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Joyce has never heard twigs and leaves crunch so violently. She can barely keep up.
“Those kids…”
He’s gonna have their heads for this one. She’s gonna have their heads for this one.
“...are out of their fucking minds,” Hopper announces through panting breaths, for her and all the woods to hear. “ One night we ask them to stay put, and they can’t make it an hour-”
He trudges right over a large root in the forest floor; and Joyce, in all her effort to keep pace, trips blindly over it – catches herself on his sleeve. His breathing, his marching – everything stops to look back at her.
(He seems only now to recall that she’s working with significantly shorter legs here. He takes her hand, rubs a rough thumb over hers.)
(It’s an apology she’ll accept.)
“I wanted to watch TV,” he mutters between them two, and resumes a stomp through the twigs. “Whole trip back, all I wanted was to get home…”
It’s getting dark out – they should’ve brought flashlights.
“...curl up on the couch…”
She wants to ask him to go back to the cabin, get some supplies-
“...and watch TV, just us and the kids,” he says through a huff, managing to push the sweetest words through the gruffest tone. “But there’s gotta be some… psychic wizard asshole taking over; and of course, El doesn’t need our help with that. El?”
They keep forgetting to shout for the kids. Maybe because neither of them really believes their children would answer, instead of just running faster.
“Will?” Joyce calls again, huffing and puffing as they pick up the pace again. “They couldn’t have gotten far without their bikes – Will!”
“‘less there’s another gate we don’t know about,” Hopper breathes, and Joyce rolls her eyes at the very real possibility that their children are keeping…
Hopper stops in his tracks. Joyce almost loses her footing from how abrupt it is.
“What?”
He holds a hand up, then closes it to one pointed finger. She cranes her neck up at him.
“What? What is it?”
“Do you hear that?” he asks, and she holds her breath. Listens, for a moment.
Other than your average woodland noises, no, she doesn’t hear anything.
“Hear what?” she whispers-
“That-” he insists, but seems to cut himself off – reins his tone in, as if suddenly insecure. Whatever this expression on his face is, she doesn’t know it or like it.
Tone softening, Joyce curls her hand around Hopper’s wrist. “I don’t hear anything, Jim. What does it sound like?”
He’s blinking rapidly now, worry wrinkling his brow. She inhales shallowly, clenches her teeth.
“Jim?” she tries again, waiting patiently for the end of this episode or flashback or whatever the hell is happening. She takes his hand between both of hers, applies some pressure. “Hey. Look at me.”
He swallows hard, and doesn’t look. This inspires a little dread.
“Hopper.”
(He’s had little moments like this; she shouldn’t be worried. He’s been through something terrible. This isn’t easy to do.)
“Hop, what is it? Can you talk to me?”
(It’s gotten worse since they came to Hawkins, but she assumed it was because of, perhaps, the terror of nearly losing his daughter again-)
“Would you look at me, please?” She tries her hands, thinks maybe it’ll bring him back down to earth. “Hop, hey. You’re scaring me-”
(Not because of Hawkins in particular. This was happening before Hawkins, wasn’t it?)
Anxiety grips her stomach and she takes him by the shoulders, shakes him lightly. “Look at me. Look at me.”
His gaze is vacant; she reaches up to take his face into her hands, tries to draw his attention…
(No, it wasn’t. Only in Hawkins.)
His eyes roll back into his head, familiar only because it’s been explained to her before.
(No.)
“Hopper, you need to wake up-”
She should’ve known it was fucking this – should’ve known he was acting different, “Hopper, what’s happening?” She should’ve seen the look in his eyes, a few times now; what kind of fucking- How can she claim to be in love with him when she couldn’t even see this happening in front of her ? “Can you hear me? Do you hear my voice-”
He’d even asked Max – god, how could she be so stupid-
“I’m right here with you; I’m here-”
“Hey, kid,” he’d asked quietly, right in front of her. “When you’re having those… visions…”
“-right here, Hopper, please try to talk to me-”
“...what’s it like?”
His face is twitching, his eyes changing while dusk dies overhead; she tries to remember what to do. It’s just like they described it, the eyes, the trance – music, his favorite song, his…
“El!” Joyce screams against the trees, throat seizing up. “Eleven, please- please, fuck, I- I don’t-”
She doesn’t know his favorite song, if he even has a favorite song-
“It’s like… he knows everything you’re afraid of.”
“Eleven!” comes out a shriek this time, tossing her head in any direction. “Will! Someone, please-”
“And all the worst things you think about yourself.”
He’s shaking in her arms now; she’s shaking with him, vision blearing-
“I-I-I don’t know what to do,” she stammers in a panic, shaking at his shoulders, “I don’t have music, I don’t- know-”
“Like… ‘no one loves you.’ ‘No one needs you.’”
Bloodshot – his eyes go bloodshot. She’s losing him.
“Eleven!” she screams through a breaking voice, hands lost on him, helpless- “Hopper, you have to listen to me – it’s Joyce, please, I’m right here. It’s me-”
A force pulls against her – drags him upward, and she grits her teeth. “No; no -”
She jerks him right back down with all her might, hands locked on him, prepared to win this stupid fucking tug-of-war; “You stay here with me, Jim, don’t you dare! This isn’t real; whatever’s he’s saying, or doing-”
A harder tug upward, and she’s stretching up on her toes, panic pulsing in her palms-
“-fucking stop it-” she demands, shouting into thin air and hoping this bastard hears. “Give him back-”
He’s panting beneath her, jolting when she nudges his sore ribs – he’s still there. He’s still in there somewhere, and fuck, she’s strong, but probably not stronger than this psychic wizard asshole-
“And it’s all in your head, but it works because you… already believe it. You already think it, all the time .”
“No-”
She jumps up to catch around his shoulders, pulling with all her weight now. “Please- please, Jim, I am not losing you again, you stay with me…”
“That’s the curse.”
Every muscle in his body twitches and pulses when she speaks, like he’s trying – like he hears her voice and he’s trying to come back. She kicks her shoes against the roots below, scrambling for purchase as this thing she’s fighting becomes tired of fighting her , and the world…
The world goes dizzy as her body is pulled up with him, clung around his neck and watching the blurry woods drift below them. Her hyperventilation begins to catch up with her; she presses her face to his throat…
“I need you,” she whispers, arms aching around his neck. She sniffs. “I love you, and I need you to st-”
He gasps a breath, loud in her ear – her heart stops. She doesn’t lift her head, for fear of what she’ll see.
Then comes the rollercoaster stomach drop, and the brush of wind against their ears, as they thud to the ground. The pressure releases in the air; she can barely breathe, can’t begin to force her eyes open. Can’t bear to look.
“Scary stuff, huh?”
“Hopper,” she chokes out, wrapped tight around him and sobbing into his neck, so fucking scared because they never told her what happens next -
“Not really,” Max had said, of course. “Not as long as you have somebody. ”
His hand catches her sleeve, and she gasps.