The moments that it took for Joyce to sense his presence, and meet his gaze, felt immeasurable to Hopper. It was a slow motion thing, how he stopped in the doorway, and watched her take a tremulous breath - The way the sunlight passed through the dusty office, so that her hair shone auburn beneath its warm rays, the glimpse he had of her elegant profile as she, still in that slow motion capture, turned her huge, doe eyes to look at him.
It was Hopper's turn for a tremulous breath, his lips parting with appreciation for how she glowed from her seat at his untidy desk. She floored him, much as he tried to prepare for it, and perhaps more than ever.
The warm springtime sun haloed around her, and she looked like the angel he thought her. Jim thought that there was something exceptionally radiant about her on this day. He felt a shiver across his neck.
Perhaps it was peacefulness, perhaps it was acceptance, re-emergence from mourning. Perhaps she had laid Bob, and her guilt, to rest. The calm energy filled the room, and Jim was almost overcome by it - Almost willing to be direct, to shelve his stubbornness, and make this easy. With Joyce it could be so damn easy.
But Jim's shoulders tensed as he looked at her, not quite ready for this moment - It wasn't a great day for it, his mood was sour from the start - But Joyce should have known it was a hard day, and why that was.
However, he wasn't surprised that she was being spontaneous about their reunion, that she would spring it on him, because it was too much, too uncomfortable to try to discuss it, to try to slowly ease back into their stunted dynamic.
Jim thought he had done what was right for her by staying away - and in turn, he hoped, what was right for the two of them in future - But it was not easy, loathe he was to admit. It produced a near constant twisting in his gut these long months, a state of permanent concern from not being at her side through this hardship.
It wasn't easy to be sidled right up alongside her, to have it all out in the open, to make his apologies for withdrawing that year in the woods with El, only to have to...pull back again. It was frustrating, his own fumbling mistakes in his time with Joyce. It was his own fault, he intruded on a grieving woman, and wanted her, but it wasn't fair to either of them, and especially not to Joyce.
He knew that - He knew he had to respect what she was going through, and he did. He packed up his abstract things, and gave her time.
Though, he didn't entirely know that time meant space, too - Meant complete and utter avoidance of him, but it made him miss her real bad. He was naïve to think she could take the time she needed to grieve, and still let him into her home, still let him put his arms around her - But damn, what a letdown.
The void in his chest that had started to fill in with Joyce's presence, was emptying again in her absence. Raising El, watching her learn, and grow, it helped - It was a stopper in the leak, but he was missing Joyce. Round two of fatherhood filled a different part of the void, but it was when he thought - shit - when he thought about Joyce, that he realized...he wanted more. He wanted it all. They were on the road to some patchwork family, and he didn't want to give up on that - He wanted it back, and he wanted it all, goddammit.
Joyce was almost an exception to the black hole, because - because, shit, she had come back. What a thing - What an enormous thing that through all Jim had lost, after all whom he had hurt, he was - He was getting another go 'round with Joyce - Wasn't he? If he was, he was unworthy, but would take advantage of such a fuckin' chance.
Jim thought about her all of the time, and it was a punch to his ego - It was consuming in a way he hadn't felt in 20 fuckin' years. Not even Diane, not even the love he thought he found with her when he came back from war, had burned through him in such a way.
It was humbling.
It was a mature thing, it was something that could only be between him and Joyce - Something for which the seeds were planted in youthful romance, but it couldn't have happened, like this, until now.
Though - Shit - He wished it could have, wished in some big ways that it had always been him and Joyce (in some big ways it had been). He wouldn't change anything about his marriage to Diane, no matter how tragic was the ending - Sara - But he wished Joyce had...something better those years they were apart.
Wished that he could have given her something better.
He had a love, he had a baby girl who carried his whole heart, and Joyce had her boys. But it was in a state of chaos, of uncertainty, of all of the hard times she went through - All of the months she just tried to get by, and provide for her boys, that turned into years, and then, eventually - Here, now - Just surviving, just...getting by.
Jim feeling like he did about her, it couldn't have happened after saving Will - Sure, there was enough groundwork laid then for him to start falling, to respect her in a way that he respected few - But it was Joyce, determined, fierce, tenacious Joyce, saving him in those tunnels that really blew his world apart, opened his eyes real, real wide.
Shit, unfinished business with Joyce really did a number on him, and he wanted more of it. The pain of it was exquisite, as it was only she for whom he yearned in such a way.
