something_incredible | (no subject)

The school year starts up again soon and Hopper is standing in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking down at a package of papers he'd just shaken out of an envelope addressed to him. Curriculum, books, school supplies, schedule, all things he's pretty sure Eleven should already have, but she hasn't shown him yet.

Probably a good thing the school mailed him a copy of all this, too.

"Shit," he says as he stares down at the list. The supply list is long, so is the list of books, and Hopper knows schools are underfunded in the present day, but he doesn't remember ever needing so much stuff just to go to school. Maybe he just hadn't been paying attention, though. Maybe this is all normal and he's just finally getting to live it.

But Beverly hadn't had such a long list either. He's fairly sure about that.

"Hey, El!" he calls up the stairs, his voice booming. "C'mon down here."

He has the day off, she's just been in her room, he figures they can probably knock most of this off the list in one day if they do it properly.

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Hopper hates the idea of Eleven putting herself in any kind of danger, but he also knows Eleven is going to do whatever the hell she wants, regardless of what he says.

"I think you're pretty young to have the rest of your life figured out," he says. "But hey, it's a possible career choice, yeah."

"Last year, my teacher said I needed to figure it out," she explains. "That I need to prepare for college and have a plan." She frowns. "It is never too early," she recites.

"Jesus Christ," he says, frowning. "I dunno if that's true. You're a kid, how the hell are you supposed to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life?"

He'd gone to Vietnam when he was older than Eleven is now and even that had been too goddamn young to see the things he'd seen and to have done the things he's done.

"When did you decide?" she asks, looking over at him. "When did you know what you wanted to do?" It occurs to her, kind of suddenly, that she doesn't really know how old Hopper is. He's a grownup, that's all she really knows. How long has it been since he was in school? How old was he when he became a papa?

"When I got back from Vietnam," he says. The memories of war are ones he prefers not to settle on for long, still fresh somehow, even after all these years.

"It seemed like an easy option," he admits. "I was a soldier, so bein' a cop just seemed natural. It paid pretty well, but it was a rough job in New York."

"Rougher than Hawkins?" she asks. "How come?"

She thinks she can guess, though. Finding Kali in the city had been easy enough for her, but she hadn't been afraid. She could protect herself, and she knew where she was going. It was the how to get there that had been hard; the city was enormous, with corners and alleys and shadows that stretched forever. She wonders if New York was similar.

"Different than Hawkins," he says. "Hawkins had the Upside Down and the lab and monsters, but New York had human monsters, kid. People who did awful things. It could be hard to see."

It was hard to see here, too, but Hopper is a different man than he'd been when he first started working in New York.

"People... can be monsters," she agrees. Papa was a human monster. He'd done all of those things to Mama, just to make Eleven who she is. She frowns, looking at Hopper. "But doesn't that mean I should stop them, if I can?"

"Sure," he agrees. "But there are a lot of ways to stop human monsters. Bein' a cop might be one of them, but so is bein' a lawyer or a social worker or someone who works in a shelter. Someone who, uh... advocates for changes in the law. Stuff like that. Bein' a doctor even, because that saves someone when a monster has gotten to 'em."

He shakes his head a little and says, "I know you got super powers, kid, it just scares me, thinking of you seein' some of the shit I've seen."

Eleven thinks she understands what he means. She might have been to the Upside Down, she might have fought the demogorgon, and demodogs, and Papa and his orderlies... but even despite that, she's never seen the sorts of things Hopper has. She can't imagine what they could be, how bad they could be.

He's trying to protect her.

"But maybe I can stop it from happening," she reasons. "So then, nobody has to see it."

"Christ, you're stubborn," he says, his voice fond. "I'm not gonna tell you what to do with your life when you're a grown up, just... leave room for other things, okay? You're not just a superhero. You get to do the things you want, too."

"Like write on bright pink kitten starfish notebooks with glittery purple pens," she teases with a grin. That's an interesting thought, though. She knows, of course: she can do the things she wants. She's not just a superhero. But she doesn't know what she wants to do, other than help people.

Maybe she will look into those other jobs Hopper told her about. A lawyer, or a social worker, or a shelter worker. Maybe she can do good that way.

"Yeah, like that," he agrees once the truck is park. He reaches over and bumps Eleven's shoulder, grinning at her, then opens his door to climb out.

"This place has got other people, too," he points out as they make their way toward the store. "Back in Hawkins, I know you felt like it was your job to protect everyone, but Darrow's got people with all kinds of powers. It's not all on you, kid."