(no subject)

[takecourage]

Her hands are trembling, a little, when she takes her phone out of her pocket. Kavinsky's altoids tin is still stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans, and she's still thinking about getting high. Eddie had refused to smoke a joint with her and, at the time, she'd been pissed but, now, she actually thinks she likes him more because of it. It would have been really easy, she figures. Kavinsky's dream weed is easily the best she's ever smoked.

She keeps thinking about the pills. She doesn't even know what all of them are, but she keeps picturing him rolling them between his fingers, all shapes and sizes and colours of the rainbow, any one of them enough to make her fly. She thinks Danny would probably let her get away with a joint - she doesn't think he'd be as quick to forgive the pills, though.

She fires off a text as she walks.

Need help. Coming over.

She doesn't wait for him to reply before she sets off in the direction of the town house, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat. If he's not home, she'll just sit on the stoop and wait.

Comments

[takecourage]

"I don't know," she admits because, right now, honesty feels like the best policy. "We're taking the cats, so it's not all that I've got left of him, but..." She takes out one of the cigarettes and slips it between her lips. "It's so him, you know?"

[something_incredible]

"Sure," Hopper says, even though he doesn't really know. He hadn't known Kavinsky at all, he'd sort of figured he wouldn't really like the guy, and what Alex is telling him now doesn't give him any reason to change his mind.

"You can keep the tin without the pills," he suggests.

[takecourage]

"Yeah," says Alex, patting her pockets, looking for her lighter, the cigarette still between her lips. "I'm pretty sure Danny will kick my ass if I walk in the house with all of these fucking pills." She glances up, a smirk just tugging the corner of her lips. "Metaphorically. Don't worry."

[something_incredible]

"I figured," Hopper says as he produces his lighter for Alex. He and Danny are very different people, but he knows enough about the guy to know he's good. Good for Alex, good to Alex, good to their kid. Those are the things that matter.

Besides, he's pretty sure Danny knows Hopper would kill him and put his body somewhere no one would ever find it if he hurt Alex.

"You wanna go inside after your cigarette and dump the pills in the toilet?" he asks.

[takecourage]

Alex takes the lighter and bends her head, cupping her hand around the cigarette until she's got it lit. She takes a drag, inhaling the scent of cloves that she thinks of as inherently Kavinsky. She thinks about it for a moment, and then she nods.

"Think that's probably for the best. Danny doesn't get too squirrely about weed, but the pills..." She shrugs. "We definitely don't mix well."

[something_incredible]

Hopper nods as well and says, "Alright then."

He thinks it's for the best, not letting her take the pills home, but he doesn't want to act like a cop, even though he is. It's more important she get rid of them herself, no matter how much he wants to grab the tin and flush everything himself.

Cop or not, Hopper knows he's got no leg to stand on. He's taken plenty of pills himself.

"I think that's the best thing to do," he says.

[takecourage]

"Yeah, I think you're right," says Alex, worrying her thumbnail with her teeth for a minute. "I don't know...if I've ever told you how I started. Len started hooking me up when I was fourteen because I didn't see grays when I was high." Her mouth tightens. "I keep watching Edie in case I get a sign that she can see them too. I...Fuck, Hop, I don't want that for her."

[something_incredible]

"But if it happens, you know how to make it better for her," he points out. "And it's not with the shit in that tin."

Her ex, he sounds like a piece of shit, and Hopper thinks she knows that well by now. She doesn't need someone like that in her life, someone who thinks the only way to help is to get her high.

"Your kid's got you for a mom," he says. "You're not gonna let her take that on alone if it happens."

[takecourage]

"I never even told my mom what was happening," she says. "I didn't think she'd believe me." Her jaw tightens. "When I was thirteen it...I..." She's never told anyone but Darlington this, and it sticks in her throat for a minute. "I was raped. By a grey? Kind of. I don't...I think it counts." She scrubs her hand over her face. "Can we get rid of these now, please? I don't fucking want them."

[something_incredible]

Hopper's stomach turns over and he looks sharply at Alex.

"It fucking counts," he says. Anything that's not consensual, anything she didn't want, it counts. It makes him think of Beverly, too, of what her father did to her, and Hopper hates this world sometimes. This world that takes so much from its girls and women without asking. It makes him sick.

"Come on," he says as he stands and holds his hand out to her. "Let's get rid of this shit."

[takecourage]

"You're one of like, two people who I've told that ever, so..." She pushes her straight heir back from her face and then she takes his hand and lets him haul her to her feet. "Thanks for this, Hop. I know you didn't ask for a total fuck-up to parent, but here I am anyway."

