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As Argyle waits in the Arrivals terminal, he begins to mentally review the next week in his mind. It’s been a year since the last time a Wheeler stepped foot on California soil, and it’s fair to say that visit went to shit. Even beyond the army attacking, and watching Unknown Hero Agent Man die, and running away from and thereby severely pissing off his foster family, emotionally it was shit. Little Wheeler picked fights with El and Will, two of about five freshmen at Lenora Hills High that Argyle doesn’t hate. Well, sophomores now, despite Argyle still being a senior. After the hell month that was April in Hawkins, the last month the small town existed on the face of the earth, taking some mental health time seemed right. So what if it pushed his graduation? If you don’t get right with yourself, how can you be right to other people?
This time around, Little Wheeler is not coming. No, Little Wheeler, just like Lucas, and Erica, and Max, and Dustin, are scattered in little Midwest towns a safe radius from the molten pit that was Hawkins. The sophomores are using Spring Break as an excuse to all crash Mike’s house. The further distance of Will and El to Mike, as compared to Max’s hour away -which she’s apparently threatened to walk, if Steve doesn’t pick her up, like Steve needs a threat to help a teenager- doesn’t change anything. Will and El took from their settlement fund to cover airfare, and they’re going to Pritchard, with a promise to call in every twelve hours, or Joyce and Hopper will come out.
But not having Little Wheeler doesn’t mean not having Senior Wheeler. Rather than go to Florida, or Cancun, Nancy is spending her spring break in Lenora. And this is where Argyle has to step in. As Jonny’s best bro, it’s his solemn duty to make sure Nancy and Jonathan have the best week possible. No bitching about righteous injury of enemies, no ignoring puppy dog eyes, no awkward discussion about sleeping arrangements. Everything will be chill as Pluto, or Argyle will eat his visor. He really loves his visor, and so he has a three point plan.
First and foremost, he’s going to foster pride in choices. Having to choose between personal goals and each other is a gnarly thing for any relationship. For them, it’s worse. On one hand, their relationship is closer to marriage than any other under twenty five Argyle knows. Not bullshit straight out of high school the condom broke life path is set marriage, but a true bond. Shared trauma keeping them together, they joke. But on the other hand, after so many near death experiences, so much torment, the urge to harvest the rest of your life like perfectly detailed bud, no stems or seeds, is deep. Argyle thinks it was really brave of them to decide on an open relationship, that Jonny can hook up in Lenora and Nancy can hook up at Emerson, as long as they tell each other about it. What Argyle has to do this visit is make sure everyone still feels good about this decision.
Secondly, he’s going to make sure they stay entertained. Last year, on the day El was arrested, Jonathan offered to take the freshmen all to Police Academy 4. Not cool, man. Jonny and Nancy deserve a top notch vacation, full of stellar experiences. Which, if he’s being honest, not all of Lenora has that to offer. Some parts of town are actually pretty lame. But Argyle’s had a decade to carve out a few cool scenes, and he’ll be using everything at his disposal.
He’s definitely going to take Jonathan and Nancy junkyard golfing this week. There’s catharsis to be found in breaking glass with golf balls. Knowing Nancy, she’ll find some way to get a gun, and she’ll be blowing side door mirrors off at fifty paces.
The Rink-O-Mania is on the docket too. Sorry to El’s trauma, but it’s a fun place with pretty lights and energetic music. And killer milkshakes. Besides, it’s not like Angela actually hangs out there anymore. Her whole family is gone from Lenora. Argyle likes to think Owens did it, as a reward to El.
And the Donahues are literally never home, but their pool gets treated once a week. And it has a slide. It’ll be like right out of Ferris Bueller, minus the anxiety attack. Except, maybe plus the anxiety attack, because after everything they’re very high strung people with some surprising triggers. Argyle didn’t initially get the pasty white sweaty face in Art class, but it makes more sense once you know Jonathan knows what scissors jammed into a mind controlled boss’s throat looks like. Who knows if a backyard pool party will set anything off. Except no. no anxiety attacks allowed. As best buddy, and perfect wingman, Argyle’s going to keep Jonathan properly fueled up on Purple Palm Tree Delight. He will sleep through the night every night Nancy is here, damn it, or Argyle will pledge allegiance to a new strain.
