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Hawkins was never a great town, even before it became a breeding ground for interdimensional science projects. It was 1979 when Jim Hopper became chief. Back then that meant nothing more than getting his own office and his co-workers being just a touch more on edge when he got to the station.
Of course that all went to shit when Will Byers went missing in ‘83. Since then, Jim has legally died, legally come back to life, and illegally done a lot of other things. He’s no longer the chief of police, which he figures is for the better. Now with the quarantine he fears that the position would’ve restrained him beneath the militia's boot, preventing him from being able to protect those he cares about in any ways that would’ve mattered.
That was another thing that changed since that day in November. Jim thinks he has more people that he gives a shit about than he’s ever had before. Family was never a huge factor in his life. His mother was never truly in the picture, not since the day he had finally processed that she wasn’t coming back. His father loved him enough to work two jobs to support the both of them, but not much beyond that.
Then, Diane came into his life, and not long after, Sara did too. Life had been good. Him and Diane were comfortable, in love, and Sara felt like the angel that kept his heart beating. When Sara got sick it was like his heart slowed to a stop, and Jim doesn’t think it ever really picked back up again. The last months with Sara and Diane were a blur. The day before and after Sara flatlined didn’t feel too different at the time. She had been gone for weeks at that point, it’s just that one day there was nothing physical to hold on to anymore. Diane left not too long after. The love between them had still existed, but trying to sculpt that love into something vaguely Sara-shaped wasn’t healthy for either of them. They hadn’t spoken in 8 years.
He threw himself into his work, and threw anything else left over into a small orange bottle of pills.
Then all of a sudden there were people in his life who needed him again. Will, Joyce, Jonathan, and eventually two groups of shithead kids who thought they were bigger than the world.
And one punk-ass kid, who’s seen more cruelty than some of the soldiers Jim has fought beside. The kid who still manages to get back up on her feet on her own, even when she doesn’t have to.
When Sara died, all the love she had for everything around her accumulated into a heavy weight in Jim’s chest. His heart was just as much Sara’s as it was his, and when he was finally surrounded by his people, his family, he found her in every act of care he gave to them. He almost couldn’t believe that Sara had come from him and still managed to be such a beautiful and powerful force of love.
This is all to say that Jim feels finally in tune with himself, and his feelings and all the words that surround them. But he has to say, sometimes it really sucks.
Sometimes, the care Sara left within him extends places he really wishes it couldn’t reach. One of those places being Mike Wheeler.
The kid is a brat. A real brat. He’s rash, outwardly abrasive, and seems like it’s nearly impossible for him to wake up on the right side of the bed. He was bad for Jane, back in ‘83 all the way until they broke up a few months ago. Every time Jim thinks he understands how the little Wheeler’s brain works, he’s slapped up the back of his head with the realization that No, Mike is an unknown breed of pent up emotion and kinetic energy that Jim can’t for the life of him apply a pattern to.
The worst part is that he knows the type of situation that produces a kid like Mike. He’d personally responded to the noise complaints, neighbors saying that the fights at the Wheelers weren’t just between Karen and Ted anymore, but between Ted and a younger, boyish voice thick with emotion. Nothing had ever been physical, Jim hoped so at least, but he’d seen the immediate effects it had had on Mike firsthand when the front door swung open to reveal a disgruntled Ted Wheeler and a sniffling Mike stomping up the stairs.
As far as Jim knows, Mike is the only kid in that house that Ted speaks to like that. Jim used to assume that it was just because Mike is a disrespectful little shit, but he isn’t so sure that’s all it is anymore.
He comes to the immediate conclusion that Mike is an expert at getting on people’s nerves, what took him longer to figure out, was that it’s all on purpose. It’s a defense mechanism, he recognizes, and this softens something in Jim’s chest when he figures it out.
He also figures out that despite this soft part of his heart, he can still get overwhelmingly pissed off at the little asshole.
It happens when he gets a phone call. It’s around 10:30 at night. El is asleep on the couch, and Jim is nearly there himself when the phone starts to ring. He springs up from his recliner and snatches it off its hook, sparing a glance at El in hopes she didn’t wake at the sound. She must be really tired to have not even stirred, having pushed herself too far in training that day. The light from the black-and-white reruns on the TV illuminate the dark rings beneath her eyes. Maybe tomorrow he can convince her to take the day off.
