Chapter Text
1959
Old habits die hard. Like cigarettes as soon as the coffee’s brewed. Like walking to school with no shoes. He waits and waits, just like he always does when it comes to Joyce Horowitz.
It’s like waiting for Joyce is the only thing he’s good at.
Jim Hopper lights another cigarette; the second thing he’s good at. He’s almost as good as his Pop at drinking - not yet, soon though. Drinking dulls the bullshit and amplifies the good shit.
And there’s a lot more bullshit than good shit, he thinks.
The cigarette between his fingers has burnt through and he drops it when it burns at his skin. He’s just grateful for the stash of Camels Joyce stole from her momma, he’s got a few more cigarettes to go and who knows how fucking long he’ll be waiting out in the cold for.
For her. He waits. He’s waited two hours already, sitting on the roof of his trailer. Pop was already asleep, knocked out cold on bourbon and whatever the hell else he could get his hands on. Jim helped him onto the sofa but even the good deed couldn’t wash out the bad taste left in his father’s mouth as he spat at his son; “You’re a useless son of a bitch, you know that?”
Jim did find the tiniest amount of amusement in that when he hissed back when Pop was already asleep; “Of course I am, I’m your son…”
He can see it already. Joyce gets back to the trailer park. She’ll poke and prod at his chest, scream, maybe even shout. Asking him why the fuck is he waiting for her, does he think he’s her babysitter or something?
Yeah, something like that, he decides. Something like a babysitter, somewhat of a big brother. Something kinda like a person who looks out for her because god knows no one else does. She does a good job at looking out for him, it’s only right he’d do the same for her. And that crazy, tiny girl was going to be the one person on earth who’d ever save his ass from a shitty situation, Jim was certain of that. The kind of girl to pull him out of a burning car or save him from being tortured when he falls into the hands of the wrong crowd - seems like a Jim and Joyce situation, he thinks.
No one else gives a fuck in this hole of a town, he concludes. This time, he’s so lost in his thoughts the cigarette burns his lips and when his thoughts lead back to Joyce as he toys with the pack of cigarettes between his fingers, it’s only natural for his mind to wander to Lonnie.
Lonnie Byers, asshole of the year…
If it wasn’t for fuckin’ Lonnie, Jim knows he’d be tucked up warm in the room of his trailer. Hell, he might be even sharing his usual Saturday night pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey Joyce would have stolen from her momma’s stash. But their usual Saturday ritual has turned into a new Saturday ritual in which she actually shares it with Lonnie and instead Jim is left counting down Camels by himself. Like a sad sack of shit…
It isn’t that he hates Byers, he decides. It’s that he wants to kill him and Jim is convinced Lonnie’s guts would look good spilt on the ground. Some of them are selfish reasons, sure, that’s true. Joyce doesn’t spend nearly as much time with him at the trailer park and there’s not so many chances to talk about what the plan is when they get the fuck out of Hawkins. No more smoking joints out the back of Pop’s Oldsmobile and promises that no matter what happens, they’d be best friends forever. They’d known each other their entire lives. That means something to me, he thinks. Means jack-shit to Lonnie…
He guesses an entire life doesn’t compare to whatever the hell Lonnie Byers has to offer. Lonnie’s got shit weed and Jessie Munson said he’s shit in bed so that also means something to Jim as well. Keeps him happy while he waits in the cold.
Wherever Jim’s thoughts were leading him, they all come to halt when he sees Joyce coming up the path to the trailer park, hands deep in the pockets of the jacket she’s wearing. Even from a distance, he can see her smiling. Her smile makes him both happy and absolutely fucked off. He loves to see her smile, he despises it when she smiles because of Lonnie .
Jim stands up, stretching his arms above his head, getting lost in the cloud of smoke he leaves behind. Jumping down from the roof of his trailer and landing noisily on the veranda, taking a step onto the dirt to meet Joyce.
Even in the dark and under the hum of lights shining through trailer windows, he can see that she’s pissed. Maybe Jim would feel differently about it if she didn’t always look pissed at him, but all he feels now is amusement. “Hop!” she snaps, eyebrows knitting together. “Waiting up for me again? What are you? My father? It’s cold out here, get inside!”
