Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thing is, it's lonely.
He's never alone, he makes sure of that, but it's still lonely.
Argyle's not stupid, he knows that the many people he hangs around with and deals pot to aren't his friends. He knows that on the days he's got nothing to sell, they want nothing to do with him, and he knows that, however delicious the pies, Surfer Boy staff aren't his family.
Still, he doesn't mean to say it out loud when he does, but the dude's been so strung up it's contagious.
“You're my only friend, Jonathan.”
There's a slight pause there, when Argyle thinks maybe Jonathan's going to address that, but he's too caught up in the Nancy drama, and punting golf balls at cars only relaxes you so far, so Argyle just hooks him up with some Purple Palm Tree Delight. If it helps him move on from his own tension, then that's nothing to burden Jonathan with.

That night, after they get the kids from the ice rink, which Argyle's not too clear about, they have dinner at the Byers'.
Jonathan's a lightweight both physically and when it comes to how well he handles his weed, but Argyle's mostly come down by then. He's lucid enough to sense the tension in the room, to see how hard mama Byers is trying to pretend she's going on a business trip, but he figures she and that weird risotto guy are just going away for a little kid-free hanky-panky, which she deserves at least as much as Jonathan.
And if Jonny's too stoned to pick up on the clues, well, he doesn't need to be thinking about his mom banging on top of everything else.

The next day, the world turns upside-down. Literally, apparently, or that's what that kid Mike tries to explain to Argyle, but by that point he's hyperventilating hard, and they're all apparently pissed at him for that, which, not cool, dudes. It's a lot to take in.
Argyle's a staunch pacifist okay, and he's just seen multiple guys with guns, one of which fully died in the back of his van, which, it's not even his van, he's gonna have to explain the stain to Renée, and she's very cool about the weed, even buys some from him sometimes, but she's very tight on hygiene, and the guys had guns, real guns, that they actually used to shoot people, and…
That's about where his brain is at when Jonathan yells at him to go get stoned, and that's at least something normal to do, so he does.

Once he's numbed the whole thing a little, Argyle does the decent thing of making a headstone for the man who saved his friends' lives, but somehow, that also seems to irk Jonathan.
Argyle's used to it, really, Jonny's nice and sweet, but he's also prickly as all hell, though a little less so now that Argyle's hooked him up with the good stuff. He doesn't take it personally, the pissy-ness, what with the frankly stressful day they've had, but then the stupid pen doesn't work, and that's not cool, not when Argyle's trying to give that hero dude some dignity, the least they could do seeing as his family will never know what happened to him, or where to go say goodbye and shit.
The pen's not working, but that turns out to be okay after all, because it gives them the clue they needed, and now they're driving to Salt Lake city, and Argyle's cool with it, he's never seen Mormons before, and he likes new things, when they're not mind-blowingly stressful anyway. Mormons can't be worse than secret government gunmen, probably.

Eden.
Wow. Eden is just. So angry, but in a nice way, kinda like how Jonny's angry but never really at Argyle. More like, angry at the world, which Argyle digs, really, down with the man and all that, especially since he knows for sure about the secret government dudes now.

But Eden, is his point. Eden's sweet, and she's stressed about normal stuff like having too many siblings and a Dad who's there but not, and a Mom who's just not (which, Argyle doesn't ask, because he doesn't like when people ask about Ma and he has to tell them and they look all sorry for him, but then they still want things from him, like good grades or weed, and it's unclear whether they were even really sorry for him in the first place).
Argyle understands that kind of stress a lot better than he does Jonny's weird college stress, though the whole undead brother thing has shed some light on that.

So for an hour there, before the world ends, Argyle falls in love with a girl with a fringe and too many responsibilities that shouldn't be hers, and he does what he does best, he tries to make her forget about it.
They're really getting into it, sprawled onto each other, just feeling good, when the doors of the van open, and Jonathan smiles down at him through the smoke. It's barely a smile, because he's also doing his exasperated 'is now really the time' face, but Argyle knows how to find the fondness behind it.

They leave shortly after that, and Eden kisses him goodbye, just the once, barely a kiss at all, really, but it's nice all the same. Her lips are very soft, and her eyes are a bit misty, and she's got her hand running through his hair when she whispers goodbye, so for the next few hours, Argyle's heartbroken.

He falls asleep at some point on the way to Nevada. When he wakes up, Jonathan's kind of mad, so they stop in the middle of nowhere. Argyle lets them argue over the map, they're never any good and they put weird fake towns in them just to confuse you anyway. He does find some tracks, though, which lead them to Nina, who's not a tiny woman, but kinda is after all, because they leave with El, who's Mike superhero girlfriend, and definitely a tiny woman, so tiny she'll fit in a pizza dough freezer.

When Jonny casually picks a joint from his chest pocket to give to the Nevada Surfer Boy, Argyle's heart skips a beat. When he goes on to recite his dandelion seed pods in the wind sales-pitch, it skips a few more.
But then there's work to do, and Argyle can't do any of it, so he does what Ma used to do, he feeds them. He makes that pie like he makes all his pies, with focus and intent, because what you feed people matters, and it has to be filled with love.
Mike doesn't appreciate his culinary talents, but that's alright, Eleven does, and it gives Will and Jonathan some time to talk.

Argyle watches through the parting glass as they both tear up and hug. He hopes Will gets over Mike soon because that boy is not leaving his superhero girlfriend anytime soon, and the kid deserves better anyway. Still, it's nice to see him and Jonny hug, even if it hurts a little. Argyle wonders briefly if his siblings miss him the way he misses them, but then it's time for El to save the world.

She floats in the freezer, makes the lights blink on and off, twitches and winces and bleeds, and Argyle wants to pull her out, shake her and wake her up, but they tell him it's normal, that's how it always is, and she can come back anytime she wants.
She does sit up eventually, and cries in Mike's arms as she tells them how she managed to save her friend but not quite the world.

They have to drive to Indiana now, to see what can be done about the world being doomed, to see if all of their other friends are okay, and though it's a lot of people to worry about and not all that chill to think they might be dead, Argyle thinks it might be nice to have so many friends who care.

They're all pretty shaken up by what El has seen in the other girl's mind, so Argyle drives, and drives, and drives some more, until Jonathan's hand on his arm pulls him out of his road-hypnosis. He sleeps a few hours in the passenger seat, then it's his turn again, and it goes like this until they reach Hawkins, Indiana.

Jonny's told him about his hometown, but it looks nothing like it should, everybody's leaving and there are giant canyons cutting through the middle of the town. The canyons are bleeding black, smoke seeping out, vines crawling towards the light.
Still, Jonathan drives them all the way to some suburban nightmare cul-de-sac, and then everybody steps out and hugs.

Mike's mom nearly kills him for how hard she holds him, El and Will get smothered by some curly haired kid, and Jonny's making some sort of intense eye contact with Nancy, who looks a lot more stressed out than in the pictures Argyle's seen of her. They hug, and Jonathan kisses her forehead, which is sweet, but kinda tame, considering all the pining Argyle's been subjected to.

Chapter Text

In the next few weeks, everything turns worse. The world keeps ending, there are weird shrooms and ashy spores everywhere, and everyone Argyle meets is in some form of denial or bordering on mental break down.

There's Steve, who Jonny'd described as some sort of preppy jock but who turns out to be much grittier than anticipated. Steve's on edge at all times, trying to juggle between two hospital beds, his intense platonic girlfriend, and driving everybody around. Argyle wonders where his parents are, but Jonny says not to worry, Steve's a big boy and he can take care of himself.

Steve says he's got nightmares, and hospital chairs aren't that comfy.
“Look,” he tells Argyle as they're sorting through piles of donated clothes, “I know it's not, like, the smartest idea or whatever, but I'm kinda desperate here, man. I gotta be able to get to the food drive, and Robin's got places to be, plus I can't afford to be off my game if the bats come back, so if you could hook me up with just a little weed?”
“I think that's a lady's shirt my dude,” Argyle tells him, pointing at the bright flowery fabric in Steve's hands, “goes on that pile over there.”
“See? That's what I mean,” Steve says, “I gotta be able to focus better, I need to sleep at least six hours once in a while. I can pay you know, my parents are loaded, it's really not an issue here.”
Argyle watches Steve frantically refold the pile of baby onesies he's just toppled to the floor and fixes him an eighth for free.

