something_incredible | (no subject)

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lucy

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Apparently in 2018, it's impossible to find anywhere that allows you to smoke inside. He could quit, like half the people he meets these days suggests he do, but Hopper doesn't really like the idea of giving up the one thing that's still familiar to him in this weird city.

He's not even a cop anymore. He could be. At least, he's pretty sure he could be, but this place seems to fall somewhere between New York and Hawkins when it comes to the level of crime he'd be facing and Hopper honestly isn't sure if he's ready to take a step back in New York's direction. Hawkins had been weird in recent years, yeah, but somehow facing down a bunch of monsters with heads full of teeth where their faces should be just doesn't seem as daunting as returning to cases of assault and murder and rape and abuse.

Shit like that's exhausting. New York had just about wrung every last little bit of good out of him and he can think of a lot better things to do with his time than going back to being a cop.

Like smoking. And drinking. And maybe taking a few pills to ease the pain. He hasn't, not yet, but he thinks about it every day. The only thing that keeps him from going back there right now is the thought that Eleven might show up here someday and he'd hate for her to see him like that, his eyes glazed over, just this side of high on whatever pain pills he was able to find. It had been fucked up before, but at least before there hadn't been a kid to worry about. The fact that there hadn't been was what took him to the pills in the first place, but now there is again. There's Eleven.

Maybe some other kids, too.

So right now he's huddled outside a bar, the collar of his Hawkins PD coat turned up against the cold wind, smoking the last cigarette in the pack he'd bought the day before. He's going through them too fast, but there's not much else here to distract him.

Another beer maybe. It's probably too early to get drunk, but just one more won't kill him. He takes one last drag from his cigarette before crushing it against the heel of his boot, then turns back toward the bar and nearly walks straight into someone.

"Shit, sorry," he says, lifting his hand to her shoulder to steady her.

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"I haven't had to...face that yet when it comes to my mother." And she's been refusing to face it when it comes to Amy. She can get Amy back. She doesn't know how she's going to be able to fix time but she will make it her priority for the rest of her life. Flynn Garcia and Rittenhouse are dangerous but they are not Amy.

She needs Amy back for her own sanity.

"But, I've prepared for it," she adds after some thought. "And you're right. Sometimes the only way to...keep going is to put things like that in a box never to open them save for every once in awhile. Grief is debilitating. If you don't want it to sink you, you do what you have to do."

Hopper still isn't sure if what he did would be considered sinking into his grief or avoiding it. In a lot of ways, he thinks he was trying to do both, trying to numb himself to what he couldn't stop feeling and to pretend it didn't exist, but he's here now and he's mostly sober, though the temptation to hunt down pills gets stronger with each passing day.

That's not something he's willing to get into with Lucy, though. Everything he's told her already is more than he would have told most people and he's only said this much because he knows she can understand at least part of what he went through.

"You do what you have to do," he agrees with a nod, then give another faint smile. "And how's that for personal story time with near strangers?" Even people he'd known all his life had barely known anything about Sara and it's true he hadn't given Lucy a lot of details, but for awhile he'd outright lied about Sara's death, unable to face it. He had told people she lived with her mother, somewhere out of state, and he knows just how messed up that is.

Lucy snickers, ducking her head and shaking her head. She hadn't meant to share so much with someone she doesn't know but when you meet someone that can relate to a situation that you don't want anyone to know so well, it makes you a little more open because you want that connection.

"Well, I'll just take that as our very honest and brutal introduction to one another," she decides with a nod. "We've gotten the difficult stuff out of the way and now we can wander back to talking about the weather or something else superficial."

She reaches for her coffee, takes a sip. "Do you think you're going to join Darrow's police department?"

That's a loaded question, one he still doesn't have an answer to and Hopper exhales slowly, looking down at his coffee before he shakes his head.

"I don't know," he says. "The longer I'm here, the more I feel like I really am stuck, but getting a new job feels like the final nail in the coffin for me. If I do that, then I'm really doing it all. I'm here instead of home."

