Chapter Text
Part B: All the Time in the World
“The beginning is always today.” ~ Mary Shelley
In some insane sense, he was glad the Russians nabbed him. It was better than being stuck in the Upside Down any day of the week and it was much better than being dead. However, although he tried to keep the thought away from the forefront of his mind, Hopper wondered if he’d ever get to see Hawkins or the people in Hawkins again. Sure, it was a small and kinda shitty town, but it was home and compared to a cell in a Russian science lab/ jail, or whatever you wanted to call it, Hawkins was the tourist hotspot to be.
After narrowly escaping death from that Russian contraption that was opening up the Gate and wandering through the Upside Down, he’d found an opening that had landed him in the middle of some type of control room that overlooked a room of cells down below. The place was dimly lit, and several guards patrolled the area on some type of catwalk. From what he saw of the cells that faced him, all of them were filled with a single inhabitant, all dressed identically, all looking dismal. He never get very far since to get into any other adjoining room other than the hallway, he needed a key card. And of course he did not have one on his person.
And from a quick glance about the office space, it seemed like no one had left a spare key lying about. Upon finding him in the room, which happened rather quickly, the guards had yelled questions at him in Russian and pointed rifles at him as he tried to explain the closing gap in the wall that led to the dark lands of the Upside Down. He knew no Russian and their English didn’t seem the greatest since the one guard closest to him hit him in the face with the butt end of his rifle before taking the opportunity to handcuff Hopper’s hands behind his back while he was dazed.
Things were off to a great start.
With everything that was going on, Hopper did his best to remain calm. He’d been in worse situations, although none of the situations he’d been in before were due to some supernatural mishap. He could only imagine how he’d weasel himself out of being stuck in-between this rock and hard place. He was led to a small room, bare of any windows or wall décor where the guards forced him to strip his clothes and any belongings he had on him. A pair of grey pants and a cotton white sweatshirt were thrown at him and his shoes were replaced with a strange pair of rubber sandals that didn’t fit his large feet even though it was the largest size. The only things they allowed him to keep were his socks and underwear. The clothes were itchy, but beggars can’t be choosers; itchy clothes were better than no clothes.
Once clothed in the thin grey garb, one guard grasped his left forearm and held it down to the only table in the room while the other turned away to the fire that lit the room, keeping it warm. Realization set in a moment later as the one guard turned around, a white hot brand iron in hand. A strap was thrown across his wrist, another at the crook of his elbow, and the man with the brand iron approached closer. The guard that had strapped his arm in held back his free hand from undoing the restraint, his beady little eyes fixated on the glowing part of the brand iron as it steadily approached Hopper’s skin, a sadistic smile on his face.
For a moment, there was no pain, only for a white-hot stinging sensation to appear on his arm like a horrible rash in a blink of an eye.
“Motherfucker!” he hissed, his wrist jerking as it tried to escape the burning touch of the poker. Once the brand iron had been removed, revealing an ugly red number burned into his flesh, and the other guard released his other arm, Hopper quickly undid the straps and clapped a hand over the burned area of his left arm, hissing in pain. He glanced down at it, revealing a number, an angry red against his skin. That would most definitely scar. He pulled his shirt sleeve down, hoping that it would not get infected.
8692. It matched the numbers that were stitched into the chest on the shirt he wore. Property. He was their property. The mere thought of this made his heart and his stomach sink into his intestines as an uncomfortable tingle ran up from the palms of his hands. How dehumanizing, he thought.
A third person appeared in the doorway of the small room, and by the way the two guards stood at attention, Jim assumed this asshole must be very important. They communicated in Russian, ignoring Jim, although the man that stood at the threshold of the door eyed him once or twice. One of the guards gestured to Hopper, grabbing him by the elbow and forcing him to straighten his posture as the guard’s rifle butt was placed up against the small of his back.
“а как насчет этого человека?” they asked. The man that had just entered the room pulled a pair of horn rimmed glasses from one of his lab coat pockets and placed them upon his nose. He gave Hopper a once over look and shook his head, his lips turning down into a frown.
