"I got it!" El squealed when they all got to Mike's basement. She unzipped her backpack and pulled the top of the bottle out to show everyone.
"No way," Max said, pulling the bag towards her to verify.
El had procured a fifth of vodka from Hopper. He hadn't opened his liquor cabinet in months, so she snuck it out easily.
"So, do we just start drinking it?" Dustin asked.
"No, you dumbass. We need something to mix it in," Max explained.
Despite the fact that Mike had been the only one with reservations about drinking, he didn't want to disappoint El. "I'll go see what we have upstairs," he told everyone disappearing up the stairs.
Mike came back down holding a container of apple juice. "We only have this and milk."
"I'll try it. Get me a glass," Dustin said immediately. Mike went back upstairs and then came back with some glasses. "So like this?" Dustin asked. He poured half a glass of vodka and the other half of apple juice. He took a sip and shuddered. "Not good. That is not good," he repeated.
"Let me try it," Will said, surprising everybody.
He took a drink and had a similar reaction. Everyone passed the glass around and agreed it was awful.
"Wow, no. That has way too much alcohol in it and we need some orange juice or cranberry juice," Max told everyone.
"How do you know?" Mike questioned.
"I just do, okay?" Max retorted.
"Then we should go to the store. Does anyone have any money?" Lucas asked.
Max checked her pockets. "I have like 2 dollars," she offered.
"Me too," Will added.
"Okay. I can probably find some too, hold on." Mike rushed upstairs to his room and came back with a five.
"Let's go then," Dustin said excitedly.
El shoved the bottle back in her bag, and they hid it under a blanket pile just in case Mike's parents came home while they were gone.
The kids went outside and hopped on their bikes to head to the store. Max was going to skateboard behind but ended up jumping on the back of Lucas's bike instead. Even though they had all only taken a small sip of the vodka, it was already kicking in.
El and Will couldn't stop giggling in the store, while Mike and Max tried to be the responsible ones, shushing everyone when they would catch the attention of an adult. Technically, El and Will weren't even supposed to have left Mike's house, but it was just Big Buy and they knew their parents wouldn't find out.
The kids left the store with a carton of orange juice, cranberry juice, chips, Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, and a bag of pizza rolls.
El's head felt funny already; she wrapped her arms around Mike, laying her head on his back on the way back to his house, thinking that she'd never felt this happy in her entire life. She couldn't wait to get back and drink more, wondering if she would feel even better the more she had.
Max was the first to mix a drink that didn't taste absolutely terrible, so she became the unofficial bartender.
Mike turned on the radio and the kids lounged around, drinking their not-so-terrible mixed drinks and eating snacks.
"I have an idea," Dustin said, standing up. "We should play truth or dare."
The kids looked around at each other, waiting to see if anyone else was going to agree.
"Okay, but we have different rules," Max decided.
"Different rules?" Will asked.
"Yeah, so if you want to pass on your turn after you get asked something, you can. BUT, you have to take two shots instead," Max smiled, pointing at the hidden bottle of vodka.
El spoke up with a question. "What is truth or dare?"
"It's this game where if you pick truth, someone gets to ask you anything they want and you have to answer it honestly. Or if you pick dare, then you have to do whatever the person asked you to do," Mike explained to her. "I don't know if it's such a good idea," he continued, knowing what kinds of things were about to happen.
"Oh my god, Mike. You are being so weird," Lucas complained. "Let's do it."
"I want to play," El agreed, nodding to Mike.
"Fine, whatever," Mike sighed.
Poor El didn't know what was coming like he did.
Dustin turned the radio down and they all got on the floor in a circle. He pulled the spinner out of Mike's Twister game and set it in the middle of them.
"Oldest person gets to go first," Lucas said, smiling, knowing that it was him.
No one bothered to argue, so he spun the arrow, landing on Dustin.
"Truth or dare," Lucas asked.
"Definitely dare," Dustin smiled.
"Okay, I dare you…to take a sip from everyone's drink."
"Done," Dustin agreed, picking up Will's glass next to him, moving quickly through all 6 glasses. "Easy," he laughed.
