"'Cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out."

Joyce wakes with a forceful jolt, her stomach in knots and her mind fuzzy. Her mouth is parched, cotton-dry; she wets her lips with an acrid tongue as she tries to ground herself.

The mattress shakes violently beneath her, her body lurching at the unexpected force; she slams her hands atop the rucked sheets, fingers scrabbling at the linens as if they could keep her from falling over the side of the bed.

A quick look to her left shows the source of the commotion: Hopper, back-bowed and body rigid, claws frantically at an invisible force seemingly attached to his face, the jagged ends of his nails scoring the carmine-colored flesh.

Awareness unceremoniously slams into her frazzled being like a bolt of lightning; she clambers to her knees, a precarious position with how hard Hopper is bucking with every passing second. She yells out his name.

"Hey!"

"Svin'ya!" He rasps in reply, spittle flecking his parted lips as he fights to draw in a breath.

Hopper thrashes, feet planted underneath his body as he arches his hips into the air; it's clear he's suffocating, struggling, and failing to bring oxygen to his seizing lungs. His jaw is tight, teeth grit as he paws at the nonexistent mask his mind has convinced him is strapped across his face.

"Jim!" She doesn't dare touch him, not like this. He had never once hurt her, doesn't believe he ever would, but he had brook no arguments when he had insisted she never lay a hand on him during moments like these. He was terrified of causing her harm, however unintentional, and she couldn't bare it if he never slept at her side again.

(Because he would do that, would exile himself to the living room; shove every massive inch of his heft, however lean he was now, onto the cot or couch if it meant she was safe. Safe from him.)

So, she can do nothing but helplessly watch as he fights his internal demons, nostrils flaring and lips tinged blue.

Just as she curses, snarling, "screw it!" Hopper comes to with a breathless gasp, reaching out for her, his body reacting before his mind can catch up, arm outstretched, and fingers splayed.

(She can't help but be reminded of Bob – his last moments, his hand extended desperately, silently begging for help as he was brutally mauled to death mere feet from his would-be Savior.)

Still, still, though she wants nothing more than to snatch Hop's flailing hand and slot her fingers through his, she knows to wait.

Sure enough, Hopper topples bodily off the mattress and to the floor with an alarmed grunt. He scrambles backward, shouldering the dresser, walnut legs catching against the planks with an ungodly scrape; loose change scatters from atop the chest of drawers, rolling every which way until everything settles and all Joyce can hear is Hop's ragged breathing.

She carefully extricates herself from the bedding twisted around her calves and pushes herself up and off the bed. She can't help but worry her bottom lip between her teeth, stifling tears that have no hope of not escaping.

"Hey," she lightly calls, the warble evident in her voice. She rounds the bed frame and sees where he's pushed himself, wedged between the dresser and the wall.

He's trying to make himself as small as humanly possible for a man of his size, long legs pulled to his torso and back flat against the unrelenting lumber; his hands are curled into loose fists, raised to protect his splotchy-red face. There's saliva visible on the scruff on his jaw.

"Oh, honey," she whispers into the late morning air. She kneels in front of him, watches as his stomach rapidly undulates beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, bares witness as he gulps and gasps, striving to find the right rhythm.

This close, she notes his pupils are mere pinpricks of black in an ocean of watery blue; his upper lip curled into a silent snarl. Thankfully, the self-inflicted damage to his skin is not bad enough to warrant immediate care; though the scratch beneath his left eye is raised, a puffy red line, there isn't any visible blood.

He's still tense, muscles visibly stiff underneath her worried scrutiny; words won't reach him just yet, at least not those spoken aloud.

With a painful swallow against the tightness in her throat, Joyce calmly and deliberately reaches out with one arm, rests her closed fist in the scant space between their bodies, and raps her knuckles, hard, against the wood floor.

Four swift taps, pause. Three long taps, pause. Two long taps, pause—a quick tap.

He blinks, head listing to the side as he strains to listen to the sounds she's producing. His clenched hands lower, though not quite all the way, just enough for her to see his wary expression. He isn't quite there, not entirely, but she can see the heavy fog starting to lift.

"Home," he rasps after a moment.

She nods, then continues.

Three quick taps, pause. A swift then elongated one, pause. Two short, one long, one short, pause. A solitary tap.

"Safe."

"Yes," she exhales.

Hopper's eyes well up, tears cascading down strawberry-striped cheeks as he watches her strike the final message into the floorboard:

Tap, tap.