He was selfish, obtuse, almost careless in these realizations. Who did he think he was? So much for not wanting to be an opportunist from Bob's death. But he didn't give a shit, sometimes, he just knew what it felt like, and it felt like the right place to be.
It felt like one last chance.
Jim tried not to get too bitter about it, about the lost time (more lost time) - Tried not to let it bother him when she wouldn't take his calls, or passed messages through their kids. He fast learned how to play along, what were the new rules of their dynamic.
It still irked him, but that spoke more of his own bull-headed impatience than anything Joyce was doing - She wasn't doing anything but taking the time she needed, and it wasn't her fault that he was submerged in her, and couldn't get it together.
That he had baggage, that his paranoia about curses and black holes really reared its head when he felt like he was losing something good...that was on him. It wasn't her cross to bear, it was his to battle with, as she battled her aching guilt.
They both had something to do in the meantime, Jim pathetically reasoned.
He worried that if they never were in the same orbit again that...that he would fail with El. He didn't realize how much he missed a partner in parenthood that year alone with El, until Joyce found out, and suddenly - Suddenly it all made a little more sense. He could do this, sure, but he could do it well with Joyce.
And the kid was another story altogether. El was so taken with Joyce that she didn't really...pick up on anything between Jim and Joyce at first. El wanted Joyce's time and attention, wanted her motherly guidance, and if Jim wasn't always there taking up Joyce's time that was fine by her. But, when things got awkward, when they didn't talk about the other anymore, when Joyce didn't invite him in for coffee, and Jim didn't ask - El, and all of the kids, got suspicious.
It was over their heads, both parents assumed, but the longer on it went, the more curious, and questioning, were they all (Jonathan the least, because he really, really didn't want to get involved in his Mom's love life, though even he admitted she wasn't her old self.)
Both adults were a little more tense some days, and as outwardly loving as Joyce was to the kids, they could sense she was in a darkness through the winter. El didn't really...blame Jim, didn't take the situation with Joyce out on him, but would sometimes get frustrated.
El would try to understand what had changed - It wasn't a big deal at first, but once she had soaked up so much of Joyce's attention, and affection, that she really knew her, too...she knew Joyce was sad. She knew that when Hopper was there, Joyce wasn't as sad. El would come home and excitedly talk about the day, but then quietly talk about Joyce, and just somewhat plead of Jim to help make Joyce feel better, which gutted him.
Because, even when Bob was alive, Jim felt that he...had a part of Joyce that no one else had, a segment from which Bob was kept, that Lonnie certainly never saw, and Jim felt a smug affirmation about this. He felt it was perhaps part of her truest self - He knew her first, before fucking Lonnie, he had known her best all of those years ago, and she knew him.
It could flatten him if he thought about it too long, could steal his breath a little embarrassingly. She knew all of his secrets and torments, knew how to hurt him, but knew how to heal, too - He had that bit of her, and she had that of him, and it was...poignant. If he was a more sentimental man (which, Jesus, all of these women who have been in and out of his life were turning him into one), he could cry about it.
All of this seemed to hit Jim in that one, long, slow moment in which he saw her before she saw him. Everything sped up when their eyes met, deep honeyed brown catching his, and froze him on the spot.
"Hey, Hop." Joyce said so warmly, smile so beatific, that he felt his pulse leap in his throat, felt a jolt in his gut, to his groin.
But Hell if Jim wasn't stubborn. Did she need to know how she affected him so? Maybe. He'd let her in, but he was a little too proud just then.
He only missed a beat before he continued into his office, giving her a wide berth in case she tried to touch him (or he couldn't resist touching her). He sniffed, sighing as he collapsed into the stiff chair, taking his time getting situated.
He steepled his hands on the desk, rolled his neck to ease a crick in it (too many nights falling asleep face down on the old chesterfield at the cabin), before he flicked his eyes to Joyce's face, impassively.
Jim kept his face blank, his eyebrows raised a bit, expectantly, waiting - Not giving anything, not speaking first.
Joyce bit her bottom lip, features pinching with uncertainty at his lack of greeting. The easy happiness she radiated was sucked out of the room, and she looked ill at ease now. It was sudden, like the sun went behind a cloud.
Jim's mouth set in a terse line, and he was made of the kind of stuff that meant he could ignore Joyce's vulnerability if he really wanted to - Really wanted to take his mood out on her, really wanted to blame her for how the black hole loomed over him those months without her.
