stormandwind | INBOX: lastvoyages

Tris pauses. "I haven't had many friends my own age either, so perhaps a little."

She might as well go ahead and admit, "Shiro and I kissed, during the breach where we were all in a band together. I'd liked her for years in that life. During the next flood, she asked if it bothered me, since she saw me telling Daja that I'd never been interested in girls. I'm not sure anymore that I was right, when I talked to Daja. I'd spent so long trying to suppress it when I found anyone attractive that I don't know if I would have noticed at all."

Hope nods.

"Finding people attractive is... complicated, anyway. I think so, anyway. Maybe it's not if there are more people around but until I was seventeen or so, I only really knew one other person my own age." She's quiet a moment, not lost in memories but thinking about them. It's rare that she spends any time thinking back, but her past is still there. "I loved Emil, even if I didn't really know til the end, but stuff like attraction didn't really come up. And then there were a lot more people my own age but I was... apart. Dad was dead and I had a job to do so I thought I shouldn't think about it."

She listens seriously, nodding. "That's completely understandable. Other things have to take priority. And you've had a lot to contend with." Hope has always prioritized survival and business.

Tris raises her eyebrows at Hope and nudges her teasingly before reaching for a cupcake. "You seem to have figured it out now."

"Yeah. And even the idea of having friends was hard. I don't think I ever got any good at it, there." She gives Tris a slight smile. "I hope I'm getting better."

She shrugs, but grins wider at the teasing. "The mistletoe helped. Though I needed a flood too. I'm pretty sure part of that was just that Pietro's former boyfriend was a total asshole."

"You're doing fine. I've also gotten better here." She appreciates Hope.

"It was mistletoe for me too. Francesco was so surprised that he froze." A faint smile slides across her face, because while she does miss Francesco, there were a few very endearing things about him. Like how earnestly he was interested. "When I apologized for kissing him, he frantically offered to try again."

"It's easier when you're not...special." She makes a face, it's not the word she wants but she's not sure what would fit.

She grins again. "It probably would've been very quick for anyone else, but the whole copying powers thing..." It's not a bad memory, even if it had been awkward at the time. "But he was still sort of with that dickhead so it was more apologies all around and continuing to just think of him as a friend. A friend who I hadn't minded kissing, but that's not over the line into knowing you like someone. I didn't mind kissing Letty either." Also not a bad memory, if a bit more embarrassing because Hope's crush had been bigger.

"Different," Tris suggests. Intimidating, too. People teased her if they forgot to be scared or envious of her power, but only then.

Hope is emphatically delighted with Pietro, which begs the question, "Is there any reason you're thinking about it now?"

"Different. And destined. That was the worst part, because it made me different in a group of people who were different." And then there had been the expectations and the judgment and all the other reasons she'd been happy to leave it behind.

"I've been thinking about it for a bit, but it's not something I wanted to talk about with Pietro. I don't want him to worry that I'm unhappy or want to change anything." Her tone and the smile that generally comes when she's thinking about how much she likes Pietro make it very clear that that is not the case. "But a lot of people here are in relationships with more than one person. Or at least fucking more than one person, which seems like a different balance than back home. I don't know if I'd ever want that, but it's... interesting seeing the different setups."

She leans her shoulder against Hope's for a moment in wordless support.

"My foster mothers are in that sort of relationship even back home, though they never told us when we were younger. It's true the ratios are different here. It's much more common."

It's obvious Hope is happy with Pietro. That was never a question, what with the way she goes on about him. Shrewdly, she asks, "You aren't sure you'd want that, but you're equally unsure you wouldn't?"

"I wouldn't want it with Pietro." She's pretty certain on that score, even as she takes a moment to try to articulate it. "Not because of hang-ups with cheating, though that would definitely be something that would be hard, but I just want to be with him. But I don't know if that's me or if it's because it's me and Pietro. And people usually aren't together forever." Speaking practically, though, personally, she sees no reason why not.

"I think that's smart." At least for the time being. "I'm glad it's what you genuinely want for yourself, of course, but..."

Tris pauses and tries to grasp the words she wants. "Pietro gets nervous, and he's perpetually surprised by the full extent of how much you care about him. If he has trouble believing that, on a bone deep level rather than intellectually or on the surface of his emotions, sharing might hurt him. I know that's the last thing you want to do."

