something_incredible | (no subject)

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.

Threaded | Flat

Lucy's got a few books bundled under one arm and a coffee in the other. It's been a productive day spent in her office at the university and then in the library. After finishing grading a slew of exams, she'd gone to the library to pick up a few books she'd been meaning to read and now she's heading home.

She's taking a sip of the coffee when someone seems to just appear in front of her, causing her to startle and stumble. Coffee spills slightly down the front of her jacket but she keeps her feet and her books mostly due to his hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay," she says automatically, trying to brush the coffee off her jacket with the fingers of the hand she has around her coffee cup. "It's okay. I'm fine."

She looks up, notices the jacket and though she knows Hawkins PD doesn't mean he's joined Darrow's force, she still says, "No harm done, Officer. I wasn't paying attention."