Chapter Text
It was Saturday and miraculously Hopper was finishing early for the day. He decided to pick up lunch for El as he headed home, along with a fresh box of eggos. When he reached the door of the cabin however, he could hear the music from her boombox, gifted to her by himself for Christmas, figuring she’d grown a little tired of Hopper’s records. Figuring she wouldn’t hear the sound of his knock, he fumbled around in his pocket for his keys, listening to the pop rock tones of Cyndi Lauper echo through the cabin he began to wonder if it was really such a good gift idea.
“Hey, El, did you get my message? I got your favourite!” he yelled through the cabin but he voice was nothing compared to the blasting music.
Knotting his brows into a frown, he placed his shopping down on the table and headed over to El’s bedroom door to go check she was still alive. He quickly knocked twice before opening the door.
“Hey, El, I’m ba- oh jesus!”
“Dad!” El shrieked and quickly slammed the door with her mind.
Hopper turned his back on the door and leaned up against it, wide eyed and panting. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to process what he had just seen. El and the Wheeler boy had been sitting on her bed, kissing. El’s hands draped around the boy’s neck with his hands on her waist that indicated to Hopper it was a lot more than an innocent peck.
With a sigh he stepped away from the door and paced the cabin, trying to work out his best plan of action. He tried to push down the urge to storm back into the room and yell at Mike, knowing full well that would only upset El. And the last thing he wanted to do was go back into the room and actually talk to them both about it. Hopper then slumped down onto the couch and switched on the TV while he thought.
Luckily, he didn’t have to think much longer about how to go about the situation when Mike sped out the room, practically sprinting to the front door.
“Bye Mr. Hopper,” Mike stuttered as he rushed out of the door without giving Jim so much a chance to call after him or even say goodbye himself. Hopper noted that that was the first time Mike had ever addressed him as ‘Mr. Hopper’ and suddenly Jim felt about twenty years older.
After the door closed behind him, El walked out with her head hung low, afraid to look Hopper in the eye. She shuffled across to the couch and hovered next to it, as though she were awaiting whatever punishment she expected him to dish out.
“I’m not mad, kid,” Hopper assured her with a exasperated grumble. Her head lifted, eyes curious as she blinked at him. Hopper turned off the TV and stood then. “But I think there are a few things we need to talk about.”
El nodded in understanding and Hopper gestured for them to sit at the table. Once they sat down, he looked at her, trying to keep his expression as soft as possible. He took a deep breath.
“Have you and Mike ever, uh,” he sighed. “Has Mike ever said anything to you about sex?” he asked, mustering all the restraint he had.
Her eyes widened at him. “Sex? What, no?” she seemed confused by the concept which made Hopper slightly hopeful.
He looked away from her and stared at his hands on the table instead. “And do you know what sex is?”
“Yes,” she answered straight away and any hope Hopper had been feeling quickly vanished.
He brought his eyes back to her face, she looked back at him, almost appearing offended that he would ask her such a dense question.
“Okay, what is it?”
She gave him a bewildered look before rolling her eyes and answering. “It’s when a man and a woman go under the covers and kiss,” she said a little too matter-of-factly for Hopper’s liking. “I saw it on Days of Our Lives. But me and Mike weren’t under the covers!” she quickly added, feeling the need to defend herself.
Hopper almost laughed. Almost. While he was rather thankful that they hadn’t engaged in any activities that were too physical, and by the sounds of it Mike didn’t seem to have any intention to commit such acts considering she didn’t have a full understanding of the act itself, he was now faced with the daunting task of having to explain it to her. Deciding on the best way to go about it, he stood from his chair and went to retrieve their trusty dictionary from the shelf. He brought it back and placed it front of her.
“There’s a little more to it than that,” he said, gesturing to the book in front of her. She furrowed her brows at him for a moment before flicking through the dictionary.