But, Fuck. It was Joyce. He didn't wanna bring her down. His affection for her overpowered his hard-headed nature.
"Hey, Joycie." Hopper said quickly at her recoil, sorry to see her frown when she had smiled so big, and he felt relieved at the save. Her smile spread again through the teeth still biting her lip, and it was so winsome that Jim thought he might burst.
You're weak, he thought, but he didn't even mind.
"Mad at me?" She winced at her own question, eyes softening apologetically. She wanted to get it out of the way, he knew, and he appreciated the effort.
She watched him as he shrugged.
"Nah, I mean," Jim shifted, rubbing the back of his neck, the skin beneath his collar burning under her scrutiny.
"Nah." He said again inelegantly, for there was so much he could say, but he felt like he had to play it safe. He was a fool for her, but if she was here to push him off some more - Well, whatever she needed, but he didn't think he could bear showing his hand any more than he already had.
"Wanna be?" Joyce needled, really wanting to know how he felt - She didn't want him to pretend for her sake, didn't want this to be a stumbling block to their moving forward.
"No. I don't want to be." Jim grumbled, dropping her gaze, shuffling some papers, grabbing a pen.
"So, you are,"
"What?"
"Mad at me."
"I'm - I just," Jim felt like she was roping him into something he had absolutely no intention of discussing - He was letting it go, he was ready to move on as soon as her smile fell, and his heart thumped.
"Hop."
"Joyce. Shit - I'm not mad - It's been - I didn't know time meant space at first, but I figured it out, yknow? And it's been a little...maddening working through it - Feels like we're sharing custody of a kid that ain't even ours. But I'm not mad...at you."
"She's yours, though," Joyce said quietly, breezing by the rest of his statement for now. There was a point to make about El.
"Yeah. Yeah, I mean - She is." He flashed his hands to the side, open-palmed, as if to say, 'you're point?'
"She was mine too, Hop, the second she walked back through my door that night." Joyce blinked long lashes as she met his eyes across the desk. That was a big thing to share, she thought. The eye contact was brief, but in his she saw flash something dear, and wholesome.
"Of course," Jim breathed, with an unblinking nod, impressed with her conviction, moved by her dedication to his adopted kid. "Yeah, of course she was."
"You know I mean it?" Joyce asked, earnest, genuine, placing her hand on his desk, and slowly trailing her fingertips toward the middle.
"Yeah." Jim laid his own hand on the desk, their fingers barely meeting before withdrawing - Hers to her lap, his to the armrests. He gripped them tightly as he watched her fidget. He thought that she had a smudge of brown makeup right against her lash line, for her eyes were all the more arresting on this day, on this dazzling spring morning.
He had never forgotten how beautiful she was. She was his favourite brunette, she was a touchstone in his life, and she was still goddamn beautiful. And she was here, warm and alive - Haunted by many things, of this dimension and others, of past and present, but she herself was blessedly untouched by his personal black hole. It was - heartening, encouraging - everything.
The office grew quiet, and the sounds from the street filtered through his window - People about their Monday, normal routine taking place feet away, as they were here putting something back together.
"How'd'ya get here?" Jim's chair scraped noisily across the floor as he tried to adjust himself to a less combative position, and he frowned at the potential for awkwardness. That is what he didn't want. "Didn't see your car when I came in."
"Walked over from the store. I was just covering for a couple of hours this morning."
"Right." Jim nodded, drumming his hands against the edge of the desk, wishing he'd poured that coffee before he embarked on this. It was heavy for a Monday morning.
Joyce chewed her thumbnail, and seemed to space out for a moment, her eyes unfocused. She looked so far away from him on the other side of his desk.
It was funny, he thought, considering how terribly small this room had been that morning she turned up to report Will missing. How Jim would have given anything for her to leave, for Will to turn up with no further interaction with his frazzled Mother. Her cigarette smoke had filtered through the office that November morning, so it felt like she was right against him, permeating his space, even as she shouted at him about his lateness.
Shit. Not even two years ago, and now, now -
"I didn't know I'd need space, either, Hop," Joyce tiptoed back into the waters. "Not until we were in the middle of it. I knew you understood, but when you were around I wanted to snap out of it. I couldn't, and it made me hate myself that I couldn't."
"I know, Joyce - Really." Jim nodded as she spoke, truly understanding - Of course he did, just like did she - Though, just because they understood each other didn't mean they were often on the same page.
