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The door is unlocked when Hopper arrives, and he doesn’t bother to knock. He’s been around frequently enough in the past few months that his presence is expected, now. Hardly a surprise. He enters the house and immediately he’s struck by how goddamn hot it is inside, like the very walls are radiating heat. There’s a worn out fan spluttering in the corner of the room and Will is slumped on the sofa, fanning himself uselessly with a comic.
“Damn, it’s hot in here. You got the heating on or something?”
Will raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look up, like he’d be exerting too much energy in doing so. “Ha. Funny.” He’s clearly not in the mood so Hopper goes by him into the kitchen with a small grin, to find Jonathan filling up ice bags by the tap to be frozen.
“Hey,” he says as Hopper comes in. “Do you think you could have a look at our fridge? I swear it’s not as cold as it should be.”
“I think that’s just the weather,” he says, but goes over anyway. “Where’s your mom?”
“Oh, she’s- uh-”
He swings around and fixes the kid with a stern look. “Where is she?”
Jonathan, to his credit, holds out longer than most people do under his glare. But still he eventually caves, his shoulders dropping. “She’s throwing up in the bathroom. She- she told me not to tell you. She didn’t want to worry you. This ice is for her, actually.”
Hopper stops in his tracks. “What?” Joyce is sick? And she asked her son to lie to him about it?
Jonathan shrugs apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s always like this. She doesn’t like to make a fuss. She wouldn’t let me call the doctor even though she collapsed at Melvald’s yesterday-”
“She collapsed?!” Hopper doesn’t wait to hear anymore, turning immediately to go down the corridor to the bathroom.
“Wait-”
He looks around slowly, not even bothering to conceal his death glare. If Jonathan so much as dares to suggest he shouldn’t go in there-
“Take this.” The kid pours out a glass of water and hands it to him with a weak smile. “She’s not gonna want to see you, so at least pretend you’re only being helpful.”
Hopper huffs out a sigh but takes it, and after a reluctant moment he touches Jonathan on the shoulder. “Thanks, kid.” He’s a good kid, really. All Joyce, no Lonnie. Thank god.
When he reaches the bathroom he finds the door slightly ajar, but he knocks anyway.
Joyce’s voice from within is raspy and tired but somehow still fiery. “Jonathan- I told you, I’m fine-”
Hopper doesn’t let her finish. He pushes the door open and she falls silent, looking at him guiltily. She’s hunched next to the toilet with her cheek pressed against the pedestal of the sink, which is no doubt nice and cool in the summer heat. Hair tied back loosely, messy strands falling out around her face. Gray vest top, patterned with sweat stains, tucked into a pair of gym shorts he could swear he saw her wear in high school. But even like this - even with her face flushed, eyes bright with fever - she’s beautiful.
At least, until she turns back to the toilet and retches again. He lunges forward, leaving the water glass on the floor, and holds back a lock of hair that’s come loose. When she’s done she looks round at him, her smile faint and exhausted. “Hey,” she says softly, leaning back against the pedestal of the sink and closing her eyes. He sits down too, lowering himself to the floor with a pained grunt that tells him he’s getting older.
“Hey. What’s this about passing out in Melvald’s, huh?”
“I didn’t ‘pass out’. I was just- dizzy, for a bit, and then suddenly everyone was making a fuss and Donald- he sent me home.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he says, quirking an eyebrow as he leans over and passes her the glass of water. She accepts it gratefully, all but gulping it down. “And you wouldn’t let Jonathan call the doctor? Joyce, what if it’s something serious-”
“It’s not. It’s just- there’s no air conditioning in the store, not since it broke last year and Donald’s too cheap to fix it. It was hot, that’s all.”
“And that’s why you’re currently hugging the toilet?”
She glares at him, but the effect is rather ruined by her dishevelled appearance. “The least you could do if you’re gonna come in here is give me some sympathy. If not, just get out.”
He softens. “I’m just worried about you. When are you gonna start taking care of yourself, not just other people?”
“It’s just a bug. I’m not going to the doctor for that- it’s expensive-”
“And if it’s an emergency? Joyce- you look really sick.”
She scoffs. “Thanks.”
“No- Jesus, Joyce, won’t you listen to me?” He scrubs a hand over his face. He knew she was stubborn, but this is a whole new level. And this - sitting on the floor of the bathroom by the toilet, offering a water glass and gestures of support - is all too familiar. Sara didn’t have any hair to hold back by the end but she spent whole days hunched by the toilet, just as Joyce is now. Hopper feels a little nauseous himself at the thought.