He brings the receiver up to his ear after a moment. “Hop? Hopper? It’s Nancy, are you there?”
He clears the sleep from his throat before quietly replying, “Yeah, yeah I’m here. What’s going on?”
“Oh thank god,” She sighs. The relief is nearly palpable through the phone. “It’s Mike, he’s- him and my dad, they got into another fight. Mike stormed out the door and my dad isn’t letting me go after him, even though I’m a goddamn adult and can look after my baby brother but he’s- I- fuck.” Nancy talks quickly and quietly, like she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s on the phone. She cuts herself off to steel her increasingly wobbly voice, and Jim is already walking over to the door and slipping on his shoes, telephone clutched between his shoulder and ear. He hears Nancy take a deep breath before continuing. “Can you please find him? I know, I know you two hate each other, but Mike, he’s alone at night past curfew while the town is fucking quarantined, and I didn’t know who to call and I-”
“I’ll find him,” Jim murmurs in the most comforting tone he can muster, cutting off her rambling. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll find him.”
It’s quiet for a moment save for a deep breath from Nancy. “Please,” she says. It’s firm, the way she says it, like it’s an order and not a plea. Jim almost hangs up, thinking that the conversation is over when a quiet “Check the quarry first,” comes through and the line goes dead.
He hopes to god Nancy didn’t mean it with any implications. He takes a breath.
He jots down a messy note and sets it on the coffee table just in case El was to wake up before he was back. He’d wake her up and tell her to her face, but he’s afraid she’d try and tag along, and Jim had a nervous pit at the bottom of his stomach that told him to not risk losing the extra time it would take him to convince her to go back to sleep.
He swiped his coat from its hook, and was out the door before he finished putting it on.
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It’s when the trees start to get thinner at the edge of the woods that he sees him. A figure slumped over on itself at the edge of the dropoff. He makes his steps loud, making himself known immediately. Mike’s head swivels on its shoulders to stare wide-eyed at him, but doesn’t say anything yet. In fact, Jim is able to make it all the way to the edge to stand next to him before Mike even says a word.
“Hey,” He starts casually enough. “Your sister called, said you’d be here.”
Mike blinks once, his eyes seeming to refocus, before his face curls into a scowl at the realization that it’s Jim in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” Mike spits, quieter than he normally might. His body turns slightly away, but Jim swears he sees him subconsciously lean into the heat he’s radiating. It’s then that he takes the boy in. His lack of adequate attire fits with the story that he fled in the heat of the moment, as he’s wearing nothing but a blue crewneck and thin flannel pajama pants. It looks like he was on his way to bed when the fight started.
“I’m taking you home,” He huffs, already feeling the familiar irritation creep into his throat. He motions back to the path with a flick of his head. “Come on, you shouldn’t be out here.”
“I can get home fine, thanks. You can go now.” He can hear it in Mike’s voice too, neither of them want to be there.
“Kid, I’m not leaving you out here. Just come with me, your sister wants you home.” Jim’s voice raises slightly without his permission. There’s just something about this kid that reduces his patience to zero. He’d almost be embarrassed that he let a 15 year old get this big a rise out of him if it weren’t for the fact that it’s Mike Wheeler and he can just do that.
He sees Mike’s arms tighten around himself. “Well you can both screw off.”
Jim bites back the retort on his tongue and rubs at his eyes, he takes a deep breath through his nose. “Listen, for once in your life-” He grabs the kids arm and almost immediately recognizes his mistake when Mike breathing picks up and he starts to wriggle out of his hold.
Jim would’ve let go if it weren’t for the fact that Mike was trying to scramble away in the direction of the ledge.
He decided that Mike can hate him for this all he wants, can put as much distance between them he wants, just as soon as he gets him away from the edge.
It’s a painful process, getting him a safe distance away, especially since Mike won’t stop yelling.
“Get the hell off of me! You’re not gonna kidnap me! I wasn’t going to fucking jump!” The shouts turn to desperation near the end when Jim lets go. Mike falls back with how much force he was trying to use to get away. He pushes himself a few feet further, kicking dust up as he does. His chest heaves with the breaths he’s taking, and Jim crouches down in front of him.
