I see you're taking jopper requests? 🙃 First of all I love your stories!
I'm really craving a fic about Joyce and Hopper telling the kids about their relationship. Also their kids asking them about where Hopper was all this time. I don't think we're going to get any of this next season. I really love this found family and the affects that jopper's relationship will have on the kids.
This might be one of my favourite things I’ve written, clearly I need to write more of them as a whole family unit. Thank you for the request :)
Somehow it hadn’t been brought up.
Perhaps it was the whole “the town is literally split in two” thing that didn’t leave much room for the topic to be brought up.
Or the fact that it felt so natural there wasn’t any need to bring it up.
But with things finally back to normal, with Hawkins whole again, the kids all safe, and no otherworldly creatures coming to kill them, there’s still been no mention of it.
Joyce and the boys had sort of just… moved in with Hopper and El. Will and Jonathan aren’t even sure how it happened; sure they had been staying at the cabin upon returning to Hawkins, that made sense, they had sold their home in the town after all.
But then one day Joyce and Hopper flitted off to California for a week to pack up their belongings, while the boys settled into the new house Joyce had given them the address to.
It wasn’t an unwelcome move, they had both missed Hawkins, had missed their friends and the life they had built there. That wasn’t the weird part, no, it was the fact that Hopper and El moved with them into the house.
The extra bedroom by the staircase that Will had assumed would be an office space now housed Eleven’s clothes and belongings.
The bathroom at the end of the hall held two extra toothbrushes and beard oil.
Eggo’s consistently took up space in the freezer and men’s flannels (that were too big to believably belong to any of the Byers’ clan) hung over the backs of chairs.
Their mom was smiling more, and she would often come out of the bathroom in the morning with Hopper in tow, both sporting drenched locks of hair and the identical soapy scent of artificial pear.
Hopper follows her into her bedroom at night, and in the wee hours of morning, it had become a habit to see his arm draped over her smaller form, holding her tight to him as they slept peacefully.
Eleven was the only one of the kids who seemed to think it was no big deal. After all, she had lived with both Hopper and Joyce on separate occasions, to her it only made sense that they all live together.
But to the Byers boys it only served to confuse them.
“And here we are,” Joyce coos as she sets down an oven roasted chicken on the table. “Dig in!” She insists, letting her hand drag smoothly, and nonchalantly, over Hopper’s shoulder, squeezing gently.
Will and Jonathan share a look, something that Joyce seems to notice right away. “Boys, are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Jonathan clears his throat. “Food looks great, mom.”
“Thanks, honey. El helped make the salad.” She beams at the girl who grins back proudly.
“It is… Greek?” She turns to Joyce for confirmation, who nods sweetly. “It is Greek.”
“It looks good, El.” Will tells her, scooping some onto his plate.
“That it does,” Hopper agrees. “Mind passing that over when you’re done with it?” He requests Will.
“I helped Joyce make dinner a lot in California,” El tells Hopper.
“She makes great spaghetti,” Joyce confirms. “You’ll have to try it sometime.” She tells Hopper, reaching over to place her hand on his.
“How about Friday? That sound good to you, kid?”
Eleven grins in confirmation and Hopper looks back at Joyce, his thumb stroking over her knuckles, causing her nose to scrunch up sweetly.
“Can you pass the peas?” Jonathan squeaks out suddenly, interrupting the stolen moment between the two adults.
Joyce jumps, raising an eyebrow at her eldest, and reaches for the bowl, passing it across the table. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Jonathan? You look flushed.”
“I’m fine,” He huffs, squishing the mushy green vegetables with how violently he’s scooping them onto his plate. “ Just wish everyone would stop acting like this is normal. ” He murmurs under his breath, loud enough that only Will can hear from his seat by his side.
“What was that?” Hopper wonders as he sticks a forkful of chicken into his mouth, hand having found its way back to Joyce’s.
“I said I wish everyone would stop acting like this is normal!” He repeats, louder this time, standing abruptly from his seat.
Joyce gapes at her often cool and collected son’s outburst. “What do you mean?”
“Look at you two! Holding hands at the dinner table, showering together, sharing a bed as if it’s the most normal thing in the world! I mean when did this even happen?” He gestures to the the two stunned adults wildly. When did we decide we were all going to live together? Why are we all living together?“ Now that he’s opened up he’s having a hard time stopping. “It used to be us, and then we took in El, which was fine, but now Hopper is back from the dead and no one seems to bat an eye about that. We’re suddenly back to living in Hawkins, I mean what even happened to the house in California? And-“
“Jonathan, take a breath!” Joyce raises her voice to cut him off. “You’re turning red, just… calm down.”
