"Will!" El hissed from his open bedroom doorway. She was just coming back to bed after going to the bathroom. "Come here."
"What is it?" he asked from his spot on his bed.
"Just come here," she whispered back, motioning with her hands. Will joined her in the hallway outside of Joyce's closed bedroom door. "Shh," El warned him because she knew they probably weren't supposed to be spying like this.
Will heard his mom and Hopper's voices, and then he realized that it sounded like they were both very obviously enjoying themselves.
Will's eyes went wide when he understood what they were listening to. "Oh my god, El!" he groaned, immediately grabbing El's hand to drag her back to his bedroom. He closed his door carefully, so it wouldn't make any noise and leaned up against it, putting his head in his hands.
El sat down on his bed giggling, not nearly as traumatized as Will was. "Do you think they were…" El asked, raising her eyebrows.
It took Will a minute to answer because he did not want to admit that was indeed what they had heard. It was even worse because he thought that he could still hear them now, even through two closed doors! He wasn't sure if it was just his mind replaying it over and over in his head or if it was actually real.
"Yes…definitely," Will finally replied.
"Seriously?" El had to ask because she didn't think their parents would ever actually get together, even though it was so obvious to her that they really liked each other, and probably more.
"Ugh," Will groaned. "What else could it have been?" He realized now that El had been spending the night a lot more than she used to and that Joyce and Hopper always seemed to have an excuse as to why Hopper had to spend the night also.
"Wait, so do you think they are like together-together?!" El wondered excitedly.
"I don't know…they're probably just doing…that," Will answered. He didn't see his mom and Hopper in any kind of serious relationship; they were friends, and Will didn't think they would ever be more.
"I thought you kind of had to be like in love to do that with someone, right?" El asked innocently.
"Well…I mean, I guess you should be. But it's not always like that," Will tried to explain.
"Oh," El answered, sounding sad.
"I can't believe we heard that," Will moaned again, rejoining her on the bed. He laid down and covered his face with his hands, as if he could block out the memories. "Can we please never talk about this again?" he mumbled.
El laughed because she didn't see what Will was so upset about, but she agreed anyway.
In the morning, El studied Hopper and Joyce interacting with each other, but nothing seemed any different than any other day. They all said goodbye just like normal, and Hopper took El home. She had kept quiet about it all day, but she couldn't last much longer.
That night at dinner, Hopper watched her smush the mushy peas on her plate, and shove around the potatoes that she normally liked, until he finally had to say something.
"Alright, you've been weird today. What's going on?"
"What?" El asked, looking up at him, surprised.
He nodded at her plate. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Oh, uh, yes. I'm fine," El excused.
"Did something happen with Will?" He only asked because she'd been acting different since that morning.
El shook her head no.
"If something's going on, you can tell me, kid," he pressed. He tried to make it so that El didn't feel like she had to keep secrets from him anymore, which sometimes led to conversations that he didn't want to have. Much like where this one would be going in just a few moments.
"Well, it's just that…" El sighed and looked back down to the table.
He stayed quiet, waiting for her to go on.
"I thought," El stopped and sighed again. It took a second before she took a breath and gathered the courage to blurt out the next sentence. "I thought you had to be in love to have sex."
Hopper set his fork down, completely surprised by the words that just came out of her mouth. This was not what he had been expecting to hear.
El glanced up at him for a second, and then back to her dinner plate.
"Did Mike ask you to…" Hopper finally managed to ask, already counting down the number of minutes it would take for him to get to the kid's house.
"What? No," El answered immediately. "And besides, I do love him," she added casually with a shrug of her shoulders.
Hopper took a breath and did his best to attempt to ignore that little statement. "Okay, then what brought this on?"
"You and Joyce," El said softly.
"What?" Hopper asked, his breath rushing out of him.
"Well, we kind of heard you guys last night," El explained.
"Oh, uhm, I'm not sure what you thought you heard but we weren't, uh," he stammered.
El looked up and met his eyes, silently telling him that she wasn't an idiot, and so he stopped.
"I'm- sorry that you heard that," he finally said instead.
El shrugged. "But Joyce isn't your girlfriend?" she asked, because this still didn't make sense to her.
Hopper sighed. "Kid, it's complicated."
"But why? Mike is my boyfriend and I love him, and someday we will have sex," El explained as if those were all just simple facts.
Hopper pushed his chair back and crossed the room to the fridge. He opened a second can of beer and stood in the corner of the kitchen for a moment. He finally decided that it would be best if he chose not to address El's last comments.
"Things just get a little more complicated than that when you get older, alright?"
El didn't reply, and he hoped she would get the hint and drop it.
"So you are just using Joyce for sex?" El asked quietly when he sat back down at the table.
"El," he spoke softly, but sternly. "That's a very inappropriate thing for you to say." El knew that it was, and she had regretted it right after she said it. "And honestly, it's not really any of your business."
"Then why is what me and Mike do any of your business?" she asked with a certain edge of sass. Sometimes she had a hard time stopping her mouth.
Hopper groaned, sensing that this conversation was heading to a bad place, and yet, he couldn't stop himself from arguing with her either.
