something_incredible | (no subject)

For two days now, he's been chain-smoking Beverly's cigarettes.

He hadn't meant to go through her stuff, but she hadn't woken up that first morning and after the paramedics had come to check her out, then told Hopper this shit was completely normal, he'd found himself digging through her bag on the hunt for her phone. At the time, he'd wanted to call her friends, he'd wanted them to know, but then he'd found her cigarettes instead and rather than being angry, he'd set to work methodically smoking them one by one.

A nurse had stopped by on the first evening to check Beverly's vitals, to make sure she wasn't dehydrated and she, too, had insisted everything was just fine. She'd given him a short lecture about smoking around Beverly and when he had tersely answered they were his daughter's cigarettes, the nurse had sniffed in annoyance and left abruptly.

The nurse who had come in the next morning had been nicer. Prettier, too. Hopper has plans to see her next weekend.

None of that is important right now, though. If Beverly doesn't wake up by next weekend, he sure as hell won't be going out on any dates. He'll be planted right here, same spot he's been for the past two days, smoking and drinking coffee and forgetting to eat. There's two days worth of stubble on his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes and every time he looks at Beverly lying there with an IV drip in her arm to keep her hydrated, he experiences the same gut clenching fear he had when Sara had finally slipped into unconsciousness.

This can't happen again. It can't happen again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I got you, kid," he says softly. "You're back now, you don't gotta worry about it."

But deep down he knows she's right to worry. It's possible all of them will end up somewhere else than where they started, somewhere other than where they want to be, and he doesn't want to think about Beverly ending up back home with that shitty father of hers and whatever monsters lurk in the sewers, but they both know it's possible.

For now, though, he's just going to promise to hold onto her. Give her that security, even if they both know it might not be permanent.

There's a lot more that Beverly wishes she could say. That she's really glad to be here, that it means the fucking world to have a place where that's the case at all, all the dozens of things she's kept buried since she first woke up in that place and since Richie died. She still feels pretty out of it, though, and still suspects that if she starts letting any of that out, she'll never be able to pull herself back together. Letting herself go there just isn't something she can do, not even here where she's safest.

"This place might be weird, but it definitely beats giant monsters with super hearing," she says. It's a weak, halfhearted attempt at levity, one she's sure he'll see right through, but at least it covers what she otherwise doesn't have the words for. It's true, too. As fucked up as Darrow might be, it's a hell of a lot better than Derry and even more so than the world Regan came from. "It still kind of feels weird just to be talking."

Hopper can't imagine. He's never been one to keep his mouth shut for any reason and having it be life or death means he'd probably end up dead. Right now he's not going to say that, it isn't something Beverly needs to hear, not after all she's just been through.

"This place is weird, but it's home," he says. "As fucked up as that is."

But Hopper doesn't mind. The only change he'd make is being able to see Eleven again. She would be safer in Darrow anyway, because no one besides Beverly even knows about her or the things she can do.

"Yeah, it is," Beverly says quietly. "I never really thought I'd have that." She doubts it will come as much of a surprise. Derry was home in a nominal sense, but it never really felt the way a home is supposed to. Even that last summer, when she had friends for the first time and things were somewhat better, they were worse at the same time, compounded by all that shit with the clown. She'd been terrified that whole summer. It was the happiest she'd ever been, before she got here. There are things and people she misses now, hazy as her memory of them might be, but at least it's safe here. Safer, anyway. Or it was, before she woke up in a different world, with monsters that could hear too well and eat people.

She smiles, the expression a little grim, but still well-meant. "Or that it would be somewhere like this, but it works."