“Нет, он слишком стар.” The guard nodded and shoved Hopper toward the door, pausing for a moment as he turned back to the scientist. The man readjusted his glasses, pausing for a moment, considering what the guard had suggested, then nodded curtly. Hopper heard the guards chuckle to one another before he was shoved in his back out the hall. And they began their trek down the hall until they came to a heavy looking metal door which was opened by a large set of jangly keys, revealing a cell. His new home away from home. The cell was on the smaller end and bare of any type of furnishing other than a very flimsy, filthy looking mattress that sat in the corner. In one corner of the room was a hole in the ground, and judging by the smell that emanated from it, that was the toilet. No window that looked to the outside world. A quaint little place if he’d ever seen one.
The passage of time quickly became warped and since the lovely room he’d been tossed into lacked a clock and a window there wasn't any efficient way to keep track. The light was on 24/7 and the guards seemed to have no routine that they were following, at least, not that he noted any. Although there was a very small window that looked into the cell, Hopper could see shit all out of it it; on either side of the seemingly endless hallway. And the walls between cells must have been thicker than he thought since he heard next to no noise from any other prisoners He paced a lot, back and forth, back and forth, wondering if it was possible to run a rut into the concrete floor. He pulled at the loose threads of the itchy sweater he’d been given, and cursed when he’d pulled one too many threads and the damn thing started to unravel until he only had half a sleeve.
Every three meals, there was a period of starvation, and this was the time in which some of the Russian guards would appear and haul him to a small little room to preform whatever torture they wanted to. After the first time, he returned with a bloody, split lip and a very swollen eye and water in his lungs from when they waterboarded him. Yet, despite the pain he was in, it was better than being stuck in that cell day in and day out, slowly driving himself insane. Was it wrong to be strangely happy that they pulled him from his cell once, even if it was to waterboard him while shouting angry Russian at him? He supposed not, but if the torture became a regular thing, he supposed that that preference would quickly change. He was a tough individual and could take a beating, but he wasn’t made of stone.
The mind numbing silence of the cell was broken by the distant sound of wailing every now and again. When he listened more closely, it sounded like different voices screaming, each of them in different languages; although that was only a guess since the noise was so muffled. When it was quiet, which was the majority of the time, Hopper’s thoughts were left to run wild; he didn’t know which was worse, hearing the screams of tortured souls or being driven insane by his own damn thoughts. When he thought about it, both seemed equally dreadful.
But after one particular beating, instead of turning right and being returned to his cell like normal, they turned left. He was brought to a much larger cell, and the look of it alone gave Jim a horrible feeling. He dug his heels in as they dragged him closer to the door and they started yelling at him in their mother tongue, and Jim started cussing them out, telling them to speak freaking English. However, after some struggle, they were able to force him into the cell and slam the door behind him.
He turned away from the locked cell door, snarling angrily at the guards that stood stoically on the safe side of the door. There was one other person in the cell besides him, their attention focused on an all too familiar creature, a Demogorgon. The Demogorgon crawled out from a small opening in the opposite wall as white spores floated about the cell that Hopper recalled seeing in the air in the Upside Down, standing to its full height.
“Well, shit.” One problem after another, as if being locked away in a Russian prison/laboratory and beaten for no reason wasn’t enough.
He gave a side glance to the other person, wanting gauge their reaction to the appearance of the Demogorgon. This person was...familiar. The longer he stared the more he realized, he knew this person.
Even with the signature mullet shorn away and draped in dingy gray clothes that seemed far too baggy, Hopper knew that he was standing beside Billy Hargrove; he recognized the face shape and the blue eyes. He blinked rapidly a few times; he had to make sure that he wasn’t hallucinating. No, it was Hargrove alright. The younger man ignored his gaze and seemingly his entire presence as his attention seemed focused on the steady approach of the Demogorgon. Hop had heard the words over the intercom and it seemed to cause Billy a severe amount of distress.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” he yelled. He repeated himself, yelling it upwards, supposedly in the direction of the intercom or to whoever was watching from a safe distance. However, when Hopper glanced up into the window that overlooked the large cell, there was nobody there. He turned his attention back to the Demogorgon: the creature definitely was trying to make a beeline for him, and only him. It ignored Billy as though he wasn’t even there. Hopper cursed mentally and scrambled to get distance as the creature lumbered closer and closer.