Point three, but no less important for being lower on the list; he’s going to avoid being a cockblock. There’s nothing to be done about the fact that Jonathan still isn’t driving, that he’s got lingering trauma about it and Argyle will have to chauffeur them everywhere, unless Joyce lets Nancy borrow her car. Argyle can’t change that. He can’t make Joyce and Hopper leave the house and give them some privacy either. What he can do is arrange dates where if they want to start hooking up he can distance himself in some way. A way that’s not just watching from afar, because even though Jonny let him that one time with Susie-with-an-S, Nancy hasn’t agreed to anything of the kind. People who don’t respect boundaries should be turned into fertilizer.
His review stutters to a stop when a new stream of recently released passengers begins to channel through the door. Jonathan sits up straighter in anticipation, and then he’s leaping to his feet because there she is, the love of his life, pink belted dress, frizzy cloud of curls, hauling a suitcase half the size of her body like it’s nothing. She looks as delicate as tissue paper, and is the most gnarled rawhide Argyle’s ever met. No wonder Jonathan agreed to whatever would make her happy. Argyle’d do the same, if he had her.
He uses his manners, stands back as Jonathan sprints forward to hug her. He hasn’t seen her in five months. He blew a wad of money for Thanksgiving, spending four days in Pritchard, but Christmas was Lenora with his brother and sister, never a question about it. Argyle can see every day in the hug he gives her, and thank god, in the hug she returns. It was a big worry he didn’t want to give enough voice to admit to having, that in her time away she’d have grown apart from Jonathan. The full body squeeze says differently.
Experience has taught Argyle the Wheelers aren’t naturally huggers. Well, besides Holly, who will latch onto a limb of anyone at least ten years older than her, and fall asleep on it. Argyle's not sure who freaks Murray out more, Dustin, Erica, or Holly. But Mike and Nancy are like rubbing velvet in the wrong direction when they don’t want to be touched, which is usually. It’s boundaries, again, that has Argyle standing there when Jonathan and Nancy finally release, arms out wide. Hell yeah he wants a hug from a fellow Hawkins survivor, but not at the expense of her not wanting to.
The gods smile in his favour. Nancy nudges her bag in the direction of Jonathan, who picks it up with a bit of a stagger, and then folds herself into him. She’s so tiny her face is against his breast bone. Probably no one in this airport would guess how many evangelical men she’s gotten into brawls with.
“How have you been, Argyle?” She asks warmly when she’s had her fill of affection. Argyle doesn’t try to make it linger, just answers the question.
“Okay mostly. The bud helps the nightmares. And the Byers let me sleep over a lot. That’s pretty bitchin. I’m sure Jonathan told you Hopper got him his own tv for Christmas, so we’ve been watching a lot of movies. We’ve got a finely tuned palate, so I’m sure we’ll have you gorge on a few over the week. Have you seen Rosewind?”
“No, but if you think I should see it, sell me on it,” Nancy volleys.
Argyle shucks the bag off of Jonathan’s shoulder before he can fall too behind struggling with it, and heads for the van. The couple follow in his wake, Jonathan adding a few very good points on why Rosewind will be the cheese in Nancy’s taco.
It’s a short walk to where the van is parked. Argyle tosses the luggage in, taking one last sniff to make sure the interior isn’t too weed heavy. Back in Hawkins Nancy partook once or twice, but that kind of infrequent user tends to still think it’s stinky, not sharply herbal. It should be fine though, there’s like six air fresheners taped to various surfaces. He’s a little surprised when Jonathan opens the passenger door rather than get in the back with his girlfriend, but doesn’t make a big spectacle about it, questioning him. It would go directly against point one.