“And what are you?” he snaps back, “My mother?!”
They both stand in the middle of the hive of trailers, eye to eye, hands shoved in pockets. There’s a sense of smugness he feels and Jim tries not to let it show - she wears his Letterman. Hopper embroidered in the pocket.
And that, he thinks smugly, means something…
Joyce takes a deep breath and holds her hand out for an unspoken Camel. He lights it for her and she closes her eyes with the first draw. “Hop, you gotta stop staying up late for me, I’m a big girl now,” she warns. “Pulling up my big girl pants…” she exhales loudly.
He rolls his eyes, taking off his jumper to drape over her shoulders which she pulls tight against his Letterman, smiling up at him. “Joyce, you’re seventeen, the world is crazy and fucked up, you know that right?”
Joyce just shakes her head, smiling up at him with amusement. “You’re seventeen too, kid. And I’m with Lonnie, it’s not like I’m in any danger .” She drags out the last word as if she thinks he’s being crazy, he looks at her like he thinks she’s the one who’s crazy.
Jim knows that. He still wants some reason to tell her she’s wrong though.
“I just - I love you Joyce, but I never knew you were keen on Byers…” He wants to ask her why him of all people? What on God’s green earth did Byers have that Jim didn’t?
The balls to actually ask her out, he concludes. It didn’t matter how many times Jim recited word for word what he’d say when asking her out or how many times they’d made out on the roof of his trailer, he couldn’t get it out.
And now he has to kill Lonnie Byers for doing the one thing he couldn’t; asking out Joyce Horowitz.
Joyce rolls her eyes. “Probably because I never told you that I was keen on him, we’re best friends Hop, but you’re a guy and…” she shudders. “We don’t talk about stuff like that.”
“Well, we could ,” Jim forces a scoff, as if she’s being ridiculous. “We talk, Joyce. All the time… amongst other things.”
Her cheeks turn red and so does his, heat rising up his neck. “Well we can’t do other shit now, Hop,” she warns, looking away from him. “But we will still be hanging out.”
He’s kind of hurt that she even had to say that, as if reassuring him. As if there was a possibility in this fucked up earth that she may not want to hang out with him anymore. He pushes away his feelings, trying not to think about a world where there wasn't Jim and Joyce. “Well gee ,” he says sarcastically. “I’m glad I might be able to fit into the schedule of Joyce and Lonnie Byers ,” he teases.
“ Horowitz ,” She punches him on the chest, he knows he deserves it. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but let me set this straight,” she says sternly, glaring at Jim. “You are my best friend, Hop. And I love you. That will never change. We could go off into the big, bad world as you seem to see it and I will always be here for you, just as you will always be here for me. But shit, let me breathe a little, won’t you - it’s not my fault you can’t commit to -”
He doesn’t want to hear it, so he doesn’t let the words come out. Pulling her into a hug, he holds her close. If this is going to be the last time I hold her like this, then I want to keep it forever…
He pauses while holding her, he lets himself think a series of things he’d never speak out loud and condenses it into one statement that he allows himself to say. “Just be safe, okay, Joyce?” he grumbles with his arms over her shoulders. “Only God knows what the hell I’d do if anything happened to you…”
Joyce laughs, head thrown back, teeth all showing. Happiness in voice. “You and I both know I’ll be fine,” she says, slowly pulling away. “So stop acting like you always gotta protect me, Hop. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Jim laughs too, trying to palm off his amusement as laughter when really it was from the thoughts running through his head. He stops her from pulling away too far. “I gotta keep holding you until it’s okay…” he mumbles.
Joyce gives up, leaning her cheek on his chest. “I know, Hop. It’s the rules.”
If anything ever happened to Joyce, he thinks, Lonnie would become very fucking familiar with the bottom of the quarry… The thought will sate Jim Hopper for the next few days.