"You like barely even took a sip," Max pointed out.
"Yeah, and that's exactly what he said, wasn't it?" Dustin argued, already spinning for the next person. He landed on Mike.
"Truth I guess," Mike sighed, knowing a dare from Dustin would not be a good idea.
"How many times a day do you think about kissing El?"
El looked at Mike expectantly and giggled, waiting to hear the answer. Mike's face grew red just thinking about admitting what the real number probably was.
"Ugh, I don't know."
"Come on. You have to answer, or you take the shots," Max pressed.
"I guess like 10?"
Dustin wrinkled his nose in disbelief. "No way. I bet it's way more."
"I don't know, Dustin. I don't really count it!"
They rolled their eyes but let Mike's answer slide.
When Mike spun next, it landed on El, and she picked dare.
"Uh, I dare you to count from 1 to 100 in 20 seconds," Mike told her after thinking about it for a minute.
"Really?" quipped Lucas.
"What?" Mike responded.
"You could ask her to do anything, and that's what you choose?"
Mike shrugged, and El attempted his dare.
"You only got to 81! You have to take the shots," Dustin smirked.
"No, that's not the way it works!" Mike argued, trying to protect El.
Dustin poured into an empty glass what he thought looked like two shots anyway, and El took it from him.
"El, you don't have to," Mike told her.
El shrugged her shoulders. "It's the rules, Mike," she said lifting the glass to her lips. The straight liquor burned going down her throat making her cough, but she managed to drink it all.
Mike was mad at himself for letting his plan of an easy dare backfire, but madder at Dustin for making El take the shots, even though she didn't seem to mind.
El reached for the spinner and it landed on Mike.
"Dare I guess," Mike said, waiting to hear what kind of dare El would come up with for him.
"I dare you to kiss whoever the spinner lands on for 10 seconds," she smirked.
Mike's eyes went wide in surprise and he contemplated taking the shots, because what if it landed on one of the guys? Or maybe worse yet, what if it landed on Max? Would El and Lucas be mad?
"El, ew," the guys complained, which made Mike decide to spin it anyway.
The arrow spun around quickly and abruptly stopped on El. She reached her hand up and wiped her nose.
"Hey, I saw that! You cheated," Dustin accused.
El shrugged with an innocent smile and turned to Mike.
"Would you rather it landed on you?" Will pointed out.
"Oh right. Good point," Dustin laughed.
Mike completed his dare, while all their friends teased them with ooh's and aahs', making it quite possibly the most awkward kiss they ever had, though El seemed plenty satisfied. She brought her lips back up to his one last time before he could pull away.
Mike tried to ignore his reddening face and spun next, landing on Will.
"Truth," Will picked.
"Tell us who you have a crush on."
"Jessica Priest," Will answered after a minute of contemplation.
"She's in 11th grade!" Lucas pointed out.
Will shrugged. "You didn't say it had to be in our grade."
"My turn," he said, spinning quickly before they could ask him anything else.
The game went on pretty innocently with dares like putting an ice cube in your pants and Lucas having to take off Dustin's socks with his teeth. El dared Max to put her hands in Lucas's pockets and keep them there for 10 minutes. Surprisingly, she thought of some of the naughtiest of the dares, as if she had played this game before.
They all decided to take a break to make some food when El passed on a truth. Max had asked her what the most disgusting thing that she ever had to do was. The rest of them realized that it was actually probably something really bad, and they didn't want to make her talk about, so no one complained when she took the shots instead.
Max apologized softly to her before going upstairs with the guys. She hadn't intended to make her feel bad about her past.
El shrugged and told her it was no big deal; she just didn't want to gross everyone out.
Mike's parents still weren't home, but apparently Nancy had been. The kids were making a ton of noise and acting like drunken teenagers while they attempted to microwave an entire bag of pizza rolls at once.
"Oh my god, Mike. Are you guys drunk?" Nancy asked after watching them all act like giggling fools for a minute.
"What? No," Mike lied immediately, trying to put on his best sober face.
