WHAT: Hopper walks in on Eleven working on his present late at night WHERE: Foxway WHEN: Backdated to Christmas Eve WARNINGS: Nah, soft!! STATUS: Complete
She always wished he was, but tonight in particular? She could have really used his help. Art was fun. Painting things–like D&D miniatures, or drawings–was fun. She liked colors. She liked making things. But whether or not she was actually good at any of it was debatable. Usually, she didn’t care. She did not need to be an expert at a hobby to enjoy it.
This was different. She had a vision. El had executed something like this before–for a class, and an assignment she completely misunderstood–and then the pieces broke, and the shoebox she built it all in was flimsy. Will had been the one giving her instructions on what to make everything out of, and what paint brushes to use and how to mix colors to get the specific shades she wanted.
She did well retaining most of the information. Still, she would feel more confident if he was here to critique, and guide her, and make sure it didn’t look… ugly. She thought about asking for second opinions from the rest of the house but she was a little self-conscious and timid for that, so she kept this project quiet.
To herself.
El thought she would have completed this sooner. It must be that creature that spelled out a threat to Dustin in candy messing with her stuff, hiding her paints and supplies. She wanted to go to war with it. It was Christmas Eve, and she was not done yet, and she was supposed to have this wrapped up before the sun rose and placed under the tree with a label.
It was close to midnight. Eleven wasn’t finished. There were a few things that had to be redone–then repainted, and then scrapped. Wash, rinse, repeat until she managed to mold together the perfect Sheriff Hopper figure out of some kind of magical clay from a hobby store. Add a drop of some strange mixture, and it instantly hardened it so it would be ready for painting.
“Must,” she squinted at the clay figurine, a small paintbrush in her hand, “get the mustache just right.”
Seeing a light under his daughter's door in the middle of the night wasn't altogether new for Hopper so it didn't immediately worry him. But when he passed by the third time and it was still there, he turned back to the kitchen and made hot chocolate in two mugs and carried it back to her door.
This was their first Christmas together and he'd enjoyed every second of the cheesy family activities. Looking at lights, putting up decorations, making misshapen cookies. He'd gotten her an ugly Christmas sweater to wear on the big day that had 'have a bitchin' Christmas' written on it. There may or may not have been a special order surcharge involved but it was worth every penny.
Hopper shifted both hot mugs to one hand and gently wrapped his knuckles against the door. "You ok in there, kid?" The door cracked open further at his knock and he peeked inside. He couldn't tell what she was working on but he could see the mess of craft supplies around her. "You know, Christmas comes sooner if you get some sleep. Can this wait?"
Oh no!
The knock, weirdly, hadn’t registered immediately. Eleven must have been too wrapped up in what she was doing, but when she heard his voice - yes, she startled, and shot up from her seat. Hopper hadn’t crossed the threshold into her room quite yet but it didn’t stop her from trying to shield her project with her body.
It was half-successful. Part of it could be seen, and it wasn’t just a measly construction of a police station. El had added the addition of their cabin, too.
“No,” she blurted, eyes rounded like a deer caught in headlights. “I have to finish this before Christmas. That is the point. It is a gift.”
Her quick movement startled him. Hopper's eyebrows shot upwards and he held the mugs farther away from her so she wouldn't knock them out of his hand even though she was too far away to be a threat.
"Oh?" It made him feel painfully fond that she was up late working on a handmade gift. "What are you making? Maybe I can help." He wasn't particularly crafty at all but he'd make the effort for Eleven. He'd always make the effort for her. Stepping closer, he pressed one of the mugs into her hands. "Here, maybe the sugar will help motivate you."
Before she could make any move to get in his way, he moved around her and sat down next to her work on the floor. "Alright, put me to work."
“Dad, wait -” Christmas presents were supposed to be a surprise! Eleven couldn’t surprise him on Christmas if he was helping her with his Christmas present. But the mug suddenly in her hand gave her pause, and it was suddenly too late.
The present was revealed.
El didn’t know whether to whine about it or sigh about it. She chose the latter, and sipped at the hot chocolate as a sign of surrender. “I want to make it perfect,” she mumbled against the rim of the mug. “But I am not as good as Will. He helped me with the first one.”
The first one, of course, was her presentation. She had worked really hard on it and was proud of it, but it only ended in ridicule she didn’t completely understand. Sitting down with him, she motioned to her project–two boxes slightly larger than the kind that held shoes, one of the Sheriff’s Department and one of their cabin. There was a half-painted figurine of a Sheriff Hopper, and one of a woman: Joyce.
“The thing that threatened Dustin with candy also took my stuff and hid them in the house,” she admitted with the pout. “I have been delayed.”
Hopper was listening but he was also staring hard at the display of items in front of him. He hadn't known what to expect but he'd known it would be thoughtful and a little quirky because that was Eleven's way. But this was also so sweet, it hit him like a kick in the ribs. His voice came out a little choked up as he reached for the Joyce figurine.