Pause.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Us."

He lets out a wet breath of air, heavy and wounded, before scrunching up his face and attempting to curl in on himself even further. He hikes the wide breadth of his shoulders to his ears as he burrows his head into trembling hands; she watches as they move up and down, jostling with every mute cry he unleashes into the indelible callouses of his palms.

Joyce reaches out uncertainly, hand hovering over his jean-clad knee, and asks, "Where are you, Jim? Tell me where you are."

(She needs to be sure. She needs to know he's there, here, with her.)

"Home."

"What are you?"

(She cants her head, wild hair falling into her eyes as she waits to hear the monosyllabic word.)

"Safe."

"Who's here?" She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from crying along with him. They still spill over, unbidden, as she presses, "Who's here, Hop?"

(Christ, she begs, please grant this beautiful man a modicum of peace.)

"Us," he gasps wetly before surging forward, rocking onto his knees and gathering her up into his arms.

His body quivers as he tries to meld her body to his; she runs a hand up his clothed back, burrows her nose into the crook of his neck as he does the same to her. He reeks of stale sweat, and the menthol liniment hasn't wholly dissipated; it makes her eyes burn, but she loves it. Loves the smell of him, loves the feel, loves that she can do this, loves that he's alive.

Hopper pulls away, firmly gripping her biceps as he holds her at arm's length. "Are you okay?" He rakes red-rimmed eyes over her body. "I didn't hurt you?"

"You didn't lay a finger on me," she manages to squeeze out before he's crushing her against himself again. "Come back to bed," she urges gently, pulling away to cup his face in her hands. She strokes her thumbs against his cheeks, swiping at glistening tear tracks.

He leans forward, pressing his forehead against hers as he closes his eyes and breathes her in. His breath is uneven, still hoarse, as he murmurs sotto voce, "I love you."

She pulls back, eyes welling with renewed emotion, and watches as he struggles to see her, truly see her, through his puffy eyes.

"I love you," he utters again before pressing a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

Joyce parts her lips, ready to share her love of him, for him, with him, but he silences her by slipping his tongue into her mouth. He pulls back, hands now cradling her neck, thumbs caressing the baby soft wisps of hair tucked behind her ears. "Please don't say it." At her hurt look, he presses his lips against hers again. "Not yet."

He kisses her again, deeper, more frantically; she knows what he's trying to do. While they haven't consummated their newfound relationship, she didn't want to – not like this, not when she could still see a piece of him wasn't entirely present, still lost in the dark myriad of thoughts in his head.

(Memories: cruel snapshots deep-rooted and ineradicable in the very fibers of his brain.)

His body is here, radiating heat like a furnace and tremulous beneath her fingertips, but his mind is elsewhere: in a slate gray room where the oxygen in his very lungs is forcibly taken from him.

Regretfully, she shifts her hands to his shoulders and gently pushes him back. His frown is as immediate as hers was, but she offers a soft smile and shakes her head.

"Not yet."

Hopper searches her eyes; she watches as they rove over her face, worry and rejection clouding his own until he softens beneath her quiet understanding.

"Okay." He inhales deeply and lets out his next breath in a gentler, "Okay."

She trails her hands from his broad shoulders, down the wiry hairs of his arms, and catches his wrists where they rest at the nape of her neck. "Let's go back to bed," she suggests, uncaring the time of day.

It takes them a minute to gather themselves from the unforgiving hardness of the floor. They fall into bed together, wrapped in one another's arms.

Joyce periodically presses firm, chaste kisses to his temple, silently urging his vibrating form to relax and give in to the exhaustion. Still, his body is intransigent, unable, or unwilling to melt into her lax frame.

She cards a hand through the short strands of his hair, still unwashed and unfinished from before, when a timid knock at the bedroom door cuts through the quiet tension.

"Not now, honey," she calls out, unsure which teenager is at the door but correctly surmises it's El when the younger woman's hand curls around the door as she pushes it open.

Hopper squeezes his eyes shut, turning painstakingly slowly until he's facing toward the opposite wall. Joyce fretfully frowns at his back.

"El," she scolds, pushing herself onto her elbow to look at the blasé expression on the girl's face. "El," she hisses as she steps further into the room, a pillow beneath her arm, "Your father needs to rest."

"Yes," she murmurs. "Family."

Joyce's frown deepens at Eleven's apparent regression until the teen bores her dark eyes into Joyce's and whispers:

"He needs his family."

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