Chapter Text
Jim Hopper
By the time El and the kids had taken care of this Creel character, the town of Hawkins was pretty much destroyed, and the government didn’t really want me sticking around in Indiana, since I was supposed to be dead and everything. They arranged for me to get a nice sinecure at the RAND Corporation helping a bunch of academic types try to figure out what the hell the Russians were doing with those things. It paid enough for Joyce to quit her job and us to buy a slightly larger house in the nice area of Lenora Hills, which was convenient because I’d picked up an extra child – at least until Max’s mother got out of rehab. Somebody in the government had managed to pull some strings and get both Ted Wheeler and Chuck Sinclair transferred to Los Angeles, and Steve Harrington and Jonathan into UCLA. Claudia Henderson 'miraculously' found a job at the Lenora Hills Public Library, which meant that our house was pretty much continuously full of kids until Max got out of her casts right before school started, and I was perfectly fine with that. El and Mike were pretty good about observing the three-inch rule while at our house, but I shuddered to think about what they were getting up to at Mike’s. You could stick a brass band in Karen Wheeler’s basement and I don’t think she’d notice.
I’d been worried about El when school started back, but it seemed like she wasn’t having any problems. Her newfound reputation as the school’s ‘psycho girl’ kept the bullies away from her, and she had the Hawkins group to sit with at lunch. The boys all joined Lenora High’s AV Club, and it seemed like they were actually making friends. Will in particular was getting close to one of the other kids in the club – Joey Kim. I thought there might be something more than friendship there, but Will wasn’t telling me anything about it.
To be honest, he didn’t tell me much of anything at all, and I was starting to get the impression he didn’t like me. He was never rude or disobedient, but I noticed that he went up to his room as soon as I got home from work and didn’t come down until dinner, when he stayed pretty quiet while El and Max dominated the conversation. On weekends while I was home he disappeared, I presumed to Mike’s house. Joyce insisted that it was just typical teenage angst.
“Jonathan started pulling away at that age.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want Will ‘experimenting’ like Jonathan does. And I especially don’t want him introducing that stuff to El…God knows what kind of interactions she could have.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that. Will’s always been a good kid.”
“I know, I just wish he would talk to me. You know what, I bet it’s Mike.”
“Mike?”
“That kid’s never liked me, he’s probably filling Will’s head with all kinds of crap about me.”
Joyce sighed, my signal to stop talking. “If you don’t want to talk to Will about it, talk to Jonathan. Will tells him everything.”
I got a chance to talk to Jonathan the next time he came home to do laundry. Ordinarily, Will hung around Jonathan whenever he got the chance, but today he was nowhere to be seen.
“What happened to your shadow?”
Jonathan shrugged. “Joey Kim had an idea for a movie, so they’re out somewhere filming it.”
“You, uh, you want to tell me what the deal with Joey Kim is?”
“I think Will needs to be the one to tell you, when he’s ready.”
“He doesn’t really tell me anything. Has he talked to you about me?”
“He’s mentioned you in passing…he doesn’t really like the three inch rule.”
“That’s not really about him. I have to be fair to El and Max.”
“I know. He probably knows, too. It’s just frustrating for him. He can only really be himself when there’s not an adult around.”
“Jonathan, I want him to be himself around me. I want to be the dad he needs. I know Lonnie wasn’t that, for either of you.”
Jonathan stared into the middle distance. “You know my Dad could be…rough.”
“Yeah, we got a couple of domestic calls. I’d always send Powell out to calm them both down. I probably should have taken your dad in for the night, might have saved you kids some trouble.”
“It would have upset Will. He was actually sad when Dad left.”
“Is that why he doesn’t like me? He thinks I’m keeping his parents from getting back together?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“No offense, but you’re kind of…macho. I mean, it’s not anything you did, it’s just, I don’t know how to explain it…”
“I remind Will of him?”
“Both of us, really…It’s not just you, whenever I’m around…’real men’ or whatever I tense up in spite of myself, like I always have to be ready for their temper to flip out of nowhere. It happens with gym teachers, my friends’ parents, even the jocks at school. And Will got it a lot worse than I did.”
Lonnie Byers was far from a ‘real man.’ In high school, he’d had a reputation for talking a big game but chickening out whenever someone stood up to him. From the few encounters I’d had with him in the Hideaway after moving back to Hawkins, it seemed like the trait had persisted. His wife and kids must have been easier targets, but I doubted knowing that would have made Jonathan feel any better.
“I would have thought it was the opposite.”
“I tried to protect him as much as I could, but Dad was embarrassed by him, and I guess he thought he could beat it out of him.”
I should have arrested the sonofabitch the first time I got the chance.
“He thinks I’m going to have a problem with it?”
“Are you?”
“I’ve been through way too much to care about shit like that. I just want to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. I’m not going to have a ‘discussion’ with him or anything, but you need to watch out for him. He’s getting older now, and there are worse things out there than some kid calling him a mean name.”
“I know. You know, when Will went missing, my first assumption was that Dad had decided a dead kid was better than a gay one, and when that didn’t pan out, I figured Tommy Hagan did it for kicks.”
“Is that why you beat up Harrington?”
“Sort of. His house was right near where they found Will’s bike. I was out there taking pictures when he had Barb and Nancy over. Steve was friends with Hagan, so I thought he might have been involved somehow, but when Steve saw the pictures he thought I was just a peeping Tom, and things escalated from there, I guess.”
“You’re a real optimist, you know that.”
“It’s a Byers specialty.”
“So, any ideas on how I can convince him I’m not your Dad?”
Jonathan shrugged. “By not being like Dad, I guess. It’s going to take time, but once he feels safe, he’ll open up.”
“I hope so. If there was ever a kid who deserved better than what he got…”
“Yeah.”