Hello and welcome! As I'm sure you saw in the description, in this fic I'm hoping to piece together something of a canon-compliant story of just what Joyce and Hop's history is that gives them the super interesting relationship on the show, especially when they meet. I mean, in 1x01 they're not friends exactly, but there's obviously some history there. And come on THE CHEMISTRY? So what happened?
I don't know. But after some re-watching and scouring Tumblr and sitting alone in a dimly lit room with my chin resting on my steepled fingers, I have some ideas about what might have gone down.
And I hope you like it!
Joyce Horowitz may be addicted to cigarettes, but she's pretty sure the nicotine has almost nothing to do with it. Like most fifteen-year-olds, every opportunity to flip her mother the bird is one that must be seized, and the picture of Vera Horiwitz's cartoonishly-furious face behind her closed eyelids makes every forbidden drag sweeter than any drug. Vera hardly gave a flying fuck about anything her daughter did, but after finding out her ex-husband let Joyce smoke it became her mission to swat every Camel, Marlboro, or Lucky Strike out of her daughter's hands while screeching about how Joyce is such an ungrateful, stupid little brat.
Joyce can't afford to be too picky, then, about where and when and what she smokes—not when getting caught with cigs at home meant Vera would likely lock the fridge and forbid her dinner—so bumming a smoke at school from friends and sneaking off to the bathroom or the front steps to light up became the only way to get her fix and go to bed with a full belly.
Which is how she ended up striking up a… friendship, she supposed, with a bit of an unlikely boy.
"James Francis Hopper?"
"Fuck me!" the boy laughs. "Do you think my parents hate me?"
Joyce tries to stifle her laugh as Jim passes her his cigarette, and ends up choking on the smoke from the high-tar Lucky Strike when she can't quite stop the giggles.
"Easy, Joycie," Jim says, reaching for the smoke before she's even gotten a real puff. "You need to learn to smoke like an adult."
Joyce keeps the cigarette from his long reach, this time inhaling smoothly and refusing to cough even when her throat tickles from the dense smoke. "James Archibald Hopper. That rolls right off the tongue."
Jim snatches the cigarette from her hand, shaking his head and chuckling. "I'm never going to tell you, but it definitely isn't that."
"What about… James Leopold Hopper?" She tries, leaning back against one of the support beams for the stairs and tucking her knees to her chest. "That's a nice, regal-sounding name."
"Yeah, maybe if I was some blue blood from 'Mother England.'" His attempt at a British accent is terrible. "Anyone named Leopold in Hawkins needs to be punched in the face."
Joyce snorts, and Jim hands her the cigarette. "Why? Just to keep him humble?"
"Exactly. Leopolds are universal tightwads." He raises an eyebrow at her. "What about you? Joyce… Elizabeth Horowitz. Is that right?"
"Good try, but no. You'll never guess mine either."
"Oh, you could guess mine pretty easily, I'd just never tell you," Jim corrects. "Joyce Gertrude Horowitz. I feel good about that one."
She shakes her head. "Nope. It's way more out-of-the-box than that."
Jim hums thoughtfully, but Joyce can tell he's losing interest in this little game. And the odds are stacked against him; there's just no way he'll think to guess a name like Adina.
The Lucky is nearly down to the filter by this point, and Joyce can't help but dread the inevitable return to school and sixth-period-P.E. that she knows is coming in a few more minutes. They'll be playing basketball—just like they have been all week—and while Joyce isn't terribly un-athletic, basketball is definitely not a sport designed for rail-thin girls who stand barely five-foot-three. She wouldn't mind never having to play it again. Plus, yesterday someone threw her the ball when she wasn't ready and it smashed right into her left middle finger. She'd had to go to the nurse to get it taped and iced and it still hurt like a total bitch. Part of her wishes it was her right hand—then maybe she'd be able to get out of classes because she couldn't take notes.
She steals a look at Jim from the corner of her eye as he stubs the end of the cigarette on the steps above them. She would like school a whole lot more if Jim was in her grade, and she could have even a class or two with him. Obviously Jim would never be in her P.E. class—though she'd bet he's a shade or two better at basketball than she is based off his height alone—but still, she can easily imagine sitting in front of him in science, or especially in English, trying not to laugh at the jokes about Mr. Cooper's comb-over that he would whisper to her just quietly enough so the teacher couldn't hear.