There's Hopper who tells Argyle he doesn't sleep, that it's better this way, he can keep watch.
“They'll come after her, you know. All of them, the monsters, the army. The fucking ruskies if they ever get wind of her.”
“Tiny's strong though,” Argyle says, tearing some vines away from Hopper.
“I know she is, but she can't do it all. Now watch this,” he points at the mouse trap he's nailed to the mail box pole, “that's how you attach your wire, anyone not in the know tries to walk in there, you'll know they're coming.”
“Alright!” Argyle smiles. “Smart move my dude.”

Joyce tells him it's not better this way, “Hop's got to sleep somehow, Argyle, but the doctors say they're keeping their drugs for the actually injured, and I'm not sure I want to encourage you dealing, really, especially now that I'm supposed to be looking after you, but Hop's got to sleep, he's got to, he's bound to hurt someone, he's grown so skittish.” They're walking through the woods, gathering firewood. Argyle picks up a piece of bark that vaguely looks like a dog, adds it to his bag and hums at her to go on.
“How much is an ounce?” she wants to know, “An eighth?”
Argyle tells her and she frowns. “How the hell did Jonathan pay for this?”
“Friendly discount, Mrs Byers.”
“I've told you to call me Joyce, Argyle. What kind of prices do you call these? It was way cheaper back in my days really.”
Argyle is weak, and Joyce is looking at him like his Ma used to, and who the hell charges their own Ma?

There's Nancy, who corners him on the porch steps one night as he's coming home from a sell. She's not usually around at this time, and no one else is either, so Argyle assumes she planned it like this.
“Hey Nancy.” He doesn't like being alone with Nancy, they've got very little to talk about, except from Jon, but his Jonny and Nancy's Jonathan barely seem to be the same person, so it's mostly awkward, which makes Argyle want to light up, but Nancy doesn't approve of the smoking, and fuck, this is stressful, he doesn't understand how Jon's doing it.
“So... Look. I know we haven't hit it off or anything, but, hum, I don't know who else to ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Would you sell me some weed?” She says weed like it costs her something, but she looks him in the eye with the sort of steely determination she brings to everything so Argyle just shrugs.
“Sure thing my dude, why wouldn't I?”
“Oh.” She blushes there, looks down at her feet. “Well, it's a bit hypocritical of me I guess, but I've been really stressed out trying to keep on top of things with my mom and Mike, and the food bank, plus I'm doing the scheduling for the perimeter watch teams, and then there's...” She cuts herself off. “I've got a lot on my mind, is all I'm saying, and I could use a good night's sleep, but I don't want to knock myself out with sleeping pills, so marijuana does make sense here...”
“Alright.” Argyle smiles, he likes this side of her, when she stops pretending to know everything.
“Only...” Nancy bites her lip.
“Yea?”
“Would you mind not telling Jonathan?” She's not looking at him anymore. “It's just... Things have been difficult lately, and we're trying to work it out, but... I just. I just don't want him to worry.”
It's gonna be so stressful lying to Jon, but she looking up at him through her eyelashes now, kinda pleading, so Argyle gives her an eighth too, because really, how can he charge his boy's girl?

There's a red-haired lady who Dustin informs him is Max's mom, Max who's laying in the hospital with tubes and IV, most of her limbs in casts, even though El thought she'd been saved. They want to unplug her, Max's mom tells him, to make room for people who've got a better fighting chance, they say they need the bed.
“I can take her home, they've told me,” she says, pulling on a Pall Mall, “I just gotta pay for the machines, and she needs someone to be around at all times, in case something happens, but I can't do that, I can't, I've got to keep my job at the canning factory. God knows there are enough people ready to take it if I leave.”
There are silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Argyle panics internally for a minute, then lights up a joint and wordlessly hands it to her.
She looks at him blankly for a second then shrugs, flicks her cigarette butt down the steps, and sucks in a long drag. “Fuck. I should have never left California”
They stay right there on the hospital steps, passing the joint back and forth, and if any of the nurses and visitors passing by think anything of it, they don't share.
Argyle slides Max's mum a baggy when Jon comes looking for him to get going.

There's an exhausted looking guy with callused hands and a southern accent, also on the hospital steps, though on a different day, who tells him he never did any of this shit before, but that his nephew would find it hilarious, maybe even be a little affronted, so why the hell not, it'll keep his hands steady enough to go through his shift. Steve walks up the steps at that point, nods to Argyle, shakes hands with the guy and asks “no change?”, gets a shaken head in response and kind of deflates. “Have a good shift,” he says, “I'll watch over Eddie.” Argyle's heard of Eddie's world saving guitar solo, of his misguided self-sacrifice, and of the witch-hunt against him. He slides three pre-rolled joints Wayne Munson's way.
“Thanks, son.”

Inevitably, there's Jonathan, who's trying to smoke less because he promised Will, and they've got to stay sharp now, they've got work to do. Constant work, too, that Argyle also does, food banks, rationing, foraging, anything as long as he doesn't have to hold a weapon. Jonny makes him train anyway, just in case, and so Nancy teaches him how to shoot, and Steve shows him how to swing a bat, which he's decent at, it handles a lot like a golf club.
“You should go to sleep my dude, you've got the morning delivery shift tomorrow” Argyle tells him one night as they're smoking on the porch, Nancy's gone up to Jon's room nearly an hour ago.
Jonathan blows smoke up at the glowing red clouds that light up the darkness of the night.
“I can't. Too stressed out.”
“I feel you Jonny. Is it the nightmares again?”
“Nah, man, it's... Well. You know.” Jonathan motions vaguely to the upstairs window where Nancy's sleeping.
Argyle nods, because there's really not much to say. The way he sees it, Jonny's been grieving his relationship with Nancy since before they left Lenora, and the fact that it's still actually going doesn't change that. It's too late to get back on track, especially with everything else going down, but there's no way Argyle can tell him that, so he just hands him back the joint.

Chapter Text

The first problem they hit in Hawkins is this : they've got nowhere to stay.
The Chief's got a cabin in the woods that they spend some time fixing up, but it's nowhere near big enough to fit Jonny's family, plus Tiny and the Chief. Obviously there's no room for Argyle either.

“Come oooooon, Jonny, please?” Argyle pleads on their third morning sleeping in the van.
Jonathan grunts and turns his back on him, taking half the covers with him in the process, which actually furthers Argyle's point.
“I'm telling you my dude, no one will care! They're gone alright? They packed all of their pretty little things and they drove the fuck away from here, and they're not coming back! We can just pick one, any one, even the Chief agrees.”
Jon turns on his back and speaks at the ceiling. “Hopper's not even chief anymore dude, and we can't just up and walk into someone's house and settle there.”
“Why not my dude? They'll never even know.”
“Cause it's illegal! Immoral? It would be weird? I don't know man, we just can't!”
“Immoral? Illegal? Jonny my man, you call yourself a punk? What would Bowie do, man? What would Bowie do!?”
“Low blow dude.” Jonathan sighs, but his lips stretch up into the barest smile so Argyle presses on.
“Think of a bed Jonny, a real one, with a mattress,” Argyle taps on the floor underneath them to drive his point home. “Think about it Jonny, it's thick, it's got give but not too much, just the right kind of support for your back, big enough for you and Nancy to engage in whatever style of hanky-panky's your style, think about it Jonny, think!”
“Fine!!” Jonathan sits up, arms shooting upwards as if agreeing to not live in a car is a great concession on his part and Argyle promptly hugs him, topples them both back on the van floor.

That afternoon they find a house on the western edge of town, about fifteen minutes on foot from the cabin, and they settle there. Argyle calls dibs on the room with a view of the woods, and Jonny gets the master bedroom across the hall from him. There are two more bedrooms plus a kitchen, living room, and huge basement. From the pictures on the wall Nancy tells them it used to belong to the Roth family, who've left with nothing but their clothes, the pantry still fully stocked.
Nancy helps them settle in, pack up the too personal items left by the Roths, but doesn't stay.
Argyle rolls a joint as he watches her drive away, and lights up on the porch.
“So much for her spending the night I guess”, Jonny says, sitting down next to him.
“Sorry, Jon.”
Jonathan shrugs and gestures for the blunt, and from here on out that's how their evenings go, even when Nancy does stay, they somehow find themselves watching the night turn a darker red, blowing up at the clouds.

