something_incredible | (no subject)

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lucy

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The morning after his bender, Hopper had woken up on Lucy's couch pretty damn embarrassed, some of his memories blurred to the point where he might consider it a black out, but he remembered two specific things very clearly. Lucy had been a hell of a lot kinder to him than he deserved, and he had decided, in his stoned and drunken state, that asking her on a second date at that moment had been appropriate.

But for some reason she had agreed to go with him.

Since then, it's been a lot easier to keep himself from drinking. That's down to Beverly, though, and he knows maybe it's not real recovery if he's not drinking because of a kid he's sort of looking after, but it's better than nothing. Those pills he'd bought, he'd held onto them for a few days, but after the first night Beverly had needed to spend at his place he'd flushed them down the toilet.

What he wants is to get back home. But maybe Darrow has a few things going for it, too, and somehow he's got a kid who trusts him enough to come to him when things get weird at the Home and a woman who actually wants to see him again after she finds him in a pretty goddamn terrible state and he thinks he should probably try not to mess any of this up.

So they're going bowling. It's a little cheesy, but Hopper likes cheesy and he likes Lucy, and when he shows up at her place to pick her up, he's bound and determined to do this properly. He's come up short of getting flowers, figuring a woman like Lucy would probably appreciate something a little more thoughtful than that, so he's going to leave gifts for a little later in whatever this might turn into.

But he does go up to her apartment to pick her up instead of waiting around outside and when he knocks on her door, he finds he's both excited and nervous.

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"If you don't share your nachos with me no matter what happens on this next roll," Lucy says, hefting the ball up and stepping onto the lane, "I'll be sad. I make a very good sad face. It's very persuasive."

It wasn't something she used very often because she doesn't want to manipulate people into giving her what she wants but if she needs to break out a frown and a quivering lip to get her way, she might think about doing it tonight of all nights.

She gives him a quick wink before turning and lining up her shot. When she tosses it this time, it's much more straight and it hits many more pins but it leaves two still standing when all is said and done.

"So, that was a little better," she says, making a face. "Good enough for nachos?"

When her back is turned, Hopper finds himself struggling with a smile, feeling a little bit like a fool because of it. She's pretty and funny and a hell of a lot smarter than he'll ever be. A hell of a lot better than he thinks he deserves and he doesn't want to get ahead of himself in any way, doesn't want to put any pressure on this, but at least they're having a good time.

He figures he's lucky enough in that.

When she turns back, he manages to wipe the grin from his face and pretends to give her turn a thoughtful consideration.

"I'm not sure when we got into bargaining with nachos, but I think you might have won yourself some," he decides, scratching his chin in a considering manner. "I don't think they'll taste as good if I keep them all to myself anyway."

"You're nacho generosity is appreciated," Lucy says, nodding and gesturing him towards the lanes. She takes her seat and picks up the menu that's been left on the table behind them. It's typical diner food, greasy and therefore, really good. And she has some kind of craving for nachos now. It's not something they ate a lot of back home considering her mother was sick when time was right and then she was too busy when time was wrong.

"I'm going to order the nachos you're going to treat with," Lucy tells him, looking up. "Do you want something to drink? A beer? A water? Something else?"

She waves the menu at him, brings it up so her face is right next to it and flutters her eyelashes at him.

One beer is safe. Hopper knows he's got a problem with alcohol, but it's not the sort of problem where he ends up in the gutter every single time he has a beer. When he's out, when he's not dwelling on Sara, even those evenings with Eleven, he'd always been capable of just having one or two drinks. Not enough to get him drunk.

It's only when he's in a bad place and he starts drinking that he ends up in an even worse place. That's not going to happen tonight.

"A beer," he says, looking at her over his shoulder with a smile. "And since I'm treating, feel free to get yourself something, too." He's still teasing, he hopes she knows she's welcome to get whatever she wants.

"Ooh, how gallant of you," Lucy jokes, taking the menu up to the nearby counter while he takes his turn. She doesn't order much, just some nachos, two beers, and some mozzarella sticks. It seems safer to stick to finger foods since she doesn't know how good the food is and she doesn't want to order too much if it's not good.

But, nachos are a must and mozzarella sticks just seem like a good thing to go along with them.

She comes back quickly and takes her seat, sitting back and crossing her arms. "Food is on the way. Let's hope we both earn it."

Hopper's next turn is far less impressive than his first, a fact reflected in the score displayed on the screen when Lucy returns and he frowns at it for a moment before he gives a big shrug. They're hardly playing a seriously competitive game here and if he loses, he'll just be happy to be here with her.

Damned if he knows how to say that, though. It's been so long since he's actually dated someone that he feels a little bit like an idiotic kid. Never quite sure what to do next.

"Let's hope you earn it at least," he says, turning to smile at her. "I think my first turn was a fluke."

"And here I thought you might be trying to hustle me," Lucy says with a smirk. She gets to her feet and, as she passes him, says, "The food should be here pretty soon."

