Work Text:
Let me say thank you
***
El finds her idling in the late evening.
Cigarette smoke cloaks her as she stands alone on the rickety porch with a half-finished Camel clinched between two fingers. There is a full glass of water balanced beside her on the railing.
“Can you tell me what happened to him? Over there?”
Joyce faces their daughter and considers telling her the truth.
They tortured him because he refused to give me up.
“He was hurt, honey. But he’s back with us now. That’s what matters, okay?”
El considers her with soulful eyes; disappointment colors her features but she nods and says nothing else. The girl moves past her, pausing at the top of the steps to stare out at the wilderness. Joyce remembers, with an unexpected pang of shyness, that this is El’s home with Hopper. This is her turf.
She leans forward against the railing and swallows her shame, bringing the cigarette to her lips.
***
The knowledge stays with her, and only her, for nine nights.
She peddles a weak sense of calm to the kids, to Hopper, and curbs the hysteria building in her chest. It returns, over and over and over again, but she doesn’t allow it to show–this pain must remain private. Joyce is determined to appear steady, reliable; like someone he can lean on, like someone who doesn’t need protecting.
On the eighth night, she lays still in the bed and listens to the terrors he moans into his lumpy pillow. Coaxing him awake never works, but she still tries. With time, he calms down alone.
Silence blankets the room.
In the shadowy hours before dawn, she feels her strength–her restraint–begin to slip.
***
A dreary light creeps through the grimy window in the bedroom. Joyce slides her hand up and down the cool sheets and wonders how long ago he left her.
(Hop, Hop–Jim–wake up, it’s just a dream.)
It takes a while but she staggers out of the bed, slips into the first set of clothes she finds–creased and dirty on the old washing machine in the corner–then freshens up in the bathroom. She avoids looking at herself in the mirror and steps into the living room. Hopper’s not there, which means he’s outside, probably smoking. The kids are still asleep.
For a second she considers joining him but quickly decides not to. Instead, she returns to the bedroom with a glass of water and sits on the edge of the sagging mattress. Breathing exercises don’t work nearly as well as the Tuinal prescribed to her years ago, but that’s all she has right now.
She wouldn’t take those pills with Hopper around anyway. She isn’t sadistic.
***
The morning drags on.
Hopper’s hand hesitantly curls around her waist as they stand by the sink with mugs of instant coffee. She bites back the heavy words in her mouth and falls into his side, watching the kids eat stale cereal and murmur half-hearted plans into their bowls. It’s a distinctly aimless day, and life suddenly feels intolerable as she slouches sideways in the sparse kitchen.
Panic flares in her chest, but she breathes through it and finishes her drink with unsteady hands. Hopper’s whispered concern flutters over the shell of her ear, but she shakes her head and tells him she’s fine.
***
Increasingly desperate to be alone with her thoughts before her self-control snaps and ruins everything, Joyce finds an excuse to leave the cabin an hour later.
“We need food–what do you guys feel like eating today?”
No one commits to a particular meal, which suits her fine. There aren’t many options anyway.
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Jonathan looks suspicious; it’s still early and Hopper is out of the way in the shower. She’d timed it perfectly, but her eldest never fails to suss her out. Remorse blunts the simmering panic for a moment then it returns, worse than before.
“I’ll be back later–tell Hop for me?”
Jonathan nods but she feels his eyes on her back as she grabs the car keys and flies out the door, slamming it behind her. There is a fresh pack of Camels in the glove compartment which calls her name, and she fumbles it open as soon as she’s in the driver’s seat. With a cigarette burning between her trembling lips, she tears out of the clearing and heads for the main road.
***
The town is chaotic. A few shops remain open and operating as normal, including Melvalds, but she avoids that place like the plague, opting instead for the relief station at the high school. Shrinking into the crowd, she hauls an assortment of canned soup, ripe fruit, wrapped sandwiches, and fizzy drinks back to the car and leaves.
Mindlessly, she drives and she smokes.
