The timer on top of the stove went off and El opened the oven door. It was the first time she ever attempted to use the oven by herself. She reached in to grab their dinner trays with her bare hands before Hopper could even think about telling her not to. She had known about not touching fire, but for some reason, she didn't connect the dangers of fire to their food in the oven being hot enough to hurt her. It took a few seconds for the heat and pain to register in her head and her brain couldn't compute quickly enough for her to find somewhere to set them down. Hopper turned around just as he saw the tv dinners crash to the floor, hitting the oven door on the way and splattering hot food everywhere, including all over El.
He took in her wide eyes and bare hands and immediately realized what happened.
"Oh, shit!" he swore, yanking the dish towel off the drying rack to quickly wipe the burning food off her hands and bare legs.
El stood frozen, looking to her hands that felt like they were on fire while he brushed the food off of her body.
"Shit," he swore again with a sigh, turning his attention to her hands. He pulled her by her arm over to the kitchen sink, not thinking about the force with which he did so. He turned the faucet on and grabbed both of her wrists, holding her hands under the stream of cool water. "Stay here." He quickly moved into the bathroom to grab a few more towels.
El's heart was racing and her throat felt tight with tears that were about to fall any second. She pulled her hands out from the faucet and looked around at the mess on the floor. She knew she had to leave before the man came back out of the bathroom. She ran to her bedroom, sinking down in the corner next to the blanket rack, wrapping her arms around her legs. The pain immediately returned to her hands, but she didn't care.
She knew that when you were bad, you got punished. And she also knew that making a mess and spilling their food all over was definitely bad from the way that he had yelled.
Hopper's tone and anger hadn't been directed at her, but El didn't understand that and wasn't used to anyone raising their voice. Papa yelled at the other men sometimes when he was very mad, but he never yelled at her. She mostly knew that she was in trouble when Papa got quiet instead. But now she could tell that the nice man that she called Hopper was not happy, and it was all her fault because she was stupid and spilled their dinner everywhere.
Hopper grabbed two washcloths from the bathroom, soaking them with cold water in the bathroom sink. When he came out, the water in the kitchen sink was still running, but El was gone. His eyes panned across the kitchen and living room, but he didn't see her.
"El?" he called with a slight growing panic. The front door was still bolted shut so there was no way she could have gone outside. He rushed to her bedroom and threw the door back with more intensity than he intended. El wasn't looking but winced when she heard the door handle hit the wall with a loud thud.
Her hiding spot hadn't been that great; he saw her immediately, despite her attempt to shrink back further into the corner behind her dresser, trying to disappear.
"El, Jesus," he sighed in relief. "What are you doing?"
She didn't answer and didn't look up from her arms. She heard him coming closer and she moved back towards the wall. He knelt down next to her and she flinched when his hand touched her knee.
"Hey, what are you doing down here?" he asked a little gentler this time, her body language clearly indicating that she was for some reason, terrified. "El," he pressed when she didn't move. "We need to get these on your hands." He pulled her arms off her legs and pressed the cold rags into her palms.
El sat still, easily allowing him to manipulate her body, though she was trembling slightly, and tears dripped down her cheeks.
"Bad," El whimpered after a moment.
"It hurts, I know," he said misinterpreting her words as a statement of pain. He put a hand to her shoulder, and El flinched again when he touched her.
"No. I was…bad," she hiccupped, waiting for him to confirm what she already knew to be true.
Hopper narrowed his eyes, not entirely following.
"No kid, you weren't bad," he promised.
El sniffled and squeezed the cold rags in her hands tightly.
"Loud…Mad," she explained simply, looking to the floor. Hopper understood now why she was apparently hiding in the corner of her bedroom. She was afraid of him and thought she was in trouble about to be punished.
Shit.
He put a finger under her chin and tipped her head up, forcing her to look at him.
"I didn't mean to yell and I'm not mad at you," he began with a heavy sigh. "I'm just mad at myself that I didn't think to tell you before you got hurt. That's all." Even though she was facing him, she still avoided all eye contact. "I forget there are certain things you don't know, and it's not your fault you don't know them, okay? It's not your fault no one ever taught you. I just…I don't want you to get hurt."