The beast was nearly upon him when he heard a horrific noise that drew both Hopper and the Demogorgon's attention. It was a scream. Although it didn’t sound human by any means. It sounded like a Demogorgon. But it hadn't come from the Demogorgon. The creature froze, a mere foot away from him, its flowery like head turning towards Billy, the source of the noise.
“...Keep it going, kid,” Jim urged quietly. “That got its attention.” The creature yowled, it’s long, spindly fingers curling in uncertainty. It turned and headed in Billy's direction, stopping just short of the younger man, sniffing the air, still uncertain. Hop didn't know what those screams told the creature, but it seemed to make the thing suspicious, if it was capable of that. Seeing an opportunity now that the Demogorgon was distracted, Jim ran forward and slammed it from the side, making it stumble to face the little door it had come from.
It hissed at him, its flower like head opening, revealing all its teeth but Billy still was able to draw its attention as he continued to screech, the scream sounding identical to that of a Demogorgon. Hop devised a plan to push the creature and together they managed to coral it back into the little dark hole it had crawled from. The little door the monster had come from shut with a definite slam of concrete on concrete and the two of them were left standing there. Jim's heart thrummed, his hands shaky as the adrenaline washed over his body; his body reacted the same way every time one of those Upside Down beasts appeared.
After the whole fiasco in that giant cage, the Russians seemed pleased with what had transpired since both he and Billy were hauled out and force back down the hall toward the lovely little cells that Hopper had come acquainted with passing each time he was taken out for a impromptu beating. The door to his cell was opened by a guard that walked up ahead of him and he was shoved roughly between the shoulder blades, the door slamming shut behind him.
He could hear a quick conversation going on outside the door, the voice faint, before his cell door was yanked open again and Billy was shoved in. He stumbled as the guards forced him into the cell and the door was slammed shut behind him, the jangle of the keys the only sound as they were locked back in. Hopper reached out to steady the younger man before he fell but as soon as his hand made contact with his shoulder, Billy flinched and threw up a hand to whack away the unwanted contact.
“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll. I’m not an enemy.” Hopper stood and analyzed the younger man. The way he reacted when he’d been thrown into the room and when he’d made contact with Hopper, the way he had acted in that large cell with the Demogorgon. Something in his brain clicked.
“You can’t see, can you?”
Billy straightened his posture and fixed his gaze, his eyes off to the left from where Hopper stood. His hands clenched into fists, on the defense. “So what if I can’t?”
“Calm down, Hargrove. I’m not going to attack you or anything.” Billy’s posture stiffened before relaxing slightly, his fists unfurling as his lips mouthed Hop’s words. And although he wasn’t able to see, his gaze still landed within the vicinity of where a sighted person would look if they were going to make eye contact.
“You know who I am?”
“Uh….yeah….”
“Hargrove. Is that me?” he asked, pointing to his chest. “Is that my name?” He seemed so eager, like a young puppy that was bursting with excitement to go for a walk. Hop pondered his next words as he tried to wrap around his head that Hargrove lacked any sense or remembrance of his identity.
“Yeah. Hargrove is your last name. Billy is your first.” It was the smallest of smiles, but it was a smile, a genuinely happy one if he ever saw one too. Hargrove backed up until his back hit a wall and slid down to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest.
“Billy. Hargrove.” He muttered quietly in a low voice. He frowned. “It doesn’t ring any bells.”
“You don’t remember anything about yourself? Or with what happened?” Hop asked. Billy shook his head and rubbed at the arm that had the number branded upon it.
