something_incredible | (no subject)

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Ten days. He's been in this city for ten days and no route he's tried to take out of here has gotten him anywhere.

Anyone who's been here longer than a week had told him as much, but he figures he can't be blamed for not just blindly accepting there's no going home and at least giving it a shot. Nothing he does gets him anywhere, though, nowhere but here. It's strange, but he can deal with strange, somehow strange has become familiar in the past year and a half. It's not the strange that bothers him. It's not even that his apartment building is haunted that bothers him. (He's seen her only once, but he'd seen her. Clear as day.)

It's being without the rest of them.

Having Steve here is a comfort. It's another bit of familiarity, but the face he really wants to see is Eleven's. Or Joyce. At this point, he'd even be happy to hear Dustin talking about dragons or letting Mike punch him a few more times for having kept Eleven away from him. Anything if it meant a bit of home. The only piece of home he has now is the blue hairband around his wrist and even that isn't the home he'd left in Hawkins.

It's the middle of Tuesday, almost February now, and he's out in the bright, clear sun. The apartment is too empty, he doesn't know what to do with it or with himself when he's inside, so he goes out and he walks. Too many times already he's stumbled back to the apartment drunk, but he still looks at the clock on his phone -- that's about the only thing he uses it for -- and tries to decide if it's too early for a drink. Just after one. Too early.

So instead of a bar, he heads for one of the streets lined with shops and small cafes. Maybe if he gets himself a coffee he can convince himself to stay sober for just a little while longer.

Turning toward one of the coffee shops he actually likes, one that feels comfortable and simple instead of something daunting where he has too many options for something as easy as coffee, he spots a familiar head of red hair. Lengthening his strides, he catches up to Bev in just a few moments and he asks, keeping his voice casual, "Aren't you supposed to be in school right about now?"

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Normally, Beverly isn't much for skipping school. Even back in Derry, she would cut the occasional class to take a smoke break in the bathroom, sure, but not really outright skipping. There wouldn't have been much for her to do, and it wouldn't have been worth the risk of her father finding out. Here, it's a little different. She may not want to fall into bad standing with the Home, but there's not really all that much they can do if she gets in trouble for skipping, and it isn't, in this case, like she doesn't have a good reason. School here has school in Derry beaten by a long shot, even if she's stuck repeating half a grade rather than skipping ahead; some of the kids suck, because that's always going to be the case, but some of them don't, and most of the teachers aren't terrible.

There's this one pervy gym teacher, though — she'd heard some of the other girls half-joking and half-warning early on, but with them being among the popular and therefore probably snobby crowd, she hadn't known whether or not to take them at their word. It hadn't taken long, though, to figure out that they weren't exaggerating at all. Last Tuesday, the day she has P.E., he'd stood too close by her side and patted the top of her head, fingers lingering too long against her hair; she'd been sick in the bathroom immediately after. So, this Tuesday, she's just decided to skip instead, not knowing what else to do.

It isn't as if she can tell anyone. Who would believe her?

Coming across one of the few adults she knows who doesn't work at the school or in the Home probably shouldn't be a surprise. Still, it takes a moment of serious effort for her not to look caught out when Hopper walks up to her. Instead, she shrugs just as casually as he'd spoken. "Technically, maybe," she says. "Gave myself the day off."

"Uh huh," he answers and he can't help but look faintly amused at the way she answers. They've only met the one time and he can tell she's a good kid, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't skip a class or two. Back in high school, he's pretty sure he would have been considered a good enough kid, too. He hadn't been one of the best students, was never much of an athlete, but he hadn't been a bully and hadn't started fights and he'd passed most of his classes.

But he'd still skipped his share of them, too.

Maybe there's a reason she's skipping today, maybe she just doesn't want to go, but unless it becomes a habit -- and he's not sure how he'd know that it does -- he doesn't think there's much reason to say anything about it.

"So what's the plan instead?" he asks. "You wander around the city like the rest of us bored and confused arrivals who aren't sure what to do next?"

"Pretty much," Beverly says simply, a little relieved when he doesn't press the matter, at least for now. It doesn't mean that more questions won't come, but as much as she may have liked him before, she can't help that there's a part of her that's inherently distrustful of adults. At the Home, she keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the staff there not to be as kind as they seem. At school, she's already been proven right, which is exactly why she isn't there right now. No matter how much has changed just by her being here in Darrow, she doesn't believe that it's changed that much. It would all be a little too good to be true.

