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Hopper never liked Lonnie.
He doesn’t think it’s that hard to explain. One day, Jim and Joyce are best friends who hang out every lunch and smoke under the middle school bleachers, and the next, there’s a twenty-year-old eyeing her like she’s meat instead of a barely-teenager.
Hopper didn’t like Lonnie the first time he checked Joyce out, an adult looking at a kid. Hopper didn’t like Lonnie when Joyce came to school excitedly telling Hopper about how they were dating now. Hopper didn’t like Lonnie when she got married and dropped out of high school and had a baby before she could vote, Hopper didn’t like when she got monthly domestic violence calls on her house, Hopper didn’t like when Joyce’s parents came to the police trying to get their daughter out of there-
Hopper has never liked Lonnie. He’s downright hated him, in fact, ever since he was thirteen years old.
He’s thirty-seven now, and things are settling. The mess with the Upside Down and the government is settled after a fourteen-month, four-way war. They’ve been given hush money and compensation as a desperate bid to coax them into keeping their traps shut. Wounds still ache, graves stay undisturbed, Hawkins is gone, but there’s a way forward.
There’s a problem with Hopper’s little - well, ‘little,’ there are three teenagers - family, though: he’s too… masculine, he guesses, for them.
He’s… trying. Impossibly hard. He thought he knew how to get a good rhythm with both of Joyce’s boys, thought that they had a level, good relationship - for God’s sake, he was driving Jonathan to college because his car broke down and was taking Will to therapy and to-and-from high school - but then he moved in, and everything changed.
Hopper’s not violent, and he’s gotten better about his temper and being quiet (a Russian prison camp will do that to you). He’s not going to lay a hand on Joyce, not going to raise his voice at Will or Jonathan or El if he can help it, not going to hurt his wife or his kids - he can’t even think of why he would.
But where, when Hopper would high-five Will when he was thirteen and they’d gotten through math homework, now that Hop is his stepdad, Will flinches when Hopper raises his hand for the same dumb thing. Where Jonathan trusted Hopper - well, as much as Jonathan can trust an adult man - before, he’s now avoidant to a fault, Hopper not seeing him at all unless Joyce or Will or El is home, in which case he reappears just to quietly monitor.
Hopper fucking hates it.
El’s not like that. She can’t see whatever Joyce and the boys apparently see. She still sprawls across the couch with her feet in his lap and argues about curfew and whether or not they want to rewatch Miami Vice this week. She trusts him, in that bone-deep way of ‘this is my dad and he’s safe.’
Will and Jonathan don’t. And he hates that.
He’s tried so hard to be better around them. He’s quit drinking regularly. He smokes on the porch. He’s been so careful.
But- Jesus, do you know how hard it is to make yourself small and non-threatening to two teenage boys? Do you know how hard it is to not seem like you’re capable of hurting them when you’re a cop and they’re kids with no social power, when you’re 6’3 and physically strong and they’re both 5’7-5’8 and not strong enough to win a fight against you, when you’re all disabled but Jonathan’s got a spinal injury that makes him unable to run easily and Will needs hearing aids and forearm crutches and leg braces while you only need a boot on bad days and could overpower them easily?
Hopper knows that it’s not personal. He’s read the reports, seen both of their scars and medical records - Lonnie hurt Will so badly that he had to have two thoracostomies before he turned ten, that he’s been admitted to the hospital nearly ninety times, that there were six CPS investigations because Lonnie pushed him down the stairs or smashed his head into something or tried to choke him to death and the bruises and breaks were still there when he went to school.
(Will wears long sleeves constantly, and Hopper hopes that it’s from the cigarette burn scars he knows are there and not any self-harm, but he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s trying to figure out how to address without scaring Will. How do you go to your abused, traumatized, frightened stepson as someone with power over him and ask him to show you his arms and legs and hips without scaring the living hell out of him? Even then, how do you ask that and learn without him being afraid you’ll hurt him for it, even though Hopper himself has scars on the inside of his wrists?)
Jonathan had a partial tear in his spinal cord and has belt scars on his back and legs and his left leg bends slightly wrong because of how his femur was broken when he was six. Hell, Joyce alone is covered in scars, has a crooked nose because it’s been broken so many times, flinches when people move too fast.
Hopper knows that he’s an absolute nightmare to a small, abused family unit. He’s a foot taller than Joyce and half a foot taller than the boys and they have to look up at him, he’s big, he’s male, he’s an authority figure, he’s living in their house, he’s trying to be a family member-
It still really hurts.
Hopper walks on eggshells constantly. He doesn’t mind, because he loves Joyce and Jonathan and Will and is more than willing to change his behavior and habits and such to make them comfortable - love is sacrifice sometimes, and this is an easy, simple one - but it still stings that he genuinely cares about these kids and they’re still afraid he’s going to hurt them.
Today, it hurts worse.
It’s Saturday. Jonathan’s at Nancy’s, Joyce is running errands, El is over at Max’s, Mike isn’t coming over today (Will hasn’t told them they’re dating, even though it’s obvious, and it’s so hard not to share that he does in fact know that Will and Mike are together, especially when the bedroom door shuts and Joyce barely wrangles Hopper into not enforcing the three-inch rule so Will isn’t outed), and Will is sitting across the table from Hopper, drinking coffee that he accepted from Hopper (who was careful to offer it with slow movements and a gentle voice) as he finishes his essay and Hopper reads a book.