“No...it’s just empty.” He paused for a moment before turning his attention to Jim. “How’d you get here?” Jim sighed heavily as he laid out the events of what brought him to be in this current lovely, Russian facility, doing his best to keep the story as linear as possible without cutting back on details.
Billy hummed thoughtfully. “It sounds familiar. The only thing I do have a memory of before of this place is this really cold, dark place.”
“Sounds like the Upside Down to me.” Billy mouthed the word, silently echoing it; he’d have to store that term away for future use if any questions ever arose. In all honestly, Hopper held some sympathy toward the Hargrove kid. He wished he’d known the kid a bit better, than perhaps he could have told Billy more about himself since he could only imagine what it felt like to have no memories of his identity or life at all; the kid was probably scared shitless.
His eyes roved over the younger man, noticing the still fading scarring on his throat, the shaved head and the almost fragile like state of his body.
“Do you know what they’ve been doing to you?”
The expression on his face darkened and Hopper saw his eyes fill with tears before he quickly blinked them away. He shrugged, looking highly uncomfortable, and tugged on the sleeves of his shirt. “I don’t know if I want to know.”
His voice was quiet, his eyes suddenly intensely fixated on his hands, even though he couldn’t see them.. Hopper nodded in acknowledgement, not really sure what to say, other than a gruff, “Understandable.” An odd, but comfortable silence fell between the two of them as they each retreated to their own thoughts for a while.
After an undetermined amount of time had passed, Billy asked, “Did we know each other well?” His eyes were big and bright with a child’s curiosity and Hopper was vaguely reminded of El when she’d first experienced things about the world for the first time. Hopper sighed heavily.
“No, not really, kid. I just knew about you mostly. I pulled you over a few times for speeding, once for drinking and driving, that’s all.”
“Why are you here?” Billy asked. “Are they doing anything to you like what they’re doing to me?” Hopper sighed. His eyes roved over the scar that he could see on Billy’s throat and wondered just exactly what they were doing to him; obviously whatever it was was absolutely fucked.
“No, kid. Seems like I’m just a punching bag for them. Mind you, interrogation doesn’t really work when you can’t understand their mother tongue. But I suppose, how I ended up here was by freak accident. Otherwise, I’d be dead.” Jim dove into detail and described what had happened in the hidden Russian lab under the mall up to moment him he appeared in the Russian facility and Billy seemed to cling onto every word as though he were hearing someone recite an action packed novel.
“...You’ve dealt with that kind of weird stuff before?”
“A couple times. It doesn’t get easier. I thought the world was fucked up before I experienced any of this supernatural bullshit.”
“What did you experience before the supernatural bullshit?” Billy asked, genuinely curious. Hopper frowned as memories of his time over seas flashed through his head.
“War.” The word sounded bitter on his tongue.
“Drafted? Or by choice?”
Hopper hummed. “Bit of both when I think about it. It wasn’t something I’d like to ever experience again though.”
Billy nodded in understanding. There was a long moment of silence before Billy spoke again.
“Can you describe what you look like to me?” he asked. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I know you said we know each other, or know of each other, but I don’t what you look like. Right now, you’re just a blurry grey blob that I can tell is a person.”
Jim gently took Billy's hand and brought it up to his own face. And while he allowed Billy to feel and map out Jim's face, he explained his features to Billy so he could really grasp a good description. And once again, they fell into a comfortable silence, the only sound the hissing of the lights overhead. Jim closed his eyes, intent on resting, but was unable to turn his focus away from that damn hissing of the light; he wished he could turn the lights off. They were florescent and the most damn annoying lights he had ever encountered.
“I'm sorry if I’m bothering you,” Billy muttered, drawing Jim's focus away from the lights. He rubbed his hands on his knees as his gaze wandered over in the direction of Hopper’s eyes. “I haven’t talked to anyone in a long time.”
Hopper scoffed, a smile touching his face. “Don’t be sorry, kid. Right now, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere. We got all the time in the world to talk.”