“Hey, hey,” Jim quiets his voice now. “Kid, I’m sorry, I just needed you away from the ledge.”
“I wasn’t gonna jump you asshole.” Mike's voice cracks and he turns away again. “Stop fucking talking to me like that, I hate you!” He sees him claw at his face, like he can carve the tears out before they fall.
“I know, I know you weren’t,” He didn’t. “I know you do- hey, stop doing that.” Jim grabs at his wrists.
“Don’t touch me.” Mike spits, but his hands don’t go back to his face when Jim lets go.
“Mike,” Jim snaps. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s none of your business!” He yelled.
“Your sister told me to find you and bring you home, so it is!” Jim yelled back. This is how it always went with Mike. They go back and forth until one goes silent and the other follows. Jim waits for a clapback, but it doesn’t come. Mike just sits there, shaking, and staring at him with wet eyes and a scowl. He softens his voice a bit, quieter but still firm. “Nancy said you and your dad got into it. That true?”
Mike huffed something like a humorless laugh. “As if,” he mutters. “I just went downstairs for something and he started shouting at me.” His voice wobbled on the last few words, and the harsh furrow in his brow faltered ever so slightly. It made him seem impossibly small. For the first time since the day El came back to the party, Jim didn’t see a teenager who was an asshole for fun, but a boy who felt all too much.
Jim kept his voice steady, grounding. “‘Bout what?” He kept his eye contact with the boy, so anytime Mike decided to look up, he’d know he was being listened to.
Mike shrugged, “Nothing. He just likes to hear his own voice, likes to feel like he’s really the man of the house when he really does jackshit.”
Jim grunted as he arranged himself to fully sit on the ground, bringing his legs into as much of a criss-cross as he could manage. “What did he say to you?”
Mike opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates. It was like he realized he was actually about to open up for once, and scrambled to put a wall back up. His nose wrinkles into a grimace, like the very concept of talking about his problems to someone disgusts him. “Why should I tell you?” It was a weak attempt.
Jim looks him in the eye, and Mike seems paralyzed when he looks up to meet the gaze. “Because I’ll listen.”
Mike’s breath hitches, and he quickly looks down at his hands where Jim sees them wringing together, fingers picking at his nails. He can’t seem to keep his eyes still, but he makes sure to avoid Jim’s as much as possible. He takes a greedy inhale before talking again.
“I have these- ugh,” Mike starts with a groan, like he’s embarrassed. He’s clearly not happy that he’s talking, but he’s doing it anyway. “These…episodes?”
That is…not really what Jim expected to hear. Mike's hands find their way up to the jet black curls that rest at the base of his neck where they latch on and hang, and he continues.
“That- that makes me sound crazy, it's just what mom and Nancy call them. My mom usually just tells me to go in my room and wait them out. But, now with Will and them staying with us it’s all… wrong.” Mike sounds like he’s forcing the words from his throat, and looks like he wants to squirm out of his skin. Despite all his curiosity, Jim is about to tell him he doesn’t need to say any more, but then Mike looks at him with eyes that say Please let me keep talking, please keep listening. And different words come out of his mouth.
“Okay,” Jim nods. “You don’t like living with the Byer’s?”
Mike winces and crumbles all over again, wrong thing to say then. “No, no! It’s not-” He groans again. “You’re not understanding. I don’t understand why you don’t understand.” Jim’s losing him again.
“Hey, hey,” He puts his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and Mike doesn’t flinch this time. “Help me out here, just keep talking. You can keep talking.” Mike huffs, frustrated. “Episodes, what do you mean by that? What happens?”
“It’s stupid, it’s so stupid,” Mike says.
“Maybe, why don’t you tell me so I can tell you if that’s true?” Mike looks apprehensive at this, yet less panicked.
“I get…angry,” He starts. He’s always angry, Jim’s mind supplies unhelpfully. “But it’s not regular angry, it’s like, scared angry. It’s like everyone around me is awful, and then I get really sad, but- but then I feel like I’m on top of the world, like nothing- nobody else matters but me. And- and I know that sounds horrible, and I know that doesn’t surprise you because that’s exactly how everyone sees me and knows me but it’s so scary. I never know what to do up there by myself, and I feel so, so…alone.” Mike hardly breathes while he’s talking, words coming out unsure and shaky. His tears flow freely now, and Jim isn’t even sure the kid realizes.