The car stinks of cigarettes and her own sickly sweat. Hopper’s checkered shirt is wrapped around her bony shoulders; it’s comforting until she spots an ugly blood stain on one sleeve and starts agonizing over his disfigured arm. Then she starts agonizing over his disfigured body.
She sucks hard on the cigarette in her mouth until the ash drops onto her grubby jeans and all that remains is the slightly moist filter. With jerky motions, she cracks the window open and throws the butt away. Keen to have another smoke, she reaches for the open packet jammed between her knees; the leather steering wheel slips in her grip and the car swerves violently on the empty road.
“Fuck!”
Breathing heavily, she skids to a stop in a shallow ditch beside a large oak tree. She kills the engine and sits still, staring into space with the packet of cigarettes squashed in her grip. A few beats later, a cry bursts ferociously out of her chest.
Alone and in the middle of nowhere, she closes her eyes and sobs.
***
A little while later, she finds herself in front of her old home. It looks abandoned. The yard is empty, the porch is empty, and she can’t see any curtains on the dusty windows. Curiosity tugs her forward, so she steps out of the car and tries the hauntingly familiar door–it’s locked.
Maybe the new owners fled last week. Maybe they never lived in her small, shabby house on the outskirts of town. Maybe Sam Owens himself purchased the home simply to get them away from Hawkins. She has no idea. The last eight months seem like a ludicrous dream.
She feels like she’s stepping into a pair of shoes two sizes too small, so she leaves.
***
Jonathan is sitting on the porch with Hopper when she returns home. They stand up to greet her as she ambles up the creaky steps, carrying three bags of Army-issue food. Her son opens his mouth to say something but she cuts across him, snapping on a mask of happiness with disturbing ease.
“Hey. I hope you’re all ready for soup and sandwiches!”
Jonathan looks skeptical and Hopper’s face is pinched, tired. She doesn’t wait for a response and barrels through the front door, finding Will and El talking in the living room.
“Lunch?”
Will jumps up and starts searching for plates while she empties the bags on the wobbly table.
“Tomato or chicken noodle?” She asks him, holding up their soup options.
“Tomato.”
“Good choice,” she smiles, handing him the can and watching him ignite the old stove.
“I think Jonathan likes chicken noodle more, though.”
“Why don’t you make them both? I think we could all eat.”
He does, and they do. Everyone sits on various surfaces in the paltry living room, munching away, until Hopper stands up with his plate and walks to the kitchen. She watches him leave his unfinished food on the counter and start washing up the dishes they’d neglected last night. El’s sharp eyes follow his movements, and Joyce watches her face fall as Hopper excuses himself and goes outside.
She feels the tightness in her chest increase. Dimitri’s clipped voice in the middle of the run-down Alaskan airport echoes in her head with aching clarity.
(He never did give you up.)
They’d hurt him more than she could have ever imagined, and months later she’s finally witnessing the results. Murray doesn’t know how right he was.
(We’re talking torture, Joyce.)
Her skin prickles with guilt.
***
El wants to visit Max in the afternoon, and the boys offer to take her to the hospital. After fretting over her safety and pleading with her to be discreet, she’s left alone in the cabin with Hopper, who is far less vocal with his concerns. He sighs heavily as soon as the car disappears behind a cluster of trees, and turns to look at Joyce with noticeable tension in his face.
So they do what they usually do.
They smoke and talk.
The fun starts in the living room until Hopper moves them outside, claiming a desire for fresh air. It’s a mild day, so they circle the cabin in a wide, leisurely loop while they empty her battered packet of Camels.
“These are so weak, you know.” He teases, and she can’t help but chuckle. His fingers are tangled up in hers, and she swipes the cigarette right out of his mouth with her free hand.
“I’ll stop sharing them if you think so.” He barks out a laugh and shakes his head.
“Please don’t.”
“Stop complaining then.” She takes a drag, allowing the familiar action to steady her. The mulch beneath their shoes is pleasantly bouncy, and she takes a moment to inhale the alluring petrichor.