Still, she's not going to go taking that out on him. The truth of the matter is, she hasn't really thought past just not going to school. She'll need to steer clear of the Home, of course — it would be way too easy to disprove her claims if she tried to say that she was sent back sick or something — but other than that, she's mostly at a loss.

One corner of her mouth pulling just a little higher, she asks, "Why? Got any suggestions?"

Hopper's quiet for a moment, walking along beside her with his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like he hasn't got much to say in response to that. Then he grins, looking over at her as he says, "Bowling?"

It's been ages since he's been bowling. It's one of those things he'd stopped doing after Sara had died and he'd meant to take Eleven eventually, when things had finally calmed down, but that had never really happened, no matter how many times he had promised it would.

"Then maybe some lunch? That sounds like a halfway decent afternoon." Especially in a place like this, where he knows he won't be doing anything else.

Bowling and lunch sounds a hell of a lot better than suffering through P.E. and cafeteria food. More than that, though, it sounds nice, in a foreign but welcome sort of way. There isn't a soul back in Derry who would have taken her bowling and then out for lunch, least of all when she was meant to be in school, and the former wouldn't have exactly been fun on her own, as she so often was. This past summer may have been an exception that regard, but they had, for the most part, been too preoccupied for anything like that.

After everything, she thinks she could do with a little of what's probably normalcy.

"I wouldn't say no," she says, grinning in turn, just a little bit despite herself, "to bowling or lunch. That sounds pretty fun, actually."

Most of his time here so far has been spent trying to figure out a way out, but that means he's walked the city more than a few times already and he's gotten pretty familiar with the layout, with where to find things. So he nods down a street that stretches to their right, then turns the corner, expecting that Beverly will follow along with him.

"Just this once," he says with a small smile for her. "Next time I'll have to take you back to school."

Next time he might actually be a cop again, if he really is stuck here, and he figures Darrow will fall somewhere between New York and Hawkins in terms of the kind of work he'll be doing. He'd spent a lot of time in Hawkins picking up truants. That and owls scaring the piss out of old ladies made up most of his work.

"No exceptions?" Beverly asks, smiling like she's teasing, but mostly testing the waters. Next time, if there is a next time, she'll probably just have to be more careful about where she goes or what she does with her time. While it's not like she can just skip school every time she has P.E., though, she hasn't yet come up with a better alternative, unless she can find a good way to cut that particular class without actually leaving campus. Someone will catch on sooner or later if she makes this a pattern, and she doesn't know what she'll say or do then, but that's something to deal with later.

Right now, she kind of just wants to enjoy having a free day off that she doesn't have to spend seeing a doctor or in bed.

"'Cause the whole bowling and lunch thing sounds like a pretty good deal." Even if she isn't entirely sure why he's being so nice to her, she doesn't think there's anything more to it than that, either. People aren't usually quite that hard to read, and he seems genuine, not angling for anything unpleasant. That's good enough for her.

"I guess it depends on why you're skipping," Hopper decides, because he thinks there's probably a good reason or two for someone to want to ditch class. It's the sort of thing he'd given a lot of thought to in the days when Sara was still alive; one of his favourite hobbies -- one that had actually driven Diane crazy -- had been thinking up random scenarios they might face as parents and try to work out how they would deal with it. Diane had always insisted they would figure it out when the time came because their ideas of what they would do and the reality would always be different.

Hopper can't disagree with her there, he doesn't think he ever did, but he'd still liked to imagine. It had made their lives feel so real, thinking about their future, their daughter's future. The one she'd never gotten to see.

"If you just don't feel like going, that might end up becoming a problem," he teases as they near the bowling alley. "School's important."

"P.E. isn't," Beverly counters, managing to keep her voice light and her expression even. It's probably stupid to be bothered by it at all when nothing has actually happened, but she still doesn't like the way he looks at her and some of the other girls or how close he stands. She knows that sort of look. She's even used them to her advantage before, but only when she knew that nothing would ever come of it, which is not the case in this instance. "I mean, talk about things you're never gonna need in real life. Plus the teacher's a creep, so."

She adds the last almost flippantly, not wanting to give it any extra weight. If he doesn't believe her, she can write it off as nothing; it's safer not to draw any further attention to it. If he does believe her, though, and does care, then at least he'll know she has a good reason not to be in school right now.