"I'm not an idiot. Mom's going to kill you if she finds out."
"It's not like you don't do it too," Mike retorted, giving away his lie.
"Not in our own house," Nancy countered, shaking her head.
"Mom isn't going to find out." Mike rolled his eyes confidently.
"Whatever." Nancy threw her hands up in the air. "It's your funeral." She backed off and went back upstairs.
The kids finished in the kitchen and brought their giant plate of half-cooked pizza rolls downstairs. El tripped on her way down, taking out Will and landing on top of Mike at the bottom of the steps, laughing uncontrollably even though it really hurt.
"Hmm, that gives me an idea for my next dare," Dustin laughed suspiciously when he saw the two of them. Mike tried to remember to choose truth the next time Dustin landed on him.
El climbed off Mike and held onto the wall for support to get back on her feet. Things were kind of starting to spin. Mike was really feeling it too, so he gently told her that maybe she should just drink some water for a little while. El's cheeks were rosy pink, and she was probably the one who had drank the most, having already taken 4 Dustin-sized shots, in addition to her mixed drink.
Mike poured her a glass of water in the bathroom and brought it out to her.
"Maybe we should keep playing without the shots," Will suggested, realizing that they'd all gotten up to go to the bathroom like 5 times in the past hour.
"Pussies," Dustin laughed, though he didn't disagree. "How about if you pass on a truth, then the person gets to pick a dare for you instead and vice versa?"
They all grudgingly agreed, knowing the game was about to get intense, turning more into a game of would you rather with two equally bad choices.
Over the next half hour, Max ended up with marker as makeup on her face, El and Max kissed on the lips, Dustin had to make fake sex noises, Will had to call a random number and talk to them until they hung up, and Lucas was forced to admit that he's peed in a pool before.
Mike and El were dared to play 7 minutes in heaven in the bathroom, where they didn't actually do any kissing. Instead, they messed up each other's hair and turned El's shirt inside out as a joke. Mike turned around while she took it off, though El quietly told him he didn't have to. The alcohol was really lessening all the kid's filters.
El finished her mixed drink and Max refilled everyone's glasses, not realizing that they were all probably well past their safe limits of having hard liquor for the first time ever.
Soon, their day quickly went from too much fun to something else.
El laid her head on Mike's shoulder and closed her eyes when everything started spinning too much. She didn't want to be the one to make everyone stop playing, so she continued to play, accepting a dare that made her use her powers to force Dustin to do the chicken dance. Everyone was so busy laughing at Dustin's body moving uncontrollably that they didn't notice El's eyes closing until Dustin dropped to the ground.
"Ouch, shit," Dustin swore rubbing his wrist that he had landed on.
"Hey, you okay, El?" Mike asked, shaking her shoulder when he noticed that she had slumped over against him and the couch.
"Don't feel good," she muttered, through closed eyes. Mike wiped the blood from her nose and helped her lay down on the floor.
Though they didn't know it, closing her eyes and laying down was one of the worst things she could do.
"Um, shit. I think she just needs some water," Max said. She brought the glass over to her, but El refused to sit up to drink it.
Suddenly seeing their friend unwell made everyone start to feel the effects on themselves even more, realizing now that they all had a little too much to drink too.
"El," Mike said nudging her a little. "Can you open your eyes?"
El could hear Mike, and she could tell that he sounded worried, but her eyes wouldn't open. Not even for him. Then she knew she was going to throw up. She knew she shouldn't just do it where she was laying, but she couldn't even move to warn anyone before it was too late.
"Oh, no. Not all over yourself," Max cringed.
"Okay. That's going to make me puke," Dustin groaned, slamming the door open to get outside.
Max helped Mike get El into the bathroom and held her over the toilet where she proceeded to throw up over and over.
Mike stayed with her for awhile until he started feeling nervous, like maybe something was actually wrong with her.
"Will someone go get Nancy?" Mike asked. He was well aware that Nancy would give them the I-told-you-so lecture.
Lucas and Will went upstairs to get her but came back down soon after.
"Sorry, man. She's not home," Lucas called from outside the bathroom.