He missed her as much as the first day here.
"Eleven, this is…" Words were never his strong suit; not on the spot with the people who mattered most. He hooked his free arm around her head and pulled her into a one-armed hug, mumbling against her hair for a moment. "This is really nice. I don't know what the hell you're talking about, not as good as Will. This is art." He pulled back and held the Joyce up as punctuation. "You made me and Joyce into art, kid. I--wait, did you say something about a first one?"
Eleven’s cheeks warmed at the hug. He liked it, then. Maybe in a biased way, maybe not. Part of her had second guessed this gift, unsure if it was good enough. Hopper deserved nice things, but her work at the Barns was only part-time and she was learning the hard lesson about budgetting (meaning, she couldn’t step out and eat gourmet waffles with Katou every other day). Someone had told her handmade gifts were nice and personal, so she went that route.
His comment shattered the little bubble of relief, though. It didn’t occur to her that the comment would be weird out of context. El had been rambling–probably something she picked up from Mike, he knew how to really ramble when he was embarrassed. “Oh, um. Yes–there was another one,” she admitted sheepishly, scratching at her scalp.
That was also something of an embarrassing story.
“There was, um.” The stammering--that’s when you know something’s awkward. El fiddled with her fingers. “This project, for school, in Lenora. I had to make a presentation about a hero. It was supposed to be a historical hero, but I did not understand the assignment. I picked you, and I made something like this.”
People laughed at me. It broke. Those were things she refrained from admitting.
"You…did a presentation about me?" Hopper had already felt a little winded having his daughter make him a gift but knowing she told a class full of teenagers that he was a hero was another curveball for his emotions. He kissed the top of her head. "That's really nice, El. I hope you didn't get a bad grade for picking a small town cop instead of Lincoln or somebody."
He didn't ever want her suffering on his account. But he was still too flattered to worry too much about it or pick up on her hiding something vibes. He carefully reached for the little half-finished figurine of himself. "Not sure how you could've done better than this though. My mustache has never looked so good."
“You are a hero,” El insisted, and she had also insisted on that during her presentation. Had she conveyed that well? Nope. That was a situation she wasn’t prepared for, and school had been overwhelming and confusing with all the social cues she was still trying to decipher. She wanted people to know who Hopper was and what she had done. It mattered.
She could just never tell anyone why it mattered, or what had been at stake. That was the luxury of their ignorance. People never knew how close the world came to falling apart.
But they might figure it out soon, if what happened to Hawkins was any indication.
“You are my hero anyway,” she went on, offering him a wry smile. Eleven crossed her legs and let her knees butterfly. “I don’t know what grade I got. It does not matter. But I like painting things like this, and I know you…” She picked up the other figurine. “Miss Joyce a lot, too. I wish she were here. She was a good mom to me when I lived with her.”
"Hell." Hopper huffed a self-conscious breath and gave her a soft look. "The hero in this room is you, El. But it's…it's really nice to hear you think of me like that." His words were a little strangled and awkward but he managed to shuffle on through the emotions and reach over to squeeze the back of her neck in a hug of sorts.
"And you're right. I do miss Joyce. She saved my bacon too, you know? In more ways than one. Guess we're all heroes these days, rescuing each other…" He trailed off staring at the Joyce doll in Eleven's hand and then cleared his throat. "Look, I'm..not an artist, and I know this is a gift for me, but I'd like to help. If you uh. If you don't mind me sticking around."
He picked his hot cocoa back up and took a sip. "You can tell me to get lost too. I won't grumble too much."
Saved my bacon. El gave him a look. That was a new saying; she’d have to mentally bookmark it for the future, though she wasn’t sure if she could say it with a straight face. It must be an Old People Thing.
“My surprise is ruined,” sighed with a flair of drama, shoulders slumping, but there wasn’t a genuine sign of disappointment. The smile never left. “But that is okay. You can help. Do you want to work on Joyce? I think you have stared at her enough to know all the details.”
Was she allowed to tease? She was definitely allowed to tease. It was fun to tease Hopper about this.
“Oh, you’re giving me a hard time about that now, is that what’s going on? Is that the spirit of Christmas? Harassing your old man? Gimme that,” Hopper laughed, plucking the Joyce figurine out of Eleven’s hand as he set his cocoa aside. He’d never painted anything this delicate in his life, but he be damned if he was going to make Joyce look bad. He collected a tiny spare paintbrush that was sitting off to the side.
Figuring it had to be after midnight by now, he smiled at Eleven and dipped his paintbrush into a pot of brown paint. “Merry Christmas, kid. Love ya.”
It was past midnight now, wasn’t it? Eleven spared a glance over to the digital clock on her nightstand - after positively beaming, mind you, she did enjoy harassing her ‘old man’ - and, behold. Christmas. The best one yet.
“Love you too,” she told him, smile broadening into a grin that dimpled her cheeks. “But I will still wrap it when all of it dries, and you still have to act very surprised to receive it when we all open things in the morning.”