The words don't make Hopper stop right in his tracks, but he does pause before he continues to walk, looking at Beverly with a faint frown. After living in New York, stuff like that doesn't exactly surprise him anymore, not after all the reports he'd taken, not after all the girls he'd interviewed and the way they'd looked at him like he wouldn't possibly believe them. There's a lot of shit Hopper hadn't believed during his time in New York, but the girls talking about their teachers or their fathers or their brothers had never been on that list.

So the words don't surprise him, but they do send a deep disgust straight into his gut.

"What's he done?" he asks, keeping his voice casual as well. He's already making plans, though, figuring out how he can get into the school, how to make sure there's just the one P.E. teacher before he starts slinging around threats, how to do it all so Beverly doesn't end up bearing the brunt of any retribution the teacher decides to dole out if he turns out to be a stupid asshole instead of just an asshole.

Beverly isn't sure if it's a surprise or not when he actually asks about what she's said. For that matter, she also isn't sure if she wants to take a chance on saying anything more about it or not. There isn't anything specific she can point to; even if there were, the odds seem good that she wouldn't be believed. That's just how that sort of thing works. Then again, maybe that makes it easier to test the waters. If she were going to make up something like that, better to go all out with it and give herself a serious reason not to want to be around her P.E. teacher than just an impression she gets from him. It wouldn't be worth the risk otherwise. She still thinks it's more likely than not that she won't be believed, but at least she has that potential logic going for her.

Of course, anything beyond that, there's no way in hell she'll mention. Hopper seems nice, but she barely knows him, and the life at home that she left behind isn't anything worth talking about with her closest friends, let alone with someone who's little more than a stranger. It doesn't matter that she knows what those looks and lingering touches mean because she's been on the receiving end of them before. Everything she's said would be just as true even if that weren't the case.

"Nothing, really," she says, though the shrug accompanying the words is a little too tense to be wholly convincing. "I mean, nothing's happened. It's just... the way he looks sometimes, or stands too close, or finds an excuse to touch a shoulder or hair or something. It's not just me, apparently, but it's... I don't know. He creeps me out."

Edited 2018-02-03 10:02 (UTC)

Just because nothing has happened doesn't mean nothing has happened and Hopper's frown grows deeper as Beverly speaks, hearing what's not being said under the things she is telling him. As people grow up -- girls especially, he's found -- they're convinced to not trust themselves anymore, to not trust their instincts, but right now if she thinks something weird is going on with the teacher, then something weird probably is happening.

"So all I gotta do is look at him and stand too close when I find an excuse to touch his hair and I tell him to keep his hands to himself," Hopper says. "I can do that."

He can do a hell of a lot more than that. As a cop he might have been a little more intimidating, but he figures he can wear his Hawkins PD coat and no one will be any the wiser. Hopper knows he's not perfect, he's a hell of a far cry from anywhere near perfect, but people who put their hands on kids make him see red.

For a moment, Beverly just looks at him, head angled over her shoulder as they walk, partly trying to determine if he really means that, partly just out of surprise. It isn't like she'd expected him specifically to dismiss her right away, but she hadn't counted on getting much of a response, either, particularly with nothing to point to that would back up her claims. This is — well, it's something, and that in itself is a rather significant change of pace. If nothing else, it makes her a little more inclined to be honest, even if there's still plenty that doesn't seem worth saying.

The others, her friends, must have guessed what was happening at home, at least to some extent. She barely remembers what happened in the cistern, but she knows that thing looked like her father, and it wasn't especially subtle. If Eddie has figured it out, though, if he even remembers, he hasn't mentioned as much to her, and she prefers it that way.

"He'd probably just say he never did anything," she says, mouth pulling to one side. "I figured that's what anyone else would say, too."

"Of course that's what he's gonna say because he doesn't wanna get his ass kicked," Hopper agrees. "But I've been a cop for a long time and just because someone says something doesn't mean I have to believe them."

He knows liars. Hell, he is a liar. He's not a good guy, he doesn't pretend to be some sort of saint, he knows just how many times he's fucked up in the past, how many times he's bound to fuck up in the future, but he can still try. And he's never done anything like that, never made some young girl uncomfortable with his attention because he knows that's not even remotely close to okay. That's the sort of thing that makes him want to find a cell in that awful lab where they'd kept Eleven and make sure this teacher doesn't ever get to see the light of day again.