"The intensity...it butted heads with my grief and guilt. I'm constantly worried about the kids, but feel like I have to watch Will and El without them really noticing. I couldn't...just couldn't figure you and me out at the same time, even though I worried about you, too." She looked pained as she spoke, and he figured that she was - It had been a long, dark winter, the kind that is hard to get through under the best of circumstances.
It was the kind of winter by which Jim had been pulled down before, too. Jim knew how winter settled the grief into ones bones, and hated to think Joyce felt that - That she was cold and aching and alone, but put it upon herself to worry about him, and his kid, too.
But he was glad she was coming out the other side of it. She was strong in general, but also strong in ways that only a Mother can be (this he had experience with, this he remembered in Diane's strength during, and after, Sara), and he could only deeply respect what he couldn't understand.
"Hey - Shit - It's alright - Worried about me? - You - Jesus, it was just hard to know you were going through that, and I couldn't be there. I felt useless, and shitty sending El there as if everything was okay,-" Really, he just wanted to lay it to rest, he just wanted to find their rhythm again, but Joyce had come here with a mission to communicate, and God help him if he thought he was going to get out of it.
"But that's part of what helped. And it means the world that you gave me what I needed - Even though some days all I wanted was you there beside me." Her cheeks were ever so slightly pink as she said this, and her face crinkled at her own soppiness.
Jim didn't mind, he lapped it up.
"Yeah?" He asked, enough of his ego unbruised to perk up at this, the corners of his eyes crinkling warmly as he smiled, softening him in a way that made Joyce's breath hitch.
"Yeah." Joyce murmured, and there it was again - That quality, that glow, that confidence he knew from her decades ago, blooming delicately out of her today, sitting in his office.
Jim inhaled deeply, his chest puffing out as he took her in. It was all coming back easy now; gentle, like a warm tide, like a slow sip of dark liquor, like twilight in June, like a Sinatra record in the evening - This might do just fine.
He watched her until his eyes stung, then he cleared his throat. He swiped a big hand across his face, tugging at his newly shorn mustache. Joyce wrinkled her nose with a smile, as if she were suppressing a comment on his facial hair. He was sure he would hear it later, and he longed to.
There was the quiet again, but it was nice, and comfortable, this time. Joyce lit a cigarette, but Jim just kept watching her. He wanted to reach across the desk to touch her again, but she sat back in the chair a little more comfortably, and there was no subtle way to do so.
Her hair was longer, he noticed, her waves a little more tamed than normal, but still had that wild quality to it. She wore a white shirt, and faded black jeans, but they fit her better than her usual stuff - She was in her same old leather jacket, but it went well with her look. Her lips were pink and plump as they pursed around her cigarette, and Jim watched her tongue dart out to wet them once she finished the smoke.
"You know who I was thinking about today?" Joyce's voice was small, serious - Nervous, almost. Jim sat at the edge of his seat, putting most of his weight onto the desk, leaning closer to better see and hear her.
"Who?" Jim asked, brow heavy, voice deep, attention entirely on her.
"Benny." Joyce admitted, and her mouth sloped sadly on the word.
Jim's breath whooshed out of him unevenly at his dead friend's name. His hands clenched tightly against the wood. Yeah. Shit.
So, Joyce was in tune with that. She hadn't forgotten, and she knew how tender Jim was feeling about it. Said reason for his sour mood, for not wanting to get into anything with her today, for wanting to brood, and glare, and be alone - Though none of that was really playing out so far.
"His birthday." Jim said with a nod, acknowledging that he was thinking about Benny, too. The emotion was impossible to keep off of his face, so he lit a smoke this time.
He felt a little agitated, suddenly, at himself more than anything, and ridiculously at the fact they weren't smoking at the same time. He felt out of sync with her when they weren't smoking together. He had felt out of sync with her these long months, and he was tired of it.
"It still doesn't feel real, Hop. Nothing that happened that year does, but especially losing Benny." They had never really talked about that profound loss, and it rushed out of Joyce in a way that indicated she wanted to now.
"I know. I'm," Jim cleared his throat, as he felt it tighten with emotion. He drew from the cigarette until his lungs burned. "I'm a bit of a fuckin' wreck today, Joyce."
"I wondered if you were okay," She shifted like she might get up, but thought better of it.
"I was thinking about Benny, and I was remembering all of these..." Joyce trailed off with a heavy sigh, and her eyes shone like Jim figured his were shining. "Do you know that he let us stay with him, when Will was newborn?"
"Wha'?" Jim did not, and his voice was thick with the plume of smoke that he exhaled at the same time he spoke.
