#why did I add Heather into the mix? because why tf not?

[thebussynotes]

Edit : I started this last night and finished it today, this is the longer version of the previous post under this one*

Ugh, I’m having midnight thoughts and I feel myself wanting to cry every second so imma just share

(Post Byers Move)

I personally feel like Argyle plays guitar in his free time. He was the guitarist, Heather was the singer and Billy was the drummer. They always performed in Argyles house, they enjoyed themselves and after they would go to the beach and collect seashells or just mess around. Those were the good times. So imagine him walking around in Lenora, it was almost the end of fall, around December seeing none other than Neil Hargrove strolling past.

He was quite hesitant to go up to him because the last time he talked to him they ended in bad terms…not that they were in good terms in any way… he goes up to him and says hello, Neil looks confused at first but then it clicks to him at some point and a look of disgust creeps up his face. Argyle wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible so he quickly shot out the question, “is Bil-”… he was cut off, Neil looked at him straight in the face and spit out the news “he’s fucking dead” “w…wha?…huh?!” “He’s.fucking.dead. Don’t makes me repeat myself….” “dead?…hes…h-hes?…no…no…what did you do? What did you do?!” He assumed it was Neil’s fault, he assumed that Neil finally beat his best friend to death but Neil replied, “I have nothing to do with it, I don’t even know how he died…if you want to see him, I suggest you don’t, it will just be a waste…” “I don’t believe you!!!” “Stop your fucking yelling, and fine you don’t believe me but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead…now have a good life, I’m off…” he walks away into the endless road and Argyle is left shocked and he feels himself starting to shake “I…I can’t believe this…” he just couldn’t…a few days later he sets up a flight to go to Indiana, get driven to Hawkins and visit the cemetery Billy was buried at. He packs his things, notably his guitar and surf board… Jonathan stopped by his house the day before he left, Jonathan noticed he was packing a bit(he wasn’t gonna take much over to Hawkins since he was going to stay there for at least 5 days), he asks where he was going and Argyle excused it as him going to visit his other family members that were still currently in Mexico, Jonathan didn’t think much of it and gave him the okay.

Time skip to when he arrives to Hawkins, it’s probably really late so he stays at the local hotel. It’s very quiet in Hawkins, he feels homesick considering he can’t hear the crash of waves like he usually could in Cali, but he will only stay here for a few days. Argyle is still very much in denial and that denial has kept him up all night. In the morning, he gets ready to visit the graveyard, the only thing he takes is his guitar, he goes downstairs after safely locking his hotel door, (I’m not really sure how Taxi services worked in the 80s so please correct me) he whistles for a taxi. It’s doesn’t take long before a Taxi appears before him, he tells the driver to drive to the local cemetery. He makes it to the cemetery a few minutes later, it felt like forever but he was finally there, he slightly hesitated to get out of the Taxi but he had no choice so he thanked the driver and made his way into the gates.

He feels his heart racing a bit fast, he was nervous and he didn’t want to admit what was said to him, especially by none other than his best friends piece of shit father. He didn’t know exactly where Billy’s grave was, he never asked so he spent a very long while looking for his grave. After an hour of walking around, he saw a grave that had the name “William Hargrove” carved into it and his heart drops to his ass… “it…really is true?…shitshitshitshitshitshit-” he starts to freak out and starts pacing around in front of his grave, “you gotta be shitting me man!!!”. He feels tears starting to form in his eyes, his childhood best friend is gone, all the hopes they had that he will one day return to Cali was all in vain. To make matters worse he looks to the grave stone next to Billy’s and he gasps in disbelief as he read the name carved into it.

“Heather Holloway”…she’s gone too, just like Billy…another childhood friend gone. Argyle let’s out a few sobs as he gave up holding back his tears. It’s no wonder he hasn’t heard Heather in months. Heather sent letters to Argyle because Neil found out that Billy was sending letters to Argyle and got punished for it so Heather was now in charge of it. After 4 months(a month of the Byers moving to Cali), he started to worry because Heather usually sent letters every week and all of a sudden it just…stops.

He tried to drown that worry many times but today is where all that worry turns into immense sorrow. He sits down in front and in between their graves and is still sobbing his heart out. He calms down after a while but is still crying a bit because the pain of these losses is unbearable to him, he picks up his guitar and thinks shortly before letting himself play the strings with his fingers, playing a lovely tune that made have flashbacks to memories he had with them, how happy they were despite their personal struggle. That’s all Argyle wanted, wanted his friends to feel relaxed and happy around him and be comfortable with each other. He continues playing his guitar for a long while and before he knows it, the sun started to set.

He sighs sadly as he slowly stands up and looks at their graves one more time before saying “goodbye…I-…I’ll see you two tomorrow”. Eventually he makes it back to the hotel by pure luck because he was sure he got lost despite this town being as small as the palm of his hand. For the next 3 days, he goes back to their graves, play them some tunes, talks to them for a bit, heads back to the hotel. It’s the same for the next day but instead he stays at the graveyard until late at night, he wanted it to feel like how it felt back in the 70’s where Heather, Billy and himself would stay up late at night, near their personal bonfire and laying on a worn out couch with no concern and just chatting their minds off before drifting to sleep like three little bears. Despite talking to literal stone, he felt deep inside that Billy and Heather were listening to him, acknowledging his presence and appreciating that he was there which made him chuckle a little at the thought.