Of course, right now he just shrugs casually and says, "Well, I'm not saying it, kid."

"Thanks," Beverly says a little more quietly, otherwise at a loss for words for a moment. She can't even entirely pinpoint why any of this seemed worth mentioning at all, and there's still plenty that isn't, but she also can't really imagine this having gone over better than it has. He really, genuinely seems to believe her, even without that creepy teacher having touched her in any way that could be construed as something other than harmless. If he had, though, would she have had it in her to say anything then? She can't actually be sure. God knows she kept her mouth shut at home for all that time, and this is just a teacher that she sees once a week, that there's hardly ever cause for her to be alone with.

At least she's managed to tell someone know, though if anything will actually come of it, she has no way of knowing. She just hopes that any confrontation doesn't lead to that creep taking it out on her or the other girls.

"You know, for... actually believing me. I didn't really think anyone would." She shrugs, too easy for the subject. "That's why I skipped. Seemed easier than trying to explain why I didn't want to go to P.E."

It pisses him off, the idea that she doesn't want to tell anyone because she's afraid they won't believe her, but he leaves that part aside for now. There's not a hell of a lot he can do about it, but he knows what it means. Either she's had cause to tell people something along these lines before and no one has believed her or she's seen it happen to other people and it's left a mark on her. Kids tend to trust adults until they're given a reason not to.

But he just shrugs and smiles as they arrive at the bowling alley, then reaches out on impulse and nudges her shoulder with his knuckles.

"You get a pass this time," he says, reaching past her to open the door. The music inside is bright and lively and annoying. Hopper winces a little at the volume, but he heads inside with Beverly anyway. "But I'll go have a chat with him and you can tell me if he does anything else. Then it'll be more than just a chat."

"Okay," Beverly replies, voice a little quiet, mostly because it seems like the best thing she can say. It may not necessarily fix or change anything, but it's still a hell of a lot more than she expected, and she doesn't want to seem like she doesn't appreciate that. A lot of people probably wouldn't have bothered at all. For that matter, most of them would probably have found her out of school and ushered her right back, regardless of any reason she gave, which would almost certainly just have seemed like an excuse. Now, there may be no way to guarantee that anything he says will be effective, but it's something. She'll take it.

Pausing for a moment, she draws in a deep breath. When she looks up at him again, it's just a little more uncertain, though even being inside the bowling alley, with its bright lights and ridiculous music, is a relief. "Just... don't tell him where you heard anything from, okay?" The last thing she needs is for that asshole to take it out on her. She knows how that goes.

"Hey, c'mon, kid," he says, giving her a look. "I know better than that."

He can be intimidating enough that he won't need to name names in order for the teacher to sweat a little under the collar. What Hopper would really like to do is find a way to get the guy fired, but that requires access to information he doesn't have just yet and probably won't. Not unless he goes back to work as a cop.

It's just that going back to work feels like admitting defeat. Like he's accepting he won't be able to get back to Eleven and he's not ready to do that yet. Sleeping in that empty apartment every night is bad enough, even if it is the first time he's had his own bed in over a year.

He says it like it should be obvious, but it isn't as if there's any way she could have known that. Hopper has seemed nice enough so far, he really has, a hell of a lot better than any of the adults in Derry, but trust doesn't come easily, especially with adults. She has to be careful, has to protect herself, because it's the only way she's ever managed to get by thus far. The more he talks, though, the more Beverly thinks that she might just have someone on her side here. That's not something she's used to. Even with her friends back home, it was a new phenomenon, but with adults, it's even stranger.

"Alright, good," she says, then takes a deep breath and forces a little levity back into her voice. "'Cause, I mean, then I'd just have more of a reason to skip school, which would kind of defeat the purpose, right?"

"Then I'd have to home school you and then you'd just mostly learn how to chain smoke and be a smart ass," he says, looking at her sideways as he steps up to the shoe rental desk. "And I think you've probably already got those covered."

At the counter he asks for shoes in his size, then gets Beverly to tell him her size, too, as he pays for the shoes and for a couple of games. Bowling has mostly stayed the same since the eighties, even if the music and the lights are a little different and so Hopper knows what he's doing here. It's one of the few places besides a bar where he's felt like he's not utterly lost.