1959
Jim could count the number of days they hadn’t spoken. He could also remember the exact date Joyce and Lonnie had started ‘officially’ dating. It was the day his world started to crumble, and Hawkins was a town with brittle bones at the best of times. Go figure…
He didn’t want to admit that the reason he stopped talking to Joyce Horowitz was over Lonnie Byers, because the prick wasn’t worth his breath or time. Lonnie was too much asshole and not enough ‘good-enough’ for Joyce, not in Jim’s eyes anyway. But somehow Joyce was in love with that prick and maybe, now that Jim starts to think about it a bit more, yeah, maybe he didn’t handle it as well as he could have.
Less ‘cool, calm and collected’, and more ‘a bullet to the brain’.
He can’t blame Joyce for storming out on him that night.
Yeah, he shouted a little. Maybe a lot. The shouting all seemed to blur into one giant scream when it was Jim and Joyce. He knows the whole trailer park listens through their thin windows when he and Joyce get started. Mrs Munson would pull a chair up outside and when he’d eventually have to walk past she’d say something stupid like; ‘You two teenagers are always fighting like a married couple.’ As if she would know. Her husband died in battle years ago.
Joyce didn’t like the fact that Jim doesn’t like Lonnie. Jim thinks she should be happy that he didn’t tell her exactly what he thought about Byers but it’s water under the bridge now. And he’s drowning in it.
He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Prom was dragging on and as much as he’d love to be dragging his sorry ass home to the trailer, Chrissy Carpenter is inside surrounded by a pack of girls who are fussing over the fact that he’s not fussing over her , he can see Joyce standing in a corner with Lonnie with him leaning against a wall and her tucked in next to him.
Joyce is wearing black. A choice he’s surprised to see because if it were up to her momma, she’d be dressed up all in pink. He’s happy that she got her way - it rarely happens and black is definitely a Joyce pick.
He can’t stand it in the school hall. The heat is stifling and why all teenagers insist on Prom being the biggest night of their lives, he’ll never understand. He sneaks out of the hall, Camels in his pocket and his keys in his hand.
He’s one more ‘teenage-girl-squealing’ away from starting up the Oldsmobile and driving straight out of here.
He walks back to his car, already the relief of being somewhere where there’s some god-damned peace and quiet has made a difference.
He leans against the car, lighting his cigarette, he looks up to the stars in the sky and the peace is broken when he hears a; “Hop?”
It had been a whole three months and three days since he had heard her say his name. And the last time she actually spoke it, it was almost like it was poison in her mouth. Joyce stands looking at him with a corsage Lonnie had given her and soft pink on her lips. Her hands wring in front of her.
He keeps his lips tight, not speaking at her. Not really knowing if it was him not talking to her or the other way around. He keeps quiet, but he wants to take her in his arms. He decides to speak; “Lonnie win Homecoming King Asshole of the year yet?”
“I think they were reserving that title for you.”
But before they could finish their stare-off, Joyce has tears in her eyes and dress drags on the dirt from the car park and suddenly, his cigarette is at his feet and he’s wrapping her in his arms.
He’s not sure why she’s crying - it makes no difference. He needs to hold her until she’s okay, that’s the rules. Jim sighs into her hairs and squeezes his own eyes shut. He had recited the words over and over again in the mirror - even when they were fighting, even when he thought they’d never speak again.
“I’ve missed you, Hop,” she says, the heat of her breath creeping up his body. “The nights are lonely, the trailers quiet without you barging your way through. I’ve missed you.”
Like a broken record, he knew the words through and through. Now’s the time, he thinks. Man up, Hopper.
Her nails dig into his back and her tears can be felt through his shirt. He won’t let time or space mess this up. No bad-luck of Hawkins and no messy, slurred put downs from his father. If he couldn’t speak to Joyce, there was no one on this earth he could speak to. She keeps clinging and he’ll keep holding her until it’s okay. It’s the rules. And he won’t break the rules.
“Joyce,” he begins, suddenly feeling like he’s smoked an entire pack of Camels in one go, lightheaded, throat dry. “I know this whole thing has been crazy. It’s been messed up and I haven’t been able to rest without you talking to me…” he trails off for a moment but Joyce’s sobs silence for a moment, her tears soaking through his shirt even more. “I mean, it’s been you and I for a long, long time, right? We’ve lived at the same trailer park since both of us were born… I know we’re still kids, Joyce. But…” he can’t finish.