He said his final goodbyes to them, he looks over at his surfboard, “oh shit, I almost forgot”, he picks up the surfboard and places the surfboard horizontally infront of both of their graves. “Now you guys can share it, to make it feel a bit like home…” he smiles sadly at the graves and gently places a kiss on both stones as if he were giving them both forehead kisses “Hasta Luego, Brochacos…” he gets up, picks up his guitar and goes back to the hotel again. The feeling of homesickness was overcomes by the need to stay but he knew he couldn’t stay, he couldn’t… the next day he packs up, checks out of the hotel and leaves to the Indiana airport and flies back to Cali. He’s still very upset that his best friends are no longer alive, but is relived at the fact that he was able to say goodbye to them in his own way with no interruptions…he will never forget them, never.

*im sorry for this being way to long but it’s a longer explanation to the last post and since I’m going back to back on angst y’all are gonna suffer I’m so sorry :’D also I’m not very fond of writing so this might be as good as I thought but I still tried. Also If you have any questions feel free to ask*

[abiik]

@vhsgf replied to your post “this song made me realize i've never written about jason missing zoe”

heather this might be too forward and angsty of me to say (pls lmk if is) but now i am curious about zoe reacting to jason's death and then mirroring w jason coming back from the dead and then finding out his best friend is dead. like it sounds so PAINFUL but like. also i wanna know about it. heather what have you done i-

i had to put my hair up for this. im literally so emotional about this rn,,,like when am i not but STILL OKAY IT MAKES ME VERY [SCREECHES] (also a read more because this is fucking long im so sorry)

okay let’s start with zoe because jason’s death is a traumatic thing for her on like multiple points all relating back to when she was like elementary school aged (im pretty sure i have it where she’s like 8 ish when this happens). before jason and before going into the whole vigilante business – no matter what version of zoe you prefer – she loses her two younger brothers in a joker related accident. he kills them. and zoe… zoe is so,,, well she’s angry. because no one does anything. no one. not that fabled batman, not the police, not the fucking government – NOBODY. and she’s just supposed to keep living her life like everything is fucking fine because oh that’s just the way gotham is. and like why the fuck would she just keep living her life when her barely out of toddler aged little brothers are now dead?? why wouldn’t she want to do something about that?? why the fuck should she just let it roll off her back like no biggie?? (of course, this is a catalyst for her mother’s downward spiral and eventual disappearance, and then keme’s).

then of course, there’s zoe’s powers. at that age she didn’t really understand the extent of them, what she could do with them and all that, but as they develop and her own awareness of them develop, she is faced by like intense guilt and remorse. if only she’d been able to do something. if only she’d been there. if only she could’ve stopped the joker. if only, if only, if only. and like, realistically, there wasn’t much she could do. it wasn’t like she knew fully how strong she was; she’d barely gotten flying down at that point, but then she’s growing up and she realizes she never really had a limit. and she kind of has this complex, i’ve said it before but she really does try to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, so everything that has happened to her up until this point after the twins die, it’s partly her fault; if only she could have been better, she could have saved them, she could have her mom, she could have keme – she could have her family back.

then, of course, there is in all of this her intense hatred of the joker. and by correlation to the whole fucking issue, gotham city and batman. (ive said that they kind of grow to like each other more, but when z and jay become friends and through their teen years until his death, it’s kind of like whenever youre gay and your bff is gay and you both kind of hate the other’s really fucked up parent who’s okay sometimes but isn’t all the time and you would totally like throw down with them if only there weren’t like,,,repercussions)

anyway, so when jason dies, it’s a big fucking deal. like he’d already been acting weird, bruce was worried about him, z was worried about him, and then he dies okay. and zoe… bruce doesn’t tell zoe right away. he doesn’t tell her and when zoe does find out, she. is. pissed. all of the shit with her baby brothers comes back. she wasn’t there. she wasn’t able to save him – because she sure as hell KNOWS that she could have at this point. and now he’s GONE. AND THIS ENTIRE TIME, SHE HAD NO FUCKING CLUE BECAUSE BRUCE DIDN’T TELL HER!!! she couldn’t even go to his funeral!!! and then, AND THEN, on fucking top of that – it was the joker who killed him. so jason’s death was like a fucking quadruple blow to her.

after finding out the details, zoe goes binary for the first time. and it’s… well it’s scary. it takes a whole lot of coaxing from old teammates and being physically restrained by diana (who lowkey is kinda like why?? are?? we?? stopping?? her?? from?? killing?? the?? joker??) and clark and donna, and they can’t even really knock her out because when she’s binary, there’s only really waiting out the duration of the high until she passes tf out from using too much energy. which she DOES and then after a good long talk with gran-gran, zoe’s going on a much needed retreat with diana to themyscira.