He’s not sure what to say. Jim is beginning to realize that this is not just the usual case of a teenager running away from home. Mike is out here in the cold, going through the motions of finally breaking beneath all the things he’s kept hidden. The entire time he’s known this kid, Jim thought he just enjoyed complaining. He never really thought about how that could mean Mike was miserable himself, about how isolating that could be. “That’s not stupid,” is all he can think to say. It’s a subtle invitation for Mike to keep going.
“It happened today,” Mike said. “It was a short one, just a few hours. I just wanted to talk to someone,” He said it like he was trying to defend himself, like he had done something wrong. “I went to find Will, or maybe Nancy. My dad was still awake in his chair of course. Then he said something about how I should stay in my room, and he said it in the way he always says things, with that monotony like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s saying and what effect it’ll have. And- and I panicked because Ms. Byers was in the room, so I must have said something too snippy back by accident, and I just made everything worse. Then, all of a sudden he was airing out all my shit in front of her like my issues aren’t something he’s been trying to hide from everyone my whole life, and I just wanted him to stop. And then-” His voice breaks and he cuts himself off.
Mike takes a few shaky breaths. His face is flushed, and he’s shaking from more than just emotional exertion. Jim slips his coat off and drapes it over the other’s shoulders. “It’s horrible is what it is.” Mike's fingers grasp at the coat to pull it tighter around himself. “I’m a horrible person.”
Jim sighs. “Jesus, kid. You’re not-”
“I am,” Mike states again. “Think about El.”
He pauses. It’s a startling change of subject, one too direct to not be purposeful. He’s trying to get Jim to prove him right. He won’t take the bait this time, not when he’s gotten this far. “You’re 15,” he decides to say, watching as the tension in Mike's shoulders loosens a bit. “Then what?”
Mike's lip wobbles, and there’s pain in his eyes and his eyebrows suddenly look more sad than mad. “Then Will walked in.” More tears rolled down his cheeks. “He must have heard the yelling or something. But, my dad didn’t stop. He said-” Mike choked out a painful laugh. “He said that only women and queers are as dramatic as I am, said that I need to get my act together and that he can’t keep humoring me whenever I get upset just because things don’t go my way. He was in my face. I didn’t like him being so close, but I couldn’t step back ‘cause he’d call me a pansy or something!” Mike was sobbing now, working himself up at the recollection of the past few hours. “I just couldn’t stand Will watching it happen, I- I didn’t need him to see that. I left, and I don’t want to go back. He just hates me, he hates me.”
Mike was getting increasingly upset. His breathing was picking up, and his hands were curled into fists so tight that his knuckles turned white where he dug them into his eyes. “Stop doing that, you’ll hurt yourself-”
“So!? Don’t talk to me like that,” Mike snaps suddenly. “You don’t care! You hate me, you’re supposed to hate me.”
“Mike, I don’t hate you,” He says earnestly. Mike only chokes out an attempt at a scoff, which only proves to get swept away by his sobs. “Hey, I don’t. I never have, okay?”
“You’re lying.” The words come out strained, and Mike wraps his arms around himself. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Jim swipes a hand down his face. He should’ve known if Mike on a good day was defensive, then whatever Mike this was would be goddamn Area 51. He wonders about Ted Wheeler, about the man he’s never seen smile, and has to take a shaky breath when he thinks about a kid so full of life being raised by a man like that.
“I know that your dad shouldn’t have said those things,” He says. “Whether you were in a room full of people or not, that’s not what a father should be saying.”
“But he’s right,” Mike insists.
“Mike-”
“I’m as dramatic as a queer because I am one, Hopper!” Mike says like it’s the last words he’ll ever say. He says it like the words were blades sawing at his throat and he’d finally been able to spit them out. It’s not what Jim is expecting to hear, not at all. Mike Wheeler, the boy who only ever wanted to kiss El rather than actually spend time with her, is gay? That can’t be right.
Having been the chief of police in smalltown Indiana, Jim is no stranger to the things nasty people say. He’d had to respond to conflicts resulting from these kinds of nasty things, bullying and vandalism, things like that. Jim would never really think much of those cases afterward because the victims would say I’m not gay, they just wanted an excuse. Or more typically, I’m not a fucking queer! Because, of course they weren’t. Hawkins was just a homophobic town, with no gay people actually in it.