"Yeah - Maybe a week. Lonnie showed up with some scumbags, but they weren't his usual crowd. His regular buddies annoyed me, but this crew scared me. Didn't feel safe. I went to the diner after a couple of nights, didn't want to be home. It was way after closing when Ben finally tried to...gently throw us out," Joyce smiled, remembering the gruff but gentle giant as he checked the clock, watched Jonathan run around his place of business, listened to her newborn wail.
"I just - I broke down, I guess, and next thing I know he's offering me his guest room. It was - Jesus. It was the most support I'd had for years. We felt safe - Hop, Will was less than a month old, I think, this little baby, and I had...I had no one...He did us a real favour that time." Joyce recalled the details so easily, as if it was something she held closely all these years. She was sharing for his sake, but it didn't diminish the fact it had truly meant the world to her - Then, and now.
"I didn't know," Jim said, shaking his head a little at the darker details of the story, but couldn't help but feel so grateful for his old friend, too - Moved by his actions, glad he was there for Joyce when Jim himself was not. Glad she was safe, even for a moment. "But I'm not surprised he did that."
"Yeah, and um - On Thanksgiving one year, Lonnie skipped town for a couple of weeks - Stole my pay cheque, I couldn't cook a meal - Had nothing. Benny found out, and had a bunch of us out to the diner, and cooked up a big feast instead. Kids didn't even care we weren't having a family meal, because Thanksgiving at Benny's, I mean, that was cool to them then, you know? Saved my ass again." Joyce tapped her fingers against the desk to make a point, to really emphasize it - These weren't small things in her life, though they were quite simple for Benny to offer, and do, they had altered Joyce's world enough to get her through a little while longer.
"Goddamn. God love him." Jim murmured, stubbing out the smoke, clenching his jaw, trying to think about the good times with Benny, trying not to remember finding him that day - Murdered, Jim was certain.
It helped, he thought, to hear these reassuring stories about him - That Benny was exactly who Jim knew he was since they were kids, that he was there to help Joyce when there was no one else around.
Jim figured Joyce knew it would help to hear these things, that maybe she even chose today as their reunion, not for her sake, but his. Maybe she was doing fine without him all along, and she knew that Jim could use a little company - He didn't care, he wasn't often the needy one, but he would be just that if Joyce said so.
"I know, huh? You don't - I wonder if he knew how much it meant to me." Joyce asked, almost as if to ponder if Benny had ever mentioned it to Jim.
He hadn't, because Benny was a respectful, loyal man - Jim didn't need to hear about Joyce's struggles from anyone but Joyce if she so chose, and that made Benny's acts of kindness all the more genuine. There was no motive, no whispering about her behind closed doors, no filling Jim in to give him satisfaction of knowing that Lonnie was a piece of shit (though Jim never had a doubt.) Benny just helped her, and cared about her, and he was a better man than Lonnie, or himself, for it, Jim thought.
"I bet he knew, Joyce," Jim offered. "You were old friends, too. And, that was him, wasn't it? Fucking selfless."
"I miss him - I hadn't really took time to miss him until now." Joyce sounded guilty, but their eyes met and there was a silent pass given - She had a fuck of a lot to worry about in the time during, and since, Benny's death.
"Me, too. I think he was my only friend left in the world. He pulled me up by the bootstraps more than once when I came back to town," This Joyce knew, of course, for one of the times she specifically sent Benny to do the job. "He was a goddamn good friend, and a good man. Shit. He didn't deserve what he got."
"No," Joyce breathed, and through all that they had been through that week they searched for Will, the details of Benny's death were not discussed, not really.
"I know Benny didn't kill himself," Jim said, reading her expression. "I know those baddies from the Lab, the first time around, had something to do with it. And I'd, uh, return the favour, if I had the chance - For El, and Ben."
"I'd be right there with you." Joyce said eagerly, nodding, her bangs covering her eyes as she frowned deeply.
"I don't doubt it one bit." Jim said, trying to lighten the mood, but maybe instead it just made them both think that, well, whose to say there wouldn't be a chance?
Who was to say those bastards weren't hiding, that Brenner wasn't alive and plotting, that evil won't resurface in due time? The comments felt a little too real, too much like an actual possible plan that they might have to follow through on. Jim swallowed, and Joyce remained serious, sad, across from him.
"Remember - heh - D'you remember Benny's 40th birthday?" Jim asked, truly smiling this time, as the memory was a happy one in their recent past. "That is the one and only social event we have both attended since I came back to town. D'you remember?"