---

Two weeks after they reach Hawkins, the army declares a quarantine, they're driving through town with loudspeakers strapped to a jeep, and the message is simple : anyone not out by April 14th will have to stay in Hawkins for the foreseeable future, no exterior contacts allowed. Most people who haven't yet leave within the day.

“You could go man, I wouldn't blame you. We sort of just dragged you along there, I'm sorry.” Jon says once the army announcement fades. They're having breakfast, pancakes from a pre-packaged mix they've found in the pantry.
“And go where?” Argyle tries to hide the hurt in his voice by talking through a mouthful.
“Home? To your own family?” Jonathan says, and it hits Argyle that he doesn't know.
“I haven't seen my family in seven years Jonathan, they never call and they never visit. You're the closest thing to family I've got.” It's unfair to his sister, Argyle knows, Alba was only three when he left, but the facts remain, he hasn't seen her since the funeral.
“Shit dude. Sorry. I... Should have asked actually.” Jon looks stricken, puts his fork down to look up at him. “I'm a shitty fucking friend.”
“You're alright Jonny, I just don't like talking about it, is all.” Argyle shrugs it off, because it's true, he doesn't.

“Still, though,” Jon says, after a few silent pancakes, “you don't have to stay man, I'll miss having you around, but it'd be selfish of me to ask you to stay, you shouldn't have been dragged into this in the first place.”
“Nah man, I'm staying,” especially now that he knows Jonny would miss him, “I've got to stick around and see how Tiny saves the world this time.”
“Yeah?” Jon looks up at him with relief on his face.
“Yeah.”

Nancy walks in a couple hours later, as Argyle is taking stock of his dwindling weed stash. Even just accounting for his own smoking, he's got maybe a few weeks left, and he'd love to keep providing the good people of Hawkins with the good stuff. Now that he knows he's staying, he's gonna have to start growing.
“I think my parents just divorced.”
That makes Jon looks up from the notebook he's writing in.
“What?”
“Dude, that's heavy.”
Nancy frowns at him, like she forgot he was here.

“My mom's staying. She... We had a huge row when they called the quarantine this morning, because I'm staying to fight, and of course Mike's staying for El, so Dad said they should leave with Holly, and that I'm of age anyway and they can't make me, but Mike should come with them, get over his little crush already.”
“Mike must have loved that.” Jon cuts in.
“Oh yes, he turned a very interesting shade of purple yelling at us all. Anyway, Mom said no. She said it was obvious we weren't leaving, so he could leave if he wanted but there's no way she was leaving us alone with the army in charge. That's when Dad went all patriotic about the army being there to protect us, then he got all patronising about how Mom couldn't expect to raise a child alone.”
“Oh your mom must have loved that.” Jonny's smiling now, like he wished he'd been there to watch.
“You have no idea. She turned on him so fast it's like she'd been fantasising about it for years. Told him she'd raised two kids on her own already and she'd been doing a great job of it, no thanks to him, and he could just try and make her leave.”
“Go Mrs Wheeler!” Argyle says, “ Rise up!!”
Nancy frowns at him, but she's also smiling, so it's okay.

---
They all gather at Steve's that evening, because the place is huge, and kind of central to all their houses.
Dustin's there with his mom, plus all the Byers, the Hoppers, Robin and her parents, Mr Munson and Max's mom, the Sinclairs, minus Lucas who's at the hospital, Risotto Guy, who Argyle now knows is called Murray, but remains Risotto Guy in his heart, the Wheelers, sans dad, and that one cop who's also been told the truth, and believes it, Powell.

The Chief's speaking like he's in charge, and most everybody seems inclined to agree, even though he's no longer chief.
“Alright, so I've talked to Stinson, who's taken over from Owens. She says she's not in charge here, the military's still infighting on whether or not El's at fault, but they still don't know she's here, so we're good on that front.”
There are nods all around, some more confused than others.
“Dude, who's Owens again?” Argyle leans in to whisper into Will's ear.
Will throws him an exasperated look, “The doctor who sort of saved us, then trapped El into getting her powers back with Brenner.”
Argyle isn't sure who Brenner is either but he decides to just roll with it. “Huh. Was he a good guy then?”
“Not sure, dude, but he wasn't the worse.”
“Alright, we contain multitudes after all...”

“Anyway,” the Chief's saying, “the quarantine is going to mean a few things: the army's going to take over most of the food deliveries, probably centralise all production from the farmers and redistribute it, plus they'll have stuff coming in from outside. It means if this lasts we're going to be pretty much dependent on them for food.”
“Not sure how I like that.” Mr Munson pipes up.
“Me neither, Wayne, but that's how it is. You know you don't have to stay, we'll take care of your kid.”
“Don't insult me Jim, I'm not leaving him, or any of those brats who you've let save the world for us...”
“Wayne...” Joyce starts.
“Hold on a minute there,” that's Mr Sinclair, “what's so wrong about the army being in charge? They've got resources, they've got training, they've got a working system...”
“They want to put my daughter back in a lab and dissect her like a rat.” Hopper says at the same time Mr Munson goes, “They're a bunch of trigger happy assholes with the moral wherewithal of a frustrated two year old.”
“Nice one, Mr Munson!”
“Thank you, son.”

“You watch your mouth now, I was in 'Nam, show a little respect.”
“I was in 'Nam too, Charles, and I don't see the lie.” Hopper grunts.
“As for respect, Mr Sinclair”, Robin pipes up from behind Steve, “so far the army's been working against us, and has refused to believe anything we've tried to tell them about the rifts and the gates, and also, yes, they're trying to capture and possibly kill a literal child, plus the Vietnam war was a military fiasco fuelled by decades of anti-communist propaganda and war-mongering rhetoric, so, all due respect to your service, but I for one, am putting myself firmly on the let's not trust these guys camp here.” She says all this very fast, then sort of hides behind Steve's hair.
“The commies do suck, though,” Erica says, hands on her hips, “just the facts. She's right about the rest, Dad, the army's been very inefficient so far, even last year, they came in after we killed the Mindflayer.”
“Erica!”
“What? If it comes down to siding with the nerds or siding with the army, my money's on the nerds. It just boils down to empirical evidence.”

“Hold on there, no one's talking about taking sides.” Hopper cuts in. “I'm just giving you all the information I've got, let's do that first and then see what can or should be done. Alright?”
There's a general noise of agreement through the room.
“Second point : water supplies. As far as we can tell, Lovers' lake entirely turned rotten and there's a gate at the bottom, so that's out, but the Eno's still clean and the treatment plant's still going.”
“Yea, most of the guys won't be able to afford leaving, we're still running.” Mr Munson chimes in.
“Right, that's good, I guess. Tippecanoe's still clean too, and that's where most farmers pump, so I'd say for now water is a least concern thing, though it probably can't hurt to start bottling up some, just in case.”
“Just in case what, Chief?” Dustin's mom is a kind eyed little woman, and she looks terrified.
“The spores are spreading, Claudia, there's no way to tell how far, or how it'll affect water or crops.”

“Then what the hell are we still doing here?! Why won't you all just leave?”
“Mom! I've told you already, I'm staying, I'm not leaving Eddie, and I'm not leaving the Party. We know about Vecna, we know about the gates, we've been down there more than all of you, if anyone can stop this it's us.”
“Dusty!” Mrs Henderson's crying now. “You're fourteen! You can't save the world!”
“Yea, we can! We did twice already, which is better than what the army's been doing!”
“Claudia,” Joyce puts a hand on her shoulder. “We're staying, we've got to fight this, but you don't have to. I'll take Dustin in, it's okay, I'll look after him.”
This just make her cry harder, so Joyce walks her out of the room. Argyle watches Steve move towards Dustin, clap a hand on his shoulder as the kid pretends to look unbothered.