She smiles at him before reaching for the ball. She sets herself and tosses the ball down the lane. It wobbles but stays fairly straight, knocking down seven pins. It's better than her first turn and she smiles, giving a little fist bump as she does.

"Time for the comeback. Maybe," Lucy says, laughing. "Or time to get lucky."

She realizes what she's said pretty quickly and blushes. "At bowling."

"At bowling," he echoes with a laugh, but he watches as she approaches the lane for her next throw and anyone watching him would definitely notice that he's looking at her ass. He'd say he can't help himself, but he knows that's a shitty cop out, so even in his head he takes responsibility. She's beautiful and he likes her and he's definitely attracted to her.

There's just a part of him that wonders if she feels the same. Or if he's doing this properly. It's been so damn long since he's actually dated someone that he's not sure how it usually goes. Were she another women, he'd probably just ask her home with him tonight, but if he wants this to maybe go somewhere -- and he thinks he does -- he knows that's not how to play it.

"Come on," he encourages. "You get that last three and you'll get a spare and have a higher score than me."

"Might be the only time that happens today," Lucy says, turning to smile at him from over her shoulder. If she catches him looking, she doesn't say anything but she doesn't mind either. It's not like she hasn't been looked at before and she, at least, likes Jim. Likes being around him and likes talking to him and so she also likes being looked at by him.

She takes a breath and aims carefully. Right now, there's nothing more she wants than to collect the rest of these pins. With a small prayer, she tosses the ball. It wobbles and slides but, amazingly, does knock over the three pins that remain.

She can't help the squeal of delight and the little twirl she does as she makes her way back down the lane. "That'll be the best shot I make all day."

Hopper leans forward in his seat a little as she makes the shot and for a second it seems like it might not work out, but then it does and the pins go over and he can't help but grin when she twirls. This isn't the sort of place where men like him end up. He had it all figured. His daughter died, he returned to his home town and he was going to die young, a sad, lonely man who didn't have a hell of a lot in his life.

Instead there was Eleven. And now he's here.

"Now that's what I call a spare," he agrees with a laugh, just as the food arrives. "You see that?" he asks the waiter. "Tell me that wasn't impressive."

The waiter looks at Hopper, looks at Lucy, looks at the pins then nods. "It was a good shot."

The waiter probably hadn't even the shot but his answer delights Lucy anyway. She smiles widely at him before walking up to join Hopper. She takes her seat and sighs like she's just finished a marathon and hasn't picked up a simple spare in bowling.

When the waiter leaves, Lucy snickers and says, "He's probably just hoping for a good tip."

"I guess it's not the worst way to do it," he says, because it had made her happy and Hopper figures he'll probably leave someone a nice tip for that. Not that he's got a lot of money to be throwing around, but he doesn't really go out and if he's going to spend it on anyone, it's going to be Lucy and Beverly.

"Don't eat all the nachos while my back is turned," he tells her before taking a sip of his beer and then getting up to take his next shot. His first ball goes straight into the gutter, an embarrassment if there's ever been one, but with the next he manages to take every last pin down. Another spare, not the strike he'd prefer, but it's not half bad either. When he turns back to Lucy, he's grinning, and he shrugs as if he can't explain it.

"I'm pretty sure that I'd end up sick or with the worst heartburn in the world if I even tried to eat even half of these nachos," Lucy says, taking a few of them and popping them into her mouth.

When his shot goes into the gutter, she stifles a giggle but it's quickly extinguished when his second ball knocks down every single pin. It's an impressive way to make up for the first shot. She has to stand up and clap while she's making her way towards the lane.

"I don't think I'll be able to do that," Lucy tells him, reaching up to pat his shoulder as she passes him. "I think you've been holding these bowling skills back."

"Or just riding a rare lucky streak," he says. Rare is the key word. Hopper has never had a great deal of luck and he thinks it probably figures that what little luck he does have will funnel itself straight into something like bowling.

"Thank you, thank you," he says, laughing as he returns to their seats. The last time anyone had applauded for him in regards to sports had been high school, when he'd played football. Even then, he hadn't been anything exceptional. They'd lost as much as they'd won, but football had been a big deal in high school.

"I'm still expecting you to show me up. I'm just trying to set a really high bar."

"You might be waiting a long while," Lucy says, grabbing her ball and swinging it a bit. "If you haven't already guessed, I might have spoken a little too highly of my bowling skills. Just a little."

Just a lot. She's glad to see she's not a terrible bowler but she doesn't think she's going to win unless he throws the game and tosses every single ball into the gutter from here on out. Maybe she'll get lucky, knock a few down but she can't see herself winning.

That's further demonstrated when her next shot consists of knocking four pins down and then two more after her ball nearly gets stuck on her thumb and flies down the alley with a loud thump when it lands.