She sighs, leaning her head back and closing her eyes again. “Okay,” she says finally, ever so quietly. “If I’m not feeling any better tomorrow - yes, tomorrow, “ she adds without opening her eyes, as if she knew he was about to protest, “- I’ll see the doctor. You happy now?”
He sighs. Not entirely, if he’s honest. Of course he’s not. He hates seeing her like this - feverish, and tired. She still has the energy to snipe at him - if ever she didn’t, he really would be worried - but it lacks its usual teasing bite. “Yeah, I guess,” he says finally. Then, to his eternal surprise, she reaches out and takes his hand.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For not letting Jonathan turn you away. I-” She sighs. “I didn’t want you to make a fuss, which is, well, exactly what you did, but I’m glad you’re here anyway.”
He smiles a little, squeezes her hand. He can feel her pulse fluttering away weakly under his thumb. “Do you wanna go lie down?”
She opens her eyes and looks at him. “If you say ‘because it looks like you need it’, I swear to god, James Hopper, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. Scouts’ honor.” He helps her to her feet, trying to suppress the flutters of alarm at how heavily she leans on him. Guides her down the corridor to lie on her bed, the covers dumped in a heap on the floor. She doesn’t need any more heat - she’s burning up. “I’m gonna find you a fan that works, okay?”
On his way down the corridor he comes across Jonathan just hanging up the phone. The kid looks at him and for the first time Hopper notices the ever-present worry in his eyes. “How is she?”
“She’s gonna be okay. I got her to promise to let us take her to the doctor’s tomorrow, if she’s not any better.”
Jonathan breathes what is very obviously a sigh of relief. “Okay, good.” The us goes unquestioned. “That was Mr Melvald, on the phone. He wants to know when Mom’s coming back to work.”
“That asshole-” Hopper has to resist slamming a fist into the wall. That fucking asshole. He doesn’t fix his air conditioning and gets Joyce sick, and then has the audacity to demand her presence at the store again? He has half a mind to go down there and beat some sense into the guy, or arrest him. It’s a sue-able offence, at the very least. Maybe he could convince Joyce- with the right lawyer-
But all that’s beside the point.
“Have you got a fan that works anywhere?”
Jonathan shakes his head. “There’s the one in the front room but- well, you saw it. It doesn’t exactly ‘work’.”
He thinks for a moment, then pulls out his wallet. “Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do. Go to the store - not Melvald’s, though he probably doesn’t even sell them, the bastard - and buy a new fan with this.” He presses a few bills into Jonathan’s hand.
As predicted, the kid bristles. “I can pay myself-” he protests, trying to give the money back, but Hopper shakes his head.
“It’s on me, kid. Save your money in case you need to fix the fridge.”
Jonathan looks at him for a long, silent while. Then, warily, slowly, like he thinks Hopper might grab it back, he puts the bills in his pocket. “Thanks. I’ll- um, I’ll go now. Oh, and don’t-”
“-Tell your mom. I got it.” Hopper gives him a smile and the kid leaves, still looking a little bewildered. Hopper is determined to get them to accept his help, at least occasionally, at least a tiny bit. And if takes him asking for his change back to make Jonathan feel independent - well. It’s a small price to pay.
He finds an already frozen bag of ice in the freezer and brings it down the corridor along with a fresh glass of water, which he places quietly on Joyce’s bedside table. She’s dozing, but at his approach she shifts and looks at him in the gloom. Her curtains are drawn against the heat, but it’s still ridiculously warm.
“Got you some ice,” he says quietly. She takes it and presses it to her neck with a soft sigh of relief. It leaves her skin damp, trails of water trickling down into her top, and he has to very deliberately avoid looking down at her cleavage. “You should try and get some sleep. You’ll feel better.”
“Sit with me for a bit?” Her voice is tentative. He thinks, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Over the course of the next few hours she starts shivering, her skin clammy, and he has to rush her to the bathroom at least three times so she can bring up the meagre contents of her stomach, but Jonathan’s fan seems to help and that evening the fever passes. Hopper stays with her til long after then, when she’s fallen so deeply asleep it’s only the faint rise and fall of her chest that lets him know she’s still alive.
This wasn’t what he expected when he came here, he has to admit. He expected to sit her down and ask her - cautiously, just in case - to go to dinner with him. Someplace nice. Enzo’s, maybe. But obviously that didn’t work out.
He’ll ask her next time.