. We can feed ourselves and the town at least 'til next summer and the new round of crops. Argyle?”
“Chief?” Argyle sits up slightly next to Jon.
“How's your little project doing?”
“Hopper...” Mrs Sinclair starts, a clear warning in her tone.
“Not that project, Sue, kid's growing vegetables.”
“Oh. Sorry Argyle, go on.”
“No worries, Mrs Sinclair, and like, I got the message, even if they ask I won't give anything to your children.” Argyle tells her all this using his selling-pitch tone, which only Jon knows he does when he's nervous. “Zucchinis are coming in quite nice, Chief, tomatoes too. Potatoes will have to wait a bit but I think they'll be fine too.”

“Well, at least there's that. Good job, kid.”
“Thanks Chief.”
“Wayne,” the chief moves on, “what news on the water plant?”
“We're clear so far, army hasn't tried to come back.”
“Alright.”
“Boys will be ready if they do.”
“They will?” Eddie asks, looking at his uncle like he's never seen him before.
“Lot's changed while you were out cold, boy, seems we've joined the resistance.”
“Metal,” Eddie says, and Wayne chuckles.