Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me except the mistakes as this is un-beta'd.

Author's note: This is a little sequel to another fic I wrote that is published on this site called 'Sunday Mornings'. It might make a little more sense if you've read that first but as always this isn't exactly plot heavy so it's not a necessity.

P.s. this is basically a little love letter to Winona Ryder's look in her new L'Oréal advert... that girl is killing it!

Happy reading.

Doing It Properly

Hopper sighed heavily as he came back into his and Joyce's room and flung himself backwards on the bed, his hands covering his face in frustration. They hadn't even got to the venue yet and already their assorted kids and their partners and friends were driving him crazy. Joyce smiled at his reflection as she continued to put the final touches to her face and hair whilst sat at the dressing table.

"We haven't even got there yet and that Wheeler kid already has his hands all over our daughter." Hopper groaned loudly from behind his hands.

To this Joyce only smiled all the more. Hopper was a typical overprotective father, not that she could blame him considering everything that had happened, but it didn't mix well with the fact that Jane was fast becoming an equally typical rebellious teenager.

"Well I'm willing to bet that our daughter doesn't appear to have too many complaints about that." Joyce replied, enjoying the small whine her words produced.

"Seriously I don't think I can deal with a whole evening of… WHOA!"

Hopper's train of thought stopped abruptly as he turned over and looked at Joyce for the first time since re-entering the room. She wore a long, sleeveless black dress that was cut low at the front and back with a flowing skirt. Her hair bounced passed her shoulders in perfect, loose curls and her make-up was soft and feminine. She looked utterly stunning and it took him a few moments to realise he was just sitting there staring at her, his mouth hanging open in complete awe.

"Too much?" Joyce asked as she caught his eye in the mirror. She looked uncertain and even a little bit shy under his intense gaze. It was certainly a far cry from her Melvad's uniform but it suited her perfectly.

"Hell no!" Hopper replied instantly. She smiled and continued by reaching for her perfume bottle.

"It isn't very wedding-y… it's black."

"It's kind of appropriate… I mean some people would say you are attending your own funeral – marrying me."

She looked up sharply but relaxed as soon as she caught his eye again. It was clear that he was joking. And he wasn't wrong – he was bad news to a lot of people in this town – drunk, womanising, arrogant, lazy. And he had been all of those things when he had first come back to Hawkins. He'd also been completely lost and broken by grief but the busybodies had never seemed as concerned about that. He liked to think he'd turned it around in the last couple of years, he was a father and husband once again, a step-father too now and he'd left all that other shit behind him.

"It's funny I was always figured that's what they'd say about you marrying me." She shot him another teasing grin in the mirror.

She was right too. There were plenty of people in the town that thought she was no good. Unstable, unhinged, crazy. And of course her worst sin – she was poor. But a nice pay out from the lab in exchange for her silence and two full-time incomes instead of one had put a stop to that recently.

Hopper pulled himself up from the bed and came to stand behind her, his hands gripping her shoulder gently.

"It's perfect," he told her sincerely. "You're perfect." His fingers stroked the end of one of her curls as he spoke and as she smiled her silent thank you at him he dipped his head low to place a kiss to the side of her neck, just above the perfume she had recently applied. "Hmmm…" He hummed into her skin in a show of appreciation. "You smell good." He kissed her neck again, lingering this time and opening his mouth to suck the skin slightly.

"Hop, stop!" Joyce pulled away from him suddenly but she was giggling still. "You'll leave a mark." She chastised him as she arched her head to check in the mirror that he hadn't done just that.

"Why don't we blow this off tonight? Stay here just the two of us instead." He suggested seriously as he knelt down next to the stall she was sitting on and began to trail open mouthed kisses down the side of her bare arm.

"We can't." She told him firmly but she didn't shrug him off.

He reached her wrist and turned her arm so that the inside of it was now facing him and he set to working his way back up, his lips barely leaving her skin. She watched him with a detached sort of amusement that told him there was no way she was going to take him up on his offer. Shame.