Then he smiles a little and looks at Lucy and admits, "I was Chief back home. It's a lot less difficult to rise up the ranks in a small town and I don't think they'll let me take over here. I was a beat cop in New York in the seventies, I'm not sure I want to go back to that."

"I thought the same thing," Lucy says with an understanding nod, "but I also found that without something to do, I had a lot of time to think. To overthink. To be bored. To wonder what I was missing so it might be a good distraction if nothing else and a paycheck can't be at all bad."

Money's never been one of those things that she's needed or wanted but it's nice to be able to buy what she needs. It still feels wrong that she's not using it on her mother, on her care but she's trying to be better about feeling less guilty. It's not easy.

"Maybe there's private security?" Lucy suggests, shrugging. "I have no idea because it's not my field but I'm sure there's gotta be something like that. Something where you don't have to work something you don't want to work."

"That's... that's something to think about," Hopper agrees, surprised by the suggestion. It's not something he would have come up with one his own, instead too focused on the idea of going back to what he used to be, which he's not. Maybe he can't. Maybe being a small town cop was what he was in Hawkins, but in Darrow it's got to be something different.

In Darrow, for one, he's without. Without Eleven, without Joyce, without the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted when it came to police work.

"You're probably right," he adds. "Too much time to think ends in too many beers in my case."

"And too many beers is going to lead to you ending up in strange beds or, even worse, strange bushes. Not that I've ever done that or anything but I have imbibed a little too much wine and woken up in some uncomfortable positions on my couch."

Amy had typically taken care of her on those nights, putting a blanket over her or turning off the television. It wasn't a constant, regular things but some nights were harder than others.

"What would you like to do if it's not doing something in the law enforcement field?" Lucy asks. "Maybe you could try something new?"

Hopper has ended up worse places than a strange bed or two, especially since they're usually not that strange in Hawkins, where everyone around his age is someone he'd grown up with. Honestly, most of the time, he'd almost rather it be a stranger. Then he doesn't end up walking into the library trying to work a case and getting shit from the librarian for not calling.

"Hell, I don't know," he says honestly. "I graduated high school, fought in Vietnam, came home and was a cop. There wasn't a lot of time in there for figuring out what else I might be good at." He's not saying it for sympathy, he think that's pretty much how most people live their lives, even if they don't end up in a war.

"Would you do something else if you weren't teaching?"

"Author, maybe," Lucy says because she'd loved writing her one book even if it hadn't been widely read. She could see herself doing that as a full time job, loading herself down with research, taking notes, and editing something until her fingers were raw and the words started blurring.

"I love to read and sometimes things I would read would either strike me as wrong or not detailed and I'd want to change that. I've written one book but if I could really do it full time and make it work, I would. It's just a pipe dream. With everything else going on, teaching leaves me time to spend with my family, were I home, and to figure this place out. That is almost a full time job right there. There's a lot to take in when it comes to Darrow."

"You had that answer ready so fast I think that's probably what you should be doing," Hopper says honestly, giving a rough laugh. She had asked the same of him and he hadn't had the slightest idea how to respond, but she hadn't even hesitated and he thinks that probably says something.

"This place gives you money, right?" he asks. The way he's worked out the budget, the amount this place gives him is enough to cover his rent and bills and enough food. What he needs a job for is to drink too often and too much, but if Lucy's not worried about that, he thinks she'd be okay in the stipend from the city.

Quit teaching and spend your days trying to work this place out and writing a book," he says with a smile. "Why not, right?"

"It does but there's one large problem with that idea in that I don't have any ideas right now of what I should write," Lucy says with a chuckle. "The last time I wrote a book, I had an idea so while the idea is a good one, I think I'll have to keep teaching until I at least know what I want to write."

What did one write in a city that would be her only audience? Lincoln was her passion but it had already been done and she doesn't think many would want to read something like that here. She thinks she'd have to make it specific to this place and she doesn't know enough about this place to do that.

"I have some issues with just sitting at home and doing nothing," she admits. "Too much time to think."