Joyce pulls her cheeks away from his chest, looking straight up at him with smudged eyes and blotted pink lips, she looks at him with confusion. “Is everything okay?” she asks, concern etched on her face.
He clears his throat, breath being sucked out of him with every word. “Joyce, I need to tell you before it’s too late. I love you. More than just love , Joyce. I love you so much, sometimes my world spins. Or there’s like, no fucking reason for things to exist if you’re not around. We always spoke about running away, and that’s something I’ve always wanted to do because it’s something I want with you.”
Joyce keeps staring up at him, her bottom lip quivering and her tears constantly lining with tears. She speaks, only a whisper; “Jim, you know… I feel the same way, Hop. I do. I always have.”
His heart beats so hard, it’s like it’s breaking its way through his ribcage. He feels like he’s soaring but he’s anchored down by the girl in his arms, staring up at him with tears running down her chest and her lip being bitten to pieces. Something isn’t right…
“Joyce, I want to be with you,” he says, looking down at her, brushing strands of hair out of her eyes. “I love you as in, I love you and want to do forever with you. You know what I mean?”
Joyce nods silently, tears never ceasing. “I think I’m pregnant, Hop. And I can’t do this with Lonnie.”
“Right… okay…” he says, world spinning around him.
“Can you just hold me? Until everything’s okay?” she asks. He nods. Holding her tight.“I don’t know what to do…”
The earth is centred around Hawkins, he realises. Everything starts and ends here. And the girl in his arms? It’s the exact same, he decides. Everything starts and ends with her…
“Then we do this together, just like we always do. Even if that means it’s just me and you.”
“I think I want to get rid of it,” she whispers. “The baby.”
“We can do what you want, Joyce. We can do that or we can keep it, you and I…”
They sit in a peaceful silence until Joyce says; “Don’t ever not talk to me again, do you hear me?” she asks, reaching up to grab his face in both hands, cold fingertips dancing on his cheeks.
Jim nods, reaching through the window of the Oldsmobile, he grabs his Letterman that sat in the front seat. “Another day in hell, Joyce,” he grumbles. His letterman is usually reserved for him but Hawkins winter doesn’t let up. And he knows her daddy hadn’t been paid since the mill shut down so it’s more often than not that the power and the heat is off in her trailer. He drapes his Letterman over her shoulders haphazardly. “Keep it until the power’s back on.”
Joyce can’t help but smile against the scratchy material that sits around her neck and at the sleeves that are twice the length of her arms that hang down past her knees.
“I haven’t felt this warm in a long time, Hop,” she murmurs.
Hopper holds out his hand, ushering for the cigarette. He places it between his teeth. Drawls in quickly. Exhales slowly. “Yeah? Since when? Since before your daddy got your power cut off, huh? I saw the lights out again.”
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “Something like that… Can’t remember.”
He knows what she means. She hasn’t felt this warm since they last spoke.
“You know if Lonnie wins Homecoming King Asshole of the year, that means you’re like… Queen Asshole, right?”
She punches him in the chest three more times.
It would be a long time until they don’t speak again.
1960
“Do you think you could send me a pack or two of Camels while I’m in ‘Nam?” He tries to break the tension, but she obviously doesn’t think his half-arsed jokes are funny.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I won’t hold my breath then… you… thinking… with your brain? Unheard of.”
“How about when you get home safely, I’ll give you a pack then.”
He looks over his shoulder briefly to meet her eyes but they were glued to the floor. “A packet of cigarettes will be the only reason I come home then.”
She still doesn’t find it funny.
He can feel her eyes on him as he’s dressed in uniform. She’s dressed in one too, only hers is for the general store.
And Jim knows nothing about being a soldier.
She’s twisting her hands in each other. She’s picking up pieces of paper that have details for his flights and what sort of military training he’ll be getting. “You’ve never been steady with a gun,” she says out of nowhere.
