Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

For What It's Worth

"For What It's Worth"

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound

Everybody look what's goin' down

- Buffalo Springfield

Hopper had gotten Joyce to give him the names of the kids her son hung out with, and felt damn lucky to find them all still at the school, even though the school day had been over now for a couple of hours. For the first time he felt a stirring of misgiving—if the kid's friends were the kind of nerds who stayed late to play with a ham radio, he probably was, too. Less likely to be hiding out and skipping that way.

Following the principal down the halls to fetch the boys, Hopper remembered Bob the Brain from high school, who had started the whole AV Club thing for nerdy kids just like him. Bob would never have thought of skipping school. Damn it, it had to be Lonnie, didn't it? The last thing Hopper wanted to do was talk to Lonnie after all this time, after what Lonnie had done to Joyce, after abandoning his boys. What kind of father walked out on his kids, for God's sake?

He was getting pretty hot under the collar just thinking of it when they came to the room where the boys were crouched together over the radio. Nerds one and all.

They hauled the kids down to the principal's office and explained the situation. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they didn't know where the kid was, that this was far from normal behavior, and that they were worried. Remembering the little boy with the big eyes he had met with Joyce at the movies, Hopper wondered if maybe Joyce's kid was the weak one of the bunch, the one the others all protected.

"I'm sorry, you were playing what?"

"D and D. It's a game. You fight monsters," said the serious one, Mike.

"It's stupid." Lucas seemed like the tough one.

"It's not stupid!" interjected the third one, Dustin, the goofy one. "It's an excellent exploration of storytelling and—"

"Yeah, I bet you guys are great at telling stories. How about you tell me about Will. Where does he go after he leaves D and D? Straight home?"

Well, that had been a mistake—they all started talking at once, very fast, overlapping and contradicting each other, which wasn't doing Hopper's headache any favors at all. One of them mentioned a road, but either Hopper didn't catch the name correctly or the kid wasn't in any Hawkins Hopper recognized.

"Okay, okay, okay! One at a time. All right?" He made eye contact with Mike. "You. You said he takes what?"

"Mirkwood."

"Mirkwood," Hopper repeated. He looked at Powell. "Have you ever heard of Mirkwood?"

"I have not. That sounds made up to me."

"No," Lucas said. "It's from Lord of the Rings."

"Well, The Hobbit," Dustin corrected.

Lucas looked at him like that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, which saved Hopper from having to look like that. "It doesn't matter!"

Dustin snapped back, "He asked!"

They devolved into an argument, completely forgetting the situation at hand, and Hopper leaned forward in his chair. "Hey. Hey, hey! What'd I just say? One at a damn time." God, kids were exhausting. Give him a biker dude you could threaten to beat up any day over a bunch of kids. He looked at Mike again. "You."

"Mirkwood," Mike confirmed. "It's a real road, it's just the name that's made up. It's where Cornwallis and Curley meet."

Hopper nodded, recognizing the location.

Eagerly, Mike offered, "We can show you, if you want."

"I said that I know it!" The last thing he needed was three other kids going missing. One was enough. Too much.

But Mike wasn't going to be discouraged that easily. "We can help look."

"No."

All three were in now, offering their help, voices overlapping each other again as they tried to convince him.

He raised his voice to be heard above the din. "I said no. After school, you are all to go home, immediately. That means no biking around looking for your friend, no investigating, no nonsense. This isn't some Lord of the Rings book."

"The Hobbit," Dustin corrected him, again.

Lucas reached across Mike and smacked Dustin in the arm. "Shut up!"

Hopper was starting to like Lucas.

Dustin punched back, the two of them losing track of what else was going on again. Hopper leaned forward in his seat. Very quietly, he said, "Do I make myself clear?"

Mike, sitting between the other two and completely ignoring them, was looking at the floor, lost in thought. He was plotting an investigation. Hopper would have bet money on it.

He got to his feet, towering over the three boys on the couch. They shrank back. "Do I make myself clear?"

All three nodded, throwing in some "yes, sir"s.

He hoped to hell they meant it ... but he wouldn't have, at the same age. He'd have said what the man in authority wanted to hear and then done what he wanted. He'd have to keep an eye out for the three musketeers. Hopefully they wouldn't get in the way too much.

*****

Having been given strict instructions by Hopper to let him handle things, Joyce felt completely at loose ends. She had to do something; she couldn't just sit there.

She went home, and she and Jonathan went out into the woods. They had looked all over this morning, but in a hurry, frantically. Now they went slower, watching their feet, taking their time.

Joyce tried Castle Byers again, hoping against hope that she would pull the curtain aside and find him there ... but the mattress was empty. The whole place was empty.

The two of them called for him until the very sound of their voices was frightening because the woods were so empty and still and anything could have happened to him. They found themselves drawing closer and closer together until at last they were holding each other, both crying and trying not to let the other one see.

*****

Hopper had come out to 'Mirkwood' with his deputies, and they walked down the road, calling Will's name. He wanted to find the kid, wanted it to be this easy—a fall, a sprained ankle or a broken leg, a frightened and cold kid who would be right as rain after a night in the hospital—but something in him didn't believe it would be.

The uneasiness grew when he found Will's bike, abandoned, and no Will anywhere near. If the kid had been well enough to walk away, he'd have taken the bike. As short on money as Joyce was? There wasn't going to be another bike anytime soon if the kid lost this one. And he'd have known it. Staring into the woods past the abandoned bike, Hopper felt the prickle on the back of his neck that said something was really wrong. Something had happened to this kid, to Joyce's son.

He picked up the bike and took it back to the truck with him. He was going to have to come back out with a proper search party, and that would take time to put together.