It's not that she doesn't have friends at Hawkins High, not at all. She's never exactly been Homecoming Queen, but she has Sandra Derkins and Pauline Goffmann… and even Jeanine Michales, when she isn't dating some boy who takes up all her time.
It's just that none of those girls are as cool as Jim Hopper.
Everyone at Hawkins High likes Jim; even the teachers who give him hell for often arriving late (or a smidge high) can't help but be dazzled by his smiles and winks as he charms his way out of detention after detention. Jim isn't popular, exactly, and he's flirted with one too many football player's girlfriend to ever really crack that inner circle, but very few people dislike him, and his devil-may-care attitude is more than a hit with the girls, Joyce knows.
She also knows it's a bit of a farce, and that knowledge makes her feel oddly proud, smug even. Oh, he skips class and hands in assignments as late as he can, but Jim Hopper is secretly a smart and hard-working guy. He let it slip just the other day that he's got a 3.2 GPA—practically a nerd.
"What are you looking at?" Jim asks her, stretching his legs out and running a hand through his hair, completely ruining any semblance of tidiness to the sandy blond strands.
I suppose he's handsome enough, in a can't-be-bothered kind of way, Joyce thinks, though she just rolls her eyes and tries not to blush at being caught staring. "Nothing, nothing. I just thought you missed a spot shaving," she says, tapping her jaw. She hopes he actually shaves. He must, right?
Jeanine is so boy-crazy that the first time she saw Joyce and Hopper emerge from beneath the steps, she had practically pounced on Joyce and demanded to know if she'd been "rounding the bases with a SENIOR BOY." Joyce hadn't quite known what that meant, but she had denied it vividly and completely, not that that had shut Jeanine up about it. It was kind of weird that Jeanine thought there was anything between her and Jim… and worse that the other girls never seemed to take Joyce's side about it. She hardly ever even saw him except for during break between fifth and sixth, and while he would smile and nod in her direction if they passed in the hallway or on Main street, it's not like they were inseparable pals.
"So did you decide to ask Chrissy to Prom?" She asks, while Jim pokes his head outside to check the time on the school clock.
"Nah, I don't think I'm going to go after all. It's kind of dumb, you know?" he says easily, leaning back once more and resting his hands behind his head.
"Prom is dumb?" Maybe it's the fact that she's only a sophomore, but Joyce thinks Prom is anything but dumb. It's the one night for magic in all of the miserable high school experience, after all.
"Yeah, it's dumb. Like you rent a dumb suit that doesn't fit—and probably itches—so you can dance badly in a room full of sweaty teenagers just to get laid by a girl you've screwed at least dozen times." He looks at her sidelong, like he's said more than he meant to. "Sorry."
"I'm not a kid; I get how it is." She almost winces at how juvenile she sounds. "Still. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You'd maybe regret never going if you just skip it because you think it's dumb."
Jim shrugs deliberately, and suddenly it dawns on her.
"Oh damn," she starts to laugh. "Chrissy Carpenter turned you down, didn't she?"
Jim gives her a dirty look, which only makes her laugh harder. He pulls out another cigarette from the pocket of his denim jacket. "Shut up."
"Well I'm not surprised she did, not if you made it sound as glamourous as you did just now," Joyce points out. "There's not a girl in the world who would agree to go to Prom with you if she thought you were doing it just to screw her 'when you've done it at least a dozen times.'"
Jim takes a long drag, giving her a pitying look. "That's the problem with you girls: you all think you can speak for all women everywhere. There are plenty of girls who don't care about stuff like that; Chrissy's just real different from you."
"Oh yeah? How do you figure?" Joyce asks, crossing her arms, being careful not to squish her injured finger.
"Well… you know, she's done stuff. She's been out in the real world and she's not naïve anymore."
Joyce huffs as she accepts the cigarette that doesn't do anything to soften his words. "I'm not naïve either. And Chrissy is only two years older than me—same as you." Two-and-a-half, technically, since Joyce is a fall baby and Jim turned eighteen in February.
"Okay maybe you're not all that naïve, for a fifteen-year-old," he concedes grudgingly. He knows enough about her home life to know she doesn't see life through rose-coloured glasses. "But you're still young, and you would never do some of the things Chrissy's done," he says with a fond sort of smile that makes Joyce's stomach turn.