“We’re hardly shooting coke cans out at my grandpa’s cabin, Joyce,” he says, rolling his eyes. “And I’m steady with my fist, ask your husband - he’ll agree with me.”
She smiles gently. “I mean, I agree - these are human lives.”
“Thanks for the heads up, I wasn’t aware.” He hates the taste that comment leaves in his mouth. But she had a point. “I’m sure the powers at be will explain it to me.”
Joyce sighs. “You’re eighteen, Hop. You’re too young. Stay here, will you?”
She’s pleading, but she’s trying to keep the pleading edge and tone out of her voice, he can tell. They’re too young for a lot of things, he knows that. Too young to feel so old. They were too young to be raising a baby together - a baby in some fucked up way he wanted and he wanted with her , no matter if it was his or not. A baby they never had because they were too young and she never went through with it. Her entering into a life with someone he’s sworn he’ll never like. They were too young to be saying goodbye to each other, entering into a war he’s not so sure he’ll come back from.
And she’s not so sure either, that’s why she’s always on the brink of tears these days. He gets it, he really does. He’s going to miss her like the air he breathes but her tears weren’t doing either of them any favours. He’s one tear away from begging her to run away with him again.
She twists the gold band that sits on her ring finger that she got at the shotgun wedding he was invited to where he drank a year’s worth of whisky in one sitting before threatening to beat the groom.
“Does Lonnie know you’re here?” he asks. He knows he shouldn't ask because he hates putting her on the spot and he doesn’t want to hear the answer.
“Do you think Lonnie can stop me from seeing my best friend before he signs over his life for the good of the country?” She laughs quietly, but it doesn’t mask the tears creeping up on her lash lines.
“Ooh,” he teases. “Keeping secrets from Lonnie, I like that.” Jim takes a breath, closing his eyes if only for a second to re-centre, he moves over to Joyce, taking her in his arms. “I’ll be back before you know it, Joyce. Think of it like I’m on vacation,” he forces a fake grin. “I’m sipping cocktails on the beach in Florida.”
She doesn’t buy it at all judging by the scowl on her face and he hates lying to her. He’d stop talking to her for the rest of their life time before lying to her but at this point, it has to be done. “What if you hold me? Just until everything’s okay… it’s the rules, remember? And I don’t think shit will ever be okay while you’re gone, so you’ll just have to stay…”
He holds down a sob that shakes his body. His own tears fall silently on to the top of her hair, sitting on her hair. He knows she’s right. Nothing will ever be okay if they’re apart. But it has to be done.
There’s nothing left for him in Hawkins when Joyce isn’t his.
He kisses her gently on the forehead, holding her face in his hands. “I love you, Joyce. That will never, ever change,” he tells her, trying to keep himself together. “It’s the rules.”
Joyce doesn’t say anything as she leaves. She kisses him a little longer than she should, a little longer than she had in a long time. Kisses both his hands and silently leaves with his old Letterman on, twisting the ring on her ring finger round and round again.
He doesn’t break the rules when it comes to Joyce Byers . He will love her until he’s dead.
1961
He knew the general store's number by heart. It was just as well because he only got one phone call while he was at camp and there was no way in all of fucking hell he was wasting it on Pop. “Hello, General Store, this is Joyce, how can I - “
“Fucking hell, woman, I don’t have a lot of time! It’s me, Joyce, it’s Hop -”
“Hopper!” she hisses, crackling through the phone. “What the - what the hell are you doing ringing me here?! Jesus Christ! You’ve scared the shit out of me, you only get one call and you’re calling me?! I swear to god if you come back alive I’m going to kill the shit out of you, do you know that?”
For the first time in ten months, his heart sings. She might be condemning him to death but he’d take that over the literal hell he lives in. The only thing that helps him wake in the morning are the memories from when they were nine, swimming at the lake. Or twelve when they stole Munson’s bike and took it on a joyride. Fourteen and their first kiss on the floor of her bedroom, sixteen when they were both shaky hands taking off each other’s clothes. Everything comes back to Joyce.