“Ugh, from cramped and sitting to more sitting. I’m going to need to take a jog later or something, to loosen up,” Nancy complains as she clicks on her seatbelt and Argyle jams his foot onto the gas pedal.
“We could have a nap together when we get back? Change into something comfy, wake up loose and refreshed?” Jonathan suggests, rummaging through the case of tapes in the glove compartment.
A hit and a miss, already. Argyle mentally shakes his head at his bro. He and Jonathan having naps with each other a few times a week doesn’t mean Nancy’s the cat in the sunshine type. She’s a bloodhound, and she said jog. “While I can understand the allure of stretching out on the guest bed to uncramp your poor limbs,” Argyle starts with, to falsely bolster Jonathan’s idea, “may I suggest Daley Overpass?”
“What’s that?” Nancy asks.
“Hard to say specifically, man. It’s an ever evolving mystery,” Argyle answers. It’s what he loves about the location best. You never know what you’re going to get, only that it’ll be stimulating.
Jonathan, knowing his girlfriend prefers absolutes, tries to winnow down the experience. “There’s a bunch of boho types that hang out there. Sometimes they have tents and they live there for a while, until the cops oust them.”
“Haven’t run into Hopper yet, but maybe someday,” Argyle adds.
“You hang out with people who live under a road? Since when?”
“Sometimes the touch of the gods doesn’t favour you in the game of couch surfing.” Argyle’s been known to let some of the more friendly people sleep in the van from time to time. Wipe away the pain of the memory of the man who died there with joyous new memories.
“I know it sounds a little weird, but they’re cool, really. El and Will have come out a few times too. I’m not sure if they’re giving Will hope or despair about art as a career, but he always heads right for the easel when he gets home.”
“Uh, sure. I mean, that’s what I can here for, right? To see how you’re living now? If this is something you do, then I should see, right?”
She definitely doesn’t want to. Argyle thinks he can win her over, though. Actually meeting Claire and Bennz and Jopinder and whomever else is swimming in the pond this week will make a difference to what sounds sketchy on paper.
Jonathan fills the drive with questions about Nancy’s current class assignments. She’s got a few things due after break, same as Argyle. The difference is she did some of it on the plane, and is likely to actually complete the rest of it some time this week. As far as Argyle is concerned, this is his time off. He’ll worry about it Monday, even if it’s due Monday. Nancy’s still talking when Argyle pulls up to the underside of the overpass. It’s not easily accessible, but after the off-roading in Nevada, Argyle has leveled up in his driving. Maybe he’ll be a limo driver one day, if Surfer Boy ever does him wrong.
Based on the thumping in the near distance, Argyle’s about to have a good time. But hey, no reason to not make it better. He pulls a fresh joint out of his shirt pocket. By the time the van made it to Hawkins last spring, he and Jonathan were both tapped for their classic strain, and compromises had to be made about Jack Herer. And who knows who Nancy’s been partaking with at Emerson, but the likelihood of them having this is low. “Do you want some Purple Palm Tree Delight? It’s like-”
“The seed pods of a dandelion floating in the wind. yeah, I know. I haven’t decided yet.”
“That’s cool, man. Everyone should do whatever makes them feel the most copacetic, you know?”
“But you two can. I don’t mind.”
He hopes not. Argyle has no plans in going sober, not for anyone, and he doubts Jonathan does either. If Nancy doesn’t want to, that’s fine, but that’s no reason for her to judge while they get ripped.
Nancy enters the scene like she’s sneaking into the Carver’s church, or Henry’s house. Argyle can’t blame her for having her hackles up in new situations, not after living in Hawkins for so long. Jonathan was so kind as to pass her a knife in the van, something to carry in lieu of her gun stranded in Boston. The weight of it in her pocket probably makes her feel a little better, walking into a group of strangers who, for all she knows, could be psychotic evangelists or mind-raped victims, either willing to turn on her on a dime.
