Jopper Oneshots (by Nikol Mistr)

Mr. Copper

//Kinda-? High school + Future AU//

Jim Hopper and Joyce Maldonado were best friends since childhood, and as years were flooding by, they suddenly became pretty stubborn teenagers.

Hopper was popular at the school, he played in baseball team and girls just floated next to him, but he wasn't the type of changing girlfriends. Honestly, he never had one.

On the other hand, Maldonado was, the boss. Through the years she became as stuborn as teenagers were seen as. She was a woman that didn't fear anything. Students and even some teacher quickly earned not to mess with her, they were afraid of her power.

Paradoxly, their friendship didn't end, it became more powerful. Jim and Joyce started to spend even more time together, Hopper in role of coward and Maldonado in role of some kind of bodyguard to him, especially when it came to girls.

Some would say they were dating, some would even say they did it together every night, yet, no one really knew.

This duo was pretty mysterious for everyone, including Mr. Copper. He hated children, especially these two. They were really annoying, skipping his class and earning a detention, yet nothing happend.

Once, he tried to make them fight and end their friendship. At start, everything went well. He gave both of them a surprising test after he 'catched' them talking together in his class, and of course, they both failed the test. They really started fighting because of it after the class, both stayed inside the classroom. Mr. Copper was watching them with evil smirk from outside the classroom, sure that their friendship would  finally end.

It ended up with Joyce crying, which made Jim feel bad. He walked closer to Joyce and wrapped his hands around her. She fought with him for a while, even slapping him, but he didn't let go off her until she would finally calm down, leaning to his chest. To Mr. Coppers surprise, it didn't end with broken friendship the way he wanted. He somehow made their friendship envolve into something deeper. Into love.

It made him angry as he watched them kissing. And he slammed papers through the hall, auddenly not thinking that they shouldn't have seen him. So he crawled away.

From that day, he needed to watch every single day as Jim and Joyce kissed in class, after class, in school buildings, after school. Every single time.

After a while, he stopped minding it. He somehow started liking the way they calmed each other in situations that scared one of them, they way they trully cared for each other.

The last year he even saw them as his best students. But then, something unexpected happend. In the SnowBall, it was pretty surprising to see Joyce with someone else. And where was Jim?

He walked to Joyce and asked her where was Jim Hopper, and she quickly went pale. Her eyes formed tears as she hugged her teacher hardly.

"Joyce-?"

"He left. To Vietnam.", Joyce stuttered, looking up at her teacher. Mr. Copper was shocked for a second, but after all, he had learned a lot about Jim's father. He knew it was his fathers fault, and he tried to explain it to Joyce, but she didn't listen fully.

For years, Mr. Copper lived in sadness whenever he thought about these two. Such a sad love.

But once, when he was old enough to be called a grandfather, when his bones cracked by every single move, he met them again. Jim and Joyce walked on the street with two teenagers and one young adult next to them. They both laughed at the kids and their hands were wrapped in each other.

As Mr. Copper walked to them, he still couldn't believe seeing what he was seeing. Didn't Joyce married Byers-?

"And as soon as you get ice cream-", Hopper was saying to the younger girl who was hugging him, but he stopped as soon as he spotted his teacher.

Joyce also stopped smiling as she noticed Mr. Copper, her smile became a shock expression.

"Teacher?", Hopper murmured.

"Jim Hopper", Mr. Copper said, sweet smile appearing on his face, "what are you doing here? I heard that you left to New York"

Hopper just laughed. "That was loooong ago, Mr. Copper. A lot happend by that time"

"I see, you two have three amazing kids together", Mr. Copper said, pointing on Jonathan, Will and El. They all looked up at Joyce and Hopper with grin. Joyce blushed and put her hand over El's mouth.

"Actually we don't have kids together! These two are mine, I had them with Lonnie, and, Jane is Hopper's adopted daughter-", she started explaining softly, ending when she saw Mr. Copper laughing. She raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms.

"What's so funny?"

"Basicaly you just confirmed we were dating", Hopper rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Exactly", Mr. Copper said, grinning.

"Oh-", Joyce suddenly releazed and blushed, punching Hopper on his shoulder. He laughed even more.

"It was nice to see you two again", Mr. Copper said, hugging both of his ex-students and looking at the kids for a while. Then he shrugged and made his way to the shop.

As Joyce and Hopper watched Mr. Copper walk away, Will used the situation and asked a question.

"Who is he?"

Both Joyce and Hopper looked at each other, and Joyce grinned wildly.

"He? He was our teacher-", Hopper started, but couldn't finish the sentence.

"That made us date in High school", Joyce said, ruffling Hoppers hair with giggle.

"You dated in HIGH SCHOOL?!", Jonathan asked in shock.

"That's cool", El whispered, smiling wildly as she hugged both her father and her mother.

"Yeah, well, that would be a long story.", Joyce sighed happily as she thought of it again.