during that time, zoe’s super depressed. like reasonably, so. she’s so exhausted and she’s still angry but she’s also just like,,, so tired. she lost her best friend dude. like she loves jason so much, she loves him so much, and then he was just gone. poof! and at least, at least with atsa and ahiga, she got to like, be there for their send off. jason ends up being another hole in her life, like her dad and her mom and keme. he’s added to this list of people who all were just…g o n e. she didn’t get to mourn them. like obviously, she can, but every time she thinks about jason, she begins to spiral. (this is kind of when she starts drinking,,,, human alcohol can’t really touch her but she does therapeutically – which is!! not good!!) she also begins to distance herself – from jason’s titans (connor holds on with an iron grip and eddie still checks up on her, but rose was just as distraught and kyle is still kind of numb), from the original titans, from bruce and alfred, from diana, even from gran-gran and uncle bell. she fills the void with work as well as the alcohol that doesn’t really do anything to her except make her mouth taste gross and weird and she hates it but it’s become a habit. if she isn’t out doing some reckless thing while saving the world, then she’s at a bar or just sitting by the ocean.

she has bad dreams too, like horrible dreams. and like,,, they’re not necessarily horrific or anything,, she usually dreams about good times, memories with jason or with atsa and ahiga, sometimes some weird mixture of all three of them hanging out together and it’s the worst fucking thing because she wakes up and she wishes she was there too, that she could stay with them, because she misses them so much. she just wants her family back, she wants the family she had before jason and dick and alfred and the titans, but she also wants them too – she wants all of it.

and then it all comes to head with her dad’s sudden involvement with earth and shit. zoe sacrifices herself not only because she carries the fucking world on her shoulders and has a stupid martyr complex, but also because she thinks she’d be okay dying like this. she doesn’t. die that is. she doesn’t die but she also doesn’t come back.

jason’s revival story arc thing is all a bit murky for me bc I kind of like mix the whole waking up and clawing himself from his grave and also the under the red hood storyline (and like correct me if there is a version like that bc like,,, idk I can’t remember). anyway, so jason comes back, and like it’s kind of messy bc of timeline shit but he doesn’t really come back, come back, until z’s gone. like gone gone. like they held a funeral and everything for her. jason didn’t get to go and THAT is SHIT. like yeah, he wasn’t fucking alive, nobody fucking knows he’s alive anyway, but it still hurts.

and like,,, you know what else kind of hurts, is like he kind of thought that after he came back, if no one was on his side – if for some reason literally everyone was against him – he’d still have zoe. that’s the worst fucking part. he hears about what happened. he hears that she literally went ballistic. and like,, jason KNOWS that zoe would have his side, that zoe would be there for him, that even if she might not have agreed with some of the things he’s done, that she’d be right by his side, showing she cares. because like. like I know bruce is kind of stunted with emotional expression, but it’s really hard to feel like you’re appreciated when someone else’s love language is so fucking hard to translate, when you need constant validation, to be told you matter to be shown you matter to them and they can’t accommodate even a little bit, because of their pride or because they have to deem that you deserve it all of a sudden. and like I love bruce, but they way he treats his kids is shit. so yeah. jason feels hella alone when he comes back and his best friend, his rock, his ride or die (literally wfkejvnk) is fucking gone.

jason definitely has nightmares too. he doesn’t know how zoe died, like really know – no one does, because there hadn’t been a body. and jason’s mind can be a pretty dark place already, add on top of that the nightmares about his best friend dying the same way he did, or being like dick, who actually witnessed the explosion that ‘killed’ zoe. he can’t even fathom what zoe went through with his death, but eventually, as jason kind of comes back into the batfam and shit, he also kind of gets to be with the last of zoe’s family. gran-gran and uncle bell are much warmer than bruce wayne and that too big mansion and that cold fucking cave. jason goes to the ranch a lot, or finds himself at uncle bell’s antique shop whenever he needs a breather, to just be alone with something that close to zoe.

they literally both go through that period where they’re extremely reckless with mourning and regrets and fuck i never got to say this and fuck what could I have done differently, what could I have changed if I’d been there? but where jason is able to recover more effectively, zoe doesn’t do so well in space.

really, that song had triggered thoughts about jason going through her things, the things she left in his bedroom – that bruce refused to touch or move or anything – and just thinking back on their life together. it was definitely shorter than they expected and when jason thinks about it, it’s a whole bunch of salty anger and throat swelling sadness that has him kind of crippled. because like,,, he also knows how the twins died, he knows how it happened, not only did he have the firsthand accounts from those most effected, but also like, he read the reports. he KNOWS, and he feels kind of guilty, just a little bit, that what he did put her through a similar version to losing her baby brothers.

NREJKVNERLFEWLFJNEKR FUCK OKAY I THINK I NEED TO STOP LIKE THIS IS OBVIOUSLY JUST A BIG DUMB BUT BFJKERNFKJEN F   U   C   K  OKAY