"I think we have to call the Chief," Mike finally decided after a minute.
"Mike, are you crazy? He's going to kill you. He's going to kill all of us!" Dustin yelled from the sofa.
"Dustin, look at her! I don't know what else to do," he said suddenly feeling very sober. "Like what if something's actually wrong with her." He looked up at Will who stood at the doorway. Will didn't disagree with him. "Can you stay with her for a minute?"
Will came in and sat down next to El.
"I'm calling him. You guys should probably leave," Mike told everyone.
"Oh my God. You are so dead," Lucas whispered.
"And so are we if Hopper tells our parents," Max reminded him.
"Whatever. I won't tell him you guys were here. I really don't care. But if something happens to her…" Mike picked up the phone and dialed Hopper's number.
The three kids looked at each other like Mike had lost his damn mind. The phone rang twice before Hopper answered.
"Uh, yeah, hi. It's Mike. Do you think you could come pick El up?"
"Why? Is she okay?" Hopper asked.
"Uh, I don't know," Mike answered honestly.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Hopper questioned, already putting his shoes on.
"I just, she, uh- she just got sick," Mike replied.
"Yeah, alright. Be there soon."
The other kids quickly got their belongings together and wished Mike luck, before drunkenly walking their bikes home, all except Will.
He helped Mike carry El over to the couch. "You really should go too," Mike told him, knowing Hopper was not going to be happy.
Will shrugged. "My mom's going to hear about it anyway. I'll go wait upstairs for him."
After Will left, Mike tried one more time to get El to respond. "El. Can you please, just please, open your eyes or tell me that you are okay?"
El didn't respond. Mike intently watched her breathing, making sure it that it didn't stop. He was really worried about her.
It was only 10 minutes later when Mike heard the front door open and then footsteps on the stairs.
Hopper looked around and quickly took in the scene. Glasses were everywhere and there was an obvious smell of alcohol in the air.
El was unconscious on the couch, with her head in Mike's lap.
"How much did she drink?" he asked with a calm that terrified the two boys. "How much?" He demanded again when neither of them answered.
"I-I don't know exactly," Mike stuttered.
"What were you drinking?" He knelt down next to her, and his hand slid over her neck to feel her pulse.
Will held the bottle out for him. The fifth of vodka was ¾ empty.
"How many of you were drinking it?" he asked, doing the mental math to calculate roughly how much El would have had.
"6," Mike admitted.
Hopper eyed the bottle, recognizing it from his own liquor cabinet.
"Did she bring it?" Neither kid answered him, but that was confirmation enough. "How long has she been like this?"
"Maybe a half an hour. She threw up a lot," Mike confessed.
Hopper slid his hands under her and picked her up.
"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Mike followed behind, concerned.
"She'll be fine. She's just drunk," Hopper dismissed with a sigh. He did wonder if he should let the kid think that she was dying for just a little bit longer to make him suffer. It would serve him right for letting her drink so much.
El had been totally non-responsive, so Mike wasn't sure he believed Hopper. However, he figured he had some experience with situations like this, so he tried to calm down.
"Is that hers?" Hopper gestured to El's bag.
Will nodded.
"Put the bottle in it and hand it to me," he instructed. "Pour the rest of that shit out before your parents get home." Hopper nodded to the glasses and disappeared up the steps without another word.
Mike and Will both sighed with relief and started cleaning up.
Hopper put El in his vehicle and she slumped over against the center console. He got in the driver's seat and exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He knew that this was just another one of those moments of raising a teen that pretty much all parents went through. But still, she had taken the alcohol from him, and he hadn't even noticed. What did that say about him?
Hopper had to reposition El so that he could access the gear stick to put the car in reverse. She whined when he moved her, the first conscious noise he'd heard her make.
After a few minutes in the car, the winding roads were too much, and she started retching.
"Oh no you don't," Hopper told her, pulling over to the side of the road. He got out of the Blazer and opened her door, though he was too late and she had already thrown up all over herself. He pulled her out and helped her to the ground where she threw up four more times. El was intensely shaking, and for a minute, he felt bad really for her. Maybe this was partially his fault- they had never really talked about alcohol before. It was something he hadn't even thought about, as they had much bigger concerns.