"It's blurry, but how could I forget? The only party I've been to in years." Joyce smiled bashfully, remembering the bottle of wine and amaretto she had indulged in that night.
She managed to find a sitter, and Lonnie was nowhere to be found (this was preferable). Benny shut the diner down early, and decked it out - An open bar, disco ball, just a true blow out bash.
Joyce remembered dancing with Benny, remembered warbling Sonny & Cher, and how it felt a bit like a high school reunion - Benny was pals with most of the town, and that included his old high school chums; Jim, and Karen, among them.
"I tried to take you home that night." Jim told her - bold, reckless, admission spilling forth - and he watched a splotchy pink flush grow across her neck, watched her eyes widen behind the fringe of auburn.
"You did not! I was still married,-" Her protest was weak, as she thought back to that night.
They had danced, too, danced like they did in high school, danced fast and fun, improvising moves, Jim twirling her round, and round.
This was some months before their argument in the bar parking lot, when she wasn't quite so disillusioned by all that Jim Hopper had become.
Joyce didn't remember how she ended up dancing with Jim at Benny's birthday, didn't remember him saying a word as he seemed to emerge from a shadowy corner, tall and imposing. He was drunk enough that he was smiling for once, but not so drunk that he was mean, or sloppy. She remembered his eyes narrowed warmly, remembered the crooked smile on his lips.
Maybe he had tried to take her home, she thought, though more subtly than the others he took home in those years. They spilled out the back door, laughing into the cool night, sweaty, breathless, and flushed. The sweat evaporated from their exposed flesh as swirling vapour into the air, and Jim dug smokes out of his pocket. Joyce spread her arms wide, stretching her neck out, the cool air a relief on her hot skin. Her shoulders and legs were bare, and goose-flesh rose as her heart rate slowed.
Jim watched her offer herself to the night air. He placed the cigarette between her lips, and she blinked up at him through lidded eyes as he lit it.
She couldn't remember what was said, didn't remember him propositioning her as such, but maybe - Yeah, maybe he had commented on her legs, or slipped the material of the dress between his fingers, draped an arm across her naked shoulders when she was sufficiently cooled down and was shivering instead. Shit, they'd really been waist-deep in this for years now, hadn't they...
"As if fuckin' Lonnie Byers was going to stop me,-"
"I get that, Hop - I just don't think you tried to take me home. If so, it wasn't much of an attempt,-" Joyce was a little surprised they were going headlong back into this, but it was exhilarating, too - To be open and honest together, to not have to build back up to what had been clear back in December.
"No, probably wasn't. You were - It wasn't as effortless with you as it would have been with someone else. I do remember that I didn't take anyone home that night, because I wished it was you,-"
"Jesus, Hopper,-"
"That goddamn black dress." He grinned, sprawling back in his chair, legs wide, posture relaxed.
He remembered her pale, smooth skin, and the sweat that shone on her forehead, her clavicles, and between her breasts. It was the first time they had fun together again since way back - Fun like that, at least, fun that didn't involve board games with their kids, or a quiet smoke on her porch (because, yeah, maybe Jim was a boring old man now, because those things were fun to him now, too.)
"Hop!" Joyce felt mortified, but her cheeks also hurt from smiling, and it was nice to see - It was nice to feel.
She remembered that she kissed Hop's cheek leaving Benny's party, and burned from head to toe thinking about him afterward. Her legs hurt from dancing that night, and, if she squinted, some of their dance moves could have been born in the bedroom.
Joyce remembered giggling with Karen later, both of them drunk, as Karen asked Joyce every dirty question she could about her past with Jim. He was a mess, but the Chief could still look good when he wanted to, and both women knew it that night.
"Shit, Joyce - I'm glad he was there for you. I wish I could've been." Jim pulled her back to the present, and - He meant it, though it was so much more complicated than that. He couldn't have just...been there. There was so much hurt, so much time, so much resentment, so much war, so much abuse, it - He couldn't have been there for her in any sort of casual way.
"I think we were gonna burn out no matter what back then," Joyce reasoned, and they both knew it as an easy fact at this point. Whether Vietnam had happened, or not, whether Lonnie had forced himself back into the picture, or not - Chances are they wouldn't have made it as the complete kids they were then. But, now -
"You were restless, you couldn't - You wouldn't have been happy sticking around for me. But I'm glad Benny was around. And I'm glad you had your baby girl."
