Stranger Things Than a Tribrid

Chapter 9: Familiarity

Hope's POV:

Dustin falls back a bit as I reach Steve's side, a wide, teasing grin planted on my face. "Farrah Fawcett? Really?" He glares at me before sighing. "I mean, she's hot." I roll my eyes. "That's not what I asked." "Can you just drop it?" He grumbles, turning his glare to the ground.

"Fine, do you wanna talk about that bullshit advice you just gave that sweet boy? I mean, you practically crushed his hopes of love." "Love is bullshit apparently." He grumbles. I purse my lips and smack the back of his head again. "Hey! Come on man." He groans.

"If you really believe that then why are you still trying to make up with Nancy?" He's silent for a moment before sighing. "I don't know. I really don't know." There's more silence. I can hear Dustin trailing further behind us, meaning he probably can't hear us.

I decide to break the silence between us. "The reason I advocate for love so much is because of something my mom said." He looks down at me confused. "Remember when I told you and Nancy about my life in my time?" He nods. "Do you remember what happened when I was 15?"

Again, he nods. "Yeah, you mom, dad, and uncle died to protect you." I nod. "Remember when I said that I died at one point before my dad took the spirit of my ancestor out of me?" "Yeah, what's this have to do-" I'm quick to interrupt him.

"When I died, I woke up in the forest where the souls of my mother and her fallen pack members were. I got to say goodbye and apologize and get everything off my chest. The last thing my mother told me was to go and find my own epic love. That's why I advocate for it so much."

We walk in silence for a few moments before he finally speaks. "Do you think the boy back in your time that you were in love with was your epic love?" He asks. I hesitate to answer. Everything in me screams 'YES', but...I can't say that.

If I say that then I'm admitting that my epic love started and ended when I was seventeen. I mean...I have eternity. When I 'die' I'll be the most unkillable thing on the planet. I'l live forever. I'll live forever alone.

"I don't know. I loved him. I loved him so much. He was the first person outside my family that I let in. I let him in, which was something I swore never to do again after everything that happened. If he was, then we had a good run." I say softly, not ready to admit what I'm about to.

"However, I'm not rejecting the fact that he might not have been. I have eternity to have as many epic love stories as I am meant to have. If the only one I'm meant to have was Landon, then so be it. If not...I'm not opposed to that. At least, not as opposed to it as I was when I first got here."

He's silent for a moment before speaking. "I love Nancy, and it hurts to love her, especially recently. Is that what you felt with Landon? Is it supposed to hurt?" I think over his question. "It did hurt." I take a shaky breath. 

"It hurt when I made a decision I thought was for the best...only for him to hate me for it. Mess up one time and suddenly I was not to be trusted." I look down at that. I've never talked through what happened with Landon with anyone. 

I chose to see things as something that ended before I fell into Malivore, omitting our fight at the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant. "Was it really love if one thing tore the two of you apart?" He asks. I tense, my gaze snapping up to meet his. "What?" 

"If whatever you had with him was so fragile, one mistake ruined everything, was it love or were you in love and he loved the thought of you?" I let the question hang in the air. Landon had told me he loved me several times...but they always sounded off. 

They always sounded different than my 'I love you's. "Hey, I'm sorry, I over stepped-" "No." I'm quick to stop his rushed apology. "You're right. I know you're right. I've thought the same thing...I just didn't want to admit it." I say with a humorless laugh. 

"I'm sorry." I shrug. "I prefer to think on all the good times I had with him...truth is there aren't many. I wanted to be with him and I think he, in some way, shape, or form, wanted to be with me too, but it always felt like we were at odds with each other. Like the timing was never right."

I look down at my feet and a few seconds later, I feel a weight on my shoulder and I'm then pulled into Steve's side. "I guess we're in the same boat." I say, looking up at him. He looks down at me, confused. "What do you mean?" 

"Landon and I aren't too different from you and Nancy. I know I said I'd help you get her back, but...that's up to you. That's up to you to decide whether you love her or you love the familiarity of her." "Do you think your love for Landon stemmed from familiarity?" He asks. 

I sigh. "Landon was the first normal person I met after my mom died and he was the last human moment I had right before my dad and uncle died. We danced in town square together and then he left town. Two years later, I found him again after his foster brother started shifting." I explain. 

"I thought he was normal, until he wasn't. When everything happened, I blocked him out, not wanting him to get close. Finally, I let him in, and then he died and I broke inside, only for him to be a phoenix. Someone who couldn't be killed for the girl who had lost so much to death." I sigh. 

"It felt perfect...too perfect...it wasn't. So yeah, maybe I loved Landon for his familiarity and maybe I need to let that go in order to be fully happy in this time, but...I don't think I'm ready to give up the idea of him yet. Or maybe I am, but it's something I have to come to myself." 

We walk in silence, letting my words hang in the air. I can tell he's thinking what I am. The similarities between my relationship and is. Why they just don't seem to work even though we are trying our hardest to make them work. 

We're snapped out of our thoughts by Dustin coming up behind us. "You two done?" I chuckle and pull away, Steve's arm dropping from my shoulders. "If you got any of that raw meat juice on me, I'll kill you Harrington." I tease playfully, trying to lighten the mood. He chuckles. 

"Consider me warned." Finally, we reach the end of the railroad tracks and Dustin leads us through the woods until we come across a very familiar clearing. It's the junk yard Hopper and I found the kids and El the first time I met them. "Oh yeah. Yeah, this'll do." Steve says. 

He walks forward to start preparing for Dart's appearance. "This'll do just fine. Good call dude." Dustin grins widely at the older boy's praise before looking up at me. I grin back down. "Come on, we've got things to do."