God, he wished he had some sort of manual for raising a child like her. It seemed like he was always fucking something up.
"It's not your fault too," El finally responded slowly, trying to convey her thoughts with the only words she knew how.
El's broken compliment made him smile a little. "We are just learning together, yeah?"
El blinked quickly and more tears slipped out of her eyes, but she nodded anyway.
"I'm sorry my yelling scared you. Sometimes I can get a little loud, but it doesn't mean that you are in trouble," he apologized.
The kid sniffled, and her body language softened a little bit. This time, he asked permission before he touched her. "Can I see your hands for a minute?"
El didn't reply but held them out towards him. He pulled the cool rags from her hands. Her fingers were pink, and she had a thick red line across both of her palms with a small blister already forming on one of them. "Oh kid, ouch," he winced and exhaled. "I'm sorry. That's not going to feel the greatest for a couple days."
El looked at her hands too. They still felt like they were burning and straightening her fingers out hurt even more, but she wasn't really concerned with the pain. Both her and Hopper realized at the same time that something in the other room was burning. He returned the cloths to her hands. "Hold these for a minute. I'll be right back."
The food that had spilled in the bottom of the oven and all over the door was rapidly turning to charcoal and burning on to the surface. He carefully stepped over the mess on the kitchen floor and turned the oven off, though that wasn't going to immediately remedy the situation. He grabbed a spatula from a drawer and tried to scrape off as much as he could to prevent even more smoke from filling up the small cabin. Hopper cracked open one of the kitchen windows and left the food mess on the floor deciding to finish taking care of El before cleaning the rest of it up.
He returned to El's bedroom and found her still sitting in the same spot on the floor where he left her. Her cheeks were wet with new tears and he saw how her eyes flashed to his and then quickly back away.
"Can I see one more time?" Hopper asked, kneeling back down next to her. El held her hands out towards him and he pulled the rags off. The burns were pretty significant, her skin already looking tight and shiny over some spots. "Come here kid."
He helped her up by her arm a little more gently than he had before, and she followed behind him without a fight. Hopper took her into the bathroom and closed the lid of the toilet, sitting her down on top of it. He re-wet the two washcloths and handed them back to her. Hopper opened the medicine cabinet though he knew what he was going to find. It was unsurprisingly empty.
Clothes, food, shelter. He had taken care of the basics on his first trip to the store but hadn't even thought about the possibility of needing things if El were to get sick or injured.
There wasn't even so much as one bandage.
He sighed and turned back around towards her.
"Listen, I need to go out to the store to get some bandaids, but uh, I'll be back real soon."
El didn't reply.
"Alright," he sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he did when he was anxious. "Why don't you go out and sit on the couch and watch some tv until I come back." He helped her up and back out to the living room. Hopper turned the tv on and changed the channel until he found an episode of Happy Days, though he knew she could change the station without even getting up if she needed to. "This okay?" he asked anyway.
El gave a slight nod.
"Yeah? Good. I promise I'll be back real soon, okay?"
He really hated having to leave her, but at a minimum, he needed to get bandages and pain medication.
El still hadn't said a word and so he put his shoes on and jogged through the woods to his vehicle. Ten minutes later, Hopper pulled into a parking spot outside of Melvald's. If he hadn't been feeling so guilty and preoccupied thinking about El, maybe he would have paid attention enough to see that a familiar car was parked just a few spots down.
Hopper walked into the store and went straight to the pharmacy area where he stood for a second deciding between pills or liquid. While El was technically old enough for pills, she was so small and surely fit into the dosing by weight for the children's liquid ibuprofen. He picked up an antibiotic ointment and a pack of various sized, brightly colored bandages.
There were definitely other supplies that would eventually be necessary to have back at the cabin for other illnesses, but he thought about El sitting back at home in pain and wanted to get back to her as soon as possible just like he'd promised.
Hopper approached the cash register and at the exact same time, he and Joyce locked eyes.
He wasn't necessarily upset about seeing Joyce, but he realized that it was definitely too late for him to slyly set anything in his hands down without her noticing. He hadn't even thought about the possibility of seeing her here right now.