When she finally found the page, she cleared her throat before speaking. “Sex, s-e-x,” he tried not to cringe as she said it so determinedly. “Sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.” She stuttered through the words but eventually got there, however it didn’t seem to help her understand any further. Rather than tell her, he took the dictionary from her and looked further down the page. When he found the term he pointed at it and handed it back to her.
With a determined sigh she continued to read. “G-gen-genital contact. Especially the insertion of the pen-is into the vag-ina vagina, followed by org-as-m, c-oitus, cop-u-la-tion,” she struggled through the unfamiliar words but managed to use her sounds the way Hopper had taught her. She looked up at him, confusion still latent in her face. “But how?”
“How what?”
“How does it insert? And what’s an org-as-m?”
Hopper groaned and his head hit the table. After a half hour of trying to give her the most concise and PG-13 description of sex, whilst also trying to dissuade her from even trying it before she was at least 21, he gave up. He dashed over to the phone and called in the big guns.
Some time later, Joyce arrived at the cabin, a plastic bag in tow and constant mothering smile on her face. Hopper gave her a small appreciative smile as he closed the door behind her. El was sitting on the couch with her knees under her chin, silently watching the TV. When she looked over to Joyce her face immediately lit up, a shy smile on her lips.
“Hey, sweetie,” Joyce grinned as she made her way over to El and sat down next to her on the couch. “Your dad tells me there’s a couple of things we need to talk about.”
El nodded hesitantly, but still smiled at Joyce. Hopper took a moment to admire the scene in front of him. Joyce and El had really bonded from the beginning. And while El had made it clear to him that she didn’t want another mama, she was happy to have a Joyce. And as glad as Hopper was to see Joyce, he suddenly remembered the reason why she was here and he suddenly dreaded whatever was about to come out of Joyce’s mouth.
“Right, well, I think the best way to start is for you to ask me any questions you have and we’ll go from there,” Joyce nodded encouragingly to El who then shifted her eyes toward Hopper who was hovering over the couch. Joyce’s eyes followed and looked up at Hopper with an amused and understanding spark in her eye.
“Would you like it to be a girls only conversation?” Joyce looked between El and Hopper. El’s eyes shifted to her hands, almost feeling bad or embarrassed for not wanting her adoptive father present.
Hopper read the expression on her face and immediately held his hands up. “Hey, that’s completely fine by me!” he insisted. He backed away from the pair and gave Joyce another smile, silently thanking her and she gave him a wink and assuring smirk. He retreated to the porch for a smoke and let the girls talk it out.
It wasn’t for another hour when Joyce finally exited the cabin, coming out onto the porch to join Hopper. He didn’t say anything when he first saw her, instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes, passing one to Joyce. She smiled a thank you, taking note of the abundance of freshly stubbed cigarette butts in the ash tray next to Hopper. He had clearly been nervous about the outcome of their conversation.
She sat down next to him on the bench. “Relax, Hop, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she put a hand on his knee and squeezed lightly and flashed him a kind smile. “She’s smart. And I’ve known Mike since he was a kid-“
“They still are kids,” Hopper interjected.
She laughed a little at that. “And he’s not stupid to enough to go fooling around with the chief’s daughter before either of them are ready.”
Hopper sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Joyce pulled away and inhaled on her cigarette. “I just can’t get that picture out of my head…”
“They were just kissing, Hop,” Joyce scoffed playfully at him. “It could’ve been a whole lot worse. I mean, remember how old we were?” she teased, eyes shining at him.
Hopper almost choked on his cigarettes and frowned at the far too amused expression on Joyce’s face. “That’s really not helping,” he responded with a groan of agony. It especially didn’t help when Joyce let out a delightful giggle, reminding him of a time a long time ago. And suddenly, all the cigarettes in the world couldn’t calm his nerves after that door opened.