He’s smiling so hard his cheeks hurt and his jaw tightens with every quick, sharp word she throws at him through the phone. She gets to the part where she tells him she hates him before he interrupts again. “Stop whining at me and listen. I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. Tell me how you’re going. Tell me everything. How’s Benny’s Burgers going? I heard he opened up a joint? How’s Chrissy Carpenter? Still pining for me or did she finally get with Jessie Munson’s brother? How’s Lonnie, I guess I have to ask how that prick is for the sake of conversation. Let him know I know how to use a gun real good now…”
He can see her smile even through the phone. Hear it through the way it crackles as she laughs. She fills him in on the happenings of Hawkins and he tells her all about everything that he’s learned. He can tell she worries for him by the way her voice seems a little distant and he tries to pick her up by telling her about all the non-existent, made up meals he promises her he’s having. “I wish you could hold me until I knew everything was okay, Hop,” she says quietly. He knows she misses him, he misses her too. But he wonders if something had happened for her to feel that way.
“Is everything okay, Joyce?”
She pauses. He hates it. Something is up. “It’s just Lonnie, he’s a drinker, you know? Like your old man. Hell,” she laughs sardonically. “Like my old man. Shit’s getting tough, you know? Always fighting, always arguing. Same shit, different day here in Hawkins…”
He grips the phone tight but before he can say anything, his Sergeant is looking at him, banging on the wall. “Hurry up, Hopper!”
“I gotta go, tell that prick to lay off the drink, you hear me?” he says with a sigh. “I love you, Joyce. I’ll see you when I’m looking at you.”
“I love -”
She doesn’t get to finish, the Sergeant cuts off the receiver.
It’ll be another eight months until he gets to listen to her finish the words and it’s only through the phone.
1968
He built up the courage after being home two months to ask her; “Come with me.”
Jim knew that Joyce understood why he couldn’t stay in Hawkins. Everything seemed to buzz around him, everything was on high alert. After Vietnam, everything just didn’t seem right.
The only thing that felt right was to run and he wanted her to run with him.
Joyce just laughs, baby Jonathan sitting on her hip and her hair tied up in a messy bun. The look she gives him tells him she thinks he’s joking but he’s not.
He’s eyeing Jonathan, the new baby Joyce had sworn she never really wanted to have with Lonnie, but she had married the prick before Jim had even left for Vietnam.
“Come with me to New York, Joyce,” he pleads, this time, he’s physically on his hands and knees. “I can look after you, I’m going to the police academy, I’ll get a good job. It’ll be a sweet gig, I’m telling you,” he puts his hands together in prayer. “Look, lady. I’m begging. You always did know how to damage my pride, don’t you?”
Joyce swats his hands away and hisses; “God damn it, Hopper, get up. Jesus Christ - I can’t run away with you!” she says through her teeth. “What is this? A fucking movie… you and I both know I’m not leaving Hawkins any time soon, Lonnie’s got a good job now and -“
“Well, if it were a movie, sweetheart, we would be running away together and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And tell Lonnie I said congrats on the job! He’s upgraded from average asshole to professional asshole!” He sniggers and rolls his eyes, getting up from the floor he throws his hands in the air. Looking around the trailer that she shares with her husband and son. There’s smiling photos of the three of them, photos of Jonathan when he was just born and her and Lonnie on their wedding day.
It suffocates him too.
“Do you love him?” He asks, casting his eyes over the small trailer. “Does he make you happy? Make you laugh? Give you everything you want? Does he know that you like your coffee black and that your humour is a little fucked up at the best of times? That you don’t like crowds and you don’t like too much noise? Does he know your favourite colour? That you hate pickles in your burgers? No? Oh shit - because the only person that knows this shit is me!”
Joyce just glares at him, shooting him a look that makes his skin burn. Jonathan is being rocked in her arms and hair keeps falling in her eyes. “I can’t come with you, Jim.”
“Why?” He challenges, shooting her a look back. “Why?” He whines again.
“Because!” she groans, throwing her free hand up in the air and still holding her baby son in the other. “I have a husband, Hop. I have a son! What do you think I’m going to do? Leave Lonnie? Leave Jonathan -”
“Jonathan will come with us -”
“Fuck, Hopper! Are you mad?!”