[something_incredible]

Bev might have said the same thing, or El, depending on the day, and Hopper would never make them feel like this isn't exactly where he wants to be. He does the same now, fixing Alex with a stern look.

"A fuck up of a parent seems like the right man for the job," he says. "Let's get inside."

[takecourage]

It's a stretch, because he's way taller than her, but Alex leans up and presses a kiss to his bearded cheek.

"Okay," she says. "Let's go flush this shit and then I am probably going to need another cigarette or three."

[something_incredible]

Hopper smiles a little and rests his hand on Alex's shoulder when she stretches up. All those years ago, losing Sara, he'd thought this part of his life was over, but it turns out there are a few kids who still need him.

"Even if you don't have any, I'm willing to bet we can find Bev's stash," he says. "She thinks she's sneakier than she is."

[takecourage]

"This thing is kind of magic," she says, holding the tin up. She knows that Hopper's seen enough weird shit in his time that he might just accept that. "He dreamed it. So I can get rid of the pills, but I'm pretty sure there are always going to be cigarettes in it. Which...they're fucking good cigarettes, so..." She shrugs, sniffs a little tearily. "Silver linings and shit."

[something_incredible]

"Long as it's just the cigarettes," he answers, a little wary as he looks at the tin now. It isn't the magic that bothers him, but the idea that Alex might open that thing two days from now and find it full of pills again.

He heads for the bathroom on the main floor, then flips on the light and steps aside to give Alex room to do what she needs.

[takecourage]

"The joints, too, probably, but I can do a little weed when my head's on straight." Not now, definitely not without Danny, but that's a conversation for another day. She rubs the tip of her nose with her fingers. "He dreamed the pills new each time, but the tin regenerates."

Once she's standing in front of the toilet, Alex hesitates for a second. It would be so easy to slip back into being who she was before Darrow, before Lethe, before Daniel Arlington, before he daughter. It would be so easy to just take enough to slip under for a while. It's a pattern she knows. It's a person that she knows how to be.

She upends the tin, and watches everything hit the water.

[something_incredible]

Once the pills are in the toilet, Hopper reaches out and hits the lever to flush and the water swirls, the pills dissolving and then swirling away down into the pipes. He should feel better now that they're gone and he does, a little, but he knows just getting rid of the pills doesn't always get rid of the desire.

"You okay?" he asks.

[takecourage]

The pills disappear and Alex feels her shoulders sag slightly. If asked, she couldn't actually explain what she's feeling in that moment. Other than a real and pressing need for a cigarette.

"I don't know," she says because, for once, honesty feels like the best possibility. "I really did want to take a few of those."

[something_incredible]

"Yeah, but you didn't."

He says it again because that's the thing she needs to remember. The want will never go away, it's something Hopper has heard over and over, between the AA meetings he goes to only sometimes and Dan, when they run into each other and inevitably get into the alcoholism of it all.

"You wanted to, but you didn't, and that's a good thing."

[takecourage]

"I didn't," echoes Alex, and she wants to feel proud of herself but, mostly, she just feels tired. She nods, though. She clicks the tin closed and reopens it, smiling when she finds a neatly rolled joint, three cigarettes and a lighter.

"See?" she says, showing Hopper. "Magic."

[something_incredible]

"No pills," he notes, which is good, even though it still makes him a bit nervous. Maybe the magic doesn't work like that all the time or works some of the time, he doesn't have any frame of reference for it.

"C'mon," he says. "We can sit out back, you can smoke. We don't have to say anything."

[takecourage]

"Thanks, Hop," says Alex, turning to leave the bathroom. Suddenly, she's bone-weary and unbelievably grateful. That he'd take care of her. THat he wants to take care of her. "He was like a brother, you know? I've never...had one of those before."

She thinks of Steve, of Eddie. With Steve, at least, it's the same.

[something_incredible]

They head out through the back door, into the little yard there, the chairs out back already swept clear of snow. The yard is sheltered from the wind by the fence on one side and the other townhouse on the other. It's not a big yard, but it's nice, and Hopper settles into one of the chairs.

"I always thought siblings would be annoying," he answers with a faint smile to make it clear he's only teasing her.

[takecourage]

Alex folds herself into the other chair, her legs drawn up, huddled in her coat. She opens the tin, slipping the cigarette between her lips and bending her head to light it.

"I don't know. It was kind of shitty, growing up on my own. Maybe I'd have stayed straighter if I'd had someone else around."