“Right.” Hopper resumes. “Last point, electricity : they're not cutting us off from the grid yet, but nothing that's damaged will be repaired, it means if you're still living in a part of town with spotty supply, or if your lines look like they're going to fall down soon, I advise you relocate to one of the less hard-hit areas. If you do, I'd pick a house with a back up genie, just in case. We can start saving up on fuel now, most roads are impracticable anyway. We've sort of started gathering 'round here, and I personally believe we better stick together, but that's up to you.”
“What about the hospital?” That's Max's mom, her daughter's woken up, but she's still intubated, or so they've told Argyle. He doesn't like hospitals.
“It's still on the grid, and it's got a genie, but there'll be a convoy for those patients who can be moved, apparently most of the staff is evacuating too. It'll probably be turned into a military hospital, but they're not turning anyone out, not now there's so many empty beds.”
Max's mom's shoulders relax, and so does the rest of the room.
“That's about what I know, though apparently there's talk of the army recruiting locals for patrols, they want to monitor the gates and they need people to keep the monsters in check.”
“A militia, huh?” Mr Munson says, “Just what we needed.”

Chapter Text

“Hey Chief?” Argyle asks one night they're having dinner at the cabin.
“Uh?” Hopper turns to him.
“In your lawman days, did you happen to learn of anyone with growing gear? We're nearly running out of Purple Palm Tree Delight here, but I've got a pretty sweet green thumb, I could totally set us up, just need some heat lamps.”
Jonathan makes a weird strangled noise next to him, and Will kicks him in the shin.
“Dude! Ow! What was that for?”
Will just looks at him like he's grown a second head.

“Let me get this straight,” the Chief starts, “you're asking for my help setting up a drug-growing business?”
“Yeah? I figured you'd know.”
“Argyle, sweetheart, you can't ask a cop to help you grow weed.” Joyce tells him.
“Not on the force anymore.”
“See?” Argyle smiles, “He's not on the force anymore, and he,” he points at the Chief, “and Steve, and Mr Munson, and Mrs Max's mom, and I, need me to grow some more, so... ?” Argyle looks expectantly at Hopper whose face does something complicated before he shrugs.
“Reefer Rick probably had some.”
“Hopper!”
“What?!” Will yells, and Jonathan snickers.
“I expect a full discount from you son, alright?”
“Sure thing, my dude.”
“Don't call me dude.”
“Sorry, Chief.”

Dustin agrees to take him to Reefer Rick's. They go alone because Steve, who was supposed to come for protection, is needed at the hospital. Now that most the staff is gone they've established a schedule, put Max and Eddie in the same room so someone's always there if needed.
They get to the house through the woods, have to go around two gates and Lovers' lake, but it's way shorter than going all around to the east. They've given up trying to bridge the rifts, the edges keep crumbling into the Upside-Down.
Jonny's made Argyle take a newly hammered nail-bat, and Dustin's carrying a walkie and a gun, just in case.
It's a slow monster day though, and they get to the house with no more trouble than a lone Demobat attack, which is pretty small potatoes.

“What the heck happened here, my dude?” Argyle asks when he sees the front door hanging off its hinges.
Dustin tenses. “Must have been Carver and his minions, looking for Eddie.”
“Shit. They were not messing around.” The whole place is trashed, furniture's been upturned and there are glass shards all over the floor.
“They weren't, no.” Dustin shrugs. “Right, so, where would you keep your stuff, if it were you?”
“Basement my dude, better temperature control.”

“There you go.” Dustin says after a minute fiddling with the heavy padlock on the basement door.
“Yooo! Nicely done little man!”
“I'm turning fifteen in a month.”
“Alright, my bad. Still, nice!”
“Yeah...” Dustin sighs. Argyle puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey man, I'm sorry your Ma left, but you know we've got your back, right?”
The kid just shrugs and heads on down the stairs, so Argyle drops it.

They're poking through Rick's set up, efficiently packing what can be useful (and there's quite a lot, heat lamps, some bags of soil and nutrient, even a decent stash of weed, though it's nowhere near as good as Argyle's), when Dustin speaks up.
“Hey Argyle?”
“Yeah, my dude?”
“Can I ask you something, but you've got to swear not to tell Steve? Or Mrs Byers? Especially not Mrs Byers actually.”
“Sure thing, my man, ask away.” Argyle is not one to stop a wondering mind.
“Can you sell me some weed?”

Huh. That's unexpected. Argyle processes for a minute, long enough apparently that Dustin takes it for an answer.
“You know what, forget it, I just thought... Yea, I thought you'd actually be cool about it, what with the amount you smoke, but I guess I'm just a kid right? Gotta protect me from myself, is that it? Sure, Steve can have some to deal with his nightmares, and Nancy too because she's too chicken-shit to break up with Jonathan, and hell! Why not Hopper too, it's not like he was the chief of police or anything... But I'm fourteen, so I don't get nightmares? I don't see Eddie drown in his own blood when I close my eyes, and I haven't had to go AWOL on my girlfriend, and apparently my Mom didn't choose to leave me here either, I'm okay, I'll sleep just fine if everyone keeps pretending I'm young and carefree!”
“Wow! Hold on dude! What? No! I'll hook you up with some Palm Tree, no worries, just threw me off for a second there.”

“Oh.” Dustin says, clearly holding back tears.
“Yeah man, I'm not telling you how to deal with...” Argyle gestures vaguely around, “all of that. Whatever works my dude, whatever works.”
As Dustin breathes in deep, bottom lip trembling, some sort of long dormant fraternal instinct kicks in in Argyle, and he draws him into a hug. “It's okay man, it's alright, we've got you, alright, we've got you. Also probably you've got us, you're so weirdly smart, we'll be alright.”
Dustin sniffles against him, then steps back and nods once. “Thanks.”
“Anytime my dude. Now, do you even know how to smoke? You gotta learn how to roll too, let me take you on a learning journey my little curly friend, you'll come out a much changed and relaxed man on the other end.”

About a week into quarantine, the posters go up. They remind Argyle of the ones his stepdad had up in their flat, before. There's a picture of a guy in a top hat, all decked out in stars and stripes, pointing dramatically at passers-by. HAWKINS NEEDS YOU it reads, Volunteers needed : join the Watch! – Extra rations and gear provided – Information at relief center in City Hall.
“Fuck that's dystopian,” Jon says when they're done reading. “Come on now, I want to hit those last houses before nightfall.” They're working through their assigned neighbourhood, systematically going through each abandoned house, gathering food and gear before the army gets to it. Just in case they turn asshole-ish, is what Murray said when he proposed that plan.

“Hey Argyle?” Jon calls from the basement.
“Yeah?”
“Come on down for a sec?”
“What is it my man? Any more of the good stuff?” They found rows of preserved peaches in the previous house, and Argyle's planning a cobbler for Dustin's birthday. The kid needs it.
“Maybe. Think you can grow those?” Jonathan's holding an entire box of tiny crinkly packets of seeds.
“Smashing my dude!! I sure can!”
“Yeah?” Jonny's smiling up at him like his birthday's been moved up.
“Yeah! We're gonna have to rework the set-up though, add some more flower beds, to make room for those sweet veggies. Maybe rig up some sort of window, try to get some sunlight in.”
“Argyle...” Jon's smile deflates.
“Yea?”
“There's no sun.”

Still, over the next couple of days they enlist Steve and Dustin's help, and they build more wooden boxes, fill them up with dirt and get to work planting.
“Man, I've never had a winter garden before.”
“D'you even have winters in Cali?” Dustin asks heaving bags of top soil down the stairs.
“For sure my dude, we get snow and all. And don't say Cali dude, it's so not what's up.”
“Alright, jeez.”
“Yo, Argyle?” That's Steve voice coming from the kitchen.
“Yeah?”
“D'you mind keeping an eye on Dustin? I gotta go check in at the hospital, Wayne just walkied in for me to come relieve him.”
“No worries man, me and Curly've got it covered.”
“I am not your son, Steve, you don't have to babysit me.”
“Shut it Henderson, you literally live with me. I promised your mom I'd keep you safe, and I'm gonna do just that. Now be a good nerd and stay with Argyle alright? I'll pick you up on my way back.” Steve doesn't wait for a reply, slams the door on his way out.
“Can you believe the guy?” Dustin sighs, but he shakes his head fondly and there's the hint of a smile on his face.