It was later than she'd normally worked, but he didn't know that she had been picking up some longer shifts to make up for all the time she had missed over the previous month. Working late wasn't ideal considering that was how all this trouble started in the first place, but there were bills to pay and looking after Will was something Jonathan took quite seriously now.
"Hop, hey," Joyce smiled when she saw him. She hadn't seen him around much for the past few weeks. And to be honest, she sort of missed his frequent visits, though she certainly didn't miss the stress of those few weeks that they spent sorting things out during and after Will's disappearance.
"Oh hey Joyce," he forced a smile back and stood next to the counter.
"Haven't seen you in a little while. How have you been?" she asked, waiting for him to deposit the items he held tightly in his arms down on to the counter.
"Yeah, you know. Same old, same old," he quickly excused.
He couldn't exactly say, you remember that telekinetic kid we harbored for a day? Well I've just been pretty busy taking care of and trying to keep her safe for the past couple of weeks.
Joyce gave a polite nod and Hopper realized he needed to set the things down on the counter for her ring up. He quickly slid the couple of items towards her and threw a few various candy bars down on the counter too.
"How are you guys? How's Will doing?" Hopper thought to ask in attempt to keep her distracted from the things he was buying.
"He's doing pretty well. Happy to be back at school." Joyce picked up the box of ibuprofen and before she typed in the price, she held the box out towards him and said, "Hop, I think you accidentally grabbed the children's kind."
"Oh, uh, that's alright. I uh, you know, I love grape," he joked with a sigh, pretending like he was reading the flavor on the front of the box for the first time.
"Alright," Joyce laughed, setting it down into a bag.
She didn't comment on the box of neon colored bandages, though he was sure she probably thought he was losing it just a little. Of all the places he could have gone to pick these things up, he had to come here. It had been the closest to the cabin, which at the time, was all he had been thinking of. She finished ringing up his items to which he added a pack of unfiltered Camels to.
As he was digging through his wallet for cash, Joyce casually said, "I usually get out a little early on Fridays if you are ever interested in coming over some night for dinner."
Joyce really must have thought he was losing it if she was offering him a pity meal.
"I mean, I'm sure the boys would like to see you again, and I haven't ever really properly thanked you for…everything," she continued softly.
To her, this wasn't an offer for a pity meal.
She truly just wanted to see if there was something here between them like she'd thought she felt, and she wanted to know if Hopper felt the same. Joyce had been going a little crazy now that things settled down trying to tell herself that she had just imagined a chemistry between the two, but she knew that she would always be a little upset with herself if she didn't at least try. After all, they had a brief relationship in high school that had only ended because of stupid teenage drama.
"Joyce, you don't need to thank me for any of that," he answered immediately, not at all gathering that Joyce meant for the dinner to be more than that.
He offered a handful of bills out to her and she took the cash from his hands.
"Honestly, it's the least I could do," she said softly, before returning his change.
"Seriously, you don't need to. I'm just happy to see that everyone's…" he sighed. "You know, happy and doing alright."
Yep, she was an idiot. Who was she kidding? She wasn't at all Hop's type anymore, and he had only been doing his job when he went through everything that he did to help her find Will. And that explained why he'd pretty much been absent from their lives over the past few weeks now that the danger had calmed down.
"Yeah, me too. Well um, I'll see you later then," she smiled again as he approached the door.
Seeing Joyce smile like that stopped him in his tracks for a second, as if it just hit him how beautiful she was. It had been such a long time since he'd seen her happy and such a long time since he'd had thoughts like this about any woman. He stared at her for a second too long before turning to head out the door.
"Yeah, see you around," Hopper finally said with a wave, the bells on the front door jingling as he quickly stormed out before he could manage to make things any more awkward.
Hopper climbed in his vehicle and threw his head back against the seat, digging through the bag for the pack of cigarettes. He didn't immediately leave, but instead stared through the window at Joyce. Even from a distance, he could see how she anxiously rubbed the back of her neck before running a hand along her cheek with a slow shake of her head.
Once he stopped thinking about how strange his purchase must have looked to her, he ran through their conversation again in his head and his eyes widened when it dawned on him that maybe Joyce had meant for the dinner to be more than just a 'thanks for all the help.'