When El was finally finished, he picked her back up and noticed that her shirt was on inside out. He pressed his eyes closed. He didn't even want to know how that happened. He rolled down her window and leaned her up against her door. "If you feel sick again, throw up out the window," he told her, though she didn't respond. If anything, maybe a little fresh air would be good for her.
They made it back to the cabin without any further stops. Hopper held her up in the car while he rolled her window up and then picked her up again.
"Cold," El mumbled, curling up against him; she couldn't stop shaking.
"Mm-hm. We'll be inside soon," he promised.
At least she was coherent enough to speak.
When they got inside, he brought her to the bathroom and sat her down in front of the toilet. El curled up on the rug on the floor. Hopper brought some clean clothes in and turned on the shower.
"Open your eyes," he said patting and rubbing her back to get her up. "El, come on. Now."
El heard him and even understood what he was saying, but she couldn't do it.
"Okay kid. Then you are going to lay there covered in your own vomit," he threatened. El heard the water turn off and then she drifted away again.
He changed his own clothes and sat on the couch, making sure he could still see El from his spot. He realized he should call Joyce to give her a heads up too. He briefly considered not calling her but figured Will would probably tell her anyway; it was just the kind of kid he was. And then she would be upset with him for not warning her first.
He picked up the phone and dialed her number, leaning against the bathroom doorway while he spoke.
"Hey Joyce. Will home yet?"
"No not yet. I figured they would be at Mike's all day. Why? Is something wrong?" she asked immediately.
"Ah, no. Well, not exactly. I just got called over there to pick El up," he started.
"What's wrong with El?"
"Oh, nothing much. Except she's shit-faced drunk, pretty non-responsive, and can't stop puking."
"Oh my God, Hop. No way."
"Mm-hm," he confirmed.
"Was Will still there?"
"Yeah, him and Mike. They were buzzed, but not nearly as trashed as she is."
"I'm going to kill him. Do you know where they got the alcohol?"
Hopper laughed without humor. "Well, uh, pretty sure from me," he confessed.
"El stole your alcohol?"
"Yeah, looks like it."
Joyce could hear how he felt about it, and she knew El was going be in a lot of trouble.
"Hop, try and remember that we used to borrow our parent's alcohol too," she said, suddenly going soft.
"This coming from the woman who just professed that she was going to kill her own kid for drinking," Hopper laughed.
"Well, that's different. Will definitely knows better."
"Oh, I think El does too," he said. "And if she didn't, she will soon."
"Hop, I'm serious. Go easy on her. I'll bet that her hangover will be punishment enough. You can be so…" Joyce paused looking for the right word.
"Stupid?" he finished for her. Not the first time he'd heard that.
"No…" Joyce smirked. "Hard on her. And you are both very stubborn sometimes. Just try and think about whether it's a battle you really want to fight with her about."
Joyce only said this because she'd been on the other side of some of their fights, hearing from El and from Hopper. She could usually see both of their sides, but they were both very intense people, and it made some of their arguments much more explosive than they needed to be.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Have patience and all that crap," Hopper sighed in agreement. "Anyway, I just thought I'd call and let you know. I'm guessing Will's going to be home soon."
"Thanks for the heads up. I'll try to go easy on him too," she promised.
El laid on the floor shivering for the next hour. After he was sure he had enough nicotine in his body to deal with her, he went in and tried to get her up one more time, feeling a little guilty for just leaving her there freezing all alone on the floor for so long.
He touched her back and this time she opened her eyes, looking around to realize where she was. "Mike?" she asked, confused.
"No, kid. You're home. You need hop in the shower for a minute," he told her. El blinked and closed her eyes again.
"Cold," she told him again.
"Yeah, I know. A shower will help." He pulled her up to a sitting position and watched her swallow hard, clearly trying to hold back more vomit.
