Chapter Text
Joyce Byers had learned to keep her guard up over the years. With men, with life. With inter-dimensional worlds and the creatures that inhabited them.
But right now, it was the first of those things that was on her mind - men. Well, one man in particular, who was currently sound asleep next to her in the motel bed which they’d definitely…made good use of in the last few hours.
Good to know we’re still good at that, Joyce thought as she lay staring up at the ceiling, sleep as far away as ever.
But she still had plenty of doubts about so many things - how had Hawkins changed since she’d left to find Hopper? Were the kids okay? What would happen with the Upside Down and those…things?
But her most pressing questions for the time being concerned the man lying peacefully beside her. Joyce was in equal parts elated that he was out of that place in one piece, and terrified at what awaited them in the coming weeks.
Her mind began to unravel - previously suppressed and somewhat calm thoughts festered in her brain - How had Hop changed since they’d last been together in Hawkins? Would he ever tell her the full truth of all he’d been through? Did she even want to know?
And how the hell would he would learn to cope with everything that had happened the last few months, not to mention to deal with what was coming? Gazing at him, on his front with his face towards her, she noted the small line between his brows, but looking content enough. How long would that last?
Above all: was he still her Jim?
“Can hear ya thinkin’,” a muffled voice rose from the pillows.
His voice in the silent room made her jump. “Huh?”
Hop shifted onto his side and took her hand, absentmindedly rubbing it with his thumb. “You fidget when you’re worrying,” he smirked in the dim light.
“Sorry.” Joyce knew that was a bad habit of hers. The thought of Jim noticing things like that about her over the years made her stomach flip.
“Come here,” he said gently, pulling her toward him before encircling her in his arms and burying his face in her hair. “You okay?”
She shrugged.
“Tell me what’s up.” He wasn’t forceful, but she felt defenceless against his voice. No change there.
“I don’t even know where to start.” Joyce wrapped her arms tighter around him and he responded in kind, pressing a kiss to her head.
“S’okay, Joy. Everything’s okay.”
Still nuzzled in the crook of his neck, Joyce let some of her worries out - about him, about Hawkins and the kids, and about the fact that, perhaps despite appearances, she was scared out of her mind. Her words weren’t particularly coherent or eloquent, but Hop listened silently while he rubbed her back. She was crying. And he knew she just needed his arms around her.
After she’d stopped for breath, Hop held her for a few minutes until she calmed. He gently pulled back to look at her face, that beautiful face that still gave him butterflies after all these years, and quickly closed the distance again to kiss the tears from her cheeks and place his forehead against hers. Joyce’s dark eyes gazed back at him, waiting. Had she ruined this already? Obviously they had to talk about everything at some point, but they’d barely been reunited a day, and she was already dropping all her worries at his door, expecting him to pick them up on top of everything else he was carrying.
Guilt overwhelmed her and she rolled on to her back, instantly ashamed. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Wh-what? What do you-?”
“I’m sorry, I-just forget I said anything, Jim, okay? I’m laying here blurting all this out as though you haven’t already thought about any of it. Plus you’ve been dealing with whatever the hell went on in that prison for months, and here I am just-”
“Joyce, Joyce, stop. Stop, okay?”
She took a shaky breath.
“Joy…I’m scared too, okay? I am fucking scared shitless. You don’t have to apologise for being scared - or for telling me about it. It’s not gonna make me more scared than I already am. Listen,” he turned her back toward him, “We’re…shit, at the risk of sounding like one of those dorky cartoons the kids watch, we’re a team, right? I mean, we always were, but now we’re…more. Yeah?”
She nodded.
“If we’re gonna do this - if we’re gonna be together - I don’t want you ever thinking I don’t wanna know what you’re thinking. Okay?”
Joyce let a small smile show, worried her lip. She felt embarrassed, exposed, but she couldn’t avoid the pull of his eyes. He’d always had such a hold over her, she was used to it, but it was so strange not having to hide it anymore. She didn’t quite know how to reconcile it yet. “You mean that? Even if it’s…crazy, or-“
“Hey, I think after everything you’ve been right about over the last few years, nothing you think could be crazy.”
Joyce smirked and rolled her eyes. “I mean, you took a bit of convincing to believe that Will was talking to me through my Christmas lights…”
Hop returned her smile, “But after that I never doubted you, right?”
By this point Joyce was giggling and feeling lighter, at least for the time being. She sighed, stroking his cheek, “I’m sorry-“
“‘Kay, first of all - no more sorries.”
“Okay. It’s just, you know, Lonnie sometimes thought I was a little…He wouldn’t listen to me, he’d just make fun of me or walk out. I guess maybe I just expect…I dunno.”
“I’m not Lonnie.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t want to be. I want to be someone who can make you forget every shitty thing he made you think about yourself, because it’s all wrong, you hear me?”
She nodded, sober again.
He went on, “And, you know, I know it’s only been like, what?-” he mimed checking a watch on his wrist, eliciting an amused hum from Joyce “-twenty…six hours since this started, but you know how I feel about you, right? You-you know I…”
He stopped himself from finishing that sentence, but Joyce understood.
“I know, Jim. I do.”
He returned her soft smile. “I don’t know what we’re going home to any more than you do, but there’s gonna be a lot we don’t know how to fix, or that scares us or makes us wanna give up on the whole thing. But one thing I know? I don’t want you to feel anything like that when it comes to me - to us. I’m here, Joyce. And unless you get sick of my grouchy ass, I intend to be here for you for a very long time.”
She nodded and pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him again.
He breathed in the scent of her hair, held her tightly to him like he never wanted to let go. “Now, how ‘bout we get some sleep?”
“Mmm,” she hummed, already dozing in his arms. Content and safe, at least for now.