(no subject)

[keeptheselights]

It takes her so long to get ready that she might as well be a teenager again. She dresses carefully, layering the lingerie that she'd cricled back to buy with a black velvet dress that's fitted across her chest and flared slightly around her thighs. She puts on heels and agonises, for a long moment, about which lipstick to choose before she goes for red.

She wants to be as far away from how worn down she's felt for a long time as she can. She wants to feel like she did when she was young, and full of promise.

Hopper wanted to pick her up but, because Will hasn't headed out yet, she'd said she'd meet him at the restaurant. She arrives early, standing outside with her arms folded against the cold, a cigarette between two fingers.

She's so nervous she actually laughs at herself.
Jesus.

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[keeptheselights]

"I am," says Joyce, threading her fingers with his, squeezing firm muscle under her palm. "Is it bad that I kind of want to kiss you here, though? We could make out like teenagers for a minute." She hasn't kissed him since Russia. It's been...a challenge.

[something_incredible]

"We'll get cold," he warns, but he's already leaning across the console between them, his free hand coming up to touch his fingers against her cheek.

The memory of kissing her is somehow so fresh and so distant. He remembers, but the real experiences of being anywhere near Joyce are five years in his past. This is what matters, this moment right here.

He lips brush hers and he exhales slowly, then deepens the kiss.

[keeptheselights]

Right then, Joyce has never cared less about anything; after Russia, it feels like it would take a lot to make her really feel the cold. He nudges the kiss deeper, and Joyce makes a soft sound against his lips. It's slightly awkward, the console between them but, right then, his mouth of hers, it feels just about perfect.

[something_incredible]

This feels right.

It feels like it's been a long time coming, even though Hopper has been here without Joyce for so long. He's been waiting for her, though, even if he hadn't realized it. While he hasn't exactly been celibate, his heart has always been for her.

With a smile, Hopper nudges his nose against Joyce's and then he kisses her again, his palm against her cheek.

[keeptheselights]

She leans into the touch, lets him kiss her exactly as long and as deeply as he likes for a moment before she pulls away, her cheeks touched with colour. They might both be in their forties but kissing him like that? Really does make her feel seventeen again.

"I think we ought to go upstairs," she says. "Don't you?"

[something_incredible]

Hopper's smile is slow, spreading across his features like he isn't used to it, and in a lot of ways he isn't. He smiles more now than he had back in Hawkins, he has Beverly and El, but this is different. It's a different kind of smile.

"Yeah," he agrees as he releases Joyce with another slow kiss. "I think you're probably right."

[keeptheselights]

Joyce presses one more kiss to his mouth before she pulls away, tugging her coat around her as she turns to open the door of the truck and slips out onto the street. When Hopper joins her, she slips her hand into his, finding her keys with the other and leading the way to the apartment. When she closes the door behind them, she raises both eyebrows.

"Do you really want a coffee?"

[something_incredible]

"No." He laughs and finds Joyce's cheek with his free hand, then ducks to kiss her again. Their intentions in heading here, where they're free of their kids, it's all been pretty clear and Hopper feels like he's been waiting his whole life for her.

For the press of her lips, the touch of her hand, the way her hair smells and the way her skin feels. He's not much of a romantic, but he knows he's been in love with this woman for a long damn time.

[keeptheselights]

"Good. Neither do I."

He cradles her cheek with his hand, kisses her deeply and Joyce just...she just wants. She's been in love with men before, sure, but with Hopper, it just feels like she's spent such a long time waiting and now? Now she doesn't have to wait anymore. Now, they're here.

"Jim?" she says, when the kiss breaks, when her head's tipped back so that she can look up at him, warm colour burning in her cheeks. "Can you take me to bed, please? I wasn't kidding when I said this underwear was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable."

[something_incredible]

"Can't wait to see it," he answers with a grin, then takes Joyce's hand with purpose and heads for the hall. The apartments are all more or less the same layout and he knows where he's going, taking care to open her door, not Will's, and he turns her before closing the door behind them.

"Is there..." He moves toward the dresser, feeling for a lamp, something for some soft lighting instead of the overhead light. Hopper's lost some weight since he quit drinking, but he's still not always happy about how things look.

[keeptheselights]

"I've got it," says Joyce, leaning past him to turn on a bedside lamp, then walking around to do the same on the other side, casting the room in warm, golden light. She understands the impulse; it had taken her a long time to work up to being naked in front of Bob and, even though she knows Hopper as well as she knows herself, there's still a butterfly flutter in the pit of her stomach.

She steps in to kiss him again, one hand smoothing against the strong line of his jaw.

"Relax, Jim. It's okay. It's just me." She turns around. "Unzip me?"

[something_incredible]

Just me, she says, as if she hasn’t been the woman of his dreams for most of his life. Maybe for a big part of that he had been somewhere else, but even in Vietnam, he’d thought about Joyce more than anyone else.

Even when he was married to Diane, who he loved entirely, he had thought about Joyce probably more than he should have.

When she turns, Hopper ducks his head to press a kiss to the curve of her throat as his fingers find the zipper. Slowly, as requested, he tugs it down her back.