As much as he wants to say no he’s not, he can’t. “I want you and Jonathan to come with me. I want to be able to give you the life you deserve, Joyce. Everything I promised you and more! We made a promise and unlike Lonnie, I keep them -”
“When we were kids! And we’re still kids! We’re only twenty five!”
They both stand in silence for a moment, both breathing heavily and Jonathan dozing off sleepily in his mother’s arms.
Jim wasn’t sure what he expected to happen. The only thing that pulled him through Vietnam was knowing that one day, he’d get to see Joyce again. He came home and it was almost as if he forgot that time passes in Hawkins too and Jonathan was only one month old when he got back. Jim wasn’t sure what any of that meant for him but he knows that he loves Joyce and that means everything that comes with it.
It’s just the rules.
Joyce is shaking, not much, but enough to notice. Jonathan wiggles in her arms and Jim wonders if the tears in the corners of her eyes are for the fact that this is a lost argument. “If I could turn back time, Hop, I would. But this is the reality we live in. And now we have to live it.”
He holds her. Just quickly. He’s not sure he convinced her that anything was okay. “Just… when I’m gone, let Lonnie know you hate pickles in your burger. I’d hate for you to be twenty years down the track and you’re still pretending you like that shit.”
It would be the last time he sees her in the flesh for almost eleven years.
1978
“Hello?” even her voice through the phone is enough to make him feel some peace. “If you don’t say anything I’m going to have to hang up.”
His voice is stuck in his throat and the smell of whiskey is all over his shirt. He can barely see but he knows he can’t let her hang up. “No! Please…”
It’s dead silence until something clicks and she replies; “Jim… is that you?”
Even after so long, she knows it’s him. That in itself makes the tears fall steadily, running down his cheeks and pooling at his chin. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Yeah, it’s me, Joyce. I - fuck -” he groans, clutching a bottle to his chest. “I can’t breathe… I - Joyce .”
The pain wracks through his body. The tears, the cries and the screams. They’re lodged deep in his throat, the pain echoes off every single inch of him.
“Where are you?! I’m coming. Where are you, Hop? I’m coming to you right now I just gotta get Jonathan and Will and I’ve gotta see if Lonnie will bring me the car but I’m coming, Hop you tell me where you are -”
“She’s gone, Joyce. Sara. She lost. She’s gone.”
The silence hurts more than the physical pain. Joyce has nothing to say which means he has nothing to ground him.
He’s lost. Simply lost in an ocean with no beginning, middle or end. He searches for an end, hoping it would come from Joyce. But even now, she doesn’t have any words.
“Hopper, where are you?” she asks again, her voice a little shaky itself, breaking at times. “I’m coming to you. Where’s Diane? Is she with you? When did this happen, Hop? Today?”
The questions feel like screams through the phone. Time has no meaning and everything feels like a pit. Today? he thinks. It’s been too long…
“Three months today…”
“Three months!!” This time she does scream. “Jim! You lost her three months ago and you’re telling me now?! You’re crazy. Where’s Diane?! I need to speak to her.”
“She left me…”
“Oh.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck.”
He wants her, needs her, to tell him everything is going to be okay. He needs her to hold him and tell him, it’s the rules. But everything was far from okay. Everything was living out in a hell that was burning flames and knives at his throat. With every breath he takes, it feels like it might be his last. And that felt both scary and like peace.
No amount of bottles felt like it was going to kill him at this point, no matter how many he drank, he still woke up at the other end. Reliving each and every moment of torture.
There was only one person who could get him out of the cycle that he could think of. “Joyce, I -” he’s cut off by the overwhelming urge to throw up, getting tangled in the phone cord as he reaches for the trash, he makes it just in time.
“Tell me where you are, Jim. Tell me now.”
“New York.”
It takes two days. Too many pills. Not enough booze. There’s a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Like an angel calling.
Like an angel sent by Sara, he prays.
