Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Walk Like a Man

"Walk Like a Man"

Walk like a man,

Talk like a man

- The Four Seasons

When the door jingled behind her, Joyce was hanging the big sale banner Donald was hoping would draw in all the people who never came to Main Street anymore. She wasn't surprised when it was Hopper who walked through it—he was half her customer base these days, it felt like. Sometimes she worried about how much longer she was going to have a job, but today she decided to give that particular thought process a rest. "Hey," she said to Hopper, glad to see him.

"Hi. You busy?"

"You're our first customer, so ..." She let him answer that one for himself.

Hopper nodded. He knew as well as she did what the mall had done to downtown, but based on how antsy he looked, he hadn't come to talk local news. She was willing to bet it was about Eleven. Or, more specifically, Mike and Eleven.

"What now?" Joyce asked, and Hopper rolled his eyes, confirming her suspicions.

"He was over again last night. For hours. Stuck in her room, listening to weird music—"

"What was it this time?"

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

Joyce shrugged. "I like some of their music. It's catchy."

"Right. I don't know, some song. Mike sang along to it, which ... That kid cannot sing."

"Oh, like you can? I remember when you wanted to be Elvis."

"I was way better than he is," Hopper grumbled.

"Right." Joyce moved past him and grabbed the sticker gun. Might as well get some work done while Hop ranted.

"So they're in her room, and I look over, and he's on her bed. So I politely reminded them of the rules—"

Joyce just bet he had. Hopper's version of 'polite' wasn't exactly the same as other people's versions, especially not where Mike was involved.

"And El, she just slams the door! Right in my face."

"Uh-huh."

"You know, it is that smug son-of-a-bitch Mike. He's corrupting her, I'm telling you."

Mike was a lot of things, but smug? That wasn't exactly the word Joyce would have used. And she highly doubted that he was doing anything Eleven didn't want him to.

"And I'm just gonna lose it. I mean, I am gonna lose it, Joyce," Hopper was saying, his voice growing louder and more strident.

On the one hand, Hop as a frustrated father of a teenage girl was pretty funny. On the other hand, if he boiled over, someone might get hurt—and given El's powers, it might be him. "Just take it down, Hopper," she told him.

"I need for them to break up!"

Typical Hopper—he always thought he could just lay down the law and people would do what he wanted them to. "That is not your decision," Joyce said.

"They're spending entirely too much time together. You agree with me about that, right?"

Joyce thought Eleven should get out more, was what she thought, but she knew where Hopper stood on keeping her hidden for the full year Owens had asked for. "Well, I mean, they're just ... kissing, right?" She tried to imagine how Hopper would react to the elaborate pantomimes Nancy and Jonathan went through to try to keep Joyce from realizing how often Nancy slept over.