It was Friday night and Joyce Horowitz was sitting on her bed, organising her records collection when she really should’ve been studying. The alluring sounds of Billie Holiday echoed through her room, Joyce humming along, content as she flipped through the collection she had mustered over the years. It was early, only around 7, but she was already dressed in her night gown and ready for bed. Her father had to work late so she had decided to have a quiet night in rather than head to the drive-in with her friends.
Her quiet night however, appeared to be disturbed when she heard a strange noise coming from her window. Furrowing her brows in confusion, she gently placed down her Little Richard record and cautiously approached the window. The odd scraping sound was unfamiliar to her and she figured that it was perhaps just critters outside but nevertheless she thought it best to check.
She jumped up with a shriek when the window suddenly flew upwards and Jim Hopper’s head appeared in place of the glass.
When she calmed down, clutching her heart over her chest she looked at him. He flashed her a smug grin.
“Hey, Horowitz,” he pumped his eyebrows at her, his smile only growing. He pulled himself and carefully stepped over the ledge and into her bedroom.
“James Hopper what the hell are you doing here?!” she hissed in a whisper.
He shrugged and ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair, a subtle move Joyce always found endearing. But of course she would never tell him that.
“Well, you told me your dad was working tonight. Figured I’d keep you company,” he looked down at her and wondered to himself how someone could still look like a total knockout even when dressed in a loose fitting white night gown. His eyes suddenly felt like fire on her skin and Joyce blushed furiously.
Cursing herself she quickly rushed to her bedroom door, turning the lock on her handle.
“Yeah well he still ain’t left yet and-“
Joyce was cut off when Hopper grasped her wrists and pulled her to him, pressing his lips against hers in a hard kiss. Taken by surprise, Joyce let out a whimper, but kissed him back regardless. She hoisted herself up onto her tiptoes, allowing him to straighten his back as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. Her lips parted as his hand went to the back of her head, tangling in her hair.
Her confidence growing, she walked them towards her bed, her lips not leaving his for a moment. When they reached the edge of the mattress, he sat down and pulled her into his lap. She giggled when their lips broke and she tried to find a strategic way to straddle him without her night gown restricting her. The sound was like music to Hopper’s ears.
Their kissing was suddenly interrupted by three dreaded knocks on her bedroom door.
“Joycie!” her father called from the other side of the door. Joyce’s head whipped up and her heart hammered in her chest. She tried to jump off Hopper and go to the door but his hands were like steel against her hips. “Joyce I heard you scream, you okay?” her father called again.
She looked to Hopper, mischief twinkled in his eyes as he grinned at her suggestively. Her eyes widened and she shook her head at him and turned her head over in the direction of the door. She stifled a sharp gasp, however, when Hopper’s lips immediately got to work on her neck, leaving a trail of soft and hard kisses.
“Yeah I just stubbed my toe!” Joyce called back, her voice coming out a lot more panicked than she thought it would.
“Oh, alright, well I’m just heading to work, you sure you gonna be alright here by yourself?” he shouted back to her.
“Yeah I’ll be,” she clamped her mouth shut when Hopper suddenly bit down on her neck with a stomach flipping growl. Her eyes squeezed shut, struggling to maintain control. “I’ll be fine!” her voice cracked, causing Hopper to smile against her neck and let out a low chuckle.
“Okay, see ya in the mornin’!” her father’s naïve voice called happily as he backed from the door and headed down the hall.
Joyce didn’t call back goodbye, instead bringing her mouth back to Hopper’s. Her father was barely out the door before her night gown was on the floor.
Hopper blushed at the memory, a sly smile on his lips. That suddenly turned into a straight line as the colour washed from his face. He stood then, stubbing out his cigarette.
“Come on we gotta go,” Hopper extended a hand to Joyce and pulled her up.
She looked up at him, completely baffled. “Go where?”
“Melvald’s,” he grumbled, heading back inside to grab their coats. When he reappeared, handing Joyce her jacket, the confusion was still on her face.
“We’re getting a damn lock for her window.”