“No, I can’t calm down, none of this makes any sense! Why isn’t anyone talking about this?”
Joyce and Hopper’s gaze fall to Will who has seemingly shrunk in his seat. “Will?” Joyce presses.
“It is a little weird,” He croaks out. “Are you two like… dating now?”
It finally dawns on Joyce and Hopper that in all the craziness surrounding them, finally reuniting and simultaneously saving their town (and the world), something that had come so naturally to them had yet to be acknowledged to their children.
“I guess we have some explaining to do, huh?” Hopper nervously laughs.
“We are… together.” Joyce chooses her words carefully. The term dating seemed rather obsolete now, as their first date had yet to properly be had. And calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend seemed pre-pubescent for their age, while life partner sounded too simple. Together was truly the best way she could describe it. “Is that alright?”
The question seems futile now but she still asks it.
“Geez I don’t know! I didn’t even know he was alive until you two showed up at the cabin. Hell we thought you had run off with Murray!”
Hopper’s eyes widen at the thought and Joyce waves him off, that’s a whole other conversation that she does not want to entertain right now.
“What is the deal with that?” Will asks Hopper. His voice softer than his brother’s who’s now sat back down, taking a long sip of water. “Are you like… the living dead or something?”
The older man chuckles gruffly. “No but that does rival the real story. Long story short I guess, when the explosion went off I jumped off the platform. The Russians found me before your mom did, and well, given the circumstances it was pretty much a given I was a goner.”
“But you weren’t, so where were you?”
“In a Russian prison,” Hopper shakes over the sentence, the internal scars not quite having healed.
“That’s where Murray and I went,” Joyce explains. “It wasn’t a business trip. I got a package from Russia with a note that said Hopper was alive.”
“ That’s why you went?” Jonathan scolds. “You could’ve died! What if it was a trap?”
“It wasn’t!”
“But if.” Jonathan repeats. “How did you know?”
“I just knew,” Joyce shrugs. “I never stopped believing that somehow, some way he was still out there. I mean after all we’ve seen these past few years, is it really so far-fetched?”
“I guess it’s kind of too late to ask this now, but are you all… okay with this?” He gestures towards him and Joyce. “Because we want this to be as comfortable for everyone as possible,”
“Clearly we’ve done a bad job so far.”
“Why is it bad?” El wonders innocently. “You are my dad and you are like my mom. Mom’s and dad’s should be together.”
Hopper’s heart squeezes at El acknowledging Joyce as her mom. He knew the two had grown close while he was away, but to hear an admission of such was almost too much.
“It’s not bad,” Jonathan explains. “It’s just confusing because they didn’t tell us.”
“We didn’t really know,” Will adds.
“I knew,” El shrugs. “They kiss and they don’t keep the door open three inches.” The look she gives Hopper causes him to blush and he knows he’ll be in for a lecture from the teen about how unfair that is.
Jonathan cringes. “Well we knew but we didn’t know , know. You know?”
El’s face contorts in confusion and Joyce waves her hands. “Alright that’s enough for right now, the food is getting cold and clearly this is a long conversation, one that we will be having after we eat. Hopper and I will answer any and all questions you three may have but right now I would like to eat with my family in peace.” She states, effectively ending the conversation. “Now, will someone pass the peas?”
Shhh…but I just turned up to a meal and left 5 minutes later cos I cant stand the majority of the people. Do I feel guilty? No. Why? Because said people make me anxious and I don't want that right now👍
I’ll “fall in love with the most beautiful woman in the world” but respectfully avoid knocking her up before my best friend forever dies because that’s what friends do.
Haha NO HOMO
Mom: It's okay to be mad at your dad for that comment. Me: I'm not just mad at him. Mom: . . . Me: I don't like listening to you two yelling at each other. It makes me very sad. Mom: . . . Later in the meal, I got my fortune cookie. It read "Do not hide your feelings. Let others know what you're thinking."
THE DINNER. OMG, so awwwwkwwwwwwwaaaarrrrdddddddd wow, but perfect, Chris' face, and just, bahahahahha. BUT THE POOL SCENE. YES. ALL THE POOL SCENES. ALL OF THEM.
YES. ALL OF IT. Such a good episode. I'm peeved that I have to go to work now and not just watch all the rest of the episodes. I wish that the writers would do the fans a favour and actually make Sterek happen. Cause from what I've seen of season 2 Derek doesn't seem to be interested anyone (but Stiles) and Stiles is lead stray by Lydia. They have such a good structure for a slow blossoming romance and it NEEDS to happen.
