#The one related to my Steddie fic (which also btw that’s not just going to be El and Will‘s POVs anymore it’s going to be Jonathan’s too

[bigboysteveharrington]

Argyle and Jonathan talk on the phone almost every day after the Byers move back to Hawkins

They talk more often than Jonathan talked to Nancy and are better at keeping in touch long-distance, but that’s really more a testament to Argyle’s dedication than anything else

Jonathan expects their friendship to drift away the longer he’s gone, but Argyle’s calling him all the time… Slow shift at work? Better call Jonathan and catch him up on what’s been going on in his life (and get the second hand scoop about people in Hawkins from Jonathan when he runs out of new things to tell him about because it’s only been 20 hours since their last phone call)… Argyle has very important high thoughts that are as deep as they are urgent to share? Better call Jonathan and share every last one of them that exact moment… Someone insults pineapple on pizza? You can bet Jonathan’s going to hear about it

The only problem is Argyle keeps forgetting about the time difference between California and Indiana so he regularly calls when it’s not that late in California, but it’s 3 hours later for the Byers

When Joyce is the one to answer the phone, she tries to politely tell him that it’s nice that he and Jonathan are still so close but maybe he could call back in the morning and try to keep his calls to earlier in the day from now on and Argyle always promises will do, Mrs. B only to forget all over again within a few days so she tries to work on getting Jonathan to convince him to call at more reasonable hours instead

When Will answers the phone, he rolls his eyes at how often he’s calling (while he’s also a little jealous that Jonathan is getting way more calls from Argyle now than he got from all his friends combined while they were in California) but he listens for a little bit as Argyle excitedly jabbers away at him and asks him questions until Will decides it’s getting annoying and either hands the phone over to Jonathan (or if it’s too late, he doesn’t listen to him at all and just says to call back tomorrow and hangs up before Argyle had a chance to respond)

El doesn’t answer the phone, but she’s not so bothered. She thinks it’s nice that Argyle calls so much and doesn’t see why Will rolls his eyes about it so often

When Jonathan answers, he stretches the phone cord as far away from the bedrooms as he can and stays up talking with Argyle with his voice low to try not to wake anyone else up

But Hopper? Hopper cannot stand losing sleep because some idiot from California can’t remember that it’s 2 in the morning for them (and honestly why is he trying to call to talk for an hour and a half at 11 pm his time anyway???) Every time, he forces his exhausted ass out of bed, whether he’s the first to the phone or not because it could be official police business and there could be a crime scene he’s needed at or some other kind of emergency putting them all in danger, but nope it’s just Argyle calling to catch up again

Hopper grumbles about it to Joyce when he gets back to bed and ends up unintentionally making sure that she’s just as awake now as he is with his tired bitching and Joyce is getting a bit fed up with it too, but she plays devil’s advocate and says I know the times he calls aren’t always great, but I don’t know. I think it’s kind of sweet he wants to keep in touch so much. It’s nice that they catch up on everything going on, even while they’re living so far away and Hopper gets back in bed as he grumbles how much could they possibly have to catch up on? They talked for hours two days ago

Argyle unintentionally and unknowingly becomes near Mike Wheeler levels of annoying to Hopper and Hopper grumbles nearly daily about how the phone line is always busy and he can’t get any consistent kind of sleep to save his life and could Jonathan please tell his friend to stop calling so late at night

From the moment it becomes clear that the long (and often late night) phone calls are going to be such a regular thing, Hopper is a little passive aggressive and huffy whenever he’s the one who answers the phone, but Argyle doesn’t mind and just brushes it off

It takes until one night when Hopper’s particularly sleep-deprived and grumpy and he gets to the phone first and full on yells into it that the time zones aren’t that hard to remember and that if he’s going to call, he can’t do it after 8 pm his time for Argyle to finally stop calling so late (but that doesn’t stop him from calling at a reasonable hour and him and Jonathan staying up talking until an unreasonable hour)

#This is going to be a plot point in the multi-chapter Hopper-Byers centric fic I haven’t started posting yet #The one related to my Steddie fic (which also btw that’s not just going to be El and Will‘s POVs anymore it’s going to be Jonathan’s too #Nancy’s a busy woman with things to do and she doesn’t have the time to sit around and talk on the phone that Argyle carves out for himself #Jargyle #Argyle #Jonathan Byers #Stranger Things #ST4 #ST #Jim Hopper #Joyce Byers #Will Byers #Eleven #Hopper-Byers family #Stranger Things headcanon #Jargyle headcanon #Spicy Six #Mine