[keeptheselights]

Joyce is a grown woman, old enough to know her own mind, what she wants, but a little shiver still goes down her spine at the combination of Hopper's lips on his sin, the careful way that he unzips her dress. Underneath, she's wearing underwear that she bought especially for this evening: black lace with ribbon, the panties cut high over her ass, a garter belt and stockings. From the back, he won't be able to see the way her breasts sit in the cups of the bra; Joyce has always been pretty proud of her chest, honestly, and this bra had been expensive, but it's worth it for the way it makes everything look.

As her dress slips down to pool around her feet, as she steps out of it, she just hopes its worth the wait.

[something_incredible]

"Jesus."

There's not much else Hopper is even capable of saying, not at the mere sight of Joyce's back, the way her underwear sits, the stockings, the lace against her skin. His hands skim down her back and then he places his palms on her hips and turns her to face him.

It feels a bit indecent, being fully dressed while looking at her like this and it sends a thrill through him. "Christ, you're beautiful."

[keeptheselights]

"I'll take that as a compliment," she says, her face heating at the warm reverence of the way he breathes that single word. His broad, rough hands skim down her back, ovoer her bare skin, and then they're resting on her hips and he turns her. Joyce is forty-four years old, a grown woman, and she still has to fight the urge to cover herself with her hands when she turns around. She finds herself suddenly shy. Instead, she tousles her fingers into her dark hair, her eyebrows slightly raised as she studies his face. The fact that he's still wearing all his clothes makes her warm. So does the fact that she's still in her heels.

"Your turn?" she says, reaching up to start unbuttoning his shirt.

[something_incredible]

The way she touches her own hair, then his shirt, it sends a bolt of tension coiling down his spine. It settles low in his stomach, a burning ember of want that’s been simmering since the moment she arrived. He hasn’t wanted to bring any expectation into what they’re building, but he would be lying to say he hasn’t wanted her.

“My turn,” he agrees, letting Joyce take control of unbuttoning his shirt. When it’s open, he shrugs the material off his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.

[keeptheselights]

She saw him without a shirt in Russia, but he'd been beaten, bloodied, starved. Now, he looks healthier, wholer, and Joyce finds her breath catching as his shirt slips from his shoulders. She looks up at him as she leans in, presses a kiss against his shoulder as her hands drop to his belt and start to open it.

"Is this okay?"

[something_incredible]

“Christ, Joyce,” he answers, one hand coming up to the back of her neck, the other on her hip as he leans down to kiss her. There’s more heat in his kiss this time, a pounding in his chest, and he presses closer to her, to the heat of her body.

“It’s okay,” he answers in a rough voice. He can’t imagine a situation in which he wouldn’t want Joyce to be touching him.

[keeptheselights]

He kisses her like he means it, this time, like he wants her just as much as she wants him. Her hands are pressed between them, but she keeps working on his belt with a purpose, leather snapping as she manages to get it undone, as she thumbs open the button on his pants and unzips him before she pushes them down, sliding both hands over his ass and squeezing as she does.

[something_incredible]

If he's ever felt like a teenager again, it's with Joyce. Her hands on his ass make him grunt in surprise and arousal both, and he uses his hands on her to spin them, to walk them toward the bed. As they go, he kicks off his shoes, his pants, somehow manages to get his socks off at the same time.

It's as much grace as he's probably capable of today.

"You're so beautiful," he murmurs into her mouth as the backs of her knees come up against the mattress.

[keeptheselights]

The sound he makes goes right to her liquid core, and Joyce finds herself desperately wanting to hear him make it again, to make him make it again. He nudges her back against the bed and Joyce sits easily, scooting back onto the mattress so that she can lean back on her elbows and spread her legs. Her face flushes, slightly, but she doesn't look away. She doesn't want anyhting but this.

"You're biased," she says.

[something_incredible]

“Nah,” he answers. No one would be able to look at Joyce and see anything but the beautiful woman she is.

Slowly, Hopper leans down onto the bed, one knee on the mattress between Joyce’s legs, the other on one side of her. Even right here, he can feel the heat coming off her body and when he plants his palm beside her shoulder and ducks his head, it isn’t immediately for another kiss. Instead he brushes her jaw with his mouth, then the line of her throat, kissing her soft skin and breathing her in.

Here they are, after so long.

[keeptheselights]

She doesn't have an answer for that. Hopper's lips graze against her jaw and, when he drops to her throat, she tips her head back to give him all of the room he needs. She shifts, her knees grazing against the bare skin over his ribs. She arches her back slightly, her breath catching.

She feels like she's dreamt about this exact thing.

[something_incredible]

He’s always conscious of his size, his weight when it comes to women. Part of it is self-consciousness, but part of it is just knowing he’s a big man. And Joyce is small beneath him. Tough as hell, but still so small under the hand he slides up her side, over her ribs, along the swell of one breast, cupping it through her bra.

“I’ve waited for this,” he murmurs against her collarbone, kissing her skin. “For you.”

[keeptheselights]

His hand covers her breast, squeezing, his lips brushing against her skin and Joyce feels like she's glowing, all of a sudden. She lies back further so that she can reach up with one hands, smooth over his chest, the breadth of his shoulders. She can feel how he's holding himself back.

"You don't have to be gentle with me, Jim," she says. "I've been waiting for this for a long time too, you know."