Interlude Jim Hopper

"You're a hero, sheriff," the federal agent quipped, his voice dripping with a level of sarcasm that could curdle milk.

Jim Hopper bit back a scoff, his gaze dropping to the sterile tabletop. Heroic was the last thing he felt. He was sat in the sterile confines of a holding room, the feds eyeballing him like he'd sprout tentacles and fangs any moment. He'd been a soldier, a city cop, had seen humans act monstrous enough not to need creatures from a Stephen King novel. But the reality, it seemed, had a macabre sense of humour.

He met their paranoid glances with a steady gaze, unflinching. After the whole cult fiasco that had culminated in a mass murder, their jitters might even be justified. In the twisted logic of these alphabet agency types, his success in arresting the remaining cult members made him a perfect candidate for a sleeper agent.

But none of that was why he felt a nagging emptiness in place of any sense of heroism. It was the boy, Will Byers, still unaccounted for. Then there were the two families who had seemingly evaporated into thin air. And the horror show at Hawkins National Lab. The memory of that monstrous gate finally shutting down, the sight of the last cultist dropping to his knees in surrender, it all felt like something out of a damn movie.

"A hero sheriff stops child-stealing satanic scientist," the agent read aloud from a cheap supermarket tabloid, sandwiched between an article about the face of Jesus appearing on a piece of toast and a farmer's complaint about aliens molesting his cows. The headline would've made him chuckle on any other day.

His partner, another nondescript suit, cut him off. "We're letting you go," he said abruptly, not elaborating whether they'd decided he wasn't a threat or just wanted to observe him in the wild. "But we'll be watching."

The suit was trying to be intimidating, but all Jim felt was weary relief. If he started having nightmares about his dead daughter asking him to fetch fresh human livers, at least there'd be someone to stop him. Small mercies.