"Like screw a guy in the back of his dad's car?" Joyce fires, taking a second drag before handing it back. "I would so. Just because I haven't doesn't mean that I wouldn't," she says. "If it was the right guy, I mean."
"Riiight," Jim says, raising an eyebrow. "Have you ever even smoked pot, Joycie?"
"I've smoked pot with you!" She exclaims. "Remember? It was last summer, at that party Derek Derkins threw when his parents were in Michigan." It was the first time Joyce had ever had pot, and she hardly felt a thing. She'd been at Sandra's for a sleep-over when her older brother Derek decided to have a bunch of friends over, and they had been thrilled for a chance to hang out with the older kids at Hawkins High. That was the night she met Jim too… sort of, as he'd been high as a kite by the time Derek introduced him to his kid sister and her friend Joyce.
"Oh yeah!" He laughs. "I had forgotten about that party. Isn't that the time Benny Hammond put his arm through the window in the kitchen?"
It certainly was. Joyce had never seen so much blood, and Sandra had nearly fainted. "That's the one."
He blows out a puff of smoke, grinning. "Well, my point still stands: you're nothing like Chrissy."
"Yeah well we're more alike than you thought," Joyce insists, not sure why this is a big deal. Her mother always tells her she's too stubborn and obsessive. "And my point still stands: she didn't say yes to Prom because you were a total caveman when you asked her."
"I'll have you know I was a perfect gentleman," Hopper says, once again with that awful British accent.
"Okay there, Leopold." Joyce rolls her eyes. "Just remember what I said before you get turned down by every other single girl in Hawkins."
From the corner of her eye, she can see his smug, self-satisfied smirk. "Oh don't you worry; there's a B-list that I'm sure will be willing."
"You're horrible," she says, grabbing the cigarette. A slow smile grows on her face, despite herself. "Although, if you're talking about Janice Belscher, then I know she's had a total crush on you for years but she's also a Sophomore. That would be low-hanging fruit, even for you."
"You're a Sophomore," he points out.
"Yeah, but I'm not going to fall over myself the second some boy who only wants one thing asks me to Prom just because I want to be the only Sophomore there. I have standards, James Leopold."
"Right," he says, nodding. "Because you're no longer naïve."
"Right."
"Ah Joycie," he chuckles. "You have so much to learn."
"Not about this," Joyce says firmly. Watching her parents fight viciously for her entire childhood made her very wary about the sort of boys she dates. Not that she's had many dates… really, there was only Frank Sattler for two months in freshman year, before he told her he needed to focus on his studies.
But that's only because she's picky.
The warning bell rings for the start of sixth period, and a quiet sigh escapes Joyce's body before she even realises it.
Jim nudges her with his elbow, gingerly taking the Lucky from her injured hand. "Basketball again?"
Joyce nods pitifully. "I'm just hoping I can get out of it because of this," she holds up her bandaged hand. "How am I supposed to play with one hand?"
"From the sounds of it, you can hardly be worse than you were when you were whole."
She swats him with her good hand, laughing because he's probably right. "That's not a very nice thing to—wait, do you hear that?"
"If this is going to be another joke about-
"Hey! Who's down there?"
Like a fire had been lit under their asses, Jim and Joyce bolt upright and deadly still as they hear footsteps pounding on the stairs.
"Shit, it's Cooper," Jim hisses around the cigarette. "Go, GO!"
His long legs take him away from the scene of the crime much faster than Joyce's, and with her heart in her throat she turns and sees Mr. Cooper barreling towards them, stringy hair whipping around a tomato-red face as he shouts. "Hey! Hey, assholes, get back here! Get back here you two, you have class in two minutes!"
They don't slow down, but race full-tilt towards the woods at the edge of the property. Once she realises that the heavy-set Mr. Cooper will not be chasing them further than a few steps, Joyce's panic turns into hysteria as she laughs and flies after Jim.
He stops just inside the cover of the trees, panting, with the cigarette stub still dangling from his lips. "Holy shit; he came out of nowhere!"
Joyce can't stop laughing, holding her sides. "You should have seen his face! I thought his head was going to explode!"
Jim rests his hands on his knees, grinning and shaking his head. "What the fuck, right?"
She slumps to the ground, smoothing her hair back from her face, unable to suppress her smile. She barely notices the sharp pain it causes in her hand, and completely ignores the fact that she's messing up her best hair day this week. "I guess I'll be missing basketball after all," she says, then dissolves into another fit of giggles.
