8. Tea Party (El and Hopper)

A/N: This was so fun to write, seriously. I fucking love Jim Hopper. This is for 'JjdoggieS' who requested a Tea Party for our favorite Hoppers; and for 'Hope' who requested a sick El.

Prompt: El is sick, so Hopper has a Tea Party with her in order to get her to take the cough medicine.

Hopper sighed as another cough rocked El's body. The girl had caught a cold after spending Sunday with that Wheeler boy and his little sister, who, unknown to them, had the cold.

"Let me see." He told the sniffling kid as he took the thermometer from her mouth. She had a mild fever, nothing to worry about, but Hopper had more pressing matters.

She didn't want to take the medicine.

Sunday night she had returned with a plastic tea set, gifted by little Holly Wheeler, and had insisted on him playing with her.

"Aren't you a little too old for that?" He had asked the 13 year old as she began placing the cups on the coffee table in the living room. A dark glare had shut him up, but he still refused to play with her, much to the girl's chagrin. "Besides, it's too late and I have work tomorrow, kid."

Yesterday, he had spent the whole day at the station, up to his elbows in calls from leads on a local case; he had a little thief who had been stealing from the neighbors.

So he got home tired and ready to fall into bed, and he had to refuse El's pleas for him to go to her Tea Party. It nearly broke his heart to see the disappointment on the girl's face, so he promised he would play with her the next day when he came home.

Imagine his surprise when he woke up Tuesday morning to find his daughter with a stuffed nose and watery eyes, stuck in bed but still wanting to play with her tea set.

"No! You need to stay put and take some medicine. I'm going to call Flo and tell her I'm not going to work today. Now, blow your nose." He instructed her as he placed a Kleenex box on her nightstand.

He had searched his cupboards for the bottle of Triaminic he knew was somewhere around, and smiled triumphantly as he spooned some of the cough medicine. This will do, he thought.

But El was more interested in him seating down with her in the living room— why had she decided to leave the bed, was beyond him— than taking the syrupy substance.

"I bant you to blay bith be." She told him nasally.

"And I want you to take this so you stop talking like a 2 year old." He told her, gesturing to the clutched spoon in his hand.

"No bedicine." She shook her head, and then coughed, squeezing her eyes as her sore throat rasped with the hacks. She whined after she was done, but still continued to place the little spoons beside the little saucers.

"Sweetheart," he tried reasoning with her. "It'll make the cough go away."

She only glared at him with red rimmed eyes and continued spooning honey on her tea cup.

Hopper sighed and went back to the kitchen, placing the spoon carefully on the counter to prevent it from spilling over.

Until now, she had refused medicine in every way. He had avoided the pills, knowing her distress over them— he suspected those bastards made her take some kind of pills that caused her to have bad experiences — and only succeeded in making her suck on a lemon and honey lollipop.

"You're not easy to work with, you know that, kid?" He told her grumpily.

She paused for a minute, and then resumed her drinking, completely ignoring him.

He huffed and went outside the cabin, disappearing into the Blazer. "Flo?" He called into the radio. "Flo, I need your help."

Static met his ears for a few minutes before she answered him. "What do you want, Hop?" The older woman asked him tiredly.

"How do I get that girl to take the medicine?" He pressed his thumb and pointer finger to his eyes.

Flo's static laughter resounded in the truck and Hopper glared at the radio, wishing he was standing in front of her so he could glare at her face instead. "Being overpowered by a 13 year old, are you?"

"I'm serious, Florence! She doesn't want to take the damn medicine! I've tried bribing her, forcing her, threatening her, I even asked nicely." He told her frustrated.

"And she didn't concede to your kindness?" Flo asked him sarcastically.

"No! All she wants to do is play with her tea set!"

"She's drinking tea?"

"It might just be water, I haven't really checked, but that's not important!" He huffed.

"Yes, it is, dumbass. If she's drinking tea, you can slip the medicine in it. Just make sure it's brown enough."

Hopper's eyes widened in surprise, and he began mapping out his plan, berating himself for not thinking about it sooner.

"Yes," he breathed in. "Yes! You're a genius, Flo!"