"Oops," she says, shaking her hand a bit. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

He can't help the laugh at the sight of her ball thumping down on the alley, but when he sees her shaking her hand, he gets up from his seat and sets his beer aside. Going to her, Hopper takes Lucy's hand in his so he can check on her thumb. It's not broken, he doesn't think it's sprained either, but something like that might cause a bit of swelling.

"Need some ice?" he asks with a small smile. "Or do you think you'll make it through the rest of the game? Maybe you just need more nachos and beer."

He hopes she's not really hurt, it'd be too bad to put an early end to their night because of a bowling ball mishap.

"Just give me more nachos and beer," Lucy says with a laugh, giving her fingers a wiggle and shaking her head. "That was a ridiculously dumb thing to do and I blame the bowling ball and not myself."

She definitely hadn't been the reason why the ball had landed so horribly, of course not. Lucy glances up at the score and sighs though there's no actual hurt or depression in it. It's all for show.

"If I lose, I might use this thumb as an excuse, though," she admits with another laugh. "Just as a forewarning."

"I'll give you any excuse you want if it turns out you need one," Hopper says, giving her hand one last stroke with his thumb before he lets her go. "Who knows where things go from here."

Then he nods back toward their seats and their food and drinks. "Let's take a break. Have our drinks."

He's here to spend time with her, after all, for all he enjoys bowling. At this rate, he thinks he could do just about anything with her just as long as they were both there. It's a funny kind of thought. He hasn't cared about dating in so long.

"All right," Lucy says, smiling down at her hand, her thumb before taking a seat and sighing. She tries, for a second, to remember her last date. It had to have been months ago, maybe a year since someone had last asked her out and she'd agreed. It hadn't been a bad time either but she'd been busy and he hadn't been interesting.

Tonight is not like that. Tonight is better. He's better.

"I appreciate you letting me gather my strength and energy so I can try and finish out the game strong," she says, picking up her drink. "But, this is good too. I like just sitting here and talking too."

"I'll try to be a good conversationalist," he says, only half-joking. "Years of living alone sort of killed those skills and Jane wasn't much of one for talking either. She barely said a few words at a time when I first met her."

But Eleven hadn't been like any other kid he's ever met. Hopper doesn't want to say it was trauma, but he knows she had to have been changed by the way she was treated in the lab. The fact that she was kept away from most other people. Other children.

"We lived in this cabin," he says. "She was great about learning, but she never did talk much."

"A cabin?" Lucy repeats, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Was the cabin out in the woods? Or out in the country? That's where movies typically made it seem like cabins were. I don't know if I could survive out there."

While Lucy's not really one who needs to be around tons of people, she does like being near technology. She likes being near books. She likes being near her family and sequestering herself so far away seems like both a great thing if she wants to write but a nuisance if she needs to commute at all.

"What were you teaching her?" Lucy asks curiously. "Reading, writing and arithmetic?"

"Hawkins was pretty small to begin with," he says. "But yeah, it was outside of town. Out in the woods. And she wasn't... ready, I guess, for public school."

That's a lie he hates. Eleven would have killed to get to go to school with Mike and the others. Hopper is the reason she hadn't and he knows she'd blamed him, but he stands by the decision. Sending her out into public would have gotten her killed. The government agents would have found her in a second and they would have taken her without hesitation.

"She loves books. Words. She's a smart kid, so smart, but the way she was treated before, her vocabulary was pretty limited," he says. "She liked learning new words. Their definitions."

"She sounds like someone I would get along with," Lucy says, a smile appearing on her face. "I would have tried to stuff her head with history and forgotten to teach her anything else. She was probably lucky to have you to make sure she was well rounded."

She wants to ask about her previous treatment, get more details because it's hard to think about kids being treated that way. Her father had walked out on her but he'd left her and Amy with a good mother. They'd been okay. This girl of Hopper's hadn't been okay until he came along, it sounds like that.

"I would offer to send you home with some books for her but..." She trails off and frowns. "Who knows when either of us will be allowed to leave?"

Hopper has to laugh at that and with a mouthful of beer, he shakes his head. Eleven hadn't been well rounded because of him. Hell, she hadn't been well rounded at all. He'd been the wrong person to teach her, giving her TV to shut her up when she annoyed him and bribing her with waffles and sweets when she was angry. It had just been so long since he'd been responsible for anyone and he'd never done it on his own, it's like he'd forgotten how.

"No, she needed school," he says. "It just wasn't time."

Then Lucy talks about leaving, about whether or not they'll ever be allowed and his smile fades a little. She's right, they don't know anything, whether they'll be stuck here for years or just a few more months. He tries not to think about it, because he's not sure how the hell else to get through it all.

"And there I go, bringing the mood down," Lucy says with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. It's hard not to think about some of the more awful parts of this place. That they can't leave, that the people back home might not even realize they're gone, that they're unable to do anything about any of it.

"Sorry," she says, wincing. "I should probably just keep eating nachos so I don't say anything to ruin conversations. That or just take my mouth shut. Just seems like the safer bet when it comes to talking to me."