"What was your last book about?" Hopper asks. Maybe he's never been much of a reader and had always done his best to avoid doing his homework in high school, but he thinks if someone he knows has written a book, he might go out of his way to read that. Whether or not it's actually available in a place like this is another question entirely, but he figures he'll worry about that later.

Once he works out if he'll actually be able to sit down and read it or not. Because if she's written about astrophysics, he's probably pretty screwed in that regard.

Then again, he has the spare time now, like he's just said. He's not working, doesn't know if he's going to be able to go back in the way people expect, and that does leave him with a lot of time to just think. Thinking, in his case, tends to lead to drinking and he knows drinking leads to pills. That's not what he wants here.

"Oh, Abraham Lincoln," Lucy tells without shame. She knows that he's been written extensively about and some of the things she'd written about had probably been a retread but she hopes that some things had been different and that her words had made a mark on maybe one or two people.

"He's sort of a hero of mine," she admits with a shy shrug. She tucks some hair behind her ears and continues, "I know I'm not the only one either. But, I was inspired and motivated enough to write a book about him. I don't have it here and I doubt it's in the library but."

But, she'd written a book. She was proud of it. She doesn't know if she'll ever write another one but at least she'd done it once. It's one of those things that a lot of people want to do and she'd done it.

"So I guess you've already answered my next question, which was going to be whether or not I'd be able to read it," Hopper says. Abraham Lincoln might not be his primary interest, but he's not uninterested in the topic either and he does have a lot of free time to kill. Time spent reading is probably better than time spent drinking.

And if he's Lucy's hero, the book is probably interesting. She probably cares a lot about the content that's in it.

"So I'll just have to ask you directly instead," he decides. "Why's he your hero?"

"I think the reasons probably change on a daily basis," Lucy tells him, looking thoughtful. "But, in the simplest terms, I think he was ahead of his time on many things and was a visionary the likes that hasn't existed in a long, long time."

There were other influential, important figures in history, Lucy knows, but none had struck her as deeply as Lincoln had.

"I think he wanted things to be better for everyone though I know that it's impossible to make everyone happy," Lucy continues, chewing her lower lip. "And I think he wore his hat very well. Much better than most men I know."

"Huh," Hopper says, having never really given it much thought. All he really knows is he doesn't care much for Reagan, but he probably wouldn't care much for any of the men who had run for president, figuring them all to be some kind of crook.

"I don't know how many politicians actually want things to be better for people," he says. "But I don't know a hell of a lot about Lincoln either, maybe things were different for him than they are for Reagan now. Or whoever the hell is president in 2018."

He still has a really hard time accepting that difference in years, but it's not like he can argue with thousands of people in this city who insist he's time traveled.

"The politicians these days are better ignored and tolerated than anything else," Lucy agrees with a twist of her lips. Since traveling with the Lifeboat team, she's lost track of who's in charge of what, sometimes forgetting that she is back in present time and thinking someone like Truman or Kennedy or Washington was in charge.

"Lincoln's about the only one I feel like that about anyway," she tells him, shrugging. "There's a lot of interesting figures in history but none of them that I...admire in the way that I admire Lincoln."

His brother wasn't bad either. She wonders if that, as he went through time, Robert remembered her. "Anyway, talking about politics is generally frowned upon because it's so divisive. That and religion, as far as I know."

"Well, if it helps be less divisive, my thoughts on both can be summed up by..." And then he shrugs deeply. He knows he ought to care more, especially when it comes to politics, especially given that he used to be the chief of police in Hawkins, but he really doesn't. Since Sara's death, he's been too tired to care about much of anything and Eleven had taken him by surprise and taken up the rest of his energy.

Keeping her safe had been his priority and unless Lucy thinks labs should have the right to keep children in locked rooms where they can experiment on them, he doubts their politics will come in conflict all that much. And he might not know her well, but she doesn't seem the sort.

"Don't tell anyone from back home their police chief didn't give a shit about politics, though," he says with a small smile. "They might not like that."