Or so Jim had liked to tell himself. Selfishly, he used to hope that there weren’t any gay people in Hawkins. For their sake, he’d say. Really though, it was just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the bigots picketing against his “radical beliefs” when he’d inevitably have to intervene with their hate crimes. And isn’t that just an awful thought, the idea of being more inconvenienced by someone in trouble rather than concerned.
So no, Jim had no issue with gay people. But he finds himself realizing that, for his own peace of mind, he hadn’t wanted other people knowing that. He decides right then and there that that will change. He doesn’t want to be a man like that, not when there’s a shaking boy in front of him looking as though Jim is about to drag him right back to the edge of the cliff for being who he is.
Mike hunches forward with his head in his hands. In the moonlight, Jim can see the specks of dirt darker than the rest where his tears have landed. “I hate it, I hate it!” Mike weeps, and Jim immediately lifts him into a bone crushing hug.
Mike stiffens at this, breath hitching in a way that Jim guiltily recognizes as fear. He shouldn’t have reacted so suddenly, not when Mike was likely genuinely fearing for his life, but relief washes over him when he feels Mike’s arms slowly lift to the back of his shirt. He feels bony fingers grip fabric in their fists and Mike starts to cry harder when he realizes what is happening.
“You’re okay, kid,” Jim says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s okay.”
Mike inhales sharply from where he’s let his head go slack against Jim’s shoulder. “No, no it’s not- no,” he cries, pleading for Jim to say it’s wrong so he doesn’t have to face what it means.
“You don’t deserve how your dad treats you, you know that? You don’t.” Jim starts rocking slightly. “Jesus, you’re not a bad person, Mike. You shouldn’t be…sentenced away to your room when you get like this. You need people, and people need you, I see it.” Weak protests come up muffled from Jim’s shoulder as he continues. “You deserve good things.”
Mike just shakes his head against where he wets Jim’s shirt, but he doesn’t speak on it anymore. Jim just lets him cry, because it’s obvious Mike hasn’t had a space he’s felt allowed to in a while. A boy can cry when his best friend turns up dead, he can cry when his crush erupts into thin air, and maybe he can shed a tear when both move away. A boy isn’t supposed to cry because he had a bad day, but in Jim’s arms, he can.
When sobs lessen to sniffs, and sniffs give way to quiet, Mike pulls away like he’s been burned. He still shakes with residual nerves, and his face is flushed and caked with dried tears.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, averting his gaze. He wipes wetness off his cheeks with the sleeve of Jim’s jacket.
“Don’t,” Jim sighs, the time of night catching up to him. “Mike.” The boy grunts in response. “This…isn’t something you need to handle on your own, not on top of all the shit we have to deal with.”
Mike scoffs again. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the fairy with behavioural issues.”
“You’re not-” Jim fumbled. Because, well, he was wasn’t he? “People don’t know what they’re talking about. Mike, you’re not what other people call you. You’re just…you. And- sure, assholes will call you fairy, or queer,” Jim tries not to stumble over the words he doesn’t think he’s ever heard himself say. “But, those words hurt only because of the people saying them, and that’s on them, not you.” He hoped he was making any sort of sense, hoped he was making Mike feel better…or at least not worse. He was really trying to channel some semblance of Joyce, who saw Mike as some sort of messiah, and always seemed to know what to say.
Mike looks lost in thought for a moment. “Do you hate me now?” He says, finally.
“Where do you keep getting that from?” Jim is getting increasingly exasperated with this back-and-forth. Mike shrugs.
“Are you…mad?” He says, voice no longer timid but confused.
“No, I’m not.”
“...Okay.” Mike nods slightly, looking almost starstruck. It’s not dissimilar from the expression he wore when Jim threatened him over El, a sort of speechless stare that betrays no emotion yet all too much. “Okay,” He says again.
Jim sits there with him for a few minutes more, letting Mike’s brain catch up with him, before slowly moving a hand to the boy’s shoulder.
“Come on, kid,” and Mike does. He lets Jim’s hand on his shoulder guide him back to the car. He has a distant, contemplative look in his eye. Jim wonders if he’s thinking about Ted.
He takes the long way back to the Wheeler’s house.