"Yeah, that's why I wouldn't want to talk about it with him, even just with other people. Because I know he'd worry." And there's a long list of people she blames for playing a part in that. She would happily kick most of them in the head, too.

"What about you?" The question is mostly casual, as far as Hope ever is, but behind that is the fact she knows that Tris also has had reasons to find it hard to believe how much people can care.

"I don't know." But she knows where most of what she said about Pietro came from. "I could have with Francesco, if he wanted it. He was so emphatically interested in me that I had to believe him. Like the romantic version of the way Clark cares."

She knows that illustration will make sense to Hope, because Clark loves her the same way.

"With someone who wasn't as honest about their feelings, I don't think I could handle it. I'd always wonder whether I was attractive enough to hold their attention. So... it would depend on the person. It would help, of course, if I liked anyone else they were involved with, but that doesn't matter without the rest of it. Even trust, in a general sense, only goes so far. I'd still get hurt if they didn't know how to show they're interested in a way I could believe."

Hope nods, Clark is definitely a good example.

"It's - hard, with someone who isn't open that way. Not just romantically, and even if there isn't anyone else. I know dad loves me, but he was always..." She licks frosting off her fingers, again looking for a word she isn't sure she knows. "Even beyond not being good at talking about stuff, there was always stuff like acting like he didn't have the rights as a 'real' parent and stupid things like that. Like leaving, as if he was just done with a job." She shakes her head. "That's why I always try to be clear. To say stuff, even when it's hard. I love him, but I don't want to be like that."

She nods. "I know. You've said that he never communicated that way." Even if Hope struggles to articulate her feelings, she does it. Tris's voice gets tight and angry. "And that's utter shit. Real parents love and take care of you. He may not have had the slightest idea how to go about it, but he did care. What on earth did he think he was if not your father?"

Tris shakes her head. "In any case, what I heard first, romantically and otherwise, was that no one wanted me. It takes a heavy dose of sincerity to break down the walls after that. And I appreciate how hard you try, Hope. For Pietro and your friends."

"I don't know." She's never understood, she just claims every member of her family as fiercely as she can. "I think he thought I should have something better, but even if I had ever known a different world - I just want him to be there."

She shakes her head too, smiling at Tris again as she leans over to nudge her shoulder in return. "Well, it's easier when you have really great friends."

"Of course you do." Letting go isn't in Hope's vocabulary.

Tris elbows Hope lightly. "Perhaps because you are one."

In raw numbers, Hope might not have lost that many people, by percentage she's lost almost a hundred percent of everyone she'd known. She's had to leave them behind, but it had never been her choice to let go.

Hope laughs. "It's true, I can be pretty great. That's how I can recognize it in other people."

She laughs too. "At least one person in this room doesn't need reassurance."

"I did save the entire planet, all by myself. And four or five other times with help. Not everyone can say that."

"Yes, but that isn't my favorite thing about you," Tris feels the need to point out. "I love who you are, not what you've done."

Though what she's done is because of and part of who she is.

Hope grows more serious again, though still with the smile that's growing more rare. "It was pretty cool. But if I was choosing the most impressive thing I've done, I'd say that I've fucked up badly, but I've always tried to do better after." She moves so she can wrap an arm around Tris. "I love you for who you are too, you know."

"That's worth being proud of," Tris agrees.

She rests her head on Hope's shoulder. "I know. Thank you, Hope." For caring, and for taking the extra step of saying the words. That doesn't come naturally to either of them.

"I've gotten pretty good at making cupcakes, too. Because you taught me how to bake. Because you chose to be kind, when so many people could and have chosen differently. Because you listen to people, and take in what they say, not what you want to hear. Because you face consequences and live with them. Because you're compassionate. Because you're angry at injustice, but want to fight against it in a way to help others, not just to make yourself feel better." There's no doubting Hope's sincerity, not with the care she uses in talking and her usual restraint.

"I can love people who kind of suck, but I always have a solid case when I say someone's great." And she's willing to say it, not because she thinks Tris doesn't know, but because she wants to tell her.

Tris isn't remotely equipped to respond to that kind of speech. A sentence or two of it would be difficult enough.

Her breath hitches, and she does the only thing she can think of, wrapping an arm around Hope and hugging her tightly. She freezes like that for a moment, then kisses Hope on the cheek.

INBOX: lastvoyages

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