something_incredible | (no subject)

Hopper has tried counting the days. He's tried not counting the days. Neither one seems to give him more peace than the other, so mostly he's started to just focus on getting through a day. Each one at a time, which he's pretty sure is something they've said in the meetings he's still going to, even though he finds himself not listening half the time.

He feels like shit about that. These meetings are meant to help people, help him, but he still hasn't managed to say anything about himself beyond his introduction at the third or fourth meeting he had attended. He kind of feels like shit about that, too. Turns out getting sober leaves a lot of room for feeling like seven kinds of shit and Hopper understands more and more with each passing day why people slip.

He hasn't, though. He's trying really goddamn hard not to and the reason for that is sitting across from him in the living room, flipping through the channels on the TV without settling on anything in particular.

Right now he owes her more than just not fucking it up and so he crosses over to where she's sitting, his glass of soda in hand, and once he's set that on the coffee table, flops down beside her.

"Hey," he says, giving her a nudge with his elbow.

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"So I got someone to talk to when I start my life as a supervillain, that's what you're saying, right?" he asks. "Not to mention all the illegal shit you must tell yours about. I'm surprised you haven't already been arrested."

Then he pauses, as if he's only catching on to what Beverly is really saying and he says, "Shit, you mean it's illegal for them to talk, not that they have to keep our illegal activity secret, don't you? Forget I said anything about being a supervillain."

Despite the subject matter that prompted it, that pulls a laugh from Beverly, a crooked smile accompanying it. "Oh, too late," she says, readily playing along. "You said it, I heard it, your secret's out." Around here — well, the idea of a supervillain seems distinctly less impossible than it once could have. She's seen people do things that she once thought would only have been possible in more comic books. However briefly, she dated someone who was plucked right from the pages of one. There probably is a supervillain of some kind around here somewhere.

It's just not Hopper.

"And I only haven't been arrested yet because I just namedrop you every time," she adds. "Works like a charm."

"Hey, if it works, then it works," Hopper answers with a shrug. He's mostly joking, he doesn't want Beverly to get arrested and he hopes she knows that, hopes she is keeping herself out of trouble. But if she does get into trouble, he still wants her to be able to call him.

There's one place he'll abuse his power and she's sitting right here.

"I mean it, kid," he adds. "Try not to get arrested, but if you do, I'll get it worked out."

Even that offer is oddly touching. On some level, Beverly knows that already, or at least wouldn't have expected him to say otherwise. On the other, there's still that part of her always convinced that she'll be more trouble than she's worth. Skipping an exam, however accidentally, and barely passing her classes was one thing, but getting in legal trouble would be another.

She believes him, though, and even having no intention of doing anything that might get her arrested, it is kind of reassuring. "Okay," she agrees, one corner of her mouth lifting as she nods, the expression one deliberately light. "I can't many any promises, but I'll try not to."

"Yeah, I guess no one can make that promise," he answers with a rough bit of laughter. "People sometimes get arrested for the dumbest shit imaginable."

Sometimes people get drunk in public just to get arrested so they have somewhere warm and safe to spend the night. It's messed up and it hadn't happened in Hawkins, but it was definitely a common thing in New York. He had arrested a lot of people in situations like that, especially when it was exceptionally cold in the winter.

"What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen someone get arrested for?" Beverly asks, knowing it's kind of off topic, but too curious now not to wonder. She's heard plenty of weird, sometimes hilarious cop stories from Hopper before, but still, with a subject like that posed, she can't not ask.

Besides, lightening the mood can't be such a bad idea right now. She doesn't want to avoid those more serious things, or, more accurately, she knows she can't, but with so much to think about, she could use the slight reprieve.

He doesn't even need to think about it and the memory still makes him grin, even all these years later. Nothing much had come of it, luckily for the guy who had made the dumb mistake in the first place, but it's still a hell of a story.

"Wasn't even my call, but one night, long time ago, when I was still working as a beat cop in New York, my partner and I ran across another pair trying to arrest this guy," he starts. "The guy had gone grocery shopping earlier, then I guess stopped and had a few drinks, decided to piss in the street, which is what they were arresting him for in the first place. But when we got there, he was throwing tomatoes at them. His groceries."

"Oh my god," Beverly says, not even bothering to try to stifle a laugh. It sounds ridiculous, which is exactly what she'd hoped for, really, the mental image of some drunk guy throwing groceries at police a seriously hilarious one. Relatively harmless, too, she thinks, which helps. Mostly, she doesn't worry about Hopper's job, but there's an awareness in the back of her mind all the same that it has the potential to be dangerous. And she knows he probably does have stories that are more unsettling than funny, but at least for the moment, she prefers the funny ones.

"Okay, that's sort of amazing."

"There was crushed tomatoes all over the street," Hopper says, glad to have made Beverly smile. "On the squad car, on the cops themselves. He had some eggs in there, too, I don't know why he didn't reach for them first. At least the shell is kinda hard. Might've done some sorta damage."

He grins. "More than tomatoes anyway."

It's a better story than most of the ones he has from his time in New York. It had been a dangerous city then, although he's been told it isn't the case any longer. That's the New York he thinks he would like to see.

"Also might have looked even funnier," Beverly says, though she knows that's not really the point. All things considered, it would not be half as amusing if something other than tomatoes or potentially eggs were being thrown. There are plenty of things that could do a lot of damage — anything heavy, anything encased in glass. This would be a very different story if any of that were the case, though, and considering that she asked to hear about something dumb, they wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't supposed to be funny.

Just imagining it, she stifles a laugh. "Like a cop omelet."

"Ha ha, a cop omelet," he says, giving her another nudge, but he is laughing, mostly out of fondness.

He loves this kid a lot. Most of the time Hopper doesn't know if he's screwing it all up, but he's trying really hard to make sure he's the sort of dad she needs. Someone she can trust. Someone who'll still be hard on her when he has to be, but not like her dad ever was. And he'll do his damnedest to make sure she always knows she can tell him anything she needs to.

"You want an actual omelet or somethin' for dinner?" he asks. "Maybe I'll cut a finger off, sprinkle it in, then it'll be a cop omelet just for you."