The Showman [Jopper fanfic] |•|FINISHED|•|

Part 3

Joyce was sitting in a bar with Karen again, watching Jim's performance. Joyce would swear on her life that it was nearly same as last time, he was falling and injuring himself pretty badly. As soon as she will have chance to talk to him, she will asks him about his injuries. Suddenly, Jim kicked off his chair and sat down.
''And, now, I need a volunteer!'', he said, ''Don't worry, I swear no one will get hurt in this one'', he chuckled when he saw peoples faces.
''Joyce! Joyce that's your time!'', Karen slapped Joyce on her arm, laughing
''Ouch- no. I don't want to go there''
''Oh c'moon! He wants you'', Karen said playfully, wheezing at her friends face.
''I don't need attention from stupid drunk people'', Joyce rolled her eyes and looked down. Deep down she wanted to go there, but she pushed that away. She heard Jim picking someone, a woman, that walked on his stage. SHe looked pretty determinated when she got there, and suddenly the weird feeling hitted Joyce.
She watched as he clapped his hands, and a small deck of cards appeared in his hands. 
''Pick up one card'', he said, showing the woman his cards. She didn't saw what kind of car she was picking. For a few minutes it seemed like a normal magic performance, but Joyce couldn't shake the weird feeling of her. When Hopper's magic ended up good, people started clapping their hands. Joyce clapped too, but she stopped right when she saw the woman leaning to give him a kiss. She saw Hopper pulling of her, showing her way down of the stage, laughing. But she couldn't laugh, a jealousy hitted her hardly. She sighed and looked away.
''What a drunk bitch'', Karen said, showing middle finger on the woman. The woman noticed it and walked towards them. Joyce gulped, still feeling jealous, but she just wasn'T type of fighting.
''Karen-''
''Nahh leave it on me, the show needed some spicy moment anyway'', she said, getting up from her chair and walking to the woman, too. 
Joyce wasn't strong enough to even watch that, so she looked away, and when she heard the punches and people shouting, she shut her eyes close. But then, something hit her and she fell on the floor. She opened her eyes, and quickly got up. 
Right now, the whole bar turned into one big Zoo. People were fighting with each other, Pulling their hair of, punching someone right into the face, kicking them, throwing chair or even tables. Joyce looked down and releazed that she fell because one pretty drunk man fell on her table, causing her to flipp of. She took some steps away, bumping into someone with chair in his hands. She gulped and looked at the mans face, knowing that the next thing she will feel will be sharp pain in her face, so she closed her eyes.
''Leave her alone'', Jim said, appearing next to Joyce, his hands carefully up, ''Alright?''
The man shrugged. ''If it's from your gang, Mr. Showman, then I won't hurt her'', the man turned around and threw the chair on someones back, making them fall down.
''JACKPOT'', he shouted.
Joyce just looked wildly on the man, but before she could say anything to him, Hopper was already pushing her away. In their way, they found the cause of all of this, the woman and Karen. Joyce gasped and picked Karens arm in hurry, hoping that she won't fight much with her. Thankfully, Hopper's grip on Joyce's arm was strong enough to pull them both from the chaos. They got into Hoppers hallway and Hopper quickly shut the doors, leaning against them.
Both Joyce and Hopper were breathing loudly, trying to calm down from what just happend, yet Hopper was still better on it.
''WHAT THE HECK?'', Joyce finally shouted, shaking.
Karen laughed and touched her torn eyebrow, ''That was one of the rarest fights we had there, right, Jim?''
''Goddamnit'', he murmured, looking up at Karen, ''Why did you started it?''
''I didn't like the woman kissing you'', she said, putting her arms inside her pocket, ''she wasn't even yours''
''WHO- WHO CARES!? THEY ALL ARE DRUNK- WHY WOULD YOU-'', Jim groaned, ''That just doesn't make sense, you never did that before''
Karen smiled wildly and looked at Joyce, winking. Joyce blinked and releazed what Karen meant by that. She blushed and kept being silent.
''Oh BY the way. Joyce nearly got hurted horribly! You cannot just do that Karen! You know tha-'', but before he could finish the sentence, someone bumped on the door. They all looked at them, thinking.
Suddenly, the woman behind the door said something, and Karen groaned.
''This bitch'', she walked to Jim and pushed him from the doors.
''You two have some time together, I am going to set things right'', she said with an evil smile. Joyce blushed even more, knowing that no she won't hide herself from Jim. SHe tried to calm down, but she was failing.
''So- uh- that was unexpected'', he said, trying not to make any embarassed things.
''Is this- is this a normal thing?'', Joyce asked, getting up from the floor. She walked to his couch and sat on it, trying to make herself comfortable.
''Well, not much, these kinds of situations appears like, once a month?'', he said, noticing Joyce's worried face, so he hurried, ''but in the whole bar! This situation happend to me like- now twice'', he admited with sigh.
Joyce looked down, hearing Karen shouting something from behind the door. She couldn't stop herself from the smile.
''Well deserved'', she murmured to herself, hoping that Karen would beat her ass.
''What did you said?'', Hhopper asked, sitting next to her.
''Oh uh- nothing!'', she smiled at him, hoping that he wouldn't think it was something suspicious. She looked around, trying to make a question in her head. Oh, right, she wanted to ask about his injuries.
''Hey uh, Jim?'', she started, turning her hand slowly back to him.
''Yeah?''
''You seem to injure yourself a lot on the stage,...Have you ever had,...uh, any bigger injuries?''
He thought a bit, before shaking his head.
''I never have had horrible accident, nore getting injured badly. It were always just small injuries, nothing more.'', he said, smiling.
''You never were afraid of,...well...-''
''Having an accident? Of course not! If I it will come my time when I will need to leave the world, I will leave''
''That's,..deep'', Joyce said, looking down. Honestly, she was afraid of death itself. You never knew where it would come.
''Are you afraid of death?' Jim asked suddenly, sitting closer to her.
''I? Honestly, yeah'', she admitted.
Jim took her hand, his eyes watching her lovingly.
''Everyone dies once, there's nothing to be afraid of''
''But what if I want to do things before I die? And what if I never catche them all?''
''What kind of dreams these are?'', Jim asked, his voice full of care. Joyce looked into his eyes and suddenly the weird feeling was back. She gulped.
''I want to have a family, a real one'', she whispered, somehow not able to run from his stare.
Jim didn't said anything, he was just staring at her. To her opinion, they were moving closer to each other and she pretty liked that. But before anything interesting could happen, Karen suddenly opened the doors and slammed them behind her. Both Jim and Joyce quickly sat on the other side of the couch, hoping that Karen didn't noticed anything. But she had her own mind with thinking about how amazingly she beaten up the ass of that drunk whore. 
She clapped her hands and looked at both of them, smiling.
"Jackpot"
Joyce giggled happily, watching Karen. She looked back at Jim, who was sitting embarrassingly on the other side, quiet.
Karen also looked at Jim, "Did anything happend?"
"Huh? No! No of course not!", He said, laughing nervously. That hitted Joyce pretty hardly. Was that really nothing?
"Oookay-?", Karen said, suspiciously looking at both of them, "Well, it's already late, I think we should go, right Joyce?"
"Yeah", Joyce nodded and got up. She walked to her friend.
Karen walked out of the room, sighing, and Joyce was following her, bur she was stopped by Hopper. He took her by hand and seemed like he wanted to say something, but he didn't know how to start. Then he sighed and let go of her.
"Goodnight Joyce", he said with small smile.
"Goodnight, showman", she said, giggling when he closed his door in embarassment.