“So, how long is this gonna take?” Dustin asks once they've planted all the seeds they can.
“Depends, my curly little friend, those,” Argyle gestures at the zucchini seeds, “should starts showing in a week or two, but those”, he points at the box where they've put the potato plants, “will take a bit longer. You can't rush nature my dude.”
“You can though.”
“Huh?”
“Rush nature. You totally can, it's what you're doing with the weed anyway, growing it out of season and all. You just need more heat and light.”
“This is all the heat lamps we have D-man.”
“Yeah...” Dustin looks through him, focusing somewhere in his genius brain. “But we have mirrors. Plenty of those I bet, if we went looking through the houses. We can totally use those to add more light in here, it'll reflect the light and the heat, we could turn this into a proper greenhouse!”
“Right on my dude! Let's go then, go on, mirror collection!”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now, dude, before nightfall, I don't want Steve to come at me with the nail bat. Come on, man, andale! Let me just go and get Jon.”

Chapter Text

“Hey Argyle?” Argyle's lying on his bed, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. He can hear Jonathan calling, but he's very chill right now, and also Jon's with Nancy and he doesn't feel like third-wheeling.
“Argyle!!” He wouldn't mind the third-wheeling so much if they were just being gross, but third-wheeling for Jon and Nancy is so fucking stress inducing, it's why Argyle's in his room right now. He can't take the tension anymore. Nancy's frustrated little sighs and Jonny's sad little smiles. He wants them to either make up or break up, but this is just a sad kind of dancing around and...
“ARGYLE!! DUDE!” Jonathan sounds mildly annoyed now.
“WHAT?! I'm chilling dude!”
“Customer!”
“CUSTOMER?”
“Yeah dude, customer!”
Huh. That's new.

“Hey, my dude” Argyle waves at the man standing on the porch with Jonny. Nancy's reading on the swing seat.
“Hey son.” The man's wearing dirty coveralls and a baseball cap. He's got a deep voice, kinda like Argyle's grandma did, the one Ma said came from all the smoking. “You Argyle, then?”
“Yeah, my dude, what's up?”
“Wayne said you're selling?”
“I sure am, only weed though, all natural products here, man.”
Jonathan snorts behind him.
“Weed's fine. I... Army medics say they've run out of painkillers, they're keeping what they have for emergencies. I got chronic back pain, son, apparently it's not an emergency if it's happening all the time. You think your stuff can help with that?”
“Oh yea, Purple Palm Tree Delight will fix you up alright, it'll take your pain away and make you float on a sea of good vibes.”
“O-kay then,” the guy says.

“What do you want for it? Cash?”
“Money's meaningless my man, now more than ever.” Argyle smiles at the guy.
“I.. guess?” He seems unsure, so Argyle helps him out.
“We take payment in food, bags of fertiliser or soil, oil, gas, ammunition, or information.”
“Information? On what?” Asks the guy.
“The army, mostly.” Nancy says from the swing.
“We do?” Jonny asks, lowkey.
“Yes, Jonathan, we do, we've got to know how the recruitment's going, and who's part of it, and they hate us all. We need intel, Argyle's right.” Argyle hears her reply.
“I... I've got a half-gallon of gas in the truck, if that works?”
“Sure does, my good man, it sure does. Wait right here with these fine lovers, I'll go get you the good stuff.”

“Hello?” Someone's calling from the porch. Argyle rubs some dirt off his hands and pushes back his hair.
“COMING!” He leaves his planter on a sideboard.
“Good morning, this is the Argyle-Jonathan household, how may I assist you today?”
“Hum. Hello.” The woman at the door reminds Argyle of Mrs Byers, she's about the same age, looks exhausted, and is wearing a variation on what everybody is wearing now, jeans and a t-shirt. Argyle would be the only one left caring about nice threads if it weren't for Dustin and Robin.
“Hi.” He smiles at the lady.
“Are you Argyle?”
“I sure am.”
“Do you...” the lady looks around. “Look, do you mind if I come in? It's just... prying eyes.”
Theirs is the only inhabited house of the street, but Argyle shrugs and steps aside to let her in.
“Come on in, kitchen's this way.” They settled down at the table, dodging under Jonny's drying pictures.
“So,” the lady starts, “I hear you're selling hum.. Marijuana?”
“That I am,” Argyle nods.
“And... Does it... Does it help with the nightmares? It's just. My son. He.. He's gone. He... Well the army says he died in the earthquake, but. I've seen the monsters. We're not stupid you know? Who do they think they are, lying to our faces, controlling our food, imposing curfews. This used to be a free country for Pete's sake.” The lady shakes her head in disbelief.
“Purple Palm Tree Delight will help with your nightmares, or your general monster-induced anxiety. It has a sweet, mellow kick that'll leave you relaxed but not defenceless, and it's very well reviewed by beginners and connoisseurs alike. Also, though I'm the only dealer in Hawkins, I guarantee complete relaxed satisfaction and total discretion to all my customers.” Argyle rolls through his spiel, he's used to this now, customers visits have gotten more frequent. Hopper assumes the army's turning a blind eye, but Argyle knows his stuff's ended up in the barracks, he made the delivery himself.
“That. That sounds good, actually.” The lady says. “What do you want for it?”
Argyle smiles up at her.“What are you offering?”

“Alright,” Hopper starts, “first order of business, Wayne?”
“Army came to us this morning looking to requisition the plant, kid who talked to me said it was to ensure the fair distribution of resources within the community”. Mr Munson somehow manages to voice the italics.
“Oh, so, the same way patrollers get extra food?” Steve chimes in.
“Does this mean you're out of a job, then?” Mike asks
Mr Munson levels him with a flat look. “The kid was maybe 17, son, I told him to stick it where the sun don't shine.”
“Wayne!” Mrs Wheeler exclaims, cupping her hands around Holly's ears.
“Sorry, Karen.”

“They'll be back though, won't they?” Robin asks.
“Yeah. And with the cavalry, too.” Hopper presses his palms down on the map of Hawkins that Will has drawn. They use it to plan their foraging sorties and organise their watch rounds.
“Let them come,” Wayne shrugs, “they need us to operate the plant, and none of the guys are willing to teach them, so if the grunts wanna keep drinking clear water, they're gonna have to live with us.”
“Alright, Mr Munson! Stick it to the man!”
Mr Munson smiles at Argyle. “Thank you, son.”
“Be that as it may,” Risotto Guy starts, and he looks like he's about to go on one of his rants, so Argyle turns to Jon, just in time to see him roll his eyes, and smiles.
“They'll be back , and we need a plan,” Riso goes on, “they won't like you threatening their water, and they'll like resistance even less. By 'you' they'll understand us, because none of you were willing to listen to me when I said we should limit hospital visitors to just a few of us, and now they know that 'you'”, he points at Wayne, who nods in acknowledgment, “means all of us, and especially you, Jim. And they do not like you. ”

“Yea, I wonder why,” Dustin mumbles from his spot besides Steve.
“Look son,” Hopper says, “ We've been over this, any flamethrower toting asshole comes after any of you, he's gonna have a problem with me.”
“They weren't coming after me!”
“Uh, yeah, they were.” Steve says, squaring his shoulders.
“No they weren't! They were burning the vines away from the library and they told me to get lost. It was dickish, yea, but I wasn't in any danger.”
“Josh Jackson doesn't get to talk to you, not after the shit he pulled with Carver.” Steve spats. The Chief nods.
“Oh my god!” Dustin yells, throwing his hands up. “Will you all stop worrying about me?!”
“No can do my dude, we're weed brothers now, and that's for life.”

“YOU'RE WHAT NOW?” Mrs Byers turns on Argyle so fast it makes his head spin.
“DUDE!!!” Dustin also turns against him and Argyle backs away, stumbles straight into Jonny's lap where he's sitting on the couch. He stays there, because Jon's a comfy guy for being so wiry, and now Steve is looking pissed at him too.
“You gave him weed? Dude, what's wrong with you? He's fifteen!”
“That's rich coming from you King Steve,” Dustin hisses, “remind me again who was crowned Keg King in Junior year?”
“Yeah! And I was a huge asshole! And my parents weren't around to put a stop to it, but you...”
“I what, Steve? I've got parents around?” Dustin yells, and then there's quiet.