"See? I'd be a straight-A student," Beverly says, shooting him a teasing grin. All things considered, it doesn't actually sound so bad, at least in theory. Maybe it would turn out to be a nightmare, maybe they wouldn't get along at all over an extended period of time, but it isn't as if she's ever been a fan of school. Mostly, it's just been one more thing to survive. Gym teacher aside, it hasn't been as bad as Derry ever was yet, but she also can't claim that she likes going into school, knowing she has one friend to her name. There's nothing really for her there.

There's only so much she can say at one time, though, so she doesn't let her smile fade as she tugs her sneakers off, setting them on the counter to exchange for the bowling shoes the man brings out for her. "And then we could have bowling instead of gym class. It seems kind of perfect, actually."

"Now you're thinking," Hopper says with a grin, taking his own shoes and sitting down to put them on. Bowling shoes will always look stupid, apparently, no matter what decade they've found themselves sin and Hopper looks down at them for a second before giving a resigned sort of shrug and getting to his feet again.

"Lane ten," the bored looking kid behind the counter says.

"Don't we get a scorecard?" Hopper asks and the kid stares at him for a long moment before he points toward lane ten. There, above the chairs is what looks like a television screen. And just below is one of those computers he's never been any good with.

"You put your names in on there," the kid tells them. "The score are tallied automatically."

"I can take care of it," Beverly offers, biting back a smile as she pulls on her shoes, ties the laces, and straightens again. Rarely as she's been there, they've had a computerized system in the bowling alley at home for a while now, but that doesn't stop her from adding for good measure, her voice deliberately loud enough for the guy behind the counter to hear, "The future is weird." It's the kind of remark that she knows is likely to earn a weird look — she's gotten them often enough at school and at the Home when she isn't up to date on whatever — but in this case, it's warranted. Not everyone is going to know what this shit is. Anyone working here should know that.

Shifting her weight to make sure the shoes fit alright, she lifts her chin slightly. "Where are your left-handed balls?"

Hopper laughs, looking at the guy behind the counter, who raises an eyebrow at the two of them, but doesn't make a comment otherwise. There are plenty of people here in Darrow who might not be from the same time as others and it's entirely possible -- probable, actually -- that they're not the first two people he's seen who've said something like that.

"Uh... behind the lanes," the guy says, pointing.

At the same time, Hopper's eyebrows lift and he looks at Beverly with a grin. "You really know your shit with bowling, huh?" he asks. "So I'm about to lose a few rounds, aren't I?"

Not that he minds. Hopper's not exactly a professional bowler, he'd be happy enough to lose regardless, but he wouldn't know off the top of his head if he needs a right-handed or left-handed balls. He'd just grab whatever was handy and go from there.

"God, no," Beverly laughs, shaking her head. "I just know enough to know that if I try to bowl with a right-handed ball, I'll probably make myself look even worse than I'm going to already." She doesn't mind that, though. Competitive as it may be — as she may be, when the situation calls for it — she's not really in this to win or not. It's more about the fact of their doing this in the first place, a welcome distraction from what she'd skipped school for, the first time in a long time, if ever, that she can remember an adult taking her out to do something fun.

It may be the middle of a school day, but it feels normal, and she can't help but smile at him for that.

"I don't actually remember the last time I went bowling, like, at all, so I don't think I'll be very much competition. Maybe we'll even out, or something."

The last time he had been bowling had been with Sara and Diane. The thought occurs to him as he heads to the lane, but he tries not to let his expression change because it's not Beverly's fault the last time he'd done with had been with his dead daughter.

"All right," he says, looking at the computerized screen in front of them at their lane. He rubs his hands together and looks over at Beverly, then gestures toward it. "You're up, kid. I still used a typewriter at work back in Hawkins."

And he sure hadn't had a computer in his home.

"We got these in... a little while ago? I can't really remember," Beverly says, but she at least doesn't feel too lost as she takes a seat by the little computer screen so she can start entering their names. The laptop she was given, that was waiting for her at the Home when she first got there, is largely a mystery to her; she's managed to figure out texting well enough, but otherwise, she doesn't use her phone for much besides phone calls. Comparatively speaking, this is pretty simple. "They had one when I last went, which I guess isn't saying much."

It isn't like her father ever did anything fun with her. It isn't like she had friends before last summer. And bowling isn't exactly the sort of thing it's all that fun to do alone.

"It seems like everything here has computers, though."