"Me, too. I wish you could have been happy, too." Jim thought it was a presumptuous thing for him to say, a little callous - Maybe she had been happy, maybe moments pieced together added up to a certain level of happiness for her.
Maybe Jim wouldn't have made her any happier than Lonnie did, though his ego would never say that aloud, and he certainly wouldn't have laid his hands on her, and he would have raised their kids whether they stayed together or not, but this wasn't about the ways in which Jim was better than Lonnie, but the ways in which he was the same -
"I have my boys, Jim, and it was all worth it for that." Of course it was, and he nodded fiercely in response - Her boys were her pride and joy, and as they fucking should.
"Good. Yeah." Jim tossed a hand through his hair, feeling wore out from the marathon that was their conversation. He forgot how damn tiring it was to care so fuckin' fiercely - No wonder Joyce was always thrumming with anxiety, no wonder she was always so sure, so devoted to her boys (and their girl.)
It was tiring, but, shit, it felt like a purpose again, to Jim.
"Guess I should head out." Joyce said, and she played with the buttons on her jacket.
"Off the rest of the day, yeah?" Jim straightened up, preparing to say their goodbyes.
"Yeah." Joyce smiled, and she really did look good - Pale, maybe a little more thin than when he left her, but not frail - She looked good, healthy. She had seen herself through it, had flexed her independent muscle once again, and Jim was as proud of her as he was desperately wanting to be her partner in it all.
"You don't have to go," He found himself saying, and he was the kind of man he would have laughed at in his twenties (a feeling one.)
"Well, I can't really sit here and watch you work," Joyce said, wrinkling her nose with amusement, and Jim's brow crumpled pathetically with pure, pulsing fondness.
"I wouldn't mind." Jim said emphatically, and Joyce could only smile more.
"I'll see you again, you know - You don't gotta keep me here. I'll be back." She joked, holding her hands up as if to surrender.
"Can I come to you, can we,-" Jim tried to keep his voice low, because he thought it might crack with all he was thinking and feeling in the moment.
"Yeah, let's slip back into things, what say you?" Joyce bit her lip again, and Jim knew it was unintentional, but goddammit it was like an electrical jolt to his self.
"Aye." He assented with a nod.
"Good. I'm sorry I disappeared," She said, in the way adults wrap conversations up with a flurry of motion - putting her smokes in her bag, pocketing her lighter, not really meeting his eyes.
"It was your turn, and you still fed our kid, and chauffeured her to that damn Wheeler kids basement, so,"
"Can't tell if you're grateful, or resentful," Joyce winked, and Jim grinned, and it was stupid how natural it was - It was pure, simple, stupidity that he had ever been anywhere but here.
"Bit of both." He could have spent the entire day doing this with her, this banter, this rapport - It was playful, it was comfortable.
"All right. Get to it." Joyce finally stood, smiling, and brushed her hands against her thighs.
Jim felt his face fall. He really, really didn't want her to leave. It was teenaged, but he couldn't help it. His devotion to her and her well-being was an entity within him.
"Hey," Jim's voice drew her back in as she was one step toward the door. "C'mere." He didn't know why, he couldn't explain it, but he'd been so far away from her for the longest wintry months, and he wanted to see her in this springtime glory.
Joyce frowned, but not unkindly. She took a few steps in his direction, standing just ahead of the chair she had vacated.
"No, I mean, c'mere." Jim gestured to his right, turning in his chair - He wanted to stand up, but also wanted to take her in from this vantage point.
Joyce scoffed a laugh, but approached him, and stood behind the desk beside him. He thought he saw a tremble in her hands as she clasped them against her middle. He didn't have a plan, but he pressed his lips together with a noisy inhale, and blinked up at her slowly. She was awash in the sunshine, the blinds making little shadows across her delicate features, highlighting her sharp cheekbones even more so.
He made no movements, no attempts, and he wasn't so much chickening out as he was for all the world taken by her.
Joyce moved first, sensing his hesitation, the extent to which he was overcome - The intensity in his gaze, the sadness between his brow. He was missing Benny, he had missed her, but she was here, and they were going to get this right.
She grasped his big face in her petite hands like she did when they rescued him. She tilted his head back, so he was gazing straight up at her, and neither of them were smiling as she ran her fingertips along his bristly cheeks, then down his jaw.
"Where ya been, Joycie," Jim murmured as if they had not just spent half an hour together, as if this was the chance to be completely honest. He made no apologies for how he looked at her lips for a long minute.