It wasn't that he didn't want to have dinner with Joyce and her kids. It was just that he didn't like leaving El alone all night after he'd already been gone all day. And Joyce and Hop had grown pretty close over the few weeks of hell they spent together, which in turn, just made hiding something like a secret child sort of a big deal.
And well, he was already off to a pretty poor start.
Plus, it wasn't like he hadn't wanted to tell Joyce about El so bad. He knew that El could really benefit from having someone like her in her life. And it would be so simple to just go back in and tell her he was so sorry for being an idiot two seconds ago. It would have been so simple to tell her the real reason he couldn't come over for dinner, and that it definitely wasn't because he didn't care about her like that or because he didn't want to see what could happen in the future.
But it wasn't safe for any of them yet and so they would have to stay just friends and the kid would have to stay a secret until it was.
Maybe someday they could do this...
He just hoped Joyce would be willing to wait that long for him.
Hopper took another drag on his cigarette.
"Fuck, I'm sorry Joyce," he sighed to himself before throwing his vehicle into drive.
When he got back to the cabin, El was still sitting on the couch with the washcloths in her hands though they had now gone warm.
"How you feeling kid?" he asked, sitting down on the edge of the couch next to her.
El shrugged her shoulders and he knew she had to be in a decent amount of pain, despite her stoic expression.
He pulled the box of ibuprofen out and read the back of the box for dosing instructions. "Let's see," he said, pouring out the maximum amount for her into the little plastic measuring cup that came with it. "Here. It's pain medicine. It should make your hands feel a tiny bit better," he explained as she stared at the cup in his hands.
El let go of one of the washcloths and took the cup from his hand. She could already tell that the medicine did not smell very good, but as she gripped the small cup, it felt like her hands were still on fire and so she lifted it up to her mouth anyway.
She took a small sip and wrinkled her nose, handing the half-filled cup back to him with a shake of her head.
Hopper let out a small laugh and nodded his head. "Yes. You need to drink all of it. I know it's not the best tasting stuff ever, but it'll help your hands," he promised.
El stared at it for another moment before bringing it back up to her lips, throwing the rest back like a shot of liquor. "Good job," he laughed, taking the cup back from her.
El held her hands out cooperatively while he bandaged them up as best he could, using half the box of colorful bandages as the wounds spanned every one of her fingers and both of her palms. El was completely silent the entire time while he worked, not letting out even one whimper of pain, despite how he was sure her hands were probably throbbing.
Hopper let her pick the colors of the bandages and patiently searched the box for each one, finally ending up with one completely neon pink hand and one neon green. Tomorrow she'd have to settle for yellow and orange.
Once El was sufficiently wrapped up, Hopper returned to the kitchen to clean up the now cooled down mess. Except when he stepped into the kitchen, he realized that the mess was already gone.
"El, did you clean all this up?"
When he turned around, El was standing near the table. She cautiously nodded her head, only because Hopper didn't seem very happy. El didn't say anything more.
Sometimes Hopper hated how silent she could be. He wanted for El to feel comfortable enough to be able to talk to him. He wanted her to know that she was free to speak her mind without worrying about getting in to trouble. He wanted her to trust that he wasn't going to punish her for an accident. He wanted her to understand that he was never going to hurt her like the other men she'd known in her life.
"I was stupid and touched the hot food," she finally offered nervously.
"No, you were not stupid, and you didn't have to clean this all up by yourself, especially when you're hurt," he sighed, approaching her. He started again, placing a hand on her shoulder, "We are not stupid, remember?"
"But it was stupid," El argued softly looking to the floor.
He picked up pretty early on how hard she was on herself when she didn't know something, and he wondered where her self-punishment came from. He wondered how the people in her life that 'cared' for her had instilled that sort of guilt in her head already at such a young age.
"No, it wasn't stupid," Hopper repeated. "You didn't know any better. Stupid is when you know something is wrong and you do it anyway."
"You promise you're not mad?" she had to confirm anyway.
"Yes, kid. I promise I'm not mad."
"But what are we going to eat?" she worried.
"I don't know. How about we just eat some Eggos? Oh, and I've got a couple candy bars for dessert," he added.
El didn't know exactly what candy bars were but Hopper seemed to be excited about it so she smiled and nodded, just relieved to know that he really wasn't mad at her since he promised. She liked living with Hopper and didn't want him to ever get mad at her because she really didn't want to go back to living outside in the woods again.