He turned the water back on, waiting for it to warm up. He helped her stand up, and she stumbled into the side of the tub, gripping the edge with both hands before she climbed in.
"Might want to take your clothes off, kid," he reminded her with a laugh.
El started stripping and Hopper took that as his cue to leave the room. He pulled the shower curtain closed, but left the door open so that he could listen for any mishaps. After a few minutes, he heard her coughing and realized that she was throwing up.
Again.
And in the shower no less.
After a good 20 minutes, when the water was still running, he approached the door.
"El?"
No answer.
"Hey, kid. You okay?" He waited for a response. "If you don't answer me, I'm coming in alright?" he warned.
Silence.
"Shit," he muttered, pulling the edge of the shower curtain back slightly. "Hey, everything okay?" he asked, still not looking inside. When she still didn't respond, he pulled the curtain open. El was curled up under the stream of the showerhead, passed out.
Hopper sighed, knowing he couldn't just let her stay there; the water was already getting cool. He pulled her towel off the rack and turned the water off. He covered her as best he could and lifted her out. El didn't respond, so he brought her out to the couch and covered her up with a blanket. He towel dried her hair and sat down on the end of the couch next to her.
After a moment of silence, he got up and turned the television on, if only for some background noise for his thoughts.
Hopper glanced at the clock. God, the day had already felt infinitely long, and it was only 7:30.
He watched tv for about an hour when the phone rang. He got up to answer it, expecting it to be Joyce.
"Hello?" A kid's voice came over the line. Hopper recognized it immediately.
"Yeah," Hopper responded, not ready to talk to him just yet.
"I was just calling to see if, you know, is she okay?" the kid asked nervously.
"Yes, she's fine. She'll be fine."
"Well, okay. I guess that's all. Thanks," Mike said. They both hung up.
The phone ringing had woken El up. She started to get up from the couch, but Hopper stopped her.
"No. Lay back down," he told her, pressing her shoulder back down against the cushions.
"Too bright," she whined, pressing her hands against her face.
"Yeah, well that's sort of too bad. You see, you interrupted my day by getting shit-faced drunk, so now I interrupt your night. You get to sleep out here on the couch, so I can make sure that you don't choke on your vomit and die during the night." He was only half kidding.
Even though most of him wanted her to suffer through the consequences of a hangover, he turned off almost all of the lights in the cabin anyway. He filled a glass of water and brought it to her. "You need to drink this slowly," he instructed, wrapping her hand around the glass.
El took a small sip and practically dropped the glass down to the floor. Hopper sat back down on the couch with her. Even though it had been hours since she had any alcohol, the little bit of water in her stomach was still too much, and she managed to make it to the bathroom before she threw up again.
At least when she stumbled back out to the couch a few minutes later, she was dressed in the clothes Hopper had brought into the bathroom for her earlier.
"Why can't I stop getting sick?" El all but begged. She hated throwing up.
"Because you drank way too much, kid. On top of it making you sick, it can also be very dangerous to drink as much as you did," he lectured, knowing now wasn't really the time.
"I'm sorry," she said. She sniffled but couldn't hold back her tears. El started sobbing and curled up next to him, craving his comfort. "I'm really sorry."
Hopper put an arm around her and listened to her drunkenly whimper.
"And now…I can't…stop…crying," she sobbed after a few minutes.
He laughed lightly. "Yep. That can happen when you are drunk too."
"Why would anyone do this?" she wailed.
Though it was just what Hopper wanted to hear, he wondered if she would even remember that statement in the morning.
El cried herself to sleep in his arms, and eventually he fell asleep too, even though it was only a little after 9 o'clock.
Hopper woke up around 4 AM to El laying in his lap, whining painfully with every breath.
"Feels like shit huh," Hopper said softly to her so that he didn't startle her. El managed a small nod. He slid out from under and came back from the bathroom with two tablets of ibuprofen. "This should help a little," he told her. El sat up and took the tablets with a sip of water and then curled back up on the couch under the blanket. Hopper turned the television off and climbed in his own bed.
El finally fell back to sleep when the medication started to kick in after an hour. She woke up hours later to the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. It made her want to throw up.