"Because you are children," he told her, shaking his head.
"At least we aren't stupid," El mumbled.
"What?"
El wasn't sure whether or not she should repeat herself, but she wanted Hopper to know that she thought he was being dumb, so against her better judgement, she enunciated very clearly, "You are being stupid." Before Hopper even had a chance to contemplate how to respond, El continued. "So what, you and Joyce just have sex with each other because it's the easy, good part of being in a relationship with someone? Because you don't want to deal with anything serious, anything that's hard, or complicated," she added, mocking his own words.
Hopper had to take a moment to breathe. Was his own kid really trying to call him out like this right now?
"I think I need to remind you, we've both been married before. I think we understand that relationships can be hard. I don't need a naïve, 14 year old little girl to tell me that." He paused and then decided, "You need to go to your room."
Tears brimmed in El's eyes, and she shoved her chair back. She sniffled as she stormed to her room, rattling the dishes on the shelf when her door slammed shut.
Hopper put his head in his hands and sighed out of frustration. What pissed him off the most, was the fact that the kid wasn't really that far from the truth. Though he and Joyce never explicitly talked about it, they did have a sort of agreement with each other that involved not delving into anything serious, though he knew that was total bullshit anyway. The two of them had put themselves in life threatening situations for each other, and he knew they'd do it again and again if they had to. You couldn't get much more serious than that.
He went outside to the front porch and smoked cigarette after cigarette, trying to decide what he should do next. He knew that he would have to tell Joyce; he just wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to tell her. With a sigh, Hopper went back inside and picked up the phone.
Joyce's voice came over the line. "Hello?"
"Hey Joyce, can I come over for a minute?"
"Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?"
"Uh yeah. Yeah, it's fine. I just- I'll be over soon, alright?"
"Sure," Joyce replied cautiously. While Hopper said he was fine, he didn't sound fine. And they hadn't planned on seeing each other tonight. They usually only spent Fridays and Saturdays together, with an accidental Wednesday thrown in there one time.
The sex had kind of started off as a slightly drunken accident a few weeks ago, that neither of them decided like they needed to stop. It was a nice escape from everything else, and besides, they both used their kids as an excuse to see each other because they enjoyed spending time together too.
Hopper went back inside to grab his keys. El's bedroom door was still shut, and he didn't bother telling her that he was leaving.
When he got to Joyce's house, she was already at the door, as if she were waiting for bad news. Hopper peered inside and saw Will sitting in the living room.
"Can you come talk out here for a minute?" he asked, nodding to the front porch.
"…Okay," Joyce answered, closing the front door. Hopper stepped over to the bench on her porch, and they both sat down. "What is it?" Joyce asked, when he didn't immediately start talking.
"So the kids apparently heard some things last night," he started.
Joyce scrunched her face up and put it in her hands, immediately understanding what he meant. And while she didn't know it, her reaction was almost the same as Will's had been.
"Really?" she groaned.
"Yep."
"And you know this how?" Joyce asked.
"Oh…" he sighed heavily. "Just had a wonderful conversation with El."
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry," Joyce laughed, not yet knowing the full extent of that talk. "Will didn't say anything to me."
"No. And he probably never would because he's a normal kid," Hopper agreed in response. "My child on the other hand, wants to know why we are having sex if we aren't in love."
"Did she really ask you that?" Joyce asked quietly.
Hopper only nodded in confirmation.
"Well, what did you tell her?"
"Just that it was complicated," he sighed, briefly eyeing Joyce before looking back out to the yard. "And then we got into a fight," Hopper added.
"About?"
"She thinks I'm using you for sex." He paused before he had to ask, "You don't think that, do you?"
Joyce shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, we are both kind of doing that, aren't we?" she admitted.
Hopper felt something inside of him starting to ache. This, this was why they didn't need to talk about these things out loud. He didn't want to feel like this right now, and hell, he never wanted Joyce to feel like that. Did she actually believe that?
"I guess we didn't set the best example," Joyce added when Hopper didn't say anything.
"So what then, it's just over?" Hopper managed to choke out, though he tried his best to sound indifferent.
It didn't work, and Joyce turned to look at him, surprised by how emotional he had sounded. "I don't know, Hop," she sighed. "The kids are teenagers now. They talk. People talk," Joyce continued.
"Pretty sure the entire town already thinks we are sleeping together," Hopper mused, pulling out a cigarette.
Joyce rolled her eyes and laughed because he wasn't wrong. Those rumors had been going around since Will disappeared. Hopper took a long drag on his cigarette and passed it to her. She copied, being careful to pinch the end so she didn't end up with a mouth full of tobacco. She'd been getting quite used to sharing his cigarettes lately.
Joyce handed it back to him and leaned back on the bench. Hopper pulled his arm from between them, resting it behind her, and Joyce subconsciously moved in closer to him.
Though he didn't want to admit it, Hopper had thought a lot about what El had said.
He looked down at Joyce, her head now resting against his chest, and he realized that he had to do it, or else he really was stupid.
"So, uh, what are you doing Wednesday night?"