He gets the PTSD. He does, because he has it too, in different ways. And Will, and El, and Joyce and Hopper and even Owens is jumpy when he drops by. Every one of them is fucked up, and that’s fine. Point number one is not letting neither Nancy nor Jonathan feel insecure this week. Meaning, Argyle doesn’t let a single told you so pass his lips when Nancy starts to thaw.
It’s a busy scene today, at least a dozen people working together on a drum circle, a dozen others dancing or sitting on cardboard sheets and listening. Argyle may or may not hipcheck Greta to get a few beats in later, but for now he’s happy to listen.
Jonathan, too, he can see taking a turn at one of the instruments. He’s a very musical guy, for all that he never joined a single Arts extracurricular. Sometimes they skat in the car, riffing off each other for minutes at a time. Will cringes, but that boy needs more joy in his life. Precisely why Argyle's dragged him out here a time or two.
Nancy though. Argyle is pleasantly surprised when Nancy joins the cluster of people dancing to the symphony of beats. There’s a rhythm for everyone, and Nancy finds hers in jumping from foot to foot and punching down. Jonathan can’t keep his eyes off of her. Argyle can’t blame him. That is a self high five earned for point two on the plan.
Time shifts in the floating dandelion fluff of Purple Palm Tree. Argyle is content to drift for the time being. Eventually the sun will begin to set, and it’ll be their clue to head back to the Byers for dinner. Before that, it doesn’t matter. As long as they’re enjoying their days, what does it matter what weird thing they’re doing?
Nancy’s a lot less go with the flow than them, though, so it doesn’t surprise him when she’s the one to get them to switch tracks. She stops mid-song -because this song is always mid song, it’s eternal- and cuts through the small crowd directly for them. Argyle’s already trying to remember if he has soda or water in the van, because after dancing in the afternoon sun she must be parched. He opens his mouth to offer to check, or to start up a barter with one of the collective members, when she cuts him off.
“Get in the van, Argyle,” Nancy commands.
Yeah, that was sort of his plan. Argyle gets up, momentarily burning his palm on the concrete beyond the cardboard. He’s a little confused as to why they’re both following him, when it’s been clearly delineated his role to be gopher, but doesn’t ask.
If there’s soda anywhere it’s under the furthest back seat. Shit gets trapped back there a lot. Argyle yanks open the door and climbs in. Rather than wait for him to find it, they both follow him in.
“Do you know the last time I danced and was happy?” Nancy asks. She doesn’t wait for either of them to hazard a guess. “1984.”
“You’ve been at college for nearly a year,” Jonathan replies. Argyle doesn’t know what the right reply is, but it doesn’t seem like that. If Jonathan can hate Cheetos because they bought a huge bag at the gas station the first time they filled up after fleeing Lenora, Nancy can have some kind of unstated until now dance trauma.
“Yeah, and everyone I naturally get along with are overachievers who spend weekends studying. We don’t party. It’s hard, stepping out of my comfort zone without you or Robin or Steve to push me. I’m so glad I went, but I didn’t know it was going to be so hard.”
“Every night when you’re on the phone telling me whatever you learned that day, I’m so glad you went. You’re where you belong, Nance.”
See, that’s a better thing to say. Point one, Nancy and Jonathan are both trying their best, following their own paths. It’s going to work better this time, succeed where senior year didn’t, because they communicate now. It’s okay to run perpendicular to each other, as long as you call out your coordinates.
“I think I am,” Nancy agrees. “But I’m getting off track. It was 84. And I was only happy because I was drunk at a Halloween party, and only for a few songs before reality kicked in, but god, it was good. And then things got worse, and things got more serious, and more people started dying, and it just never came up, as a possibility. It’s not like prom was ever an option. I missed dancing. So, thank you. Thanks, for this.”
“You’re welcome, duh. If it makes you so happy, get back out there!” They’ve got hours until sunset, Nancy can go dance her pretty little feet off. And now that Jonathan knows how meaningful it is, he can muster the gumption to dance with her. Argyle doesn’t care that Jonny’s not really a dancing guy, Nancy deserves to be spun in the California sun.