El went to the bathroom, managed to brush her teeth, and sat down at the kitchen table, prepared for her punishment.
"So we have to talk about yesterday, yeah?" Hopper sat down across from her with his breakfast plate.
El looked down at the table. "Grounded?"
"Yes. Definitely grounded, but there's more than that. What you did was really stupid," he started, trying to contain his anger. Patience, he remembered.
"I didn't think it would end up like that," she said quietly. "We just wanted to try it out."
"I get that. But alcohol can also be dangerous," he said.
"I didn't know. You drink it all the time," she pointed out, which Hopper realized was a fair point. She probably didn't understand the difference between a grown man drinking a can of beer with dinner and a small girl taking shots of vodka.
"Yes, but I'm a grown adult. I understand how to drink responsibly," he said before realizing that was probably somewhat of a lie. "What you kids did was not only stupid, but illegal."
El's eyes went wide; she knew kids weren't supposed to drink, but she didn't actually know that it was illegal. Hopper was a police man and he took bad people who did illegal things to jail. He had once explained to her that jail was kind of like living in the lab. Tears brimmed on her eyes.
"Are we going to jail?" she finally managed to ask.
"No, kid, no. You aren't going to jail. But if you got caught by another adult, you could have been in big trouble."
El nodded, understanding. She sniffled to keep the tears from falling. Her head was pounding, and she laid it down on the table.
"I don't feel good," she told him, closing her eyes.
"Uh-huh. That's called a hangover. It's from drinking too much alcohol and not enough water."
El sat up and sipped the glass of water in front of her, hoping it would make her feel better, though it just made her feel more nauseous.
"Listen," Hopper sighed. "There will be more times when other kids are drinking around you. I just want you to be responsible enough to know when you've had enough. That's probably after one or two drinks. And you shouldn't be drinking hard liquor like vodka." He nodded to the offending bottle still in her bag, and she felt guilty all over again. "And if I ever hear about you getting into a car with someone who has been drinking, I'll probably kill you before you have a chance to die in a car accident," he threatened.
"New rules?" El asked. She actually liked when Hopper laid out rules for her. Even though she didn't always obey, they made it a little easier for her to at least understand right from wrong.
"Yeah, sure. New rule. You call me if you ever feel like you are in a situation that feels weird. Drugs, drinking, I don't really care what it is. You can always call me. Even if you think I'm going to be pissed and you don't want to get in trouble. Got it?"
El nodded.
"And don't ever steal my liquor again," he added.
"Are my friends going to be in trouble?" she asked quietly.
"I didn't tell their parents if that's what you are asking," he said. "Well, I guess I did tell Joyce, so yes. Will is probably in trouble too," he corrected. "I'll leave it up to your other friends to decide if they want to tell their parents or not." After a moment of silence, he added, "You need to eat a little something."
El adamantly shook her head no.
"I know, but it'll help." Hopper got up and popped a slice of bread in the toaster. El pressed her palms against her eyes. The sounds of Hopper in the kitchen were almost too much. When he sat the plate down on the table with a loud clink, El winced. "Eat," he instructed.
El somehow managed to ingest the whole piece of toast and half a glass of water. She laid her head back down on the table, looking pale and sick to her stomach.
"Go back to bed before you lose your breakfast," he nodded to her bedroom. Hopper watched El climb into her own bed, pulling the blankets up over her head.
She was truly miserable. Like Joyce had said, her massive hangover probably was punishment enough. But after a moment of thought, Hopper realized that he was feeling like having a home-made smoothie with his breakfast. He popped some yogurt and bananas in the blender, and perhaps let the noisy motor blend it all together for just a little bit longer than it needed to.
When breakfast was finished, he started some spring cleaning that had definitely needed to be done that morning. He turned up the volume on the television so he that he could easily hear it over the sound of the vacuum and started thoroughly cleaning every corner, crevice, and cobweb.
When he finished and sat down on the couch, El came out of her bedroom and heavily glared at him on her way to the bathroom.
"What," he asked, innocently shrugging his shoulders.