“I used to walk around here with El sometimes.” He says, toeing a small branch out of the way with one tan boot. He’s limping a little, but she doesn’t mention it.
“Does she like the outdoors?” Her relationship with El is riddled with tiny holes; things El doesn’t want her to know, and things time has not yet revealed. The mysteries can be deeply unsettling; she doesn’t know how Hopper managed alone at the beginning with nothing but a stack of laboratory files for guidance.
Hopper doesn’t answer the question; they lumber along the uneven terrain until she clumsily trips over a tree root and almost falls face-first into a rocky patch of grass.
“Woah, careful there.”
He pulls her back against his chest just in time, and she straightens up, surprised and embarrassed.
“Sorry.”
He raises his eyebrows at her apologetic response but she shakes her head and sighs, feeling her mood plummet uncontrollably. She drops his hand and ignores the quizzical expression spreading over his face. They start to walk again, in silence, and a couple of minutes later the cabin comes into view. They enter the familiar clearing and Hopper ascends the steps, leading the way.
The dim light inside is miserable after the verdant brightness outside; she stands at the threshold, feeling low and disturbed and frozen in her tracks. The dark atmosphere shatters the shallow peace she’d tricked herself into as they’d walked side by side in the quiet woods. Now that activity feels frivolous and the panic is rushing back into her system.
Hopper moves past her, collapsing on his usual chair at the table. She’d wrapped the uneaten half of his sandwich from earlier today, and she watches him reach for it and bite off a chunk. Taking the seat opposite him, she holds her tongue and refrains from commenting–good or bad, bringing attention to his eating habits bothers him. Instead, she pulls out the penultimate cigarette from the packet in her pocket and starts smoking. Again.
“Want some?” Hopper asks, offering her a bite with a tentative look on his face. She shakes her head and smiles weakly. Such generosity isn’t unusual for him, but his words only make her think harder about his scarred, malnourished body. He finishes the food off and sips on a glass of water as she ashes her cigarette on the side of his empty plate.
“Sara . . . Sara liked the outdoors. Curious about everything, wanted to know how it all worked. With El, I don’t really know. I think those walks were more about tasting freedom than they were about enjoying nature. I guess that could be different now.”
Joyce pictures young Jim Hopper taking young Sara Hopper on a walk. With patience and love in his unlined and unburdened face, he talks to her about the wildlife around them, and answers all her childish questions with care and consideration.
Then Joyce remembers Jonathan’s tears after Lonnie forced him to kill a rabbit on his tenth birthday.
She reaches out to hold Hopper’s hand and tries not to succumb to the self-hatred hitting her from every conceivable angle.
***
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
Jonathan finds her smoking her final cigarette outside in the evening calm.
“Nothing, honey. Nothing.” She knows her voice is unconvincing, and her son isn’t stupid. He’s seen her at her lowest and more importantly, he understands what panic does to her.
“Is it Hopper?”
She stays silent but kills the cigarette on the rotting, wooden railing, flattening it with unnecessary force. The kids know that Hopper isn’t sleeping well, but she hasn’t spoken to them about it. She doesn’t need to; she knows they can hear everything.
“I think . . . you should talk to him.”
She shuts her eyes and breathes in and out, thinking about a particular cluster of scars on Hopper’s chest, right above his heart. The leaves rustle in the wind, and Jonathan slides an arm around her shoulders as they stand on the porch together.
***
Dusk falls. They bundle into the living room and hunker down for the night.
Hopper surveys a pile of newspapers on the table across from Jonathan, who thumbs through a dog-eared copy of Cujo. She watches them from her spot on the couch while Will leans against it and sketches on the floor. El is in her room and has been ever since the kids returned from visiting Max.
The door is open three inches, as usual.
Joyce doesn’t know what to do with herself; she sinks against the deflated cushions for a while longer, peeking over Will’s shoulder and watching the lines take form on paper, then she heaves herself off the sunken couch and steps into Hopper’s bedroom. She finds fresh clothes and moves back out into the living room and then into the bathroom, sliding the heavy door closed behind her.