“You've got us, son.” Mr Munson says.
“Yeah, come on dude, you know we've got you.” Steve says, and he looks sad now, like Argyle feels sometimes thinking about Alba.
“We're here for you sweetheart,” Joyce adds into the silence, and steps up to Dustin, wraps him in a hug. The kid lets it happen for a while, then steps back.
“I know.” He says. “I know, okay, and I appreciate it, and I know I'm the one who told Mom to leave, but I can't sleep at night, and I can't calm down, and you all need me to be able to think, because without my brain you're toast.”
“Still with the ego, Henderson.” Steve tries for a smile.
“Yeah, well.” Dustin shrugs.

“Look, brochachos, I didn't mean to make you all mad, but I don't see the problem here? Like, most of you come to me for Palm Tree; hell! The old lady down at the library comes to me for Palm Tree, says it helps with the joint pain. So if Curly needs the good stuff, I don't see why he shouldn't get it. I started smoking when I was twelve, and I'm fine.” Argyle shrugs.
“For a definition of fine, anyway.” Someone mumbles, maybe Nancy, but Argyle doesn't care, Jon's nodding against his neck.
“COME IN HQ, DO YOU COPY? THIS IS NURSE BASE, OVER.” Steve's walkie comes alive at his belt, and the room falls silent again.
“ROBIN? THIS IS HQ, WE COPY, OVER.”
“STEVE? IS WAYNE HERE? OVER.”
Mr Munson gestures at Steve for the walkie, presses the button on the side.
“BUCKLEY? TALK TO ME, IS EDDIE OKAY?”
The tension in the room somehow heightens, Dustin visibly swallows, and even Mike looks concerned.
“YEAH, OLD MAN, I'M ALRIGHT, BIT CHEWED ON, THOUGH.”

Chapter Text

“This is so not over, Argyle.” Steve tells him as he runs after Dustin, who's running out after Mr Munson. Argyle recoils a little, backs up against Jonathan.
“I've barely even started.” Joyce tells him, and Jon tenses at that, moves Argyle to the side so he can face his mom.
“Mom, come on, don't...”
“Don't you even try Jonathan! Dustin's a child! He's been left here under my responsibility!”
“More Steve's” Erica pipes up from somewhere.
“Erica!!”
“Just the facts.”

“That's not the point!” Joyce yells, and everybody shuts up. “Argyle, you can't give your product to children, alright? What were you thinking?! I know you're ...”
She falters here, and Argyle dreads what comes next. Joyce has never been anything but nice to him, and he doesn't like that she's yelling. He's never liked the yelling.
“Mom...” Will pleads. Joyce takes a breath.
“I know you're used to doing things on your own, but this was irresponsible.”
“Joyce's right kid, I know I let you do your thing because we mostly all benefit from it, but you have to draw the line somewhere.” The Chief says, and neither of them is being really mean, but it's awful all the same. Argyle doesn't know what to say so he stays quiet, concentrates on his turquoise shoelaces and Jonny's arm against his.

“Hold on a minute, Chief.” Mrs Wheeler says, “You knew about this?”
Hopper sighs, rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, then nods.
“You let the kid grow weed? Joyce? He's living with your boy!”
“Things have changed Karen, we need it. For medicine if nothing else.”
“Medicine?? We let the kids go to their place all the time! Mike and Will practically live there!!”
“The world's ended Karen!” Hopper snaps.
“And that's an excuse to turn our kids into junkies?” Mrs Sinclair cuts in.
“Hey!” Lucas says, “we're not junkies, alright? Only Dustin's ever smoked, and that's only because he's the one who was with Eddie...”
“Wait. You knew?!” Mike cuts in.
“CHILDREN!” Murray yells, and Argyle flinches, slams his hands against his ears.

“We are losing track of the point here. We've got bigger fish to fry than Argyle's little home set-up and who was aware of it. We need him now, anyway, he's half the intel we get.” Murray raises a hand for silence when Mrs Wheeler shows signs of interrupting him. “How do we protect the water plant is what we should all be worried about right now. All of you are free to take care of your own children the way you see fit, but he,” he points a finger at Argyle “is clearly not about to make those decisions for you. Besides, more than half the adults in the room are using so if we could all ease up a little on the hypocrisy?” Murray looks at the room at large with a slightly maniac smile. “There we go. Now Jim, onto business please.”

Argyle's lying in bed, watching the ceiling, not even high, when he hears Jonathan climb the stairs.
“Hey.” There's a knock. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Argyle turns on his side to face the opening door. “Hey Jonny. You mad at me too?”
“No, man,” Jon shakes his head, hair catching in his eyelashes, “I'm not mad.” He sits on the side of the bed. “Scoot over, will you?”
Argyle does, and Jon lies next to him.
“'m sorry Jonny, I didn't think it was a big deal. Curly asked, and he seemed pretty fucked up by all this, so I thought, sure, the dude could do with some Delight, you know? Didn't mean to make everybody fight.”
“Hey.” Jon says, and puts his hand on top of Argyle's. He's got soft hands, maybe because of all the chemicals he uses to print his pictures. “Hey,” he says, “it's okay. They've talked some more after you left, they've all mostly made up. Everybody's on edge you know, 's not your fault, the world kind of ended.”
“Yeah man. 's why I've been growing so much, everybody's asking me for help chilling out. I thought...” Argyle stops.
“Yeah?”

“I thought I was good at that.” Argyle mumbles, an he can feel Jon's hand properly take hold of his. It helps ease up the knot in his throat.
“Hey.” Jon turns on his side to look at him, kinda forces Argyle to face him. Jon's got really intense eyes, looking at him like this is important. “Argyle. You are. I swear, you are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah man! You have no idea. Like, you know things with Nancy have been... complicated.” Jon rolls back to frown at the ceiling again, and Argyle misses his eyes. “And it sucks, but you... you make it suck less. I know at the end of the day you'll be here, and whatever awful shit the day has spawned, monsters, soldiers, arguments, whatever, I know you'll be here and you'll find a way to make me feel less shit about it. It's got nothing do with the weed either, dude. You're just good at this.”
“Thanks Jonny.” Argyle says, and squeezes his hand.
“Anytime.” Jon says, and lets Argyle go, which sucks a little. “Don't worry about Mom either, I've talked to her. She's not mad anymore, she said to tell you.”

“Hey man.” Steve walks up the stairs as Argyle's about to leave for a delivery. “Can we talk?”
Argyle doesn't want to talk, he likes Steve, and this conversation is going to suck for sure, but he's trying to be responsible. For Joyce.
“Sure my dude. Let's.”
They sit on the porch's top step.
“Look,” Steve starts, “ I just wanted to say, we're good. I'm sorry I overreacted there. It's just... Dustin's living with me now, and I'm supposed to protect him, but I've got no idea what that means now the world's ending... I mean, I wouldn't have known how to raise a kid even before, but now the lines are all blurred, and I'm so tired all the time man, even with the weed I don't sleep much, I... “ Steve shakes his head.
“My point is, I thought I should stick to, you know, normal parenting rules, I thought that'd work. But I've talked with Dustin, and with Robin too, and they're right, I've got no business telling him how to deal.”
“Alright, my dude, acceptance, that's good.” Argyle says, and he's not sure if he's speaking for himself or for Dustin, but acceptance's good anyway.
“Yeah.”

They remain silent for a beat, and Argyle thinks Steve's going to leave now, but he just stays there.
“Hey, Argyle?” Steve sounds less self-assured than he usually does.
“Yea, my dude?”
“D'you think he'll be alright? Dustin?”
“I think so, Stevie, Curly's strong, you know? Resilient.”
“I know. But, he's got a lot going on right now. Like. More than the rest of us.”
“With his mom leaving you mean?”
“Yeah. I know he told her to, and, intellectually, sure, that made sense, Claudia's not cut off for this, she was always kinda... nervous, I guess. But that she'd actually leave without him, I don't think he realised how that'd feel.” Steve sighs deeply, hands tightening on the steps.

