Two of a Kind

Thin Air

2 months later

Joyce and Hopper's relationship was blossoming and growing stronger each day. Hopper spent a lot of time at Joyce's house, apart from the nights they wanted to have sex. They went to Hopper's place for that so Joyce could scream and moan as loudly as she wanted. Neither of them wanted to risk Will or Jonathan walking in on them anyways.

If they weren't spending the night together, they talked on the phone instead. Joyce had her hands full, raising two teenaged boys. Jonathan didn't have their dad in his life in a time where he really needed it. Joyce made sure to spend time with him most nights to talk about his relationship and give him advice on love and sex, despite it being awkward for Jonathan to talk to his mom about. He was grateful for her, though. He knew that Lonnie didn't care to reach out or raise him or his brother, and he was used to only having Joyce to come to. Recently, Hopper had been starting to fill that roll, however. He made sure to take him out to sporting events and dinner dates to build his relationship with Jonathan. He was warming up to having Hopper around more. He saw that he was a good man and that he treated his mother right. Ever since he was five years old and witnessed Lonnie come home either cracked out or drunk, occasionally hitting Joyce or shoving her into the walls, he was protective of his mother. He was hesitant to accept Hopper at first because of Lonnie, but he was slowly winning Jonathan's trust over the past couple months.

When Jonathan was only six years old, his father had come home messed up one night, starting a fight with Joyce. He ended up slapping her so hard that she was knocked over, hit her head on the kitchen counter, and was gushing blood everywhere. As traumatic a sight as it was, Jonathan's adrenaline kicked in and he charged at Lonnie, punching and kicking him to get him to stop. In his drug-induced rage, he had punched Jonathan in the face, knocking out his first baby tooth and leaving him with a swollen mouth for over a week. After that, Joyce kicked Lonnie out. When he hurt her baby boy, that was the last straw for her. Jonathan had only seen his father twice since that day. He still carried around some trauma from that period in their lives, and Hopper helped him work through it by taking him to the batting range to let out his anger and opening up to him about his own father's abuse towards him as a child.

As for Will, he had just turned thirteen and was starting to go through puberty. Joyce had gone through this when Jonathan was his age, but Will was different than his brother. He was a lot more emotional, and he wanted to spend nearly every second with his best friend, Mike. Mike had just gotten his first girlfriend, though, and Will was taking it extremely hard. At first Joyce just thought Will felt like his best friend was too busy for him and he felt jealous and left out, and that may have been true, but the way Will talked about Mike gave Joyce some suspicions. She talked with Hopper about it, and he offered to have a sit down talk with him, figuring it might be easier for Will to open up to him than to his mom. Will was always fond of Hop since the day they officially met in their kitchen, so that made it even easier for Will to trust him. Hopper took him out to dinner one night and asked him about his feelings toward Mike. He had cried to Hop and admitted that he was struggling with how he felt, afraid that he might like boys. Hop assured him that it was okay, and that nothing was wrong with being gay or bisexual or just figuring out what he wanted. He gave him the birds and the bees talk as well, which Joyce was grateful to not have to do again. Will frequently came to Hop for advice since then. They had a special bond, and Hop was becoming a father figure for both of Joyce's boys, which only made her love him more.

Now, Joyce's birthday was in less than a week, and Hopper had surprised her with a trip to Miami. He took off a week of work and talked to Joyce's boss to convince him to give her a well-deserved, paid vacation. They were packing to leave and Joyce was ecstatic to not only get a break from parenting and work, but to go on vacation with Hop for the first time.