"Come get me at 6 o'clock," El told him, planting her feet on the ground outside the cardoor.
"6? Isn't that a little early?" Hopper asked.
"No. And wear something nice. Not your policeman clothes," she called to him with a wave. She slammed the door shut and ran up to the Byers' front door where Will quickly ushered her inside.
That morning Hopper had watched her try to secretly smuggle strange items into her bag, and he could sense that she was up to something, though he wasn't quite sure just what it was yet.
As the day wore on, Joyce had the same feeling.
El and Will spent most of it in his bedroom with the door shut. When she knocked on the door at lunch, she was greeted by two children who were smiling slyly, acting as though they were up to no good. At this age, most boys and girls wouldn't be allowed to be alone in their bedroom with the door shut to begin with, but Joyce truly had zero worries about these two, at least when it came to the normal teenager stuff.
Four o'clock rolled around and the kids kicked her out of the kitchen, telling her they wanted to bake some brownies by themselves.
"And please mom, don't come back in. We don't need any help," Will exclaimed, ushering her away to the living room.
Joyce kept her word and stayed in the living room, from where she heard pots and pans clanging and lots of giggles. And then the two of them were running back and forth from Will's bedroom to the dining room.
Around 5:30, Joyce interrupted one of their trips to ask if they were getting hungry for dinner.
"No!" they both answered simultaneously.
"Alright, but I'm going to need to go in the kitchen to cook dinner soon. I hope you guys haven't been in there eating brownies all afternoon!" she warned but the two kids had already disappeared.
A few minutes later, El and Will came back and sat down across from her, with wide smiles.
"What," she asked suspiciously.
"Mom, uh, can you go try on some of your dresses for El?"
"What?"
"Um, El wants to… have a fashion show," Will said, thinking on his feet.
El nodded eagerly.
"A fashion show…" Joyce repeated skeptically.
"Uh, yeah, right El?"
She nodded again, giving Joyce another innocently sweet smile.
"So will you try on one of your fancy dresses?" Will all but pleaded.
"Alright," Joyce agreed, squinting her eyes at the kids before going to her bedroom.
She came out in a navy-blue, short sleeve dress and spun around.
Will made a displeased face.
"Do you have anything fancier?" he asked.
"I'm not really that fancy you guys," she told them. "This is about as fancy as you get," she said, gesturing to the outfit.
"Maybe just try something else anyway," Will told her.
Joyce was gone for a few minutes and then she reappeared in the fanciest dress she owned. El's face lit up, and Will looked at her with a huge smile. "That's the one, right El?"
"Pretty," El admired with wide eyes.
"I just need help with the zipper," Joyce told them, turning around.
El immediately got up to zip up the back of the black velvet dress, running her hands along the soft fabric. The dress had no sleeves and a v neck that showed off a little cleavage. It fell to her mid thighs, and there was sheer black fabric on the bottom that came to just below her knees.
When she turned back around, El repeated, "You look so pretty."
"Thank you, sweetheart," Joyce told her with a smile, despite knowing that pretty was not the word anyone else would use to describe her; she hadn't been pretty in at least 20 years.
As if on cue for the kids, headlights from outside lit up the front window.
"Mom, will you get the door?" Will instructed, grabbing El's hand running away to the kitchen.
Joyce did as she was told and was greeted by Jim Hopper, who, in the middle of a cigarette drag, turned around very surprised to see Joyce in a dress.
"You look…nice," he finally said, trying to keep his thoughts appropriate.
"The kids wanted to play fashion show I guess," she explained, side stepping so he could come inside.
Jim was wearing jeans and a dark maroon sweater.
At least it wasn't his policeman clothes, as El had put it.
"Did they behave?" he asked, closing the door behind himself.
"Oh yeah, of course," Joyce told him. "Though they were acting a little strange today."
"Yeah? Strange how."
Before Joyce had a chance to reply, the kids rushed in to the room. El took Hopper's arm, and Will took Joyce's hand.
"Your table is right this way," Will said, dragging the two adults towards the dining room.
"Our table?" Hopper questioned.
In the dining room, the Byers' table has the center leaf taken out and two chairs were placed opposite each other. There was a vase with two carnations in the center and tea light candles that had just been lit scattered around it.
"What is all this?" Joyce asked, as she was being ushered into her chair.
"You both do so much for us, so we wanted to thank you by making you dinner. That's all," El smiled innocently.
"That's all, huh," Hopper squinted at her.
"Your menus," Will said. He handed them each a piece of paper, with words and little drawings of food in crayon. There was a beverage, appetizer, entrée, and desert section.
When the kids left the room, Hopper laughed lightly. "I do believe we have been set up."
"It does look that way," Joyce nodded in agreement.
In a few seconds, Will reappeared. "What will you be having to drink?"
They eyed their menus. There were two options: the first read beer and in parenthesis after the word, root, and the second option was wine (grape juice).