"Oh, your secret's safe with me," she assures him, putting a finger to her lips and miming zipping them up. It's actually a little nice to hear that someone just doesn't care about politics, that they're not going to try and argue that one way is better than the other and that they're more concerned with themselves, their family than trying to get the government to change because Lucy knows from experience governments are not very yielding.

"Truth be told, I don't really care that much about politics either," Lucy admits. "I like the history behind governments and why they do the things they do but I don't want to be involved so we're agreed on that. See, look at that, we can connect about something that's not dark and sad. We're good adults."

It makes him smile, the way she mimes zipping her lips and he thinks if he were going to spend his day doing something other than drinking, this is a hell of an improvement. She's pretty, she's a hell of a lot smarter than he is, their conversation hasn't been difficult, despite the fact that she's smarter than he is. It's been a long time since Hopper has met anyone new, but these days it seems to be all he's doing.

It's not the worst thing in the world. Especially not here.

"Is that what makes us good adults?" he asks, his smile growing a little. "I've never been sure I was ever that good at it." He was at his best with Sara, though, of that there's no doubt.

"I think if you're upright and not laying in a gutter somewhere then you're a good adult," Lucy decides. "Not that I'm an expert on such things and I haven't been in a gutter lately. But, life's hard. Standing up and getting through it means you're a good adult in my eyes."

It would have been so easy to lay down and just stay there and Lucy's done that at certain points in her life. She's been down and she hasn't wanted to get up. It's family that's gotten her up, gotten her going again and while the accomplishment is small, it had felt monumental to her at the time.

"If I had a gold star sticker, I'd give it to you," Lucy says, smiling. "I don't because college students don't typically want stickers but the sentiment is there."

Hopper has done a lot of lying down. Maybe not in literal gutters, but he's pretty sure passing out on the front porch of his cottage could count as a metaphorical gutter, especially given the amount of beer and the number of pills that had been in his system at the time. These days, alone in this damn city, he can practically feel himself twitching for both, but he thinks if he does that, he might end up in a real gutter this time.

Maybe Eleven isn't here, but there are other kids who might need him. Kids who might not trust him completely anymore if something like that happens. He needs to make sure he does right in this regard, even if it's hard.

"I think your assessment is pretty rare," he says with another small smile. "I'm from a small town and there are plenty of people there who think being upright isn't nearly enough. But then, small towns talk, don't they?"

"Well, maybe I'm not an expert after all," Lucy says, shrugging her shoulders, "but it's what I think. If you're gonna stand on your own two feet and get through life, you're adult enough for me."

Not that she was the be all end all of the subject but she'd seen enough people struggle and fall down and get back up that she counts that as an accomplishment. Anything after that, in her opinion, is just a victory. Getting a job, getting married, whatever, anything extra is just incentive for the person.

"Besides, you're not in your previous small town." Lucy points out. "You're in some mid sized city that no one can get into and no one knows the true location of. Things are different here and unless someone's told you otherwise, you're an adult. I say so."

"Well, as long as I've got someone's approval," he says with a laugh. "And I think you being a professor lends it a little more weight than it would if you were just the person serving me drinks at a bar." Being a bartender is fine, he figures, it's a job, but there's something about the idea of being a professor that just seems a little other to someone like Hopper. She's smarter than the average person in Hawkins, that's for are, especially a person like him, someone who just barely got out in the first place and then only managed to do it on the back of a war.

When the good stuff had ended, he'd gone shuffling right back to where he'd come from.

"So if anyone challenges me on that, I can point 'em toward you?" he asks, still smiling. "You'll take them on for me?"

"I will do my best to take them on, yes," Lucy promises, nodding. "I don't know how well I'd do in a physical altercation but I've never been afraid to run my mouth and I wouldn't be afraid to voice my opinion in this instance either. Hopefully we never run into that though."

She wants to think that Darrow's a little better. That because it's so diverse people will be more open minded and accepting of what other people think. Even in something as silly and simple as this, she hopes people won't argue.

"But today, in this coffee shop, I dub you a true adult," Lucy tells him, nodding. "Decreed, accepted and done."