𝐽𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑂𝑛𝑒𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑠

A nightmare (vecnussy series part 1/2)

This was suggested by @itsbiaalmeida and @Anja_Maximoff :)

All was peaceful in the Hopper-Byers household, everyone sound asleep. Well. Not everyone was sound asleep. Joyce certainly wasn't.

She did a 360, everywhere was the same. A blueish redish dark fog surrounded her from every direction. She swallowed. It felt like she had swallowed glass, like the oxygen she was breathing in was somehow broken. She squinted, and felt her heart rate increase, feeling like she was going to burst. But the next turn she did, she saw something. Rather someone. A red-pink tall, veiny, being. She blinked, hoping the vision would go away. And it did. But what it was replaced with seemed almost worst. It was 4 people. Johnathan, Will, El, and Hopper. They looked... scared. But they weren't looking at her. They were looking behind her. She didn't want to look. She knew he was there. "You failed." The deep voice came, her eardrums almost ruptured. She tried not to scream, cry, move. "Now... you must be punished." That was the last thing she heard, the last thing she saw, was her beautiful family. Then. A Sharp pain, a feeling of being pulled from her own body, and then. Nothing.

Sweat drenched her pajamas and the bed sheets underneath her. Her face was wet... tears. That's what they were. Her chest was heaving with pants, her head hurt. Bad. Sinus headache. Hopper stirred beside her, before opening his eyes to look at her.
"Whats wrong?" He reached over and turned on his bedside lamp. Joyce didn't say anything. She just cried, and cried, until, somehow, she fell back to sleep.

She assumed it was the next morning. She woke up, her head was in Jim's lap, and he had one hand stroking her hair. So gently she almost didn't notice. She didn't want to get up though. "Hey... what was that about?" His hand reaches for hers and she simply shook her head. "If there's something I need to know you have to tell me."
"It was just a nightmare, Hop."
"Sh_t... You know what that could be. I know you do. It's not 'just' a nightmare. Joyce, you need to tell me everything you remember. It'll be hard, but you have to."
"Please don't tell the kids." Light tears fell down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with his fingers.
"Tell me. You're okay, I'm right here, I've got you." His hand stroked up and down her arm.

"Well... it started where I was just... in the upside down... and then I saw HIM... then... instead it was you and the kids. But... you weren't looking at me. You were looking behind me. Where he was. And he told me... he told me that I failed and that now I needed to be punished. And then everything went black." She sniffled, wiping her own tears from her cheeks. She looked up at Hopper. He had droplets of liquid gathering at his chin.
"Babe..."
"He's coming for us, isn't he?"  She was scared. Scared that not just herself, but her family, would be taken.
"Honey, just breathe. We'll figure it out."

I guess it wasn't an immediate promise, because 3 nosebleeds and 4 migraines later, the two had nothing, except the one song that would be able to bring Joyce back to them when the time came. Hopper told the kids. Behind Joyce's back. She hasn't wanted them to worry, but he knew that she needed them right know. Whether she knew it or not. Because she was in war now, and she needed more than one soldier fighting beside her.