"I will take a glass of wine," Joyce told Will seriously, attempting her best to play along. The kids obviously worked hard on this.
"And for the mister?"
"I suppose I'd never turn down a beer."
When Will left the room, both adults started laughing again.
"They sure have thought this out," Joyce said scanning the elaborately decorated menu.
El entered the room with two fancy wine glasses, one filled with root beer, and the second with grape juice. She silently set them down, and then went over to the cassette player to push play on a mixed tape of love songs that they had made.
Elton John played softly through the speakers.
"I swear, I had no idea they were doing this," Joyce apologized.
"Kind of scary how silent they can be when they are up to something," Hopper agreed understandingly.
Though the forced date was awkward, when they two of them realized that it was really happening and they were not going to be getting out of it until after desert, they both decided to make the best of it.
Will returned and took their appetizer and entrée orders, salad and spaghetti.
"You really do look nice," Hopper complemented after a beat.
"I barely even fit in this anymore," Joyce excused, no longer making eye contact. Compliments made her uncomfortable.
"Yeah, that's kind of my favorite part," Hopper smirked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"Seriously Hop." She rolled her eyes, reaching across to lightly smack his arm. But he didn't miss how her cheeks briefly turned a light pink while she readjusted the neckline of the dress.
The rest of their dinner was relatively uneventful. They made small talk and listened to the kids in the other room giggling and banging around while they prepared the food. It made them both happy to hear them like that, carefree and acting like children, the way they were supposed to be.
When it was time for desert, the kids presented one large brownie with ice cream and hot fudge on top, but there was only one spoon.
"Could we have another spoon?" Joyce asked, as the two quickly pushed each other out of the room.
"Sharing is caring," Will shouted from the kitchen.
"Oh my gosh," Joyce groaned, shaking her head at their now blatantly obvious attempts at forced romance.
"They are nothing if not persistent," Hopper laughed.
They eventually conceded and shared the brownie sundae anyway. When they were finished, they both got pushed into the living room for a movie while the kids "cleaned up."
Though the entire romantic dinner date idea had been adorably cringe-worthy, Hopper knew it was nothing more than an unwarranted attempt at a set up from the kids.
Before the movie started, Joyce left to change her clothes back into something comfortable, jeans and a t-shirt. But it was only a moment before she returned to the living room, still in the black dress. "Could you get my zipper?" she asked, turning around so Hopper could access it.
She expected a crude remark, but he just replied with a quiet, "Uh yeah, sure," instead. She felt a strange feeling in her stomach as his hand drew down her back unzipping the dress. His hand lingered on the small of her back and she waited for Hopper to say something, but there was only silence.
"Thanks," she finally breathed before quickly walking to her bedroom, holding up the front of the dress to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions.
When Joyce came back, the kids planted her on the couch next to Hopper. They pushed play on the VCR and The Empire Strikes Back began.
Unfortunately, the kids had been pretty limited with their VHS choices, so they just picked something from Will's collection. El thought it was a good enough choice anyway since her and Mike watched it together all the time.
"You don't have to stay," Joyce urged quietly once the kids left the room.
"Yes, I do," Hopper insisted. "I can't imagine what your kitchen looks like right now."
He probably wasn't wrong.
Hopper sat back and put his arm up on the back of the couch behind Joyce. It wasn't an overly intimate move, but today if felt different. Joyce threw a tense smile and crossed her legs, her foot subtly bouncing up and down.
Perhaps the kid's plan was actually getting to her.
It wasn't long before El and Will finished cleaning up and joined them too, throwing pillows and a blanket down on the floor in front of the tv.
Halfway through the movie, El turned around to spy on the two of them, but Hopper happened to catch her. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she pressed her lips together in a content, subtle smile and turned back to the tv.
It was only another minute or so later when Hopper's hand moved over Joyce's, locking his fingers through hers.
Joyce gripped his hand in acknowledgment and shifted closer to him. His thumb absently rubbed over her delicate skin.
This was how Hopper liked their relationship. Though it had slowly morphed over the past few years, it was simple. She was there for him, and he was there for her. No matter what. Complete trust.
A relationship like theirs was a powerful and rare thing. If it were to turn into anything more, Hopper knew he would be bound to fuck it up because that's just what he did.
When the movie ended, El turned around with one final plea for their parents.
"Can I stay tonight?" she begged.
"Yeah, please mom?" Will chimed in.
Joyce looked to Hopper for approval.
She of course, didn't mind having El over, but Hopper was immediately shaking his head no; he figured that his kid had done enough damage at the Byers household for one night.
"You could have a sleepover too!" El beamed, still trying to work her magic.
"I said not tonight kid." At this point he couldn't handle even thinking about a 'sleepover' with Joyce. "Go get your stuff together," he declared with a finality that left El pouting.