“Hey, Stevie? Can I ask you something? You can tell me to shut up.”
“Uh. Sure man, ask away.” Steve shrugs.
“Where are your folks, dude? Why does no one ever mention them?”
Steve keeps quiet next to him, so Argyle figures he's not going to answer.
“Sorry, man, some doors better left closed, my bad.” He starts getting up to go deliver to the barracks, but Steve grabs his arm, pulls him back down.
“We're gonna need some Palm Tree if you want an answer to that one, okay?”
“Alright, my dude, way to go!”. Argyle fishes a joint out of his front pocket and lights up, then hands it to Steve who takes a drag and leans back on his elbows.
“They left. I mean. They weren't there, when the rift opened, but they didn't bother coming back. Mom called though, to see how I was doing, said they couldn't come back because of Dad's business meetings, but I could fly out to meet them.”
“Yeah? Why'd you stay dude?” Argyle gesture for the joint.
“Same as everybody else.” Steve shrugs, “we've got to fight this thing, man, we can't just hightail it out of here and pretend the world's not ending. Plus, the kids. And Eddie. It's... He's awake now, and they say he'll be okay, should make a full recovery and all, but... He almost died in there, I... I did the whole thing on him, chest compressions, mouth to mouth, I thought it'd never work, but then it did, he started coughing up blood, and shivering, it was...”
“Sounds gnarly, my dude.”
“Yeah, sure, gnarly. Anyway, I carried him out of there, somehow, but by the time we got to the hospital he wouldn't wake up again. Should have been faster.” Steve mumbles.
“Dude. You saved his life.”
“I guess.”

“There's no guess about it Stevie dude, I haven't had the pleasure yet, but the way Curly speaks about Munson, he'll tell you the same.”
“He did. Said he'll be forever in my debt now, that as soon as he can stand he'll bend the knee and pledge allegiance to me. Kinda like the idea, actually.”
“Alright! That tracks, you know, always thought you'd be a cool knight.”
“Thanks Argyle.”
“Just the truth my dude, just the truth.”
They smoke in silence for a bit, then Steve circles back.
“No one talks about them because my dad's a rich asshole. No one will say it to my face, but they all hate him. Joke's on them though, I probably hate him more. Mom's alright, in a rich no-nonsense, no-fuss way, but she never stands up against him, even when she should. They were away a lot, even before.”
“That's heavy my dude.”
“Yeah, well. I'm used to dealing on my own, it's fine.”
“Not fine for Curly, though?” Argyle asks, because even stoned he can see that something doesn't add up there.

Steve chuckles. “You're just like Robin, aren't you? People assume you're dumb, but you're really not.”
“People think Robin's dumb?”
“Yea. Which is complete bullshit, by the way, she can like, speak four languages and she's really good at puzzles and stuff, but I guess if you just vaguely look at her, all you see is this weird girl who laughs too loud and runs into walls. People don't get shit about Robin”
“'s what they get for assuming my dude. Try before you deny.”
“Sure.” Steve shrugs again. “And to answer your question, no, it's not fine for Dustin, his mom actually did take care of him before, even if he kinda stood in for his dad when he died. He's not... He's not ready for this shit, thinks he can do it all on his own, thinks he can reason his feelings away.”

That evening Argyle doesn't deliver his wares to the soldiers, but he figures Steve's need is greater, and it's nice to make a friend. Argyle even answers some of Steve's questions about his own folks, which helps in a different way than the weed, and that's good too.

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.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Jonny?”
“Huh?” Jon blows up at the sky, and they both watch the smoke disappear into the fog. Argyle doesn't like the fog, it's great cover for the bats, and it's ugly. He likes the normal sky better, with its awesome swirls of reddish yellow clouds. They haven't seen blue in a while.
“Ever think about cats?” he asks.
Jon shrugs. “Not really. Why? D'you wanna get one? There's plenty of feral ones to pick from. Wayne says there's a litter running around their new place ...”
“Nah man, we can barely feed ourselves, they're better off in the wild. That's my point though, I mean, d'you ever think about how weird it was for us to keep tiny carnivores around just for the kick of it?”
“I like cats,” Jonny says with another shrug, and Argyle can't blame him for not wanting to think about it too hard. He likes cats too, has always found them chill, but right now they're hard to consider. They're struggling, is what's happening, and they might starve soon, because the only things growing are the ones not connected to the ground, and they only have so much canned food and bagged soil to go around. Cats though? They're thriving. They've been hunting baby bats and Argyle's seen them go in and out of the rifts and lap water from contaminated puddles, apparently they're doing fine in the Upside Down.
Jon puts the joint out against the porch rail and stands, flicks the thing out in the general direction of the flower pot they've been using as an ashtray.
“You coming?” he asks, and Argyle nods, follows him upstairs to his room, though he should really start calling it theirs. Jon's been bunking with him since the night Nancy left, and they don't talk about it. The world keeps getting scarier, Argyle thinks, and this way at least he doesn't need to wake up worrying about whether the bats have gotten to Jon during the night. They look after each other.

The next morning they meet up with Dustin, Steve, and Eddie and make their way downtown. It takes them the best part of the morning to get where they want to go. They've got to trek along the rift that runs from Chrissy's gate to Fred's and then over the army's temporary bridge across the other rift, the one that runs from Lovers Lake to the Creel house. They're an efficient group by now, Steve walks ahead with his nail bat ready, Dustin and Eddie follow behind him with a gun each, then Argyle with his own bat. Jon brings up the rear with a rifle in hand and a knife at his belt. Ideally, they're trying not to shoot because bullets aren't getting in any more than food is and the army's gathered up what their team hasn't been able to get to first. On top of that, the bats are starting to be drawn by the sound of gunshots rather than scared by it. There's so many of them now, nesting in the trees on either side of the world's edge, thriving in the rotting air. They eat each other, sure, but they also eat everything else, swarm up around cattle and dogs, children sometimes and bite and rip until their target bleeds out. Argyle knows this, as they all do, because in the three months since supplies stopped coming in Hawkins has lost five children to the bats, and a good few heads of cattle. People would leave, if they could.
The bridge, when they finally reach it, is a rickety thing made of bolts and metal planks. The army make them cheap because they never last, fall down into the red depths of the rifts every time the ground shakes and they crumble wider.
“What do you freaks want now?”
“Free country isn't it?” Eddie shoots back at the grunt who's manning the check point, pushing his hands deeper in his pockets. “Plenty of time left before curfew, no reason for us not to take a leisurely stroll down main street is there?”
The guard looks torn, like he'd love to stop them but knows he can't. Eddie's right, they're technically allowed to be here, even though everybody knows they're harbouring El, and the army still want her. The soldier eventually shrugs and waves them through.
Steve goes straight across, nail bat held up in case the monsters get ideas. He exudes confidence, walks the planks like he's not trekking above the gaping maw of the abyss. It's beautiful, is the problem, Argyle thinks as he watches Dustin follow suit, more gingerly than Steve but just as armed. The rifts are pulsing still, the deep red light of the depths exactly as alluring as the first time Argyle's seen them, shiny like a ruby out of Eddie's stories.
Argyle crosses the bridge after him, eyes closed. He can't look down, doesn't like heights all that much, so it's easier to go blind. He runs his hand along the rail and follows that, keeps his free grip firm on the handle of his bat. He can hear the boys chat ahead of him, can feel Jon's gaze on his back. There's wind coming from the Upside Down, tepid gusts of air that bring more evil spores into Hawkins.

“Alright,” Dustin says once they've all made it across, “to the photo lab first, then?”
“Yeah,” Argyle nods, “Jon's all out of paper and film, and someone's got to document this, right? For posterity, my dudes, we're gonna win this, and then we're gonna end up in history books.”
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, “we're gonna win this.” He sighs as he turns away, starts leading them down Hawkins's main street. No one picks up on that, though Eddie throws a worried look at Argyle and Dustin cringes, and they make their way through the rubble. The vines are alive still, they'll wiggle sometimes when you walk on them, but their brain is dead, or so Dustin's explained, and they're not actively murderous. No one is living in this part of town anymore, the rift intersection is too close, growing too fast for the ground to be stable. There are crevices and cracks to step over, piles of debris to walk around, and of course they're keeping an eye on the sky.