"This was your idea remember? You said we should make it up to the kids for eloping by letting them throw us a big wedding party and letting them invite whoever they liked. Which by the way always meant that Mike was going to come and spend the evening, how did you put it? Ah yes, with his hands all over our daughter."

At the mention of the Wheeler kid's name he stopped his efforts and rose to his feet. Joyce thought she had succeeded in dissuading him but as soon as he was upright again he bent down to sit on the stall next to her. He squeezed his ample size onto the small amount of room at the end so they sat level, facing opposite directions.

"Come on Joy… you know you want to." He continued in the same lazy drawl that meant he had in no way given up his cause. "I'll make it worth your while." Was his next promise. He accompanied his words with an extremely suggestive look aimed directly at her chest and an equally unsubtle wetting of his lips that left no room for her to misinterpret exactly what he meant. Joyce laughed aloud at how ridiculous he was being.

"I don't doubt it." She told him, still chuckling to herself. "You always do."

Hopper couldn't help the smile that statement produced from him. Joyce was the best sex he had ever had, by a country mile. She was bold, impulsive, utterly sexy and endlessly surprising. Sometimes he felt as if he were struggling to keep up but hearing her say that more than inflated his confidence. In fact he was fairly sure he was literally puffing his chest out in pride at that moment.

"Why else do you think I married you?" Joyce said suddenly, causing him to jolt back to the present. He saw the playful, teasing sparkle in his wife's eye and smiled back.

"Oh that the only reason was it?" He replied, trying to sound hurt but failing miserably due to the stupid, big grin on his face.

"Uh-huh. Well that and your body heat." He shot her a questioning look. "I mean it gets pretty cold around here at night time but going to sleep with you is like having my own personal electric heater in the bed with me. It's worth keeping you around just for that to be honest."

"Oh I see how it is!" He joked, nudging her shoulder playfully with his and she nudged his shoulder right back.

And then, just because he really couldn't resist it any longer, he kissed her; hard and passionate. He was half expecting her to throw him off again and chastise him for distracting her from getting ready but she didn't. Quite the opposite in fact, she leaned into him and opened her mouth letting him explore inside with his tongue. He grabbed the sides of her face, surely smudging all the make-up she had spent time perfecting in the process. He kissed and kissed her until he broke away from her mouth suddenly, instantly dipping his head to continue his open mouthed exploration down her neck to the exposed area between her breasts. His beard scratched his way over her skin and she laughed at the sensation, holding his head in her hands and enjoying the unabashed attention he was bestowing on her.

"Oh great, I should have known!" They jumped apart at the sound of Jonathan's voice from the doorway. He didn't look angry so much as resigned to the fact that his new stepfather seemed utterly incapable of leaving his mother alone. It was lucky he liked Hopper. It was lucky he liked seeing his mum so happy and his younger brother flourish under the influence of a new father figure. Otherwise he might have had a real problem with the way the pair seemed to go at it like rampant teenagers the second anyone's back was turned. "When you two have quite finished that we really need to get going." He told them with an exasperated shake of his head before retreating from the room once again.

"He's right." Hopper agreed. Joyce widened her eyes in surprise – was this the same man that had just been practically begging her to stay home instead. "As much as I would like to stay right here and finish what we were just about to start…" He trailed off, giving her another knowing look.

Joyce shook her head in mirth. She tuned back towards the mirror and checked her hair and make-up, both of which were remarkably still intact. She ran her hands down the opening of her dress, smoothing the fabric as she went and then frowned when she noticed something.

"I think you gave me a beard burn." She told him, running her hand over a section of her skin that was slightly red. "What am I going to say if anyone notices that?" Hopper blanched a little at the thought considering that for someone to notice that they'd have to be staring pretty intently at his wife's chest.

"Tell them that your husband was enjoying your choice of outfit… And remind them that he's six foot three and carries a gun with him most of the time."

"Come on big guy." She laughed, letting her voice be deliberately patronising in response to his childish jealousy. "It's show time."

He offered her his hand as she stood from the stall and shuffled her way out of from in front of the dressing table. Hopper opened the bedroom door and they exited hand in hand, ready to face what would surely be a memorable night, one way or another, together.