Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters"

For unless they see the sky

But they can't and that is why

They know not if it's dark outside or light

- Elton John

Hopper pulled the car into a small lot in front of a rusty building that would have seemed completely abandoned to Joyce if it weren't for the two satellite dishes on the roof. Those were out of place for a dump like this.

Getting out of the car, Hopper motioned to Alexi. "Come on, let's go. Move it!"

Joyce frowned at the building. "I thought you said this guy was a journalist."

"Yeah. He was."

"Was?"

Hopper pressed his thumb on a white button set into the wall, and inside the building a buzzer sounded. They waited, and then a voice, tinny, like it was recorded, said, "Look at the camera." Hopper leaned down to look into the panel on the wall with the button, and the voice spoke again, sounding annoyed. "The camera. Above you, to the right."

Looking up at it, Joyce smiled hesitantly and waved.

"Identify yourselves."

"Jim Hopper; Joyce Byers; Smirnoff."

Joyce looked around at him, annoyed. Would Hopper never learn to call Alexi by his name? The Smirnoff thing had stopped being funny a while ago. If it had ever been funny in the first place. "Alexi."

"Alexi," Hopper corrected himself, somewhat to her surprise.

"Surname," demanded the voice.

"I don't know."

"Family. Name!"

"Yeah, I know, I tol—I don't know! Okay?" Hopper protested. "Open the damn door!"

"Hopper." He really had to learn to keep a hold on his temper—although at this late date, Joyce kind of doubted if he could.

"It's okay," he assured her. "Don't worry. He's a little bit eccentric, but ... completely harmless."

Which was when the door opened and a heavily bearded man aimed a loaded shotgun directly into Alexi's face.

Joyce gasped and staggered back. Alexi put his hands up. The man with the gun said, "Name."

Alexi said something in Russian that definitely wasn't his name, and didn't sound that nice to Joyce. The man with the gun grinned at him and responded in equally not nice Russian, if Joyce was any judge. Then he shifted his gaze to Hopper. "Hi, Jim."

The bearded man, whose name appeared to be Murray, led them into his place. It felt like a bunker, but there was light old-fashioned music playing, and it was cleaner than Joyce would have expected, although clearly a bachelor pad. He stopped them in the doorway of what appeared to be the main living area. "Wait."

Reaching into a locker, Murray took some kind of weird contraption out of it and waved it in front of them. It made a sound as he was passing it in front of Alexi's handcuffs, which were resting in front of a piece of Alexi's anatomy that all men were particularly protective of, in Joyce's experience. At the sound, Alexi jumped and protested in Russian, which Murray responded to in definitive Russian of his own.

"How long is this going to take?" Hopper demanded. "Because I—"

"No," Murray told him.

"No."

"No. No, you—" Murray waved the contraption in front of Hopper. "Do not get to question me. You have dragged an enemy of the state into my home as carelessly as a child drags in shit on his shoe. I will search him until I am satisfied."

Joyce cleared her throat, ducking behind Alexi and grabbing Hopper's shirt. "Jim. Come here. Just come here, I need to talk to you." She dragged him down the hallway.

"What?"

"This is not going to work."

"What do you mean?"

"He's not eccentric, he's ... certifiable."

"Glass houses, Joyce."

"What?"

"You know, pot calling the kettle black."

"Oh, come on!" She was not crazy. All her theories had proven to be all too true, which Hopper knew perfectly well.

"Excuse me!" Murray shouted.

"What?" Hopper snapped back.

"Do me a favor and move your lovers' quarrel elsewhere, okay?" Both Joyce and Hopper protested at that one, and Murray shouted over them. "Spare me!"

Joyce had had just about enough of this obnoxious man. She advanced on him. "What is your problem?"

"Please. Stop talking!"

"No!"

Murray was taken aback by her shout, and Joyce followed up her advantage.

"We have had a very long day. We have been shot at, nearly blown up, walked God knows how many miles in a hundred degree heat, stole a car, all while being chased by this gigantic ... psychopath, all so we could bring him—" She poked Alexi in the chest. "To you." She poked Murray in the chest. "Because somehow, you're the closest person who speaks Russian, which I can't believe, but—" She waved her hands around her face to clear her thoughts and get back to what she'd been saying. "That doesn't matter, because unfortunately, we're here. So if you don't mind, put that thing away, stop behaving like a jackass, and ask him what he's doing that's making my magnets fall off my damn fridge!"

All three men were silent, looking at her as if she'd lost her mind. Maybe she had. Maybe that's what she'd needed to do all along.

"Please!" she added. She grabbed the weird doohickey out of Murray's hand and proceeded to put it away, while Hopper gently ushered Alexi into the room.