"Tell me something I don't know." Flo told him smugly. "Now, go and be a dad."

He turned the radio off and jumped out of the truck, quickly running to the cabin and slamming the door behind him. He stood there, watching Eleven as he thought on how to approach her.

"Hob," she called him. "Blease?" She pleaded gently, gesturing to the teacup on the other side of the coffee table, which she had set out for him.

Hopper sighed, feigning reluctance, and he neared her tea set to peer into her cup, smiling when he saw her nearly empty drink.

"Okay." He nodded, chuckling when her eyes widened in surprise and she smiled happily. "But," he raised a finger. "You have to drink some real tea. It'll help your throat, okay?"

"Yes," she nodded excitedly, and he felt a little guilty by milking her willingness to his advantage. "Okay."

He took her teapot, weighting how to proceed, and walked to the kitchen to start boiling some water.

"Don't bake it doo hot or dhe deapot will belt." She informed him after a few minutes, not wanting him to ruin her set.

"Mhm, don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He responded as he turned off the stove. "I know what I'm doing." He murmured to himself as he threw a cautious look at her form, turning back to the teapot.

He hunched his shoulders, trying to block her view of his hands, as he took two chamomile teabags from the little box on the counter. He quickly grabbed the spoon containing the medicine and dumped the syrup inside of her teapot; adrenaline pumped through his body and he quickly grabbed another spoonful, knowing it would be the right measurement for the amount of water it would dissolve into. His fingers tickled with nerves as he grabbed the hot kettle from the stove, pouring water into the teapot and quickly stirring it with the spoon to move the medicine around. He left the kettle back on the stove and dumped the two teabags inside the pot, hoping two would be enough to hide the tang of the medicine.

He capped the teapot and carried it carefully to the coffee table, where an expectant El was waiting.

"Okay, kid. We just—" He grunted as he sat down in front of her. "Have to wait for the tea to let some flavor out."

She eyed the teapot and then her eyes went to the counter, where they stayed for a few seconds. He gulped as his mind did a rewind, trying to remember if he hid the Triaminic bottle from view.

Her eyes swung to his and she stared at him for the entirety of the 6 minutes it took for the tea to be ready.

He poured her some tea and smiled innocently when she took her cup.

"Drink it." He nodded encouragingly.

Her eyes watched him cautiously and then she set her cup down again.

"You're dot dridking." She stated suspiciously.

"Uh... I'm more of a coffee man, myself."

She set her jaw stubbornly and thrusted her teacup at him. "You drink id first."

"El, don't be ridiculous," he rolled his eyes. "You'll pass your virus to me."

"Fine," she set her cup down again, and then reached for the teapot, pouring some on his cup. "Drink." She demanded with expectant eyes as she left the teapot in the middle of the small coffee table.

Fuck, he cursed mentally. If he didn't drink it, she would get even more suspicious and everything would go to shit. But, if he did drink it he would be disgusted and possibly poisoned.

"Okay," He nodded, taking his cup. Drinking it was, then. "Cheers." He toasted to her, receiving only a raised eyebrow from her.

He took a sip from the tea and nearly spat it out as the blandness of the chamomile and the sourness of the medicine engulfed his taste buds.

"Hmmm," he hummed with a grimace. "So good." he nodded, setting his cup down. "Could use some sugar, though."

She smiled and giggled, and he finally sighed in relief as she took her cup and drank from it.

Her expression furrowed and her runny nose crinkled as she set it back down, and Hopper's heart stopped.

"Dis is derrible." She announced as she took the honey bottle and squirted some in her cup.

"Oh, I'm sorry, your highness," he acted offended. "I'm not a professional tea maker. And this is my first Tea Party."

She giggled again and he indulged her by taking a second sip of his concoction. "This is pretty terrible, give me the honey."

And a week later, when he stayed home for the second time because he caught her cold, El played nurse and made him tea. "I tried dissolving the cough medicine better this time, because you didn't succeed last week." She told him as she handed him a cup.

He could only laugh in response as he sipped from his daughter's tea set, knowing he had been busted.