They were sitting in the car, quietly humming to the song from the radio.
"So,...what happend while I was beating the 'Ms.Drunk'?", Karen asked after while.
"Nothing much, I just asked him a question"
"Are you sure nothing more happend?"
"Yea? I am 100% sure, Kar", Joyce rolled her eyes and looked out of the window. She felt like it all was just a missunderstanding. Maybe they wouldn't even kiss if Karen never came.
"Alright, just checking", she shrugged. When Karen drove next to Joyce's house, she looked at her with a bright smile.
"Goodnight, Joyce", she said and waved her, "And don't forget to tell me if something between you and Jim would be up", she winked at Joyce.
"OH C'MON!", Joyce said loudly, but she laughed.
"What? I just want to see the soulmates together!", Karen giggled and then started her car again.
Joyce dressed herself up for the sleep, but she couldn't close her eyes. She releazed that last time she had troubles with sleeping. What was going on with her lately? This never happend before. She sighed and got up. She walked to the kitchen and made herself a hot chocolate. She took some cookies that she had and walked to the living room. She sat on her sofa and turned on her Tv.
She was watching some kind of detective series, and she was slowly but surely falling alseep. When she finally stopped paying attention, her head fell on the sofa and she curled herself in there.

She was sleeping for atleast 3 hours, before something didn't wake her up. She startled, for a second she wasn't sure where actually she was or what she was doing there. Then she finally releazed it, so she tried to remember what woke her up.
Then she heard it again, a shotgun. She froze at place, before she releazed that it was the Tv. A weird horror was just playing there. She quickly turned it off and sighed.
She never releazed how much alone she actually was. Maybe it was because she was happy alone, because no one was annoying her, but she was slowly changing her mind.
She was maybe a lot alone. She didn't even had a pet who would wake her up if she just randomly fell asleep, or in the worst scenario, if someone strange got inside her house.
"Well?", She whispered to herself while she was walking to her bedroom, "tommorow will be time to change that"