He looks at her and she’s tiptoeing to meet his eyes. “Come on, Hopper. You’re coming home with me to Hawkins, Callahan helped me sort out your grandpa’s old cabin and he says he’ll help you get in with the station back home. You’re coming home, Hop - can you hear me?”
It’s like she’s speaking from under water. She flits around the old, dusty hotel he’s been crashing in and gathers what little gear he has.
Suddenly, everything makes sense. Her hands are on his cheeks and her eyes meet his when he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her standing in front of him. Her fingers brush his cheek bones. “Let’s go outside, my boys are waiting. It’s been a very long trip.”
It’s not until they step outside when everything hits all at once. He feels like he can’t move and his feet are cemented to the ground and all the lights are so fucking bright from the street lamps. Before he knows it. he’s wrapped up in her arms, both her boys stare at him while they sit in the car, waiting for their mom. “It’s going to be okay, Hop. I promise. It’s the rules.”
This is the first time he thinks Joyce has ever lied to him.
1994
The walls need insulating and they’re thinner than paper thin, but they’re the walls of their home.
Joyce Hopper had promised that them moving back into Grandpa’s old cabin was going to not only bring them together whilst they renovated the shit out of it, it was going to be a peaceful, serene life.
Well, Jim decides, I guess I’ll rest when I’m dead…
It wasn’t that he hated having all the kids at home. No, that wasn’t it. It was the fact that none of the little shits knew how to clean a fucking coffee cup nor did any of them know how to use a dish cloth on a table and where the fuck all his blankets and pillows went, he had no idea but what he did know was that he better shut his mouth from any complaints because his wife was enjoying having all the kids around again for Lucas and Max’s wedding.
El is already sitting on Jim’s chair, remote in hand and Eggos sitting on a plate that’s balancing on the armchair as her mom adds more to it. “Mom, can I have syrup?” she asks.
Jim just shakes his head, taking a seat at the kitchen table, shooting a glare at his daughter. “Did you just forget how to do things while you’ve been living with the Wheelers?” he asks, stealing a Eggo from the plate as Joyce walks past. “Or is this just something you do while you’re over here?”
Jim stands up, walking into the kitchen, he places both his hands on Joyce’s hips and gives her a kiss on the temple while fishing for a somewhat clean coffee cup from the sink. Looking to his right, he looks for the coffee pot that seems to be missing.
“Give that coffee to me, Will, I swear…”
“Hop - dad, can we just -” Will starts but before he can finish the sentence Jim booms at him.
“No fucking can-do, kiddo! Mornings are for coffee and contemplation!” he says, snatching the coffee pot from his hands. “And this is my coffee while I contemplate!”
“I just want one cup!”
“Then who’s the other cup for?”
Jonathan raises his hand like a zombie from the grave while he’s half passed out on the other sofa. “Me. Coffee me, please?” he grumbles.
Joyce just laughs, shaking her head. “You go outside and have a smoke, I’ll bring the coffee out.”
Jim saunters outside, coffeeless and running out of patience. He takes a seat on the veranda of the old cabin and closes his eyes. Though he may have no coffee and even though his patience might be wearing thin, he enjoys the buzz happening inside. Jonathan can barely keep still for more than a day most times and El doesn’t always have time for her mom and old man. Will might visit more often than his brother and sister but Jim just likes to know he’s safe.
He can hear Jonathan and El fighting over the last waffle and Will is sipping obnoxiously on a coffee that rightfully should have been his. The door slams against the wall as Joyce walks out with two cups of coffee, a cigarette already hanging from her lips.
“And you were the one that insisted all three of them come and stay with us before Lucas and Max’s wedding,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “I think you should probably use your brain before you make a bold decision like that,” she laughs.
“Hey, shoot me for wanting all my kids under one roof for the first time in forever here in Hawkins,” he shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee. “Good coffee,” he says, holding it up to his wife. “I’ll need about twenty of these just to get through this weekend.”
Joyce smiles into her cup, placing it against her lips with her cigarette burning at her fingertips. “You always told me everything was going to be okay, Hop,” she says looking out towards the trees.
“Of course I did,” he replies. “It was a promise. It’s the rules.”