The patinated taps are noisy as she turns them, but eventually, water gurgles out of the old shower head. Her dirty clothes are thrown into the corner, and she steps over the rim and right into the tub, reveling in the immediate beat of the water over her naked body.
Mold covers one corner of the shower curtain, and the room smells like mildew. There is a hole in the wall that has been poorly covered with planks of wood, but the steam emitting from the hot water above her head cancels out the chilly breeze drifting in through the cracks. Tipping her head back, she allows the heavy stream to pummel her face.
The Lifebuoy soap they’d found stashed under the sink dries her skin out but she scrubs it over her body anyway. She remembers cleansing Hopper’s wounds with a similarly harsh bar in their Alaskan motel room.
***
It’s their bed, not his, but she can’t accept that. Not yet.
This is still his bedroom; his cabin; his return home. She finds it hard to place herself in this surreal situation they’ve landed in. Home is the sprawling three-floor new-build in Lenora. Or the scruffy house on the edge of town. Her bedroom in Hawkins was shared with Lonnie, with Bob, but not with Hopper.
Yet, they each have a side; he sleeps to her right, usually with a hand on her waist and the other fisted under his pillow. When they slide into the middle, seeking contact, she enjoys tangling her legs around and between his larger ones, seeking warmth, seeking his unique touch. They’ve built a fragile routine in this liminal space, and it isn’t perfect, but it’s familiar.
The doorway is constantly in his sight. On the third or fourth night, one of the planks covering the broken kitchen window fell, and he vaulted over her and out of the bed with astounding speed. Even after they deduced the cause of the loud noise, he stayed up the rest of the night, agitated, with his eyes on the doorway and one hand tight on her waist. Joyce curled into his hard chest but remained awake with him, wired and uncomfortable and desperately wishing for dawn to break.
She burrows into his side of the bed now, wondering if she should challenge this habit tonight. The pillowcase is soft and worn with age, the stuffing uneven beneath her cheek. She digs the tip of her nose into it and inhales, but she can’t find a distinct scent to cling to. They’re sharing shampoo and fairly odorless soap and neither of them has cologne or perfume to wear.
The bed smells of them.
It should be a happy thought.
The low timbre of his murmured voice drifts through the curtained doorway, as do El’s soft responses. A short, quiet talk is part of their evening routine, and she will never intrude on it, but she suddenly misses him so much she thinks she might cry.
***
“What did they do to you?” He asks her, stepping forward in his yellow shirt and blue jeans.
She peers down at her bare torso and spots the marks crisscrossing over her body. There is a familiar cluster of scars, right above her heart.
“Joyce . . . what did they do to you?”
A wet wound on her forearm burns and oozes blood. Three claw marks, deep and angry, disturb her usually smooth skin.
“No . . .”
“Joyce?”
“No . . .”
“Joyce, talk to me.”
He steps closer and the light flickers around them.
“No . . . it’s not that bad,” she replies, closing her eyes. She jerks, feeling a swooping sensation in her belly.
“What’s not that bad?”
Joyce opens her eyes to more darkness. The bed is solid beneath her sweaty back, and Hopper’s warm body is touching her right side. One of his cool palms is on her heated cheek.
“Hop?”
“I’m here.”
She winds herself around him and ignores his question. Eventually, he falls asleep with his head burrowed into the crook of her neck. His fingers twitch around her waist as she smoothes her hand down his bicep and carefully avoids the wound on his forearm.
***
Sleep never finds her but the panic returns, and this time she can’t control it.
Finally giving up, she rolls away from him before dawn breaks and fumbles around the room looking for clothing to wear. He shifts off the bed as she’s trembling over the washing machine, and stills her graceless movements with one light hand on her shoulder. Falling into his gentle touch, he leads her back to the edge of the bed and pulls his own thick socks over her cold feet. One of his sweaters is pushed down over her messy hair, and she hurriedly slips out through the curtain and into the living room as soon as he gives her space.