Hopper drags on the Lucky, then stubs it into the tree and laughs the smoke from his nose. "I guess so."
She sits back, resting her palms on the ground. Her trousers are probably going to have dirt staining her rear-end, but she doesn't care. She might as well play hooky for the rest of the day now, and who has she got to impress? James Leopold Hopper? "So what now? We can't go back!"
"No; Cooper'll be patrolling to see if he can catch us sneaking back. Do you think he saw it was us?"
"Come on Hop; he's old, but not blind."
"Well how close was he? We ran pretty fast!"
"Not so fast he couldn't see us. And if he asks anyone 'hey who was the tall boy and shrimpy girl I saw smoking under the stairs?' all it will take is one snitch because everyone knows that's us. We're there every day."
Joyce bounces back and forth between loving the friendliness of life in such a small town and absolutely hating the lack of privacy it provides. Later, she thinks, she'll be annoyed to no end by her lack of anonymity. But right now all she can do is laugh.
Jim looks on the verge of arguing, then thinks better of it, instead popping the top two buttons of his green and orange plaid shirt. "Well we definitely can't go back," he says. "So I guess we have free period until seventh. Or we just skip seventh."
"I can't skip seventh," Joyce says. "I have Math and I already skipped on Tuesday. We're doing special triangles or something and I have no idea what's going on."
"Okay, so we'll be back in time for seventh," Jim says. "Hey, have you been to that new store downtown… Melvin's, or something? We could go check it out."
"I think it's Melvald's," Joyce says. She's been thinking about applying for a job there, since they've just opened and must be needing help. "No, I haven't been there yet."
"Well come on then, let's go. We'll see if there's anything good there; George told me they have a ton of magazines and a whole shelf of chewing gum. We can find out if he's full of shit, as usual."
She hesitates. It's always the worst feeling to have to explain that you really can't afford to buy something so small as a stick of gum. It's hard enough having to hide the fraying sleeves of her sweaters from where she picks at them, or to sweat in her corduroy trousers in May because her mother won't let her leave the house in her old, hand-me-down spring dresses. Joyce is still short, but she's grown probably four inches since she got the dresses from her cousin and they hit just above her knee now, prompting Vera Horowitz to declare she "didn't raise no hussy" and confine her to pants.
Looking at Jim, it's like he can read all this on her face. And maybe he can; it's not like Joyce hasn't complained about the heat and her bitch of a mother to him a dozen times before.
"Come on," he says, gesturing for her to follow him. "It's on me. It'll be fun."
"Oh, no, thanks Hopper, but it's okay. I'll just look around." She smiles. "That will be fun enough."
"No I mean it. You'll have a whole shelf of flavours to choose from and you have to try at least one."
Her heart swells a little. "Thanks Jim, but I already bum your smokes—"
"I insist," he says, turning to walk away. "I'm practically rich now, since my grandpa sent me that graduation money. And I told you I'm going to work for my uncle at the steel mill in Lake County this summer, making a buck fifty an hour, right?"
Joyce smiles, lurching to her feet to catch up. "You'll be actually rich by the time September rolls around," she says, practically jogging to keep pace. "Well thanks again, Hop. I mean, I know you're only doing this to practice being a gentleman for when you ask your poor B-list girl to Prom, but still."
Jim chuckles, looking up at the sky as it appears beyond the trees. "Sure Joycie. Whatever you say."
6101719: A couple of things: 1) I'm Canadian, and I spell like it. It's hard enough having to figure out inches and feet and Fahrenheit and I will, under no circumstances, spell words like colour without the necessary "u." It would be just dishonourable.
2) I have overruled the wiki, which is wrong about so many things, I have learned, in the years Joyce and Hopper are born in. While I've kept Joyce at the wiki-recommended '48, Hopper I switched to '46 to keep faith with the fact that we know they went to high school together. While I realised after the fact that this makes Joyce ten years younger than Winona, which I don't exactly support, I've kept it because it makes sense with where I'm going with some other parts of this fic... stay tuned.
3) As you maybe can see, I'm trying to keep this as tight to canon as possible, so if you notice any inconsistencies then I would really appreciate it if you let me know! You're also always welcome (ENCOURAGED even) to let me know other feelings you have about this fic, as reviews of all kinds are appreciated.
Thanks, all. Much love.