"Okay. You sit tight and I'll get some in the toaster," he said, helping her into her chair.
When Hopper brought their plates over, he watched as El attempted to maneuver the fork in her hand in a way that wasn't painful in order to cut her waffle up. But her fingers were so restricted with all the bandages and moving her hands hurt so badly that she set it down on the table and stared down at her Eggo with a frustrated sigh.
"Want me to cut that up for you?" he asked when he noticed her having trouble.
El shook her head and picked up the whole waffle with one hand, leaning over so that the syrup would fall back onto her plate as she took a bite.
Hopper smiled at her problem solving. The kid was damned determined, that was for sure.
"Okay, yeah, that works too," he laughed.
El finished her waffles and Hopper cleaned up their dinner plates. He closed the kitchen window as it was started to get pretty chilly inside and joined El in the living room. He was sure her hands, which were already blistering under the bandages, probably throbbed in pain still despite the medication. But when he sat down next to her, El let out a content sigh and curled her legs up under herself. He laughed to himself at how something as simple as waffles and a promise seemed to make everything better for her.
El moved a little closer to Hopper and tucked her cold feet in between the couch cushions. Hopper noticed that she was cold and pulled a blanket down from the back of the couch, draping it over her. El flipped through the stations on the tv until she found a Western movie. For some reason, that had become a sort of routine for them. They seemed to captivate her attention much more than it would any other nearly teenage girl. As the movie went on, El had moved close enough to Hopper that they were almost touching. It was closest she'd ever willingly positioned herself to him in the few weeks they'd been together.
During a commercial break, Hopper looked at the bag in front of them on the end table and remembered about the candy bars.
"I forgot about the candy bars," he said leaning forward to grab them out. "Okay, so we've got a plain Hershey's bar, a Kit Kat, and a Snickers," he said, holding them out in front of her. "Which one would you like?"
El shrugged her shoulders. She was starting to get pretty sleepy, but earlier Hopper had said candy bars were for dessert, and she hadn't found a dessert that she hadn't liked yet so she tried to wake up enough to eat one.
"Have you had any of these before?" Hopper asked at her hesitancy.
El shook her head no, and Hopper held back a sigh, knowing that she was at least 12 years old and she'd never had a candy bar before.
"Why don't we start with the Hershey's," he said unwrapping it half-way, offering it out to her.
Instead of taking it from his hands, El leaned over towards him and took a bite. He realized it was because the poor kid was trying to use her hands as little as possible. When the chocolate hit her tongue, she immediately smiled.
"Good, right?" Hopper smiled down at her.
El nodded and leaned back over for another bite. She ate this way with Hopper holding it out in front of her and unwrapping it as she went, until the whole thing was gone.
El laid her head against his arm and let out a slight whine before curling both hands up under her chin. There was melted chocolate in the corners of her mouth, and the kid looked so damned adorable curled up against him. He brought his opposite arm up and wiped at her face. "You've got some chocolate right here," he explained softly.
"I'm sorry," El mumbled quietly, her eyes blinking quickly in attempt to keep them open.
"It's alright," he whispered softly to the girl who was nearing unconsciousness. It only took another few seconds of fighting and then her eyes closed one last time. Hopper laid his head back against the couch and closed his eyes too, thinking over the night's events one more time.
He thought about how terrified El had looked when she thought he was going to punish her over an accident. He thought about how she cleaned up the entire kitchen by herself despite having horribly painful second degree burns on her hands. He thought about Joyce and how much he wished he could tell her what was going on. He thought about how El had never even eaten a chocolate bar once in her life. He thought about how she was now curled up against his arm, finally letting her guard down just a little bit for him. He thought about all the mistakes he'd already made since bringing El home and about all the mistakes he was bound to make with her in the future.
El curled up a little closer to him and let out another whine as her fingers gripped his arm, holding him tightly despite the bandages on her fingers. He realized now that she was sleeping, she was unintentionally letting her guard down, and her tiny whimpers just revealed painful she really was.
Hopper's heart raced a little at all of this, but he promised to himself that he was going to do anything in his power to protect her from ever getting hurt again.