Jopper One Shot Smuts

Hostages

He laid in the corner, huddled up into a ball. The body really could sleep anywhere when beaten enough into exhaustion. The marks on his back stung and the blood had only recently crusted over the whiplashes. Sleep was a welcome reprise.

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A thin strip of sunlight shone through the tiny, dirty window of the bunker, the only indication of time passing that Joyce and Hopper possessed. They didn't know how long they'd been trapped down there, or even where down there was. It must've been a while, though, because memories of how they got there were starting to fade. After a while they stopped trying to figure it out. All of their limited energy went toward earning what he called 'privileges.' Recently they were finally awarded a single twin mattress, which Hop insisted Joyce take while he continued sleeping on the cold cement floor.

"Good morning," Hop said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Is it?" Joyce replied. She sat up on the grubby old mattress with more springs within it than stuffing. She wondered if the floor would've been more comfortable after all. Hop frowned, acknowledging her sentiment. There was no such thing as a good morning these days.

Hop stood up to stretch his aching joints. He vowed to himself that he'd take up running if he ever got out of this place. Being stuck in a 20' x 20' cement prison had a way of making him long for exercise in a way he had always taken for granted in the past.

He walked over and sat beside Joyce on the lumpy, pathetic excuse for a bed, but positioned himself an arms length away from her. They hadn't been allowed a shower in a few days, and the stench seeping from his underarms wasn't something he cared to share with his fellow hostage.

Joyce glanced at Hop and pretended not to notice the despondency painted on his face. She felt it too, after all, and she didn't know how to comfort either of them. The reality of their situation had settled in days ago, and they had run out of conversation pieces by now. Their attempts at escape proved fruitless and their spirits were far more worn down than the walls they tried to dig themselves out of.

"Stand up, face the wall, hands behind your back," the voice boomed from the speaker on the ceiling, causing Joyce to jump. The voice always startled them, despite them hearing it everyday. The bunker is normally silent until the voice roars in and ricochets off the walls. The deep, raspy tone jolts them up from the mattress and they hurry to the back wall to obey the command. They know all too well what happens when they don't.

A loud clattering and then the drop of a plastic box echoed off the floor before the narrow metal slit on the heavy steel door slammed shut and the lock clicked. Hop turned around and Joyce followed as he picked up their morning meal. They retreated back to the mattress as Hop opened the little red box filled with two pieces of nearly burnt toast, four chewy strips of bacon, and one water bottle. They didn't hesitate to scarf down the measly scraps of food after not having been fed for the past two days. Their last escape attempt earned them two days without a meal. At least Joyce was able to earn the mattress last night by completing the voice's offer, a small solace that alleviated a little bit of their misery.

Hop downed nearly half of the water bottle before passing the rest off to Joyce, who savored her portion with tiny sips until it was gone. Hop flung the now empty (other than grease residue) plastic box toward the door, frustrated at how pitiful the meal they were just served was, if you could even call it that.

"Hop..." Joyce said, a gentle disapproval in her tone.

"I know." He got up to slide the box through the slit in the door. He knew the drill: return the box or there wouldn't be a next meal. The little door on the heavy metal one that was locked to keep the two inside was barely big enough to fit a forearm through, and didn't lead to anything useful for escape. Their first night in the bunker, Hop had tried to reach the door handle through the slit, but was met with a lit match to his skin instead. The burn mark he sported from that failed attempt was only now starting to gloss over with a new layer of skin, and what Joyce knew from when Jonathan burned his hand on the stove when he was seven told her that it had been about two weeks since then. Trying to keep some sort of timeline to their imprisonment was the only slice of sanity they could grip onto.