The boys are asleep, thankfully, but she cringes at the screech of the locks as she awkwardly slides them open on the front door and steps outside, gulping the fresh air down. Stumbling forward, she collapses onto the first step, letting her head fall between her knees.
“Joyce?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and stays quiet. One large hand firmly lands on her shoulder.
“Just breathe, slowly. You’re okay.”
The quiet rumble of his words soothes her. The wood is rough beneath her legs and she inhales its earthiness as she lifts her head back up. Hopper settles down on the step too, and finds her hand with his own. For a few minutes, they sit in silence and listen to the rustle of the trees around them.
“I–I didn’t want the kids to hear.”
Gently, he nods and offers her a tiny smile.
“It’s okay, they’re all asleep. I checked.”
“Good,” she answers, letting out a shaky sigh and dropping her shoulders. Their hands are clasped together over his knees, and she watches Hopper trace her index finger with his thumb. Desperation creeps over her.
“I–I don’t know how to say this.”
“Joyce, it's okay. You can talk to me.”
“I–I know.”
His question is gently posed. “What's going on?”
“I . . . I know what happened in Russia.”
Confusion colors his face. “What?”
“I know what they did to you, and why they did it. I’m . . . so sorry, Jim. I don’t know what to say, I . . . feel so guilty.” She chokes on the last word, trying not to cry.
Hopper’s face is pale in the waxing light, and his hand stills over her own. “I don’t understand,” he replies.
“Dimitri, he told me. In Alaska. He told me you wouldn’t give me up.”
“Dimitri told you . . .”
Hopper squints at her in the low light, looking pained.
“Jim . . .”
He turns away from her but she tightens her grip on his fingers, pulling him back.
“Jim, please, look at me.”
He does.
“I didn’t want you to know,” he whispers with burning eyes. “But I would do it again in a heartbeat, okay? I don’t care. I don’t want you to feel bad about this, it isn’t your fault. You aren’t the only reason they . . . beat me.”
“But–”
“No.”
The panic flares like wildfire. “I have to live with this–this knowledge that all your injuries are to do with me! That all I had to do was wait, just a little longer, or look just a little harder, and I could have saved you all of this–this agony. And El–God, El lost you for months, and I’ve lied to her face about it, Hop. You being noble doesn’t help!”
“I’m not being noble, Joyce, I’m telling you the truth! It wasn’t your fault, and... I don’t care what happens to me if it keeps you and the kids safe.”
“We need you! We care what happens to you!”
“And I’m here,” he says, lowering his voice and gripping her hand harder. “I’m here, I’m okay, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re not okay.”
He sighs, turning around and drawing her into his chest. “I’ll be fine. Just give me some time.”
Joyce pushes her face into his warm shirt and holds him to her as tight as she can. She grasps his sides, curling her fingers into his torso. The tears are coming now, and a sob bursts out of her throat. Hopper brings her even closer, and she shakes her head against his strong chest.
“Hop, please . . .”
“We don’t have to talk about this, Joyce.”
She understands what he’s really trying to tell her, and swallows down her indignation, her pleas, her questions. When she utters her final words on the topic, the tears on her face are dry and itchy.
“Please just . . . let me say thank you.”
He freezes, then gently palms the back of her head and kisses her forehead; she feels the heat of his lips on her skin and lets out a quivery sigh, finding his calloused palm and clutching it with her smaller hand. With reverence, she brushes his collarbone with her eyelashes and presses a kiss into his neck.
The sun slowly rises above the treeline as they sit together, and it floods the porch with a pale, sickly light.
"You don't need to thank me," he finally whispers. His breath disturbs her hair. "I love you."
Joyce's chest aches; she marvels at the sheer relief she feels hearing those words spill from his mouth. Wetting her dry lips, she responds in a watery voice.
"I love you too."
***
Fin.