A/N: A special thank you to Hanna for her continuous support. It's been overwhelmingly appreciated.
"And breathe, just breathe."
Wooden floors, walls, and window sills. Wooden tables and chairs. Wooden shelves, dressers, cabinets, and countertops.
Hopper accounts for every piece of lumber in his mind's eye; unable to look past timber worn from a year of abuse, a once desolate cabin built into a home returned once again to near ruin.
He turns his face into the thin pillow beneath his head, allowing the rough fabric of the cheap pillowcase to absorb the tears leaking freely from eyes squeezed shut. He stifles the hitch in his breath, forcing down the sob caught in the tightness in his throat.
He idly wonders why he bothers, he can feel the pair of twin dark eyes boring into his back; thinks they can see the pinched and puckered skin beneath his shirt.
"Sweetie, I don't think now is a good time," he hears Joyce murmur to the teen at the foot of the bed.
El doesn't reply, at least not verbally. The mattress dips in the center, he can feel his body rolling back into the depression she creates as she clambers atop the bedding.
"I'm serious, El," Joyce's voice didn't raise in volume, but it does get noticeably firmer.
Hopper folds his arms across his chest, staring resolutely at the wall in front of him; he counts the divots and whorls in the planks.
The thin skin beneath his eye pulses, keeping time with his heartbeat.
His daughter is just as obstinate; he can feel the weight of her at his aching back, feels her smaller hands boldly reach out and tug at his shoulder, pulling gently until he relents and sluggishly starts to roll until they are face to face.
Only, he won't look at her; stubbornly won't meet her soft, sad eyes. Hopper is a man of action, large and unwieldy, ready to knock out whatever is before him with a one-two punch. But this? He can't fight this with scar-gnarled fists.
He has his hands in front of him, clenched where they lie in the little space between their bodies; El's right hand is resting atop his left, her pink fingers twitching against the pale skin of his.
Hopper's stinging eyes settle on their hands, watches as her index finger drums a singular beat against his knuckles: tap, tap - pause - tap, tap, tap.
"Jane," Joyce rebukes, pushing herself up onto an elbow.
Tap, tap - pause - tap, tap, tap.
(Us.)
Hopper raises his gaze, and meets El's; her dark irises are shining, wet with unshed tears and muted pain, but she's unguarded, expression open and silently begging her father to set down his wooden shield and relent.
"It's okay," he finds himself saying, hoarse voice muffled from where his lips are mushed into his pillow.
He can tell Joyce wants to press the issue, but there's a shuffle of feet in the doorway that has her turning her head.
Hopper doesn't tear his attention away from El; she gives him a nod, a nearly imperceptible movement of her head. Her shorn crown audibly catches against the linen.
Soundlessly, Will rubs at his eyes before he crosses a few feet into the room and climbs atop the rumpled bedding. Joyce's noise of protest is wordless, a mere scoff of bemusement in the quiet of the late morning.
El turns, shifts until her back is to Hopper's chest; Will is facing her, already sound asleep, his mother at his back.
Hopper can only find the energy to sluggishly blink; Joyce stares over the top of their heads, mouth parted and confusion evident on her face by the furrow of her brow.
The soft click of the door being closed shut cuts through the near silence; El lifts her arm to lazily swipe at her nostril with the back of her hand.
Together, they do nothing but breathe. They're too old for this, tall and gangly, all elbows and lanky limbs; yet, as Hopper haltingly lets his body give in, he's reminded of how painfully young they are too.
"It's okay, dad," El whispers as he lets his battered body meld to her in increments. "You can sleep now. We've got your back."
(She means this literally as much as figuratively; he's always been the one by the door, willing and able to be the first line of defense against any perceived threats.)
He's struggling to keep his eyes open, the muscles that limn his back releasing their tension as he feels himself going lax in the combined warmth of their bodies.
(He never thought he'd feel warm again; resigned himself to the permanent frigidity that had burrowed in the marrow of his bones.)
Hopper can feel the possible drop at his back, body pushed to the edge of the crowded bed, but he's so blissfully warm, and though his head pounds and his ankle throbs, he feels so goddamn loved.
There's tightness at his temples, a band wrapped around his head and squeezing tight; an ache in his stomach, hunger pangs from a missed breakfast; a persistent throbbing at the healing skin of his ankle-
But, Jesus Christ, none of it matters when Joyce Byers is looking at him the way she's looking at him now.
With a heavy limb, Hopper lethargically extends his left arm up and over El's willowy figure, blunt fingertips grazing Will's slumped shoulder.
Joyce silently reciprocates, draping her thin arm over her son's slumbering form and lacing her fingers through Hopper's.
Her kind eyes are infused with all the warmth and love she can muster, so much so that it hurts her heart to hold the words back, so she says them into the still air: "I love you."
Hopper can feel his face crumpling, creasing as her words hit him square in the chest like a physical blow-
Then, he smiles; soft, tired, worn- but so full of adoration and euphoria for this woman, for their (their) children.
Home.
Safe.
With a deep exhale, Hopper expels his demons and allows their effusive love to lull him into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Home.
Safe.
Us.
The End.
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