"Are you asking me out on a date?" Joyce laughed softly.
Hopper casually shrugged. "Maybe…"
Joyce looked up at him and smiled, so Hopper relaxed a little before he went on. "The way I see it, we have two options. We pretend this was nothing and go back to our shitty, lonely lives. Or we do it right."
"Hop, I don't know," Joyce exhaled. There was too much to think about, and she wasn't prepared for this.
"Joyce, I've been really stupid, and I don't want to lose you again." He spoke with an honesty that surprised and scared her.
And she understood what the again was referring to, though he didn't explicitly say it. She'd heard it in all the times that he had told her that he 'was happy for her,' in her last relationship.
Joyce took the cigarette from his hand once more, and finally replied after a few minutes of thought. "I get off work at 7."
"Pick you up at 8?" Hopper asked hopefully.
Joyce shook her head but couldn't stop herself from smiling. She looked up at him and saw that he was smiling too. Their lips touched, and they kissed softly. Joyce finally allowed herself to feel something that she normally tried to keep away when they were together.
"Yes. 8 o'clock," she murmured in agreement once they pulled away. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes until their cigarette was finished. Hopper smashed it in the ashtray on the small table and sighed.
"Alright. I suppose I have to go home and apologize to El now. I hate it when she's right," he muttered under his breath.
Joyce smiled and laughed. Hopper and El were quite the headstrong pair, but they always seemed to work everything out eventually.
"I'll see you Wednesday?" he nervously confirmed one last time.
"Yes, Wednesday," she smiled.
They stood up and Joyce let out a small chuckle, suddenly feeling a little faint. Must be the cigarette, she excused.
Her hair fell in front of her eyes, and Hopper couldn't help but brush it away with his thumb. God, she was gorgeous.
"It's a date," he replied with a smile.
When Hopper got home, El's bedroom door was still shut, and their barely eaten dinner was still on the table.
Hopper approached her door and paused before knocking. "El, can I come in?"
She didn't answer.
"Please kid, I want to talk to you."
Still no response.
"Listen, I'm sorry, okay? Just let me in." Her door cracked open under his hands, and he took that as a confirmation that he could enter.
El was laying on her bed, facing the opposite wall, so he sat down on the end of her bed next to her feet. She curled up a little more, so she wouldn't accidentally touch him, still obviously upset.
"You were right," he began when she didn't start talking. "I was being stupid." El didn't move, so he added, "And I also wanted to tell you, I'm going on a date with Joyce on Wednesday."
El sat up and pulled her knees up, resting her chin on them. "A sex date?" she asked.
"Uh, no," Hopper stifled a laugh. This damn kid. "No, a real date. Because I want Joyce to be my girlfriend," he added since those were El's words from earlier.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her interest obviously piqued now. He could tell that she was still a little mad, but at least she was talking to him again.
"I don't know yet. I was thinking you could help me out with that part," he offered.
"You could go to the movies," El suggested. That was where her and Mike usually went on real dates.
"I'm thinking we will just start with dinner somewhere," Hopper said.
"You could take her to Benny's and share a waffle tower!" El proposed excitedly, her eyes lighting up at the thought.
Hopper laughed. "What about somewhere sort of fancy? Maybe like J Bistro?"
El scrunched up her face, but replied, "I guess she'd like that."
"Yeah?" Hopper smiled.
"Yeah," El nodded in response. She sighed and unwrapped her legs. "I know I'm just a kid, and I've never been married, or anything, but I do know what love is," she told him quietly, still feeling a little sensitive about what he had said to her earlier.
"I know, kid, I know. I shouldn't have said that about you. I didn't mean it. It's just that you sometimes call me out on things that no one else does, and it makes me a little bit mad. Even if it's true," Hopper explained to her.
"A little bit mad?" El repeated, eyeing him.
"Okay, a lot mad." He laughed, and so she did to. "But from now on, I will try to admit when I'm wrong. I'm working on that."
"I was wrong too," El apologized. "I understand that grown up relationships aren't my business. I just want you to be happy. And I can tell that you make Joyce happy. She smiles more when you are with us," El explained softly.
"She does, does she?" Hopper asked.
El nodded. "And I want her to be happy too. I love her."
It took a moment, but then Hopper felt like he had to admit it out loud. "Me too, kid."
"You do?" El moved over to him to give him a hug.
"Yeah, yeah," he sighed. "Just don't tell her that yet, alright?" He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.
"I already know that she loves you too," El whispered. "I mean, I know you said it's complicated, but I don't really think that part is," she shrugged.
El's stomach growled loudly, and Hopper suddenly felt like the worst parent for making her go to bed earlier without eating. Not that his own parents didn't enforce that kind of punishment on him, but he thought that making a kid go hungry was a terrible way to punish them, and it wasn't what he had intended earlier that night.
"Want to go get a waffle tower?"
El pulled back and looked up at him. "Really?"
"Yeah, sure. Our dinner wasn't that great a few hours ago, and I can't imagine it's gotten any better," he laughed.
El hugged him once more, and Hopper wondered if there would ever come a day when waffles wouldn't make everything better.