“No. I want this. To be here,” Nancy clarifies. She stands in a crouch to reach around Jonathan and yank the van door shut.
Argyle blinks a few times, not expecting that answer. “Oh. Uh. Okay? Change your mind about sparking up? No one out there is a narc, you know. You don’t have to hide it.”
She ignores him. “This whole last year Jonathan says you two didn’t fuck.”
“No?”
“I know he’s bisexual, and I know you know, and I know you are. Did you not want to? Are you just that focused on whatever your type is?”
Argyle’s capable of reading a room, and he suddenly feels a little bad. Like he’s been a bad bro. Jonathan’s intensity as Nancy asks is a big hint that she’s asking as his mouthpiece. For some time, likely months, Jonathan’s been wondering if Argyle doesn’t find him even remotely attractive. That he’s so repulsive they can’t even have casual best friend handies or whatever. It’s such a bummer, because he was just trying to be a good bro.
“Everyone who got close with one of you, the other didn’t know. You could talk about it, describe it how you wanted, in ways it would neatly fit in your partner’s brain. If Jonathan did that, it would have been way more visual, no buffer of it just being over the phone. You knew me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, man. An orgasm’s not worth hurting a buddy.”
Nancy’s looking right at him now, kneeling facing the back seat. Jonathan too. They’re both incredibly intense. They probably shouldn’t have kids, or that teen’s head would explode in the first parental interrogation.
“What if I said I want to kiss you? What if we said he wants to watch you kiss me, and then he wants to kiss you? What if I said we want Spring Break to be a week long sleepover? Would you be willing to risk feelings then?”
“I’m not going to ask you if you’re sure. You’re Nancy goddamn Wheeler, you wouldn’t say it if you didn’t have five ways to prove it. You both want it, I believe you. I guess I’m just hung up on, does that make me your boyfriend? Do I get to jump in on the long distance phone calls?”
“You already do that, like nearly daily,” Jonathan points out.
“I don’t know yet. For now I think it’d maybe be more like you’re his boyfriend, and you’re maybe my boyfriend, but you’re not our boyfriend? If that makes sense? Like, each of us have relationships with you, but it’s not the three of us together. And you can keep hooking up with whomever you want, just like Jonathan and I will. Does that all work?”
“I don’t think I’m cut out for the fling life,” Argyle admits.
“It’s not going to be, buddy,” Jonathan reassures him. “We’re best friends. I’ve never met someone who gets me the way you do. I want to be in your passenger seat until the end of time. It’s just be cool if we also had sex. And that you fucked Nance, on occasion.”
Nancy adds, “a fling is just sex, no emotion. You helped save our brothers lives. It could never be a fling, not with you. Even if we stop having sex, we’re still gonna be friends. We just think sex would be more fun.”
“Have you had stoned sex, Arg? Me and Nance did once. It was so good. It was like the air was a third partner. I wanna do that with you.”
“Jonny, Nancy, Argyle, and the air makes four. Are we having van sex, or are we waiting until Joyce and Hopper go to bed?” Probably this isn’t the best idea in the long run. Argyle wants things to work out happily ever after for them, and who’s ever heard of one of those endings with the prince, the princess, and the knight? But it’s so hard to care about the long term, when in the short of it you’re stoned, and suddenly horny, and two brunets with slim, bitable necks are staring at you.
“Do you have curtains to hang on the curtain rods?” Nancy replies.
Oh, fuck yes. Scrap point three, Argyle is going to be getting very involved in their sex lives. Right the fuck now, he is, because ever since Piper and her girlfriend Raven started sleeping in his driveway, curtains have been a must. Clean, no. They’re under his feet now, crumpled and stepped on from the moment they were last hung. But present? Absolutely. And he just can’t see Jonny or Nancy being a stickler for cleanliness, not when they’re staring at him like he’s already naked in their mind's eye. So yeah, toss point three, dual launch point two: Assist With Stellar Dates and point one: Jonathan and Nancy Like Their Decisions. This is about to be the best plan ever.