Hopper’s being really careful this morning. Normally, Will hangs out in common spaces when other people are home, but when it’s just him and Hopper, he hides away in his room - and today, even though it’s just them for a bit, Will isn’t hiding or running. That’s a massive win, and Hopper’s being so, so careful.
But he’s also really stupid sometimes, and he doesn’t even think about it when he stands up fast and reaches across the table too quickly to grab Will’s mug and refill it, and he doesn’t warn or move slow, and Will yelps and throws himself backwards so violently that the chair crashes back.
Hopper freezes, and then he kicks into overdrive, because he just fell and what if he hit his head and Hopper needs to help and check and make sure he’s okay, but he has to rein it back, because Will’s fully having a fucking PTSD episode, curled into a surprisingly small ball on his side with his arms tight over his head and these fast, high-pitched, whining, hyperventilating breaths that break Hopper’s heart.
He doesn’t immediately go over and try to help Will. He doesn’t know if that would make things worse.
Hopper backs up, and he tries to comfort Will from ten feet away as he crouches by the phone.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s just me. It’s just Hopper. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.”
He hesitates, then reaches up for the phone before remembering that Joyce is out doing errands instead of at work. He’s not sure where to call to get her to come home, and-
Okay. It has to be just him handling it.
“It’s okay.” Hopper says quietly, careful to huddle small himself in case Will opens his eyes. “It’s okay. It’s Hopper. I’m over by the phone. I’m not going to touch you. I’m just going to sit right over here.”
Will doesn’t react for a long time, just sitting there hyperventilating and rocking as much as he can while laying on the floor and staying in that little ball. Hopper wants to help, to rub his back, to try to help him out of that awful feeling that Hopper knows too well, but he can’t, so instead he just breathes loudly and deeply, hoping that Will matches it.
When Will finally starts breathing again, he just goes really still for a moment, still in the ball, before quickly getting to his feet, straightening his clothes and mumbling an apology before hightailing it out despite Hopper starting after him and saying ‘Will, wait, please-’
Hopper ends up just staring at his closed bedroom door down the hallway for a while before he just sits on the couch, turns on the TV, and tries to take deep breaths of his own.
He doesn’t know how the hell to walk on eggshells, because he keeps crushing them loud enough to scare these kids even though he’s trying so hard to not be scary.
He stares blankly at the TV where it’s playing M*A*S*H for a long time.
-
After what feels like forever, the lock on Will’s room’s door clicks off again, and there’s the quiet, padding footsteps and clicking of his crutches as he comes out.
Hopper’s not sure what to do. Should he look at Will? Should he not? Should he just sit here, should he say ‘hey,’ should he ask how Will’s feeling-
He settles for a glance up at Will, a small smile, and a ‘hey, kid’ before looking back at the TV.
Will, after a second, sits down on the couch. Hopper tries to hide his surprise - Will only sits in the chairs unless Wheeler is over, and then Will sits on the couch with Mike acting as a barrier between him and the rest of the couch.
“Hi.” Will says quietly, and Hopper realizes something new is wrong when Will scrunches his face in something like pain and looks away from the TV. “Can you- change it, please? No- no M*A*S*H. Please.””
Hopper quickly obliges, switching it to some cartoon because it’s Saturday around noon and that means that it’s mostly cartoons. Will relaxes a little bit, face unscrunching and his shoulders going down a bit.
Hopper pretends to watch the cartoon. His focus is completely on the kid as he looks down at his lap.
“I’m sorry.” he mumbles.
“It’s okay.” Hopper starts, but then Will takes a deep breath and starts talking again and Hopper doesn’t interrupt.
“I- I know that you’re… different.” Will says quietly. “That you’re- you’re not going to hit me or push me down the stairs or scream at me or… or…”
His throat works, eyes squeezing shut in pain again, and Hopper worries about what else Lonnie did, but he can’t ask. He doesn’t have the space to without causing more damage.
“...I know that you’re a good guy, Hop.” Will manages, eyes still shut tight. “And I’m really trying. Jon and I are both really trying. It’s just…”
Hopper waits, but Will doesn’t finish the sentence.
“I panic every time I hear a car backfiring.” Hopper says gently. “Or when I see a little kid without hair, or when there’s something in the road while I’m driving, or when I hear someone speak Russian. And all of it’s irrational, but every time I hear a car backfire, I still have to get down and take cover. Even though it’s been years since Vietnam, even though I’m not in Russia anymore, it’s still terrifying.”
Will’s watching him with big, tired hazel eyes, and Hopper meets them and smiles a little bit. “It’s just how it works. Your brain puts two things or people in a box together, and it’s hard to separate it.”
“Yeah.” Will says, looking back down at his hands where they’re twisting in his lap. “Yeah, it is.”
It’s quiet for a minute, Hopper just watching the kid, before Will says, “I’m… I need you to know I’m trying. I really am. It’s just… hard.”
Hopper wants to hug the kid. Thank him for even trying. He doesn’t want to scare him.
“I know.” Hopper says instead. “Take your time. I’m still gonna be here, even if it takes twenty years.”
And yeah, maybe he has to walk on eggshells, and maybe they break and scare his family, but Will hugs him before hiding in his room again, and Hopper thinks that maybe things will get better.