“Ready?” Steve asks, one hand on the door handle to the photo shop.
“Ready.” Jon's standing on the other side of the door, rifle pointed about head-shot height, and both Eddie and Dustin stand ready to fire. Argyle grips his bat harder, plants his feet firmly on the floor as Steve swings the door open. Behind it sits the dusty counter of the abandoned shop, and nothing else. The building's still standing, windows cracked but otherwise more or less intact.
“No bats.” Eddie says after a bit, shoulders relaxing a fraction.
“No bats,” Steve smiles. They usually come straight out when confronted with light or noise, haven't yet worked out an ambush strategy. Maybe they don't need one.
They go in, drag their flashlights across the shop as Jon selects what he needs, developing paper and rolls of film. The pictures on the walls look unreal in their normalcy. There's a perfect family in their Sunday best, the dad's hand on the little girl's shoulder, the mum smiling down at the baby in her arms. There's a couple of a frolicking dog under a too blue sky, and a few glamour shots of a pretty girl in a cheer uniform.
“Fuck,” Eddie says, stopping stock-still in front of those.
“What?” Argyle doesn't recognise the girl, doesn't think he's seen her before, not even if he tries to imagine her in survival gear.
“Chrissy,” Eddie murmurs, tracing a finger along the picture frame.
“Oh shit,” Argyle blurts out, and immediately winces at how loud his voice comes out “that's harsh. Sorry man. She looks really happy in these.”
“She does, doesn't she? Wonder what that piece of shit had on her. Should have known something was off, cheerleaders don't randomly ask for K.”
It's just him and Eddie in the shop now, Steve, Dustin and Jon have moved on to the back in search of the right chemicals.
“It's not on you Ed, my dude. Dustin said... Dustin said Vecna picked his victims out, right? And held on to them?” Eddie nods vaguely, fingers still resting on the frame, so Argyle goes on. “It would have happened to her anyway. Not that that, like, makes it any better, but it's not on you.”
“You're right,” Ed tells him as he turns away, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, “it does not make it any better. Fuck, man. She remembered me. Actual me, from some kid talent show we'd played in middle school. I was a fucking cockroach to her in the school food chain, and still there she was with her preppy blue eyeshadow and her big smile, laughing with me like we could be friends.”
“Sounds like she was cool,” Argyle says, because she does and what else can he say? Eddie's seen it happen twice, the gruesome bone snapping thing that Vecna apparently did, and that has to have been much worse than the guns, but it's nothing Argyle can help with. Mourning, though? This he knows. He knows it's better to think of the good parts, to remember the smiles and the laughs and the stories his ma used to read them than the last long weeks of hospital, IV drains and chemo bags and her loosening grip on his hand.
“Who was cool?” Dustin asks, walking back into the room.
“Never you mind, Henderson,” Eddie answers with a too big grin, “never you mind. Did you find Jonny's gear?”
“Yeah,” comes Stevie's voice from the back, “if I'd known old Jensen kept all this in here I would have saved that trip to Indie and bought your camera here.”
“No one made you destroy mine, you know.”
“Dude. The Nancy pics. Still creepy.”
“What Nancy pics?”
“Never mind, Henderson. But yeah, alright. Still creepy.”
As they leave the shop Argyle stalls a little to get to Jon at the back of the group so he can lean into his side and whisper in his ear.
“Dude, now I've got to know about the Nancy pics. What the hell did you do that got Steve so mad?”
“Guessing you won't let that one go?”
“Probably not, brochacho,” Argyle shakes his head slowly, like he's some kind of disappointed dad, “probably not.”
“Fine,” Jon sighs, though he's also half-smiling. “Tonight though, alright? Gotta keep an eye on the bats.”

They make slow progress through town, keep mostly close to what walls are left standing, away from the fault lines and the potentially collapsing piles of rubble.
“Remind me again,” Steve asks, crab-walking along a narrow strip of pavement that hangs over an ominously smoking sink-hole, “why do we need books right now?”
“Knowledge, Steve,” Dustin answers immediately, holding out a hand for Eddie to jump across a crevice as Argyle does the same for Jon, “is power.”
“Oh fuck off, Henderson, we've got enough of Murray.”
“That Russian speaking madman happens to be right, though. We need all the knowledge we can get right now. Argyle's pretty decent at growing stuff and the farmers know what they know, but soilless agriculture is a whole other thing, and unless you suddenly can do plumbing and nursing on top of bitching and bat-smashing, we're gonna need books on that too. No one's helping us anymore, in case you haven't noticed.”
“Point taken, alright? And I did notice.”
Hawkins Public Library looms above them, the building towering over half destroyed houses and collapsed shops.
“I don't like this,” Eddie says, shivering slightly. They're looking up at the crawling vines that have snaked through the broken windows. “It's textbook story book trap. The one standing building with light coming from it and we're gonna walk straight in? Come on, we'll get eaten by the fucking witch. Again,” he adds, raising a hand to where Argyle knows the skin of his flank looks melted.
“You know, I think Nancy told me witches are like, sexist or something?”
“Not now, dude,” Jon laughs in Argyle's ears.
“There's no light coming from it,” Steve comments, but still bumps shoulders with Eddie and raises his bat higher. “I've got you, man,” he adds, low enough that Argyle can pretend he hasn't heard.
“Are we doing this or what?” Dustin asks, already moving up the steps, and they all follow suit, stay close to each other the way they've learned to, backs half turned inwards so nothing can take them by surprise.

They're both correct, in the end, Stevie and Ed. There's no light in the building, and they nearly do get eaten by the witch. They don't, really, because the second Dustin screeches “Steve!” the man moves straight into action, flings himself forward and plants his feet back, swings his bat right into the fleshy flower flaps of the dog thing that comes running from the depths of the children's section. Argyle hears Jon's rifle cock beside him as he raises his own bat. Eddie falls back behind them and drags Curly along so that they stand back to back in case anything else tries to come at them. They've planned for this too, drilled with the Chief in the woods behind the cabin until they got it right. Steve ducks as the dog advances back on them and clears the way for Jon to shoot once, reload as the beast is thrown against a shelf of cookbooks that collapses in an explosion of glossy pages. It's not dead yet, won't be until they lodge a bullet in the dead centre of its flower head. Argyle wishes it had less teeth.
It comes crawling next, stalking low on its wiry legs. Steve runs at it and bashes its head down to the ground, then jumps back to avoid a lash of its claws.
“Switch with me,” Eddie tells Argyle, raising his gun in explanation. He's got a point, Argyle's bat is no use at long range and Steve's already on it, so he falls back and lets Eddie take his place. He and Jon take turns shooting at the thing, try not to waste ammo or put Steve in the line of fire, and eventually it works, someone lands a bullet dead centre of the gory petals of its head and it slumps to the ground with a thud.
“Fuck,” says Eddie, to which everyone agrees.
“Let's hope this thing wasn't part of pack,” Steve says in the silence that falls back, “I think I pulled something in my shoulder.”
“I can take the next one,” Argyle offers, though he doesn't really want to.
“Let's wait a bit, see if anything comes. No way they wouldn't have heard that.”
“I think we're safe,” Dustin says, and Argyle just now notices him crouched by the body of the creature. “It looks underfed. Look,” he points at the dog's sides where ribs are showing, “it's probably been trapped in here for a while.”
“Don't sound sorry for it, Henderson, it fucking tried to eat us.”
“They're just animals,” Curly says, sounding kind of sad, “they can't help what they eat.”

He's got a point, Argyle thinks as he and Jon make a selection of carpentry books, the monsters aren't evil, not really, they've got to feed as much as humans do, and there's not much else for them to eat. Still, he considers Eddie's scars and Steve's, knows that even though Jon hasn't been chewed on or choked the way they have there're still scars and welts all along his arms from a number of near death encounters. Argyle hasn't got any, no visible ones anyway, but he's lost weight since coming to Hawkins, a lot of it, looks kind of gaunt now when he checks himself out in the full length mirror of their borrowed entryway. It's not the lack of food, he and Joyce have devised a fairly good rationing system and for now they're still on for three meals a day, it's the stress and the nightmares, the patrolling and the running from bats and into teething walking flower dogs that's getting to him. He's losing his cheek bones, the ones he shares with Alba and Ma, and he tries not to think about that.
“Things used to be chill, man,” he tells Jon, regrets it instantly when his face falls.
“We'll make it,” Jon tells him, and grabs his hand. “We'll make it. We've got too.”
Argyle holds on to Jonny's hand, lets their fingers tangle together in the darkness of the library.
“Sure thing my dude,” he says, “we'll make it.”