"Just across town, Jim." Joyce whispered it, and the playfulness morphed into something much deeper between them, much more intense, but no less satisfying.
Jim had to swallow down the rush of want he felt at the sound of her throaty whisper.
"You been okay?"
"All things considered."
"You would have called if it was real bad?"
"I would have called, Hop."
His eyelids fluttered as she stroked her fingers through his hair, lightening in the warmer weather, and then around the shell of his ear. She tilted her head, and she looked so utterly at ease that Jim felt a thick calm blanket him.
It was funny, how malleable they were around each other - They could excite, and ignite each other, but they could calm, too, with not much more than physical closeness. They were both thinking of how goddamn important was that.
Jim closed his eyes.
"Had to learn that just because I'm sad about what happened to Bob, I'm still glad that it wasn't you, and that we saved you."
Jim looped his arms around her waist without opening his eyes, and his mouth parted embarrassingly as she speared both of her hand through his hair over and over, very nearly putting him to sleep at his desk.
"Makes me happier than I should admit to hear that." He grumbled, dragging his hands down to go under her coat, and then back up to spread his fingers wide against her back, only her t-shirt separating them now. He wanted to claim as much surface area of her that he could, and he could feel the warmth of her skin through her shirt, that he couldn't through her coat - He could feel the notches of her spine, and the clasp of her bra.
"It's okay to admit it, Hop." Joyce was still whispering, and he couldn't remember feeling so calm in all his years back in Hawkins. He was sure he had - Was sure he had medicated himself to a drooling lump before, but not like this - Nothing was like this. It made him shake to think he could feel like this all of the time - That they could give this to each other.
If she kept touching him like that he would be admitting more than Joyce may like to hear, for he was certain, now, that he loved her, that he was in love with her. The time apart did nothing to quell that inside of him, and it seared through him, scorching his edges as he tried to keep it to himself.
Joyce took the time to look at him closely - To look at him in ways that she had not been able to in years, not when he watched her back with a better poker face than her own. He looked younger with his eyes closed, without anything pulling at the sides, or heaving his forehead down, his heavy brow relaxed as she hypnotically twirled his hair. It was something her boys loved, of course, something she herself loved when she was a little girl, but it was something that Jim Hopper had so especially loved, that Joyce found herself mourning all the years she had missed doing this.
She remembered him falling asleep in her lap like this after football practice, remembered how he nuzzled his head against her breasts after their first time together, and she twined and twirled his hair just like this. She felt warm, pulsing butterflies tumble at her centre as she thought about that, as she took him in.
It had been not been easy to be away from him, but it was worth it - It was worth the restraint, worth the time to patch over some of her more festering wounds, and develop some ways to cope so that she wasn't entirely reliant on him. It was worth it to be here now, to watch his penetrating blue eyes open and absolutely steal her breath like they did when she was eighteen, and -
"Brought you that coffee, Chief, you never came back for it." Flo strolled into Hopper's office, to which the door was of course open, and Joyce jumped back from the solid man beneath her fingertips, both of her hands flying to her burning cheeks as Flo approached the desk - Never pausing for a moment.
She was of an age where nothing surprised her, and all this beating around the bush fatigued her. Good, they were finally getting this out of the way, so maybe Jim would stop terrorizing his staff sixty percent of the time - A win for Flo, whatever the circumstance.
"Would you like one, dear?" She asked Joyce, setting the coffee mug down, and Jim groaned loudly, feeling much like being caught by a school marm who was then dragging the awkwardness out.
"Fl-o." Jim's hands were both still very much up Joyce's coat, rubbing his fingers against her tense back.
"For the love of God, Chief," She sighed dismissively, then raised her eyebrows to Joyce, who shook her head, still holding onto her cheeks.
"No - No, thanks, Flo, thank you."
"Y'don't have to thank her twice," Jim murmured, rolling his eyes.
"She has manners, Chief! Isn't that wonderful - Gosh I wonder how much it would hurt for any of that to rub off on,-"
"Oh my GOD, Flo." And Jim sounded so much like his adopted daughter in that moment that Joyce laughed out loud, and it was a nice April morning, indeed.
i put joyce and jim alone together in another room for an extended period of time with heavy reflection - weird, right? lol. it's indulgent, but it's Jopper. i 3 them, and miss them.
thank you thank you thank you as always for the comments and conversation and wonderful content from this fandom. i'm a fangirl for this fandom.