"Fine," El frowned.
The kids walked slowly down to Will's bedroom, and he figured that the gathering of all her things was going to take an hour while she tried to delay their departure as long as possible.
After the kids disappeared in Will's room, there was a palpable, tense moment of silence.
Hopper cleared his throat.
Joyce stepped towards him with a strange, urgent sense of now or never.
She reached for his arm.
It was a simple gesture; she'd done it a hundred times before.
"Hop…"
He knew what was coming, but he couldn't believe that it was actually happening.
Not knowing how to respond, he said nothing.
"Last year after everything," she continued with a whisper and a pause. "I didn't mean to. I mean I wanted to…with you…Bob was…unexpected." Her words were jumbled, but he understood exactly what she was getting at.
She had never meant to start a relationship. She knew that she was damaged goods but being with Bob was an easy way to keep her mind off everything else.
"I just, uh, you know. I had her, and everything else," Hopper excused softly, knowing that even without El, he never would have made a move on her. "I'm not good for you, Joyce," he exhaled, pulling away.
God, he didn't want to hurt her.
Joyce immediately shook her head in objection.
"I'm…" the air rushed out of him. "…all fucked up," he said, finally finding the right words.
"And you think I'm not?" she asked seriously. She reached for him again and closed the small gap between them.
Hopper recoiled immediately, taking a few steps back.
What was this feeling? It couldn't be… nervous? It had been a very long time since he felt nervous around a woman.
It had also been a very long time since he'd actually been with a woman. Or at least a hardworking, intense, real woman, someone worth more than a one-night stand- someone like Joyce.
Hopper wondered where all his devious confidence from earlier in the night had gone, when things weren't as real as they suddenly were now.
"Well, uh, anyway." A big sigh. "Thanks for watching her today," he said, completely changing the subject.
He was ready to run.
He turned towards the door and ran his hand through his hair. He was not good at this. Yet another reason why he was not good enough for Joyce.
But Joyce followed. She was not letting him off this easily.
"Jim."
He felt her hand on his arm, squeezing it tightly. He turned back around slowly, knowing full well that if he looked at her, it would all be over.
It only took a few seconds, and despite his best intentions, he leaned down to her and pressed his lips firmly against hers. Joyce brought her arms up and around his shoulders, preventing him from pulling away, from changing his mind.
They had kissed before, but that over 20 years ago. Still, everything about this felt familiar- it felt right.
And then they both heard it, it had been impossible not to.
A quiet "Yes!" excitedly hissing from the hallway.
They pulled apart, and Hopper dropped his head, pressing his lips briefly to the top of Joyce's head instead.
Joyce subtly shook her head and looked up at him. She turned around to see the two kids' heads popping back into Will's room.
"It seems they are quite pleased with how their little plan has turned out," Joyce murmured into his chest.
"Why am I not surprised," Hopper chuckled.
It was true; they should have known that there would be two little eavesdroppers. The rest of their conversation would have to wait until a time when they were truly alone.
"El, it's time to go," he called, drawing the two kids back down the hallway. They reappeared looking as innocent as ever.
"Are you suuuure you don't want to have a sleepover?" El tried to persuade him one last time.
He reluctantly pulled away from Joyce and picked up El's belongings that she had dropped on the floor. "We'll see you tomorrow," Hopper reiterated, shaking his head at the little one's never ending manipulation.
"Night," Joyce smiled to them both.
El was almost out the door but turned back around to run inside to give Joyce a goodbye hug.
"Don't you want to tell Joyce goodnight too? I can wait in the car…" El offered looking between the two adults.
Hopper pointed to the door. "Now," he threatened seriously with a tone that failed to intimidate El anymore.
"Bye Will!" El shouted, obediently running out to their vehicle anyway.
"See ya!" Will replied. He snuck back to his bedroom quickly, not wanting to get yelled at by the Chief.
"Oh my god, these kids," Hopper complained, pulling Joyce back to him. She drew him in for one more kiss and then nuzzled her head against his chest.
"You can't blame them. I guess it worked, didn't it," she acknowledged.
He kissed her cheek twice more before telling her goodnight and pulling away, knowing that the kid in his car would be watching on.
Hopper's heart was still beating too fast when he got in the Blazer. He patted his jean pockets for his pack of cigarettes and urgently lit one. He took a long drag from it, understanding now that this new nervous feeling probably wouldn't be going away anytime soon.
El didn't say anything but stared at him expectantly. He took another drag on the cigarette and then turned to look at her.
"What," Hopper said feigning innocence, just as she had done all night.
El shook her head and shrugged her shoulders like she had no idea either.
They pulled out of the driveway.
"Did you have a good night?" she asked casually.
"Uh-huh. You?"
She nodded and turned away to look out the window, though he could still see her smiling in the reflection.
He reached over and ruffled her hair causing El burst into a giggle.
Damn kids.