"Everything," he agrees with a huff, sitting down in one of the chairs to watch what Beverly does. Hopper might not know what to do with all of these computers, but he's not unwilling to learn, although he's never sure he's going to know all the ways in which he's expected to use his new phone. If he can manage to make calls with it, he'll consider it a win.

"Even my microwave feels more complicated than it should," he says, watching her take care of inputting their names into the system. It doesn't look hard exactly, but it just doesn't look like anything he's dealt with at home either. It figures kids have an easier time adapting, though, he's pretty sure their brains are just more elastic, able to absorb new information better.

"So how's the Home?" he asks. "Not skipping out on that, too, are you?"

"No, it's not so bad," Beverly says, shaking her head. "I mean, I don't think any kid wants to stay with that many other kids, but..." But it's better than home, and she still doesn't know how to say that outright, not without coming too close to the reasons why that's the case. Hopper might seem like a good guy so far, but that's not something she's trusted even her closest friends with, and she doesn't see any reason for that to change. The longer she spends here, maybe the easier it will become not to think about it so much. It's a nice thought, at least, even if it's one that feels a little like a pipe dream right now. "Besides, I'm not really sure what they'd do if I did, you know? I don't want to get myself kicked out or anything."

Hopper's not sure what they might do, but he's pretty sure they wouldn't be able to kick her out. If someone underage doesn't have a guardian, then the government is required to give them some kind of care, he's sure of that, although he doesn't know the details of the laws that would protect her. Eleven hadn't been staying with him legally, that's for sure, but she hadn't even had an identity according to the government.

"So how many kids in the same room as you?" he asks, making a face before he nods for her to go ahead and pick up a ball. She should go first, he figures, her name is the one on the top of the screen now. "All of them around the same age or what?"

"Yeah, we're all separated by age," Beverly says as she picks up one of the balls from where the clerk told her the left-handed ones would be, testing its weight and settling on it quickly. She doesn't need to go through and try a dozen of them that will probably have very little difference, especially when she's unlikely to do very well with this as it is. "Younger kids in one room, teenagers in another. And boys and girls kept separate, of course. There's... a few of us? It's still weird. Sharing that space."

It isn't as if she had all that much privacy back home, but her room was still her own. After growing up an only child, it's an adjustment to say the least.

"Not much privacy, I guess," he says, watching as she picks her ball and steps up to the lane. For a teenage girl, that has to be weird. Eleven isn't as old as Beverly and even so, Hopper had made sure to give her the bedroom in the cabin, knowing it would be too weird for everyone involved if they'd had to share the space that extensively.

At that point, he'd been used to sleeping on a couch anyway. Before things had really fallen apart with Diane, he'd spent most of his time there, and once he'd moved back to Hawkins he'd so often been drunk that he'd passed out on the couch far more often than he'd ever managed to get all the way into his bed.

"No, pretty much none," Beverly says, shaking her head. "I think it might be one of the hardest things about it. It's... really not easy to get any time to yourself." It's one more reason why skipping today hadn't seemed like a terrible idea, either. At least it's given her something of a break from constantly being around people close to her own age, never getting a moment to breathe. Hopper is different, and unlike the other adults she's known before, too. Maybe it's that what she would expect that this is what they're supposed to be, not leering at her or ignoring her or worse. She'd known no one like this in Derry. No one who really gave a damn.

Ball in hand, she aims as carefully as she can when she swings her arm back and forward again to release it, holding her breath as she watches it roll down the lane. It doesn't veer right into a gutter, at least; instead, it catches the two on the very side, which she takes as victory enough for the moment.

It would be weird to tell her she can come by his place if she needs to get away, he knows how it sounds when a grown man invites a teenage girl to his apartment, so he sure as hell isn't going to do that. But at the same time he wants her to feel like she can get away if she needs to. If she needs someone to sign her out or vouch for her or something, he's happy to do it, as long as she's not going to go off and get herself into trouble.

"So do they just let you go out whenever and wherever you want?" he asks, watching as her ball rolls down the lane and takes out two pins. She has another two balls, so he keeps his seat for the time being. "Or do they make you find someone to sign you out?"

"It depends," Beverly says, shrugging as she waits for her ball to come back up through the machine, shifting her weight a little restlessly. "There's a curfew, so as long as I'm back by then, that's fine, but if I'm going to be out later than that, or stay the night somewhere, I have to get someone to sign me out. They don't trust us that much." The last is a joke, though she supposes there's truth in it, too. It makes sense, of course. Kids probably shouldn't be left to run rampant and do whatever the fuck they want. She still, though, for all that she doesn't miss home at all, misses some of the freedom that came with being able to sneak out and do whatever the hell she wanted.

Picking her ball back up when it emerges, she balances it in one hand and then the other before gearing up to take her next shot. "Before you ask, no, I haven't tried sneaking out yet."

Hopper laughs and then raises his hands defensively and says, "Hey, I didn't ask." He had been ready to, though, not because she strikes him as the sort who would want to do that all the time, but because he wants to know if it's easy or not. Right now he's still not sure what he's going to do in this place long term, whether he's going to find himself back at the police department or follow some other road, but he's been a cop and a soldier for a long time. It's in his nature to be curious about things like that, to want to know how easy it is for someone to get out of something.

He would have been the father to make sure his daughter's bedroom window couldn't possibly be snuck into or out of.

"If you end up needing someone to sign you out just so you can get away for awhile, you can give me a shout," he tells her as she gets ready for her next shot. "Doesn't mean I'm not gonna ask some questions when you do, but I get it. Being around that many people would drive me up the damn wall."

"It's definitely weird," Beverly says, sending the ball rolling down the lane again, perching on her toes as she watches it. This time, it clips one pin, which teeters some before falling over, but she'll take it. At least it's better than embarrassing herself too completely on her first turn. Even if she had, she'd rather bowl a game with nothing but gutter balls than be in P.E. right now, so she supposes that, really, she wins either way. "And not exactly ideal. I mean, sometimes you just want a little privacy, you know?"

It's not like she's ungrateful, or like she doesn't recognize that she's lucky to have a place to stay at all with people who seem to genuinely mean well. That doesn't mean she wouldn't appreciate a break from being surrounded by other kids around her age, with whom she historically hasn't gotten along very well.

"But thanks," she adds, finding that she means it. "I'll keep that in mind."

"All right, kid, let me show you how it's done," Hopper says, getting up from his seat after she rolls her second ball and the lane is cleared. He has no idea if he's going to bowl any better than she did, but he sure as hell plans on making this a good time for the both of them and if he has to look like an idiot in order to do that, then so be it. It's not like he thinks he's above that in any way.

Being a dad kind of strips a man of his ego in a lot of ways.

"Me and Jane lived out in this cottage," he tells Beverly as he picks up a ball, then heads toward the lane, pausing at the line for a moment. He takes his time there, as if weighing his options, weighing the ball, shifting back and forth on his feet as he tries to find the right place to stand. He's making a show of it and it's entirely for Beverly's benefit. "It wasn't very big and even with just the two of us it could be close quarters. She got pissed at me one day and dragged the entire TV set into her bedroom so she could have a little bit of privacy. A place like the Home would drive that kid batshit, I think."

"God, yeah, sounds like," Beverly says, not entirely able to help the laugh she lets out at the story he tells. Probably it shouldn't be funny, when Jane must have gotten pissed for a reason, but the mental image is still an amusing one. It endears Hopper to her all the more, too. Granted, she may only be getting a part of the story, but she'd never have been able to get away with something like that. "I mean, it's kind of enough to drive any kid batshit, but even if she dragged the TV into the bedroom here, she'd be sharing it with a bunch of other kids."

Watching with only partially disguised amusement as he draws out the process of preparing to send the ball down the lane, she adds, "At least she'd have you if she showed up here."

"She was pissed because I'd gotten stuck at work," he says, although he knows that's a different story, it's just that he's not ready to tell Beverly any of the details about Eleven. He can't tell her about that fight, that the reason she'd been so mad at him in the first place is because she'd found out her mother was still alive. Maybe keeping that from her hadn't been the smartest decision he's ever made, but he'd done it to keep her safe and he's not sure he regrets it.

"It was Halloween," he says, drawing his arm back once, twice, and then finally letting it go the third time. The ball rolls down the lane, wavering for a long time at the edge of the gutter before it finally take out two of the pins on the end. "I told her I'd be home by 5:45 with candy, but I messed up. Got caught up at work with this weird case and by the time I got home..."

Well, she'd been pissed. And that night she had locked herself in her room, she just hadn't taken the TV with her that time.

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